Stevemidkiff's Blog

You are a God full of compassion & gracious,
You are long suffering & plenteous in mercy & truth

Psalms 86:15

THE EXTENT OF GOD’S COMPASSION

GOD’S COMPASSION IS PROFUSE “full of compassion”

There are no shortages in God’s mercy

GOD’S COMPASSION IS POWERFUL “gracious”

Grace is God’s empowering energy to us for us to respond appropriately

GOD’S COMPASSION IS PATIENT “Long-suffering”

God’s mercy endures many provocations

GOD’S COMPASSION IS PLENTEOUS “Plenteous”

His compassion will never run out
There is enough compassion for every person

GOD’S COMPASSION IS PRECISE “plenteous in mercy and truth”

The beauty of God’s compassion is He never violates Truth

He never compromises justice.

He never hurts one victim by falsely protecting another so called victim

He never allows a violation to appear harmless.

Psalm 119:41-48 The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is VAU.
These eight verses in Psalms 119 begin with the letter VAU.
VAU is symbolic of the term nail or hook. What are we nailing
our life too? Are we hooked on God’s Word?

Isaiah 22 : 23-25
And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place & he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house.
And they shall hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring & the issue,
all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons.
In that day, says the LORD of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down & fall & the burden that was on it shall be cut off: for the LORD has said it.

Jesus is our nail of security we hang to
His Word is where everything of value hangs
If Christ & His Word is removed from our lives are disconnected & drifting to destruction

BOUNDARIES OF FREEDOM IN GOD’S WORD V.41-48

ESSENTIALS OF LIBERTY v.41

CONTINUAL COMPASSION

Let thy mercies come also unto me,

Please Lord secure us in Your love, we want You to be the nail we hang our entire life on

CONSTANT CONSIDERATION

O LORD, even thy salvation,

Lord Jesus, keep shaping everything in us through Your mighty deliverance.

CONSISTENT COMMUNICATION

according to thy word.

You’ve promised that Your Word is powerful in changing us. Keep us connected to You

EVIDENCE OF LIBERTY v.42

ADEQUATE RESPONSE

So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproached me:

It’s through Your strengthening Word that we can stand up to mockery

APPROPRIATE RELIANCE

for I trust in thy word.

Your Word is worthy of our total trust

ALERT REVIEW v.43

And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth

Don’t ever deprive us of Your supernatural truth

ANTICIPATED RESULTS

for I have hoped in thy judgments.

We’re depending completely on Your decisions in our life.

EXPECTATIONS OF THE LIBERATED Psalms 119:44-45

PERPETUAL APPLICATION TO HIS WILL v.44

So shall I keep thy law continually forever and ever.

Protect us! Keep Your Word in front of us.
Constantly reveal Your truths to us. Addict us to Your Word!

PERSONAL ABANDON TO HIS WALK v.45

And I will walk at liberty: for I seek Your precepts.

We’ll walk freely through wide open spaces
as we live seeking God’s truth in a quest for God’s wisdom
Paraphrased

To most this sounds crazy.

How can seeking God’s Word give us liberty?

How can loving God’s Word give us freedom?

How can craving to hear God’s voice give us space & independence?

Is God’s Word that important to us?
From the way everyone acts toward scripture it would appear far from
A source of freedoms & liberation.

So, when we get around God’s Word isn’t it viewed as a restrictive force?
Isn’t the result of God’s Word that everything is a big no no?

We can’t do this!
We can’t do that!
We can’t go here!
We can’t go there!

That’s how we may feel if we’ve been conformed by our companions.

But if we’ve been transformed by our creator our desires are for Him.

The liberty we want is to be walking in the light close to Jesus!
We want to be transformed more & more.
This comes through God’s creative life giving Words.

God’s Word is the perfect law of liberty.
These are the principles of freedom!
When we’ve been transformed what pleases God we will discover it is what pleases us.
God’s will is our desire. And what He says to us & what He wants for us is true freedom.

When we refuse to walk in God’s ways we bring ourselves into nasty & scary bondage.
We suddenly find we are bound by the shackles of sin.

Jesus said, “He that commits sin is the slave of sin.”
It’s a destructive slavery to serve anything other then Jesus.
We don’t want to be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
God’s Word changes our appetites.
God’s Word changes our perspectives.
God’s Word changes our lives.
This is true liberty.

PURPOSEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF HIS WAYS v.46

I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.

We’ll tell the world what we see in Your Word, We’ll speak out boldly to everyone.

Joseph spoke God’s Word to Kings.
Daniel spoke God’s Word to Kings.
Paul spoke God’s Word to Kings.

What we believe & what we do & say are related.

What’s in our soul is what comes out of our mouth & is on display in our actions.

ENJOYMENT OF LIBERTY

SATISFACTION WITH SCRIPTURE

IT’S A DELIGHT v.47

And I will delight myself in thy commandments,

IT’S A DEVOTION

which I have loved.

Love for Gods Word & meditation on God’s voice result into obedience to
God’s will & communication of God’s purposes.

As we are filled with the truth of God’s Word, Jesus Christ fills our heart.

God & His Word will be our delight. The Lord will be our fountain of enthusiasm.

IT’S A DISPLAY v.48

My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved;

We’ll lift God’s Word everywhere to everyone. We won’t be embarrassed by
Your Word because we love Your voice & cherish each of Your thoughts.

IT’S A DELIBERATION

and I will meditate in thy statutes.

There’s nothing in this life like relishing every fragment of Your Word.

Adversity introduces us to ourselves.

Adversity introduces us to others.

Adversity comes in too many forms to number.

It could be

Physical Adversity is like a disability, disease, broken bone, chronic pain, etc.

Mental Adversity is like mental anguish, mental distress, psychiatric disorders,
adverse trauma, bereavement, domestic or family violence.

Emotional Adversity is like sadness, heartache, grief, depression, anger, frustration.

Social Adversity is like ridicule & rejection, character assassinations.

Spiritual Adversity is wrestling with unseen forces.

Financial Adversity is inadequate provisions

Adversity allows us to rewrite our story. We may have previously assumed we had a
dominant plot in our life. Now, through adversity the plot has changed.

Adversity introduces us to ourselves.

It’s the upheaval of unwanted change.

It’s the tragedy that disrupts the status quo & compels a new attention;

It’s the odd new form of resistance that motivates us to a new focus.

Now we find a whole new list of engagements & choices.

Adversity makes us adjust our level of trust.

We discover that those we thought were friends, or in some level are
individuals we could share or confide in, are now in opposition to us
or even enemies.

This is a crossroads.

We have to now take a different direction.

We need new, true friends, we can relax & confide in.

We avoid previous associations, recognizing their adverse & insecure effects on us.

These changes drive us to write what we really want to say,
Now we fill up the blank pages of our lives with new ink in our pens.

A good ending doesn’t have to be all secure & pleasant.

It only has to bring the story to completeness.

It is the cherries jubilee at the end of a feast.

The meal was brilliant, it was exquisitely developed

It was presented tastefully.

Then, the finishing touches are the rich cherry delights.

Our banquet endings are our final indulgences—

As our life story is lived well,

We want a tasteful ending to our life story.

An ending that’s sensual, maybe furiously zany, but sweet & filling,

Plus honoring & enriching to all that came before.

And, as we think of endings, it’s vital to understand it’s not about actual death.

We are here to help each other; to give a lift, maybe to stabilize each other or meet a need.

Nor is it about arriving; but, we went to get to a place where we can be an assistance.

That’s not an ending, but an end with a beginning.

We learn that our hopes are to help with someone who’s down & comfort others in failure

But to do that, we need to see each other’s successes & rejoice in those

Even though we’re all weathering tastes of decline & death.

We all want this ending in us that is really a beginning of reaching out,

To have that we have to learn our own Story.

The better we learn about ourselves, the more articulate we can be with others in their Story.

We learn of ourselves through deepening our intimacy with our Designer & Creator.

We discover ourselves by deepening our communication with our Savior and Friend,

Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is in relaxing in His voice,
It is in resting in His presence &
It is in realizing His individual purposes & plans.
It is in reveling in how intricate He individually devises each moment so uniquely for us

That we complete our own story & help others with their story.

In the shadow of His hand has He hid us,
He has made us a polished shaft;
in His quiver has he hid us.
Isa. 49:2

“In the shadow.”

We must all go there sometimes.

The glare of the daylight is too brilliant;

Our eyes become injured,

We’re unable to discern the delicate shades of color,

We’re unable to appreciate neutral tints-

We’re shadowed in the chamber of sickness,

We’re in the shadowed house of mourning,

A shadowed life from which the sunlight has gone.

It’s ok.

It is the shadow of God’s hand.
He is leading us.
There are lessons that can be learned only there.

The photograph of His face
can only be fixed in the dark chamber.

Don’t suppose that He has cast us aside.
We are still in His quiver;
He has not flung us away as a worthless thing.

He is only keeping us close
When the moment comes
He’ll send us swiftly & surely on some errand
in which He will be glorfied.

We are shadowed,
We are the solitary ones,

remember how closely the quiver is bound to the warrior,
It’s within easy reach of the hand,
It’s guarded jealously.”
Christ in Isaiah, Meyer.

In some spheres the shadow condition
is the condition of greatest growth.

The beautiful Indian corn never grows more rapidly
than in the shadow of a warm summer night.

The sun curls the leaves in the sultry noon light,
but they quickly unfold, if a cloud slips over the sky.

There is a service in the shadow that is not in the shine.

The world of stellar beauty is never seen at its best
till the shadows of night slip over the sky.

There are beauties that bloom in the shade that will not bloom in the sun.

There is much greenery in lands of fog, clouds & shadow.

The florist has “evening glories” now,
as well as “morning glories.”

The “evening glory” will not shine in the noon’s splendor, but comes to its best as the shadows of evening deepen.

If all of life were sunshine,
Our faces would be fain To feel
once more upon them
The cooling plash of rain.

Henry Van Dyke

Lord, you have poured out blessings on your people!

You have guided & been good to us all the way.

You forgave us our many sins,

You forgave us our stupid mistakes,

You forgave us our poor leadership,

You forgave us our petty controversies & more.

You held back Your fury
From time to time, I’m sure, You held back Your laughter.

Now restore us again, O God of our salvation.

As You have done before,
Please once more lay aside what we deserve

Shower on us what Your love decrees.

Revive us again & we will be careful
to thank You & celebrate Your goodness.

Show us Your unfailing love, O Lord,
Grant us Your salvation.

We will listen carefully to You,
We will lean in to catch Your whispers,

We watch Your face closely to pick up on Your signals.

Speak peace to us
Make us Your faithful people.

Speak wisdom & victory & righteousness in us

Your salvation is near us
Make us fear You in complete awe,

Fill us with Your glory.

You are unfailing love
Your are uncompromising truth.

In Your presence is righteousness & peace!
In Your presence, truth springs up
like crocuses from the earth,

From You righteousness beams down
like starshine from heaven.

Pour down Your blessings.

Pour out Your bounty.

Send on us a bountiful harvest,

Let us tell to all the news of your kindness.

Psalms 85 paraphrased

We Nurture, encourage, delight & enjoy others.

As our capacity to love grows,

We find that former flames of love no longer burn higher than all the others,

but a mere light along the path that brought us into the most full & robust love there is.

The love of God.

God wants us to love Him more,

God never wants us to love creatures (even animals) less.

We love everything in one way too much

(at the expense of our love for Him)

but in another way we love everything too little….

No person, animal, flower, or even pebble, has ever been loved too much—

more than every one of God’s works deserve.”

C.S. Lewis

Wait on the Lord.

Don’t get in a hurry.

Keep the doors open.

Only close the doors that God says we should close.

Wait for the LORD;
be strong & take heart
wait for the LORD
Psalm 27:14

Do we not know?
Have we not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,
His understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
He increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired & weary,
Even young men stumble & fall;

but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run & not grow weary,

they will walk & not be faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31

Where’s the greatest beauty?
Is it in the mountains?
Is it in the forest?
Is it in the seclusion of less humanity?
Is it in the solitude of isolation?

No!
It’s in the masses!
It’s in the crowds of humanity
It’s in the heavy population explosion
It’s in letting every new life be born
It’s in the burgeoning press of the cities

Every life is an image bearer of God

Where there’s more image of God
There’s more beauty

God is the source of all beauty

His design is to make us into His image

His delight is to take
our individually unique personalities
And fill us with the beauty of Himself

The most densely populated places
are the places of fathomless beauty

So How do we define beauty?

It’s where God is seen most
He loves cities.

Do we love cities?
Humanity is the potential sea of His beauty,

real beauty is where God
Fills each life with Himself

Let Him cover the sea of faces
with His glorious design of Christ within

THE PALACE OF BLESSING PSALM 1:1 PART 1

SATURATE IN YOUR BLESSINGS V.1

Blessed is the man

The blessed man is a portrait.

This portrait is proposed for exhibition.

We hang this picture in the art gallery of our soul.

How could we not want this masterpiece of the blessing of our Creator hanging in our heart?

Is there a middle ground between the blessed individual & the cursed?

I Corinthians notes three categories

the spiritual,

the carnal

the natural man.

The natural man are all who reject Christ.

Actually, the carnal or fleshly distinction exhibits a rejection of the Lord Jesus.

Jesus is received & adhered to in faith for eternal salvation.

The carnal react to the consequences of sin.

But, in day-to-day struggles they don’t

battle the natural inclination to sin.

Carnality is the grey zone of faith.

So what are the blessings?

Who are the blessed persons?

How are our blessings, related to those God has chosen to bless.

This is, a shared blessing.

This falls under the category of common grace we all experience.

Now in some spheres, common grace

is more common.

This is more then just the common grace of sun & rain & oxygen.

The more common grace I’m referring to be the grace and blessing of God’s blessing because of those we have around us. This is the favor we inherit by our relationships with and treatment of others.

God told Abraham He’d bless anyone who blessed him.

The word him includes his children,

(the nation of Israel.)

On the other side of this equation is that God would curse those who curse Abraham.

Ultimately this blessing & the cursing

is seen in our response to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus, is the culmination of all blessing

Jesus is the promised blessing from Abraham.

This blessing is initially seen in our response to the Israeli peoples.

God chose them through Abraham.

This promise is given in Genesis 12. God is the one who reaches out to bless.

In His blessing of the blessed man Abraham.

God is reaching to bless us.

THE SEVEN BLESSINGS GEN. 12:2-3

1. PERFORMANCE

I will make of thee a great nation

Great, is not especially numerically,

in contrast to other nations.

But great, in achieving the blessing of other nations.

2. PROSPERITY

I will bless thee

Abraham and his children prospered materially & spiritually

3. POPULARITY

Make your name great

Abraham’s prominence is incontestable, by the Israeli nation

4. PRODUCTIVITY

you shalt be a blessing

Jinfo.org and Wikipedia record that:

181 people of Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

This accounts for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide.

From 1901 to 2010

This accounts for 36% of all US recipients during the same period.

There are 13 million Jews.

The world population is 7.8 billion

One percent of 7.8 billion is 78 million

13 million is 0.16 tenths of percent of the world population

This nation, of 1/10 of a percent of the world population

Has received credit for 22% of the worlds Nobel prize awards

In the research fields of

Chemistry,

Economics,

Physics,

Physiology

Medicine,

This corresponds 26% in the world

This measures out to 39% in the US

Among women laureates in the four research fields,

the Jewish percentages

(world and US)

are 38% and 50%, respectively.

Of organizations awarded

the Nobel Peace Prize,

25% were founded principally

by Jewish descent.

Again Jews currently make up approximately 0.16% of the world’s population

and 2% of the US population.

There are 6 million Jews in America.

There are almost 6 million Jews in Israel.

The next country with a sizable population is France with

489 thousand Jews, the rest are scattered among 47 other countries. But this is less & less as individuals

of Jewish descent migrate to Israel.

90 percent of all Jews reside in either the USA or Israel.

Now, the Nobel is just one award of World recognition.

There are a variety of other recognitions

Who do they owe our blessings too?

God is faithful to His promises of blessing His chosen!

They make up minuscule part of the world’s population

But, they have been blessed in recognition for their productivity.

IN CHEMISTRY

31 PRIZE WINNERS,

20% OF WORLD TOTAL,

27% OF US TOTAL

IN ECONOMICS

28 PRIZE WINNERS,

42% OF WORLD TOTAL,

55% OF US TOTAL

IN LITERATURE

13 PRIZE WINNERS,

12% OF WORLD TOTAL,

27% OF US TOTAL

IN PEACE 9 PRIZE WINNERS,

9% OF WORLD TOTAL,

10% OF US TOTAL

IN PHYSICS

47 PRIZE WINNERS,

25% OF WORLD TOTAL,

36% OF US TOTAL

IN PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE

53 PRIZE WINNERS,

27% OF WORLD TOTAL,

40% OF US TOTAL

FOR THE KYOTO PRIZE

JEWISH RECIPIENTS MAKE UP

25% OF RECIPIENTS

FOR THE WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE

JEWISH RECIPIENTS MAKE UP

33% OF RECIPIENTS

FOR THE US NATIONAL MEDAL

OF SCIENCE

JEWISH RECIPIENTS MAKE UP

38% OF RECIPIENTS

The Muslim world are a population of 1.9 billion

That is 24% of the World population.

The Muslim world is the major resistor of the Jewish World.

The Muslim world has

9 Noble Prize winners total

One of these noble winners had two daughters who married Jewish men.

Abraham and his offspring have given many services to the world.

In every area of life, the Jews have made many wonderful contributions.

Science, aviation, photography, medicine, petroleum & electronics to name a few areas,

These fields have all had important contributions made by Jews.

And, of course, the Jews have made the most significant contributions to Christianity.

The Bible is a Jewish book.

So we learn, God blesses us, so we can bless others.

5. PERMEATION

I will bless them that bless thee

Any Nation, who is compassionate to the Jew is specially blessed by God.

The generosity of the USA towards Israel is crucial to our blessing as a nation.

The increase in anti-Semitism in our nation could put us under the sixth promise.

There are approximately 700,000 lawyers in the US.

20% are Jewish 140,000

One interesting side note.

24% of the New York population is Jewish.

Of the Lawyers in New York,

65% of the lawyers are Jewish

Of the Physicians in New York,

55% are Jewish

Of the Dentist in New York,

64% are Jewish

14% of physicians in the US are Jewish

30% of the surgeons in the US are Jewish

Of the 9 Supreme Court Justices 3 are Jewish & one is ½ Jewish

12 top billionaires are Jewish

60% of actors in US are Jewish

6. PROBLEMS

I will curse him that curses you

Nations that have oppressed the Jews have met Divine judgment.

Babylon, Rome, Egypt & Germany all went from major powers to oblivion or second-rate or obscure countries in contrast to their potential, because of bullying & mistreating the Jews.

He that touches you [the Jews]

touches the apple of His [God’s] eye Zechariah 2:8

7. PARDON

In you shall all families of the earth be blessed

In this blessing we’re seeing Galatians 3:6-8 (Phillips)

Blessing is a relationship with God where we’re made righteous in Christ

You can go right back to Abraham to see the principle of faith in God.

He, we are told, ‘believed God,

and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

Blessing is receiving our Redeemer,

He physically came through Abraham

All those who believe God are the real sons of Abraham?

The scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith in Christ,

really proclaimed the Gospel centuries ago in the words spoken to Abraham,

In you all the nations shall be blessed.

Blessing is the recompense of Righteousness on all who exercise faith

All men of faith share the blessing of Abraham who believed God, and it is counted to him and us for righteousness.

The blessed person is the one who finds his/her blessings in Christ.

He or she lives to bless persons who God has chosen as His.

The blessed person is the one who seeks out others so that they too, can find their calling from Christ.

So we’re blessed

GOD’S LIGHT SURROUNDS US

GOD’S LOVE ENFOLDS US

GOD’S POWER PROTECTS US

GOD’S PRESENCE WATCHES OVER US

GOD’S MIND GUIDES US

GOD’S LIFE FLOWS THROUGH US

GOD’S WORD DIRECTS US

GOD’S STRENGTH ABIDES IN US

GOD’S JOY UPLIFTS US

GOD’S GRACE RENEWS US

GOD’S BEAUTY INSPIRES US

GOD’S VOICE COMFORTS US

WHEREVER WE ARE GOD IS