Articles by Daily

I have often failed to recognize, let alone withstand, the temptation of loving my life in this world. This shows itself not in the great acts of sin I commit, but in the good I do not do. I have been guilty of what Charles Spurgeon called “the sin of doing nothing.”
Sin, as classically understood, is not just the doing of bad (commission) but also the failure of doing good (omission). I tend to care more about the first than the second. In a culture still sailing under the semblance of a theistic morality, we tend to judge ourselves by what we do instead of what we leave undone. But wars are not won on defense alone.
And what glorious battlelines to excuse oneself from. Is it not our utmost privilege to participate? To watch behind fortress walls would have been enough; to blow the trumpets and attend the banners, an honor. But to be summoned in by the King himself, to be fitted in his armor, given a family to march forth with, and lost souls to win — how can we resist? The conqueror, the King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, stands in the thick of the battle. Does your blood not stir to join him?

“Sin is not just the doing of bad, but also the failure of doing good.”

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For those of us who have settled down and grown pudgy, we have much to learn from the men of Reuben and Gad, two Israelite tribes who wavered on the brink of the Promised Land. They were tempted with the sin of omission, “the sin of doing nothing,” the sin of laying down their weapons before the warfare had ended and God’s people possessed the land. While inactivity in God’s mission may be treated as harmless, God treats it as a serious sin, and so should we.
Tribes of Stand-Still
These two tribes, the men of Reuben and Gad, were of the twelve that marched behind Moses toward the Promised Land. As children, these men left Egypt through bloody doorposts and a parted sea. As they came of age, they fought against Sihon and Og in the wilderness. Their generation, unlike their fathers, proved faithful in God’s campaign to go forth into the Promised Land.
But now, they arrived at some pleasant land suitable to their needs and would be tempted to not continue in their mission. These men did not want the city on the hill, the land flowing with milk and honey; they wanted land for pasture. So they asked Moses to be relieved of their duties:

The land that the Lord struck down before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock. If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan. (Numbers 32:4–5)

A simple request. A polite enough inquiry. But God and Moses did not see it this way. And God’s men today, settled down in suitable lands like America, need to hear their reply.
Sin of Doing Nothing
Moses responds to the people of Gad and Reuben,

Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here? Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them?
Your fathers did this, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land. . . . And behold, you have risen in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel! For if you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all this people. (Numbers 32:6–8, 14–15)

Notice three charges laid against them.
You abandoned your mission.
While the ten tribes would go forth to battle, Gad and Reuben are described as being those who would just “sit there.” “Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here?” These warriors were not intending to just “sit there.” On the contrary, they would be busy pasturing flocks, building houses, fortifying their city, and developing the land into a suitable dwelling place.

“Too many of us do not trouble the world and the devil, and are not much troubled in return.”

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They were not the kind of lazy or cowardly men to just sit around and watch while their brothers charged forth into combat. Yet by retiring from the great commission at hand to shepherd their sheep, that is precisely what Moses depicts them as. He portrays them as wasting their time because they were misusing their time.
No matter how busy they were with other things, respectable things, the painting of them in God’s holy Scripture would be the mere squatting together doing nothing important as long as they remained withdrawn.
You harmed your fellow soldiers.
Such a picture would dishearten the other tribes from doing what God called them to. Moses asks,

Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them?

Nonparticipation is not neutral. Like any athlete or soldier or family member knows, apathy by one affects the resolve of all. Reuben and Gad threatened to not only sin themselves, but made it harder for others to obey as well. The other tribes would not be at full strength against the larger and already established nations in the land.
You sinned against the Lord.
They were bearing the faithless resemblance to their forefathers. Moses is quick to point it out, “Your fathers did this, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.”
Their fathers went to spy out the land, and all but Caleb and Joshua came back with a report that discouraged the people from going forth and taking the land sworn to Abraham. Their fathers traveled to the brink of Canaan too and turned back when God called them forward. Their fathers were too timid, and now they were too comfortable.
In response, Moses does not mince words. He calls them a brood of vipers, sinful men, who would consign Israel to another wilderness-wandering that would lead to their death if they did this evil in the Lord’s sight (Numbers 32:15). Each man must continue the mission until all the tribes possessed their inheritance. They must repent of the sin of doing nothing and march with God’s people.
How Doers of Nothing Repent
The men of Reuben and Gad do indeed repent of their sinful stopping.

We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones, but we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place. . . . We will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance. (Numbers 32:16–18)

They would build and settle, but first they would fight.
And the Lord holds them to this, requiring each soldier to take up his weapon and wade across the Jordan “before the Lord” until the land was subdued before Yahweh’s watching eyes (Numbers 32:20–24). If they failed in doing what they had promised, they would hear Moses’s haunting words follow their retreating footsteps: “Behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).
Shall We Just Sit Here?
God may yet ask many of us, modern men of Gad and Reuben, the single question to cut to the heart of our manhood: “Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?”
Too many (myself included) have found our homes in the West. We enjoy religious liberty and pray, “Your kingdom come,” from time to time. We have our wife, two kids, and a pleasant existence — busy, no doubt, with something good. We do not trouble the world and the devil, and are not much troubled in return. Let Satan offer us land for cattle to roam, a hot meal, a warm bed, and we will sit contentedly still and not cross the river.
But our King has given us a mission.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18–20)

This mission is not yet complete. Our oaths are not yet fulfilled. Not all of God’s elect have their inheritance. Our conquest is not yet total — we remain on the wrong side of the Jordan. “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war” are the lyrics bequeathed to us from calloused hands. But the reposed nature of too many men in churches makes one think we were told, “Sit still Christian soldiers, till your seat is sore.”
To combat the sin of nothing is to refuse entanglement in civilian pursuits. To not get distracted from serving King and our heavenly country. To not lose sight of the mission, no matter what other worthwhile pursuits present themselves to us. To remember that marriage and family are parts of the mission, not the mission itself. We cannot rest until Christ has the souls for whom he died. Holiness awaits at the frontlines. Our call, our privilege, our joy is onward. […]

“Without the cross, I would not know redeeming love that floods my soul. Without the blood where would I be? I would be lost, without the cross.” – Pictures of Grace
My husband stood up Sunday morning and sang this beautiful song. As a Minister of Music’s wife, music is always at the heart of our lives. The words of the songs are what speak so profoundly to my heart. As I listen, I am pointed to Christ, and this song he sang pointed me straight to the cross. 
I need the reminder of the cross often. It is the symbol of Christ who set me free. 
Despite our greatest efforts, we are lost without the cross of Christ. Spiritually, we are inclined to seek and search for a direction without the cross. But without the cross, we would have no hope, no peace, and no comfort. We would be lost. 
The cross is God’s chosen path for our redemption.

The shepherd doesn’t just let his sheep wander off. He sets out to find them and bring them back home. Christ had to go the way of the cross to accomplish God’s plan for our rescue. But the cross is not where the story ends. God raised Christ from the dead on the third day.
And through this victory over the grave, God has raised those who trust in Jesus to new life in Him. 
The cross frees us, restores us, and resurrects us with Christ. As children of God, when we accept Him, give our lives to Him, surrender ourselves to a mighty and powerful God who loves us, then the cross changes us.
Yet, why did God choose the cross as the price for our redemption? Why was this form of ancient Roman punishment cross needed in the first place?
1. The Cross Is the Climax of the Story
What I love about the story God tells through His Word is that it is one of redemption. Redemption means that there is hope for lost things. From Genesis to Revelation, a bigger picture is being knit together. And just like any story, there is always a climax, usually when evil is defeated. It may be a major battle or discovering who committed the crime, there is always a major moment when truth is revealed, good triumphs, and all the story’s threads comes together.
The cross is that moment when everything comes together. It is the peak of God’s redemptive plan. It is what righted every wrong, defeated death, and signed the warrant for the enemy’s inevitable execution to come.

2. The Cross Satisfied God’s Wrath
We tend to forget that God is equal in all His character. He is loving, and He is also just. God’s wrath burns against all the wrong in the world. His character and His justice require atonement for sin. If someone wronged us we would wish for the wrong to be righted. God does too.
God is love, justice, wrath, and mercy. By sending His Son in our stead to make payment for our sins, God is extending mercy that we do not deserve. The cross was required because the wrath of God needed to be satisfied. Atonement must be made, and in His grace and mercy, He took the punishment upon Himself instead.
3. The Cross Was the Promised Method
Throughout the Old Testament, prophets proclaimed the Messiah to come. Isaiah described the suffering servant that would arrive, and face a cruel death.
Psalm 22:16 says “they have pierced my hands and my feet.” This Scripture details the suffering of one crucified, a method of death that had not yet even been invented. Isaiah 50:6 tells of the beating Christ would take. The cross was foretold hundreds of years before any records are found of this form of execution.
4. The Cross Delivers from Sin and Death
Sin requires a sacrifice. Scripture tells us in Romans that the price for sin is death. Not just physical death, but spiritual death. Eternal separation from a holy God. Jesus’ work on the cross fulfilled the required penalty, and so restores us to God.
We have ready access to the Father because of the cross. We have hope of heaven and eternity with Christ because of the cross. We do not have to fear death because of the cross. We can live in joy and hope every day because of the cross.
The cross is foolish to the world. In 1 Corinthians Paul says that God uses the foolish to shame the wise. God chooses the unlikely and unqualified to shame the proud. No one can boast in the presence of God Almighty.
When Israel awaited their Messiah they believed He would come as a great ruler who would destroy the power of Rome over them. They believed His reign would be immediate and earthly. They expected the worldly standards of a king, so when Jesus came they missed it. The cross was not what they expected. They didn’t understand God’s plan, they couldn’t see what was required for them to truly be free, not just from Rome but from death–their greatest enemy.
The resurrection that came after the death of Christ was His victory lap, it is what revealed Christ to be God. The cross is what revealed Him as a sacrifice. The perfect sacrifice, a lamb without blemish. The perfect payment for sin, but not just one man’s sin–all sin, for all time. 
How magnificent is the work our Savior accomplished on the cross, taking that punishment in our place. In His love for us, He chose to lay down His life that we may be free. His love for you is far beyond what we can understand; it takes the shape of the wooden cross and the weight of the crown of thorns upon His head. 
Without the cross, we would not know just how much Jesus loves us.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/mbolina
Michelle Rabon is a wife and homeschooling mom of three who feels called to help women thrive in their walk with Jesus every day. In 2012, she started Displaying Grace, a ministry that is focused on helping women engage with God’s Word. Michelle has also served in women’s ministry for the past five years seeking to equip women in the local church through Bible study. When she is not writing or teaching, she enjoys reading, being close to the ocean, and drinking a lot of coffee. […]

One day when my son Devon was about four years old, he was pondering God’s being. Not your typical four-year-old activity, I admit. But Devon was a unique child. And as he mused, he had a profound thought. God was greater than the moon and the stars, but he could still fit inside of us. His conclusion?

God is so big. But sometimes he can be so small.

My son’s insight hints at the tension we feel when we think about God’s transcendence and immanence.
Infinite and Intimate
Transcendent is the theological word that means God is above, completely other than, and independent of his creation.
God is infinite in all aspects of his being and never changes. Only he has no source, no beginning, and no end. God needs nothing, depends on nothing, and owes nothing. He is “holy, holy, holy” — perfect in every way. Simply put, God is God and we are not.

“At times, God feels too distant to be loved. At other times, God feels too near to be feared.”

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Except that God is also immanent. God sustains, is involved with, and is present within his creation. He keeps our bodies from exploding apart, grows the grass that livestock eat, and is personally invested in his world (Colossians 1:17; Psalm 104:14, 24–30). Despite how small and sinful we are, he is loving, kind, gentle, compassionate, and good.
In our corporate worship gatherings, as well as our personal interactions with God, we tend to swing between God’s transcendence and immanence like a pendulum. At times, God feels too distant, dissimilar, and above us to be loved. At other times, God feels too near, present, and like us to be feared. It’s an ongoing challenge to hold these two thoughts about God together, but it is massively important that we do, for at least four great reasons.
1. God says he is big and near.
The Bible doesn’t reveal a God who is sometimes fearsome and sometimes approachable. Nor does it depict a God who is sometimes infinitely exalted above us and at other times intimately involved in our affairs. He is both simultaneously.
Scripture never shrinks back from describing God in seemingly contradictory ways. Here are just two examples:

Thus says the One who is high and lifted up,     who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:“I dwell in the high and holy place,     and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,to revive the spirit of the lowly,     and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)
Who is like the Lord our God,     who is seated on high,who looks far down     on the heavens and the earth?He raises the poor from the dust     and lifts the needy from the ash heap,to make them sit with princes,     with the princes of his people. (Psalm 113:5–8)

God dwells in eternity yet feels at home among the lowly. God is seated on high but makes his way to the ash heap to lift up the needy. In another place, Isaiah reminds us that the Holy One, who is our Maker and Lord, the God of the whole earth, is pleased to refer to himself as our husband and Redeemer (Isaiah 54:5). Where else but in God’s word can we find such a mind-stretching, soul-stirring depiction of God?
The great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck had it right:

[T]here is no book in the world which to the same extent and in the same way as the Holy Scripture supports the absolute transcendence of God above each and every creature and at the same time supports the intimate relationship between the creature and his Creator. (The Wonderful Works of God, 115)

The Bible reveals a God who is immeasurably greater and more satisfying than any god we could ever conceive of on our own.
2. We want to know God as he is.
We often avoid theological tensions by trying to squeeze God into human boxes. We vacillate between God’s transcendence and immanence lest he appear to have a multiple-personality disorder. But God is not double-minded. He is God. He is holy enough to consume sinners in wrath, and tender enough to envelop us in unending, rapturous delight (Psalm 21:8–9; 16:11). He is powerful enough to keep innumerable blazing stars in their courses, and intimate enough to name each of them and to number the hairs on our heads (Jeremiah 31:35; Psalm 147:4; Luke 12:7).
We are so used to making God in our own image that it can be hard for us to believe he doesn’t act and think like us. Even in preparing to write this article, I was struck by how consistently unimpressive my thoughts about God are. So we end up experiencing brief, scattered moments of awe rather than an ever-intensifying, ever-deepening attitude of wonder.
When we forget God is transcendent, we find it hard and unnecessary to fear him. When we forget God is immanent, we find it hard and unnecessary to love him. But he is both. And that makes us fear and love him all the more.
3. The tension deepens and sweetens worship.
The transcendence and immanence of God are a doorway to deeper and more grateful worship. Our church gatherings and our personal devotions can suffer from a failure to treasure both God’s transcendence and immanence. If God isn’t great, he won’t compel our reverence, fear, and obedience. If we don’t think of him as near, he won’t evoke our gratitude, joy, and amazement.

“The transcendence and immanence of God are a doorway to deeper and more grateful worship.”

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Most churches today tend to emphasize how near God is. We major on feeling comfortable and welcomed. God forbid we should think for a moment that, rather than deserving a fresh-brewed cup of coffee upon our arrival at church, we should be struck dead for the sins we committed just that morning. But apart from God’s mercy, the latter would be more appropriate.
What if we came to a Sunday meeting or began our Bible study with the awareness that we have no way of reaching the God we’re wanting to meet with unless he provides one? Wouldn’t we sing louder and read our Bibles more intentionally if we understood that the God who invites us into intimate fellowship created the universe from nothing and that his “is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is [his]” (1 Chronicles 29:11)?
At the same time, seeking to engage with a God who we see as only transcendent can lead to worship that is dutiful, boring, distasteful, or even irrational. We can begin to question why we keep praying to a God so far away, singing songs to a God who might not hear us, and listening to preaching about a God who doesn’t seem very connected to (or interested in) his world.
God made us in his image, and he is infinitely distinct from us. Both are true. And the more we understand how different he is, the more we will marvel that he has chosen to draw near to us, that he knows us, calls us by name, and delights in us. Which leads to a final reason why holding God’s immanence and transcendence in tension is so crucial.
4. The tension illuminates the gospel.
Countless Christians live with a deficient experience of the gospel. They can affirm that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who lived a perfect life, died on the cross to take their punishment, and rose from the dead for their justification. But it doesn’t make much of a difference in their daily lives. Rather than a source of comfort and joy, it’s an abstract doctrine that assures them they won’t go to hell when they die.
But when seen in light of God’s transcendence — his holy otherness, absolute perfection, limitless knowledge, inescapability, and unswerving eternal commitment to justice — the gospel becomes unspeakably good news. It reveals God’s immanent heart of compassion, mercy, kindness, and goodness beyond our ability to take it in. It is truly a love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19).
And now that Jesus and the Father have sent forth the Holy Spirit, God reveals his presence not only around us, but within us (John 14:26; John 15:26). The God who knows no limits of time, space, or properties has taken up residence in our hearts (1 Kings 8:27; 1 Corinthians 6:19). All this is why God alone can say, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22).
There is no one like him. He truly can and does save. He is holiness and mercy, grace and truth, sovereign and servant, God and man. He is over all, through all, and in all (Ephesians 4:6). May our thoughts and worship of God increasingly reflect who he really is, for our endless joy and God’s endless praise.
He is so big. But he can be so small. […]

If we reach back to the beginning of our long and devastating history with sin, we will find a crowd of excuses. When the fruit touched Adam’s and Eve’s lips, “You see, what had happened was . . .” became stamped upon them.
Instead of contrition and confession, Adam tried to pass his blame to his wife: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Adam was not responsible. It was “the woman” — or even the God who gave her to him. Eve, following suit, passed the blame farther downfield: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:13).
What they had never seen practiced became natural. The first man and woman, our parents, discovered in the forbidden fruit the idea to cover up their evil. And this knowledge was passed down to their children. The gardens of humanity’s mind became well stocked with fig leaves to cover our sin’s nakedness. All of us have become tailors and seamstresses, dressing up our failures in fine clothing.
Flaming Coals Toward Heaven
From the fall onward, few features display the creativity of Adam’s family better than our attempts to evade blame. Aaron and the sluggard of Proverbs are two of my favorite examples.

“From the fall onward, few features display the creativity of Adam’s family better than our attempts to evade blame.”

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When Moses came down the mountain to find Aaron leading the people in idol worship, Aaron explained his part to Moses this way: “They gave [the gold] to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf” (Exodus 32:24). Out came this calf. No one crafted it; no one made it — an innocent throwing of gold into the fire and, lo and behold, out popped an idol.
Or consider the depiction of the lazy man’s inventions in Proverbs. To explain why he will not leave his bed and go to work, the sluggard protests, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!” (Proverbs 22:13; 26:13). Oh, he would work, he assures you between yawns, if it weren’t for those man-eating lions roaming the streets of Jerusalem.
It is quite a shocking revelation that men, with all their professed desire for unhindered free will, often do not, at bottom, want anything of the kind. In God’s world, liberty of action entails bondage to responsibility. And responsibility for our actions is one thing sinners do not want. Praise we receive without qualification; fault we pass off like burning coals.
When caught in transgression, we too blame spouses, our idol-making fires, or the serpent. Or when we have left our duty undone, we too invent our own lions roaming the streets. And like Adam, our inventions do not remain horizontal. We soon heave our flaming coals toward heaven.
Born This Way
As time has passed, our alibis have grown more sophisticated — some have even gone to seminary. After studying the exhaustive sovereignty of God, and his hand of providence, some have concluded that they cannot be responsible for their sin. Add to this Scripture’s revelation of their inability, and they have more than enough excuses to keep them from obedience, faith, or love toward God and neighbor. How could God expect wingless birds to fly?
I’ve talked with a few such men. They would stop looking at pornography, sleeping with their girlfriends, getting drunk, and living for the pleasures of this world — if it were up to them. But they cannot. This must be God’s providence for their lives. If he willed differently, they would be living differently. They have read their Bibles, they assure me. They know they are slaves of sin, dead in trespasses — that they were born this way. Indeed, their mothers had conceived them in sin.
As far as it remains with them, they say, their case is hopeless. They have a depraved nature; they are sold to sin under Adam. If Christ wills, perhaps, they will be healed. But until then, how can it be their fault that they lie in the pit of sin? They can’t raise themselves from the dead or give themselves new hearts. They are completely unable to please God; how can they turn until God’s governance of them turns? “Can a man receive even one thing but from heaven?” (see John 3:27). If his sovereign election depends not on human will or exertion, and if God can harden whom he wills, “Why does he still find fault?” (Romans 9:19).
Their Reformed TULIP is missing several petals. They know themselves depraved, know Christ died for his own, know they need irresistible grace — but until God gives it, how can they be faulted for resisting? And so, they continue twirling the flower about to absolve themselves of living in sin, half-heartedly waiting for God to intercede and save them.
Sinners Under a Sovereign God
They are right to point out that they are dead in their sin (Ephesians 2:1). They do need new hearts that only God can give (John 3:3–5; Ezekiel 36:26). They are slaves to sin apart from Christ (Romans 6:20). They walk according to the flesh, and cannot please God (Romans 8:6–8). And God is completely in control of every detail in the world, including their eternal salvation (Ephesians 1:11). But such does not acknowledge the full-orbed picture Scripture gives of the place of human wills and of the human addiction to sin.
Such men, who paint themselves as merely blowing in the winds of God’s providence, and who therefore conclude that they are not responsible for their sin, have not considered how God describes rebellion as active and willful, putting sinners themselves as the subjects, not the objects, of their treacherous ways.
“You refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40).
“How often would I have gathered your children together . . . and you were not willing” (Luke 13:34).
“People loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).
“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).
“They . . . went after worthlessness, and became worthless” (Jeremiah 2:5).
“He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray” (Proverbs 5:23).

“In God’s world, God is sovereign over all sin, and men are still completely responsible for it.”

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In God’s world, God is fully sovereign over all sin, and men are fully responsible for their sin. The vilest crime in the history of the world, the killing of God’s Son, is so spoken of in Scripture. “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). This sin of all sin was perpetrated under the definite script of the Writer’s pen stroke, and it was enacted at the hands of lawless men who chose to drive the nails.
The God Who Bears Our Sin
Men are not Pinocchios, dangling limply at the end of providence. We do not imagine ourselves to be so when it comes time to receive the credit, but we do when it comes time to receive the blame. Under God’s sovereign direction, scribing every jot and tittle of a story riddled with both the praiseworthy and sinful choices of men, he has given us dignity of choice. And we have chosen — to a man, lured by his own desires (James 1:14–15) — that which is not God.
But the wonder of all wonders is that onto the stage came God himself, the Son taking on human form, to shoulder responsibility for the sin of others. While we were pointing the finger at anyone or anything to get off the hook, he came to be pierced on our hooks, standing accused in silence, and bearing the awful weight of the horrible consequences of sin: wrath and death.
And he did not die for excuses, but for sins. Not for excusable men who could do no other, but for the willfully disobedient, caught in their trespasses. He came as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In love, he is the blame-taking God.
Free to Take the Blame
Should all men everywhere not seek this God? While we cannot save ourselves or cast off the horrible yoke of slavery to sin, sinners everywhere can do more than indulge and wait for hell. They can — they must — go to this wonderful God. He invites all,

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6–7)

Why should they remain in the pigsty when such a father dwells but over the hill, and will run to meet them? No one can save himself, but all are summoned to go to the one who can save them and cling to him as the only vessel in the shipwreck of our fallen humanity.
And when we find him, his providence, rather than excusing us from obedience, becomes our reason for obedience: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). By God’s grace, every temptation now has an exit door.
And when we do fail to travel through it, we do not need to make sure others own their part before we own ours. We don’t need to play dumb, or blame our circumstances, or invent predators in our way. Christians alone can look our sin square in the face and own it, confess it, and apologize for it, because we alone know a Savior who died to forgive it. […]

Whew. We’re all certainly living in uncertain times. It feels like every time I turn on the television or scroll through my newsfeed, there is an unsettling photo of someone gravely sick or a heated political debate among friends. Seeing the constant stream of upsetting stories, unprecedented health warnings, and watching buildings destroyed in my beloved city of Atlanta over the past few months and weeks have caused me so much fear and anxiety. I’ve stayed awake at night worrying about my housebound parents, adult children homeschooling my grandchildren, my nurse daughter-in-law on the front lines of the virus, and my business which remained closed for months as we all sheltered in place.
Those of you who know me from my starring role in Say Yes to the Dress Atlanta or have visited my Atlanta-based bridal salon, Bridals by Lori, know that I’m the girl with an upbeat spirit, positive attitude, and reassuring hug (or air hug nowadays). No matter what, I typically look on the bright side — as annoying as it can be to my nearest and dearest. But over the past few months, I’ve failed in this area as I let worry and anxiety rule in my heart. During my morning quiet time recently, God reminded me that all of this worry and anxiety I’m carrying doesn’t accomplish anything. Not only is it unhealthy mentally and physically, but it shows me the many opportunities I have to strengthen my faith. What did the hand-wringing and sleepless nights accomplish? In my opinion, it only added stress and turmoil to my life. And I bet it’s doing the same for you.
Throughout the Bible, the common themes of fear, worry, and anxiety are addressed. These natural human emotions are part of our sin-nature and block us from openly receiving the fullness of God’s grace.
In Philippians, we’re reminded that God is ready and willing to provide His perfect peace if we just ask:
Philippians 4:6-7 says,
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
In 1 Peter, God provides a simple and beautiful reminder of His love and provision:
1 Peter 5:7 says,
Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.
How has your mind and heart handled all the world has served us during this season? If you’re struggling with worry and anxiety, please know that you’re not alone. I wish I could fix the heartache of the world or promise you a world without suffering, but all I can offer is the hope that is in Jesus — and the peace that only He can give. Please stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, because He wants to carry it for you.
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Respond
Be sure you’re taking a few minutes every day to be quiet and sit with Jesus. For me, this is first thing in the morning with my cup of coffee. But take the pressure off and know that there is no perfect time or place. During your quiet moments, jot down your stresses and, in prayer, give each of those worries to Him. After the prayer, crumble up this piece of paper, throw it away, and move on. God has got this!
I also want you to take some time to jot down things you’re looking forward to in your life. This could be having lunch with your closest friends, putting your toes in the sand and surf, or finally making time for that hobby. Realizing that there is beauty in the world and that the best is yet to come will give you reassurance and hope. Like I said, there is always a bright side!
Written for Faith.Full by Lori Allen, Author of Say Yes to What’s Next.
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Your Turn
Are you feeling anxious? Join the club! Let’s link arms together and pray over our concerns and then hand them to God. We can’t handle it or fix anything, but He can! Come share your thoughts with us on our blog. We want to hear from you! ~ Laurie McClure, Faith.Full […]