10/15/2004 07:25:12 AM|||Laura|||2 weeks!! So much for my determination to keep up with this study! Some of that time I have done the study without blogging my notes, other times I have skipped the study altogether. When I have skipped, it is because I was working or reading/watching the war and election news. That may seem like a good use of my time, but in the eternal perspective I might as well have spent the time picking my nose. But lack of prayer, and relying on my own will to serve God is the problem. What can my personal determination and work yield? NOTHING.
We were in pain and agony, but we gave birth to nothing. We have won no victory for our land; we have accomplished nothing. (Isaiah 26:18)
That is, nothing except to take me further from the One I profess to love. I feel like that guy in the NT - "Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!" Only my cry is, "Lord, I love you! Help me to love you!" It is so very easy for me to slip back into my old ways.
The Sovereign LORD says to his people, "When you became slaves, no money was paid for you; in the same way nothing will be paid to set you free. When you went to live in Egypt as foreigners, you did so of your own free will; Assyria, however, took you away by force and paid nothing for you. And now in Babylonia the same thing has happened: you are captives, and nothing was paid for you. Those who rule over you boast and brag and constantly show contempt for me. In time to come you will acknowledge that I am God and that I have spoken to you." (Isaiah 52:3-6)
When they had been careless in the service of God, God suffered their enemies to have dominion over them, that they might know the difference between his service and the service of the kingdoms of the countries. It may be understood as a confession of sin, their serving other gods, and subjecting themselves to the superstitious laws and customs of their neighbours, by which other lords (for they called their idols baals, lords) had dominion over them, besides God. But now they promise that it shall be so no more: "Henceforth by thee only will we make mention of thy name; we will worship thee only, and in that way only which thou hast instituted and appointed." The same may be our penitent reflection: Other lords, besides God, have had dominion over us; every lust has been our lord, and we have been led captive by it; and it is has been long enough, and too long, that we have thus wronged both God and ourselves. The same therefore must be our pious resolution, that henceforth we will make mention of God's name only and by him only, that we will keep close to God and to our duty and never desert it. - Matthew Henry
|||109784402407258469|||2 weeks...