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CR18Day_02 @ nkjv@Psalms:19 @ RandyP comments: Who can understand his errors? The implication is that no one can. If no one can, how then can anyone understand another man's ways? If not by self analysis or wiser counsel, how then can any one be repaired from their personal deprivation? The implication is that in any other than God they cannot. In fact, the psalmist suggests that is by God HIMSELF keeping us back, letting them not have dominion over us.

CR18Day_09 @ nkjv@Genesis:18 @ RandyP comments: Note the Abraham having obtained a better faith (having been corrected) now is better capable of serving the Lord without any presuppositions. His actions at the fire pit are not to earn any great reward/to show himself a man of great faith, they are simply to do for the Lord on His grueling journey. His intercession for the potential righteous remnant of Sodom is a honest act of concern and opportunity being near to the Lords immediate presence. The Lord is having His effect on Abraham much more now, time and patience and gentle correction and revelation are all beginning to pay off. There are evidences now tangibly of Abraham's deeper unseen hopes.

CR18Day_10 @ nkjv@Psalms:1 @ RandyP comments: Interesting that on a day where we've seen Lot evidence much needed righteousness standing the gap for two angels and Abraham/Sarah cohorting to deceive the king of a righteous nation that this Psalm would come to our reading. Walking not in the counsel? Lot bravely shows us a positive example taking in and protecting the two angels, Abraham cowardly shows us a negative by lying to Abimelech about his wife his half sister. In the positive case the counsel of the ungodly was to hand the angels over so that they could sodomize the two every man of the city young and old that night. In the case of the negative example the counsel is actually a personal fear that a righteous man has about what might happen to him at the hands of the ungodly because of the beauty of his wife. It is not a tangible threat at this point, it is a perceived threat self formulated. These two examples are not always the case but, they begin to show us how complex walking not nor standing nor sitting really is. On the one hand there is the potential cost or personal sacrifice that may have to be made in order to adequately stand firm, keep one's word, protect the stranger/innocent. One the other hand is the fear of what these other could do to yet or worse yet to your spouse. Take comfort though for the Lord knows the way of the righteous; in fact HE had HIS son walk the same path, endure the same costly hardships, be tempted along this road just as you and I. In fact that man that this psalmist says to be blessed very well could be our Savior described to the tee.

CR18Day_11 @ nkjv@Psalms:107 @ RandyP comments: "...Therefore He brought down their heart with labor...". Some would wish to remove the "therefore" from their understanding; God brings hearts down just because. What a mean God that would be. The "therefore" suggest however that "they" had a major part in this because of their rebellion against HIS word and the despising of HIS counsel. If the "they" are to mean Israel, think of how many other times they did just that. It seems as if it is easier to fall into this rebellious mindset than it is to maintain the right mindset on it's own. I suspect it true in a personal sense, this gravitation towards rebellion but, I know it for certain among generations of men. One God delivered generation passes it's renewed godly enthusiasm and testimony to the next, the next passes down what amounts to stories or legends of the past to the next, not having experienced God to the same extent the successive generations grow colder and colder to this point of rebellion and despising counsel. This all too familiar entropy often occurs within a matter of years within one generation; even within days in some cases. "Therefore" God's righteous response to them is to bring them down (but not to let go). Down can be to let them suffer the consequences of their own counsel and actions for a time alone or serve those to whom they have become debtor/captor. Down can be a bit more drastic like a famine or multiple rainless seasons, enemy nations mounting on their borders. Down can be leaving them to their own resource and efforts if that's the way they want it minus HIS gracious blessings and wonderous power. Down could possibly mean progressively down as far down as they decide to go before they cry out to the Lord and HE bring them back. They suffer as one together in many instances so that they know without question that this is a God thing being imposed. But, HE does bring back. It would sound mean had we not done anything to deserve it or if there wasn't something better for us to know and be apart of but, think back on the majority of times when HE has blessed us when we didn't deserve that good part of HIM either. "Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!"

CR18Day_24 @ nkjv@Galatians:1 @ RandyP comments: "..any other gospel.." How many times must it be repeated? Just as not every path leads to heaven not every gospel leads to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The apostle raises a grave concern for us today. Note that Paul ties the issue of there being other gospels directly to the human tendency to please other men rather that be bondservant to Christ. Men need to be pursuaded of God's gospel not God pursuaded of man's. In the end man's various gospels aren't going to be of any use to them; the men that they were designed to please will all be in a unpleasurable place eternally unsatisfiable. The first example given is Paul's own previous conversation, his years as a Jewish zealot/enforcer, a life of pleasing other men even to the extent of willingly doing the dirty work they themselves did not wish to do. Everything he did to please those men (as Jesus wisely predicted) he did thinking that it was heroic service to God. These men above him relied upon that sentiment, they fostered it, they empowered themselves by being able to direct it towards their own purposes. The good news is that the gospel of Christ has nothing to do with pleasing these men. In fact if one chooses to look at it this way, the bad news is rather that this type of man will be extremely displeased by it and will be sending other zealous pawns out against you now. There are so many different directions that these "other gospels" can point believers that it will take a much larger discussion of this Epistle to the Galatians to grasp.

CR18Day_05 @ nkjv@Genesis:11 @ RandyP comments: The sin observed in Babel runs throughout children of men (son's of Adam). Essentially it is this 1. The make a name for himself 2. To make himself secure by his own doing both in direct rebellion to God. The command of God is to "go" fill the entire earth. With it comes frontier type individualism, non-centralized control, reliance upon God. With rebellion comes gathering into cluster, centralized power and control, socialization, many men working towards one cause the object of which is whatsoever the few in control task them to do. That whatsoever is the thing that most concerns God for the heart and intents of man toward God are only rebellion. Nimrod intends to have a tower built that reaches to the heaven. The tower is a symbol of man made religion for the masses to look up to, for the idols way up and authorities in the middle to look down from. It is such a minute and pitiful sight sight from heaven that the omnipresent God mockingly has to come way down from heaven even to see it. By confusing the one current language into many, God effectively partitions mankind against each other and thus partitions man from there being one central world government drunken on the blood of the godly as we the see in the end with the Whore of Babylon after God loosens HIS current restraint.