Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Nehemiah 8:10
Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
1 Comment
THE POWER OF THE WORD
"…take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:17). "…the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires" (Hebrews 4:12). THE POWER OF PRAYER "…The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit" (James 5:16-18, ESV). THE POWER OF FAITH "In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil" (Ephesians 6:16). "For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God" (1 John 5:4-5). "Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are" (1 Peter 5:8-9). "For though we walk (live) in the flesh, we are not carrying on our warfare according to the flesh and using mere human weapons. For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds…" (2 Corinthians 10:3-4, AMP).
The military spends billions of dollars annually in the research and development of new weapons. The goal is to develop the longest-range, most powerful state-of-the-art weapon. Of course, ideally these weapons would be used to secure and defend freedom. The weapons being developed are designed to neutralize physical forces, while we as Christians are looking for weapons that will neutralize spiritual powers. We don't fight in the same way that the world fights using human plans and weapons. The battle that we are fighting is on a spiritual level. God has given us an amazing arsenal available wherever we go. THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL "The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18). "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…" (Romans 1:16, NASB). THE POWER OF THE RESURRECTION "The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you" (Romans 8:11). THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT "Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?" (1 Corinthians 6:19a). "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:13-14, NIV). "…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere…" (Acts 1:8). "There is a wide-open door for a great work here, although many oppose me" (1 Corinthians 16:9).
G. Campbell Morgan said, "If you have no opposition in the place you serve, you're serving in the wrong place." Very often I've seen that Satan attacks hardest where the work of God is the greatest. "A… necessary principle for doing the Lord's work in the Lord's way is accepting opposition as a challenge rather than as a hindrance. In the present age there is no such thing as an authentic ministry without problems and opposition of some sort. Satan will see to it. A work that has little opposition from the antagonistic system of Satan is one that is doing little work for the Lord." (MacArthur New Testament Commentary) The apostle Paul experienced a lot of opposition as he served the Lord. He says, "…a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries" (1 Corinthians 16:9, NASB). The Greek word for "adversaries" means lining up opposite or against another. Perhaps you're experiencing adversity, and it seems everything is lined up against you. Generally, we can't control when adversity comes to us, but we can control our response to it. Winston Churchill said, "If you're going through hell, keep going." Billy Graham said, "Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has." The apostle Paul gives us an excellent response to spiritual opposition and adversity: Be on guard – stay alert, watch out Stand firm in the faith – persevere Be courageous – be brave Be strong – having mature strength (1 Corinthians 16:13). "But when you had eaten and were satisfied, you became proud and forgot me" (Hosea 13:6).
David W. Henderson says, "Pride is amnesia of the soul. It is forgetting God." Unbelievers forget God by refusing to seek Him; "The wicked are too proud to seek God. They seem to think that God is dead" (Psalm 10:4). But for believers, pride often manifests itself in living apart from God in foolish self-confidence. Pride makes monuments out of our deeds of self-reliance. Because the Lord allows us some room to live in independence from Him, we deceive ourselves into thinking that what we've done, or are doing, is a result of our wisdom, strength, talents, or abilities. The foolish unbeliever has said, "There is no God," but the foolish believer says, "There is no need of God in what I am aiming to do." This is the height of arrogance. Personal success and prosperity seductively erode our memories of God's work on our behalf, and subtly we drift into the delusion of claiming what is God's as belonging to ourselves. It moves us from a vertical relationship with God to a horizontal trust in ourselves. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil" (Proverbs 3:5-7). (Commentary Mark Martin) PRIDE BUSTERS
If identifying pride is tough, avoiding it is even harder—but not impossible. Here are some steps that might help. Ask God to make you unimpressed by your successes, accomplishments, and position. Express to God a willingness to remain in humble, invisible positions of service. Take up residence in a Biblical worldview. Keep godly company. Get in over your head in ministry ventures. Let God stretch you. Spend time in the mountains or at the ocean. Give away a lot of money. Confess your pride to a trustworthy friend. Pray John Wesley's prayer every morning: "Let me be nothing and Christ be all in all." Persist in seeking God. Ask Him daily for His strength, wisdom, provision, direction, peace, and rest. Don't do anything to make yourself appear better than you are, and don't let people get away with building you up inappropriately. Memorize Is. 66:2, Jn. 3:30, Jas. 4:6, and Rev. 3:17-18. Read 2 Chronicles yearly. Give it all back to Him every day—your success, wealth, home, family, ministry—everything. Receive compliments, but then pass them on to the Lord. Worship daily. As Phillips Brooks said, "The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is." Ask God daily to humble you. Give Him invitation and room to break you daily, even hourly, so that He need not break you in greater, more painful ways. (David W. Henderson, "Here Comes the Pride, Discipleship Journal, Issue 105, 1998, p. 43) "God opposes the proud but favors the humble. So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:6-7). "Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came over and spoke to him. 'Teacher,' they said, 'we want you to do us a favor.' 'What is your request?' he asked. They replied, 'When you sit on your glorious throne, we want to sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left'" (Mark 10:35-37).
This passage could be entitled, "How To Miss the Entire Point of Three Years of Training." The disciples were often in conflict over who had what they thought were the most favored positions in serving the Lord. On the road to Jesus' ministry headquarters in Capernaum, one time His disciples began to argue about who was the greatest among them. We're told that "After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, 'What were you discussing out on the road?' But they didn't answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, 'Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else'" (Mark 9:33-35). Would cleaning fish for dinner be less important than healing a dozen people in the village? What would you rather do? I read that John Newton, a former slave-trader and the man who wrote "Amazing Grace," gave an illustration of what it means to purely serve the Lord. By this I mean, serving the Lord solely to serve the Lord, being unaffected by the task. As I read I thought of you and wanted to share an idea that expanded my thinking about what serving the Lord means. Newton said, "If two angels were to receive at the same moment a commission from God, one to go down and rule earth's grandest empire, the other to go and sweep the streets of its meanest village, it would be a matter of entire indifference to each which service fell to his lot, the post of ruler or the post of scavenger; for the joy of the angels lies only in obedience to God's will." The mission the Lord sends you on is less important than the heart you take with you. "The call of Christ is always a promotion." (A.W. Tozer) "The world is to be cleaned by somebody, and you are not called of God if you are ashamed to scrub." (Henry Ward Beecher) (Commentary Mark Martin) Here are some of the evidences of real salvation:
Right living: In 1 Peter 1:16 God says, "Be holy, because I am holy." A true Christian has a desire to live for the Lord, to love the things the Lord loves and to hate the things the Lord hates. There's going to be a change of life: A change of habits. A change of enjoyments. A change of loves. A change of thinking and mind. A change of heart. And someday a change of address! Another evidence is a life of love: You love God's Word – you have a hunger for it. You love God's people – you have a sincere love for them. You love God's fellowship. You love to please the Lord. These are the qualities that the Holy Spirit works in the life of every authentic believer. (Commentary Mark Martin) "Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!" (Genesis 1:31).
Are you having to listen to your teacher or professor talk about the theory of evolution? Hang in there, the God who died for you also created you! Hold onto your faith. God looked over all creation, including humankind, and declared it was good. Let's think about how good, how utterly amazing His creation truly is! Let me share something I read years ago: A human body... is a masterpiece of exquisite design. Beautifully 'engineered,' it is governed by several hundred control systems—each interacting with the others to maintain perfect overall balance. Man’s brain has 10 billion nerve cells to record what he sees and hears. His skin has more than 2 million tiny sweat glands—about 3,000 per square inch—all part of an intricate network that regulates body temperature. A 'pump' in his chest makes his blood cells travel 168 million miles a day, or 6,720 times around the world! The lining of his stomach contains 35 million glands secreting juices to aid the chemical processes which sustain his life. The marvels of the human body are beyond comprehension! …Most new products don’t operate efficiently until all the 'bugs' are ironed out... Just think, the first time God put a human body together, it worked! (From Our Daily Bread, Tuesday, Sept. 2nd, Herbert G. Bosch) "I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well" (Psalm 139:14, NASB). "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it" (Psalm139:14). God is awesome and worthy of our praise, today and forevermore! (Commentary Mark Martin) Rev. 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”
The death rate is at 100%. You will die some day, guaranteed. The question is, are your sins forgiven? For "Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved." Romans 10:13. Have you done this? Do you believe it? |
Authorhttps://www.facebook.com/Its-Not-About-Me-Its-About-You-Jesus-137394136305292/ Archives
July 2017
Categories |