Habakkuk reads like any one of us was writing it.  Who hasn’t had a time when they have simply gone off on God, questioning Him and His decisions about this world, our lives, our families?  Who hasn’t gotten frustrated, angry, or even enraged at what seems to be injustice from God?  I know I have numerous times. It always amazes me to see God’s patience with us in situations like this.  Whether it is Abraham

Revelation has some deeply disturbing and frightening images.  Our enemies will be crushed in the winepress of God’s wrath, slaughtered in the last days, thrown into the lake of fire to burn for all eternity.  New readers are shocked at this given that we serve a God of mercy and grace, but, we say, God’s patience is limited and eventually there will be a reckoning. But since we’ve been reading in the prophets of the

Revelation has some deeply disturbing and frightening images.  Our enemies will be crushed in the winepress of God’s wrath, slaughtered in the last days, thrown into the lake of fire to burn for all eternity.  New readers are shocked at this given that we serve a God of mercy and grace, but, we say, God’s patience is limited and eventually there will be a reckoning. But since we’ve been reading in the prophets of the

“He has shown you, everyone, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To live justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” While this is just one sentence in the midst of a chapter very similar to it, we have pulled it out and held it up as a theme verse for the whole of scripture.  I myself have preached entire sermon series on these three ideas.  And

Every villain has an origin story.  And in scripture Satan seems to have at least two.  When we read the opening of the book of Job, Baalam’s story in Numbers 22, and even Jesus’ wilderness temptation, we find a Satan who works for God.  Satan, a name meaning simply, “Adversary”, needs God’s approval to mess with Job, and seems to even need God’s guidance in that direction.  For Baalam, he of the talking donkey, Satan