Skip to main content

Swept Away!

We like a good love story where the couple is swept up in love.

We don’t like a tragic story where someone is swept out to sea.

We like a story of enlightenment where ignorance is swept away by knowledge.

We don’t like a story of deception where truth is swept apart by lies.

We like a heroic battle where good prevails and evil is swept up in defeat.

We don’t like a story of injustice where wrongdoings are swept under the rug.

We like a rags to riches story where poverty is swept away by prosperity.

We don’t like a story of despair where hope is swept aside by loss.

How would you like a story where loss could be swept away by redemption?

Here’s the deal.  We’ve all brought loss upon ourselves because of the wrongs we’ve committed.  These wrongs are called offenses and they hang over us like a thick cloud.  Yet in the midst of that thick cloud, redemption is possible!  How?

Here’s how:  “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”  (Isa 44:22)

If we try to sweep our offenses away, there’s absolutely nothing we can do to cause it to happen.  But there is one who can!  The verse above was spoken by God.  He alone can sweep away our offenses.  He does so by sweeping them on to the Savior.  And, as a cloud is swept away and is no more, so it is with our offenses.  Once swept away, they are no more.

And when that happens, loss is swept away in redemption!

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Excel Still More!

To excel, according to some of the meanings from a few dictionaries, is to surpass others, do extremely well, outdo, do something better than anyone else. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, we find the phrase “excel still more”.   It prompts the question:  if we are already doing something better than anyone else, why would we be encouraged to do even more? Perhaps it would be helpful to see the wording that other translations use for “excel still more” to see why we would be encouraged to do so.  Here is a sampling: • abound more and more • to keep doing so more and more • but try even harder • live that way more and more. • that you progress even more. • that you increase more and more in how you ought to walk Maybe it would also be helpful to see some other verses where the word “excel” is used: “Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which when translated means Dorcas); this woman was excelling in acts of kindness and charity which she did habitually.”...

Value Proposition

Value proposition:  it’s a marketing statement that summarizes why a consumer should buy a product or use a service.  It should clearly and concisely communicate what customers can gain from selecting a particular brand over that of its competitors. In a value proposition, you don’t want your product to be viewed as being worth less than what your competitors offer.   But even worse, in a bit of a quirk of how letters and spaces can fall, if you take out the space between “worth” and “less”, you get “worthless”, which means something of no value.   If that word is used in conjunction with how your product is viewed by customers, it’s a word that will likely kill your brand. In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul, in a sense, communicated some value propositions. In chapter three, he starts off with describing the value of some things that many considered as extremely valuable in that day and age.   They had to do with status and achievement in the reli...

Outrun the What?

“Outrun the rays”!  It’s a phrase I noticed on a billboard.  I think it’s a public service type campaign.  The intent, I assume, is to get people out of the harmful rays of the sun that can cause things like skin cancer.  But you really can’t outrun the rays, they travel at about 186,282 miles per second! Yet the campaign has a certain appeal to it.   “Outrun” sounds a lot like a competition and maybe it gets the competitive juices going for some.   Yet, try as you may, you still can’t outrun the rays, but you can implement strategies to avoid them.   And most of those strategies have a simple foundational aspect to them; you avoid the rays by finding some type of covering. Strategies for covering up from the rays include being in shaded areas, putting on clothing that blocks the rays or putting on sun screen. While the sun’s rays can certainly cause significant physical harm and cover is essential to combat that, there are also areas of our live...