I read a passage recently that knocked me back for a moment. It went against a lifetime of habit, indoctrination, and mindset. Read this and see if anything in it shocks you the way it shocked me:
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I wish the times of walking closely in tandem with the Lord would carry over continuously year after year, day after day for me. I wish that once I learned a lesson through His Word and through the Holy Spirit teaching me that I would never have weak moments when I lapse into old impulses, old ways of thinking, or old fears.
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I will also praise You with a harp, Even Your truth, O my God; To You I will sing praises with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. Psalm 71:22
What if someone were jealous of you to the point of reading wrong motives into everything you did? What if this person, your declared enemy, asked you to serve him or her in many ways? And how would you feel after you did every act of service requested in a sacrificial and generous way, but your enemy hated you even more for fulfilling the requests? What would be your response?
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I thought it might be good to take a day just for adoration. Let’s pause a moment and contemplate how glorious, how holy, and how lovely our Father is, our Lord is, and the Holy Spirit is. This blessed Trinity has been blessing us since before we were born, and a pause to praise them is more than due. I invite you to share your praise or a verse that expresses praise, awe, or wonder at Who He is.
Read MoreThis week’s blog gives you a glimpse into the lives of four mighty women of God and how they prepare for the battle against sin in different ways.
I Peter 4:12 is a very strategic verse for fighting sin:
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.
I Peter 4:1, tells us that Christ Himself suffered in the flesh and that we should prepare by arming ourselves with (His) same way of thinking. The second part of this verse links changing our thinking to ceasing from sin. I have had four wise women in my life who have had four very different approaches to arming themselves against temptation. All of these approaches are effective and worthy of emulating.
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Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel. Proverbs 27:9
Previously, we looked at how a true friend gives us honest counsel and acts as an accountability partner. But God had so much more in mind for us when He created this wonderful gift called friendship. I often think how generously and compassionately God was thinking the day He came up with the idea of friendship and decided we should have this blessing among all the other blessings He gives us.
It was God’s idea that we should have a friend.
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Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Proverbs 27:6a
It is really hard to detect your own sin in its early stages. Sure, it is easy to see it when it blows up and becomes really ugly or when it results in consequences, which all sin eventually does. But how can we be more honest with ourselves when the first tendency toward sin begins to grow in our sin-sick hearts?
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When I was flailing around in sin and had no clue who God is, I think it would have made me want to know him more if someone had told me that God has a sense of humor. I thought of God as someone remote, living on a high and lofty mountain peak, and I never thought that a valley-dwelling sinner like me could ever relate to Him. I could conceive of a God who would spare me from His wrath or even pity me, but I could never have conceived of a God I could have a relationship with, a real and personal relationship. As I said, I think it would have helped.
Read MoreA passage that helps me develop a Godlier-view of circumstances is Philippians 2:1-9.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
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I read an article in which a lady mentioned “chatting with God.” This brought to my mind the subject of prayer.
How personal is God to you when praying?
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“For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.”
Psalm 84:11
Read MoreIs stillness possible in this world of chaos, busyness, and division? We Christians are on a journey here on earth and, without a doubt, are affected by the demands of it. Our lives are filled with challenges beyond our ability to solve on our own. We need help! Ahh, and help is available.
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We don’t mean to sin. If I were to ask a large group of Christians if they would want to know they would never sin again, I believe they all would say, “Oh, yes, I want that very much.”
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“I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.” Psalm 119:45
One thought from the Bible can always make me smile, relax, and say “ahhh.” It is when I think about “The Wide Place.”
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Assailed. Tossed about. Worn and weary from the world. Have you ever felt something like that? It is comforting to me to know we are in good company.
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Yesterday, I became acutely aware that I am under attack. Sometimes Satan tips his hand and shows himself. We clearly see what he is up to.
Have you ever felt under attack?
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John 11:35 is the shortest verse of the Bible but one of the most profound for those of us who want to know Him more deeply and intimately. It says simply, “Jesus wept.”
We gain deep and revealing insight into the heart of Jesus from this passage. Because He knows what it is to shed tears from a broken heart, He understands our tears .
And Jesus cares about your tears. Hundreds of years before this touching scene, a psalmist wrote:
8 You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
o me, some of the most poignant words in all the Bible are David’s cry of grief upon hearing the news of his son’s death. This son who had betrayed him, tried to steal his throne, brought so much grief to the family for years was the object of so much love and grief and loss that you can hear it in his father’s gut-wrenching cries:
4 The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, “O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
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