If you do not obey the LORD, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.
— 1 Samuel 12:15 (NIV)
Thoughts on Today's Verse...Dietrich Bonhoeffer said more than 50 years ago that grace had become cheapened. I wonder what he would say today? I'm all for grace, but I'm horrified at the cost by which it came. I can't for the life of me understand how we can so often claim to have received it and yet bear no resemblance in character to the one who gave it. God's Word through Samuel is a harsh one. Yet it is one that I believe we must include in our triumphant song of grace. You see, true grace changes us. It will make us gracious and more like the Grace-giver himself. If not, what we call grace is impotent, powerless, and false. Paul called this a form of religion that denied God's true power in us (2 Timothy 3:5). Let's return obedience back to the pantheon of virtues and rescue it from the attic of our religious past.
My Prayer...Father, I know that you are disappointed with my sin and yet your grace still flows and covers it. But Father, I NEVER want to presume on that grace. You and I know the deepest struggles of my character and the things I only want to "kinda" give up. Please work your perfection in me through the Holy Spirit, conforming me to be more and more like my Savior Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.
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— 1 Samuel 12:15 (NIV)
Thoughts on Today's Verse...Dietrich Bonhoeffer said more than 50 years ago that grace had become cheapened. I wonder what he would say today? I'm all for grace, but I'm horrified at the cost by which it came. I can't for the life of me understand how we can so often claim to have received it and yet bear no resemblance in character to the one who gave it. God's Word through Samuel is a harsh one. Yet it is one that I believe we must include in our triumphant song of grace. You see, true grace changes us. It will make us gracious and more like the Grace-giver himself. If not, what we call grace is impotent, powerless, and false. Paul called this a form of religion that denied God's true power in us (2 Timothy 3:5). Let's return obedience back to the pantheon of virtues and rescue it from the attic of our religious past.
My Prayer...Father, I know that you are disappointed with my sin and yet your grace still flows and covers it. But Father, I NEVER want to presume on that grace. You and I know the deepest struggles of my character and the things I only want to "kinda" give up. Please work your perfection in me through the Holy Spirit, conforming me to be more and more like my Savior Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.
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