Good Morning! 2010.06.18 - Psalm 119:67, 71 - It is Good For Me

Good Morning!

 

Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.  It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.  (Psalm 119:67,71)

 

What a testimony! When I read these verses forty years ago I decided to memorize them. My mother demonstrated the effectiveness of affliction long before I ever read the words of today's text.  I'm surprised that so many Bible commentators have little or nothing to say about them. There is much neglect, today, of the reading and studying of the Word of God. So, we go about inventing and designing our own God who will not do this and that.

It's easy in our culture to think  that the whole idea of God is obsolete and if there is such a one that we call God—He certainly would think like I think. But God is who He is and if we will not listen to Him, He may give us a few object lessons until we come to our senses.

My mother was not a child abuser, but she did tear me up a few times and made it clear she was in charge. She never tried to be my buddy or my friend. When I stubbed my toe and ran in the house wailing I did not want a buddy or a friend. I wanted my Mama! The same is true in our relationship to the Lord.

My father never laid a hand on me—not once. He was gone a lot while running a sawmill and boarding with some family during the week.  So my mother was the disciplinarian. She was an easy-going mother, full of love. She was also a woman of principle and had taught school before she was married. When she told me to do something she did not say "please" and she did not count to four.

If I was told what to do and dilly-dallied around, I could expect lightning to strike. If I saw her go out the back door and come back in with a switch off the peach tree, I knew a storm was brewing and it was time to get interested in obedience.

The unfavorable hand of God upon His creatures has a good purpose. The first purpose is for correction of careless or rebellious behavior while living on the earth. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.  (Hebrews 12:11) Clearly, this is for the purpose of correction.

 

Paul warns that there is a sin unto sickness and a sin unto death. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep (1Corinthians 11:30). The remedy for this state is found in the next verse:

For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.  (1Corinthians 11:31)

 

I have heard many people lament: "Well, God is punishing me through my child's sickness or death because of my own wild oats." That simply is not true.  It is true that behavior has consequences including undesirable consequences. Good behavior has consequences. Bad behavior has consequences. But when bad things happen to people it is not always the punishment of God upon them. Corrective chastening is not punishment. It's a whole different world. It is true that God chastens His own. Consider this:

 

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

 

But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.  

 

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?  For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 

 

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.  Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;  (Hebrews 12:6-12)

 

These verses are NOT  talking about lost people and NOT talking about eternity. They are talking about saved people on this earth. The scope of our subject in this devotional is limited to the time on earth.

 

 

This article can also be viewed at www.bibleliving.blogspot.com

 

To be removed from this mailing list, please click here. In the subject line type "remove."  ●To subscribe to this and other Encourager mailings, click here. In the subject line, type "subscribe." Please give your name and email address. ●Please set your spam system (contact list) to accept  encourager@biblewalking.com and  dan@dancarr.org.   ●Thank you for accepting our mail and passing it on. Photo from  Miscellaneous

 

 

 

Good Morning! 2010.06.17 - Hebrews 11:1-3 - Through Faith We Understand

Good Morning!

 

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things

 

not seen.  For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we

 

understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that

 

things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.  (Hebrews 11:1-3)

 

There are only two possible explanations for the origin of the universe. One is speculation, and the other is revelation. There is no scientific explanation. For anything to be scientific, it must be observable, repeatable and predictable.  That is the criteria scientists imposed upon themselves long ago. We know of no one observing the origin taking place. No one can repeat the origin of the universe and no one can predict its recurrence. So, regardless of what you believe about the origin of the universe, you cannot claim a scientific explanation. You are shut up to faith. You believe it occurred a certain way and that makes you a person of faith even if you are an atheist.

By faith you believe your own ideas about creation. By faith you accept somebody else's speculation. By faith we accept revelation that claims to have come from God. But faith is not a leap into the dark. We believe the Bible is reliable for several reasons. The classic summary is: the Bible claims to be the Word of God. It seems to be the Word of God. It proves to be the Word of God.

In our court system, the testimony of witnesses is one the strongest kinds of evidence. In the Bible, the strongest evidence to its authenticity is the fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies. Over three hundred prophecies concerning the Jewish messiah were fulfilled in Jesus the Christ who was crucified at the time of the evening sacrifice on the exact day prophesied by the prophet Daniel.

Prophecies concerning the nation of Israel are great in number, particularly the prophecies concerning their continuation as a nation in the most challenging situations. Many prophecies are in the Bible that have not yet been fulfilled and we believe they will be fulfilled because so many other prophecies have been fulfilled with great precision.

Another strong type of evidence to the truthfulness of the Bible is its unwavering accuracy in reporting things later confirmed by archaeology. The ruins. The pottery. The cities that lie buried.  The crossing of the nation of Israel through the Red Sea is outstanding. We now know from the  encrusted chariot wheels in the Red Sea on an underwater reef that Egyptian soldiers were at one time in the bottom of the Red Sea. British satellite pictures of the sand near the Red Sea seem to indicate a mass packing of the sand that is different from the land everywhere else. The impacted sand goes right up to the edge of the water and the chariot wheels are located in the water adjacent to the packed sand. So, the Bible has many proofs to its truthfulness. It is a book like no other.

It is faith based upon this kind of evidence that causes us to believe the Bible is trustworthy. When this trustworthy book speaks of the beginning of the universe, it presents the best model of explanation of any other explanation. In recent years we have been reminded by Michael Behe's classic book: Darwin's Black Box that there is the principle of irreducible complexity.  Intelligent design is in everything around us. When you cut yourself, what makes the blood stop flowing?

The many mechanisms observed by scientists in the human body cannot be reduced beyond a certain critical point without it ceasing to function and the patient dies, The simple mouse trap cannot be reduced by even one part and still function as a mouse trap. Without all of its parts present and working at one time, it is a collection of interesting parts but it is not a mouse trap.

So all the intermediate forms of life claimed by evolutionists would have been in such a reduced state that they would not have functioned. As an explanation of beginnings, the unproven theory of evolution is a corpse waiting to be buried. Darwin didn't know he had all this explaining to do.

Peter states it this way: We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:  (2Peter 1:19) Not only do we have a sure word about future things, we have an equally sure word about things of creation and the flow of ancient history.

 

I can't pass up the following interesting comments by the late J. Vernon McGee."The Word of God has the power to transform lives. And when you and I come to the Word of God, we either accept or reject God's statement concerning the origin of the universe: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen_1:1). That is revelation. Either you believe God, or you go by speculation. Don't tell me that evolution is scientific. It is not. If it were, then all the scientists would be in agreement—and they certainly are not in agreement. Today many outstanding scientists are beginning to let go of their worship of evolution. They see so many fallacies in it that they are moving away from it. You either believe God (that's revelation), or you believe speculation. Faith must be anchored in something.

"I heard this whimsical story about a guide in a museum who was taking a group of people through the museum and they came to a reconstructed dinosaur. You know how they find one bone and make up the rest of it so that they have a great big dinosaur! Well, the guide said, "This dinosaur is two million and six years old!"

"Of course, the crowd looked at him in amazement, and one extrovert said, "What do you mean two million and six years old? Where did you get the six?"

"Well," the guide said, "when I came to work here six years ago, it was two million years old. Now it is two million and six years old!" My friend, that shows how utterly ridiculous all this dating—which goes back millions of years—can really become.

"Faith means that you have a solid basis for the origin of the universe. I won't have to change my theory as scientific knowledge grows; it has been in operation a long time: "God created the heaven and the earth." (McGee)

Thanks to JPL for his cell phone text message about Hebrews 11:1-3. I send out the daily verses of our Good Morning! Letter to seventeen busy people who read the text on the run. Sometimes they respond with a verse of their own or a two-word commentary.

 

 

This article can also be viewed at www.bibleliving.blogspot.com

 

To be removed from this mailing list, please click here. In the subject line type "remove."  ●To subscribe to this and other Encourager mailings, click here. In the subject line, type "subscribe." Please give your name and email address. ●Please set your spam system (contact list) to accept  encourager@biblewalking.com and  dan@dancarr.org.   ●Thank you for accepting our mail and passing it on. Photo from NASA: The Blue Marble: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2429l

 

 

Good Morning! 2010.06.16 - James 4:4 - Friendship With the World and God

Good Morning!

 

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship

 

of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a

 

friend of the world is the enemy of God.  (James 4:4)

 

This is a tough saying. The immediate focus here is not sexual sin. The text takes the stained image of men and women who habitually practice sex outside of marriage and use that corrupt practice to describe a much bigger and broader area that offends God. James is saying that they have broken their marriage covenant with God by loving the world more than the living God.  He goes to root of the problem in saying that life has to be lived with allegiance to God or allegiance to the world. Straddling a barbed wire fence will make you a loser in a hurry. Get on one side of the fence or the other.

 

Jesus said: No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24)

 

I have spent a half-century listening to and talking to people that are trying to fix something in their miserable lives. A few people enter into counseling with an honest and humble heart. But most do not. A majority of the troubled couples who have come to me are there to get me to endorse their way of thinking that got them into trouble in the first place.  Their primary allegiance is not to God even though they can sing Amazing Grace like a pro. Living in the real world is best done in the light of God's word.

 

I wasted many hours sitting with people who would not be bound by the Word of God. After about ten years of that, I began to agree with Jay Adams whose approach to counseling was to give people the Word of God and if they did not want to embrace the Bible as their blueprint, there was no need to waste their time and my time.

 

Few people can honestly pray: Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  (Psalm 139:23-24)

 

This generation is just like the generation before it: "Pastor, will you please tell me how to be a good Christian and be accepted by all my friends at school?" We don't like: Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil….(Exodus 23:2)

 

Serving God is not a chore but great blessing.  Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.  (Psalm 16:11)

 

In the New Testament we read: For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.  (1John 5:3)

 

Among Christians, the greatest issue is whether or not Christ is going to be Lord. I think Joshua said it well in his day:

 

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.  (Joshua 24:15)

 

This article can also be viewed at www.bibleliving.blogspot.com

 

To be removed from this mailing list, please click here. In the subject line type "remove."  ●To subscribe to this and other Encourager mailings, click here. In the subject line, type "subscribe." Please give your name and email address. ●Please set your spam system (contact list) to accept  encourager@biblewalking.com and  dan@dancarr.org.   ●Thank you for accepting our mail and passing it on. Photo from Microsoft Clip Art..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Morning! 2010.06.15 - Psalm 139:4 - God Knows Everything I say

Good Morning!

 

For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou

 

knowest it altogether.  (Psalm 139:4)

 

The Bible uses "tongue" 126 times. Sometimes it is a good use of the tongue and sometimes it is evil and hurtful. Consider this beautiful use of tongue:

 

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.  (Proverbs 25:11)

 

In contrast to the beauty of words, James reminds us: …the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.  (James 3:6)

 

Paul encountered some people who used their tongues in a very destructive way: Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:  (Romans 3:13-14)

 

Not only does God know every word that comes from our tongue, the writer of Hebrews added this thought to what God knows about us: Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.  (Hebrews 4:13)

The psalmist summarized some people of his day who seem to be like the people of our day: Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?  (Psalm 12:4)

 

We can easily get the idea that God is nowhere around and that He does not know, does not care about much of anything in our lives. We are on our own. ButJesus reminded us that … the very hairs of your head are all numbered (Matthew 10:30).  God keeps track of our words and the hairs of our head.

 

Abraham's  wife, Sarah,  got fed up with Hagar, the concubine living in her house. Sarah was instrumental in getting Hagar thrown out of the house. Hagar was having a tough time. Even though she had been living in the home of Abraham, she knew little about God. When she and her son, Ishmael, ran out of water, she separated herself from Ishmael and said "Let me not see the death of the child "(Genesis 21:16).

And she [Hagar] called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?  (Genesis 16:13)

 

We cannot conceal anything from God. He already knows everything about you. Why not just sit down and have a long talk with Him and confess everything that you know is not right with Him? One of the most encouraging things I know for sure is that God has said:

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13) Ω

 

This article can also be viewed at www.bibleliving.blogspot.com

 

To be removed from this mailing list, please click here. In the subject line type "remove."  ●To subscribe to this and other Encourager mailings, click here. In the subject line, type "subscribe." Please give your name and email address. ●Please set your spam system (contact list) to accept  encourager@biblewalking.com and  dan@dancarr.org.   ●Thank you for accepting our mail and passing it on. Photo from Microsoft Clip Art..

 

 

 

 

 

Good Morning! 2010.06.14 - Luke 18:1-2 - Pray! Don't Faint

 

Good Morning!

 

And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought

 

always to pray, and not to faint;  Saying, There was in a city a

 

judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:  (Luke 18:1-2)

 

Once or twice in 55 years I have thought about letting someone else do the preaching thing. Jeremiah felt that way and said:

 

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.  (Jeremiah 9:2)

 

He continued: Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.  (Jeremiah 20:9)

 

A self-pity party can't last long. It's too expensive. Everyone sooner or later is faced with fainting. Life becomes overwhelming and like Elijah, "I think I'll just lay down under the Juniper tree and pout.

 

But he himself (Elijah without his servant) went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.  (1Kings 19:4)

 

Ever been there? Well then, Luke 18:1 is just the verse for you. From experience I will tell you another verse that will put some iron in your resolve: This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.  (Psalm 34:6-7)

 

Either that is true or God is a liar. Discouragement is one of the Devil's best tools. If you get tired;  lose a lot of sleep, live off of junk food, drink a lot of sugar water, etc. the Devil is going to knock on your door and tell you to just quit. Let somebody else do it. And you will say: "Thank you Mister Devil! That's a real good idea. I think I'll just do that. Quit. Throw in the towel."

 

Not so fast, Devil!

 

Now then, Mr. Christian! Get on your knees and stay there until you pray through. There is such a thing as praying.  You won't do that until you are in such a hard place that you think this is the only thing you can do. That's OK. God proves Himself to a lot of people who are in a parched desert.

 

Is that where you are now? Have you tried praying until you get an answer?  Think about what Jesus put Himself out on a limb to tell you in our verse for today. Someone has said that believing prayer is leaving your burden with the Lord and grabbing a hoe. Memorize Luke 18: 1 and have a good day.Ω

 

This article can also be viewed at www.bibleliving.blogspot.com

 

To be removed from this mailing list, please click here. In the subject line type "remove."  ●To subscribe to this and other Encourager mailings, click here. In the subject line, type "subscribe." Please give your name and email address. ●Please set your spam system (contact list) to accept  encourager@biblewalking.com and  dan@dancarr.org.   ●Thank you for accepting our mail and passing it on. Photo from Microsoft Clip Art..