Grains of Sand

Pixabay A couple of weeks ago our small group was working on a study on the life of Moses prior to his decision to flee Egypt after having killed the Egyptian slave master. But much of our discussion revolved around an earlier decision: Moses' choice to not be identified as the son of Pharaoh's daughter but to identify himself with God's people. " By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. " (Hebrews 11:24) We talked about how difficult such a decision might be and the temptation to try to influence change from "inside" rather than distance oneself by identifying with those on the "outside." Yesterday I discovered that an organization I have been volunteering with has openly endorsed a lifestyle choice that I believe violates God's creative design and redemptive purposes. The organization is a great one on many levels and while I applaud their efforts to help the vulnerable in...

Google Images Logically there should be no break between Deuteronomy 29 and 30 (or any other chapter for that matter). In what is designated for us as chapter 29, Moses has laid out the instructions that the nation-about-to-be must follow if it expects to enjoy God’s blessing. But God also knows that this people will not follow those instructions. As chapter 30 begins, Moses reassures the people that after God has punished them for their disobedience, He will restore them and bring them back to the land that He once promised their ancestor, Abraham. The beautiful forward look: “ The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul and live ” (30:6), is a reminder of what would one day be the result of Christ's coming. This issue of life becomes the theme a little later in the chapter as well. Basically Israel had options: life or death. From verse 11 to the end of the chapter, it is...

Google Images Lies and deceit. That’s what Genesis 27 is about. The fact that the Bible records the shameful deception of an old man and the breakdown of a family, causes some people to believe that God gives at least tacit approval to bad behaviour. They fail to see the bottom line. The Bible acknowledges that men are sinful. It clearly shows the devastating consequences of those sins. It makes no attempt at a cover-up. At the same time, it speaks loudly about a God who takes even the sinful actions of men and works out His purposes despite those sins. In Genesis 27 we are told how Jacob, at the instigation of his mother, deceived Isaac and won the blessing that belonged to Jacob’s older brother, Esau. It’s not the first clue we have to just how dysfunctional this family was. In Genesis 25 we find parents who play favourites, and we discover how little Esau thought about his privileges as the eldest. He sold his rights as firstborn to Jacob for a bowl of stew—that was Jacob’s pric...

Living by Grace is a FACEBOOK community for those who enjoy digging into, and discussing, the Scriptures. Check it out. I'm there on Thursdays. Reading: Hosea 7-14 I vaguely remember a movie, probably of the “B” category, where the villain had discovered a way to control the weather. Of course, he tried to use his discovery for evil purposes and had to be predictably subdued by the gallant hero and his beautiful sidekick. Controlling weather is not entirely fiction. Experiments with cloud seeding have been going on for many years. I read a detailed explanation online (most of which I didn’t understand) complete with diagrams detailing how various substances were dumped from planes into clouds in order to manufacture what nature seemed resistant to produce on on its own. The jury is still out as to whether or not any of these experiments ever really accomplished anything that wouldn’t have happen anyway. But there is one kind of “cloud seeding” that we are really good at...

This morning's editorial in The Toronto Star : Brutal Spectacle Failed a City and its People , reveals a nasty truth. A friend of mine mentioned to me that we all would have been a whole lot better if the G8/G20 leaders had held their meeting on a cruise ship in the middle of the Pacific. It would have been much easier to isolate them (and probably cheaper to protect them), Toronto would not have such a mess to clean up this morning, its citizens would have been a lot less inconvenienced or terrorized, and Canada would not have such a shameful blot on its history as it has this morning after the events of this weekend. Have we proved once again that politicians are so far removed from reality that they really are clueless when it comes to the consequences of their actions? They come; they go, oblivious to the mess they leave behind. Sadly, history repeats itself. This morning I read the first three chapters of the book of Amos. If anything reminds me of the folly of leadership ...

Sounds like an oxymoron, right? Voluntary slavery? We think of slavery as something forced upon a resistant human being. The innocent victim is walking along minding his own business when a gang jumps out of the bushes and grabs him, carrying him off to some plantation or sweat shop where he is forced to work for nothing and confined against his will. In the physical world of slavery, the children of slaves are born into that state. The same is true when it comes to Paul's description. We are born as slaves to sin, thanks to our first parents, Adam and Eve. In that we have no choice. In the physical world of slavery, there are only two ways out (other than death): escape and keep running for the rest of one's life, or have one's freedom purchased. Jesus Christ paid the price of our ransom. Unlike the slave markets of the physical world, at this point the slave has a choice: stay with his current owner, or go with the man standing there with the price of emancipation in his ...