Posts Tagged ‘ Mercy ’
bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Colossians 3:13, ESV
We can be horrible to each other and God, yet our God bore our sins and forgave us. May we show the same burden for forgiveness with each other.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:32, ESV
We all go through struggles and hard times, so let’s treat each other the way our Savior did: humbly and mercifully, with grace and sacrificial love.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
John 3:17, ESV
On our own, we stand condemned. Jesus came to offer redemption from condemnation and hope for salvation and eternal life, if we are humble enough to accept it.
This weekend, I am with my youth group joining several other youth groups for the Truth Quest Apologetics Conference.
Please pray for these students and churches. In a world of division and hatred, we are teaching about the unity we have in the Truth of Christ.
(And I plan on uploading my presentation here, too)
For more info, TruthQuestPrescott.org is the website.
John 17:20-21
Daniel
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:7, ESV
We don’t know everything, unlike God. Yet, we are called to love like Him: patiently, sacrificially, hopefully, and in truth but with grace and mercy.
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
Joel 2:12-13, ESV
We may fail and fall away, but the Spirit of God draws us back into repentance, faith, and love.
whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
Romans 3:25, ESV
We know God’s love for us because only He is righteous, yet He died for our unrighteousness.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 1:8, 22:12-13 ESV
“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
At Advent, we look back at why Jesus had to come, that He came, and then that He will come again.
Jesus is the Eternal Son of God who was with the Father “before” Creation, through whom all things were created.
We rebelled against our Creator, thinking we could be like Him or had no need for Him.
And Jesus is coming again.
He came as a baby, becoming like us to grow up and save us, and we remember this.
But we also remember that this Man is also our God – truly man and truly God at once and completely.
He died on a cross for us, but He arose again from the dead proving that this Jesus is our God of wrath and grace.
And He is returning soon in His wrath and grace to finally and completely fully redeem this world to Himself.
May we seek the Lord who has defeated sin and death, has saved us, and is coming back again in glory.
Hallelujah and Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus!
Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.
Matthew 2:16, ESV
At Advent, we look back at why Jesus had to come, that He came, and then that He will come again.
Jesus came, and the first powerful person to hear about him reacted … violently
Have things really changed?
We still react to God in violent and nasty ways, usually against each other. When we get upset, we attack God by attacking His image found in each of us.
We demean each other, mock and ridicule and belittle each other. We kill and mutilate ourselves and each other, our children, our elderly and infirm.
All of this is our attempt to push away and destroy God from in our lives.
And we all do it.
Herod wanted to destroy Christ, but he was only fulfilling prophecy.
Christ came to save us, and it meant living in this fallen world with all of its dangers and temptations.
But He did not give in, and turned our anger and violence into the tools to save us.
Let us respect the image of God in each other, turning to the One who took on our image to redeem us.
May we seek the Lord who works in the midst of our sin to redeem us from sin.
Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in
Isaiah 40:21-22, ESV
At Advent, we look back at why Jesus had to come, that He came, and then that He will come again.
Our sins have stacked up to heaven, deeper and more vile than we could know.
We think that our sin will go unnoticed by God, that there isn’t really anything He can do against us.
We think that God is impotent, powerless, and unable to hold us accountable for our sin. This is evidenced in the way we live, how we talk, what we do, ignoring His ways, saying “He’ll forgive me” or “I can do what I want.”
But this is the God who can create everything from nothing, hold everything together and within His hands, and stretches out the univers with those same hands.
Yes, we are basically nothing compared to Him, but God intimately knows every part of His Creation, from the farthest flung stars to our innermost thoughts.
He knows how the cosmos work, and He knows our every sin, our every rebellion against Him.
We therefore prepare ourselves by admitting we don’t understand as much as we think we do, turning to our Creator and Savior who became our example and demonstrated His vast power over our own vast stubbornness.
May we seek the Lord who has no reason to consider us, yet He still lavishes His love and grace on and in us.
a simple man of God 