Amazing Grace
(drum roll please) I've decided to make my blog a record of what God teaches me during my time with Him. (Don't everyone cheer wildly at once :P)I guess I'm a teacher at heart and keeping these things to myself is just an impossibility. God excites me, and when I uncover another treasure in His Word, I just have to share it! You don't have to read it, but it's here if you want to :)
Today I was studying Genesis 3, and thanks to Matthew Henry and the JFB commentaries I discovered some things that I hadn't noticed before or had forgotten. First, notice the exchange between Eve and the serpent in verses 1 and 2. He questions what God said, and her answer shows that she hadn't memorized God's Word as she should. She gets it partly right but adds to it and even changes it around. What God called "the tree of knowledge of good and evil", Eve called "the tree that is in the middle of the garden". Okay at this point, I'm already 'ouching' quite a bit! (lol) Do I know God's Word enough that I can use it correctly to resist temptation? (that was my first 'ouch' in case I wasn't clear lol) Do I relabel things to depersonalize them so my sin doesn't seem so bad? For instance, how many times do I talk about people and call it "concern" or "venting" when really it boils down to gossip? Or when do I downplay something in a movie or a book as "not that bad" when clearly I wouldn't watch it or read it with Jesus sitting right next to me...which technically He is anyway. (yep...that was my second 'ouch'...and actually that one is still smarting a little bit)
But, true to God's nature, He doesn't let me stay in my 'ouch' mode for long before He astounds me with His grace. In verse 15, God provides the remedy for the punishment that He hasn't even given to man yet. And just when I had started to come down from that 'God-You-are-too-cool' moment, He nudged me toward another one. In declaring the remedy for sin (the woman's offspring--Christ--crushing the head of the serpent), He astonishes me again with His grace. How like Him to bestow upon Eve, who had the disgrace of introducing sin into the world, the future honor of introducing the Deliverer! And yet I still think that when I sin God can't use me anymore, that I've somehow lost the right to serve Him. Praise His name that He doesn't operate that way! That He always uses the unusable, that even the legal genealogy of His Son (Matthew 1) is peppered with women (who were never regarded in that day as valuable)... and not just women (though that would be amazing enough), but women who were blatant sinners (Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba prostituted themselves) and foreigners (Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth were not Jews but Gentiles). Why should I dare to think that I'm somehow the exception?
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me...
Today I was studying Genesis 3, and thanks to Matthew Henry and the JFB commentaries I discovered some things that I hadn't noticed before or had forgotten. First, notice the exchange between Eve and the serpent in verses 1 and 2. He questions what God said, and her answer shows that she hadn't memorized God's Word as she should. She gets it partly right but adds to it and even changes it around. What God called "the tree of knowledge of good and evil", Eve called "the tree that is in the middle of the garden". Okay at this point, I'm already 'ouching' quite a bit! (lol) Do I know God's Word enough that I can use it correctly to resist temptation? (that was my first 'ouch' in case I wasn't clear lol) Do I relabel things to depersonalize them so my sin doesn't seem so bad? For instance, how many times do I talk about people and call it "concern" or "venting" when really it boils down to gossip? Or when do I downplay something in a movie or a book as "not that bad" when clearly I wouldn't watch it or read it with Jesus sitting right next to me...which technically He is anyway. (yep...that was my second 'ouch'...and actually that one is still smarting a little bit)
But, true to God's nature, He doesn't let me stay in my 'ouch' mode for long before He astounds me with His grace. In verse 15, God provides the remedy for the punishment that He hasn't even given to man yet. And just when I had started to come down from that 'God-You-are-too-cool' moment, He nudged me toward another one. In declaring the remedy for sin (the woman's offspring--Christ--crushing the head of the serpent), He astonishes me again with His grace. How like Him to bestow upon Eve, who had the disgrace of introducing sin into the world, the future honor of introducing the Deliverer! And yet I still think that when I sin God can't use me anymore, that I've somehow lost the right to serve Him. Praise His name that He doesn't operate that way! That He always uses the unusable, that even the legal genealogy of His Son (Matthew 1) is peppered with women (who were never regarded in that day as valuable)... and not just women (though that would be amazing enough), but women who were blatant sinners (Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba prostituted themselves) and foreigners (Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth were not Jews but Gentiles). Why should I dare to think that I'm somehow the exception?
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me...
posted by MeezCarrie @ 2:06 PM
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