July 21

2 Chronicles 4:1-6:11, Romans 7:1-13, Psalm 17:1-15, Proverbs 19:22-23 

Pray: David prays in our Psalm today, “I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my words. Wondrously show your steadfast love.” I love the way David prays specifically. I think I am often guilty of not praying specifically enough. I believe God wants to hear in detail what it is that we need and even how we seek to praise God. David asks for a wondrous display of God’s love. Let us pray for this along with David today.

Read: There is a beautiful account in 2 Chronicles today of the final touches that Solomon added to the temple. The very last thing that entered into the temple was the Ark of the Covenant, the symbolic presence of God. Inside of the ark was the law. As the ark was placed in the most holy place it says that the house of the Lord was filled with a cloud so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God. Wouldn’t it be an amazing scene on a Sunday morning as we all gathered into the Lord’s house if there was a thick cloud that came down giving us a physical symbol of God’s presence. What emotion would it evoke in you, fear, awe, joy?

Edify: It is interesting in Romans 7 that we see an image of marriage as it relates to the law. Our first marriage was to the law. The law of marriage is binding until the death of one of the partners. Death is the end of the law and so for us as New Testament Christians we know that our new marriage is with Jesus. We are “free” so to speak from the bondage of the law and brought into a new covenant because of Jesus and His sacrifice to free us from the bondage of rule keeping.

Practice: Think of your own marriage today. Do you seek to please your spouse because you are under an obligation to do so? Or do you have a different kind of marriage, a beautiful picture of the gospel in which we are not “bound” to anything but because of the great love that we have for Christ and because of what He first did for us we seek to serve and love? This is the ideal picture of marriage. Let us not live with our partner seeking what we can get out of it, but let us love selflessly as Jesus did for us.