{"id":7758,"date":"2021-08-27T06:37:30","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T11:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/?p=7758"},"modified":"2021-08-20T11:22:27","modified_gmt":"2021-08-20T16:22:27","slug":"devotional-on-zephaniah-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-zephaniah-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Zephaniah"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_15508\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15508\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PA049187.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15508 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PA049187-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PA049187-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PA049187-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PA049187-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PA049187-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PA049187-1568x1176.jpg 1568w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PA049187.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15508\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2013 &#8211; Along Natchez Trace &#8211; Fall Hollow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We don\u2019t clean house to punish dust<br \/>\nZephaniah 3: I\u2019ll leave a core of people among you.<br \/>\nThe prophet first turns his attention to other nations surrounding Judah. They\u2019re not the chosen people, but they\u2019ve refused the light they\u2019ve been given. Because of that, the Day of Judgment that is such a driving force in Zephaniah\u2019s preaching is coming to them too. When I read of Judgment in the Old Testament I sometimes come away thinking of God as punishing those who reject him. However, this passage takes me in a different direction. Zephaniah says that when God&#8217;s finished, he\u2019ll leave a core of people who \u201cwill not do wrong.\u201d If a person cleans house, wiping everything clean, they aren\u2019t punishing the dust. Instead, they&#8217;re just cleaning things up like they ought to be. Through his prophets, the Lord cautions, warns, and pleads with people to repent and align themselves with his purpose for their lives. In the end, the Judgment that falls on those who refuse this patient call of the Lord is the result of their own refusal to connect to their Creator. I know that there\u2019s a place to think about an angry God but I\u2019m reminded today that a God who loves righteousness is bound by his own nature to take action when his creatures reject his righteousness. When the Lord&#8217;s finished, things will be drastically different and one of those changes will be that we&#8217;ll see core of previously unnoticed people still standing. \u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.\u201d<br \/>\nTake Away: A God who loves righteous must, ultimately, deal decisively with sin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We don\u2019t clean house to punish dust Zephaniah 3: I\u2019ll leave a core of people among you. The prophet first turns his attention to other nations surrounding Judah. They\u2019re not the chosen people, but they\u2019ve refused the light they\u2019ve been given. Because of that, the Day of Judgment that is such a driving force in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1533,6,7],"tags":[152,643,913,933],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7758"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15526,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758\/revisions\/15526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}