The Mark- Oct. 10th

BIBLE READING PLAN: Ezekiel 7-12

MEDITATION VERSE:

“And the Lord said to him, Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.’”  Ezekiel 9:4 

THOUGHTS:

We live in an intensely politically correct world.  We are constantly told that it is wrong to have an opinion of what other people do.  The premise is that I have no right to have an opinion about someone’s personal choices.  Their choices are the result of their personal decisions and preferences and therefore it should not bother me.  When it does bother me, then I have somehow offended that person by not excepting them.  Judges in courtrooms across the country consistently hand down judgments in favor of those who have been offended. 

 The one that never seems to be considered in these judgments is God.  Does anyone care that God is offended?  God calls many of our personal decisions sin.  Sin offends God.  Sin is a personal affront to God.  What about God?  God considers sin to be an abomination. 

 What offends God should offend those who are His.  In fact, it is a distinguishing characteristic of those who are God’s.  Those who have his “mark” will be grieved by sin.  They will be bothered by their own sin and by the sin of others.  The primary reason we should “sigh and groan” over sin is because of how offensive it is to the honor of God.  Sin dishonors God.

 The fact is that if you do not grieve over sin (your own and others) you may not have God’s mark on your forehead.  Grieving over sin was the distinguishing characteristic of those who received the mark.  If you are fine with your sin and the sin of others; if you redefine sin or justify sin, then you may not have God’s mark on your forehead.  You may just be indistinguishable from all the other idolaters and sinners. 

PRAYER: Lord, forgive me for not taking sin as serious as you do; forgive me for not considering what sin is communicating to you.  Lord, open my eyes to see this world as you do.  Lord, give me a distaste for sin and a love for sinners; let me grieve over this world for the dishonor it is showing you and for the punishment that it is so justly earning.     Amen

A HEART TATTOO- Sept. 30TH

BIBLE READING PLAN: Jeremiah 30-32

MEDITATION VERSE:

“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”  Jeremiah 31:33-34  

THOUGHTS:

Everything that I am originates from within me.  I am what my heart dictates me to be.  My actions are merely reflections of who I am.  I am utterly incapable of pleasing God on my own.  My self-discipline is inadequate.  My works are insufficient.  My sacrifice has a foul odor. 

In my flesh, I cannot please God (Rom. 8:8). 

I desperately need my heart to be changed.   I desperately need to escape my own flesh. 

Praise be to the Name of our glorious Lord for he has made a way.  He has made a way through a new covenant; a covenant that comes through the blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (Luke 22:20).  Through the blood of the Lamb, we enter a new covenant within which our sins are remembered no more, we become God’s people, and He becomes our God.  The Good News is that we have been given a new covenant that results in His law being written upon our hearts.  Our hearts will be forever changed.

When God’s law is written upon my heart it becomes me.  It is part of me. It is inseparable from me.  If you were to remove my heart and examine it, you should find it covered with the inscription of God’s Holy Word.    When God’s words are written on my heart that is when I become more and more His and He becomes more mine in a practical sense.  That is how sanctification works.

We must be in God’s word.   

We are transformed by His word when we read our Bibles and the Spirit grabs that word and tattoos it deep within our hearts.  That is what is happening when a verse or a passage grabs us and changes us. 

That word is being written upon your heart. 

However, that work comes from consuming God’s word.  I watched a video last night in which the speaker said that he could tell you how spiritual you are based on the amount of time you spend in the word and in prayer.  That is so true. 

The amount of time we spend in the word and prayer dictates the amount of time we submit to the tattooing process of God writing His word on our hearts.

What does your heart look like?  Do you have a single verse tattooed on the arm of your heart?  Do you have an arm band?  Do you have a tattooed sleeve or do you have a body suit?  I hope and pray that your heart is covered with the word of God that has been written on your heart. 

My challenge for you today is to open your Bible today and experience the grace of God through the writing of His word on your heart. 

You will be forever changed.

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for the blood of your Son.  Thank you the new covenant that you have given me.  Thank you for making me yours.  Thank you for being my God.  Lord, write your word upon my heart; cover me; saturate me.  Change my heart, Lord for your glory and praise.            Amen

WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN- Sept. 29TH

BIBLE READING PLAN: Jeremiah 26-29

MEDITATION VERSE:

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.   I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”                  Jeremiah 29:11-14  

THOUGHTS:

What is God’s purpose for your life?  How do you know God’s will for your life?

I think that those questions are very familiar to Christians of the last couple generations.  I have read many books on how to determine the answer to those questions.  I have listened to a lot of sermons on how to discern God’s will.  Mostly, I have listen to friends and family members describe to me their reasoning in how they determined that it was God’s will to pursue a specific course of action. 

Those descriptions typically contain some variation of the open door / closed door approach to decision making.  I think that there is a lot of merit in identifying options and then selecting the alternative that appears to be the best option.  This is how the Apostle Paul decided upon which country to enter on his evangelical mission. 

However, our decision making can quickly become gridlocked in the morass of determining what is open and what is closed.  I think that we have to be a little honest here.  Our natural inclination is to pronounce “open” the door that is most attractive or beneficial to us and “closed” the door that is least attractive.  If you knew that behind a certain door there contained beatings, lack of physical provisions, ship wreck, and death, would you consider that an open door?  Let’s be honest!

We often determine what is open based upon “good things”.  We do not tend to attribute what we consider bad to God’s plans for our lives.  After all, does God promises to work out everything for our good.  However, what we may consider bad is often exactly the will of God.  God’s exile of his people into Babylon was exactly what he intend.  If I were in that situation, I would not be think that was a “good” situation.  I would not like it.  I would want it to end. 

God told those exiled in Babylon that the captivity they were experiencing, for 70 years, was for their ultimate welfare; what would your response be?  That the fall of Jerusalem and the defilement of the temple was not evil; would you have agreed?  That he was giving them a future and a hope; would that feel like hope?

 God had planned the entire fall of the nation of Israel for the purpose of getting his people to seek him with all of their heart.  God’s placed a much higher priority on the people heart condition then upon the state of their physical condition.  God would rather have a people in captivity whose hearts were fully his then a people in sovereign control their country, yet with hearts in complete rebellion to him.       

How concerned do you think God is with your heart condition?  I know that I have areas of my life in which my heart is not fully God’s.  I give it to him and then slowly take it back, often without realizing it.  I rarely see those areas of my heart that are not fully God’s when everything is going well.  It is when the wheels come off and I respond in a manner that is not glorifying to God that I become fully aware of my heart condition and sin.  The challenge is what to do in those times. 

We are supposed to turn and seek God with all of our heart.  The wonderful promise is that we can have confidence that we will find what we are seeking; God! 

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for caring some much about that you will show me those areas of my life that are not yours.  Lord, give me eyes to see all that I have made into idols.  Create in me a heart that is fully yours and desires you more than anything else.    Amen

WHO SHOULD YOU UNSUBSCRIBE – Sept. 28TH

BIBLE READING PLAN: Jeremiah 22-25

MEDITATION VERSE:

““Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes.  They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.  They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”  Jeremiah 23:16-17 

THOUGHTS:

Every one of us is bombarded by individuals wanting to draw our attention.  The number of books, articles, podcasts, and videos that are on the market for our consumption is mind boggling.  Every week I get at least a dozen recommendations of things I just have to read or listen to.  I never make it through all of them.

That leaves me with a predicament of trying to determine who I should listen to.  It can be very difficult to know who we should listen to.  Who can you trust?  Can you rely upon credentials?   Can you rely upon mass public support? Is it even something to worry about? 

I am amazed at how often people will continue to listen to or read books by people who are clearly off-base, much less those who make you go “hmmm”.  The response is often along the lines of “I don’t agree with them on this point but they have so much other good stuff to say.”  It takes some discernment to identify the principles upon which believers in Christ can agree to disagree upon and those principles that are non-negotiable.

This passage presents one of those principles.  God tells us clearly that we are not to listen to a specific type of prophet (teacher).  This is an individual that we should remove from our podcast subscriptions; we should throw this individual’s books away; this is an individual whose teaching we are warned that we should not sit under.  The individuals that we are warned about are the ones who “fill us with vain hopes” and the ones who do not tell sinners about the disaster that is going to befall them. 

Those are two categories that should be pretty easy in identifying those who we should not be listening to. 

• If you hear a teacher that encourages you to place your hope in the prosperity of this world, then you should stop listening to them. 
• If you hear a teacher that teaches you that hell is not a consequence of sin then you should stop listening to them. 
• If a teacher never preaches the repentance from sin then you should stop listening to them.

The reality is that there are consequences to stubbornly following our own heart.  A false prophet is the one who refuses to acknowledge and teach that reality.  We are to stop listening to them and STOP means STOP.

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for the warning of following my own heart; thank you for the warning that there will be teachers that will falsely teach me that my vain hopes are good and there is no consequence to my sin.  Lord, may I never be such a teacher.  Lord, continue to change my heart to desire to follow you.        Amen

HEART FORESKIN~BAD – Sept. 14TH

BIBLE READING PLAN: Jeremiah 6-9

MEDITATION VERSE:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh… all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”  Jeremiah 9:25 

THOUGHTS:

The fact is that people can deceive themselves into thinking that they are Children of God. 

People can put on all the religious traditions, rights, rules, works, and moral codes and still not be saved.  God is not impressed with a well disciplined, religious zealot.  God requires a heart that loves Him.

We can say:

“I am circumcised”

“Abraham is our father”

“I prayed to accept Jesus”

“I was baptized”

“I grew up in a Christian home”

“I did all these works in the name of God”

We can say all those things and many other justifications and God can still stay that He never knew you.  God does not play games – He is not going to be appeased with the trinkets of our good works.

He demands ALL of us; He requires our Hearts – “You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind.”   A circumcised heart is a heart that is set-apart for God.  It is His without reservation or competition. 

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for circumcising our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Forgive me for clinging to the things of this world that entice me and attract me.  Lord, circumcise – set apart – my heart this day and every day for your glory; Continue that work in my life.     Amen

WHAT ARE YOU WORTH? – Sept. 13TH

BIBLE READING PLAN: Jeremiah 2-5

MEDITATION VERSE:

“What wrong did your fathers find in Me that they went far from Me and went after worthlessness and became worthless?” Jeremiah 2:5

THOUGHTS:

We are constantly making value decision; which Doritos are the best; which coffee is better; which route to work is the best.  We make so many value decisions in a day that we cease to think about them. 

The fact is that all of our decisions reveal our preferences and what we value the most.  When we choose sin, we are making a value decision.  Sin is not missing a mark.  Sin is making a preference choice.  We are declaring that this sin is more valuable to us than God is. 

Have you ever thought of your decisions as a reflection of your value of God?  When we choose sin, we are declaring that there is something wrong with God that makes Him less valuable that what we are choosing. 

How foolish is that?  We are choosing something worthless over the most worthy.  We are told that we will become what we choose.  Those who pursue the worthless will become worthless.  What we value determines our value because our value is found in only one place.

PRAYER: Lord, forgive me of my foolish choices; forgive me for losing sight of your supreme worth; forgive me for pursuing the worthless, when you have given me everything.  Lord give me eyes to see your surpassing worth.    Amen

IS GOD LOOKING YOUR WAY?- Sept. 9th

BIBLE READING PLAN: Isaiah 57-66

MEDITATION VERSE:

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ’I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite ” Isaiah 57:15

“But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” Isaiah 66:2b

THOUGHTS:

 

God dwells in the high and holy place with a particular type of person.  Even though He is eternal and high and holy, God still fellowships (lives) with those who are contrite and lowly in spirit.  God will make a choice as to what He will look upon.  It is an incredibly scary and heartbreaking thought that my actions and attitudes would make God not want to look at me.  My attitudes can be so offense as to cause Him not to want to fellowship with me.  What the scriptures are talking about are attitudes.  It is not talking about the good works that we do.  It is talking about the how and the whys of what we do. 

I want God’s face to shine upon me; I want to be pleasing to God; I want to be a pleasing, fragrant offering to God.  We can see that those desires are only realized when our actions comes from a heart that is in the right place; an attitude that is humble, contrite in spirit, and trembles at God’s word.

Humility: I often think of pride in terms of people to declare to the world that “I am the greatest”.  I feel like I can get myself off the hook if I use that definition for pride.  However, Isa. 2:17 tells us “And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.”  That brings pride much closer to home.  Pride is when we make much of ourselves; when we exalt ourselves over God. 

Declaring to the world how great we are is only the tip of the iceberg of the ways in which we exalt ourselves.  What about our selfishness?  What about our desire for people to think well of us?  What about our desire for people to feel sorry for us?  What about our desire to be known?  All of those attitudes can be coming from a heart that wants to be made much of.  That is pride.  All of those attitudes are demonstrating that we want people to notice us more than we want them to notice God.

Contrite Heart:   A contrite heart is the heart that knows his guilt.  A contrite heart knows that Jesus is the cornerstone of his life.  The contrite heart is fully aware of his sin and that he has fallen woefully short of the glory of God and that the wages for sin is death.  A contrite heart knows that he is responsible for the murder the beloved Son.

The contrite heart knows that Christ died for his sins and His death counts for us if we confess our sin, say that we are sorry and turn and follow Christ.  That is how the justice of God for our sin is satisfied and we are not eternally condemned. 

A contrite heart is continuously aware and praising God for the salvation through is Son because he knows that he is guilty.

Trembles at His Word:  God gave us his word for a purpose.  It is meant to instruct us and to teach us.  Those who love God and want to be close to God will know His words and desire them.  God says what He means and means what He says.  Those who love God take seriously his commands.  1 John 2:3, “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.”

PRAYER: Lord, create in me a heart that is humble, contrite, and trembles are your word.  Revive my spirit so that I can see clearly and praise and glory be to your name in all things and at all times.   Amen