Today´s reading:
OT: Leviticus 4-5
NT: Mark 2:13-28, Mark 3:1-6
Ps: Psalm 36
Pr: Proverbs 10:1-2
Today´s notable verse:
5 Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.
6 Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your justice like the great deep.
O LORD, you preserve both man and beast.Psalm 36:5-6 (NIV)
One of my favorite bands of all time is Third Day. While they were originally known for their rock/southern-rock style, they have some powerful worship - both in their recordings and in concert. Much of their worship songs come straight from Psalms such as this one. It's pretty amazing worshipping alone with psalms like these - and much more so, when thousands are all singing together in concert! As soon as I read these two verses, I heard the music in my mind; and the song will likely be stuck in my head all afternoon. (Not that I'm complaining!)
The One Year Bible Blog asks:
Comments from you and Question of the Day - Psalm 36 verse 1 is a sobering verse - "Sin whispers to the wicked, deep within their hearts. They have no fear of God to restrain them." This reminds me of an old U2 lyric from their song Acrobat - "If you just close your eyes, you can feel the enemy." Have you ever felt sin whispering to you? Do you think that sin can indeed whisper to our hearts? Can it whisper from within our hearts? Do we need more that just fear of God to restrain us from sin? Has Jesus freed you from the whisper of sin within your heart?
The imagery of sin whispering to the heart reminds me of this passage:
13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
James 1:13-15 (NIV)
Yes, sin can "whisper to our hearts" - but only because we let it! When we allow the Holy Spirit within us to take control of our own inherent, evil desires, then those desires never have an opportunity to conceive or to give birth to temptation and sin. The evil desires exist within us, and Satan tempts us with/according to those desires. But when we "take captive every thought, and make it obedient to Christ" (II Corinthians 10:5), we short-circuit the entire process that leads to sin. When we choose not to "conform...to the patterns of this world", but rather allow ourselves, through the Spirit, to "be transformed, by the renewing of [our] minds" (Romans 12:2), we silence the whisper of sin in our hearts.