O Lord GOD, You have begun to show us Your greatness,
O Lord GOD, You have shown us Your mighty hand:
For what God is there in heaven or in earth?
For what God is there that can do according to Your works?
For what God is there that can do according to Your might?
DT. 3:24
We begged You GOD: You are our Master, You are our Lord! We want only You
You let us in on all You’ve done from the beginnings, You let us see Your greatness, You let me see Your might— Your power is infinite! You can do anything! We’ve seen what You’ve done in the past! Please do it again & again! Do Your will in us & around us!
It’s time to wake up! It’s time to listen to the blaring alerts! It’s time to be reflective It’s time to think about each step we take, Our enemy Satan is always stalking us His jaws are gaping open. He has one purpose He wants to bite our head off He wants to chew us up He wants to swallow us whole
Our flesh & our heart may fail, but God is the strength of our heart God is Our portion forever
Psalms 73:26 ESV
You Lord are all we want! As we get older & older Our skin sags & our bones get brittle, Suddenly they’re slitting us open They’re taking non working parts out of us But You GOD are our trust You don’t age or change You are faithful. We’re falling apart! But You’re using each loss & each odd detail we can’t comprehend how it all works out But You deepen our trust in You
We’re in Your very presence You are refreshing You are amazing We’ve made You Lord GOD our home. We’re going to let the world hear of Your great love We’re going to tell everyone what you do!
The grave-what is it? It is the bath in which we put our clothes on Death-what is it? It is where we wash & clean for eternity It is the waiting room where we robe ourselves It’s the dressing room for immortality; it is the place where we, like Esther, bathe ourselves in spices, for our King that we may be fit for the embrace of our Lord. Death is the gate of life; We will not fear to die.
Yes, we have voices all around us There is constant chatter There’s babble There’s chit chat There’s prattle There’s jabber
But there’s only one thing we need to wrap are head around
There’s just one thing we need to grasp
It is God’s Word!
These are the words of faith, His Word is an all-conquering weapon in our hand. Every doubt can be slain by this two-edged sword? Every fear falls smitten with a deadly wound from the power of God’s Word The distresses of life & the pangs of death; The corruptions within & the snares without; The trials from above & the temptations from beneath,
They are all but light afflictions, when we can hide ourselves beneath the bulwark of:
“He has said”!!!
Yes; God’s Word is our strength in every conflict,
This is our daily resort.
How can we ever be bored with each Word that comes from Jesus lips to our heart?
There are promises in His Word They are individualized to us They are alive in His Spirit They exactly fit our specific challenges,
He is our comforter. He is our counselor. He is our strength.
He is who we love & every word from His mouth is sweet to our taste.
His Word changes us. His Word makes us wise. His Words are pure. His Words are better then all the treasures of billionaires & trillionaires.
His Word opens our dungeon His Word let’s us walk free, His Word is our potent medicine from His great pharmacopoeia of Scripture, His Word is the only cure for our sicknesses & malaise
This is all we need
“He has said.”
We need to be reading the Bible, We need to store His Word in our memories
We need to fill our hearts & minds with all the richness of God’s amazing promises
We need to treasure His poetry; We need to gather in every phrase of it’s profound knowledge & wise insights
This is the source of all wisdom, This is the fountain of all comfort,
Let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly,
His Word is “A well of water, springing up unto everlasting life.”
This is where we grow healthy, This is where we become strong, This is where we burst out with speechless joy This is where we are filled up for worship This is what swells our heart in adoration for Jesus
We can renounce Satan’s counterfeit gospel, but first we must see it for what it is.
The good news according to Satan Enumerates the major ways the Devil uses his cunning & calculating ways of luring us off the narrow road of God’s grace.
We need to confront the lies we are being sold Don’t Give Up & don’t give in!
This is a unique, compelling & even witty look at the devil’s current greatest hits– The lies we urgently need to unmask.
We need to discover the 7 Myths About Singleness!
Yes, absolutely, it time to be alerted! Of course! Are you kidding me. God does care about who we hang out with. God Does God Care Who we Sleep With
There are a barrage of mind boggling tantalizing falsehoods hitting on us from every angle, They have to be exposed! They’ve snaked & slithered into our hearts.
but I smelt the ore & get the pure gold out of it when
I MEDITATE!
For lack of MEDITATION the Truth of God runs by us Then we so easily miss & lose the richness of it’s probing solutions
Our treacherous memory is like a sieve— what we hear & what we read runs through it Because of lack of focus our mind leaves but little behind— that little is often unprofitable to us by reason of our lack of diligence to get thoroughly at it.
“We must, by meditation, tread the clusters of truth,
if we would get the wine of consolation therefrom
I often find it very profitable to get a text
as a sweet morsel under my tongue in the morning
Then to keep the flavor of it, if I can,
suck on Gods truths in my mouth all day!”
Spurgeon
Sometimes it difficult for me to memorize a small phrase from a passage This slows us way down when we’re attempting to affix a chapter or a book to our memory
I spent two weeks on one phrase in Colossians 3 it was v.6
“For which cause sake”
For whatever reason it wouldn’t stick
So I wrote the 4 words out 36 times
Then I visualized 4 fingers & 4 witches as causing mistake after mistake
FOR WHICH stuck in my mind for my truth ponderings.
When I was two years old my Mom taught me a song called, Jesus loves me. I could sing it, but that didn’t mean I believed it. I had other interests and other things I was committed to.
At 19 I felt a nudge from God. Suddenly I wanted to know Him. The more I read about Jesus, the more I realized He was asking me to believe and commit myself to Him.
From 19 on into my 40’s, I was not bugged by doubts. I had an inflated idealistic faith. I would tag myself as a radical optimist. But that was more a belief in myself & my own abilities.
But then doubt began to fester & grow. I should qualify that; I see a difference between doubt & unbelief.
Unbelief is a lack of commitment. It means we are unattached & unconvicted.
In contrast, doubt is emotional wrestling. It is grappling with circumstances.
Abraham in his 90’s doubted, but God praised him as the father of faith.
John the Baptist at the end of life, just before he went to the chopping block of the Isis of his time,
What did John do facing this grizzly sharp end?
He doubted.
But Jesus said John is the greatest prophet of God in history.
In the psalms we see David recording his chronic doubts. But God calls him a man after God’s heart.
We may doubt Jesus but He believes in us.
Someone has remarked that doubts are the ants in the pants of faith that get us moving.
Guide us O Lord in our stumbling
We know You hear our broken cries, even just a sigh & just a whisper,
“The water in one teardrop is enough moister to float our life into God’s heart”
Lead our lonely heart’s
Drive us in our broken needs & in our penitence to find its way to You, Our Father
Train us in meditative prayer, Teach us to to know You God, help us align our desires with Yours
We ask that our crutches become wings to You
Make our obstacles elevate our soaring faith into Your arms
Imagine experiencing a loss that makes you richer,
Envision an injury that makes you stronger,
Visualize a scar that makes you more beautiful.
Such is the miraculous power of forgiveness in healing a wound.
But it isn’t easy. Forgiveness is hard because it isn’t fair. The victim shouldn’t be required to pay twice, we think. But there’s an ironic twist to forgiveness. The one who practices it, truly, connects personally with the heart of God
Forgiveness gives us a communion at a deeper level than may be possible through any other experience of life.
Genuine forgiveness is transformative Opening the jar lid let’s the light in & cause God’s love, God’s joy & God’s peace to flow in & through us
The losses! The injuries! The scars! The galling bitter hurts!
End up being worth far more than their damages & losses
This all becomes Pure Gold in the bank
It’s not just that we forgive the savage tortures others have brought on us
We forgive God! We love God! We forgive ourselves mostly for becoming trapped by it all!
It’s not: what did I do? what did I do? what did I do? To deserve all this?
No! No! No!
Help us! We believe that You God, in the mystery of prayer, through the puzzle of faith You O Lord in the grips of these awkward enigmas have entrusted us with a force that can move the Heavenly world & can bring its power down to earth.
Even so Lord Jesus!!! Make it happen! Fill us! Live in us! Live through us! Transform us in Your love!
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