The Characteristics of a Godly Life, Part 2
Dear Friends,
I hope that you are having a good summer. Judy and I are enjoying a lot of great family time with our kids and extended family. Our time together always leads me to reflect on the grace of God in our family’s life over the last 46+ years of my marriage to Judy.
A huge part of reflecting on God’s grace over the lifetime of a family involves remembering, “the cleansing from (their) past sins.” While I won’t go through the litany of God’s grace within our family, I will point you to one of my favorite narratives in the Old Testament – the powerful story of Ezra and Nehemiah’s leadership of the rebuilding of the temple and the wall in Jerusalem.
In Ezra 3, those who returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity laid the foundation of the temple. Following that accomplishment, they had a praise and worship service. Ezra 3:11b-13 says, “And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.” (NIV)
Life is full of the combination of joy and sorrow before the Lord. When we seek only the “highs,” we miss the depth and strength that the valleys of weeping add to our relationship with the Lord. One of the most powerful and important “valleys” to walk through is the valley of remembering our sin before the Lord and experiencing His complete forgiveness and grace in that place.
May you take time this week to remember God’s grace and to experience the sounds of joys and the sounds of weeping so that you can move forward into a II Peter 1 walk with Christ.
Blessings,
Ron
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