Genesis 19-21

Daily Reading

 Genesis 19-21
 

Daily Thought

What a chapter 19!  The depraved men of Sodom clamor for sex with two men/angels staying in Lot's home.  Lot offers his daughters instead.  Sodom and Gomorrah are a carnival of perversity, but their time is up.  God's mercy drained, he destroys the cities.  Lot's unrepentant daughters get their dad drunk and take turns sleeping with him.  Both end up pregnant.

It's "The Jerry Springer Show," the original trash TV.  Jerry was asked if it was difficult to find his outlandish guests.  "Are you kidding?" he laughed. "They are in every neighborhood in America.  Yours too."  Have you perused a magazine rack lately?  Looked at the covers?  Read the titles of the articles?  Sodom and Gomorrah have nothing on us.  Lot's wife looked back with a longing regret.  She loved the lifestyle.  And we buy the magazines.

Then Jesus took our sins, like those of Sodom and Springer, and mine, and made them his own.  He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5).  He took what I deserve.  That's mercy.  Then he gives me his righteousness.  That's grace.  He became like me so that I could become like him.  That's love.   

Daily Prayer

My Lord and Savior God, Your love is overwhelming. You love me and I am not worthy of it.  You love me anyway.  Thank you for that, and thank you, as well, for hating sin.  I need to hate sin more.  What it does to me, what it has done to Your creation.  I look forward to Your coming Kingdom, when sin is removed, when holiness is the way of the world, when Jesus reigns.  Turn my longings toward You, my desires toward Your ways.

Amen