Grace Outpost

I was reading in the book of Genesis today and was reminded with a devotional video today on the importance of taking a encompassing view of the book as a whole.  When we look at the book of Genesis we can see that it is generally speaking broken into 2 major parts Chapters 1-11 deal with God and the world, 12-50 deal with God and his dealings with Abraham and his family. In Chapters 1-11 we see the formation of all things, including man.  It is here that we see man's relationship with God and the sinful nature of man emerge and taint God's good creation.  In the Garden of Eden God told Adam and Eve that they may eat of any tree in the garden save one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God gave man freewill to obey and trust his judgment of good and evil, but freewill is only free will with a choice, hence the forbidden tree.  I personally don't think there was anything significant about the tree, other than it represented a choice to trust and obey...

Hello and welcome to Grace Outpost!   I am glad that you have joined me today.   I apologize to you faithful readers for my hiatus.   It has been longer then I expected, but I’m back!   So many of you know that my family has had a lot of death happen in a short period of time.   So what do we do when disaster strikes in our lives?   How do we move forward when the world seems to stop moving for us in our pain and in our crisis?   We cling to God.   Paul tells us that this is the secret to being content in times of plenty and times of famine (Philippians 4:12).   Psalm 23 has often come to my mind over these past few months and the belief of David has been a comfort to me.   The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.      He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.      He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness     for ...

Hello faithful followers, I apologize for missing last week's message and likely this week's will be delayed as well.  For those of you who have not seen or heard, my nephew has been in the ICU following a pediatric stroke.  It is with a heavy heart that I let you all know that he passed away last night.  I have no doubt that I will see him again in heaven, but our hearts still break today.  I ask for your prayers for his parents and the whole family.  If you would like to help financially, there is a gofundme page  https://www.gofundme.com/tfu6ay7p

Hello and welcome to Grace Outpost!   I am delighted to have you join me today.   This past week has been a tough and discouraging week.   I honestly thought about skipping today's message altogether and just have a stress free day.   However, I ran across the passage that we will look at today.   I kept running into this message throughout the week from more than one angle and place, it became obvious to me this morning that God was speaking to me and my discouragement today.   Before we can jump into Haggai we have to understand the scene upon which Haggai chapter 1 begins.   For this background we need to look in the book of Ezra, chapters 3 & 4, which give us the backstory of what Haggai will speak into.   These books cover a return to Jerusalem after the 70-year exile in Babylon.   King Cyrus who was king of the Persians sent out a decree allowing those from Jerusalem to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.   Zerruba...