WHOM SHALL WE SERVE?

Psalm 118:5-7 (TNIV) “When hard pressed, I cried to the LORD; he brought me into a spacious place. The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can human beings do to me? The LORD is with me; he is my helper. I look in triumph on my enemies.”

Have you ever been afraid of anything or anyone? Afraid of a situation perhaps? I have. Many of us have. I think circumstances in our lives have us more afraid than people most of the time, but they are our enemies just the same. Circumstances rob our joy and run away with our peace. What can we do to prevent this? Pray … often … in faith, trusting God to work things out the way they are meant to work out.

Our circumstances do not take God by surprise. It’s not like sits on His throne and says, “Duh, I didn’t see THAT coming.” He is the creator if all things. He knows everything about us. He causes or allows everything that takes place in this universe. If it were no so than something or someone would be greater than Him and He would cease to be God. But that is not the case. Why would He allow such circumstances to befall us? Perhaps they are by your own hand? Perhaps they are there to allow your faith to grow. God has He reasons … He has His divine purposes for everything that takes place. Perhaps the circumstances are the result of some sin in your live; consequences of something you shouldn’t have been doing. Everything we say and do comes with a set of consequences that play out. Every thought that is put into action has consequences.

When people themselves become a threat to us, we must rely on our Heavenly Father all the more. This also has not taken God by surprise. He has allowed it to give you a chance to trust that His word is true and that there is nothing to fear. Truthfully, what can another person do to you? Short of killing you, which may be in retaliation for something you started, what can any man do to you? God is there. He sees it all. There is nothing that He cannot work out for your ultimate good and His glory. It’s what He does. We protect our children to the death, what makes you think it is any different with God. Only He already died on a cross, so He doesn’t have to die again. He is our protector and savior.

Even when our circumstances look bleak; even when the storm clouds are forming and nothing seems to go right … pray. Ask for His help. Thank Him in advance for what He will do and then watch the manifestation of an answer come about. It may not turn out the way WE think it should or the way WE would have wanted it to, but that is where the trust comes in. We must understand that in God’s economy everything has a purpose. There is no wasted motion. Everything happens for a specific reason. We must trust Him in that. He has never failed us. He WILL never fail us. He is our hope and our salvation. He is the only hope and salvation we have. It is God or nothing. What shall it be today? God or nothing.

Joshua 24:15 (TNIV) “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

WALK WITH THE KING TODAY AND BE A BLESSING!

WE ARE FOREIGNERS

1 Peter 1:17 (TNIV) “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.”

REVERENCE (def): respectful, awed, solemn, loving, humble, adoring, devout, submissive.*

FEAR (def): Extreme reverence or awe, as toward a supreme power.*

“This world is not my home I'm just passing through

my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door

and I can't feel at home in this world anymore …”**

Life is a funny thing. It can seem that we are here today and gone tomorrow. Life is a fleeting thing. The saying “Time waits for no man” is literally true. There is but One who can control and alter time and that is Almighty God. We are called to live out our lives on this earth with a solemn and respectful reverence or awe for our God. We are not to take Him or His commands lightly. He is the One Who can change all things with one spoken word. God is the One who parted the Red Sea in Moses’ day. He is the One and only Jehovah God, the One Who was and is and is to come; the One who is to be revered over any other.

We are given a certain allotted amount of time on this earth. God ordains it and knows when we took our first breath and when we will take our last. He is completely impartial. He does not favor any one person over another. He never has and never will. He looks at His entire creation the same and loves us all equally, in spite of ourselves. We are to consider ourselves as foreigners in a foreign land as we live out our lives here in the present. It is difficult to do this, what with all the responsibilities we take on throughout our lives. Some are quite necessary, some only necessary in our own minds. We would much rather enjoy this life than live a life of servitude to our Lord. We don’t understand that which the Lord has equipped us for. We strive for the wrong things in life and leave God out of some of the most important decisions we make. We do NOT need to be “so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good” as the saying goes, but we DO need to be conscious of His presence in our everyday lives and seek His direction and guidance. You see we think we know what we are doing from day to day, but we are wrong. Our thinking is askew; it is off the mark.

It is my contention that what God is wanting from us as followers of Christ beside praise and worship, is a striving. I believe that God desires for us to seek to be more like His Son each and every day. That requires us to stop “living like there is no tomorrow”, but rather live like tomorrow was your last day on earth. The former refers to the following: “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”; the latter takes on a much more somber tone. If you knew tomorrow would be your last day on this earth, what would you do?

Living like you truly don’t belong here makes you different. People many times like to blend in, be a part of the crowd. God wants you to be set apart. He desires for you to be a lighthouse in the raging seas of life. He desires for you to put your own personal desires aside and BE Christ to someone. He will provide for and sustain you; He always has, even if you haven’t realized it. Give your life fully to Him and watch things change all around you. But you must look through the eyes of the Spirit. Listen and learn from the Holy Spirit and you will see things and experience that which you never could have dreamed.

WALK WITH THE KING TODAY AND BE A BLESSING!!

* Courtesy of www.thefreedictionary.com
** Gospel song written by SD Burton; Music by EB Graham

TIME WITH GOD

Matthew 6:19-21 (TNIV) “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

I am a collector. I have collected comic books, graphic novels, ball cards, ball caps, tee shirts, lighthouses and so on. Through the years I have amassed quite a bit of “stuff”. I have also moved around a lot. Starting in New Jersey, I moved to North Carolina, then Texas, then back to New Jersey. And have moved quite a few times within each state. Each move became a little more cumbersome because of accumulated “stuff”. Things that have value to me, yet are essentially valueless otherwise. There is absolutely nothing wrong with collecting and nothing wrong with accumulating things throughout your life, but I use it as an example of how we so easily get entangled in that which has no eternal value.

It was only recently that I began to realize that this “stuff”, while fun to collect and marvelous in and of itself, was nothing more than extra boxes to tote around with me. I began to realize for the first time that anything that is lost to you, yet can be replaced can’t be all that important after all. I began to understand in some small way, what Matthew was talking about. The treasure he is speaking of doesn’t have to necessarily be gold or silver or some great wealth or valuable material possession. It can be something whose value is known only to you. If anything we possess becomes more important to us than our Heavenly Father, who gave us life to begin with, then it becomes an idol to us. As long as it retains its’ proper place in our lives, it is fine.

God will share praise and glory with no one and nothing. Things that replace Him in our lives as having paramount importance must be removed. It is so easy to go through days, weeks and even months without spending time with God. I have done it. We get caught up in life’s ‘junk’; the busyness of the day. The mundane ‘stuff’ that we must do to survive … grocery shopping, errand running, bringing the kids to and from school, bringing them to practice or going to classes, studying, hanging with friends, playing sports or any number of other “important” and “necessary” things that we must do. There is no doubt that these things have to be tended to, but should they take place to the exclusion of time with God? Is there NO time for God in our 24 hour day? Not even 5 minutes we can carve out of our day? It is more difficult that we realize, because our natural inclination is to go-go-go. Society dictates it. Our world demands it. And we try to spend time with our God, yet fail more times than not because of those things that pull at us constantly, demanding our time and attention.

Stop for a moment. Just stop. Slow your breathing down. Ask the Lord to help you clear your mind of all the ‘things’ that are swirling around in it. Listen. Listen intently. Now sit down. Concentrate on the silence. Even if there is noise around you, concentrate on the silence. Block out the noise. Focus on God. Picture Him in your mind’s eye. If you can be somewhere alone, your car, your bedroom, some woodsy spot near your home … just stop and listen. Thank God for Who He is. Thank Him for not only what He has done in your life, but what He will do. Then listen. Perhaps you hear nature, if you are outside. Perhaps you hear nothing. Savor it. Embrace it. We can do this. We can. We just need to reflect on who God is, who we are to Him and what He has done for us. He saved us. He died for us. He loves us unconditionally. Now smile and know that you can do this each and every day of your life going forward and it will bless your soul.

By the way, I come by my collecting honestly … my dad has the biggest vinyl record collection and coffee mug collection you will ever see.

WALK WITH THE KING TODAY AND BE A BLESSING!!

RANDOM RAMBLINGS 12

Have you ever noticed how the world has trivialized LOVE? Even the word has been made to be so commonplace it hardly holds any meaning anymore. Oh it does to many, probably the majority of people, but Satan is hell bent on destroying anything that is pure and decent in this world. His desire is to make love into a sexual thing, when true love is far from that. True love is defined in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, also referred to as “the Love Chapter”. You should read it to see what true love really entails.

While true love can lead to a physical love when two people fall in love and become one, it doesn’t always have to. Parents can truly and deeply love their children in the Biblical sense; so can friends, even friends who are the opposite gender. I believe the key to loving another completely is tied up in the word “unconditional”.

UNCONDITIONAL (def):  Without conditions or limitations; absolute; total.

Without limitations; without conditions. God places no restrictions on the depth or breadth of His love for His creation. There is nothing this side of heaven to compare with it. Being flawed creatures, we try but fail so often as we attempt imitate what we see and feel love really is. This world’s version of love is a cheap imitation. It is nothing like the real thing.

True unconditional love is absolute and total. It is a complete package. It doesn’t HAVE to include the physical part, but it can. It is forgiving and pure. True love is not a dirty thing. It is a beautiful emotional experience. God defines it in His power and purity. Jesus reflects it in His words and actions. God loves us with ‘agape’ love; a love that is spiritual, not sexual, in its nature. In it we find peace, comfort and hope.  The most amazing thing about all this is that He loved us with this type of truly perfect and incredible love before we ever gave Him a thought. No matter what we can or will ever think, say or do, His love for us never changes. It is enduring. It is eternal. THAT is the type of love people are clamoring for. They don’t recognize it when is appears, so Satan imitates it with a cheap, tawdry version of it which is physical and erotic and not at all what the real thing is. People accept it because it feels good, but that feeling passes as soon as the encounter is over. God’s love shall always remain and never fail … ever. 

Would you like to know this type of never ending love? You need to embrace God and surrender to Him. He will escort you into joys unspeakable over time. Give your life to Him today. Why wait?

WALK WITH THE KING TODAY AND BE A BLESSING!

WHY WAIT?

1 Peter 1:3-4 (TNIV) “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, …”

In this life we strive to acquire things. We want a nice house, a nice car, nice clothes, nice friends and there is nothing wrong with any of that. It’s when those THINGS become the focal point of our lives that our value system goes askew*. When what we have in this life becomes of paramount importance, then other things must step aside. For the believer, that is usually time with God. Many times we overreach our financial capabilities and get into debt in our efforts to attain a certain lifestyle. It is God who must be paramount in our lives and not the things around us.

Focusing on God has never caused anyone to go into debt. As the world sees it, quite the opposite would be true. The world sees believers as weak people in need of a crutch. They never once consider that perhaps there just may be something bigger than they are out there.

In 1^st Peter, the author writes of praising God and of a living hope. Part of our hope lies in the inheritance God has stored up for us in heaven. The things of this world shall perish … metal items will eventually turn into a pile of rusty dust; other things will fade and become misshapen over time. The treasure that is kept for us in heaven “can never perish, spoil or fade”.

What is our inheritance? Is it not God Himself and our eternal dwelling place? In my search through scripture it appears to me that this is what we can count on. We haven’t been promised wealth, because we will not need money in heaven. We will not need vehicles to get around. We will have provided for us all that we will need to exist in heaven. That is good news, especially to those who have not had much this side of heaven.

I have a suspicion that when we are in the presence of God, we won’t be bored. There will be no need for TV’s or Xboxes; movies will no longer exist, but music will be there.  Some seem to think that when they arrive in heaven they will have a thing or two to tell God. Uh, I doubt that very much. At the mere sight of Almighty God I have no doubt we will all fall prostrate on the floor, afraid to look at One so holy and just. Our best deeds are as filthy rags by comparison to His glory.

Yes, we have a heavenly inheritance and it will be more than enough. We may struggle making ends meet on earth, but up in heaven there are no tears, no pain and no need will go unmet. God’s inheritance for those who are His children is something this world could never in a million years understand or even desire. The devil has duped millions into believing life is all about what you can get for yourself. He has people fighting against people for the last super toy that little Johnny has to have. He has us shooting one another over a pair of sneakers.  Values are slowly becoming extinct, and morals as well.

Surrender to God today if you have not already and allow His peace to flow through you as you come to know Him in a personal way. If you are already a child of God, tap into His grace one more time; bask in the light of His mercy and be comforted. No matter what you are going through, He will see you through it to the other side if you will just let Him. Allow Him to have full reign over you starting today. Why wait?

WALK WITH THE KING TODAY AND BE A BLESSING!
< * off to one side; not centered; awry - www.thefreedictionary.com >

STOP DOING WRONG!

Isaiah 1:16-17a (TNIV) “… wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!”

Isaiah’s admonishment to Israel is quite clear and even rings true today. We still live lives that are displeasing to God in many ways, sometimes out of ignorance to His word. God is not restrictive, although many see Him as such. He happens to know us better than we could ever know ourselves and knows what will benefit us the most and bring us the most contentment in life. We don’t want to be told how to live, so we strain at the leash, even as Christians. We need to surrender to the will of God for our lives. As we delve into God’s scriptures, we begin to wash ourselves in His truth and education ourselves in His ways. If we do this with an open mind, we will slowly begin to realize that He is only trying to spare us heartache and pain.

As a parent we can be frustrated by our children. We want so much to spare them some of the pain we have experienced through the trial and error that was our life to that point. We didn’t listen to our parents either, so it shouldn’t seem so strange that our children don’t listen to us, but it is strange to us. We don’t understand why they won’t listen to our “wisdom”.  This is how it is with God, only He is not surprised by our ignorance. He knows us all too well and understands that we are but dust and to dust we shall return some day. He created us with a free will to do as we please. Why did He do that? Because He wanted us to praise and worship Him not out of requirement, but because we wanted to.

Nike had a slogan that was quite prevalent in our society for many years:  JUST DO IT!  Well, this is what Isaiah is telling us in these verses. STOP DOING WRONG! You were born with a sense of right and wrong. Stop doing that which only hurts you and those around you. LEARN to do right. How do we learn to do right? God’s word is, among many other things, a guide book. It has life lessons. It teaches us, if we let it, how to act and react to any given situation. It can infuse us with peace and contentment. It can cause hope to grow within our hearts in spite of our circumstances. We learn that God is no respecter of persons, meaning what He did for those in Bible times He will most assuredly do for you. You are His child. He loves you without conditions.  He wants only that which is good for you and wishes no pain to come to you. We feel that we know better and go wandering off on our little rabbit trails, seeking that which we feel will meet some imagined need. God does not condemn us for this. He allows it so we can learn through doing what is truly best for us. He would have loved for us to avoid that self-inflicted pain, but will not stop us from stumbling on our own.  It is part of the growing process.

Proverbs nails it when it says “there is a way that seems right to a man, but whose end is destruction”*.  God knows all about everything. We do not. It is that simple. It is at THAT point that God can mold us and make us all we can be IN Him. When we realize, perhaps for the first time, that we are NOT in control of anything, then we will begin to grow. Are we living for ourselves or for others? Does our own well being mean more to us than anything else in this world or are we more centered on being a blessing to those around us? The whole concept of faith and trust is realized when an individual accepts that God will not allow those to fail who live for Him.  Surrendering to His will and way of doing things is to be our only option.  JUST DO IT!

WALK WITH THE KING TODAY AND BE A BLESSING!

* Proverbs 14:12 & 16:25; www.biblegateway.com

LEAVE THE PAST BEHIND

Isaiah 43:18-19 (TNIV) “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

We all have a tendency to dwell on the past. I know I do. We can’t change one thing about it, yet we replay it in our minds as if we could. It is no benefit to us except to help us not make the same mistakes we’ve made in the past. We should heed the warnings from the past and that is all. If we don’t learn from our mistakes than we will continue to make the same ones over and over again.

God tells us to forget the past; don’t dwell on it. When you woke up this morning you were given a fresh 24 hours to do something good for yourself and for your fellow man. God has a will for each and every one of us. His will is being laid out daily before us. He makes a way where there IS no way. Man’s ways are nothing like God’s ways. God moves on men’s hearts and whispers thoughts into their minds via the Holy Spirit. He creates unlikely scenarios which only make sense to the righteous and unfolds His plans to perfection. Will we see it? Only if we are looking for it. It all lies in the level of faith and trust we have in our Heavenly Father. He is trustworthy, without question. There is no falsehood in him. So when He states in scripture that He is “doing a new thing” and that He is “making a way” you can believe it.

The past in unchanging … it stands as a testament to what we have done. It doesn’t have to have any pronounced effect on what we will DO going forward. Today is a new day. God is doing a new thing constantly. We must know Him to partake in what He is doing. Then we must grow in our knowledge and trust of Him. Once we do that we will begin to see things differently. Seeing life through the eyes of faith is a wonderful thing. Obstacles no longer seem like obstacles at all, but rather challenges. There is nothing this life can throw at us that God cannot see us through. Think about that. God is in complete and ultimate control. He has to be or He could not be who He says He is. So what on this earth could possibly stop us from doing that which is righteous and holy? Nothing. Knowing God may not get you a Mercedes Benz or a mansion this side of heaven, but it WILL provide for you peace and comfort when you most need it, guidance and direction when you are lost and strength to deal with the worst things you can imagine. The things God gives are priceless in value, unlike the things of this world which are here today and gone tomorrow. If you rely on God for all things, you will find that He truly IS doing new things all the time and would do something completely different and new just for you if necessary. What a wonderful God we serve.

WALK WITH THE KING TODAY AND BE A BLESSING!