Happy first week of 2012! Once again, I am unduly excited to be finished with the minor prophets and Revelation and back reading in Genesis and the gospels. I wonder if I will be 90 years old and still saying, "I can't believe how God can show me something new in a verse I have read a million times!"? Last year I participated in a memory verse activity through Beth Moore's blog community (Living Proof Ministries Blog). One of the verses I chose to memorize was Proverbs 28:13: "Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy."
Probably I am the only person who has ever done this, but when I picked that verse, I had a specific situation in mind. I hoped that by sharing this verse in "public" as it were, maybe someone would be convicted (by my holy promptings) to do what I thought they should do. Yeah, that didn't work. As I re-visit this verse, I notice something new. My focus had been on how this person should confess so that they can obtain mercy (and do the right thing). I missed the beginning, which was that if they didn't, they wouldn't prosper. God has given us built-in consequences. None of us can conceal sin indefinitely, and, even if we appear to be successfully deceiving people, we will not prosper. There will be some area of lack, some deficiency as a result of deception.
I was encouraged to see this not because I want someone else to suffer consequences, but because it reminds me that God has it under control. He knows what His children are doing. He sees when we are hurt by someone's sin, and He sees when my sin hurts someone else. He is not oblivious to how we are living, and, like I remind my students when they tattle by asking them if they are "the cop of sitting on the carpet" or "person in charge of being quiet", I am not the "Police Officer of the Universe." Thank God for that.
Showing posts with label Proverbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Proverbs. Show all posts
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Gifts from God
Today is my birthday, and I smiled after my quiet time this morning because the Lord knows me so well. First He gave me a happy present from Psalm 71, verse three (the first half):
Be to me a rock of refuge,
to which I may continually come. . .
The word that I liked and that made me smile was "continually". I sometimes feel that I am running back to the Lord with the same problems/feelings over and over and over. And I am. But that's okay, because now I have express permission to "continually" come.
Secondly, the Lord gave me a "whack" with Proverbs 29:11:
A fool gives full vent to [her] spirit,
but a wise [woman] quietly holds it back
Over the weekend I had some moments of giving full vent to my spirit which ended up in conflict and hurt and . . .yuck. God just gave me my next memory verse. Somehow correction straight from the Holy Spirit is the easiest to receive.
So, thank you to the Lord for BOTH of my birthday presents, both the happy and the hard.
Be to me a rock of refuge,
to which I may continually come. . .
The word that I liked and that made me smile was "continually". I sometimes feel that I am running back to the Lord with the same problems/feelings over and over and over. And I am. But that's okay, because now I have express permission to "continually" come.
Secondly, the Lord gave me a "whack" with Proverbs 29:11:
A fool gives full vent to [her] spirit,
but a wise [woman] quietly holds it back
Over the weekend I had some moments of giving full vent to my spirit which ended up in conflict and hurt and . . .yuck. God just gave me my next memory verse. Somehow correction straight from the Holy Spirit is the easiest to receive.
So, thank you to the Lord for BOTH of my birthday presents, both the happy and the hard.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Call a Spade a Spade
The Bible contains lots and lots of verses about loving our enemies, overlooking an offense, and forgiving. However, I think sometimes that Christians can take this to the extreme. By this statement I don't mean that we take the actions of loving, overlooking, or forgiving to an extreme, but that, in the process, we stop calling what is sin "sin," or evil "evil."
Proverbs 17:15:
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.
People do wicked things. I do wicked things. We lie, we gossip, we cheat, we seek our own interests. All of those actions are sin. It doesn't help me for you to justify me in my sin. I think the loving, overlooking, and forgiving are so difficult because, to truly do them, we have to acknowledge that we are loving sinful people. We are overlooking wrong. We are forgiving wickedness.
The truth and miracle of the gospel is that Jesus died for wicked sinners--and that is me and that is you. The grace we are given is unmerited, unearned, unfathomable. I think we dull this reality for ourselves and others when we minimize the sin and evil in the world.
Romans 5:7-8:
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Proverbs 17:15:
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.
People do wicked things. I do wicked things. We lie, we gossip, we cheat, we seek our own interests. All of those actions are sin. It doesn't help me for you to justify me in my sin. I think the loving, overlooking, and forgiving are so difficult because, to truly do them, we have to acknowledge that we are loving sinful people. We are overlooking wrong. We are forgiving wickedness.
The truth and miracle of the gospel is that Jesus died for wicked sinners--and that is me and that is you. The grace we are given is unmerited, unearned, unfathomable. I think we dull this reality for ourselves and others when we minimize the sin and evil in the world.
Romans 5:7-8:
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
"Ouch" Verse of the Day
Today I was reminded that one of the purposes of scripture is to convict:
2 Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man [or woman] of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
I am reading through Proverbs, which I try to do a couple of times a year, and this is the verse that knocked me upside the head this morning:
Proverbs 12:15:
The vexation of a fool is known at once,but the prudent ignores an insult.
As one who often speaks first and thinks later, and often doesn't hesitate to share, loudly, what I am unhappy with at that moment. . . OUCH.
I think I have just found my next memory verse, with the goal of remembering that verse before I open my mouth to share my vexation. Who wants to be vexatious? Or a fool? Not me. Like I said, OUCH.
2 Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man [or woman] of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
I am reading through Proverbs, which I try to do a couple of times a year, and this is the verse that knocked me upside the head this morning:
Proverbs 12:15:
The vexation of a fool is known at once,but the prudent ignores an insult.
As one who often speaks first and thinks later, and often doesn't hesitate to share, loudly, what I am unhappy with at that moment. . . OUCH.
I think I have just found my next memory verse, with the goal of remembering that verse before I open my mouth to share my vexation. Who wants to be vexatious? Or a fool? Not me. Like I said, OUCH.
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