Have you ever finished watching the evening news with all the violence and injustice in the world and in frustration asked, why isn’t God doing something? Why do the wicked and the dishonest people prosper? Why are they elected to the White House? Well, that is not a new feeling. A prophet named Habakkuk felt that way around 620 B.C. and wrote a book about it.
Habakkuk’s name means to “embrace” or “wrestle”
If God is good, then why is there evil in the world? And if there has to be evil, then why do the evil prosper? What is God doing in the world?
While Habakkuk begins by wondering or worrying about the world around him and God’s seeming indifference, he ends by worshiping God.
Habakkuk progresses from questioning God to trusting God.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
In His Word...the beginnings
At the Sunday school picnic, Miss Smith stacked a pile of apples on one end of a table with a sign saying, "Take only one apple, please - God is watching." On the other end of the table was a pile of cookies on which a second grader had placed a sign saying, "Take all the cookies you want - God is watching the apples."
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“I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” Exodus 20:5
What are you trying to prove? Whose attention do you want to get? If it’s anybody’s but God’s, then look out. He’s a jealous God. Yes, jealous. That means you belong to Him, and it makes Him jealous when you act like you belong to someone else. You try so hard to impress people and worry about how you will be accepted. And God is jealous. “If only you spent that much time trying to impress Me,” he whispers. You’re too busy trying to impress someone else. Be it that you are trying to learn the right moves, have the right brand and style of clothing, etc. What can you do to impress God? What can you do to keep Him from getting jealous? Do you go places without Him? Use His name in vain? Forget you belong to Him? Don’t make God jealous.
_______________________________________________________
“I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” Exodus 20:5
What are you trying to prove? Whose attention do you want to get? If it’s anybody’s but God’s, then look out. He’s a jealous God. Yes, jealous. That means you belong to Him, and it makes Him jealous when you act like you belong to someone else. You try so hard to impress people and worry about how you will be accepted. And God is jealous. “If only you spent that much time trying to impress Me,” he whispers. You’re too busy trying to impress someone else. Be it that you are trying to learn the right moves, have the right brand and style of clothing, etc. What can you do to impress God? What can you do to keep Him from getting jealous? Do you go places without Him? Use His name in vain? Forget you belong to Him? Don’t make God jealous.
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