Day 67: Obviously True Or False: God Can Be Trusted?

Day 67: Obviously True Or False: God Can Be Trusted?

Read: Genesis 3:1 - 13

Way back when in the annals of my very earliest school days, there was always one thing that I absolutely dreaded and that was anything that resembled a quiz or a test. It did not particularly matter what form it took - multiple choice, fill in the blank, essay or solving math problems or true and false. The fact yet remained that testing in any form in any of my classes was far from the list of my favorite school related activities. Everyday of school seemed to end with every teacher I ever had giving me homework which I hated to do. I never liked telling my Mom that I had it - I would even lie to her that it waited to be done. The worst came when I had to work hard to remember it for a pop quiz.

If there were any tests that I felt I had a more than reasonable chance of success at were the one's which only required a 'true' or 'false' response because there was a fifty fifty chance I would be right all the time - and that was a good thing. One of the responses to the questions being asked was always worded in such an obvious way that it could not help but be the correct answer. Read the question, look for the only obvious answer, recognize the obviously correct answer, feel proud of your self for knowing the obviously right answer, circle the obviously right answer hand in the test feeling good about all your right answers, the results come back - some are wrong.

A true false test - one answer represents the very truth and the other is a bold lie. It seems obvious in the beginning which one is which - which is the truth, which the lie. What if we do not know enough to ask questions or are too naive, too accepting of the obvious that we fail to acknowledge the presence of alternative possibilities right before our eyeballs? What if we overlook or fail to consider that what is obvious to us may not be so obvious to everyone else? What if everyone else had the obviously one right answer and out of spite we simply refused to acknowledge or accept our wrong responses and to accept and to trust the obviously correct need to change our minds?

The condition of the world today is a far-cry from the Garden of Eden. When God had created the world and man, He rightly said all things were “very good.” No more sin, no sorrow, no suffering, no hatred, no hunger. Today, however is a different matter. The condition of today’s world has caused many to distrust God. They distrust His... Goodness- if God was truly good why would He allow the suffering? They distrust His Power - if God was really powerful why would He not stop the pain? But this distrust began in the Garden through the deception of a cunning adversary. The serpent only asked Eve a true false question: can God be trusted? Your answer: obviously True or obviously False?

Let Us Pray: O God of all creation, help me to trust You more. By Your Grace, allow me to trust myself trusting in you when things do not turn out the way I obviously felt they should have. Help me to stop doubting You and getting mad at You. Reveal to me and help me to recognize the obvious Ways, the obvious Truths of living my life in a manner that obviously reflects the image of Your Son Jesus Christ to those I do meet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZn8AjKdyaU

walk by faith Jeremy camp lyrics

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walk by faith because trials are making you stronger! (i know the video is kind of late) but God bless you anyway

Day 66: God Cannot Reject You!

Day 66: God Cannot Reject You!

Read: Romans 8:31 - 39

All of us want to be accepted somewhere and by someone. We all have a friendships that are formed based on who accepts us in our life. We get together with people who accept us on one level or another and we form these little pacts – I’ll accept you if you accept me; I’ll look after you if you look after me; I will scratch your back if you will scratch mine. We go through life in little acceptance pacts. We crave acceptance. It is just one of those absolute "must have's" in life. Going through life or trying to go through life alone, as I can tell you having done it for the better part of thirty years before I got married 2010 means deep feelings of rejection, not love, were reigning as the true King of my heart.

Do you remember the television show called 'Cheers'. Do you remember the tag line for that show? It was set in a bar where “Where everybody knows your name”. The world just craves that kind of acceptance, where everybody around you knows your name, where everybody loves you and where you’re acceptable. Prayerfully consider this craving, because we struggle for this acceptance, we sometimes have to deal with insecurity. This insecurity is heightened when we experience rejection in our lives. For example: everyone, including our enemies, those who have hurt us, those whose desire is to drive home the completely irrational idea you're never acceptable.

We have all encountered the sting of rejection in one form or another on one level or another. Some people experience it almost constantly and that hurts deeply. I want you to grapple this morning with this one radical idea: that it is impossible for God to reject you. Paul raises an interesting question on this subject in Romans 8:35, “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?” If you take a look at that question you will see that at the very heart of that question is a human dilemma - If I am rejected by the community of man, Am I acceptable to God in His Kingdom? If I am rejecting me for what others say I've become am I still acceptable to the God who created me?

The questions I ask you to prayerfully consider are; whether God will accept me in the here and the now if I desire to take my time deciding if I want to accept Him while I am yet still living. Will He find me repulsive because I have not yet chosen Him? Will He continue to accept me regardless of what I have done or may do while He waits for me to make my choice? Will He still unconditionally welcome me or will He put any sort of conditions on my coming to Him because I didn't immediately choose His Way, His Truth, or His Life? Will God take into account that there were certain events in my life when I was angry and felt rejected even by Him? Could He love me for being me?

Let Us Pray: Lord, there are some days when I have serious doubts about who really accepts me at face value. Lord, there are some days when I have had many serious doubts even about my own acceptability in Your sight. Lord, help me to become convinced 'that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen and Amen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSrhQcoiP4

JJ Heller - What Love Really Means - "Lyrics"

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Video By Robert

Day 65: God's True Ultimate Justice - Are We Prepared?

Day 65: God's True Ultimate Justice - Are We Prepared?

Read: Matthew 24:36 - 44

To all those who by the moving of God's Holy Spirit in their lives has been drawn to this place at this very time to read these very few words from this very much woefully prepared chief of all sinners -- I do now humbly prostrate myself before God Almighty to extend to each of you His most benevolent greetings for making it this far in life. I have been sitting here at my computer for about an hour now trying to wrap my mind and my spirit around the topic of God's True Ultimate Justice. I have been reading and trying to somehow absorb the Scripture reading for today, in particular is this verse: Jesus said: "For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."

For me, this is a real hardcore verse that anybody reading it should give prayerful attention to. Let me remind you "For as the days of Noah were": 'The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am very sorry that I have made them.’ Then God's Word says the floods came. So too did God's True Ultimate Justice.

Am I a 'side walk prophet' walking from corner to corner with his sign over his head saying "Repent for the end is surely near!" Do I hold any belief in the Mayan calender? No, I do not carry a sign and no I do not hold any belief in the Mayan Calender. No, I just find myself sitting here and considering just how woefully prepared I am to stand before the True Ultimate Justice of the Son Of Man when He comes. Will I or my wife be the one's who are left behind: '40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.'? Are the Christian examples we set be enough of a preparation?

Many people find it difficult to understand and likewise communicate the message of preparing themselves for the promised moment of God's 'True Ultimate' expression of Justice. For why Jesus Christ dying an undeserved and cruel death on a cross was God's 'truest, most ultimate expression of justice' in history. God condemned all of our sins, placed them upon His sinless Son who died, forever carrying them all away. In fact until we understand two fundamental truths - the extent of God’s love and our need for forgiveness – we can not fully understand the cross, we cannot fully prepare
ourselves until we learn to fully grasp, fully understand just what Jesus accomplished, what Jesus is preparing us for.

Let Us Pray: Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary Pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving, I'll be a living Sanctuary for You. It is you, Lord Who came to save The heart and soul Of every man It is you Lord who knows my weakness Who gives me strength, With thine own hand. Lead Me on Lord From temptation Purify me From within Fill my heart with Your holy spirit Take away all my sin. - Jaci Velasquez - lyrics
from the song 'Sanctuary'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lqc75a--H8

sanctuary - jaci velasquez

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jaci velasquez singing 'sanctuary',accompanied by inspirational images

Day 64: Irresistible Hospitality ... Really? Here is My Excuse!

Day 64: Irresistible Hospitality ... Really? Here is My Excuse!

Read: Luke 14:16 - 24

I guess it is probably just the time of the year we are in. But did you recently get an offer too good to be true, an offer you just could not compel yourself to refuse? I get them all the time. The telephone rings, normally about supper time, and against your better sense of sound mind and judgment it gets picked up. You will probably know right away by the long silence on the other end that it is a salesperson. Then the long spiel starts: Hello, may I please speak to Mr or Mrs. Doe - we should know right then it’s a telemarketer; the hook is now set and just because you are now a valued credit card customer they are going to send you $$$ of vacation vouchers. Their sales pitch - Just Irresistible!

"Yield not to temptation for yielding is sin!" I wont yield, I wont be tempted to sin if only neither I nor my wife wouldn't watch television or see an offer on the internet - free big screen TV’s - nothing to buy. Too good to be true! There’s always a catch. Or at least, we think there is. We have been told that “nothing in life is free.” Well it would be free to us if someone other than ourselves saw it or read about it and for some unfathomable reason thought of us and decided to give it to us as a (gasp) gift. But sometimes we find there really are free things. At the recent Fall Festival at our church, my wife and I  bought 2 dinners for new visitors. Irresistible hospitality - freely offered, freely given, freely accepted.

One of the greatest examples of irresistible hospitality is modeled for us in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14 verses 16 through 24. We see here the grace of God that on the surface seems just to good to be true, something that each of the invited guests cast their own brand of great suspicion upon. Each one of the guests in the narrative took the invitation, carefully deliberated over it then created an obviously evasive excuse why they did not feel their presence was remotely necessary. Each one was such an
obvious rebuke to the host of the meal. I can remember when I was a about ten, I invited some classmates to my Birthday party. One parent called said his son could not come - son had a hangnail!

What do we see in this passage? From the host (God) An Irresistible Invitation given with no strings attached to sit at His banquet table and from us, His invited guest - a sharp, nonsensical, riddled with suspicion, "why don't we just slap Him in the face" rebuke returned. The first thing that stands out is our disproportionate response to a most gracious of a free place at God's great banquet table. Irregardless of the source I would hope that I'd not be so full of someone else's food, so completely rude in my own right be so obviously inconsiderate that I would turn away from God's free meal.
Consider: What a gracious God we have. Consider: The excuses we would offer and bring to His table!

Let Us Pray: O God, whom no one has ever seen but whose free offers of love and generosity are always available, always unconditional, always visible in the very best of human relationships and in the beauty and serenity of our own homes, we praise you continually for your faithfulness through all generations. Bestow upon those who freely come to you blessings as numerous as the grains of sand found on the beach. Forgive us of our rudeness and inconsideration. Strengthen, Satisfy and Sustain us anew with the manna from heaven. Invite us to table, nourish us from thy Bread of Life Jesus Christ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmo6CAvn_dE
Come Ye Sinners - Amy Grant & Fernando Ortega
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God's favorite word is COME. The music from this video was removed by the record company. Most

Come Ye Sinners - Amy Grant & Fernando Ortega

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God's favorite word is COME. The music from this video was removed by the roecord company. Most

Day 63: The Thunderous Voices of Criticism.

Day 63: The Thunderous Voices of Criticism.

Read: Luke 9:51 - 55

I love football whether it is professional or college. I watch it whenever I can. I will watch it on television and will end up irritating the wife to no end when she hears me switching between channels to check the scores of other games. For about eleven years I even got the chance to watch a live game as a season ticket holder. Going to football game is different than watching the game on TV. When you go to a game, you’re going because you like one of the teams. You are there to root for the players and encourage them on to victory. You’re there to experience their struggles and also rejoice in their success. Let me tell you the excited voices of over 70,000 noisy people can raise allot of thunder.

When you pay for your ticket, you go up into the bleachers, and if you are smart you don’t go and sit in the wrong section - you sit with your team’s fans. Each team has its own group of fans. Sometimes someone will show up wearing the wrong team shirt in your section and the fun begins when they try to out shout you cheering for their team. It's really all in the name of fun, until the opposing team seems to start dominating the field of play and your team can't seem to get its winning act together.
Everybody has someone there to shout out words of encouragement and support for everybody... everybody, that is, except one group of annoying people .... Referee's

Nobody ever says to them: "Great call, ref!" Nobody ever approaches them after the game for their autograph. Nobody ever takes them aside and invites them out for a few cokes after game. And even if the refs do an even handed job and call the game the way we would have, the best we do is tolerate them and I guess they find a way to tolerate us fans too. One night, the refs weren’t calling them the way I saw them. The crowd was critical (me included) and you could hear things like this: What, are you blind? How could you miss that holding penalty? Hey, ref - who paid you to throw this game? You got relatives in low places playing or coaching for that other team?

It's the tremendous build up of energy of the fans working themselves up into a wild frenzy supporting their team, urging them on to victory. James and John used that excuse. When messengers were sent ahead of Jesus into Samaritan villages they weren't received very well and James and John they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ Jesus quickly rebuked them. James and John went completely out of character. Talk of love and healing went out
the window replaced by vengeful spirits ready to inflict their brand of criticism. I do suspect, there will always be the thunderous sound of James and John in each of us.

Let Us Pray: Merciful Father, mine is voice of thunder, mine becomes the voice of severe criticism toward others, especially when I do not get my own way. I do not know how to react to it nor how to curb it. Reveal to me and Help me to know what to do, and to carry it out without fear or hesitation. Let me fear nothing except to be faithless to You while avoiding becoming critical, defensive, or retaliatory. Grant that I may have the strength to keep my poise because it is founded on You. If I deserve the criticism, let me realize it so that I may change my ways. If I do not deserve it, let me be gracious in offering forgiveness, in imitation of your Son, my Savior Jesus Christ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwAfhy4qzbA&feature=related
Break every chain - Jesus Culture.mpg
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Break every chain, Jesus Culture, Tammy Maxon, Tammy G. Designs, www.tammymaxon.com

Break every chain - Jesus Culture.mpg

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Break every chain, Jesus Culture, Tammy Maxon, Tammy G. Designs, www.tammymaxon.com

Day 62: The Example God Expects You To Be

Day 62: The Example God Expects You To Be

Read: Titus 2:7 - 10

My Father always told me and my mother always reminded me - set the example for others to follow, be the example that others only wished they would be able to follow. I remember these wise words from my first days of Elementary School when my Dad would tap me on the top of my head just as he walked out the door to go to work. It was my Mom's responsibility I guess to make sure I always remembered what my Daddy told a scared out of his mind little boy to keep me from being scared. I guess you know the speech pretty well: "Keep your chin, put one foot in front of the other, keep smiling, be daddy's brave little boy" so on. "Be the example Dad expects of you."

Titus - was a young gentile follower of Christ Paul had been training to carry out his ministry. Paul was determined to instruct and mentor his young friend in setting the 'proper basics' in setting the 'proper example' of living the new Christian life as God might have expected of him being a leader and mentor in the new movement. Please re read verse (7) of today's scripture passage: "In everything set them an example by doing what is good”. Paul with the reality of his ministry coming to a close teaches this young minister to let “everything” be an example of surrender to the teachings of Christ! Paul is mentoring Titus and us: "Be the best example God knows you can be."

Chapter two of the Letter to Titus is written for a young minister and its seasoned counsel for what matters most in a believers walk with Christ. As the chapter unfolds Paul speaks of the right conduct for older men and women and for younger followers as well. Our passage while it may be directed toward men mentoring young men is of course applicable for everyone who has come to serve Christ. Anyone who as an older or younger adult with a goal desiring to take a leadership role in guiding the life of a young person - Boy or Girl scouts for example, Big Brother - Big Sister programs, becoming a part of an after school program, tutoring and so many more possibilities.

We set examples whether we like it or not! When Paul writes of 7 "In everything set them an example by doing what is good.” Good can likewise be understood as kind. Kindness is after all one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26). Is it active in our lives? Are we in such a rush to keep our appointments that we somehow miss the evident? What would happen if we decided that who ever is in front of us at that moment is our divine appointment to put on full display the "best example that God knows we can be, (and as followers and believers in Christ) should be?" We must all strive hard in everything we do to live, set, the best example of Christ in our homes, our communities in our world.

Let Us Pray: Lord, help me to be more than I am now that I may set a better example for others. I pray Lord that the better you help me to be, others may see the Christ in me and will then allow their foot steps to be guided by You toward the very Gates of Heaven and eternal life in Jesus Christ Your Son and my Savior for all time. Amen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYSirKUiVw&feature=related

Courageous-Casting Crowns with lyrics

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Hi everyone, to let everyone know, the correct words are, "walk humbly with your God." I had typed "walk on be with you God." I did this video

Day 61: God: "My Word Gives You Joy"

Day 61: God: "My Word Gives You Joy"

Read: Nehemiah 8:9 - 12

This morning is a short one for me and the wife with her being the Lay Reader for our 8am service. So the devotional offering is from the devotional book "Listening To God" by Bruce Bickel.

So, please take a while, consider these God Words of inspiration and faith building.

"Whenever you read my Word, you should have one of three responses:

One is Intellectual. This comes when you use your mind, seeking to understand the meaning of what I have said. The Intellectual response takes study and diligence on your part and a willingness to hear skillful teachers who know how to explain the scriptures.

Another response is Volitional, which comes from when you decide with your will to do what my Word says. (The worst thing you can do is to hear my Word and never do it - see James 1:22.) The third response is Emotional, when you feel the joy of interacting with my Word.

If you're not enjoying my Word, perhaps you don't understand it - or maybe you know what you should do, but you aren't doing it. My Word will give you joy when you engage with it with every part of your being - your mind, your will, and your heart."

Let Us Pray: Prepare our hearts, O God, to accept you Word. Silence in us any voices but your own, so that we may hear your Word and also do it; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Yasgzjc0w&feature=relmfu

Matthew West - My Own Little World (Official Music Video)

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Music video by Matthew West performing My Own Little World. (P) (C) 2010 Sparrow Records. All