Lot’s wife belonged to a family with a great name and trust in God’s promises. She even had angels visit her home! God sent them to personally escort her from His coming wrath to His safety (Gen.19:1-22). Yet, she fell into eternal judgment because she looked back to her life in Sodom. She longed to preserve what she had and became a pillar of salt–a crystalline substance used for preservation (Gen. 19:26). Friends, Jesus is kind to warns us in Luke 17:32-33: “Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.”
Cornelius’ conversion account can teach us many things about the spread of the gospel to the Gentiles in the first century church. We see in this story that God’s salvation through Christ is for all the families of the earth. God shows no partiality but comes to redeem people from all nations. All this is true. But my focus today is on that small line in verse four. It makes me wonder: what if my service and prayers to God were like a memorial offering rising up as a pleasing aroma before His throne?
My 8-year-old daughter has the job of reading prayer requests during family worship. The requests come from a monthly calendar sent by International Christian Response, a group that offers spiritual and material assistance to the persecuted church. Every evening, her small voice announces the trials and victories of God’s people around the world. Continue at Christianity Today.
I’ve heard it said that in our culture today, it’s not a matter of if your child will encounter pornography, but a matter of when. In other words, the pervasiveness of these toxic images have made porn an almost omnipresent tempter that seeks the attention of everyone, even very small children. In a post-Genesis 3 world where sin is always crouching at the door (Genesis 4:7), God’s grace to my children can include my own prudent and diligent work in guarding and preparing them for the possibility of these “bad pictures.”
Before I went into seminary, I worked as a regular volunteer in children’s ministry. My church at the time was small, so I taught Sunday school lessons to a “one-room schoolhouse” of tiny primaries and spunky middle-schoolers. However, after completing my program in theological studies, I avoided kids and preferred to teach adults. I wanted to give my time and service to those who could “best” understand the Scriptures, and children’s ministry didn’t seem like the place.
The cross of Jesus stands unmoved today and will not be shaken on January 20th. That cross is my confidence. Whatever a Trump presidency might bring, God still works all things according to the council of His own will (Ephesians 1:11). And if God ordered the affairs of cunning leaders in the first century for the sake of our salvation than He is able to order the events of any government to fulfill His good and ultimate purposes.
