God will fight the battle

Key verses
Psalm 145:1-9 - I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever.  Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever.  Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.  One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts.   They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works.  They will tell of the power of your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds.  They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness.  The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.  The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.

2 Chronicles
Jehoshaphat trusted in God, and God came through for him.  I read the story about Jehoshaphat defeating Moab and Ammon, described in 2 Chronicles chapter 20.  The people of Judah were wondering if they should attack Moab and Ammon, because these enemies were coming to their territory.  The people of Judah inquired of God, and the Spirit of the Lord spoke through Jahaziel who told the people of Judah not to fear.  The Lord was with them.  They wouldn't even have to fight the battle, because the Lord would fight for them.  So they went out to the place where their enemies were, and there were all the dead bodies.  The Moabites and Ammonites had fought against the men from Mount Seir, and then they turned on themselves and everyone was slaughtered.  The people of Judah didn't have to do a thing!
When you go into a difficult situation, trust in God and rely on him to come through for you (if you are in the will of God), and you will meet with success!

As a side note - what a legacy!  Here is 2 Chronicles 2:20, commenting on Jehoram's reign as king of Judah.  "Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years.  He passed away, to no one's regret, and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings."

Repentance and the blood of Christ

Key verse
1 Thessalonians 4:7 - For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.


2 Chronicles
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 - “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
God's love manifests itself in different forms.  If we repent and obey, he is kind and compassionate and slow to anger.  But if we have heard his commands and yet disobey, He will not hesitate to punish us.  Not that we have to fear fire from God every time we do something wrong, but we can't rest on  our laurels thinking that God has promised only to do good to us, even if we do bad.  Look at King Solomon.  God told him, right after verses 13 and 14, that yes, if they repented, he would save them.  But, if Solomon did not respect God's law and instead followed pagan gods, God would certainly send Israel into exile and destroy the temple Solomon had just built for Him.
Our good deeds will never save us.  Only the blood of Jesus, come with the new covenant, can cover our sin and intercede for us when we go off the trail.

The Lord's favour

Psalm 85
This Psalm reminded me of the compassionate, forgiving, and loving nature of God.  I was still thinking about yesterday's post on trust, and so this psalm seemed to say to me that God does deserve our trust for all the great things he has done.  More than that, even when we don't rely fully on him, he will still forgive us for our folly and restore us to his fellowship.  Here are the verses that speak to this issue in particular.  Feel free to look up the rest of the psalm.

Psalm 85:1-3 - You showed favor to your land, O Lord; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins.  You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger.

God's compassion

Psalm 78:38-39

Yet he [God] was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them.  Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

A broken and contrite heart

Key verses
Matthew 22:21 - "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

Romans 3:21-24 - But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Psalms
Psalm 51 is another psalm that makes me read through it twice.  It is so comforting to see that even after grievous sin we can approach God, humble at heart, and know that he will respond in grace and mercy.  God's unfailing love and great compassion, shown through Jesus's death on the cross, will come through for us time and again, if we come with a broken spirit and contrite heart.

Compassion

 After a few days of completely ignoring my household duties, I figured I should get a handle on those.  So, today's post will be a little bit shorter.

Key verses

Hebrews 2:14-15 - "Since the children have flesh and blood, he [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death."

The passage in Isaiah was still on the theme of destruction.  I was surprised to see how badly everyone was getting destroyed and beaten down, and still God's anger was not turned away.  Isaiah really has me confused and I am itching to get my hands on a hard copy commentary.  On top of the Isaiah reading, we read about more destruction in Luke, coming as signs of the end of the age.  I think one of the age-old questions when reading the Old Testament in light of the new is, where is the compassionate God who is slow to anger and rich in love?  I don't have an answer at the moment, but perhaps you do.  Let me know!

Also in Isaiah - only a small remnant returned to Jerusalem.  At first I thought, wow, these guys don't get it!  They had to experience such discipline until only a small group of them remained, and then they finally relied on God.  They had the law with them the whole time, why was it so tough to follow it?

After thinking those thoughts, I quickly came to the conclusion that, guess what?  I have God's word right in front of me, too, and I still don't get it sometimes!  I have God's law with me, and I make it tough to follow it.  It doesn't have to be so hard, but as we'll read later on in a letter from Paul the Apostle, the good I want to do, I don't do, but the evil I don't want to do, that I do.  So I guess the Israelites were in the same boat as me, more or less.

What's the key take-away for today?  I would focus on Hebrews.  I realize I need to spend far more time than I do now thanking God for sending his Son to die for us.  Jesus became like us in every way in order to save us from our own sin.  Here is ultimately where God's abounding compassion and love come into play.  He freed us from death and from enslavement to fear and temptation.  Let's walk in that amazing truth, knowing that we have to do nothing but rely on God.