September 16

Isaiah 22:1-24:23, Galatians 2:17-3:9, Psalm 60:1-12, Proverbs 23:15-16 

Pray: Psalm 60 is a prayer-cry to the Lord for His mercy and deliverance. David expresses his heart’s desire to be rescued by the Lord. It’s an honest and very real plea. What is the desire of your heart? Do you need to experience the mercy of God? Have you been through (or are you in) a season of life from which you wish God would deliver you and bring you out? Ask Him!

Read: “At that time the Lord…called you to…but instead, you…” When you remove the exact details (names, locations, specifics, etc), what was just a part of someone else’s story can quickly become an indictment. To think that the Lord God called people to something and instead they chose something else is unfathomable. We shake our heads in disbelief at such things. Yet, how many times has God spoken to you and you chose a different path, a different response? Most people have been there. In Scripture, there were serious consequences to such disobedience. There are still serious consequences for disobedience. What is the Lord calling you to do? Which path will you choose?

Edify: You ever try to imagine a different kind of life? Maybe you imagine what it would be like to live full-time at the beach. Maybe you wonder about how a different career would impact your day to day living. Maybe you’re like me, and as you read, you imagine yourself being in the shoes of those you read about. I try to imagine how it must’ve been to be one of the disciples or a prophet to a rebellious nation. In Isaiah 24:6, a group of people are mentioned: “[Earth’s] people must pay the price for their sin.” It’s sobering and quite troublesome to imagine being in that crowd. With the coming of Jesus to earth, thanks be to God, we don’t have to count ourselves in that number who must pay the price for their own sin. Still, imagining such a thing does help create some gratitude…

Practice: One produces the other. At least that’s how it ought to be. Paul, in Galatians 2, addresses the subject of grace. When it comes to obedience and grace, there are many who would talk about one and forget the other. Truthfully, the two are not mutually exclusive. It is the grace of Jesus Christ that serves as the WHY behind our obedience. It’s not rule-keeping or box-checking that causes God to give us grace, but it is because of the gift of grace that we want to live our lives in obedience to the Lord, not the other way around.