11.7.12

Proverbs 27:7 A person who is full refuses honey, but even bitter food tastes good to the hungry.

 

My Thoughts

When we are hungry for Godly wisdom, for God's word and all that it teaches us even the hard parts come across as blessings. We can see the love of God shinning through all parts.  But when we our minds and hearts get too full of worldly things even the grandest promises of God will not matter to us. 

 

God's goal is to get us to heaven to live with Him where we are protected from evil totally 100 percent protected... a place where He can shower us with a love that we can not even comprehend here on earth.  God wants to keep us from the pain and darkness of hell.. from the demons and the fire.   If we can love Him surrounded by wonderful things then we get to be blessed by wonderful things here on earth.  But if we let "things" fill us so full that we refuse God's sweetness God puts us in a place where we can see His face. Not because He doesn't love us... but because he loves us so much and knows how important it is for us to seek His face and turn from the devil.

 

It is like a child that will not stay out of the road.  We don't want to punish then... we don't want to spank them.... we want to just be able to say.. you can stay out and play if you will stay out of the road....but if punishment is what it takes to keep them from loosing their life then that punishment is an act of great love even tho it is hard, so hard to do.  A good parent does it anyway, for the sake of the child, because they love that child so much.   God does not want us to loose our lives to darkness to death, to the fires of hell.  If He can tell us to stay out of the road while we play on our swing set then we get to play... but if he has to take everything away to keep us safe it is worth it. Because in the end He will give us so much more than time on a swing set. 

 

We need to stay hungry for God so hungry that even the bitter is easy to swallow... so hungry that we understand that sometimes God has to do things to get our attention... so hungry that when God does do something to get our attention that we look up into the heavens and say God thank you for loving me so much!!

11.6.12

Proverbs 27:4 Anger is cruel, and wrath is like a flood, but jealousy is even more dangerous.

 

My Thoughts

I am reminded of James 4:2 where it says,  "You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it."

 

I have read James several times...trying to get it deep into me.... where it becomes a part of me.  Verse 4:2 I read over quickly I wasn't killing anybody or waging ware...I was not picking fights.  Then one day I read it and thought about how when we want what others have... or even the things we see on TV.  When we are jealous that somebody might have something we don't have we kill our joy!  We kill our peace! We kill our ability to even stop and think of others!  Anger we can see, wrath usually passes quickly...but jealousy slithers around and catches us off guard.

 

If  you stop and think about it jealousy is the cause of so much... anger and wrath are more often the result of something...but jealousy is the cause of so much.  Jealousy can cause anger and wrath... jealousy is like a thief.  Think about it jealousy can actually rob us of all of the fruits of the spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 tells us that the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control. Jealousy takes away all of these!! Every one!! 

 

We should never, ever, ever let our wants rob us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control.  When we feel our wants taking away any of the fruits of the Spirit in our lives it needs to remind us that we have crossed over into jealousy, then we need to remember that jealousy is even worse than anger or wrath and stop it in it's tracks.

 

 

11.5.12

Psalm 105:37-38 The Lord brought his people out of Egypt, loaded with silver and gold; and not one among the tribes of Israel even stumbled.  Egypt was glad when they were gone, for they feared them greatly.

 

My Thoughts

When I read this verse I thought, "Look what happens when God is on your side!" They not only left the captivity of slavery...they left with treasures. They were bogged down with treasures!!  Look it even tells us that no one among the tribes of Israel even stumbled.  God gave them the strength they needed.  And, and, their enemies feared them greatly.

 

What does this tell us about our lives?... about today?  It tells us that if we keep our eye on God...if we love God with all our hearts that when He needs to rescue us He will, when He needs to protect us, He will. It tells us that when we stand with God against our enemies will will not only walk away, we will walk away with a prize!! 

 

God loves us so much! He does not want to see us hurt or hurting. He has so much He wants to give us.  When we choose to walk with God, to love God, to spend time with God. We get the extra blessing of living under the protection of the Almighty!!

11.4.12

Proverbs 27:1 Don't brag about tomorrow, since you don't know what the day will bring.

 

My Thoughts

In James 4:13-16 it says that boasting about tomorrow and all that we are going to do is evil.  We are also told that in Matthew 6:34 not to worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough troubles of it's own.  Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that God has plans for us, plans for our future plans to prosper us, good plans not evil plans. Plans for a future and plans that will give us hope.

 

We don't know what tomorrow brings for us... but God does!  He loves us! He wants us to live in this day, today and take it all in. When we worry and plan for tomorrow we miss so much that today has for us!  We need to live wisely like there will be a tomorrow but beyond that we are to do our best today! We are to love God like there will not be a tomorrow! 

 

One Wednesday night at Church we were talking about not sinning and the question was asked if we could go without sinning. In John 3:11 Jesus tells the woman at the well to "Go forth and sin no more." He doesn't tell her to go forth and try not to sin, He tells her to sin no more. He would not tell her to do something that is impossible.  I thought about this for a long time and I thought "For one day I could not sin...but not for a lifetime."  How much better could we be at not sinning, at all, if we lived one day at a time?  If we didn't think about tomorrow and left it in God's hands?

 

So often when I feel overwhelmed it is when I am thinking way to far ahead. Those thoughts of I will never get this done by this time or that time.  Oh, how am I going to accomplish all of that? In 24 hours there is only so much that I can do.  If I plan just for today I won't get bogged down with worry and I can do so much more!  If tomorrow comes to mind I need to ask myself only this question, "Is there anything that I can do today that will make that easier?" If the answer is no I need to focus on just today... if the answer is yes then I need to focus on just what I can do today.  As hard as a bad day can sometimes be we can get through one day at a time.  Just think how much easier it would be to get through if we don't put all of our tomorrows on our shoulders.. if we just leave those tomorrows in God's hands. 

 

God is always telling us how to make our lives easier, better.  Living in today seems to be pretty important. Living in today will make every day of our lives better. God has only our best interest in his heart. He says today is important all by itself.  We don't know what tomorrow brings for us. God does know what tomorrow brings for us ... we are so much more protected when we leave it all in His hands!

 

I so needed this reminder!

 

Hebrews 5:7 While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God.

 

My Thoughts

I looked up the meaning of reverence... here is how it was defined....

1.

a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.

2.

the outward manifestation of this feeling: to pay reverence.

3.

a gesture indicative of deep respect; an obeisance, bow, or curtsy.

 

To revere someone we need to feel it and show it in our actions.  If we feel it we will be in constant contact with God throughout our day.  We show it by our actions...by doing what God would have us do.  By asking ourselves before we act, "Would this please God?"

 

God heard Jesus' prayers because Jesus had a deep reverence for God.  Have you ever felt your prayers were only getting as high as the ceiling?  I have!  It is not because God is not willing to hear.. it is because we have failed to show God our reverence for Him. 

 

We don't have to be perfect!  God sent Jesus because we are so far from perfect.  But we do have to love God. Truly love God not just say we do.  We have to believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose again on the third day.  Then we show God we love Him by spending time with Him, always learning. Then we put what we have learned into action. 

 

This verse doens't say God heard Jesus because Jesus was Jesus... or because Jesus was perfect...it says that God heard Jesus because Jesus had a deep reverence for God.  If we look back at David and his life... God listend to the prayers of David and David was far from perfect. But, David always, always revered God.  God heard David's prayers.

 

If we think God is not hearing our prayers we need to stop and ask ourselves, "Have I show God how much I love him? Have I given God the reverence He so deserves?"

11.2.12

Ezekiel 3:17-19   (God said) "Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for Israel. Whenever you receive a message from me, warn people immediately.  If I warn the wicked, saying, 'You are under the penalty of death,' but you fail to deliver the waring, they will die in their sins. And I will hold you responsible for their deaths.  If you warn them and they refuse to repent and keep on sinning, they will die in their sins.  But you will have saved yourself because you obeyed me.

 

My Thoughts

We went to a church one time that hired a new preacher.  They hired him because he spoke God's word clearly and powerfully, but with love. Then not long after he arrived, just a few months he preached a few weeks on those everyday sins...those sins the people in our church were doing.  People started with-holding their tithes and ran this man of God off.  They didn't like what he had to say so they ran him off.  It was a very sad time to me... it really hurt my heart.

 

We should never get angry when we don't like what our pastors are preaching...if we do we need to stop and look honestly at ourselves and ask, "Is that something I need to be working on?" When we silence our pastors because we don't like what they say.. we put our own lives in danger. 

 

Have we really learned anything if when we go to church we hear about not murdering, committing adultery, stealing?  You know those big sins that most all of us see as sins.  Our pastors are doing us a favor when they preach on gossip, over spending, tithing, selfishness.  It is the job of our pastors to tell his congregation what they are doing wrong, the sins they are committing. When he does that he does it out of love for us... he is condemning our sins not our persons. He is loving us not judging us!!

 

God did not send angles down to be our pastors, he put people in that roll. People who mess up... who sin... who find themselves doing the very things they are called to preach about. People who understand what it is to mess up.  We should not get angry at these men/women.  We should love them for loving us enough to risk the wrath of our anger. Anger that comes from knowing somebody is right about us when we don't want them to be. 

 

Next time your pastor says something that make you squirm in your seat..don't get angry and refuse to come to church for a few weeks...we only hurt ourselves when we do that. Instead we need to shake his hand or hug his neck and thank him for loving us so much!!

11.1.12

Hebrews 3:16-19

And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn't it the people who sinned, whose corpse lay in the wilderness? And to whom was God speaking when He took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn't it the people who disobeyed him? So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter His rest.

My Thoughts

Here is what I have learned. I can't believe what I don't know.... and it is up to me to learn it! For so long the only part I truly knew was that Jesus died for my sins and if I believed in Him and asked Him into my heart I could go to heaven. I heard that part, I knew that part, I believed that part... I wanted to believe that I would go to heaven. But because I didn't know all the other wonderful things God could and would do for me... I was not able to be a part of all of that. Not being able to be a part of the peace of God made me question if I, me, Jeannie was really going to heaven. What I didn't know...I couldn't believe in...what I didn't believe in I couldn’t get.

There are so many, many "if's" and "then's" in the Bible. God tells us all the time, "If you do this, I will then give you this." The better I get at the doing...the more of the treasures I receive. Don’t get me wrong...I can't work my way into heaven...to get to heaven I have to believe in Jesus, ask forgiveness of my sins, and ask Jesus to come into my heart. I can't work my way into heaven...that is a gift from God, it is God's grace giving me what I could never earn. But there are so many, many other gifts of salvation. Once you learn what they are and you do the "if's," "then" get start reaping all the rewards that God loves to shower down.

God's rest comes from giving God control of my life. Learning to say, "Here I am God." The more I give God my thoughts, my words, my feet, my hands, my heart, my thanks‘, my praise. The more rest I feel because I know that God has my life in His hands and He is going to provide all my needs!! And on top of that He cares about the desires of my heart and He will give those to me if they are good for me.

There is a couple at my church, Terry and Dot Lewis. They love the Lord so much... He needed a lung to live, they believed! They believed that God would provide. He would make Terry's lungs better or make sure he had a new lung. They never gave up...they always had such peace. Terry got sicker and sicker and they still believed, they showed such peaces and rest. This week Terry got his new lung...and is doing wonderful. His progress after his transplant is amazing. When they took him back to do surgery they realized that Terry was closer to deaths door than even the doctors knew. Terry was in his final hours of life. If he had not believed and if he had not rested in God Terry may have used up that energy that kept him going, but Terry and Dot knew that God's plan was a good plan...they kept believing. Today Terry has a new lung. Dot and Terry knew God's promises and they believed.

If we what all that God has for us... we have to believe in God and His promises.... to believe in those promises we have to know them and understand what they are. "If we take the time to learn and believe "then" we get to have all the blessings of God.

Each day I know more... each day I believe more... each day my life gets better and better... each day I am more rested because more and more and more of my hope ... more and more of my life I place in God's hands.

If you want that kind of rest I beg of you to find a Bible that you can understand and start reading it... If you want to know.. all you have to do is pick up your Bible and tell God you want to understand and each day you will understand a little more and a little more and a little more.. Then one day you when you wake up for your sleep you will feel that smile on your face and that peace in your heart that only comes from trusting in God. It is amazing!!