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Showing posts from October, 2015

HOLY TIME

What delights capture your attention? The world offers a wide variety of indulgent options that can draw a believer away from what should be their greatest satisfaction—time spent studying God’s word. To treasure other things above the Word of God leads to trouble. Just check out the lives of Lot in Genesis 13; 18:1-19:38 and Achan in Joshua 6-7, and King Saul in 1 Samuel 15, and then Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 and you will see that the idolatry of self against the truth of the Word never wins out. We need a heart that seeks God, like Abraham in Gen 14:18-24, Moses in Hebrews 11:24-27, Mary of Bethany in Mark 14:3-9 and the apostle Paul in Philippians 3:1-11. If our heart is seeking God then our eyes will not lead us to stray from God. We must spend time in the Word and treasure it in our hearts by meditating upon it. “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.” (Psalm 119:15 ESV) Having a teachable spirit will enable us to learn from the Lord. Instead of

TROUBLED FAITH

I must admit that there are times when my problems turn into troubles.   At first I just shrug my shoulders and keep going. Then, there are the troubles that come one right after the other or all at the same time that’s when my faith becomes maxed-out. “Why, God? Why me?” seems to follow. Our man Moses said just like we might say it, “Lord, why are you treating me, your servant, so harshly ?” (Numbers 11:11) The short answer when the frequency of troubles strains our faith is: that for faith to be faith it must be tested and withstand the testing. Our heavenly Father sends tests to help us strengthen the worthiness of our faith. Wood is consumed by fire but gold becomes pure by its flames. Our faith will be torched if it only trusts God when everything is going well—when the kids and family are fabulous, when friends are friendly, when the body is functioning and when the job is paying better than expected. Real faith will glow when heated by the Lord’s faithfulness—when famil

DIVINE DELIGHT

Here is a truth that transcends your situations—the Lord takes pleasure in you, and rejoices over you. That should jump-start your faintly beating heart. That should be the news of the day to cheer you up. Christ-follower you are God’s delight! When we gaze into the mirror it’s a bit hard to see in ourselves why God should take pleasure in us. What we see is our whining and complaining over the burdens we are facing. We reflect upon our sinful antics and unfaithfulness. Our foolishness, imperfections and sicknesses are all that catch our minds eye.   Well then, instead of lamenting over yourself, lift up your eyes to this good news.   Nowhere in the Bible will you read that God delights in the majesty of purple mountains or twinkling stars or even His holy angles. His delight is in YOU!    You will read, however, that you are a fallen creature enslaved by sin, but saved, exalted, made righteous by His Son and glorified by His grace. Would you have ever thought that the One