God is on your side

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE OF THE DAY

Psalm 94:17-19 (Message)

Who stood up for me against the wicked?
    Who took my side against evil workers?
If God hadn’t been there for me,
    I never would have made it.
The minute I said, “I’m slipping, I’m falling,”
    your love, God, took hold and held me fast.
When I was upset and beside myself,
    you calmed me down and cheered me up.

God is on  your side. He will stand up for you as He has in times past. If it hadn't been for the Lord on our side we truly wouldn't have made it. So many situations and circumstances that we know that only God delivered us from and brought us through. 

We must never feel like we have to endure on our own. We can call out to our God and He will hear and come to our rescue. Thank God for His love and kindness. God is a Father that protects, loves and cares for His own.

Living Free

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE OF THE DAY

Galatians 5:1-6 (Message)

The Life of Freedom

5 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.

4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

Paul wrote passionately in this passage concerning the freedom we have in Christ. We must not get wrapped up in the legalism of religious practices. In doing so, we negate the redemptive work of Christ. We must remember that we are not saved because of our own works but because of the love of Christ. When we begin to walk in religious laws ( I am not talking about God's principles and commandments) we take the stance that our keeping these practices is what keeps us saved. We are not saved by any religious practice. It is because of man's failure to keep the Mosiac law that God graced us with a better way.  Thank God we are under the dispensation of grace! 

Never allow anyone to enslave you with religious rules and bylaws. The Holy Ghost should always be your guide. We never want to fall from grace or allow any man made laws to overtake us. We want to walk in love and in a personal relationship with Christ not follow rituals or religious steps or plans. Christ wants relationship not religion. Do a self examination. Have you fallen into ritual living? Going through a scheduled religious plan? This is not what God desires. Christ is alive and that my friend is what He wants from you a relationship that is alive and fueled by love not religious practices.

Living God's Way

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE OF THE DAY

Deuteronomy 7 (Message)

7-10 God wasn’t attracted to you and didn’t choose you because you were big and important—the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. God stepped in and mightily bought you back out of that world of slavery, freed you from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know this: God, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. But he also pays back those who hate him, pays them the wages of death; he isn’t slow to pay them off—those who hate him, he pays right on time.

11 So keep the command and the rules and regulations that I command you today. Do them.

12-13 And this is what will happen: When you, on your part, will obey these directives, keeping and following them, God, on his part, will keep the covenant of loyal love that he made with your ancestors:

He will love you,
he will bless you,
he will increase you.

It may be hard to understand and really grasp the love that God has for us. His love doesn't rely on how good we are or how important we may think we are. God's love is an Agape love. A love that is genuine and not circumstancial. In this passage, it is talking about God delivering the children of Isreal out of bondage however, it applies to us today. There is an Egypt that God has delivered you out of. Your Egypt may have been drugs, lust or even over eating. You know what your Egypt was.Whatever it was God delivered you. 

Now what God is requiring of you is that you keep His commandments. God is a God that you can depend on. He keeps His covenant with you. This is all a part of His great love for you. When you plant the seed of obedience to God's laws and principles you reap a harvest of God's blessings upon you and your future generations.When you neglect to obey God's commands there is a penalty to pay. God is a just God. 

God loves you. He will bless you. God will send increase to your household. If you obey His directives, commandments and statues. Live God's way and be blessed by the ever loving hands of the Almighty. 

You are Unique

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE OF THE DAY

Galatians 6:1-5 (Message)

1-3 Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

Verses one through three is a wonderful reminder that we should not think that we can't make mistakes or fall from the grace of God. When we see others that are caught up in sin or have made mistakes we should not look down on them. My friend it could be me or you that fall the next moment. Instead of thinking unhelpful thoughts or looking down on others let's try to help them. In helping them you just might win your brother or sister back to the Lord or lead them back on the right path. 

God has given each of us gifts and talents. We should never compare ourselves to others. We are unique. Our goals should be to perfect the gift that God has given us. It is a total waste of time to compare yourself to others. God is holding us responsible for the gifts and talents that He has given us and we will stand before Him one day and give an account. Pray that God will help you to love yourself and all the creative things that He has placed within you. I pray that every gift that you have will be stirred up and that you will utilize each gift and talent to the glory of God. 

Thankful Thursday

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE OF THE DAY

Psalm 40 (KJV)

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.

¹ I waited patiently for the Lord;
and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
² He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay,
and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
³ And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God:
many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.
⁴ Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust,
and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
⁵ Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done,
and thy thoughts which are to us-ward:
they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee:
if I would declare and speak of them,
they are more than can be numbered.

On this Thankful Thursday can you identify with this passage of scripture? Have God ever pulled you out of a horrible pit? Rescued you from a place of dispair? Placed you in a better environment. Turned your situation around?

The Bible calls the man/woman who trust in God blessed. If there is something you have before the Lord in prayer don't give up. Keep believing and trusting that God is going to bring it to pass.

God's works are marvelous and God's desire is to always see His children prosper and be in health. The scripture says that God's thoughts toward us are too many to number.

Give God praise today for all that He has done for you. Bless Him for all that He is to you and thank Him for all things.

Train up a Child

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE OF THE DAY

Proverbs 22:6 (message)
Point your kids in the right direction— when they’re old they won’t be lost

(King James Version)

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Deuteronomy 6:5-7

5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. ⁶ And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
⁷ And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

We are to train our children. To train means to instruct. We must make a decision to actively be involved in instructing our children in the behaviors that are suitable for our standards of life. Don't allow the school systems to be the only instruction that your child receives. It is not enough just to be a parent. We must instill godly values into our children. We must teach them God's laws, His principles and His way of doing things. When we don't arm our children with these standards we do them a disjustice. Please read the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 6 to get the full understanding and enlightenment. Take time today to talk to your child and each day should be a day of teaching. And please remember! You are teaching your child with every action that you show. They learn from your behaviors as well as your words.

The 10 Commandments

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE OF THE DAY

Deuteromomy 5:1-21, 32-33 (message)

Moses Teaches Israel on the Plains of Moab

5 Moses called all Israel together. He said to them,
Attention, Israel. Listen obediently to the rules and regulations I am delivering to your listening ears today. Learn them. Live them.
^2-5 God, our God, made a covenant with us at Horeb. God didn’t just make this covenant with our parents; he made it also with us, with all of us who are alive right now. God spoke to you personally out of the fire on the mountain. At the time I stood between God and you, to tell you what God said. You were afraid, remember, of the fire and wouldn’t climb the mountain. He said:
⁶ I am God, your God,

who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of a house of slaves.

⁷ No other gods, only me.
^8-10 No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God. I hold parents responsible for any sins they pass on to their children to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation. But I’m lovingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.
¹¹ No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won’t put up with the irreverent use of his name.
^12-15 No working on the Sabbath; keep it holy just as God, your God, commanded you. Work six days, doing everything you have to do, but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a Rest Day—no work: not you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, your ox, your donkey (or any of your animals), and not even the foreigner visiting your town. That way your servants and maids will get the same rest as you. Don’t ever forget that you were slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there in a powerful show of strength. That’s why God, your God, commands you to observe the day of Sabbath rest.
¹⁶ Respect your father and mother—God, your God, commands it! You’ll have a long life; the land that God is giving you will treat you well.
¹⁷ No murder.
¹⁸ No adultery.
¹⁹ No stealing.
²⁰ No lies about your neighbor.

²¹ No coveting your neighbor’s wife. And no lusting for his house, field, servant, maid, ox, or donkey either—nothing that belongs to your neighbor!

^32-33 So be very careful to act exactly as God commands you. Don’t veer off to the right or the left. Walk straight down the road God commands so that you’ll have a good life and live a long time in the land that you’re about to possess.

It is always good to review. I love verse 32 and 33. It tells us to be careful to follow God's commands. When we follow the rules that are set by God our reward is a good and long life.