Shalom, welcome to June 14^th


><//>--------------------Thought for the Day

In Christ we have to learn that sin, such as pride, is our greatest enemy. Although we are taught by the world to think highly of ourselves and that we are our best friends, the time came when we realized that we work against our own good, and one of our worst enemies is ourselves. We don’t know when we first realized this, but we know we get ourselves into all kinds of trouble – errant relationships, inopportune marriages, divorces, and the like. We realize that sin and the flesh are our enemy.

Is it still my main business to keep free of the sins that so easily beset me? 


><//>--------------------Meditation for the Day

Face Today With Me

It is not circumstances that need altering first, but yourselves, and then the conditions will naturally alter. Spare no effort to become all I would have you. Follow every leading. I am your only Guide.

   Endeavor to put from you every backward look, face the day’s problem with Me, and seek My Help and guidance as to what you can do.

   Never look back and never leave until the morrow that on which you can get My Guidance for today.


><//>--------------------Prayer for the Day

Father, we pray that You would help us to become all that You would have us be. We pray that we may face today’s problems with good grace. Amen.


A Disciple’s Reflections: A Believer, or A Disciple, Which am I?

Beloved, allow me to share a confession.  I do this that perhaps others can relate and be encouraged.

I am a committed believer who cannot make it in the world without the constant help of God, and this is one of the important reasons why I must stand the good fight against sin and the devil in my life.

This is not as difficult as it sounds since it is God who does most of the work.  Yes, even the weakest of us can be close to God for it's all by grace.  We can all find the power, strength, and hope we need to live in joyful victory in the enjoyment of the Lord.  All we really need is complete honesty, willingness, and faith. Allow me to share from my own experience.

Sin separates us from God, yes, on a conscious level even we believers. We are still saved, but out of contact so to speak, and left to the dangers of this world and our old natures.

This is not by God’s doing, of course, but our own. It’s as if we were in Jerusalem and the Lord was in the Galilee. We can still be friends, but the distance separates us from beneficial contact. I can do what I think the Lord would want me to do, but it would be impossible to receive actual instructions being so far apart. Therefore, though sincere in wanting to serve, I would be in error, since we don’t think as God thinks, and with uncontested sin this state of affairs is assured to lead to loss.

Most men and women live by one or more of four authorities – intellect, instinct, emotion, and principle – all may be meant for good, but all are equally dangerous and never the instruments of receiving or discerning God’s Will for our lives.  Needless to say they can be a hot bed of sin and rebellion, as well.

There are few things as vile as intellectual pride, except maybe the general violence that streams from our emotions. These two areas become wide-open venues for Satan to take control of our lives lest we continually monitor our thoughts and emotions as soldiers on guard duty in time of war.

Did you know that anger and hatred are seen as murder in the eyes of God?  "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." 1 John 3:15 1 John 3 1 John 3:14-16  It was in this very state of mind that Cain sent Able heavenward.  Have not we all done severe damage with just the spoken word and more in such a state of mind? 
  
Now, beloved, I wish to share one of those eye opening moments with you that you too may be blessed.

While Jesus rose into the Heavens before that crowd of witnesses in what we today call the Ascension, He commanded His disciples to go forth unto the Jews first, and then to all the Nations, and make disciples of all men. Did He command them to make believers? No, He said, “…Make disciples of all men.” 

There’s a big difference between a believer and a disciple.

A believer only believes, while a disciple is a student of the one in whom he or she believes.

Remember how Jesus would often rebuke His disciples publicly and in front of one another that they might learn from each other’s errors, as well as their own?  I have tried to correct close believing friends on important issues only to see them walk away and they're gone and no longer consider me a friend.  This is what is meant by the narrow road.  Disciples are grateful for correction.

Well, within the first week of my new-life I began to see the utter foolishness of my humanity. My approach toward others was way off, my patience levels were way down and my response to man’s wickedness was unacceptable.

I was spiritually ugly in my own sight, and really wanted the Lord to change me. I would like to share that I would have been totally unprepared for relationships without His first working in me, and service in the Lord’s Name would be out of the question.

I prayed for the Lord to fulfill His Word and be my teacher as offered in Scripture for there were no men in my acquaintance who led what I could discern as a spiritually Christian life.

Almost immediately, the Lord brought people into my life that would continually test my abilities to love. I would find myself angered by their behavior and I would always seek my wrongs and not the wrongs of others that caused my anger. The wrongs of others are irrelevant in growing spiritually. It is only imperative to deal with one’s own wrongs, consistently and completely. God is no fool, and I fear as well as love Him. 

Every time I experienced correction my pride would rise up to defend my wickedness and to keep me ignorant and unchanged. One may be wondering how this can be? The answer is in God's word. In every defense there is pride, because for a believer – God and God alone is our defense.  It was for this reason that our Lord kept His silence when charges were brought against Him.  He trusted His Father to do what was best.

All our justifications are nothing but opportunities to cover wrongs and continue unchanged. Why, because God and God alone is our explanation. Consider the silence of Jesus before His judges, and we will come to know what is being said here.

All accusations come from Satan, even the righteous ones where we are actually in offense. It is from this personality that the devil gets his name, Satan – which merely means “the accuser” of our souls in its original Greek.

When we were children of the devil, prior to salvation we were experts at deflecting responsibility for our behavior onto others. Even when we would accept responsibility there would always be that demonic old faithful of "yes, but...," or "I'm sorry (if)". It’s just one last gasp attempt to place the responsibility for our behavior onto another. We find that this was not done consciously, but rather naturally from within our old nature. 

Let’s look together at the manor of some of Jesus’ rebukes toward those who were following Him. Talk about tough love. There were these words to Peter, “Get thee behind Me Satan!”, or to those He remarked, “O, you of little faith!”, or how about, “...what is that to you?”, or basically was He not saying "...mind your own business!"

We know that Jesus was certainly neither cruel, nor a fool. He was the truth and if we can’t take the truth then we need to then to get out of the truth kitchen.

At these remarks and others like them, the crowds that follow Jesus begin thin out. One by one, so-called followers would depart when they realized this was no cheap ride. Nothing sends a man walking away from the Lord faster than his pride, and self-love.  Most of us can surely relate to this.  Can you?

The Master is going to go for that pride that impairs us and work to get it out of us root and branch.  He’ll work to destroy self-love if we allow Him close enough. With each parable about discipleship in the Beatitudes, the crowds got thinner and thinner. At one point, there were five hundred following Jesus only to see that number dwindle to the original twelve with one of them being a traitor. 

Only after the resurrection and the Lord walking the earth for forty days more and was about to ascend did a crowd of five hundred gather again. Imagine, a dead crucified famous prophet walking the earth for forty days teaching, holding public and private meetings where He was going to give instructions to His disciples and then rise to heaven as God with angels in all His Glory, and still only five hundred people showed up. 

Five thousand gathered for the fishes and the loaves, but only five hundred to see the living dead man now revealed as Messiah God rise unto heaven. Why? Because when one departs Jesus for reason of His teaching, one is in all essence rejecting Jesus Himself. It is pride and self-love that keeps us from having confirmed that we are often lovers of foolishness and willing to waste our lives for present short-term comfort.

This disciple has certain principles that cannot be broken. For example:

  – Never hate or blame anyone for wrongs real or imagined. 
  – Value all friendships as coming from God and give them every benefit that they may endure. 

Whatever negative emotions we feel, whatever the thoughts, it’s never the other guys fault. Even in my divorce thirty-four years ago, with all my wife’s wrongs, in the eyes of God I was without the capacity to love her as she was. I lacked the generosity of patience, endurance, and tolerance. Her wrongs are none of my business.  Simply put, I was wrong.

My wrongness has cost me everything I hold dear and precious. To go on with superficial correction of external and emotional concerns without dealing with the root and branch of the sin or flesh that caused the wrongs in the first place would be a sign of insanity. For doing the same thing over and over again, which is what we are prone to do, and expecting a different result is truly as appropriate a definition of insanity that I have ever heard.

Dealing ruthlessly with pride has caused me great pain in the body. When the flesh is confronted it puts up a real fight within us. When squelched it feels like a spike tearing the flesh. Most of us will be shown to remain unchanged, but then there are those of us who have nowhere else to turn. We must remain principled, and in doing so remain within the sight of the cross and the Lord in all that we do. 

Our Prayer:  Oh, Father! Blessed is the man or woman who breaks the ignorance barrier! What beauty and wonder to behold – the hidden manna of God is ours.


I Desire You, Lord

"Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
– Psalm 73:25-26 (NKJV)

What a great psalm of praise for God! Imagine a world where everyone would desire to place God above all things. It is a human tendency to place so many other things above God. Things like money, or success, or possessions, or status, or popularity, or fame, or worldly desires. Many actually believe that they alone are strong enough or capable enough to accomplish anything and everything. But the flesh and the heart fail; and regularly, too. And no one is exempt from the frailties that are a part of being human. Take heart, you CAN trust in the Lord to be the strength of your heart and your portion forever. Because, in the end, whatever you accomplish in this life amounts to bug spit when compared to forever (now that's a long time!).

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways," says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
– Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV)


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Please have a blessed day, be hopeful, be encouraged, and know you are not alone.

“God Calling” compiled by A. J. Russell.
“Twenty-Four Hours A Day” Hazelton – adapted.
Greg Candelaria writes I Desire You, Lord.
Barry Gray writes A Disciple’s Reflections.