Don’t Stop Reading in Exodus :: Desiring God.

This is  a great reminder of why we should read the Old Testement and not just skip forward to the new.

It can really get hard this time of year in Bible reading, the emotion is gone no longer pushing you forward, the cool stories are past leaving you with the law but to fully understand Jesus coming you need to know the OT.

Everyone has heard of Mardi Gras but how many of us know that it is connected to Lent and the Christian Tradition?  I best most people don’t make the connection.

You know spending most of my walk with the Lord in modern Evagelical churches I was never really taught much about older traditions in the Church.  Having gone to a Lutheran church when I was first saved I have at least heard some of the titles.

Today is Ash Wednesday, it marks the beginning of Lent.  Lent is a traditional time of preparation, via repentance, prayer, alms giving and self-denial, for the Holy Week and celebration or Easter or Resurrection Sunday.  Mardi Gras literally “Fat Tuesday” was the last chance to eat the rich fatty foods before a period of fasting.  A sort of “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” kind of day.

Most people think of Lent as the 40 days before Easter but many denominations count these times differently. (See this article for more information)  No matter the duration you observe the purpose should be the same.

No matter which way you choose to observe the season it is a wonderful experience.   The years when I have taken is seriously it has been an enriching time of growth.   Take some prayerful time to consider what God would have you to do to observe Lent and prepare for the Holiest of day in the Christian year.

There are traditionally three types of Justice to be observed in the Lenten Season: Justice to God, yourself, and others.

(God)Dedicate more time to prayer by giving up: TV, Video Games, sleep or something else that takes up your time.

(Self)What can you do?  Many people give up a certain type of food: meat, red meat, caffeine, candy and sweets.

(Others)Dedicate the money you save in doing these thing to give away to others, your local church, homeless shelter or other ministry.

I have to tell you if I am going to crap out on my way through the Bible reading this is where it starts.  Exodus wraps up the narrative out of Egypt and begins some of the books of the law.  It makes me very thankful that are no longer under the law because of Christ.  It also increases my greatfulness for the grace of God because I see how seriously God takes sin.

There was a lot of blood that had to be shed to cover over the sins of the people of Israel.  Far to often we, as Christians, we stop thinking of our own sinfulness.  Maybe once we get the “Big” sins out of the way(You know the ones others can see) we assume we are fine.  But the Christian life is to be one of constant repentance.  I think we don’t repent because we don’t understand the severity of our sin.

As I read through the Law, I want to understand how serious God is about sin.

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There is nothing more humbling than having to repent to your two and four year old.

Not twenty four hours after I spent the day at a Conference dedicated to helping Men be more Godly I snapped at both of my little girls and my wife in major way.  I will be completely honest and let you know I have a temper.  It usually takes a lot to push me to the point where I snap but when I do it is embarrassing.

Sunday afternoon I snapped and startled both of my little girls.  They were crying and I was mortified.  I went downstairs and took them in my arms as I asked them to forgive me.  I explained, more to my oldest, that I had sinned in my anger and I was wrong.  She answered the way she always does, “It is OK daddy, I forgive you” I then asked her to pray for me that God would help me to control my temper.

I hope in this way my daughters can see that I am a sinful imperfect human being saved by the grace of God just as they are.  I hope to model repentance to them but maybe not about the same things all the time.

Thoughts?

This year I am blogging as I read through the Bible in chronological order this year.  This is my latest step.

We are still trucking through the Bible, and every time I read this I struggle a little.  But I suppose I am struggling less and less with it now.
I was always taught that God will not violate the free will of man.  That is the reason for why “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” and yet we all know that not all will.  It is simply because God allows our will to trump his own, or according to some that God can not violate our will.

But on nine separate occasions (Ex 4:21, 7:3, 9:12, 10:1, 10:20, 10:27, 11:10,14:4,18:8) the Lord says he will or did harden the heart of Pharoah.  This shows God’s sovereignty in all events.  But it seems to throw a monkey wrench into the idea that God can’t or won’t counter man’s free will.

Of course this is all part of the larger question of God’s sovereignty in our world.  But how do you think about these passages?

Sorry this is so short I am a little short on time because of the Act Like Conference this weekend.

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