April 8, 2012 … Just Do It !!

Passage of the Day: Reference of Today’s Chronological Bible Study: 1st Samuel 4-8 … To study these chapters, go to this link -

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Highlight Reference Passage : 1st Samuel 7: 2-5 … 2 The ark remained at Kiriath Jearim a long time—twenty years in all. Then all the people of Israel turned back to the LORD. 3 So Samuel said to all the Israelites, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” 4 So the Israelites put away their Baals and Ashtoreths, and served the LORD only.

My Journal for Today: Reading on in 1st Samuel today, Chapters 4-8, we read of what a “hot potato” the Ark of the Covenant became when it was in the hands of the Philistines; and it took plagues and deaths of their people everywhere they took the Ark before they finally returned the power-laden ark to the Israelites; and even then they merely thought that the “God” of the Israelites was merely stronger than their gods, whom they continued to worship.

And it even took the Israelites to see seventy of their own to die at the hands of the One, True God for them to finally see that the Ark was more than just an idol in-and-of itself, to be used for military victories.

Why is it that it takes disasters or cataclysmic events in our lives for us to turn to God?

I can recall what it took in my life. Even after reading the New Testament in a class in college; and having Christian after Christian testify of God’s saving grace to me, I still couldn’t choose to realize that God was real and the idols in my life produced nothing by pain and continued personal weakness. But God, in His infinite mercy and His prevenient grace, pursued me as the “Hound of Heaven’” and ultimately broke me to the core of my being just as He did with His chosen ones at this stage in their history (i.e., in 1st Samuel where I’m reading now).

Why, when we hear the Gospel or the truth from the testimony of someone whose life has been transformed by Jesus, do we keep holding on to our fleshly idols? Or why, when we read or hear the truth proclaimed in a passage like John 3: 16, don’t we do what the Nike company’s logo used to proclaim and Just Do It !!, i.e., receive God’s merciful, saving grace? So often we have to experience personal brokenness or disaster before we’re willing to just see God for Whom He is and receive His saving or sanctifying grace. Even Christians, some who’ve been saved and have backslidden for years, find that they have to experience horrible personal brokenness to bring them back to a place there they can … “JUST DO IT” … and surrender their idols before God and receive His grace in surrender of their own will to that of the God Who saves.

Today, as I read and journal here, it is Easter; and we, who believe in the One True God Who saves, will proclaim, Hallelujah, He is risen!! But as we proclaim it with our lips, prayerfully in genuine worship of our LORD, Who died and was risen for our salvation, will we truly worship God by doing what Yahweh demands … to serve Him as the ONE AND ONLY God? Will we, today of all days, in our hearts, JUST DO IT and set aside all the idols in our lives and turn them over to the Lord, Who shed His blood that we might live and celebrate life with Him forever?

Hey, my friend … on this special day of worship … LET’S JUST DO IT!!!

My Prayer Today: … LORD, You are my LORD!!! And You are risen !!! I worship Your Holy Name … forever!! Amen