Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, …
But be filled with the Spirit. Eph. 5:18 What does being filled with the Spirit look like? Well, notice that in these verses, the apostle has been contrasting two types of people: don’t be fools but be wise (16); don’t be unwise but understand God’s will (17); here, don’t be drunk with wine, but be …
And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3:17 The idea of the Trinity is massively important. Did you notice the way the Father introduces the Son to the world at his baptism? “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” This is …
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Eph. 5:16 If you do not want to be a fool (and, remember, from a Biblical point of view, a fool is not just someone who does stupid things, but someone who does the most stupid of all things – that is, one who does not fear God or listen to his word), …
Called to be saints. Romans 1:7 In the NT, there are two different types of calling. There is the general call of the gospel, which is the call that goes out to all men to repent and believe the gospel. This is what is being referred to, for example, in Matthew 22:14, when our Lord says that …
To all that be in Rome, beloved of God. Romans 1:7 Let us not miss the implications of this grand statement. Every believer is loved by God. Now, I want to push back here at a notion of the love of God that waters down the force of these words. It comes from a failure to distinguish between the …
My heart is inditing a good matter. Psalm 45:1 Or, "My heart overflows with a pleasing theme" (ESV). This is the first verse of the 45th Psalm, a Psalm which is referred in the New Testament to Jesus (cf. Heb. 1:8-9, quoting Psalm 45:6-7). Though it was originally a psalm for the enthronement of …
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Mt. 6:13 Commentators on this verse to this day have spent a lot of time trying to sort out the difficulty of this petition. The difficulty comes in like this. The word behind “temptation” is the Greek word peirasmos, and could be …
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4 The call to overcome the world, to refuse to bend to its demands, to not believe its lies, to fail to fall to its temptations, is a call for the perseverance of the …
Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Mt. 6:32 The believer is cared for by a loving Father, who is the Sovereign of the universe. He is the one “whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of …