When Others Speak Evil Against You, Be Comforted

In life God comforts us, like a Father, in many ways. Perhaps one of the most difficult times to face is when others speak against us, looking at our situation and thinking that God is not with us. All too often in my walk I have seen and heard Christians speak against other Christians who at that time are in a stage of suffering or at a low point. I have even seen people in group prayer times “pray at” other Christians in the group (or not in that group) as if they were either teaching them or exalting themselves. My brethren, this ought not be so. For we are all mere mortals, who God in His mystery has decided to save through His Son Jesus. We are none in a better position than another. We all fall short, we all make mistakes that could cause those outside to look down on us and on Jesus. It is God alone that extends His hand to reach beyond us to those in need. Above all we should pray that God reveal Himself and His commandments to those in and out of the body of believers.

To God be the glory! In Psalm 71:21 this very situation is being experienced by the psalmist, and he cries to God who will comfort him on every side. And by the way, all those that speak evil against the psalmist, God makes sure it does not turn out well for them, in His mercy, to get them to realize that He alone is God.

Prayer
Father, You alone are God, King of the universe. We praise and exalt You as the Most High God. Please reach out to Your people today, and comfort them on every side. And those that speak badly of Your people, bring their own shame upon them, expose them, bring them low (whether they are within the body or outside it) that they might know that You are God, and turn to You. In Jesus name. Amen.

Peaceful Completeness

Yesterday we looked Psalm 76 and talked about this “place”. As I was thinking about this today it occurred to me that the sabbath is supposed to be this. It is a place of rest and reflection. We are encouraged by God over and over again in the scriptures to follow His commandments. It is as if that is a path or passage way of some sort. In Psalm 112 we see that God gives us light in the darkness, that He makes us to have riches, and establishes our households. We only need keep His commands. In verse four it says there arises light for the upright in the darkness. I believe this means that when we stumble, God knows our heart, and raise up light for us to find our way back to the path. In verse seven it says we will not be afraid of evil tidings, that our heart will remain steadfast on God. To whom are these promises made?

In verse one it says these promises are made to the one that delights in the commands of God. It is one of my deepest prayers that this can be all of us.

Prayer
Father, we praise and thank You for being God. We ask that You reach out to everyone, to reveal the blessing of Your commandments, and to cause us all to draw closer to Jesus. In Jesus name. Amen.

Broken Arrows

Some years ago I saw a movie by this title, but no this is not about that military term, at least not exactly. What we are discussing is the place where God says He has broken the arrows and bows and shields of the enemy. That sounds like a place I want to live my life – the place where the enemy has no weapons or power against us. God describes this place in Psalm 76:1-3.

As I read this scripture this morning I realized a pattern that was true in the Old Testament Hebrew, the pattern of saying something twice, of repeating the same thing differently. Yes, I just did it there. As I read the first three verses, I saw this pattern in each one. The trouble is I saw that God said He lived in three places in the first two verses, and then called them one place in the third verse. That is when I realized it was not a physical place He was describing. I went back and looked up the meanings of the names Judah, Salem, and Zion. Als the words God, name, tabernacle, and dwelling place. Substituting those meanings we get:

In praise God (actually here the plural gods – angels, Elohim, us as believers) is seen. His position is in strong power. In peaceful completeness is His cover. His physical dwelling (that would be us) is in the pillar of the wilderness desert. There is where the weapons of the enemy have been destroyed. If we can praise and remain in a state of peaceful completeness by trusting God is in us and will prevail, the enemies weapons are broken.

Prayer
Father, we praise and exalt You as the most High. We put our trust in You, that You live in us and through us. You will break every weapon of the enemy. Please be with Your people today and help them to this place. In Jesus name. Amen.

A List Worth Keeping

Scriptures encourage us not to keep a list of wrongs against us by others. This is part of what Jesus meant when He answered Peter to forgive his brother who sinned against him not seven times, but seventy times seven. In Matthew 18:22 Jesus tells the parable of the man in debt that was forgiven the debt, but then wanted to extract much from someone that owed him money. If we stop and think all of us have been forgiven more than we can imagine. All of us. What we need to remember is we are not to hold sin against others, because we were forgiven. Don’t keep that list!

One thing that helps me in times like the one Peter described, and life in general, is the one good list I do try to keep. It is the list that has helped me in my hardest times. It is the list of all I have to be thankful for in life. Everybody’s list is different. I try to remember to read some of it from memory out loud every day. As I say these thank yous out loud to God, my heart is refreshed and my spirit renewed. Now THAT is a good list!

Prayer
Father, King of the universe, I thank You for my life. I thank You for what You provide for me to eat and to wear, and a place to lay my head each night. I thank You for the health I have. I thank You for my family. I thank You for the leaders at church who are willing to try every day. I thank You for those I work with that help me through the day. I thank You for those You bring my way that are not so good to me that You might teach them who You are through being around me. Thank You for being God. In Jesus name. Amen.

Choosing Wisely

Growing up my dad raised me to be an idealist. As I grew older the result was to see many challenges around me. When I asked my dad about this he told me sometimes we have to pick our battles. At the time it seemed a little like a cop out. Today I can see better what he meant, that one person has only so much time and resource and must choose wisely. As I listened to the message at church this weekend, I thought of another application.

Often we end up battling the enemy because we choose to do so. That may seem like an odd thing to say. Granted, we will have plenty of times when we have to battle the enemy when we did nothing to bring it on. In fact, hopefully those are the only types of battles we have with the enemy. Unfortunately, we will also have battles that we bring on. What do I mean? Well, how are we doing with temptations in our life? When we give in to these temptations, no matter how small, we actually choose that battle. In fact, we choose a losing position until we fail, fall on our knees, and ask God for forgiveness. We cannot win long term by fighting the enemy by his rules. We have to fight him by God’s rules. This means we have to serve God and call to Him because the devil is already defeated. That is, unless we surrender to our enemy, which is what giving in to temptation and sinning really is – surrender to the enemy.

I choose not to surrender to the enemy but rather to serve God.

Prayer
Father, we praise and exalt you as the Most High God. Thank You for winning the battle for us before it is fought. Please help us not to surrender to the enemy. Please help us to overcome temptation, and to life our lives committed to You. In Jesus name. Amen.

Building Begins With Us

When I think about how we as a church are to build each other up, I try to look past the words to the doing of it. How is it done, really? It seems to me that no matter what, there has to be a start, right? In my life someone shared Jesus with me. I had to choose. But even beyond that we each have a responsibility to look to our own lives and with our whole heart seek God.

In Psalm 119:10 the psalmist he is talking to God and says he has sought God with his whole heart, and asks God not to let him move away from God’s commands. From verses 9-16 he looks to God, commits to the relentless pursuit of God, and the interaction with God. He was wise enough to know his own shortcomings. Even though he committed to do his best, to say what God said, he realized he needed God to get on with life on a daily basis. Me too.

Prayer
Father, King of the universe, I ask that You reach out to Your people today, even now, to help us not stray from your commands. Please help us to keep our heart dedicated to You. We make mistakes. Please pick us up and help us get back on the path. You alone are God and Judge. In Jesus name. Amen.

No List Of Wrongs

Some things are just really helpful to me in my walk with God. I am encouraged to keep trying when I read scriptures like Psalm 78. In verse 38 it speaks about God forgiving the iniquity of the children of Israel when they sinned against Him. Before this and after this the psalmist recounts all the signs and wonders God did for them in the wilderness. They would walk away from God, but He would draw them back. At the end it speaks of David.

David had an interesting life. In the last few verses it speaks of God calling him from shepherding sheep to shepherding His people. This is the same David that had an affair with his neighbor’s wife and then had the man killed. God said in these last verses that He chose David because he would shepherd them according to the integrity of his heart. I am encouraged because God, unlike we humans, does not keep a list of wrongs, but rather looks for what is best in us, and works with us to get better.

Prayer
Father, thank You for not keeping a list of our wrong doings. Thank You for forgiveness. Thank You for always working with us toward getting things right and doing Your will. Thank You for being a good Dad. In Jesus name. Amen.

Brick Sidewalks

This morning early I went outside and pulled the weeds out of the long crack between the slabs in my driveway. It seems they were designed to be expansion joints, but they have become the one place in the driveway where the weeds can and do grow. I noticed when I was pulling these weeds that somehow it was comforting. That made me wonder why. Maybe it was because the rain had made it easy and fast. Maybe it was because the difference was so dramatic when the weeds were gone. Then it hit me.

When I was a child I lived on a farm, and the driveway was gravel, not like the nice cement I have today. There was a short walkway from where we parked the car next to the house to the small slab of cement we called the back porch. It was “L” shaped and was made of old red brick. Every spring it would sprout weeds in every one of those cracks. My parents would pay me 50 cents to use a screw driver and pair of pliers and my bare hands to pull the weeds from all those cracks. I remember when I first started to do it, I was frustrated because I did not know how to do it very well. Over time, I got very good at it and it became a more simple and faster task. I got to where I liked it because I always beat the weeds. They never won.

In life I have found that it is good to enjoy the simple things that can make so much difference. It is comforting to remember, the weeds never win.

Prayer
Father, I praise and thank You for being our God; for always watching over us. I thank You Father that You have given us the power over the weeds in our life. Please help us to remember that we have that power and to use it for good. Please help Your people get the weeds out and not be frustrated. In Jesus name. Amen.

Rest And Reflection

There is something about resting on the sabbath and reading scriptures that is just different. There is a certain peace that does not exist on other days for me. Perhaps it is the general sense of the importance of the sabbath to God. This morning I was reflecting on the scripture Psalms 119:110. Here the psalmist talks about how those that are against him have laid a snare for him, but he has not forgotten the law (continued serving God). He says that these directions from God are actually his heritage, like a family heirloom. They make the psalmists heart sing. I know that feeling. Then the psalmist says he will listen to God, and will make his stand with God forever.

It is a Father’s greatest hope to pass along a heritage to his children. I can understand why God wants to do this for us. I only hope that I, too, can pass along God’s heritage to my children.

Prayer
Father, Thank You for the inheritance of the wisdom of the laws and statutes You have placed in our heart as the new covenant. Thank You for Your son Jesus and the sacrifice He made. Please help us to pass the heritage You have given to us to our children. In Jesus name. Amen.

Why Did The Children Like Him?

We have probably all hear the phrase used, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” This was spoke by Jesus in Matthew 19:13. I reread that this morning and realized that I had remembered the passage wrong. I thought Jesus was speaking to the parents; He was not. He was speaking to his disciples, the “new leadership” of the forming church. This is worth looking at.

Jesus had just said it was not for everyone to accept what He was saying, but only those to whom it had been given. Then it was the parents that brought their children to Jesus for Him to bless them, and children are like the rest of us – they always want to be blessed. The disciples tried to hold them back. Why do you suppose the new leaders were doing this which we now know was against His will? Certainly they knew that Jesus was the Messiah. They had seen the miracles. He had chosen each one, one at a time, directly. How could they be so off? I have heard it said that they just did not want people to bother Him. That would be an odd explanation, because that is what they were already doing, walking with Jesus as He reached out to the people. Here is what I think.

The new leadership was well meaning. They were men like all of us, trying to learn at the feet of Jesus. But other than Jesus, what did they know about believing, about religious gatherings, or about being leaders? What they knew they learned mostly from the Sanhedrin, the old leadership. They were around them since childhood, and in the bible those guys were definitely not so friendly or reachable. They exerted control just for the sake of control and because they were in charge. Even though the new leadership had good intentions, and frequently (most often) got it right, even they messed up and sometimes prevented the people from reaching Jesus directly. The good news is, Jesus intervened, as He always does, and blessed the children anyway. Isn’t it good that we can always count on God to get us through and to reach out to us through anything or anyone? Isn’t it good that we can make mistakes and be keeping people from the blessings and power of Jesus, and He gently reaches past us to them? God is good!!!

Prayer
Father, King of the universe, we love You. Please forgive us for not always getting it right. We are just human, like everyone else that You want to reach. Please help us to learn to bring people to Jesus, and not keep them away. And when we mess up, please gently reach past us to them anyway like You always have. In Jesus name. Amen.