Get ready to start a journey…a journey through the pages of the Bible and the pages of your life.
There is a great story involving Jesus and his disciples that reminds us that even great men and women of God have times of doubt, especially when the storms kick up. Here’s the story from Matthew’s account of Jesus walking on the water and Peter giving it a try.
The armor of God includes a shield as an essential piece of equipment. This shield is needed to “extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16). The believer’s shield is not constructed with wood like the ones that the Roman soldiers carried. Our shields are built with faith.
So, what does God do with our sin? I don’t mean to be flippant with that question. I know that my sin separated me from God, and Jesus paid the penalty for my sin on the cross. He took on God’s wrath for sin and satisfied the Father by his amazing work.
The room was tense as we sat around folding tables in a small room at our church. One person had said something to hurt another person. We were there to make things right—to seek and grant forgiveness. Those are hard meetings, and on this day, forgiveness never came. The exchange was sharp; the emotions were high. After much discussion, prayer, and reading Scripture, one person got up and stormed out of the room. He never set foot in our church again.
Repentance is a word that doesn’t get a lot of positive press these days. We would like to blame it on the times we live in, but honestly, people have had trouble with repentance since Genesis 3. Today, let’s consider what action repentance requires.
A friend called my wife, Lori, to say she was troubled, and struggling to grasp any sense of order. She was watching the news, absorbing all that was going on in the world, and was overwhelmed. She saw the mayhem and divisiveness and reached out for encouragement.