Pastor Brad’s Notebook
11 Jan Devotional Thought – The Father’s Anger Over Our Sin
"But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul..." Prov. 8:36
This isn't normally why we think God responds in anger over our sin. Normally we see God's anger over our sin resulting from what it does to Him. Yet, here the writer of Proverbs says that contrary to our common thought, God's greatest horror comes from the fact that my sin most injures me. It's much like a father saying to his child, "Stay away from the fire. If you don't stay away from the fire, I'm going to be angry with you." The child may think the reason his father says he'll be angry is because of his disobedience to his father's command, but that's not the real reason the father says he will be angry. The father is most concerned that by his child's act of disobedience he might hurt himself and as a result of the child's injury the father will become angry thereby causing himself pain.
06 Jan Fridays Are For Family – Missing What Matters
I don't know if you've seen the amazing and powerful movie by Sherwood Pictures Courageous yet, but if you have you'll no doubt remember the scene where the main character, Adam Mitchell, is asked by his young daughter, Lauren, to dance with him in front of a local bank. He refuses to get out of his truck and dance with her because his mind is on other matters and he didn't want to be scene doing something that he thought everybody who saw him would consider silly. I won't spoil the movie for you if you haven't seen it, but he later realizes that it was a HUGE missed opportunity for him to spend time with his precious daughter doing something simple that she'd asked him to do.
04 Jan Devotional Thought – Our Earliest Aim
"I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me." Prov. 8:17
It is the boldest, greatest aim that any marksman could ever take - to seek God. But to tell the marksman to take his earliest aim at his greatest object is surely one of the most paradoxical statements ever uttered as well. We certainly don't teach a beginner to take his first aim at the object that is farthest away. No. We put a large target up close, well within the his reach. We operate under the principle that it is better to begin with that which is closer, easier, and then move to the more distant, difficult object.
02 Jan Devotional Thought – Adam’s Naming Of The Animals
"Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name." Genesis 2:19
Why didn't God give the animals their names? After all, wasn't all of creation formed by the word of His will? God had said, "Let there be light," and there was light. He had said, "Let there be a firmament," and there was a firmament. All of the acts of His marvelous creation were done as the decrees of a monarch - until He came to the creation of man.