Baptist City Blog

Tuesday, 5/10/16  Ps 106:32b-33a, ...so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes: because they provoked his spirit... Do you provoke the spirit of ones whom you love? By your actions? Inaction (neglect)? By words? By silence? By discounting their feelings? By blaming them without any admittance of fault yourself?     
                Ecc 3:1, To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to palnt, and time to pluck up that which is planted... Listed are 14 pairs of positives and negatives.  1) You WILL have both in your life, in roughly equal amounts.  2) Enjoy or endure, as the case may be: the opposite will come sooner than you think right now.  3) Do you rejoice as much over the postive as you do gripe about the negative?  4) Both positives and negatives are in God’s plan.  5)  It takes character and discipline to enjoy the positives as much as we despise the negatives.  6) What seems to be a negative may actually be prepartory to a positive.  7) God has time allocated for each...you need to do so also.  8) Learning and doing what you need to do may hasten the passage of the negative.

 

Wednesday, 5/11/16  Job 42:8, Therefore take [animals] and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering: and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept. If someone has accused you falsely or has hurt you, you need to pray for them: they’re broken, not bad.            Matt 23:3b, ...but do not after their works: for they say, and do not. Chief marks of a Pharisee: their doctrine is only in their mouth, but not in their lives.  - Do you believe the Bible is a divine book? Do you read it and teach it?  - Do you believe in Hell? Do you try to win souls?  - Do you believe in honoring and obeying parents? Do you obey? Honor? Listen to? Open your heart to? Speak respectfully to and about?  - Do you believe in love? Do you love...with your ears? Eyes? Time? Money? (Lack of) phone? Words?  - Do you believe in maculine men and feminine women? How do you act? Appear? Whom do you promote?

 

Thursday, 5/12/16  1 Tim 4:10, For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living god, who is the Saviour of all men... We are able to suffer (put up with) reproach to the degree that we trust in God. If you’re not taking it, perhaps you’re not trusting enough.                 2 Tim 1:5, When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice: and I am persuaded that in thee also. This lineage necessitates cooperation and participation in the learning process from both the teacher and the student. Are you teaching another generation what made you what you are? Are you listening to those trying to teach you?

 

Friday, 5/13/16  2 Tim 3:15, [The Bible is] able to make thee wise. Knowledge isn’t the same as wisdom. Are you acquiring spiritual knowledge? Are you then asking God to give you wisdom (seeing things from His perspective and acting accordingly)?              Matt 26:35, Peter said unto him, though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples. If Peter and the rest of the disciples knew that the preachers would preach about what they said for hundreds and thousands of years, perhaps they would’ve acted better. And if we’d realize that all of Heaven is watching us, maybe we’d act a little better.

 

Saturday, 5/14/16  Ps 145:2, Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever. Maybe take this verse as a challenge and a goal.                    Ps 144:11-12, Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children...THAT our sons may be...and our daughters may be [good and godly].  (“Dear God, please deliver me from the wrong crowd THAT my kids may be right.”)  Mom, Dad, your crowd affects your kids. Evaluate your crowd.

 

Sunday, 5/15/16  Pro 10:21a, The lips of the righteous feed many. Could you tell me some of the names of the “many” that your lips are regularly feeding? If you’re righteous, you could.                        Ps 147:1c, ...praise is comely. You would look good wearing some praise: not just praise for God, how about praise for those with whom you work? Live with? Sit close to in church? Your pastor? Your kids?

 

Monday, 5/16/16  Matt 6:12, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Before we confess our sins, we should’ve already forgiven others. Reminder: if we don’t forgive others, He won’t forgive us.            Ps 149:1-2, Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their king. Praise Him and remind yourself that He has the right to command us because of:  1) Salvation.  2) For creating us as we are. (Realize: you could’ve been born with birth defects, or of a different race or in another country.  3) Here and now. I wouldn’t want to live without indoor plumbing, or electronics, or the convenience and wealth of America. Would you?  4) Kingly authority.

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- Listen to evaluate and learn, not to respond.

- You exist for the pleasure of God — God does not exist for your pleasure.

- Compromise always involves change, but change does not always involve compromise.

- It is both futile and inappropriate to assume that any human mind could comprehend all the reasons God might have for any instance of pain and sorrow, let alone for all evil.

- It is impossible to glorify God in your body when you are an undisciplined, lazy glutton.

- If God allowed a perfect man to suffer terribly (but for an ultimate good), why should we think that something like that could never happen to us?

- Worry is not believing God will get it right, and bitterness is believing God got it wrong.

- God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.

- Live life while you're living life!

- Sometimes we actually hurt our children by helping them. There is a time when they must learn alone. If we rob them of that we are indirectly hurting them. Wisdom is necessary to get the timing right.

- A church will not go liberal in one day. A spouse will not become unfaithful in one day. A young person will not become an outspoken rebel in one day. It will happen however, when that little deviation took place that was never corrected. And it didn't happen yesterday. It happened years ago.

- Beware of allowing good to be the spoiler of best.

- Don’t let truth offend you; let it change you.

- Beward of those who say that there is no Hell or who declare there are new ways to Heaven.

- The next time that you’re tempted to put someone down, put them down on your prayer list first.

- You have to be willing to be bad at something before you can be good at something.

- It is hard to tell people they need to be saved when you do not live like you are saved

- It is sad when a former prodigal son becomes an elder brother.

- I've got news. God expects you to be human...flawed...scared at times...confused at others. He does not wish you were someone else or feel like giving up on you. He is not looking His nose down on you or rolling His eyes at your foolishness. He is your perfect, loving heavenly Father. He loves you just as you are even as He is making you all He wants you to be. Relax. God is not petty like us.

- When I begin to give thanks to God for a few blessings He makes me aware of so many others.

- A new twist on an old saying, If you can't say something nice...shut up and get right with God.

- The sun never quits shining even when you can't see it and God never stops loving us even when we can't feel it.

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- Abraham was wronged, personally. How did he handle it? He shrugged it off - for who-knows-how-long - until he was confronted about it. Then, he was proactive in showing that he had no hard feelings. Gen 21:25-27 “And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away. And Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing: neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to day.  And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant.”  Wow, that's incredible! We could learn from his example.

- Bible thoughts! Ps 47:4, He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. Selah. What is it you desire so badly that it consumes you? Let God chose our blessings for us! He ALWAYS knows what's best! He will bring things to pass we could have only dreamed of!

- Bible thoughts! Matt 13:46, Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. This is my favorite parable that Jesus taught. We were so precious to Him, He gave all to purchase us! We are valuable to God! Woohoo!

- Bible thoughts! Ps 43:2a, For thou art the God of my strength. Sometimes our strength comes from resources, or even in achieving good health. I'm for those things, but let's not forget our God, for He's the One Who gives us true strength.

- Bible thoughts! Matt 12:1, At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. I always thought it was kind of neat that Jesus chose to live in poverty while He was here. I mean, His disciples had to pick some corn as they traveled to preach, they didn't even have money for groceries, yet God met their need! He can identify with those who struggle financially! Isn't our God amazing!

- Christianity has always had a place for the thinker. Unlike the religious systems of men Christianity challenges its own to "think for themselves." The saints at Berea were more noble because, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so" Acts 17:11.