Wherever You Go

This is my command - be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged.  For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (NLT) -Joshua 1:9

There are times in life that we feel alone, and that no one else can relate. Trials come our way and sometimes there is nothing anyone can do to help the situation.

Read this part again: do not be afraid or discouraged. God brings seasons in life to sharpen you for your own good. God walks WITH you THROUGH this hardship. He is with you; gain your strength from Him.

The Dangers of the Tongue

The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. (Isaiah 50:4a)(NKJV)


People tend to be known by what they say. Words may strike fear in others, they may reveal the speakers to be foolish, or they may be a source of help or comfort to other people.

In a passage that probably pertains to the coming Messiah, Isaiah said the Lord's Anointed would "know how to speak" by receiving instruction from God. As a result of the divine tutelage, He would be able to speak appropriately to the weary.

How much more do the rest of us need help in knowing what to say, given our sinful condition. Scripture repeatedly warns us about the power and danger of our words. As Scripture frequently shows, they can:

• cut like a sword (Ps. 57:4; 64:3)
• be as dangerous and poisonous as a snake (Ps. 140:3)
• convey lies with the impact of a bow (Jer. 9:3)
• strike down other people like an arrow (Jer. 9:8), and
• curse and demean others (Hos. 7:16)

What is the impact of your words on other people? Does what you say build others up or tear them down?

(from the Word in Life Study Bible-Nelson Publishers)

A Prayer for Obedience

Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous;

Teach me to serve you as you deserve;

To give and not to count the cost,

To fight and not to heed the wounds,

To toil and not to seek rest,

To labor and not to seek reward,

Save that of knowing that I am doing your will.

--Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556)

Filled With the Fullness of God

I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit, and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God's love, and to know the Messiah's love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 
(Ephesians 3:16-19)(HCSB)

In this prayer Paul voices three wonderful petitions for the Ephesian Christians. First, that they would be strengthened with might by God's Spirit in the inner man. This is not a prayer for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but that the Holy Spirit would be able to strengthen them in the inner man.

The purpose of this strengthening is Paul's second request, that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith. The word translated dwell really means that Christ would settle down and feel at home in their hearts. That whereas He had been a guest He would be allowed to be host. That He would not be looked upon as a divine Visitor, but as Owner with the right to transform. The truth that Christ indwells the believer is taught many places in the New Testament, but it is when this truth is believed that the Indwelling Christ becomes that Lord of the life and does His transforming work. This is the truth that transforms Christians.

Paul's third request is that the Ephesians would be rooted and grounded in love and so be able to understand experientially  the love of Christ which passes knowledge. This will result in their being filled unto all the fullness of God.

He closes this wonderful prayer with the assuring words that God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Pray this prayer for yourself and others. As it is answered in the lives of God's children, it will produce a revival such as has not been experienced before.

--Dr. R. H. Belton

Warning: Danger Ahead!

A wise man fears and departs from evil,
But a fool rages and is self-confident. (Proverbs 14:16)(NKJV)


One mark of the fool is overconfidence about being able to avoid evil. "It can't happen to me" is his motto. "And if it does, I can handle it," he boasts. But the Bible says he is tragically mistaken.

"Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall," the New Testament warns (1 Cor. 10:12). And Jesus told his disciples, who insisted that they would never deny their Lord even if it cost them their lives, "Watch and pray, lest you enter temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Matt. 26:35,41).

Overconfidence about one's own moral and spiritual strength is perilous. It shows that one has no appreciation of the nature and power of evil. If people such as Moses, Samson, David, and Peter were tempted and fell into sin (Num. 20:2-13; Judg. 16; 2 Sam. 11; Matt. 26:69-75), what chance do the rest of us have if we fail to respect sin's power?

For that reason, Proverbs counsels that we depart from evil (Prov. 14:16), that we turn our backs on temptation and refuse to toy with sin. For one person that might mean finding a new set of friends; for another, changing jobs; and for someone else, canceling a magazine subscription.

Whatever tempts you to sin, you are wise if you do whatever it takes to turn your back on it, and turn toward "righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart"
(2 Tim. 2:22).

--from the Word In Life Study Bible Nelson Publishers

Worship

"He moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord" 
(Genesis 12:8)

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20). God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.

Bethel is the the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram "pitched his tent" between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him. Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time--there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have a daily quiet time with God. That is why we must "pitch our tents" where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three levels of spiritual life---worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God's idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight.

--Oswald Chambers