MyLeslieNotebook

I absolutely LOVE Old Testament history. And for today's lesson, you really need to know what happens from Genesis 12 to Deuteronomy, so, here it is: In Genesis 12, God finds a man named Abraham and makes him a promise: Leave your home and go to a Promised Land. I will be with you, I will bless you, and I will protect you (Genesis 12:1-3, my paraphrase.) So Abraham went. And though he lived in that promised land for years, it did not belong to him; the promise would carry on through the descendants of Abraham until it was completely fulfilled hundreds of years later. (That's how many of God's Old Testaments promises worked.) So Abraham had a son named Isaac, Isaac had Jacob, and Jacob had his name changed to Israel when he actually decided to believe God. Israel had 12 sons, one of whom (Joseph) was an amazing leader and dream-interpreter. His brothers hated how "great" he was, so they sold him into slavery and he ended up in Egypt. But because he was in Egypt a...

I've had a verse on my mind for weeks now: "Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in light of your presence, LORD." (Psalm 89:15, NIV) I kept finding myself drawn to the word "acclaim." So I looked it up  in my giant concordance. I expected to see a definition along the lines of, "to excitedly report." But what I found was much more rich. It's used 36 times in the Old Testament, but translated only once as "acclaim." Here's the official defintion: trumpet blast, battle cry In other passages it's translated shout, shouts of joy , and blast .  Which made me immediately ask: Is God my battle cry? Is He the trumpet blast that I proclaim throughout the day?  Honestly? No. But luckily when I looked back at the verse again, I realized it said, "Blessed are those who have LEARNED to acclaim you," and I was comforted by the fact that I could, indeed, learn to make God my battle cry. ...