Living life with steps of faith

Why is there suffering in the world? A.       God created a beautiful world and gave humans volition (the power of using one’s own will). ( Genesis 1 & 2 ) B.       God gave us instructions on how to live well.  We can choose to follow God’s advice or choose to go our own way. (The book: The Bible .) C.        Problem is that when we choose to go our own way we create brokenness.  That brokenness impacts everything and everyone! ( Genesis 3 & 4 ) D.       There is suffering in the world because people choose to disobey God’s wise advice and the earth, our bodies, and our relationships have suffered as a result. ( Romans 8:18-22 ) So how do we find Joy in the midst of the suffering? A.       Recognize that Joy flows from God & we become conduits of this Joy when we worship God. ( Psalm ) B.    ...

A young man is put to death for blaspheming God's name during a fight.  It wasn't the fight that killed him, but his misuse of God's name.  We read about this incident in Leviticus 24 and it serves as the antidote for the famous, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" legislation. I read the story and I am humbled by the fullness of God's holiness.  I live by grace and sometimes I allow that grace to interfere with my checking myself for sin. How many times have I injured another person and felt justified and even proud?  Have I ever been disrespectful with God's name? Would I have survived during the time period in which the Law was being discovered? I am a good girl, but not that good. None of us really are. Yesterday I had to have a disciplinary conversation with a young girl on my soccer team about something she did that unintentionally caused harm.  She didn't mean it for evil, she just really didn't know any better.  She could have felt justi...

We have lived so long in the covenant of grace, we have forgotten what life was like during the covenant of holiness. This morning as I continued my chapter a day reading through the holiness code of Leviticus, I was struck by the contrast between Jesus' role as the great high priest and the original boundaries drawn for that role.  The great high priest had been set apart from the world.  He was to live in such a way that his lifestyle represented the holiness of God.  He couldn't marry whomever he wanted, but must marry a kin who was a virgin.  He could not attend his wife's funeral, nor touch her body. If his child had any physical disability or "abnormality" the child would not even be considered for the role of the high priest in the future.  See Leviticus 21. Although Jesus never married, his life crossed the boundary lines of the holiness code.  He shared a cup of water with a "loose" woman, a Samaritan no less. He touched the coffin of th...