December 4 & 5, 2011 Scriptures & Thoughts

Psalm 4:3 Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for Himself; the Lord will hear when I call to Him.

Psalm 4:5 Offer right sacrifices and trust in the Lord. Psalm 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Psalm 4:6 Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?” Let the light of Your face shine upon us, O LORD.

Psalm 34:11-15 “Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and keep your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry.

If we love life and wish to see many good days, not just long life, but a long life full of many good days, we need to watch what we say, carefully. Out of the abundance of the heart is what the mouth speaks, and we are to keep our tongues from evil. The best way to be sure that we are speaking good and pleasing words that honor God is to abide in Jesus and to allow the Holy Spirit to re-new us, the power of the blood to cleanse us and the resurrection power to transform us.

We do not have to keep our tongue from evil on our own. God doesn’t expect us to do anything that He doesn’t equip us to do. God has sent His Son to pay the price for our sins, to cleanse us, and to allow us to have direct fellowship and access to Him. He has given us the Holy Spirit to comfort us, encourage us, quicken us, convict us, and to give us the power and boldness to live for Him. If we just accept all of the good things the Lord has done for us and accept all of the good gifts He has given to us, we can live a long life filled with many good days.

We are not only to keep our tongues from evil, but we are also to keep our lips from speaking lies. Two of the things we need to do, here, are regarding what we say, how we use our words. There are many verses regarding how we are to watch what we say. Our mouths are very powerful tools and James talks about how difficult it is to tame our tongues. James 3:8 “but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” Notice that James says, “no man can tame the tongue.” If we wish to have conversations that honor God and please Him, if we wish to speak truthfully and have no deceit coming from our lips, then we must allow God to be at work in our hearts and lives.

If we want to live many good days, we also need to turn from evil and do good. Verse 14 says we should not only totally turn away from evil, but we should also replace evil in our lives with doing good. When we run away from bad influences and temptations, we should run to all that is good. Replacing sin with good deeds and good attitudes will definitely have an impact for good days. We reap what we sow. We enjoy the consequences of our attitudes and actions when they are good, when they fit with God’s will, and when we allow Him to work in our hearts and lives. We do not enjoy the consequences of our actions when we are sinning, doing evil things, and are thinking and dwelling on evil.

Whether we do good or evil there are consequences and this verse tells us that if we love life and wish to have many good days, we should turn from evil, flee from evil, and do good. We are not expected to just sit around and keep ourselves from evil. We do not need to lock ourselves away and just try to stay out of trouble. We don’t have to live a boring or unsatisfying life just trying not to do too many bad things. We are shown here to turn to good and to do good. Doing good can mean many things and depending on your spiritual gifts you may find more satisfaction in one way of doing good than another. The Body of  Christ has many functions and we all fulfill a part of God’s wonderful plan.

Some ideas for doing good:

Helping widows… there are widows who are young and old, some have children, and others don’t. Helping can be anywhere from just spending some time with them, listening to them, or to taking out their trash and raking leaves. You could take them to dinner or provide some groceries. You could reach out to the homeless people, visit prisoners, minister to military families, sing, teach, or just be grateful. More ideas for doing good are reading your  Bible, being a friend to someone, and loving your children.

There are so many ways to do good, some are simple and some are more involved. But they all lead to satisfying experiences that make up many good days. A long life filled with many good days is accomplished when we allow God to work in us to help us keep our tongues from evil, our lips from deceit, and when we both turn from evil and replace it with doing good.

Also, verse 14 says we must seek peace and pursue it. We should actively look for and search out peaceful solutions to our problems. When we are having an issue with someone, we should look for a way to relate to them and resolve the situation with a peaceable solution. Our homes should have an atmosphere of peace. Our spirit, our hearts and minds should be at peace. We should pursue, chase after, and work towards peace. One of the best ways I have found to gain peace in my life is to remember Philippians 4:6-7. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

When God tells us to seek peace and to pursue it, He doesn’t leave it all up to us to do on our own. He has spelled it out for us right here in Philippians. If we will just come to Him with everything that is bothering us, with prayerful hears, requesting His attention, favor, intervention, for His good plan for us to take place, and if we come to Him with our anxieties, with thankful hearts, with gratitude because we know He loves us and cares for us, then He will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus with His peace.

A long life with many good days filled with the peace of God, and God’s goodness, free from evil, filled with kind and true words spoken in love, sounds wonderful to me. Lord, please help me remember what You have taught me in these verses from Your Word, from Your heart. Thank You, Lord, for Your love and care and faithfulness and for revealing Yourself, Your plan, Your will and Your love to me, to us, every day.

Robin came over and we began talking about everything going on in our lives. We talked about how God is at work in our lives and where He has brought us from and where He is taking us. We spoke of His sacrifice for us and how He gave His life for us on the cross. Robin shared with me something that God revealed to her the other day. There is a song in Spanish, “Solo Cristo,” Only Jesus – that she was singing. They had been talking in Spanish class about the difference between por and para. Por, in Spanish, means for, or in place of, or by. In the song it says, “Solo Cristo moriste por mi en la cruz.” Robin said she just always thought about it meaning “only Christ died for me on the cross.” But in Spanish, por, means more than just that Christ died for me, for my benefit. It means that He died because of me and in my place. What an awesome way to really let the depth of His sacrifice and His love sink in.

We talked about so much, shared so many insights and lessons learned and memories, good and bad. We took turns reading the Bible together, what I wrote about Psalm 34:11-15 and Robin mostly read all of Colossians. Very deep and powerful scriptures, words from our Lord. We talked about how the Bible is not just a book. It isn’t even just a love letter from our Creator, or just an instruction manual for life from our Maker. The Bible is THE WORD OF GOD – John 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is the Word. If we want to spend time with God, know Jesus, hear from Him and experience transformation, we need to read our Bible. We need to hunger and thirst for as much time as we can get hearing God’s Word, soaking in the Holy scriptures, meditating and dwelling on His Words, the Bible, the Word, is God. There is supernatural power in the Words written in the Bible. It is definitely not just a book.

Thank You, Lord, for the precious  moments we are able to spend together, for Your restoration, for You working all things together for good for those who love You. Please cause our hearts to desire all that You desire. Help us to honor and glorify You, Lord. We praise You and only You!

Who Are You? (Jerry 3/26/14)

Who are you? Are you a banker, lawyer, landscaper, stay at home mom? Are you who you are because the world says that is who you are? It’s really not important who we are in the world but who we are in Christ. Would our co-workers know that we follow Christ if we didn’t tell them?

Who was Christ? The religious leaders thought that He was just an unclean, nobody who was casting out demons by the power of Beezlebub. It doesn’t matter if you are the richest person in the world. If you don’t have Jesus then you have nothing. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” What does matter is that we know Christ and walk according to His ways. If we have Christ we have everything.

What do we do after Christ has made us new and forgiven us for our sins? Do we just come to church and listen to the preacher until we die? I know that everyone is not called into the ministry and when I say ministry, I am talking about being a preacher, teacher, evangelist. But when we were forgiven of our sins through Christ we were called into the ministry whether we want to be or not. We can minister to those we work around. We can let our life be a testimony. We aren’t to sit idly by and be ashamed to be a child of the Most High God, Creator of the universe. We walk the walk and talk the talk on a daily basis. That’s how we are ministers. A lot of people are scared or worried about being ambassadors of Christ because they think that they have to be perfect. If we wait until we’re perfect to tell people about Jesus then it’s never going to happen.

Why Are We Attacked Spiritually and Physically (8/15/14 by Jerry)

Why are we attacked spiritually and physically?

We look on the news and we hear about Christians being attacked openly and nobody seems to care. But Jesus told or tells us in the Word that if they persecuted Him that we would also be persecuted.  When we believe in Jesus our troubles don’t just magically go away but we have God walking with us. A lot of brothers and sisters forget about their faith at the first sign of trouble but when something comes our way whether by our own stupidity or for being a believer that’s when we hang onto our Savior even more.

People and other religions attack Christians because our Lord tells us to love those that hate us, do good to those who persecute us, that is what our Lord tells us to do. There is power in the Word of God and people hate us for clinging to our God in times of trouble. We are not to fear man who can only kill the body but not the soul. We are to fear God because He can send the soul to hell!

The Bible tells us that as time goes on that men and women are going to get more and more evil and that men and women would lust for the same sex. If we as Christians do the things our Father tells us to do everything will be good for us even if we die. To die is gain and be with Christ. Let’s not cling to this earth and worldly possessions that are so temporal. Let’s worry about being about our Father’s business and following the two great commands that Jesus gave us. Love the Lord your and my  God with all our heart, soul and body and love your neighbor as yourself.

We as modern day Christians have had it made as far as us believing and nobody bothering us, here in America, but if we read the  Bible we see that Christians have been persecuted from the start. If persecution does come our way, let’s have faith that our God is with us and that we are going to follow Him even if it cost us our life. 

Another thing I’d like to mention: I know that in every day living it’s easy to forget what Jesus did for us. But if we keep that in our thoughts every day it will be much easier to face our trials and troubles that we face every day. Let us as Christians shine forth the light that God gave us in our ever darkening world and let the love of Christ rain on the lost so that the lost people of the world will see the Light and love the Father gave us and desire Him, also.

Praise in the Valley and on the Mountaintop – Mark 4:35-41 Random Thoughts and Ramblings for My Lord Jesus Christ (by Jerry in jail on 5/1/14)

 

Mark 4:35-41

Jesus Calms the Storm

³⁵ That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” ³⁶ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. ³⁷ A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.³⁸ Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹ They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

How many of us are more likely to praise Jesus on the mountain top, but when we are in the valley or storm that’s when we need to cling to Jesus the hardest. When we are in the storm we might feel like Jesus is asleep on the job but Jesus is in the storm with us.

Jesus just knew that everything was going to be all right and we, like the disciples, go to Jesus and tell Him we are perishing even though He is in the storm with us and knows what is going on. He told the storm: “Peace. Be still!” And there was a great calm. Then Jesus asked them why they were afraid.

Have you still no faith? Now from time to time we may question our faith, but if we get in the Bible we will see that many people have done the same thing. How do we strengthen our faith? By reading the Bible and clinging tightly to our Jesus in the storm. He will never leave us or forsake us, so when the faith building storm blows through our life, let’s just wait on our Jesus to say: “Peace. Be still!” to our storm.

In Matthew 14:22-32 These verses area bout Jesus and Peter walking on the water. When the disciples first saw Jesus, they thought it was a ghost. But Jesus told them that it was Him and to not be afraid. Peter asked Jesus if he could come to Him on the water and Jesus said, “Come.” But when Peter looked at the circumstances; Peter started sinking. We need to know from that verse that if Jesus tells us to come that He is not going to let anything happen to us! Our Savior is a supernatural being who loves us and just wants us to believe in Him, love Him and have faith in Him.

We are living a little over 2,000 years since all of those miracles happened but our God is NOT out of miracles. When Peter was sinking, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him. “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” asked Jesus. When they got into the boat the wind ceased. We can still have faith in the Lord our  God, that no matter what we are going through, He is with us.

If we keep our mind, eyes and heart on Jesus on the mountaintop and in the valley when the storms of life will (not if) come, then our Redeemer will save us. There are literally hundreds of verses in the  Bible that tells us to have faith and we still want to doubt. Do I think that the people of great faith of the Bible wanted to go through what they went through? I would say no! But they knew that their Father loved them and would see them through or they would die adn be with their Father!

That is the kind of faith that we all as Christians should desire – that no matter what happens to us we know that our Father is in control. I’m in a storm and I know Father has not abandoned me. I know that He is in here with me and I know that He is out there with my wife and children and that He is keeping them safe and at peace about the situation.

People of great faith are remembered in the Bible. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in to, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated – of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. (Hebrews 11:36-38)

God knew that all of these people were strong enough in their faith to go through what their and our Father was putting them through. He talked to some in an audible voice but God still speaks to us: through the ones that have or are going through the same thing that we are going through, through the Bible and yes God can and does speak to us through an audible voice. (The Holy Spirit speaks to us through a still, small voice) He also showed us as believers what they went through in the Bible to let us know that He is with us and reading their stories may help build our faith.

So, let us as believers stay strong in the faith and let Jesus shine out of us that others may want Jesus in their lives.

Jeremiah 29:11-14 Random Thoughts and Ramblings for My Lord Jesus Christ (Jerry writes from jail 4/28/14)

 

I have decided today with the help of my Lord to tackle me and my wife’s favorite verse and it’s also a lot of other people’s favorite verse.

Jeremiah 29:11-14 (ESV) For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you 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 your whole 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 I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Now, everyone loves verse 11, including me and my wife. If our God has plans to prosper us and to give us a future and hope then you know the plans are going to be good. It may and probably isn’t material gain it may be doing Kingdom work and our reward will be in heaven with our Lord – which will be fine with me. And we know that our lives as Christians are full of hope for the future because we are going to spend eternity with our Lord Jesus.

When we call upon our Lord and pray to Him – He will hear us. We will seek Him and find Him, when we seek Him with our whole heart. He will be found by us and restore us. This book called the Bible is not fairy tales: it is the true Word of our God. II Timothy 3:16 tells us, “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

When we as Christians are having a down day, let us all get some favorite scriptures to remember. God has equipped each and every one of us to want to do something for Him. Let’s get about our Father’s work and stop worrying about the world. God has got everyone of our situations in His hand. Just be still and know that He is God.

by Jerry Dingler written on April 28, 2014