Samuel Carpenter

Have you ever sat with eyes glazed staring at the Bible as your thoughts wandered? Perhaps you have fallen asleep during your evening prayer time. Maybe you remember reading through 2 Chronicles and finding it a chore. It is even possible that your regular chapter-a-day routine has dried up, and you wonder what happened to the life you used to get from your daily time with God.

Can the Christian pitch his tent toward Sodom? Have you ever heard of a person who “had one foot in the church and the other in the world”? This is, of course, not really possible, but pitching our tents toward Sodom is, like Lot, choosing the temporal and physical over the spiritual and eternal. Jesus said it this way, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt 6:24).

Wisdom is knowledge and good judgment based on experience. James tells us in Chapter 3 of his epistle that there are two different kinds of wisdom earthly and heavenly. Earthly wisdom is judgment based solely on the immediate and temporal. Many people today think it is wise to pursue the stamp of the world's approval by getting a higher education. They buy insurance against possible losses. They may flatter others in order to climb higher on the social ladder. Or even lie to avoid the consequences of wrongdoing.

What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is a canceled note, a paid debt, a bridge burned. Forgiveness is the deliberate decision to take a debt and chalk it up as not owing to the account. Forgiveness is an open acceptance of the wrong done without requiring justice. Forgiveness is also an unlocking of the soul, a freedom from having to exact revenge, a winging of the spirit heavenward. Mark Twain once said, "Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."

"But God " these two words have great meaning. The word "but" in this verse is defined in Strong's as, "nevertheless" or "therefore." We can assume then that God here is holding out another chance or option. Another option from what?