Category Archives: Stand Alone Scripture

I’m surprised how much I miss the continuity of reading parts of that long Psalm 119 day after day. I don’t know what to do next. My original plan was to use someone else’s reading plan. Instead I’m borrowing my title from my Pastor, Greg Long. Plan “Be” is going to be using Verse of the Day thoughts from BibleGateway.com to discover how they impact my thoughts and mesh with the experiences of my daily life.

Thursday: Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal. Isaiah 26:4
• It must have been that phrase about the Rock that triggered my thoughts.  I heard that Chevy jingle in my head.  Advertising slogans can shape our daily life more than God’s word if we’re not careful. Believing the ad-men can leave you between a “Rock” and a hard place.
Apple: Think Different
L’Oréal: Because You’re Worth It
Coca Cola: “It’s the real thing
Chevy: Like a rock
So I’m repurposing these slogans into a new song: Think different because you’re worth it. The Lord is the real thing, “the Rock eternal.”

Friday: You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1
• The Psalmist paints a verbal picture I can identify with. This summer we saw what a dry and parched land can produce. We watched the lawn go from a lush green carpet to a dried up imitation of itself that completely stopped growing. Nobody wants to be a dried up imitation of a Christian do they?

Saturday: I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed— I, and not some foreign god among you. You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.
Isaiah 43:11-12
• I’m a witness for the defense…that was my first thought, but the question of context was my next so I read the chapter and found something even better.

Have you thought about why God would bother with the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into after his perfect setup at creation? Why would he care enough to forgive and forget our sins and offer redemption at all? Realizing how much we’ve been given, despite ourselves, is how we come to recognize the magnificence of Grace, isn’t it? But wait, there’s more….

Isaiah 43:25 “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. 26 Review the past for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence.

This is Grace in action: It matters to God that your sins are blotted out as much as it does to you! He’s willing to review at all the details and argue the “why’s” and “how’s” of your innocence with you. Take him at his Word!

Stand Alone Sunday: It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.
Deuteronomy 13:4