Looking back at the first half of 2020, I can see how my goals are starting to drift. Earlier this year, I shared about my “growth book” which was intended to record my reading, Bible memory, prayer requests, journal, and more. And I set a goal to recap each month both there and here as a means of accountability. Read more
This summer, I went through a new Bible study on prayer called On Bended Knee: Praying like Prophets, Warriors, and Kings by Crickett Keeth. Crickett is the women’s ministry director at First Evangelical Church in Memphis, where I grew up. She is also a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, where my husband earned his Th.M. So we have many mutual connections which helped stir my initial interest in this study. I’ve also been impressed with the growing number of Bible studies being offered by Moody Publishers (where my husband also happens to work!) and have enjoyed using them over the last few years as resources to dig into God’s Word. Read more
Let me tell you a story. It’s a good story, a true story.
In the beginning, God created all things—the heavens and earth, the far-flung galaxies, the deepest oceans, the highest mountains, the farthest lands, the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky and the animals of the land—and he did so with precision and order. And then this wholly other, indescribable and perfect God also created you and me. So vast and big; so personal and near. This Creator God cared about relationship with us. Read more
From the earliest pages of Scripture, we are confronted with the voice of God.
In the first chapter of Genesis, we see repeated again and again, “Then God said…” (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29). And Genesis 1:22, 28, “And God blessed them, saying…”
Whatever God said, God did. God acted and created based on his word, his voice. What an incredible Creator God is revealed to us! We see Him immediately as reliable, as One who keeps His word. And what power is this that can speak and create from nothing? We see God’s majesty and might. Read more
As I read God’s Word in both the Old and New Testaments, over and over again, I see it ties together. It fits. It’s beautiful.
Today, I read the Law, the Ten Commandments (Deut. 5). I read the command to love the Lord my God with all my heart and soul and might (Deut. 6). I then read in the New Testament that the commandments are summed up in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:9-10). Love of God, love of man. These are the two that Jesus Himself identified as the most important commands (Mark 12:28-31).
Against the law, I recognize I fail; I sin at every point. Yet I rejoice in the finished work of Jesus Christ at the cross for my sin. No longer do we need the sacrifice of bulls and lambs, that could never truly save, again and again and again. (Hebrews 10:4, 11). We have the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:12-14), the blood of Jesus, who gave us a new and living way, through whom we can have confidence. “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Read more
Praise Proclaimer 