Today's encouragement comes from Genesis 26:18, where we read these words:
"And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. He called them by the names which his father had called them."This is a really neat verse to encourage healthy church life today, or in any era. Isaac went back to the original wells of water that his father Abraham had enjoyed. The world—just like the Philistines of old—is always seeking to "stop up" the sources of the church's grace, received from the Father through Christ.
But, instead of responding to problems and needs by trying "new things," Ab-raham's son Isaac goes back to the *old* tried and true springs of life. Let us live by this principle, too. Let the faithful church call all people to the eternally-begotten Person of Truth, Jesus Christ our Lord. The "old paths" are better—just as the prophet said, in Jeremiah 6:16a.
[Puritan quote of the day: "A Christian must neither be a dead sea nor a rag-ing sea.” —Richard Sibbes, in, "The Soul's Conflict with Itself"]
