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Walk in Wisdom
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These daily devotionals are written to help you remain rooted and grounded in God's Word each day. We have one devotional for each weekday, and one for the weekend.
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Latest Devotional
Holy Dread
Deuteronomy 2:25
“‘This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.’”“Perfect love casts out fear,” writes the apostle John in 1 John 4:18, and that creates a conundrum for us as expositors, especially when reading the constant positive usage of “fearing God” in the Old Testament. In other words, biblically, “fear” can represent either a trust in God or an aversion to Him, as the same word describes both the believer’s obedience—i.e. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”—and the unbeliever’s disobedience. The distinction, then, isn’t the fact that there’s good fear and bad fear, for fear is neither good nor bad in itself, but rather the distinction comes from where our perception of fear leads us next. It’s what we do with fear that makes all the difference. Holy fear can thrust us to our knees in humble contrition, it can send us to the nearest fig tree to sew clothes for our nakedness, or it can incite us to reach for the nearest sword in revolt.
Consider, friend, that for eyes which haven’t been accustomed to pure light, knowledge of the holy is first an advance into deep darkness before becoming an enlightenment. All songs of praise start out as a gasp of confession before culminating in a word of thanksgiving. Every revival in history begins in sackcloth and ashes before transforming into dancing and shouts of joy. Every reformation in our own life of faith has the same characteristic, too. If we’ve never cowered with shame under the piercing gaze of the Spirit’s omniscient eyes, if we’ve never thrown ourselves to the dirt like Moses or covered ourselves in sackcloth like Josiah or stood in paralyzed silence like Job before the whirlwind, if we’ve never been stunned into terrified awe by the gravity of God’s sufficiency and our deficiency, then we haven’t yet begun to love God.
That’s why Deuteronomy 2:25 is good news, not bad news, for the people of earth, because their newfound awareness of His holiness—that sting of holy dread that overwhelms them and sends their sinful souls reeling—could lead to their salvation if they only repent.
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Latest Devotional
Holy Dread
Deuteronomy 2:25
“‘This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.’”“Perfect love casts out fear,” writes the apostle John in 1 John 4:18, and that creates a conundrum for us as expositors, especially when reading the constant positive usage of “fearing God” in the Old Testament. In other words, biblically, “fear” can represent either a trust in God or an aversion to Him, as the same word describes both the believer’s obedience—i.e. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”—and the unbeliever’s disobedience. The distinction, then, isn’t the fact that there’s good fear and bad fear, for fear is neither good nor bad in itself, but rather the distinction comes from where our perception of fear leads us next. It’s what we do with fear that makes all the difference. Holy fear can thrust us to our knees in humble contrition, it can send us to the nearest fig tree to sew clothes for our nakedness, or it can incite us to reach for the nearest sword in revolt.
Consider, friend, that for eyes which haven’t been accustomed to pure light, knowledge of the holy is first an advance into deep darkness before becoming an enlightenment. All songs of praise start out as a gasp of confession before culminating in a word of thanksgiving. Every revival in history begins in sackcloth and ashes before transforming into dancing and shouts of joy. Every reformation in our own life of faith has the same characteristic, too. If we’ve never cowered with shame under the piercing gaze of the Spirit’s omniscient eyes, if we’ve never thrown ourselves to the dirt like Moses or covered ourselves in sackcloth like Josiah or stood in paralyzed silence like Job before the whirlwind, if we’ve never been stunned into terrified awe by the gravity of God’s sufficiency and our deficiency, then we haven’t yet begun to love God.
That’s why Deuteronomy 2:25 is good news, not bad news, for the people of earth, because their newfound awareness of His holiness—that sting of holy dread that overwhelms them and sends their sinful souls reeling—could lead to their salvation if they only repent.
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Blaze of Glory
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Sabbath Psalm (Adapted from Mary Kidder’s hymn ‘Is My Name Written There?’)
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Outliers
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The Father’s Arms
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The Prepositions of Providence
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The Grace of Problem Solving
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Make Me a Sanctuary
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Sabbath Psalm (From Fanny Crosby’s hymn ‘Blessed Assurance’)
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Spiritual Scars
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Better Judgment
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A Roll Call
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Kingdom Rising
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A Tale of Two Pilgrims
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Sabbath Psalm (Revised from Charles Wesley’s hymn ‘Depth of Mercy’)
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A Leprous Colony
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Word Spreads
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Dry Seasons Pt. 2
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Dry Seasons
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For the Record
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Sabbath Psalm (From Priscilla Owens’ hymn ‘Jesus Saves!’’)
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Monumental Letters
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A Second Impression
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Fighting Words
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Either-Or
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Striking Justice
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Sabbath Psalm (From Lidie H. Edmund’s hymn ‘My Faith Has Found a Resting Place’)
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The Fall of Balaam
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Justice—A Double-Edged Sword
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Spoken For
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A Divine Intervention
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Promises Performed
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Out of the Ordinary
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Dying Request
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Hand in Hand
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When God Speaks for You
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A New Genesis
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Sabbath Psalm (Revised from John Peterson’ hymn ‘A Flag to Follow’)
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In Broad Daylight
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No Place Like Home
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Balaam’s Final Oracle
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Faith—An Oasis
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Balaam’s Second Oracle
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Sabbath Psalm (Revision of Henry F. Lyte’s hymn ‘Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken’)
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Balaam’s First Oracle
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A Language Barrier pt. 2
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A Language Barrier pt. 1
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No Solicitors!
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Out of the Shadows
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Sabbath Psalm (Revised from Palmer Hartsough’s hymn ‘I Am Resolved’)
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The Way of Kings
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Lost Books
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The Truth Bites
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The Hand-Off
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Rebels All
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Sabbath Psalm (Revision of Mary D. James’ hymn ‘All for Jesus’)
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Come to the Waters
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Eulogies for the Living
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Sin is Oh So Draining
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In Christ Alone
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Guardians of the Gift
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Sabbath Psalm (From E. W. Blandy’s hymn, ‘Take the World but Give Me Jesus’)
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A Sappy Symbol
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Rhetorical Righteousness
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A Powerful Posture
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Making Memories
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Tribes and Tongues, pt. 2
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Sabbath Psalm (Adapted from Philip P. Bliss’s hymn, ‘Let the Lower Lights be Burning’)
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Tribes and Tongues, pt. 1
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Stop the Rot!
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Jesus Love the Little Children
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Beating Hearts
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One-Sided
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Sabbath Psalm (Adapted from Joseph Scriven’s hymn, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’)
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The Beginning of Wisdom
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The Grasshopper Principle
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Do You See What I See?
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Time Out
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A Reconciling Rebuke
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Sabbath Psalm (From Fanny Crosby’s beloved hymn, ‘Near the Cross’)
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Unrighteous Rhetoric
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A Story Shared
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Moses’ Complaint pt. 2
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Moses’ Complaint pt. 1
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Famished
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Sabbath Psalm (Adapted from George Matheson’s hymn ‘O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go’)
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Burning
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High Notes and Low Notes
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Silver Chords
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The Waiting Room
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The One and the Many
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Sabbath Psalm (A revision of John W. Peterson’s hymn ‘A Student’s Prayer’)
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Transitions
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The Gold Standard
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Between the Angels
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An Acceptable Approach
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Waxing Lyrical
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Sabbath Psalm (Revision of John W. Peterson’s hymn, ‘Just One Step at a Time’)
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Locks of Love
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A Nazirite New Year