Good Gifts vs Great Gifts - Crosswalk Couples Devotional - March 5
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Good Gifts vs Great GiftsBy: Rebecca Barlow Jordan
King David: No, I will buy these things from you. Name your price. I will not make an offering to the Eternal One, my True God, that has cost me nothing. - 2 Samuel 24:24 (The Voice)
Giving good gifts to our spouse can be difficult at times, especially with shrinking budgets. But is the cost of the gift really that important?
My husband and I learned a principle in Scripture from the life of King David that helped us answer that question. Pride motivated the king to take a census throughout the land to determine how huge an army he had built. It was not an ordinary census, and God knew it. God wanted David's heart to depend on Him totally for everything—including his security, not on the number of soldiers who could fight for him.
David realized his sin and cried out for forgiveness. God granted that, but it cost David dearly in loss of lives. To stop God's hand of judgment and more deaths, He required a gift—a sacrificial offering. The owner of a threshing floor (probably the same spot where Abraham had offered Isaac and later the site of Solomon's temple), offered to give David his property as well as everything David needed for a burnt offering.
But David said no. His sin was costly to others, and he refused to offer anything to God that didn't cost him something.
Through the years, my husband and I have tried to make our gifts to each other good gifts—ones that were special to each other, even when we were financially challenged (which happened a lot). When possible, in our budget we've tried to allot each other a small allowance each week: guilt-free money to save or spend as we wanted, no strings attached. |
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20 Psalms to Read When Life Is Miserable |
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Sue Schlesman |
Making the Psalms a consistent part of our time studying the Bible is enriching and important. The Psalms are meant to be sung and prayed, and there are specific psalms that were written to help us when life it bleak and we feel miserable.
The individual and communal laments are the largest category of psalms. These psalms lay a troubling situation before the Lord and ask him for help. They can be about broad community problems or individual struggles. There are also songs of confi |
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