NEVER FORGET!

12 years ago today tragedy came to our shores.  Most Americans have forgotten, and we will go about our day as usual (shame on us). Those lives and families that were forever changed by that day, THEY WILL NEVER FORGET.  There was an event of even greater magnitude over 2000 years ago when Jesus of Nazareth was tried, convicted, beaten beyond recognition and hung on a cross.  Most people have forgotten and some could care less.  For those whose lives have been radically transformed by the sustitutionary, atoning, justifying all sufficient work of Christ on the Cross...WE WILL NEVER FORGET!

Diligence

Diligence

No doubt we will all be diligent about many things today.  Getting to work, feeding the animals, making our doctors appointment, fixing dinner for the family and the list goes on.  How diligent are we when it comes to the things of God.

Psalm 119:4 AMP
You have commanded us to keep Your precepts, that we should observe them diligently.

Quite Doing What Is Right!

Please...Don't Do What Is Right!

It will lead to misery, discouragement, cynicism, failure and doubt.  That is exactly what Scripture says...quite doing what is right.  Read it for yourself.

Deuteronomy 12:8 KJV
Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.

Quite doing what is right in your eyes and start consulting God to find out the right things to do.

Complicated Prayer?

Complicated Prayer?

No, there is no such thing.  Just pray!  Adore Him, Confess any Sin, Thank Him, and bring Your Supplications(request) before Him.  Just like adding a pile of human works to salvation we all to often add complicated formulas and all kinds of potentially mystical and or ethereal cancers to communication with a holy God.  And by the way when you pray, it is communication, thus a two way street...listen to what the Spirit of God is saying!  Listen to Oswald Chambers advice from August 23.

Prayer— Battle in “The Secret Place”
" When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly "—Matthew 6:6Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “. . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . .” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.

ICHABOD

Ichabod

Quite possibly the most disheartening name in the entire Bible.  What a dreadful thought...the glory of the Lord is departed.  Is the glory of God evident in your life today?

1 Samuel 4:13-22 AMP
When he arrived, Eli was sitting by the road watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God. When the man told the news in the city, all the city [people] cried out. When Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What is this uproar? And the man came hastily and told Eli. Now Eli was 98 years old; his eyes were dim so that he could not see. The man said to Eli, I have come from the battle; I fled from the battle today. Eli said, How did it go, my son? The messenger replied, Israel fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter among the people. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is captured. And when he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell off the seat backward by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years. Now his daughter-in-law, Phinehas' wife, was with child, about to be delivered. And when she heard that the ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and gave birth, for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death the women attending her said to her, Fear not, for you have borne a son. But she did not answer or notice. And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel!–because the ark of God had been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband. She said, The glory is gone from Israel, for the ark of God has been taken. 

When God Speaks

When God Speaks

Do you recognize Him?  Are you listening with anticipation?  Everytime you open the Scripture God speaks.  We don't have to wonder as Samuel did however our response should be the same!

1 Samuel 3:10 AMP
And the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, Samuel! Samuel! Then Samuel answered, Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.

Proud or Disheartened

As a child you either made your parents proud or they were disheartened by your actions.  Now as a parent the shoe is on the other foot.        I Samuel 2 recounts a similar scenario. 

1 Samuel 2:12, 26 AMP
The sons of Eli were base and worthless; they did not know or regard the Lord. Now the boy Samuel grew and was in favor both with the Lord and with men.

What a contrast!  
Read the whole chapter to get the whole effect.