How often in our impatience, our lack of faith, and our stubbornness do we act on our own outside of God’s will? In this passage we see Saul acting on his own and offering sacrifices instead of waiting on Samuel to arrive. God was showing Israel who they really were in requiring a king like all of the other nations! We can be self-willed and war, or Spirit-filled and wait.
In His letter to the church at Thyatira, Jesus exposes their sin as “tolerating evil”, as not denouncing the Jezebel spirit and activity in the church. What we passively tolerate (while knowing it’s wrong) today will eventually define and dominate our lives tomorrow.
One of the worst things that can happen to us is when we get the desires of our heart and we’re not delighting in the Lord. Israel wanted a king, just like all the other nations. They were delighting in the culture around them and it affected their ability to make spiritual decisions and brought some awful consequences.
The Creator God, artist of all created things, made you so unique and valuable. But your soul, the essence of who you are, is extremely rare and valuable. God was willing to pay the ultimate price for your soul - His only begotten Son - to purchase it and redeem it for all of eternity. Don’t gamble with your soul and your eternal destiny!
The Apostle Paul reminds us that we are all in bondage - either to sin or to the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ. We all make choices about who our master will be. Christ has, at great cost, freed us from sin and He deserves to be in control of our lives!
There are three key words in this passage of Scripture that instruct us on how to have victory over the pull of sin in our lives as children of God. Praise God, we don’t have to live in bondage to the “old man” anymore!
With all that the land of Egypt had to offer Joseph, he still realized it was not home. Christian, don’t put your roots down too deep in this world. We’re not home yet!
So many questions surround the subject of children going to heaven and how God views their young eternal soul. The scriptures give us a little insight into the subject, but there is still so much we don’t know. We must trust that in the kind heart of God, young children are “safe” in His protection.
To many of God’s children, heaven remains an ethereal mystery, clouded in conjecture and unanswered questions. But God’s Word sheds much light on our eternal dwelling place, and offers hope as well as facts about the real place that Jesus said He is now preparing for us!
Justification settles our position before God. Sanctification deals with our condition. When we were crucified with Christ, our flesh died! Dead people can be raised to newness of life in Christ, and should not live the way they used to, covered in grave clothes.
