Luke 24:6-7
He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' "
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
A Living Book
Dr. David Jeremiah
Dr. David Jeremiah
Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.
Psalm 119:18
Psalm 119:18
Recommended Reading
Psalm 119:17-24 |
According to theologian Erich Sauer, the Bible isn't merely an old volume of once-upon-a-time stories; it's a living Book. "The Spirit of God has not only inbreathed the written Word," wrote Sauer, "He accompanies it and makes it operative .... God comes to us now through His Word, and the Word that is centuries old remains fresh and eternally young. It is as if it had been written yesterday, as if the ink was not yet dry, never growing old, superior to time, ever present."1
The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible makes it new every morning to those who prayerfully study it. The words of David, Matthew, Peter, Paul, and the other writers teach us fresh lessons, remold our thoughts, refresh our hearts, and help us achieve a renewed mind. In the process, we discover for ourselves on a daily basis "what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2).
Let's learn to pray as we study our Bibles: Lord, open our eyes that we may see wondrous things from Your Word.
The Bible is a living Book ... not only a written word, but a spiritually living Word.
Erich Sauer
Let's learn to pray as we study our Bibles: Lord, open our eyes that we may see wondrous things from Your Word.
The Bible is a living Book ... not only a written word, but a spiritually living Word.
Erich Sauer
1Erich Sauer, From Eternity to Eternity, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 134.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
“It is what it is”…NOT!
By Karla Futral
I hear, “It is, what it is” all the time. But, is it really? Is this how you really want to leave a situation or live the rest of your life, or do we want to see blessings, favor, and have a new perspective on life? Do we just settle? Do we give up on hope and faith and tell ourselves that it can’t get any better? Or better yet, do we let Satan sneak in the door and convince us that we just need to give up, because “it is what it is”.
God said in John 10:10…I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Here is the full chapter to read at your convenience: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2010&version=NIV
Does this sound like “It is, what it is” to you?
Whatever it may be, do not let the enemy steal your life through laziness, distraction, or fearfulness. Jesus lived, incarnated, and died so that we could be in right relationship with God, the enemy will employ any means necessary to keep us from that. Often though, his fingerprints are not so easily visible on the things keeping us from fulfilling our glorious purpose. Don’t let the words: ”it is what it is” keep you from succeeding. Press through this mess and believe. God has His perfect plan for your life.
Take a moment to reflect on just what or who God has made you to be. Now what is keeping you from doing or being that man or woman of God? Resist the enemy, the stealer of life, and press into the giver of life.
Prayer
Father, today we thank you for your favor, grace, mercy, and love. Often times we forget to stop for a minute and listen to you. Help us to remember to reach for Your Word when we need direction, comfort, peace, discernment, and guidance. For in the pages of Your Word is amazing knowledge to help us succeed in life. Your Word gives life. It helps us to dismiss doubt and confusion. It gives us strength and power to overcome many things of this world, especially the enemy.
Lord Jesus, we give you praise and honor for what you did for us on the cross at Calvary. We will be like the sheep you describe in Your Word and will listen and know your voice when you call. Help us every day to be attentive, so that we may have life and have life more abundant, as You promise in Your Word.
We love you Lord and again, that you for your love. Amen!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Today's Devo 3/18/2013
What Honor Is and Isn’t
James MacDonald - Senior Pastor - Harvest Bible Chapel
Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
—Deuteronomy 5:16
Honor, as we have already seen, is the third significant word that impacts our families in multi-generational ways. But people always wonder about the lines and limits of honor. Let’s look briefly at what honor is and isn’t.
Honoring your parents does not mean these three things:
1. Honoring your parents does not mean groveling back and seeking their approval. Honoring is choosing to give, not trying to get. God wants us to be free from bondage to anyone’s approval but His. The apostle Paul said, “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).
2. Honoring your parents does not mean making yourself vulnerable to their hurtful behavior. There are appropriate boundaries between people.
3. Honoring your parents does not mean ignoring or denying the past.
But honoring does mean these things:
1. Honoring your parents means choosing to place great value on your relationship with them and knocking off the attitude that it doesn’t matter. It does matter. It matters to God.
2. Honoring means taking the initiative to try to improve the relationship in whatever increments you can.
3. Honoring your parents means recognizing they have done some things right. You might think, “My parents didn’t do anything right!” Your perspective is clouded, possibly by great pain. But they did something right. God will show you.
4. Honoring means acknowledging the sacrifices they have made for you.
5. Honoring means seeing your parents as Christ does with compassion and mercy.
6. Honoring your parents means forgiving them even as God in Christ has forgiven you.
The goal of God’s command to honor is not that you would do some minor upgrading in your attitude toward your parents, but that you come to a crisis of deciding to officially honor your parents. You might call it a tribute. Take the time to write two or three paragraphs as you are able and then find a formal time in front of your family to honor your parents to whatever degree the Lord will allow. This is not about how they will respond; it’s about your willingness to put into practice what God wants from you.
Journal
• How would I summarize in several paragraphs the ways I know I can honor my parents? (For added information on the specifics of honor, see Gary Smalley and John Trent’s book, The Gift of Honor, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987).
Prayer
Lord, I don’t want to honor my parents just a little better. I want to be more intentional in my respect for them. I want to be Your obedient child in the way I approach all the opportunities for influencing the course of my family. I realize honor is a big part of Your design. Forgive me for attitudes of disrespect and teach me to be aware of those things about my parents that are worthy of honor. And remind me to put them into words. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Today's Devo 3/15/2013
March 15, 2013
Word #3 - Honor
James MacDonald - Senior Pastor - Harvest Bible Chapel
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
—Ephesians 6:1-4
All children are commanded by God to honor their parents. This is the third word in our list of seven concepts that make a huge difference in family life. Honor is a universal duty.
By all, I mean small children to middle-aged adults to older adults. We never outgrow this command. This rule of family interaction is for every race, for every nation, for every culture—not just where it is sociologically acceptable. We seem increasingly to live in a society where honoring parents is not important and honoring self is the supreme thing. But this eternal, biblical principle stands. Regardless of your parents’ success rating, regardless of how you may feel about it, God doesn’t want us to grade parents on the curve. He just says straight up, “Honor your father and mother.”
Word #2 was blessing, and the action was the responsibility of parents. Give the blessing to your children. But while everyone is not a parent, everyone certainly is a child. So, whether your parents are living or not, God commands all of His people everywhere, “Honor your father and mother.”
Webster defines honor as fame; glory; high public esteem; a position of respect. The Hebrew word translated honor in the Old Testament means literally a heavy weight or to lay it on them. In today’s society, “laying it on” is a term for insincerity. As in, “Boy! He was really spreading it thick!” But as it relates to God’s command, honor is a sincere locating of the things my parents have done right and publicly honoring them for those things. It also means consistent, respectful treatment.
There is just something about people who choose to honor their parents. Parents who honor parents are likely to find themselves honored. If you didn’t have that example, decide: “As for my family, in the future, things are going to be different.” If you honor your parents, your kids are going to see that and things are going to be different in your life. If your family hasn’t traditionally honored parents, you can be the first of many generations! All children are commanded to honor their parents. When we honor our parents, our family is blessed.
Journal
• Am I continuing a tradition of honoring parents or beginning a new tradition in my family?
• What is my specific plan?
Prayer
Father, let me begin today by honoring You as my heavenly Father. Thank You for the parents You gave me. Thank You for the gifts and lessons You brought into my life through them. Teach me to forgive their shortcomings even as I pray that my children and others will forgive mine. Help me most of all to see my parents as You see them and lead me in finding the points of honor I can use to encourage and thank them best. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Blessings,
Karla Futral
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Today's Devo...3/12/2013
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
A Prayer for You Today
Dear Father in Heaven, thank you that Your word gives the comfort, guidance and instruction that I need. Bless me today as I seek Your refreshing.
Thank you for the timeless truths of this scripture verse. Some days it feels like life would consume me if I did not look for Your daily mercies!
Lord, right now I focus on Your compassion, on Your mercy. The Hebrew definition calls this Your “loving-kindness.” May it reach into my heart and wash over me with Your love. May it fall on me today like a blanket. Lord, it is my nature to lose sight of all You are in the midst of confusion and trouble. Highlight Your loving-kindness to me today in a way that will bless and encourage and revive me afresh.
Lord, You are faithful in all of life. Surprise me with Your faithful mercy dropping like rain around me all day long. May I not be consumed or eaten up by the challenges of this day, but find rest for my soul in the depths of Your compassion for me.
Thank you that You alone are our merciful God who brings a fresh basket of loving-kindness to my heart every morning. May I watch for it, enjoy it, and share it. I pray this in the strong name of Jesus, Amen.
Monday, March 11, 2013
My prayer today 3/11/2013
Father, I pray today that You take control. I forsake all to You. Let me be led by Your Spirit all day, every day. Let me die to my flesh and my own desires. Let me die to my frustrations and the way I have always thought and looked at circumstances. Let me just be led by Your glorious Spirit and bask in Your presence all day. Lord I ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
Friday, March 8, 2013
God Knows...
James MacDonald - Senior Pastor - Harvest Bible Chapel
Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. —Job 23:8-11
God sees you on the road you are walking today. As Job put it, “. . . he knows the way that I take” (Job 23:10). He sees the steps you must take today to get through this hard place. Proverbs 5:21 tells us that “A man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths.” This means God not only watches the winding of your road today, He is also thinking about every step and everything you must step over. Wow! God is considering your next fork in the road too, the good choice and the dismal, misery-inducing one. Your Father in heaven is reflecting about what you are going to decide. Even though He has known from eternity past every detail of your life, He is still meditating upon it as it plays out. That blows me away.
God knows the way that you take. He wants you to succeed in the testing you are experiencing. Considering His great love for you, do you honestly think He would let you go through more than you can handle? No. He won’t let this hard season knock you off the path of your highest usefulness to His kingdom. He has already scouted the path ahead and will be with you during the rough stretches. And He wants to help you make sure you don’t drive yourself off that high road.
God is near to you when your heart is broken and saves you when your spirit is crushed (Psalm 34:18). God draws near to you during a hardship unlike at any other time in your life. Maybe this is why the desperate need comes. Maybe this is the very moment God is seeking to engineer—the moment of your turning as never before to Him.
If this is your moment and you don’t know how to pray, God even knows that. Romans 8:26 tells us God’s Spirit prays for us when we don’t have words. Just start praying and sharing your heart. Thank God that He knows the way you take.
Journal
• What difference does it make for me to know God has already reviewed everything that will occur in my life?
• Read Job 23:10 again. What does it mean for me to “come out as gold”?
Prayer
Almighty God, help me remember Job’s testimony and David’s prayer in Psalm 139:3, “You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.” Thank You for the comfort of knowing that no obstacle enters my life that You have not seen and approved for its usefulness for me. Now guide me as I live out that trust this day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Today's Devo 3/5/2013
Exceptional Favor
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
“The path of the [uncompromisingly] just and righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines more and more (brighter and clearer) until [it reaches its full strength and glory in] the perfect day...”
(Proverbs 4:18, AMP)
We all face challenges. We all have obstacles to overcome. But if we can keep the right perspective, it will help us stay in faith so that we can move forward into victory. You may feel right now like the challenges that you face are too big or too overwhelming. One thing I’ve learned is that average people have average problems. Ordinary people have ordinary challenges. But remember, you’re not average.
You’re not ordinary. You are extraordinary. God breathed His life into you. You are exceptional, and exceptional people face exceptional difficulties. But, the good news is that we serve an exceptional God! He’ll pour out His exceptional grace, exceptional wisdom and exceptional favor!
When you have an extraordinary problem; instead of being discouraged, be encouraged knowing that you’re an extraordinary person and have an extraordinary future. Your path is shining brighter and brighter. You are on an extraordinary path. Keep standing in faith, keep declaring victory over your future, keep declaring His promises. Keep declaring that you are moving forward into the exceptional favor the Lord has in store for you!
PRAYER FOR TODAY
Father in heaven, today I lift my eyes to You. I know that You are the One who helps me and has given me an extraordinary future. I choose to stand in faith today knowing that You have a wonderful plan in store for me in Jesus’ name! Amen.
Monday, March 4, 2013
The Same Favor..Today's Devo 3/4/2013
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
(Hebrews 13:8, NKJV)
One of the reasons it’s so important to know the Word of God is not only to learn His promises and His ways, but to understand His character. What He’s done for others, He will do for you. The same God who displayed His favor in the Bible is still at work today. I believe God wants to flood you with the same favor He flooded Joseph, Abraham and Elijah with. I believe He wants to open new doors, line up supernatural appointments, and bring new increase and provision. The question is, are you ready to receive it? Can you see it with your eyes of faith?
Today, know that our God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is with you and for you. Even before you see things turn around, believe that He is working on your behalf. And when He pours out His favor, it won’t be just a drizzle; it’s going to be a flood — a flood of ideas, a flood of good breaks, a flood of talent. Keep believing, keep hoping and keep praising because the same favor that was in the Bible is coming your way!
PRAYER FOR TODAY
Father, thank You for Your favor and blessing which is available to me each and every day. I turn my heart and mind toward You. I submit my ways to You knowing that You are faithful. I open my heart to receive everything You have in store for me in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It's a small world...
My daughter Kameryn standing with our high school friend's son Justin Childers in Bagram Afghanistan.
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