Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;” Exodus 34:6 NASB Gracious – Sing it! Sing it loudly! This is not theology. This is freedom. This is rescue. This is the answer. Now, how do…
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11 NASB Grace and glory – Ah, what we so desperately want! Joy. Joy of life. Joy of relationships. Joy that satisfies our deepest longings for acceptance, recognition,…
and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite who is in your town, and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are in your midst, in the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish…
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Isaiah 35:10 ESV Everlasting joy – “Joy is fundamental to human existence and well-being, yet it is an elusive phenomenon that…
and these things we write, so that our joy may be made complete. 1 John 1:4 NASB Our joy – John must have been confused. I thought he wrote his gospel and letters so that the reader’s joy might be fulfilled. Don’t we automatically assume that John’s purpose is to make us feel better? But…
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51:10-12 NASB Joy – Is gladness missing…
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 2 Timothy 3:2 NASB Ungrateful – One day quite a few years ago my wife remarked about the joylessness of my life. “Why are you so down all the time? Why don’t you just take one of…
God has spoken in His holiness: “I will exult, I will portion out Shechem and measure out the valley of Succoth. Psalm 60:6 NASB Will exult – Do you feel it? God does. Yes, that’s right, God rejoices. Don’t for one minute think of the immutable, impassible God of Aquinas or Luther or Calvin. God is…
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, James 1:2 ESV Count – “Never confound the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, much that we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive.”[1] If we take Chambers’ insight seriously, we soon discover that…
For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Jude 4 Crept in unnoticed – Now how is this possible? How can it be that some slip…
