To the Praise of His Glorious Grace

The title of this blog may seem a little surprising. When most people think of reading Deuteronomy they probably picture it being as moving as watching the grass grow, but for those people I feel very sorry. Relatively recently in my Christian walk I have discovered the treasure of reading through books of the Bible in one sitting; usually those books I've read through in one sitting have been New Testament books which consist of only 2-3 pages. A friend of mine created a Bible reading plan that allows you to fall behind a little and still stay on track with reading the Bible through in a year; the catch is that he has you read certain OT books in one sitting. I was intrigued by the idea of reading through an OT book in one sitting, but knew the challenge that it would involve. Today, I read through this quarter's OT book of Deuteronomy in one sitting. It took me about and hour and forty-five minutes, and my eyes were a little red afterwards; but let me just say, my eyes were

I was struck recently in my Bible devotions with a few verses in Psalm 16. I have always found Psalm 16 to be a source of sweet encouragement to my faith, but something stood out to me in it that I hadn't seen clearly before. David contrasts the ever-increasing sorrow of unbelievers with the ever-increasing joy of believers. With the recent suicide of the famous comedian Robin Williams, the recent drug overdose of famous actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and the recent admission of famous NFL quarterback Tom Brady that "there has to be more than this", it seems abundantly clear that the pathway to ever-increasing joy is not the pathway to ever-increasing fame, power, and wealth in this world. Fallen society presents us with plenty of influential people that we are expected to idolize and follow with our lives who are anything but joy-filled and the overwhelming assumption given is that fame, power, and wealth is the way to find fullness of joy. So if we "wake