Wrapped in Grace

Genesis 3:21-24, And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and…

The Fear of the Lord as Filial Fear: Part II. Fear and Love

This entire series is my 30-paged bachelor thesis I submitted to the theology department at Concordia University-Ann Arbor—a higher Lutheran education university—as part of the requirement to graduate from the Pre-Seminary programme. It has been reformatted to fit this blog. This is the second section of my paper. In part one, I discussed the three…

God is Near

Psalm 25:14, The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear Him, and He makes known to them His covenant. 1 Kings 19:1-8, Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to…

Cleansing

Job 14:4, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing? There is not one.” Sometimes we make big messes that are hard to clean up—wine on our shirt or carpet, grease on our jeans after working on our car. What’s even worse is that sometimes our best efforts to clean up the mess…

Joy of the Lord

Nehemiah 8:8-10, They read from the book, from the law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD…

Worshipping God

Psalm 100:1-2, Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into His presence with singing! In 1 Chronicles 16, the ark of the covenant is brought into the tent of meeting and David leads the congregation of people in worship at this church dedication. They are rejoicing that they have…