Whole-Hearted Devotion: Embracing Grace and Justice

1) "Because God cares about even your finances. I know this from experience. That God has always given me what I need when I need it. Not always what I want, but what I need. Not always what I want, but what I need. Not always what I want, but what I need. There's a passage in Proverbs 3. King Solomon's writing to his son and he's giving him advice. He says this in 3 .9. Honor the Lord with your wealth. With the best part of everything you produce. He's telling him this principle. When you honor God with your first, He's going to honor the rest. When you honor God with your best, He can bless the rest. I pray that not only in our finances, but with our whole life, every bit of it, we're giving him the best. We're not giving him the leftovers." [32:28] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "And so what is this? This tent of meeting? It's God's law going out. It's God's law and we're going to kind of dive into what law that law is and and how it affects us. And then we see the smoke filling the temple. What is that? This is this is the presence and the power and the glory of God. Where does God's presence reside? Historically in the temple. I mean, he's everywhere. It doesn't contain him, but we know primarily like in Scripture. The temple represents the place of God's dwelling place. So he's dwelling in the temple. These are his words. This is his assignment. This is his doing. He is the one sending out the Angels. He's the one judging the earth. He is the one that's sending out the bowls." [43:53] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "God's wrath is also judgment. It's also his mercy. I hope that if you've learned nothing else through this book of Revelation is that there's always God's mercy in the mix of God's wrath, and so God's wrath in Revelation. Revelation specifically has three main purposes, and the first one is this. It produces repentance. Why is God doing all this thing? Why is he bringing all these judgments? He's trying to get people's attention. He's trying to help them understand that what they're doing is wrong. They're against God. There's a bigger judgment coming, and he's trying to get them to come and repent. All through scripture, you see God bringing some kind of judgment, some kind of consequence for people's lawlessness in their actions and their idolatry." [46:41] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "Here's what I know. God will often tell you, take away his hand, and allow us to fall headlong into our own consequences. Why does he do this? It's for our own good, because he wants us to realize our need for him. I'm so glad that God took his hand off me at one point in my life, so I've come to realize that the consequences that I'm feeling is because of my waywardness towards him, and it brought me back to redemption and repentance. Also, we know that it takes some people really hard crushing for them to come to faith, and sometimes people have to hit rock bottom so they can go up. They're seeking something, and they don't find it, and they have to realize at one point, oh, there's nothing else here for me. I know I need to come to God, because he's the only answer at this moment." [49:21] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "And here's the message today. As I read this, there's going to be people that no matter how bad it gets, they're not going to come to Christ. This should break your heart. This should, and this is what it shouldn't do. Well, they're not going to come to Jesus anyway. I'm not going to go talk to them. It should break your heart and you should go talk to them because there are people that will not, but there are people that will. There's a great number of people that will and that realize. And so maybe today you're in here, we're all in church. So I'm guessing most of us are believers. Some of you may not be, and I'm glad you're here." [01:15:36] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "And I pray that you choose God over everything else. I want to have the worship team come up, and I'll read some things in the altar team. I want to close with this. What's your song? What's your song today? Maybe it's the song of the saints, the unrepentant, or the song of self, or maybe some of the words mingle. Maybe you don't believe God's perfect. Maybe you make your own song. Today, I pray that you choose Christ, and that your song changes, and that the lyrics change. What does your mouth proclaim? What does your mouth proclaim? How does your heart inform it? And what's your soul's response to Christ? Is it this? Praise you, God, you're so good. Or is it, hmm, I can't say the words because we're in church. It's your fault. I hate you. Or is it, there's no God. I'm God." [01:19:19] (71 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)