My Thoughts and Reflections

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.  But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”  – Joshua 24:15 (NIV) All throughout the Old Testament, God’s people, Israel, struggled with their commitment to the LORD their God.  They wavered back and forth between different foreign deities, bowing down to idols made of wood, stone, gold, and silver.  They worshiped the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai when Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments and the Law of God.  They also served it in Bethel and Dan after they split into two different countries! Today, we live in a world that is more full of different gods than in any other age of human history!  Not only do we serve different gods with proper names such as Buddha, Allah, Shiva, Brahma,  and V...

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the L ORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  - Micah 6:8 (NIV) As Christians, we often tout the Bible as God’s handbook on life, but all too often find ourselves at a loss as to where the sections that show us how to live are.  All throughout the Old Testament, God’s people relied on the Law (the first five books of the Bible, also known as Torah) to know how God wanted them to live.  This was a great gift from God to show them how he intended them to be holy people and to show them that they did not measure up to God’s standards for holiness.   The problem, however, was that they often got caught up in the intricate details and ignored the true priorities that God had for their lives.  They thought that the most important thing to do was to make sure that their sacrifices at the temple were done properly and they also made sure that they s...

“Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.  Blessed is the man who does this, the man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”  – Isaiah 56:1-2 (NIV 1984) Are we still advocates of justice and doing what is right today?  Are we modeling what honoring the Sabbath looks like?  Are we keeping our hands from doing evil?  We live in a world that makes doing justice and what is right difficult because it champions injustice and a “do whatever feels good” attitude.  We live in a world today where the Sabbath is not honored (Saturday, Sunday, another day; take your pick!), where people do not keep their hands from doing evil and where justice is an old fashioned notion that many people believe means equal and “fair” treatment for all! Isaiah’s call to do what is right came more than 2500 years ago and still rings tru...