Grains of Sand

Welcome to MONDAY MANNA, hosted by Joanne at An Open Door . Go on over for more perspectives on the verse for today. We tend to think of God's will as a comfortable thing. God wants us to be happy, doesn't He? We ask for rescue, relief, restoration, relaxation, or recovery when we pray, and then dutifully tack on "your will be done" on the end, crossing our fingers in the hope that His will is the same as ours. Then we get to a verse like this one from Isaiah 53:10 and our theology takes a nasty tumble. " Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand " (NIV). The verse refers to the mission of Christ and His death, and while the latter half is full of promise for a positive outcome, we wish we could skip the first part. We have a hard time wrapping our minds around a loving Fathe...

Today is Monday Manna, hosted by our very own wonderful Joanne at An Open Book . Stop by to read some of the comments on these wonderful verses from Daniel 3:16-18. " Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, 'O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up' ." Faith is proved not necessarily when we ask for a miracle, not even when we ask for a miracle and don't receive what we expected, but when we submit ourselves to the brutal actions of others without the expectation of a miracle but with complete trust and commitment to God. That's a long sentence, but I think it aptly describes what happened in this wonderful story from the Old Testament. These three men, faci...

Time for Monday Manna over at An Open Book . Slip over there for more thoughts on this wonderful passage of Scripture. Worried about losing your salvation? Don't. If there were ever two verses that demonstrate how secure the believer's salvation is, Romans 8:38, 39 are those verses. " For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. " Like many of us, those who received Paul's letters probably had their days when they wondered if they were really part of God's kingdom after all. You know, those days when Satan whispers in your ear, "Did it again, eh? What makes you think you're a Christian?" Then there's the overwhelming sense of unworthiness that sometimes morphs into, "No, this can't be true—God save ME?" In ...

Joanne Sher over at An Open Book , assigned 1 Peter 2:16 for today's MONDAY MANNA. Here are my thoughts. Check out the links on Joanne's blog for more. *********** Did that title get your attention? The original meaning of "libertine" is derived from the Latin libertinus , or freedman specifically, a freed slave or the son of a freed slave. Christians are the embodiment of this original definition—we are slaves liberated by Christ Jesus from our bondage to sin, from servitude to the sin master, and from the ultimate consequences of that bondage. I guess the early Christians (and we later ones) don't understand the Latin too well. Somehow "libertinus" quickly degraded into today's definition of freedom: "the power or right to act, speak, or to think as one wants without hindrance or restraint." Someone should have added: "without regard to the consequences" because there are ALWAYS consequences to the exercise of our freedom, whic...