Tag Archives: Daily

Armored Up

Posted on November 24, 2015 | Leave a comment

Wednesday Blog Post a Day Early
Ephesians 6:13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Thoughts:
I started out reading Romans 12 but when I got to the part about renewing your mind it made me think of the armor of God so I ended up in Ephesians 6 instead.

You’ve got the truth, you’re ready to act, faith is a good shield against evil. Being Armored Up defensively is good but not complete. There’s still one area left unprotected and vulnerable, your head. The “head shot” is how the devil wipes out most Christians, wounding and messing up their thinking.

There’s only one offensive weapon in that list of armor: the sword. It’s no accident the helmet and the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” are mentioned as a set. Together they become the very best protection against the “head shot.” Not only does the helmet complete your protection from the outside but the sword is actively using all the good stuff inside it to protect you too.

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Show Me…To Me

Posted on October 25, 2015 | Leave a comment

Romans 8:26 “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

I believe so strongly that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and at work.  I believe that if I have put my life in Jesus it is my foolishness if I do not begin to explore the reality of the teaching, supporting and personal guidance God has promised that Spirit will give me according to his will.  I may get wrong at times…but then I’ve been wrong many times for nowhere near as good a reason as trying to find faith in my daily life.

It’s the groaning part I understand the most; mine first, and then the Spirit’s as he and God strategize about my journey to holiness.  That advocate who can explain me to God is great but here’s the rest, and the best, of the plan from my human standpoint.  It’s the purpose and promise that the Holy Spirit will Show Me…to Me.  It’s a really big deal.

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Home Improvement

Posted on October 21, 2015 | Leave a comment

John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

It’s obvious even among the most devoted believers that there are individual quirks leftover when God deals with the serious business of saving a person. Surely you know someone of deep and true faith that gossips, or lashes out, or lies, or….[you fill in the blank].

It’s easy for me to see those flaws in others and much harder to recognize them in myself. These are the hold-out things that can become the secret weapons of the enemy.  He can’t have our souls back but he can cause a lot of hurt and havoc in our lives with those leftover quirks.

Jesus has saved my soul and now he’s standing ready to save me from myself; to free me from those quirks.  After all these years, and hours of devotion, and true transformation here I am seeing one of those little “quirks” in my own life. It’s awful and it’s wonderful at the same time.  It’s awful to see it…and wonderful to know Jesus has got a plan for me to be free of it.

I’m crawling up on the altar again Lord, to sacrifice one more “last” thing…again…to you. I love you. I love that your purpose is to make me whole and into your likeness, first with redemption and now with renovation. It’s the best kind of Home Improvement.

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Brand New You

Posted on June 24, 2015 | Leave a comment

This morning I realized I’d gotten ahead of myself in yesterday’s post and this is just to good to miss so today I’m backtracking.

Genesis 35
9 After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. 10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel.  11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. 12 The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.” 13 Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him. 14 Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it. 15 Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel.

Of Interest:
10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel.

My Thoughts:
That is the very best isn’t it? Have you ever done or said something that makes you want to crawl in hole and pull it in after you?  And then replayed it over and over trying to “get it right in your mind” when it’s already done and there’s no going back? Jacob certainly has been there.  God steps in with a new identity, a new name free of the negative associations of the old one…a new beginning and a new name.  No wonder he felt blessed.   He’s not alone either.

We all have those incidents in our life that only the witness protection program or Christ can fix.  Lucky for us, Christ is our ever-present blessing.  There are so many phrases that apply to how He fixes us; being healed, washed clean, transformed, made new, reborn…cleansed from sin.  Remember that moment when you came face to face with God in Christ and were freed from the negative associations of YOUR past?  His identity replaced your old one and He even let you borrow His name temporarily – Christ One.  That’s fabulous, but wait, there’s more!  Revelation 2:17 says if you are in Christ, he’s given you a new name too; yet to be revealed but ready and waiting… That’s the Amazing Grace we sing about.  Imagine it!

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Aim Higher

Posted on June 24, 2015 | Leave a comment
Genesis 37
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. 18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.  19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. 20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”  21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. 22 “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.  23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— 24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.  25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.  26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. 

Of Interest:
• 26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” 

My Thoughts:
Sibling rivalry with a side dish of mercy?  I don’t think so!  Connivance, craftiness, and convenience sounds more like it to me.  Tongue in cheek… I wonder where they got all those traits?  Is it heredity?  It’s their family alright, the family that goes way, way back to when Eden could no longer be Adam and Eve’s home.  The brothers made the same mistake they did; deciding they could justify themselves with their own reason.  Have mercy on us Lord.  Restore our right thinking.  Help us to aim higher than being satisfied with doing less than the worst.

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An Unbelievable Plan

Posted on June 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

Genesis 18
v2. He [Abraham] looked up and noticed three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran to meet them and welcomed them, bowing low to the ground… v10 Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”  But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

Of Interest:
…[Sarah]  “I didn’t laugh.”  But the Lord said, “No, you did laugh.” so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”  But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
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v 13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ I had to double back to Genesis 17:17  to find this; “Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?”  So laughter isn’t the issue here, nor is eavesdropping.  I think it’s the “little white lie.” Sarah tells that is the story.

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She’s been overheard and now she’s worried. These men are honored guests but they are strangers to Sarah.  She’s worried when caught that she’ll be in trouble. Right at the beginning the tense changes from strangers to v10 “Then ONE of them said…”.  And that “one” may be the key.  We don’t hear much about SSarah and her relationship to the Lord.  Maybe God really is a pretty much a stranger to her at this point.  There is evidence that she has prayed before.  She has been saved by her prayers out of some terrible situations her previous lies put her in.  …Maybe those were just “foxhole” prayers.  Maybe Sarah is caught in this place; the “not Godless, but not Godly either” way of life.  Whatever her flaws, God has a plan that includes her and a miracle in store for her.

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Isn’t that just how life goes for us?  We fumble about, manipulating life with “little white lies” and sometimes acting like God must be a stranger to us. We pray our own foxhole prayers to get us out of sticky situations.  Then Grace steps in and we discover, at long last, that God has indeed included US in his plan despite our flaws. We can hardly believe it, but that realization is when we begin to understand what a “miracle.” God has for our future as well.

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All About Image

Posted on June 9, 2015 | Leave a comment
Genesis 16
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal. So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.)
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Of Interest:
The three main characters.
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My Thoughts:
Only three people; Abram, the righteous one, Sarai the barren wife and Hagar the Egyptian servant.  It’s not hard to understand the humanity of these three people.   That great cartoon philosopher, Pogo, said it all, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”  Abram, Sarai and Hagar prove that everything old is new again. Without an interactive relationship with God and our faith we are like them; our own worst enemy.  No wonder the modern day solution often is use any means, any person, any activity as long as it produces the result we want and think is right.
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I wonder if our biggest sin is not really so much the “bad” stuff we do as the fact that while we’re not Godless, we’re not Godly either.  We are carelessly busy portraying the one whose image we represent in our world as ineffective and of no practical use in real life.  Could anything be worse than that? Thank God for Grace and time to grow.   Thank God he’s given us Jesus, his Spirit and these Old Testament “saints” that are the mirrors we are meant to see ourselves in.  Thank God for his Word and it’s promise that offers us the chance of a real image makeover.

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Best and Wisest

Posted on June 8, 2015 | Leave a comment

Genesis 13
Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram. So Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain. But the people of this area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord.

Of Interest:
Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord.

My Thoughts:
Lot must have heard throughout his life the oral history that spoke of the perfection and beauty of the land God had promised, and there it was. Did he remember those stories as he saw the Jordan Valley laid out before him? This new place that seemed be exactly what God had promised, so beautiful and good…except for one tiny little snag…the people of the area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord.  Lot may have reasoned; “good land, good oral history, good faith, and…God promised…how bad could it be,” right?

I have been in that position of making choices in my life with that same kind of reasoning. Lot was caught in the very same tension of decision making as we are today.  For the most part we assume “worst and clearly stupid” have been eliminated from our decision-making process because we now belong to God.  We forget we are still vulnerable to being blindsided by our self-confident “how bad could it be?” mindset. We forget that while “how bad could it be” may look better than “worst and clearly stupid” it still looks pretty poor compared to best and wisest.

 

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Right or Angry?

Posted on June 7, 2015 | Leave a comment

Genesis 4
When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.  “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”

Of Interest:
• Think about this phrase: “Why are you so angry?”

My Thoughts:
We recognize and point to Cain as the first murderer but can’t quite comprehend why he was so angry.  It’s like one finger of our hand pointing at Cain when there are three pointing back at us.  Anger is an emotional word that is more easily denied in ourselves. We want to attribute to that emotion the higher level of violence of Cain’s sin.  But how about these words: irritated; testy; grumpy, frustrated or even jealous?  There’s the rub.  How often does your emotional thermometer go THOSE places in a day?

How about when the cars turning left in front of you poke along and you get caught at the next red light; or there’s all those things spouses do that cause a surge, maybe only mental, of one of those emotions? It’s just so much easier to be shocked by Cain’s action than to think about, and name, the moments in our life and faith that we’ve been “irritated; testy; grumpy, frustrated or even jealous” because WE just didn’t want to do what’s right.  Ouch! Every one of those moments in every day needs this reminder…”We will be victims of sin if we do not subdue it.”  There’s an enormous difference between being “not Godless, but not Godly either.”  It’s the difference between knowing faith facts and applying them.  That difference makes all the difference in a life of faith.

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Sin Loves Company

Posted on June 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

Day 1 of my Snippet Slog Through the Old Testament.  Not a scholarly verse by verse, chapter by chapter “slog” but what I believe God has in his mind for my mind.

Genesis 3
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”  “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”  “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”  The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

Of Interest:
• Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

My Thoughts:
I admit it, I’m defensive.  Eve has become our first picture of what sinful, lustful, greedy AND manipulative looks like.  No wonder I’m defensive.

There is no way to dispute the fact that Eve (and Adam) are NOT Godless.  They’re right there with God, firsthand, face to face, in a perfect environment.  This story is also our picture of the first chink in what it means to be Godly.  That’s why it’s called “original” sin.  They made it up!

It wasn’t like Eve had called Adam to dinner and served up a tasty dish without telling him where it came from.  Remember that phrase: “who was with her?”  I read more and look at this! Genesis 3:12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”   That first picture of Eve?  It’s the same as the first picture of Adam.   This must be where the old saying “sin loves company” comes from.

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