Pause, and calmly think on that.
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It’s all too easy to wonder for a brief moment how that could be, and then go about your day, forgetful of the awkward sense of impossibility you felt, until the next time you read or hear that verse. But it’s always there, haunting the back of your mind: God demands perfection! That’s not me! What sacrifice is left for me?
Jewish Passover falls on Good Friday this year. Passover remembers the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt during which God told the people to kill a “lamb without blemish” and paint their doorposts with the blood… God said “when I see the blood, I will pass over you and no plague will befall you…
So the LORD God said to the serpent [in the Garden of Eden], “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike…
I’m not sure who started this but there’s something to the admonition, that I’ve been hearing from James MacDonald, to reserve the word “awesome” for God. It may seem like a petty thing, a legalistic thing, but I have to agree that, in this day and age, our language used about God is so anemic,…