Daily Reading
Daily Thought
God demands repeatedly of Israel, “So you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deuteronomy 13:5; 17:7, 12; 19:19, 21; 22:21, 22, 24; 24:7). Israel was the one nation in history where God joined together Church and State, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” In that close relationship, when God’s holiness is a daily display, Israel is to bless the world as an example of God’s presence. You cannot have God in your midst and evil, too. Evil must be purged.
For example, Deuteronomy 22:22, “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.” The Pharisees used this passage when approaching Jesus with a woman caught in adultery, “Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” We like Jesus’s answer, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” God, in the Old Testament, seemed so severe, so stiff. Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you” (John 8:3-11). We think him tolerant, and we like tolerance.
Our definition of tolerance is “live and let live,” but do we really want that? Romans 1 describes what happens when God lets people live in their sin. God gave them up (let them live) in their lusts (v 24), their dishonorable passions (v 26), their debased mind (v 28), and the result? “They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless (vv 29-31). It turns out God uses “live and let live” as a tool of his wrath and judgment. It turns out “live and let live” is really “let die.” It turns out an eternity of that kind of tolerance would be hell.
Rather than our idea of tolerance” I am grateful for God’s patience. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2Peter 3:9). Rather than “live and let live,” I am grateful for God’s salvation. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and death must be paid, and was. As a result, “there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11). That’s not tolerance, that’s grace. That’s not “live and let live.” Jesus died for that sin. That’s the good news of Jesus Christ.
Daily Prayer
My God, at the Name of Jesus every knee will bow, above the earth, on the earth, under the earth. Every tongue will confess Jesus Christ is Lord. You reign and Your Kingdom is good. I desire nothing less, nothing else.
You are sovereign, You are King and Creator, You are God. You are wonderful. Teach me what it means, what it looks like to love You with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. Increase my love, my faith, my devotion, my delight in righteousness.
Amen