- Tuesday, 1/16/18 Psalm
37:1, Fret not thyself because of
evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. Here
are two strong, direct, blunt, unequivocal, exceedingly clear commandments.
Now, we must evaluate our obedience as bluntly and as clearly...ouch!!
Bible characters were just like us and their stories were put in the Bible to show us pertinent things for our lives. 1 Kings 19:14, 18a, And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away... Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel... Elijah felt alone and was discouraged. God came to him and, along with other things, said there were 7000 believers holding true. I met and worked with a nurse the other night and found out she went to a good church on the other side of the county, and then found out that some of her dear friends were former students of mine. That greatly encouraged me in two ways. First, there are believers whom we don’t know all over the place. Secondly, her friends were still living for God 15+ years after they were teenagers in my sphere of influence...our work is not in vain.
Bible characters were just like us and their stories were put in the Bible to show us pertinent things for our lives. 1 Kings 19:14, 18a, And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away... Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel... Elijah felt alone and was discouraged. God came to him and, along with other things, said there were 7000 believers holding true. I met and worked with a nurse the other night and found out she went to a good church on the other side of the county, and then found out that some of her dear friends were former students of mine. That greatly encouraged me in two ways. First, there are believers whom we don’t know all over the place. Secondly, her friends were still living for God 15+ years after they were teenagers in my sphere of influence...our work is not in vain.
- Wednesday, 1/17/18 We
believe the Bible, right? Every verse? Psalm
37:16, A little that a righteous man
hath is better than the riches of many wicked. It’s easy to say, but hard
to live. All of us are prone to count “better” as being equivalent to “more.”
God + little is A LOT!!! (And a lot more than the lost person has.) Ezra 1:1, Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia,
that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord
stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation
throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying... I’m
oftentimes guilty of thinking, “There is NO way that this situation can be
rectified...God certainly has abandoned me...” However God did it, He turned
the heart, head, desires, thoughts of this unsaved king to do what He said
would be done. He probably can handle “the heathen” in my situation
too...whether they be saved or lost “heathen.”
- Thursday, 1/18/18 Ezra
7:14, ...according to the law of thy God
which is in thine hand... The king of the world was writing to a bureaucrat
and he knew that Ezra held his Bible. Very simply, do those at your secular job
know of your love affair with King Jesus? Your neighbors? Those at the gym? Psalm 115:1-2, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto
thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake. Wherefore should
the heathen say, Where is now their God? Again, “glory” means “a
spotlight.” We cause the heathen to doubt our God when we focus on how
“wonderful” we are...or speak of our sin...our failures or, the sins and
failures of other believers. We know we blow it times; but let’s not highlight
our specific failures: that doesn’t lend itself to how powerful our God could
be in delivering our lost friends from their sin. Our sins are damning our lost
friends.
- Friday, 1/19/18 Psalm
42:8, Yet the Lord will command his
lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and
my prayer unto the God of my life. A microcosm of how life is and should
be: We will have bright times and dark times; God is good in both; we can sing
at night if we choose; we’re to pray always. Ezra 7:18, And whatsoever shall seem good to thee, and
to thy brethren, to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, that do after
the will of your God. The king trusted the bureaucrat/preacher to properly
dispose of the money. Far too many preachers today would see the need for a big
house and nice car for “the church.” That kind of covetousness is REALLY
prevalent in A LOT of churches/church members. Forget thinking of someone else:
we’re to mind our own affairs, only you can say if it’s in you.
- Saturday, 1/20/18 How
close to death are you? Psalm 116:15, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the
death of his saints. A common funeral sermon text, but that application has
nothing to do with the context. It’s referring to dying to self. Are you
healthy, sick, terminal, or dead? How would God have you? Ezra 8:22, For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and
horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto
the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him;
but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him. It’s very
easy to talk about a big God: but do we live like that big God actually is
aware, involved, and is capable of helping you and I?
- Sunday, 1/21/18
Proverbs 16:6, By mercy and truth
iniquity is purged. This follows the
verse that says pride is abominable to God. When His mercy (bought by blood)
meets our truth (shown in admission and confession), wrong can be erased. But,
too often we won’t TRULY admit our sin. In
Monopoly, there is the card that says, “Go directly to jail. Do not pass ‘Go.’
Do not collect $200.” Cheating causes the immediate failure of a test in
school. Punching your boss will cause immediate dismissal. Pride is like that
with God: it supersedes everything else. Proverbs 16:5, EVERY ONE that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord: though
hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
- Monday, 1/22/18
Proverbs 16:16, How much better is
it to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding rather to be chosen than
silver! This verse prodded my heart to sincerely yearn for wisdom. But, the
Holy Spirit reminded me that with “the
lowly is wisdom.” Lowly means to be humiliated. How sincere am I? You? Philippians
1:9, And this I pray, that your love may
abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment... What does the
phrase “in knowledge and in all judgment” mean? I just had this thought: do you
love more and more even if you find out “bad” knowledge about someone? Or, if
they are suffering for the after-effects of their sin, do you love them more
and more? Isn’t that what Galatians 6:1 and the Parable of the Prodigal Son
teach us to do? There are a lot of “bad” believers out there who are bleeding
and perishing from the service of the Lord because they don’t feel that “good”
believers love them anymore.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bible thoughts from some others:
- Pro 14:31, He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his maker: but he that honoreth
him hath mercy on the poor. Our attitude toward, and treatment of the poor
gives an inside view of our attitude toward God as an individual, as a church,
and as a nation.
- Ps 78:6, That the generation to come might know them,
even the children which should be born: who should arise and declare them to
their children. If there is one great failure in America, it is the lack of
godly truths and character being passed on.
- Acts 5:26, Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence:
for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. If we get
enough to trust Christ, the world may not like us or agree with us, but they
will be afraid to mess with us.
- Mark 1:24, Saying, Let us alone! What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of
Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of
God. The Devil and his demons know who Jesus is; why do the religionists
have so much trouble with it?
- The reason
we lose so many spiritual battles is that we keep putting on the pajamas of
self rather than the whole armor of God.
- 2 Kings
18:30, Neither let Hezekiah make you
trust in the Lord, saying, the Lord will surely deliver us, and this city
shall not be delivered into the hands of the king of Assyria. May God give
us such men of faith in the Lord to lead us in America today.
- Ps 80:7, Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy
face to shine, and we shall be saved. Our only hope is for God to turn us,
and cause His face to shine on us.
- Mark 1:27, And they were all amazed, insomuch that they
questioned among themselves, saying, What new thing is this? What new doctrine
is this? For with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits and they do
obey him. If the unclean spirits, the devils, and the demons of Hell obey
His commands, why won’t man do so? We have more to cause us to obey than all of
creation.
- Mark 2:2, And straightway many were gathered together,
insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the
door: and he preached the word unto them. When our Lord got a crowd, He
preached the Word. Where the Lord is, there will be a crowd, and we need to
preach that same Word.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Miscellaneous
thoughts from others:
- Your pastor is a broken man trying to help broken
people. Your Sunday school teacher is a broken teacher trying to help broken
children. Your youth director is a broken man trying to help broken teenagers. Your parent(s) are broken parents trying to
hold together broken pieces. And don't forget that we have a broken Saviour
trying to heal a broken creation. Nobody has it "all together." But
we need more glue and fewer sledge hammers. Ask God to help you be a tube of
glue today!
-
Don't give up on God because of misrepresentation. STOP, and read that one again!!
- Sometimes when we fall we feel as though everything
we have ever done for God might have been for naught. Yet God reminds us from
time to time that He took us at our worst and used us in spite of us. God is so
good to not remind us of our past failures but of our past victories.
- Grace is when you should give up on somebody but you don't.
- No man who sits on death row for murder is there because in a
moment of hurt and anger he chose to forgive.
- If you live in your past, you will die to your future.
- Don’t say, “I’m having a bad day.” Say, “I’m having a character
building day.”
- The idea that we become disillusioned with men is evidence we
have yet to become focused on Christ, and Him alone.
- A champion is someone who gets up when he can't. -Jack Dempsey
- If the wise men all say, "I wish I knew then what I know
now," why aren't there more seekers wanting to know what they know?
- Those who are quick to judge do so in effort to conceal a
disturbing dark secret of their own.
- "The only place life is unfair is in your mind."
- Today, be the reason someone feels incredibly loved and valued.
- You become a victim by what someone has done to hurt you. You
remain a victim by refusing to forgive them for what they did to hurt you.
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