Thursday, August 27, 2009

Where is your heart?

Joshua 24:14-24 is our background text, please read and then follow along and see what God shows you today.

This is one of the passages that says "choose you this day whom you will serve" it comes from verse 15;
"And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorities, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my household we will serve the Lord.
Notice that they were being asked to choose which god to serve, the real God or false gods. Thankfully they chose to serve the Lord God!

We all know this passage above and many sermons are preached on it. But have you ever read on to verses 23 and 24? These verses start with "Now therefore" which always refers back to previous verses. In this case its to their choice to serve the true God.Listen to verse 23 again;
"Now therefore, he said, put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel."
This is a command to enable us to serve God with our whole life's being.

Most of us don't have idols or other gods that are named as such these days , or do we? I once heard "Anything that takes the place or your time for God is a god to you." Thinking about this reminds me of things that snatch my time for prayer and Bible study with God each day. I'm sure you can think of a few things you do too, that shortens your time. It also makes me realize that I want God to be God in my life today. So therefore I make that choice, now how do I live it out?

The end of verse 23 tells us how to live our lives for God. It says:
" incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel."
Psalms 119:112 says;
"I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes forever, to the very end."
So how long do we need to read, pray and worship God, FOREVER!

Opening your soul and spirit to let God into your life is what these verse are saying. Where your heart is, is where your allegiance lies. Examples of where your heart is may be the following. What quickens you to action? If anyone upsets my child or husband you will not want to see me respond! Do I have as strong of a reaction when someone attacks my God? I hope so, but to be honest I probably need to work on this! How to incline my heart then? Prayer, read the Bible, meditate, prayer, fellowship with other Christians, prayer, read and study God's word- then repeat!

Spend some time today inclining your heart to God. Get to know God thru His Bible, let Him speak to you in prayer and mediation. You won't be sorry for the time spent! Your day will go much easier!

Consider this thought;
There are 24 hours in a day, to give God 10% of that time is not much, are you doing that? Consider these verses before you decide;
Psalms 34:1-4
" I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord, the humble shall hear of it and be glad. Oh,magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. I south the Lord, and He heard me,and delivered me from all my fears."

May God met you today!

Friday, August 21, 2009

When God Moves Slowly

Please read Psalm 105 as background to this entry.

Psalm 105 tells the story of the people of Israel saved from Egyptian slavery. It starts with Joseph. Joseph had several dreams of prophecy or what we might call "words of knowledge" from God. What struck me today is the time between these words from God and their fulfillment in Joseph's life. In most cases the fulfillment came years later! What did Joseph do inbetween the vision,dream or word from God and the fulfillment?

Joseph is a hero of the Bible, but he was a human being just like us. He had to wait for God to do as He told him, with TRUST in God! God reveals dreams and words of knowledge to us too and then we must learn to trust as Joseph did. This to me is totally hard to do! I tend to look at my circumstances and scream to God that its NOT happening yet, do you see this God? I say in my some what frustrated prayers to Him. Then today thru this scripture God quietly told me its because I need to TRUST Him for the outcome.

What does this type of trust mean I asked God. Here is the answer in an acronym God gave me.
T= theories of man dispelled and
R= replaced by the word of God which gives us
U= undeserved grace and
S=salvation thru Jesus. Then our lives with God produces
T=treasures in our heart,life and most importantly in heaven!

Trust God today that He will bring to pass what He has spoken into your heart and mind as you have sought after Him thru prayer,Bible reading and worship. Do as God shows you and He WILL bless you with peace in your spirit today as you wait on Him to fulfill all He has promised you!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

God are you still here?

Today I read Judges 6:11-24 and God ministered to me, to let me know He is still here! How exciting this is to be reassured that all is well, God is Large and incharge of my life! Take a minute and read the above passage before continuing so you too can read the story of Gideon.

Listen to verses 12 and 13 again;
"And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, 'The Lord IS with you, you mighty man of valor!'. Gideon said to Him,' O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying 'Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?' But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites."

Oh, how many times I have felt like Gideon! I remember miracles God has done in the past too, but my present circumstances overwhelm my faith and courage to go on, just like Gideon. I too have felt forsaken by God. Its easy to give in to that concept, but that is from the devil! So what should I do instead?

Gideon's example is great as you read on he is just like us, he is overwhelmed by his situations with the Midianites. In verse 14 God assures him that He is with him. Gideon however does not feel worthy or capable, every feel like that? Next Gideon brings a sacrfrice to "the Angel of the Lord in verses 18-21. What does God do to help Gideon's faith? He brings a fire out of the rock to consume his offering to God! WOW! Fire out of a rock! If that doesn't show that God is in charge what will convince you?! This is just one of the miracles God did for Gideon to encourage Gideon's faith.

As we walk thru the circumstances of our lives God does miracles for us too. We need to remember those times for when we face a new challenge. We need to remember God's promises to never leave us and to always provide for our needs as He did for Gideon. So today be encouraged God is with us as His child I can know this for sure! God is empowering you and I to serve Him, so be bold, take courage and go forward for God today!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Discovering gluttony is a sin! Yikes!

In 2002 I began this journey to loose about 200 plus pounds, I was so heavy my scale could not actually weigh me until I'd been on the first diet for about a month. What made me begin my journey was not the fact that I was so hugely over weight, but that I was convicted about the sin of gluttony. Yes, its a sin to over eat, at least that was my initial idea of what gluttony meant. Now I know much more, as God has shown me verse after verse about the sin of gluttony. Do a word search and you will be completely amazed at how much God hates this sin, its one of the 7 deadly sins for good reason! Its going to bring death to you spiritually and physically if you continue to live with a gluttonous behavior! (See the Bible for details, search Biblegateway.com)

So I began to obey God and try very hard, and fail many times, to control myself, not be a glutton, change my eating habits via two diet programs,add regular exercise etc, etc. I did over 7 years to date loose 167 pounds. Praise God, its Him, NOT me!! Fast forward to August 2009, when I began to cry out to God for help with this 18 month plateau of no weight loss. I've tried everything I've learned along this journey to get off this plateau, all to no avail. Oh, I might loose 1-5 pounds, but then back they'd come! Then came Monday August 3 when my daily quiet time with God gave me the following wonderful insights straight from the God of Heaven! I hope it will encourage anyone reading this as it has me, to God be the glory!

Romans 6:12 "Therefore", which refers back to verses 10-11 which says we are dead to former sinful life and former sins (for me gluttony was on my mind), "do NOT LET SIN REIGN in your MORTAL BODY, that you should obey it in its lusts."

What is gluttony but simply obeying the lusts of the flesh!... OH WOW! I thought, what victory this can bring! I use to think "I want to eat_________, so I will eat it!"

The powerful way to overcome this terrible habit of gluttony and sin, is to instead think,
"I am hungry ? What do I have that's good for my body?" This lead me to realizing that many times I am not truly hungry, but just wanting to taste something because its yummy. But what is that? That's giving into my fleshy lusting for food, that's the sin of gluttony! What a revelation this has been for me as daily I go around doing just that! I've caught myself so many times, and actually thrown the food from my mouth to the trash. I hope now that I don't even put it in my mouth!!

Then that same day I read in Numbers 11:4-15 which only confirmed all I'd gotten from Romans 6. Verse 4 in Numbers says they (the children of Israel in the desert now with Moses) "yielded to intense craving..." regarding the foods of Egypt and all their wonderful flavors. (yes, it really says that, look it up!) The result of this yielding was for them to cry to Moses for meat. But notice they YIELDED to the CRAVING= intense fleshly desires just like it says in Romans 6!

I thought OH WOW GOD you've given me the formula to overcome this once and for all with your help!

To receive VICTORY over Gluttony ,which is ANY intensely fleshly desire try the following!
1) IGNORE and PRAY THRU THE CRAVINGS, but TOTALLY NEVER GIVE IN!
2) REBUKE CRAVINGS as they are only flesh/body desires= sin!
We rebuke sickness,evil spirits, all sorts of things, why not rebuke this too?!!

To GOD be the Glory for the victory He will give us all if we can follow these words!