365 Reflections

Deuteronomy 10:14–17 (ESV)   Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. This is perhaps one of the most compelling appeals from Moses to Israel in all the Pentateuch. You hear his emotional call to this people known for mindlessly walking in disobedience over the course of 40 years since God saved them. And in this appeal, Moses goes all in on them realizing who God actually is, who they are because of Him and what their response should be.  First they are to understand that the Lord is God and owner of all things. He does not need Israel. He does not c...

Paul ends his correspondence with the Corinthians with a personal challenge of a very serious nature. Having spent almost the entire epistle defending his apostleship and gospel, he turns the tables on his hearers. 2 Corinthians 13:5–7 (ESV)  Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 6 I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. 7 But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. Notice the twist in Verse 6. He says he hopes, after testing themselves, they will find out that Paul is genuine! That's a serious challenge. Paul has already told these people believers have a responsibility to judge believers (1 Cor. 4-5). But now, before they go any further testing his life and ministerial qualifications, t...