A matter of the heart

Driving home from visiting with family over Thanksgiving (yes, I started this post over a week ago and am just now getting around to finishing it), I was thinking about Ps. 119:1-2 and 36-37, which I memorized a couple of months ago:

1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way,
Who walk in the law of the LORD!
2 Blessed are those who keep His testimonies,
Who seek Him with the whole heart! (NKJV)

36 Incline my heart to Your testimonies,
And not to covetousness.
37 Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things,
And revive me in Your way. (NKJV)

The Gospel vs. Religion and Irreligion

Here’s another great quote from Of First Importance:

“Christians come to see that both their sins and their best deeds have all really been ways of avoiding Jesus as savior. They come to see that Christianity is not fundamentally an invitation to get more religious. A Christian comes to say: “Though I have often failed to obey the moral law, the deeper problem was why I was trying to obey it! Even my efforts to obey it has been just a way of seeking to be my own savior. In that mindset, even if I obey or ask for forgiveness, I am really resisting the gospel and setting myself up as Savior.”

 
To “get the gospel” is turn from self-justification and rely on Jesus’ record for a relationship with God. The irreligious don’t repent at all, and the religious only repent of sins. But Christians also repent of their righteousness. That is the distinction between the three groups–Christian, moralists (religious), and pragmatists (irreligious).”

– Tim Keller, “The Centrality of the Gospel”

Initial thoughts on Isaiah 19:22

I woke up late today and didn’t do my quiet time, so I ended up re-reading Isaiah 19 by “accident” over a Chipotle burrito (yum!) today at lunch when I should have been in chapter 21. Part of the reason I didn’t realize I had already read 19 was because I recently started using Pocket e-Sword on my iPAQ, with which I’m trying out the ESV. Plus, I don’t usually use my iPAQ when I do my quiet time. Anyway, between the new translation and the new tool (which I very much like so far!), I managed to land on the wrong chapter.

I’m glad I did! I somehow glossed over this verse the other day:

Is. 19:22 The LORD will strike Egypt, striking but healing; so they will return to the LORD, and He will respond to them and will heal them. (NAS)

a footnote for which lead to: