Passage of the Day: 2nd Peter 1: 10 – 11 (see in bold below) … 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
My Journal for Today: As a Christian reading this passage, especially verses 10 – 11 in the context of all of the attributes Peter has listed to which believers should aspire, do you find yourself drawn by God’s Spirit into a lifestyle of worship and witness exemplified by these exhortations?
>>> … Do you find yourself drawn like a magnet to a life of fruitfulness for Christ (meditate on John 15 and Paul’s great list of Spirit-given fruit in Gal. 5: 22 – 23)?
>>> … Do you find yourself building a house of faith on the foundation of Christ which will only be completed in heaven (see 1st Cor. 3: 10 – 15)?
>>> … Do you see yourself having a mission and purpose in this life compatible with Christ’s stated mission (in Luke 4: 18)?
If so, take heart … because one day those of us who have been born anew in Christ will be able to lay crowns of righteousness at the feet of Jesus, Who is the only One worthy of such praise and worship (see 2nd Tim. 4: 6 – 8 and Rev. 4: 10 - 11).
Personally, I find all of this daunting; because, though I do live for such pursuits, I most certainly fail at times, falling short of the mark which God’s Spirit sets before me. But if you, who read this, join me in surrender to the ideals of such a life of worship and surrender (see Romans 12: 1-2), we can revel in the assurance of our salvation. It is a healthy thing to be convicted when we sin and even to have doubts; … but to be able to openly and honestly confess those failures before God’s throne of grace and receive His merciful cleansing (see a verse I’m sure you have memorized - 1st John 1: 9). And we should be bathed in the confidence of what Peter has shared with us – inspired by God’s Spirit – in the passage above. We are CHRISTIANS !!
I once heard John MacArthur on the radio say that to have confidence in our salvation, we really must concentrate much more on our DESIRES than we do our DOUBTS. And if your desires really focus on Christlikeness for our own lives, we really should be buoyed in the assurance of our salvation; because lost people just don’t desire to become more like Christ. They are focused on themselves; and their doubts are in their own inabilities, not their shortcomings relative to our Lord. And so, my fellow Christ follower, it is our lot to live in this life worthy of that life we pursue; and that is Jesus Christ. [see Eph. 4: 1 – 2] And so, we move on to that end.
My Prayer Today: Thank you, Lord, for leading me in this life to become more like You. Amen
Showing posts with label doubts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doubts. Show all posts
Friday, July 29, 2011
Saturday, June 05, 2010
2010 – June 05 – Lord of Hills AND Valleys
Study from God’s Word… 1st Kings 20 - 22 … Passage for Reflection: 1st Kings 20: 28 … NIV 28 Then a man of God came and spoke to the king of Israel, and said, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Because the Syrians have said, “The LORD is God of the hills, but He is not God of the valleys,” therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the LORD.’”
My Journal for Today: Yes, Dr. Smith is right on today with a devotional we all need to study and believe. These people in Israel’s history, the Arameans with their king Ben-Hadad, believed that they could defeat the armies of the North in Israel if they fought them in the valleys; because they made the assumption that the God of Israel was a “hill-god.” And we read about such superstitions and haughtily look down on these ancient middle-eastern pagans as if they were so crude and idolatrous in their beliefs.
Yet, are their “pagan” beliefs that much different from our own? Don’t we perpetuate such “hill-God” and “valley-god” beliefs? Don’t we think that God is blessing us when we’re rolling along on the mountain-top highs of spiritual experience; and then, somehow, we think that some valley low in life is a “curse” from our God? But haven’t you, as a Christian, seen our God bring about incredible victories in the valleys as well as the hill tops of life? Well, I sure have.
As an Elder in our church, we’ve had brothers/sisters in Christ come forth with fatal prognoses out of obedience to God’s word (in James 5: 13-16) seeking healing prayer to God from their Elders. And we Elders prayed as we are exhorted to do in James 5, and some of these with “fatal” illnesses were delivered out of this valley of fear and despair, being healed where doctors could not explain the healing except to label it as a “miracle.” … I have personally experienced my God deliver me in the lowest valley of my life, when I could not find deliverance from my addiction to obsessive-compulsive sexual sin, … God providing me with the enabling/empowering grace I needed to walk out of that valley and climb to the mountain-top with my faith. So, you can’t tell me that the God of Israel in 1st Kings is not a God of the valleys as well as a valley on the hilltops in life today.
The question of our faith boils down to our belief level in the truth of in God’s Word in passages like Romans 8: 28, Romans 8: 31, 2nd Cor. 12: 9, and Phil. 4: 13; and I hope (and pray) that you have all of those memorized and internalized in your heart; because if you truly believe those passages, you know that we serve and worship a God of the valleys of life as well as of the hilltops. And when we read and study passages from Scripture like Isaiah 41: 10 and Proverbs 3: 5-6 and 2nd Tim. 1: 7 and Phil. 4: 6-7, we can be lifted up, clearly directed, and provided with the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding. Yes, my dear one, the more you know your God, the more you know that He’s with you in the valleys of life just as much as He is on the mountain-tops.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, You are ALWAYS with me. Amen
My Journal for Today: Yes, Dr. Smith is right on today with a devotional we all need to study and believe. These people in Israel’s history, the Arameans with their king Ben-Hadad, believed that they could defeat the armies of the North in Israel if they fought them in the valleys; because they made the assumption that the God of Israel was a “hill-god.” And we read about such superstitions and haughtily look down on these ancient middle-eastern pagans as if they were so crude and idolatrous in their beliefs.
Yet, are their “pagan” beliefs that much different from our own? Don’t we perpetuate such “hill-God” and “valley-god” beliefs? Don’t we think that God is blessing us when we’re rolling along on the mountain-top highs of spiritual experience; and then, somehow, we think that some valley low in life is a “curse” from our God? But haven’t you, as a Christian, seen our God bring about incredible victories in the valleys as well as the hill tops of life? Well, I sure have.
As an Elder in our church, we’ve had brothers/sisters in Christ come forth with fatal prognoses out of obedience to God’s word (in James 5: 13-16) seeking healing prayer to God from their Elders. And we Elders prayed as we are exhorted to do in James 5, and some of these with “fatal” illnesses were delivered out of this valley of fear and despair, being healed where doctors could not explain the healing except to label it as a “miracle.” … I have personally experienced my God deliver me in the lowest valley of my life, when I could not find deliverance from my addiction to obsessive-compulsive sexual sin, … God providing me with the enabling/empowering grace I needed to walk out of that valley and climb to the mountain-top with my faith. So, you can’t tell me that the God of Israel in 1st Kings is not a God of the valleys as well as a valley on the hilltops in life today.
The question of our faith boils down to our belief level in the truth of in God’s Word in passages like Romans 8: 28, Romans 8: 31, 2nd Cor. 12: 9, and Phil. 4: 13; and I hope (and pray) that you have all of those memorized and internalized in your heart; because if you truly believe those passages, you know that we serve and worship a God of the valleys of life as well as of the hilltops. And when we read and study passages from Scripture like Isaiah 41: 10 and Proverbs 3: 5-6 and 2nd Tim. 1: 7 and Phil. 4: 6-7, we can be lifted up, clearly directed, and provided with the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding. Yes, my dear one, the more you know your God, the more you know that He’s with you in the valleys of life just as much as He is on the mountain-tops.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, You are ALWAYS with me. Amen
Thursday, August 27, 2009
2009 – Day 238.Aug 27 – Futile Search
Passage of the Day: Job 10 … Linked for study …
My Journal for Today: Well, here we are back again with Job who is still confused and reeling with the desire to understand and find clarity for his loss and pain. Chapter 10 is like a replay of Chapter 3, isn’t it? But in the intervening time, Job has received feedback from Eliphaz and Bildad … to no avail. These men, whom we’ve seen are really friends of Job; and they are men who earned the right, by their grieving with Job and spending time being at his side, to share their ideas with this beaten friend.
BUT (again, it’s a big “BUT”), what they shared didn’t help. And we need to learn a lesson from that. And the lesson is that no amount of human or worldly wisdom, … scientifically based, historically sound, or culturally accepted, is going to be of help when a Christian friend feels abandoned by God. Job needed understanding for his dilemma; and when no man, even a caring friend, could explain his dilemma, all he felt was further separation from God.
What Job needed was truth; and my friend, that can only come from God, … not from man; and most certainly not from our own self. Sure, it’s okay to listen to friends, … especially Godly friends you trust – as did Job. But don’t expect them to be able to tap into God’s mind, … UNLESS they are quoting or exposing the one, true source of God’s mind; and that is something we have in God’s word, but something which Job had no access. Oh, what an advantage we have over poor Job. We not only have God’s truth to lean on when life goes awry; but we have the Mediator Whom Job sought but had not been a part of Job’s belief system.
Job’s God never left him or forsook him; but Job didn’t have that truth from Deut. 31: 6. Nor did he have the tradition of Joshua 1: 5 to lean on. And most certainly the concept of a coming Redeemer, “a Messiah,” was not part of his conscious belief as yet. So, all Job had was three friends with very human, and very imperfect, ideas about WHY all this was happening. Therefore, Job returns to God and he re-voices his confusion and angst here in Chapter 10. And therein lies a second lesson, we can learn from Job’s dilemma; and that is to keep going back to God when there is confusion or pain which we simply cannot understand from our human hearts/minds.
If you’ve been following along with this study in Job, we’ve seen Job persistently going to the one – and only – place he knows to go, in faith, for answers; and that is to God. And here in this Chapter we see our downtrodden hero doing just that - AGAIN. So, we learn that if – or I really should said WHEN – we are in a place of utter confusion and even doubting God’s presence or power, we must GO TO HIM. And we must keep going to Him to get answers. And yes, prayer is one way; but I’ve found that the best way is to go deeper and deeper into the word of God, and finding God’s promises and His perfect insights to lift us up when we feel separated from God due to our feelings.
Feelings are so very fickle, my friend. Don’t trust them for a moment! Don’t rely on them at all!! The only answers we’ll ever get to explain things or lift us up are found in The Bible. The only place we can go with our feelings is to God. And when we do, we’ll find what is promised in the Bible and what our relationship with God will produce … and that is to trust Him – in faith – with the truth of passages like Deut. 31: 8 … Joshua 1: 8 … Proverbs 3: 5, 6 … Romans 8: 28 … 1st Cor. 10: 13 … or Phil. 4: 13. And all of those are truths which just bubbled up into my mind from my heart/mind as I was sitting here writing this. I hope you know them – and others as well; and I hope that you lean on those truths when God has led you into “the valley of the shadow of death.”
My Prayer for Today: Lord, You are with me always; and Your truths, they do comfort me. Amen
My Journal for Today: Well, here we are back again with Job who is still confused and reeling with the desire to understand and find clarity for his loss and pain. Chapter 10 is like a replay of Chapter 3, isn’t it? But in the intervening time, Job has received feedback from Eliphaz and Bildad … to no avail. These men, whom we’ve seen are really friends of Job; and they are men who earned the right, by their grieving with Job and spending time being at his side, to share their ideas with this beaten friend.
BUT (again, it’s a big “BUT”), what they shared didn’t help. And we need to learn a lesson from that. And the lesson is that no amount of human or worldly wisdom, … scientifically based, historically sound, or culturally accepted, is going to be of help when a Christian friend feels abandoned by God. Job needed understanding for his dilemma; and when no man, even a caring friend, could explain his dilemma, all he felt was further separation from God.
What Job needed was truth; and my friend, that can only come from God, … not from man; and most certainly not from our own self. Sure, it’s okay to listen to friends, … especially Godly friends you trust – as did Job. But don’t expect them to be able to tap into God’s mind, … UNLESS they are quoting or exposing the one, true source of God’s mind; and that is something we have in God’s word, but something which Job had no access. Oh, what an advantage we have over poor Job. We not only have God’s truth to lean on when life goes awry; but we have the Mediator Whom Job sought but had not been a part of Job’s belief system.
Job’s God never left him or forsook him; but Job didn’t have that truth from Deut. 31: 6. Nor did he have the tradition of Joshua 1: 5 to lean on. And most certainly the concept of a coming Redeemer, “a Messiah,” was not part of his conscious belief as yet. So, all Job had was three friends with very human, and very imperfect, ideas about WHY all this was happening. Therefore, Job returns to God and he re-voices his confusion and angst here in Chapter 10. And therein lies a second lesson, we can learn from Job’s dilemma; and that is to keep going back to God when there is confusion or pain which we simply cannot understand from our human hearts/minds.
If you’ve been following along with this study in Job, we’ve seen Job persistently going to the one – and only – place he knows to go, in faith, for answers; and that is to God. And here in this Chapter we see our downtrodden hero doing just that - AGAIN. So, we learn that if – or I really should said WHEN – we are in a place of utter confusion and even doubting God’s presence or power, we must GO TO HIM. And we must keep going to Him to get answers. And yes, prayer is one way; but I’ve found that the best way is to go deeper and deeper into the word of God, and finding God’s promises and His perfect insights to lift us up when we feel separated from God due to our feelings.
Feelings are so very fickle, my friend. Don’t trust them for a moment! Don’t rely on them at all!! The only answers we’ll ever get to explain things or lift us up are found in The Bible. The only place we can go with our feelings is to God. And when we do, we’ll find what is promised in the Bible and what our relationship with God will produce … and that is to trust Him – in faith – with the truth of passages like Deut. 31: 8 … Joshua 1: 8 … Proverbs 3: 5, 6 … Romans 8: 28 … 1st Cor. 10: 13 … or Phil. 4: 13. And all of those are truths which just bubbled up into my mind from my heart/mind as I was sitting here writing this. I hope you know them – and others as well; and I hope that you lean on those truths when God has led you into “the valley of the shadow of death.”
My Prayer for Today: Lord, You are with me always; and Your truths, they do comfort me. Amen
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