Shalom, welcome to June 7^th


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

Manifestations of our favorite sins are as a progressive illness. We go through one or all of three stages of behaving as the world does, trouble with our behavior, merry-go-round binge sprees. Some of us simply loose our peace, happiness, and fellowship with God as we go with unconfessed sinful behavior. Others of us lose our homes, our families, and our self-respect, while some of us can land in hospitals, jails, and even contract fatal diseases. Yes, sin is a progressive illness with guaranteed results no matter what the devil tells us, and there are only three ways to stop these results – the insane asylum, the morgue, or total abstinence.

Will I choose not to take that first opportunity to sin?


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

True Beauty

Not only live but also grow in grace and power and beauty – the true Beauty, the Beauty of Holiness. 

   Reach ever forward after the things of My Kingdom.

   In the animal world the very form of an animal alters to enable it to reach that upon which it delights to feed.

   So reaching after the treasures of My Kingdom your whole nature becomes changed, So that you can best enjoy and receive the wonders of the Kingdom.

   Dwell on these truths. 


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

Father, we pray that we may reach forward and upward. We pray that this reaching upward for the things of the Kingdom to enrich our spirits may change our character unto the likeness of Your Precious Son and our Template. Amen.


A Disciple’s Reflections: It's An Inside Job

Beloved, I write or speak of the things of God in my life because I’ve discovered that sharing first hand experience in the Lord is always more effective than preaching what we only have head-knowledge of, as is so often done by today’s clergy. The Lord never intended that we share merely the words made of letters, but that we share the Word that bears the fruit of life.

There are the words that bring us to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (or right and wrong) that leaves us in death, and there is the Word that when shared bring brings the hearer to the tree of Life that enlivens by the power of Christ.  Today's Christianity does more of the former.  They use scripture to tell us what is right or wring even regarding Jesus. but they do not bring us to the giver of life.  It is the whole of my existence that Jesus, the giver of Life go with each of these messages daily to breath live into the seekers who read them.

It is by hearing that we receive faith, and by seeing that faith is confirmed and strengthened. This is how it has been for me and how I grow in the Lord; therefore, I pass on the message in that very same manner. Didn’t Jesus, Himself, say, that "...He can do only what He see his Father doing?"

I’m not a physically handsome or striking man as the world knows these qualities, but neither was Jesus.

Man, who worships physical beauty has a need to portray the Lord as having been glorious in appearance during His first visitation. We see this by looking at the likeness of the men chosen to portray Him in movies or by looking at great paintings. 

The prophet Isaiah tells us that Jesus was NOT comely in appearance. Comely according to Webster’s Dictionary "having a pleasing appearance" – this is a far cry from being a sculpted physical beauty. Therefore, on a physical level we can say that we all pretty well fall into the same physical characteristics as Jesus. We may not all be sculpted beauties, but we are all comely – to someone.

Even as a spiritually minded believer, I too, appreciate that which is beautiful and takes the senses to another dimension of experience. The only thing is that something in me has changed since my second-birth; something wonderful has happened within me.

The beauty I appreciate today is not the physical, but the intangible. This is the beauty that the Lord Jesus possessed while in bodily form on earth. Though, He appeared as any other man, He emanated a beauty that many couldn’t quite put their fingers on. He was so beautiful within so as to make those who were ugly within to whine and demand to be rid of His presence lest their own personal ugliness be revealed.

Most of us would like to be beautiful in the eyes of fellow believers and God, yet no Max Factor make-up can be used to cover that which mars our inward appearance.

Therefore, precious one, should we find ourselves suffering let us not be discouraged since God is in our suffering.  Even Jesus knew this as it is written, "...though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered." (Hebrews 5:7-9)

We all must be rid of the ugliness within that is revealed whenever the Holy Spirit places our character and behavior and attitudes before the light of Christ. Sure, just like anyone else, I get that tightening in my stomach when i see things in myself I don't like, but this just serves to humble us. This is when we must pray to the God who loves us as we are for Him to do His work in us and make us beautiful within, just as He did with the man part of the God-man Jesus.

What the world finds as beautiful should sicken us as disciples of Yeshua. It wasn’t always this way for me personally, but it is now and I’m grateful. 

As any other, we should appreciate a beautiful person. Not the carnal type of beauty though that is powered by lust, but the beauty that comes from virtue. Submission to God’s Word, a sacrificial and generous spirit, and gentleness are the things that make someone beautiful as the children of the living God. 

A man or woman born under the council of the book of Proverbs, and not the lusts of this world, is worthy to be desired. A man or woman who has tasted the cross, and is not afraid of it is truly beautiful.  Those who know inward beauty brings Eternal Life into our mortal lives today for the world to see as a witness are those with true beauty within. 

A child of God who trembles in awe at the majesty of our God and lives to truly please Him has a beauty and grace that can never overwhelm or be considered garish. This is a beauty we can all have as believers, and is worth believing and praying for in Christ. Best of all it is practically free, all it costs is our lives surrendered unto the Lord daily, and having the ugly spirit of man within us broken and molded into the same shape that is the Spirit of Messiah Yeshua, our precious Jesus, the Christ of God.

Whenever we feel the pain that comes along with correction of our wrongs, let us remember the discomfort of wearing braces on our teeth, or other grooming exercises that bring discomfort. And in this age of cosmetic surgery, breast implants, and God knows what else, let us stand willing to endure the necessary discomfort that comes with having our character and personality altered by the greatest surgeon of them all – the Living God, Himself.

Lt us pray we will join together today, and every day, to seek the things of God’s Kingdom. There is nothing as ugly as those who present themselves unequipped with the beauty of God to minister and serve. Superficial beauty won’t do the trick either, it has to be the real thing or a great price will be paid when it comes time to see our works burned, or survive, in the fires of God when we come before Him.