More Hope for Weary Parents

I know that God is doing a work of grace in my life, and the evidence is that even hearing the reading of God's Word in corporate worship is food to my soul, rather than a meaningless excercise now.

To continue in the vein of nurture or nature or neither, we read 2 Chronicles 33 this past Lord's Day for our Old Testament reading.

Manasseh was the son of godly, reforming King Hezekiah who had done much to restore a right worship of God on all levels in the nation of Israel. Yet despite his upbringing in a godly home, he rebels and rebels grossly to the point of re-instituting worship that demanded the sacrificing of his infant sons, as well as witchcraft and sorcery. If you read of his story in II Kings 21, you think that the story ends there with this man dying in his wickedness. But behold the lovingkindness and mercy of God: after time in a prison in Assyria, Manasseh repents and God allows him to return to Jerusalem. He re-institutes the proper worship of God (though the people refused to follow him in repenting), and by all accounts dies reconciled to the Lord.

Here is our encouragement, and here is our rest: It is *God* who works in us to will and do his good pleasure. Left to ourselves, we will fall back into idolatry and all manner of gross sin unless the Lord restrains us. Let us rest in Christ alone for salvation.