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authority

The ladies in our church have started reading through Jerry Bridges' book Respectable Sins. I'm on chapter four and so far it has been both an easy and difficult ready. It's been easy in the sense that Bridges is not preachy nor theological deep in this book, but difficult in that he's not hesitating to deal with the areas of our lives where we actually live.

Early on, he addresses the fact that disobedience to the commands of God is actually rebellion against the authority of God. We're challenging his laws and decrees, which He has the authority to make.  I've always pondered the verse from King David that said, "Against you and you only (talking to God) have I sinned."  The sins of King David impacted many, many people, but in all honesty, God is the only one we can truly sin against. People may wrong me or hurt me, but their sin is against God's laws, not against me. That's not an easy thing to digest.

And along those same lines, while reading and watching some of the inaugural highlights yesterday, Bobby made the comment that he was bothered by the number of people, specifically Christians, who showed disrespect to our President and his authority. We mentioned Daniel, and how he served a King with a different worldview, and yet Daniel was always respectful in his speech. For that matter, the three Hebrew friends who faced the fiery furnace were respectful, even after being threatened with their lives. Their refusal to obey was even respectfully stated. There was no rudeness nor sassiness in how they responded to his commands.

I normally struggle through reading non-fiction, but this is a book that I'm enjoying, even though it's very convicting. We won't finish our study until March, but if I finish reading early I'll try to give a final review. But so far it's all thumbs up!

Comments

Jennifer said…
Sounds like a great book. I need to get myself in gear and get going. I can't make Thursday so I guess that is why I haven't been motivated, but hopefully tonight I can sit down and start. Sounds really good and it made me think when you mentioned that we are sinning against God alone even when we hurt others. I also like your comment about honoring Obama and the examples you gave. Great post

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