Day 1: Listening To God - In the Beginning

Day 1: Listening To God - In the Beginning

Read: Genesis 1: 1 - 27

After 100 consecutive days of devotion and prayer a new series of daily devotions titled 'Listening to God' is about to begin. I have been truly honored and humbled that God has seen fit to include me as being worthy to be one of His instruments blessed with the honor passing along portions of His great wisdom. It is the dawn of a new morning. It is a new morning borne like so many others before it, spoken into its own unique existence by the still small almost imperceptible voice of God. Can you hear it? Are you listening for it? Do you long to hear the voice of God speaking into your heart?

Through out this morning's Scripture passage, are several remarkable, seemingly impossible phrase "Then God said ...." When I step back for a moment to consider these words is "Okay, but who or what was listening?" I mean there had to be a truly remarkable pair of ears out there that were tuning in to the vast silence of the great void. But, whose ears could consciously listen so intently and patiently and discern the voice of God? Somebody absolutely had to be listening or there could not be the stars, the Sun. Where would any of us be today if there was no one was listening or doing? I do not know the answer for sure. However it makes sense that creation itself is the one that is listening.

Do you have a longing to hear the whisper of God's voice? The still small voice heard by creation itself at the dawn of all the new beginnings? Deep down within the very core of our being, we all have a longing for something beyond ourselves. However, such a longing cannot ever be satisfied unless we deliberately place ourselves in a position to listen to Him. Since the very dawn of all creation, God has long desired to create within us a willing heart and an open mind so His voice can be heard. God has had a message for each of us every day. Like creation itself, we wants us all to listen.

God, in His grace has made it possible to hear His voice in a variety of ways: through the beauty and splendor of the natural order of creation. We hear His voice through His written Word, through the ministry and teachings of only His Son Jesus Christ. We hear what He has to say through the ministry of the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts in the relationships we develop as we love God and our neighbor with all we have within us. In so many ways too numerous to try and count God is speaking now. God desires to reveal himself to us. He desires us to listen and to hear what He has planned too.

Lord, As you spoke to Creation itself and it listened, speak to us the Ancient wisdom that we may hear and listen to Your great plan for us. Reveal Yourself to our hearts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgM3nokGVqg
WHISPERS OF MY FATHER - ANCIENT WORDS by Michael W. Smith with Lyrics
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WHISPERS OF MY FATHER - ANCIENT WORDS by Michael W. Smith with Lyrics

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Day 100: Day To Day Pours Forth Speech .....

Day 100: Day To Day Pours Forth Speech .....

Read: Psalm 19

This morning, on this the 100th consecutive day, I begin to prayerfully contemplate what timeless snippet of God's wisdom this devotional offering might bring into your heart. When I began this act of obedience to the call of God, there was an awesome amount of fear and trepidation stirring around in my spirit. Could I wake up each and every morning at 5:30? Did I possess the necessary level of confidence to bring you sound Biblical teaching making it contemporary enough that anyone could relate to it? Did I possess the spiritual insight to pull out deep spiritual truths to bring it together?

There is just so much Scripture to learn and to study. The Old Testament brings us the story of how our everyday life began and was lived out in very primitive settings. I don’t know about you, but it’s easy for me to forget that the letters in the New Testament were first written as real letters. They speak to bringing about a complete relationship between God in heaven and mankind on earth, powerfully expressed in real life situations thru the responsive actions of real live people like you and me. It is really a deeply humbling experience that God's silent voice bring all things together.

Day after day while we are awake, living and working and night after night while we are asleep in recovery mode, God's silent voice speaks directly into our lives. How awesome is that? Covered by the pinions of His wings by day and by the blanket of His vigilant Shepherd at night. It brings the most wonderful image to my mind of my Mother and Father holding me and protecting me as an infant. At night, they are tucking the blanket under me so I am safe and warm through the night. A relationship more desired than the finest gold! Sweeter than the finest honey any honey bee gave! There is just nothing on earth to compare to the silent voice of our God from heaven!

Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world (Psalm 19:2 - 4a)Do you long to hear God's silent voice. Not an audible sound that only a few ever get to experience, but the still small voice of God coming into your heart and mind, assuring you that He is ever true and always with you? Are you really ready to listen to what He needs to tell us? Are we really prepared for God's silent voice?

Let us pray: Lord, as we take the time to reflect on these past 100 days, we realize more and more on just how much of our own completeness depends on Yours. We thank you for the completeness of Your wisdom and all the moments that we found ours lives inspired our faith emboldened and strengthened. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhT2ljOi5ds
There is none like you Robin Mark
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Used for worship at our church. If you like it, give it a thumbs up so others can find it. Buy it as well. Check out our website at www.islingtonbaptistchurc...

There is none like you Robin Mark

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Used for worship at our church. If you like it, give it a thumbs up so others can find it. Buy it as well. Check out our website at www.islingtonbaptistchurc...

Day 99: Another Bucket Full Of Silence!

Day 99: Another Bucket Full Of Silence - Is Humility Close By?

Read: James 1:1 - 8

This is the day that the Lord has made so let us rejoice. I am in the mood for singing. Last night, I just had this unshakable confidence of today being just a wonderful day. We would all like to be able to sing the song, “Oh what a beautiful morning, Oh what a beautiful day, Oh what a beautiful morning, I have a wonderful feeling that everything’s going to to be going my way.” Sometimes we have days like that. But a lot of our days don’t quite come up to those expectations. One irritating truth I would love to dispense with is in “real life” we experience too much frustration, too much silence.

We ask, “well, why can’t things go my way once in awhile? Why am I always having delays and hassles all the time?” Are we asking too much of today too soon? We are only making a simple request of today -- please let this be the day when all things go okay. However, it is not destined to be so. There seems to be no end to things you could name. There are all kinds of delays as well as numerous other circumstances that cause us to lose our patience. Consider these: abrasive people at work, delays on the interstate, a slow moving checkout line at WalMart, the cat ate the canary bird.

So, what do we do? What have we been taught to do in the midst of this kind of not so wonderful day? We pray "God, what good are these delays? What good do these host of unceasing frustrations serve in my life especially on this, your day of all days?" Invariably, all we get is one big bucket filled with silence. Others seem to have their prayers answered. But not us, not this time, not the last time either and probably not the next time other. We pray again "What gives with this silent treatment, Lord?" One more time we are on the receiving end of an aggravating, irritating bucket of silence.

Immanuel, God with us, except that right now, hanging on to these buckets of silence, it does not seem that Immanuel is very close by, hearing the cries of our frustration. Then it dawned on me. Maybe I have things confused. Maybe this silence is not God neglecting me in my hour of greatest need. Maybe this silence is a well calculated, very carefully considered expression of God's vast wisdom - "Be still, learn patience, My son!"

 

I believe I am on to something awesome here. All the frustration that is weighing my heart down is constantly forcing me to my knees in prayer. My Immanuel is with me, His patience, His humility is always with me when I pray. God's silence is God's voice!

Lord, thank you for the wisdom of Your great silence. For it is there that the answers to all of life's frustrations may surely be found. Let the weight of our frustrated hearts ever send us to our knees to consider the vast awesomeness of your still silent voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ0l58MilTk&feature=g-vrec
You Are For Me - Gateway Worship
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You Are For Me featuring Kari Jobe and the Gateway Worship team. From the God Be Praised DVD So faithful, so constant and so true So

You Are For Me - Gateway Worship

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You Are For Me featuring Kari Jobe and the Gateway Worship team. From the God Be Praised DVD So faithful, so constant and so true So

Day 98: Losing One's Burden: Journey To Humility

Day 98: Losing One's Burden: Journey To Humility

Psalm 55:16 - 23 A Psalm of King David - A Song For Those Greatly Burdened.

Rules, Rules, Rules, there were always too many of them around the house. There were too many in school, there were just too many in any job I have ever had. There are more rules everywhere you go. There are rules about rules. There are just too many to keep track of. Rules beget rules which beget even more rules which, you guessed, necessitate more rules to put those other rules in their proper perspective. It is the worst kind of hair pulling experience trying to keep up and follow the logic of some finitely worded, finitely detailed piece of paper that just kept burdening my life.

I know that there have to be rules, without them there would be chaos and everything would be a mess and nothing would get done. The sun would go spinning off in some direction and what kind of fun would that be. There has to be a natural order to life. And then as I was writing this, I realized something so completely awesome. It is a perspective that I did not even considered until it was just now revealed to my heart. It is this; what an unbearable burden it would be if I had to be the one responsible for keeping all the rules of this universe. Yet, God does it without any kind of complaining.

I struggle with rules. Keeping them or remembering them all would be an absolutely exhausting burden. I could never hope to keep them all straight. So, as I am sitting here writing this, my heart is saying to me "why do you even bother trying?" A valid question that, for once, thunders into my weighed down spirit to take a God - sized step back to gain a new perspective, God's perspective, on this burden I have placed upon myself for no reason. Consider prayerfully where David placed his confidence:

16 But I call upon God,
and the Lord will save me.
17 Evening and morning and at noon
I utter my complaint and moan,
and he will hear my voice.
18 He will redeem me unharmed
from the battle that I wage,
for many are arrayed against me.

If we are exhausted by anything, it is because we have allowed ourselves to be led away by the burden of our pride, the burden of allowing ourselves to believe that we can do more and be more than God. We place too much of our own confidence that we can bear any burden no matter how devastating. David placed his confidence in the Lord God, not upon his own shoulders, that God alone could bear the unbearable.

22 Cast your burden on the Lord,
and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
the righteous to be moved.

Today, Consider 'Burden' to be your greatest enemy. Pray unto the Lord Psalm 55! Personalize it to your life. Place the burden of being a burden back upon itself. Let it convict itself. Give your God sized burden a proper God sized perspective of reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp_PolBwjEw
The Battle Belongs to the Lord
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Here is a video set to the song The Battle Belongs to the Lord performed by the Maranatha singers. Thank you for watching and please respond in kind.

The Battle Belongs to the Lord

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Here is a video set to the song The Batle Belongs to the Lord performed by the Maranatha singers. Thank you for watching and please respond in kind.

Day 97: Losing One's Superiority - Journey To Humility

Day 97: Losing One's Superiority - Journey To Humility

Read: Hebrews 3:1 - 19, Genesis 3:8 - 24

"I guarantee you one thing, one tries very convincingly to say to them self, I know I can be superior, I believe that one day I will be superior and I am going to prove it." Having been in this position myself, I developed this knee - jerk reaction that at every opportunity I could I was going to try and position myself in such a way that I am in the superior position to somebody, to anybody. There would be no more bottom of the ladder stuff in my life. So I began to look for the Achilles heel in others: how they dress, talk, walk, drive, carry themselves in public then judge them by my standards.

The writer of the book of Hebrews desires to portray Jesus Christ as being superior to every other option to the readers. The writer is drawing comparisons between the superiority of the law of Moses portraying Jesus Christ as being wholly superior to every other option to the readers. The readers of this letter are Jewish Christians who once lived by the law, but have confessed their faith in Jesus Christ. They are getting discouraged in trusting in something that they cannot see. They openly and vigorously question the superiority of the new faith in Christ and long consider returning back to the old ways.

I know that my Mother taught me better than that. In my mind, I knew that. But what was lost on me was 'how' to know that. Having been told enough times that I always deserved the bottom rung of the ladder, nobody showed the most meaningful ways to climb up, with faith and in complete confidence, to the next rung. I learned it my way and my way seemed to work very well for me, keeping me on top of my life. This was my standard, my banner in life upon which I learned quickly how to judge. I didn't know enough to openly, vigorously question me.

Deep down inside of me I began to realize that my superiority was no longer superior or no longer different from the next guy. My standard of superiority, guaranteed to stand up to the most rigorous standards of time were now rapidly disintegrating right before my eyes. I read the rest of the story from Genesis 3, when God came looking for Adam and Eve. When He found them clothed in hiding, He grilled them both about their new found standard of superiority and found them wanting. Neither one could come up with a single reason why their new way of superiority was better than God's. Now, I am on a journey towards humility and I am discovering my way isn't superior.

Pray with me: Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but thou art mighty; hold me with thy powerful hand. Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more; feed me till I want no more. Amen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGHYni59UM8

Show Me Your Glory - Kim Walker (Jesus Culture) - Lyric Video.wmv

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Day 96: Losing One's Mind - Journey To Humility

Day 96: Losing One's Mind - Journey To Humility

Read: Genesis 3:1 - 7

Maybe you have read this letter before, or even tried to write one like it yourself but couldn't finish it or send or forward it on to its intended destination. But let me share one that I one tried to write with you. Perhaps you will find that you will be more timely and successful in overcoming all of 'yourself' than I was too many years ago.

Dear God,

I do not know why I am even doing this. I have thought about it and thought about it but I just cannot figure out why I am even bothering to do this. There is something that has been elbowing my ribs, tickling my conscience, and weighing my spirit down! I am usually able to dismiss such things without any help from anyone. I just cannot figure it out, this time is different. These feelings wont leave me alone! These blasted feelings seem to get farther and farther away from any solution I can come up with. I can no longer make any sense out of it. Why isn't my way working for me anymore?

You know, God, I have never seen the need to write letters to anyone. I am always so independent that writing anything never even occurred to me. So in spite of all that I feel compelled to take a few minutes to write this letter to you. I certainly hope you are doing better than I am right now. It really pains me that I have to say this, please don't tell anyone; I am writing this letter to you because I think I am losing my mind. I've tried so hard all my life to do everything the right way, my way. It is not working!

Last night I read the story of Adam and Eve's temptation in the Garden. Now more and more I feel like I am being suckered into believing that all of my efforts at self reliance and independence has been one great big lie. The greatest lie that I have ever heard and I actually believed it, I was blinded by it. I was surrounded by its deep darkness and now I just cannot help but feel that right now it is stabbing at my heart.

I feel as if this great lie is killing me. I believed that I had all the wisdom I needed to survive on. I believed I was the only one who could ever know what was best for me. Day after day, week after week, month after month and now year after year. God, I have yielded my entire self to the awesome joy that I received from that temptation. Now, God, my awesomeness is no longer there. I can no longer feed off of it, I can no longer say I can survive off of it. But, God, I just need to be able to survive somehow!

Signed, Me Myself and I

Lord, please forgive me for wanting to believe the lie. Respond to my letter ASAP. Set me free from the tyranny of my self reliance and self rule. Somehow, please restore me to the innocence I felt when I was a newborn infant dependent on my parents for life itself. Help me to one day actually believe that You alone are the God of my life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1avFt94Ovws&feature=fvwrel
When I Think About The Lord
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When I Think About The Lord

When I Think About The Lord

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When I Think About The Lord

Day 95: A Jug of Judgment, If You DON'T Please?

Day 95: A Jug of Judgment, If You DON'T Please?

Read: Matthew 7:1 - 6

Judge not lest ye be judged! Who gave you the grand law degree to judge me? Who placed you on the bench of my life that you should sit in judgement over what you have no knowledge of or experience in? Yes, I have heard all of these and I guess the worst one I ever heard was, 'like father - like son', judging me on the same standard someone assigned to my dad before anyone got a chance to know the 'real me' was. God asks: How is it that you can set yourself up judge with a log stuck in your eyes? How can you see what you are doing when you yourself can't see the whole picture?

It bothers me to hear someone use Matthew 7:1 that way. But, you see, it’s great to have a verse to prove what you already want to believe, and I think that’s how this verse has been used. It has been used to convey the idea, "You live your lifestyle and I’ll live mine. But don’t you tell me how to live, and certainly don’t you try to impose your standards of morality on me." "Judge not that you be not judged" is spouted by a lot of people who have no earthly idea what Jesus meant. And I venture to say that the people who quote this verse the most are the ones who understand it the least.

But you see, even though we are unqualified, we still judge. And we often do so for selfish reasons; it makes us feel better. If we have a problem with sin in our own lives, it takes a little pressure off to point the finger at others for a while. It makes our sin seem not so bad after all. But, Jesus warns us that we’ve got to clean up our own act before we can even dare to begin to start tampering with the lives of others.

When I spend my time pointing my finger at your sin, my attention is distracted from my own sins, and that’s the real danger of judging. We’re all sinners, and we are all to work together as a family to overcome our sins. But ultimately, the only sins over which I have control are my own, those are the primary ones that should command my greatest attention. I need to exercise a proper amount of time with my eyesight.

So what is the message of Matthew 7:1-6? I believe it’s a warning for us to avoid the extremes of judgment. We need to be careful not to become harshly judgmental, looking for faults, taking the opportunity to look down on others from our position of self-righteousness. We can see so well the things in others’ lives that we want to pick on, but Jesus said we’re usually being overly critical, hypocritical when we do it. I have to confess here and now that I have been unjustly critical of too many people and have sadly created more than my fair share of undeserved grief.

It is important for us to carefully notice that he just didn’t stop there. He did not just instruct us to stay out of other people’s business. Let sin be sin. Rather, he gave us the responsibility of helping our brother: "First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye." (7:5). We must first confess our own poor spiritual eyesight then surrender it to God's sight. Without God's vision, people start perishing.

This is my prayer: that your love might become even more and more rich with knowledge and all kinds of insight. I pray this so that you will be able to decide what really matters and so you will be sincere and blameless on the day of Christ. I pray that you will then be filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes from Jesus Christ, in order to give glory and praise to God. (Philippians 1:9-11 CEB)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcnfT4arZtI
I Surrender - Hillsong Live (Cornerstone New 2012 DVD Album) Lyrics/Subtitles (Worship Song)
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Hillsong - I surrender Hillsong Live New DVD Album,

I Surrender - Hillsong Live (Cornerstone New 2012 DVD Album) Lyrics/Subtitles (Worship Song)

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Hillsong - I surrender Hillsong Live New DVD Album, Cornerstone, 2012, Name of Song: I surrender Here I am Down on my knees again Surrendering all Surrenderi...