“You must be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.” Leviticus 19:2 Must Be Holy – The Bible is the story of God’s confrontation with His created world. You cannot expect to read the text without being challenged, convicted and concerned. Yes, it contains words of comfort. Yes, it contains promises of blessing. …
During family holidays we do jigsaw puzzles. I like the easy ones, the ones that have pictures that don’t take forever to figure out. But the trend is toward the complex. Have you ever tired to do one of those three-dimensional puzzles? Or a puzzle that is a picture of a big blob of coffee…
Depart from evil, and do good. Psalm 34:15 Evil – What can we do about all these terrible things in the world? We live in the age of the worst genocides in history. We are exposed daily to man’s inhumanity. We see corruption all around us. We can hardly go through a single day without…
“Therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48 Perfect – When the translators of Matthew used the English word “perfect” as the equivalent of the Greek teleios, they made a terrible mistake. Yes, the Greek word teleios does mean “perfect.” It also means “to be complete, to be fully…
As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight. Psalm 16:3 Majestic Ones – Isn’t it nice to know that when we become His servants, God calls us majestic (or excellent). The way up is down. Down to the ground in humility and acknowledged…
Paul J. Meyer, the founder of the self-improvement industry, once said that he is an inverted paranoid. He believes that the whole world has conspired to do him good. That powerful idea alters everything about life. It shifts all of our being and doing from a posture of defense and protection to a posture of…
Yet You are holy, O You are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. Psalm 22:3 Holy – Perhaps this is the wrong word for our inquiry. Perhaps we should have looked at the conjunctive “vav” (a single Hebrew letter attached to the word). It can be translated in a dozen different ways, usually “and,” “but,”…
