Truthful lips
Proverbs 12:22
‘The LORD detests lying lips, but He delights in people who are trustworthy.’ Our words matter to God. We can easily think of our speech as a small and passing thing — words spoken and gone, hardly worth God’s attention. But the LORD does not regard them so. He detests lying lips; and — wonderfully — He delights in people whose word can be trusted. And it makes sense that He should. The LORD is the God of truth. He cannot lie; truth is woven into His very being. And so He takes our truthfulness seriously, and He takes delight in it, because in it He sees something of His own character. We live in a world where words are very often twisted. They are used to flatter, to manipulate, to deceive, to protect ourselves, to make ourselves look better than we are. The careful half-truth, the convenient silence, the small exaggeration — these are so common that we scarcely notice them. And against all of that, the people of God are to be marked by something simple and increasingly rare: a word that can simply be trusted. When a believer speaks, what is said should be true; when a believer promises, the promise should hold. This is part of what it means to grow up into the likeness of the Lord Jesus — for He is Himself the Truth. There was no deceit found in His mouth, ever. The Lord Jesus said that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. As His Spirit fills and changes our hearts, may what overflows from them, in all our words, be honest, and kind, and true.
Old Testament
Genesis
The book of Genesis is the book of beginnings. It sets the scene for everything else in the whole Bible. Study of the book of Genesis will show us why humanity was created as we are, and where evil, death, and suffering come from. Throughout Genesis we meet interesting characters such as Abraham, the great man of faith in the Promised Messiah; Jacob, the deceitful schemer until he finally trusts in the Lord and Joseph, who lives out his faith in pressurised circumstances.
Old Testament
Exodus
The book of Exodus provides the theological framework for the rest of the Bible. Whilst Genesis sets the scene, it is Exodus that maps out the doctrinal logic of the Bible. We learn how sin has affected our relationship with God, and how the Lord bringing His people out of Egypt is a powerful prophecy of the way the Promised Messiah would rescue His people through all history from the power of sin and the devil. Exodus teaches us about the Trinity, why Jesus died at the Feast of the Passover, and how the Tabernacle instructs us about the whole universe and the effects of sin upon it.
Old Testament
Leviticus
If the book of Genesis set the stage for the Bible's story and Exodus established the theological framework, then the book of Leviticus takes us into that theological framework to explain the inner workings. The book of Leviticus takes us down into the theological engine of the Scriptures to show us how and why the work of the Messiah is what it is.
Old Testament
Numbers
The Book of Numbers takes us deep down into the workings of Church. In this book of the Bible we see how the structure and organisation of a local church is one of the most important matters in human life. In a local church, we are learning to be truly human and how to live a full life together, filled with the life of God and walking onwards and upwards to His great and certain hope. Do we seek first this Heavenly Kingdom? Do we care more for His Kingdom, His Church, His righteousness, than for all the momentary comforts of this passing age? These are the questions that the book of Numbers puts to us over and over again.
Old Testament
Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy is a record of how Moses prepared the ancient Church to enter into the Promised Land. It is a collection of his final sermons, preached to the ancient people of God as they were waiting to cross the Jordan river. They had been on the banks of the Jordan 40 years before, but they had been too frightened of the Canaanite giants to enter in. They did not trust in the Divine Angel of the LORD to fight for them... and so they were defeated by their own fear and doubt. It took 40 years of wilderness wandering to get a new generation ready to fight giants! Deuteronomy is a training manual for fighting giants - not just the ancient physical giants of ancient times but the "giants" of sin that we all have to face. Deuteronomy teaches us how to love the LORD with everything we have and then to obey His commands - so that we can possess all that he has promised.
Old Testament
Joshua
The conquest and settlement of the Promised Land under Joshua's leadership.
280+
Video Episodes
365
Daily Devotions