Quick Quip: Trust God!

My devotion was Psalm 31. Which was great as grief was getting to me and I barely had enough time to think a lot of what the chapter said so I’ll do so tonight. Was really busy! Had a doc appmt, then work which I barely got to because transportation stinks, and after that got hassled by a bunch of things after I got home, haha! Felt “out of it” b4 I could rest or even get any sleep!

Sometimes you have to realize you need God not because He is a good being or that it is nice to treat others like a “good” Christian. There is so much more to this life. I am hurt when people claim sharing the faith is just merely an ‘agenda’ because it’s not that at all. It’s being grateful for the amazing supernatural grace and love of Christ!

I don’t care if you’re an overly-religious person, I don’t care if you’ve had trouble with drugs, I don’t care if you struggle with pornography, with not knowing whether you’re straight or gay, that life has caused you to become atheist: You are loved and important to God!

Right now, politics don’t matter! We talk about them way too much, haha. Let’s share each other’s hearts to one another, not shout down people just because they follow a different “stance” than others, let’s act with love so that we can “BE” love to others! In order to love others, we must search our hearts and see why we do the very things that we do.

Do you live for love or is it hate? Then see if there is a way to love if your goal in life is the latter. Love others. Treat others the way you want to be treated. That is not a “revenge” scenario, this is a golden rule of LOVE.

Love and trust in something you never knew was holding your hand all this time. Did you know that before you can love God, He first loved you? Believers find that out every day!

Just show kindness to others. Don’t make other people’s day awful because their might be a personal agenda involved. I don’t mean this in pride month, I mean there are others that actively deceive and run and mess with things because… it’s a heart that needs changing.

May yours be changed. Will it be today? Guess what…?

Jesus loves You. Trust God today.

Devotions Finishing Psalm 2- 5/28/21

Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth, Serve the LORD with fear, And rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. Psalm 2:10-12 NKJV

Wisdom is applied knowledge. Have you ever used what you know and put it to good use? I don’t know how many times I have been the opposite. That didn’t help with growth, as after a while it was like going in circles.

We should apply to our lives what we know and use it to mature otherwise we will not be helped by fully living for God.

The first part of the tenth verse says to be “wise, O kings.” If we know Jesus we must also know we are special to God also. We are like royalty.

The kings here are being told to serve the Lord with a full heart. That is they must “serve the LORD with fear… rejoice with trembling.” Now I don’t know if you saw what I said earlier. I happened to talk about fearing the Lord.

That we must fear the Lord because if we don’t we will not care about whether what we do every day or not is in our hearts wrong. It is, for example, bad to go back and sin again and again because an attitude in that could be “Well I can do that cuz Jesus will forgive me afterwards.” But if you do that, are you truly in your heart actually sorry you did it? No. And that’s not good at all.

That’s not a good attitude and that is not fearing the Lord

Anyway onwards into the verses it says to “kiss the Son,” Love the Lord Jesus. We should honor and love Him before we make any decisions in life.

If we reflect something that the Lord doesn’t and we in effect are being terrible, then as a consequence He will be angry.

I just looked up what “lest” means from the bible (I am learning about as much as you are reader, hahaha) and it says from yourdictionary.com:

Lest is defined as something done in order to avoid an undesirable consequence.

Consequences are not good if they come from the Lord. Sometimes He will be angry with what we do so we have to be careful and live in the Spirit and not of something that is not good. We must also learn to love and not strike out on others in an unhealthy manner, let’s say, if we get angry. Let us always strive and live for Christ. We cannot fail if all our goals are for Him and to have a desire to do actions through Him.

So we must love the Lord our God or else we could face some terrible consequences.

Let’s put all our trust in Him and be blessed! I hope you are doing well today.

Psalm 23 *Part 2 5/26/21

I hope you can see this as well as the first part. For some reason it seems this site only allows one post to be visible a day. Hope that’s not true but it seemed I had no views on the last one when I did this yesterday; there were views only on part 2 for some reason….

“(the) Rod and (the) Staff they comfort me.” For the Lord’s rod and staff comfort David.

What in the world are the “rod” and “staff”?

To truly understand that aspect you have to think in the mind again of a shepherd.

A “staff” is used to help guide the flock. There are many times the sheep will wander wherever they want. But the shepherd makes sure while they find fresh grass and nourishment that they are heading the right way.

A “rod” is used for an interesting purpose. It might to some be not good: many parents may think to not punish a child, yet that kid becomes so spoiled years down the road they think that whatever is coming to them they are won undeservedly.

The rod is used for sheep not doing what they are supposed to. Anyone ever got a whooping? As in, did anyone ever get spanked for doing wrong?

I have. It was humiliating.

Yet I needed it because I was not doing the right thing.

The rod is to give a member of a flock a smacking if needed. But it is probably like a tap on the “sheepy” behind, haha……..

Anyway I was digressing. Further more is just some more words that are great because it is from the Bible.

Could God be preparing a feast now? Could be. Might be.

“(He prepares) a table before me in the presence of my enemies;…”

What is this? Is there a big feast coming? A big celebration? I am not totally sure here, all I know is it might be describing a feast at the end of times.

The end of the world.

Then it continues. Here there is a semicolon being used. For that part of the verse and then with the part following. That means that the two sentences are closely related (sorry my “teacher” side is coming out now, lol!).

“ies; You anoint my head with oil: My cup runs over.”

There are many blessings from God that come just from following Him and staying as true to His word as humanly possible. Sure we may sin time to time (we even unintentionally sin too. And also never say “I am perfect” because that’s a sin too!) but as long as we wait on His promises, keep goals we might have for Him, we can see amazing things in our lives.

Wow that was a tangent! Sorry, haha.

And in that it is sure that “goodness and mercy shall” be in tune with us all the days we are here and alive.

We should also know that we are in a dwelling if we live for Christ. We will also feel that we will live in spirit and in truth in “the house of the LORD forever.”

Do you want to truly live for God? Or maybe do you think if you follow the Lord you could win a million dollars? Just know to ask for God’s help in all times of trouble ask for God’s mercy if you end up weak, but strive and abound in His peace. He the Lord just wants to help you.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

Just ask God for what you wish and as long as it fits His will for you He will do great things. Amen!

Devotions Psalms 23

The famous Shepherd Psalm. What is so beautiful about this passage, the entirety of the chapter is it not only paints a beautiful picture of calmness and serenity in the peace of God but that it is written during times of trouble.

The writer David was being pursued to being murdered by King Saul. But in all of this he was at peace in knowing that his heart was with the Lord no matter what.

To live wholeheartedly for Christ isn’t just practice per se it’s actually not even “practice” in a way at all. It’s giving up on what we expect and putting complete and total faith in Jesus Christ. Trust and to remember He is good no matter what should happen even if it might end up tragic.

Let’s break it down verse by verse!

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. What could this mean??

It means to desire the world or at least desire things in the world at all times. We should even if we may or may not be believers not be enslaved to either our old selves and only want old sins or to live not in Christ but have a heart that reflects a person that is in the world.

We shall not want. We should desire at least wanting to live for the Lord.

He (has) me lie down in green pastures. Doesn’t that sound peaceful? It sounds like the pastures are almost like a calm bed to lie in after a day’s work and the lying down makes one feel so good. Like a bed of relief! Or a place of peace.

…”Leads me beside still waters.” In the original version of my text it says “the” still waters.

In case all of this imagery is making one wonder David was a shepherd. He here is talking about being like a sheep and all of these things being as if he is being guided by a “Shepherd’ only this Shepherd being described is God.

So much being described is what a shepherd does for not only the flock but the care towards each individual sheep of that flock.

Could these still waters mean that the great Shepherd is guiding people towards a peaceful place. A place to be restored by the water. The water that is needed for living life? Here it could be that not only is it good for physical restoration but spiritual.

“…restores my soul; (and) leads me in the paths of righteousness

What is your belief in that? Can God actually take a person who merely believes with all their heart and lead them in righteousness. It can only be by one way!

“…for His name’s sake. Wow this feel’s prophetic in a way! I don’t think I rarely ever hear a book of the Old Testament say that God has a name. That is astounding! But David probably didn’t know that that name was (Jesus. The good shepherd).

David was talking also about how He is restored in Him. But we could say we can apply this to now. Living for goodness that is God through the Lord.

Truly, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” Whoa, is this about hardships or is this just some imagery? “I won’t fear evil for You’re with me.”

Was David facing possible death from King Saul’s hands? Then why was he at such peace in the midst of all those circumstances?

I used to be afraid of many things. I didn’t know how to deal with them until I started to be a stronger person in faith. This was not really because of any specific ritual or thinking patterns… I started to pray to the Lord and then scares about things as seemingly little as very stormy weather had me over time experience the peace and living while keeping my soul focus off those storms and praying that He would keep me safe. That is kind of like Peter from the bible only he took his eyes off of someone to trust and then sunk like a stone in the water because of the stormy terrors around him.

Are you afraid of the circumstances going on around in this world? Pray. Maybe God will open something for you in your life.

Devotions- Psalm 91 *Part 2 5/25/21*

Wow this entire chapter covers a lot! It goes from wanting to be sheltered and be under the shadow of holiness and to depend on Him and praise the Lord.

The writer says as we depend on the shadow of the Almighty, he says that God is his refuge and strength. And puts his full trust in Him.

The next section is interesting I had to explore a couple of words (and one definition out of curiosity: Ever assume you know the definition and then you look it up? I’m not always right in that, haha!).

The first word I looked up was “fowler.” It said basically the word meant a hunter of birds.

Why is that significant…? Hmm. Well later in the chapter not much into the passage it describes the Lord as one who takes us under His wings. That is sweet … but what does that mean?

It means that He will be like a wildfowl or bird that treats us like one of its own, gathering us under its wing. Like a mother bird or something like that being protective.

We should also be guarded and protected ourselves! We must have something to protect us out in this world (the Word of God). It could mean we should have a way to share but to stay guarded in case people “fire” back at us with questions. “Are you really a Christian? What is it that you people are crazy about? Huh, you love me? You don’t even know me!”

Some might be so harsh they are deeply discouraging. Some may be strong in delivering the enemy’s attack, by that I mean Satan.

We must hold fast and share and love and show others the way no matter what harsh or teasing things may happen in this world today. It is kind of a battleground nowadays but this is also all just the Lord’s battle. We must not be harsh but loving, we must not throw terrible words at others just to “stir the pot” and show real godliness, we must keep our hearts away from what we used to do and live in Him so that they know who Christ is and see by your example!

We must deeply search our hearts plucking out anything that either goes against HIs truth or His way.

We must be clean like Christ and live in the Holy Spirit day to day and see ourselves the way God sees us… so that we can deliver others while showing His salvation. Let’s be doers not just speakers of the Word today!

Devotions Psalms 2:4-7 5/24/21

I got “stuck” on the last three verses. I’m examining them personally so instead of just being devotions, I’m doing more than that with that section of the bible. Context seems to refer to King Saul but I could be wrong…

From the Bible, NKJV:

He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, And distress them in His deep displeasure: “Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.” Psa. 2:4-7

They say that God is slow to anger so if He is this way in this part of the bible something might be wrong.

Then again the writer could just be referring to God being sick of the sin of the people during this time. Specific uses of words like “Shall” here are interesting. Usually they imply something specific that could help a reader understand the text by its usage.

But I also am interested by some other things here as well. There is a word I want to seek out the definition for. “Derision.”

Here it is found through the ‘net:

derision- contemptuous ridicule or mockery.

If this means God has turned His anger on Israel then the people who are deserving His wrath here should watch out!

God cannot stand sin. He cannot stand dark hearts that refuse to worship Him. If this kind of thing goes on long, things will not last.

I hope you today have the “light” heart today. God’s wrath might be coming even now!

—–

Are you ready? If not read this.

Father God, I am afraid of what I am seeing and hearing about in the news. I don’t know what is going on all I know that there is a lot of bad stuff! I have heard of a person named Jesus. Is it true He can take away all my sin?

I heard that one day He chose to die on the cross not just because of everyone’s sin but because of just mine too!

(Note to You: There is a song that says “even to the (cross) You’d come if I were the only one. If you were the only one on earth He had to die for, He would have. That is how deep the father’s love through His son is)

Also that He took the wrath of the world’s sin upon Himself. Thank You Father for giving me Your son. That He died, stayed dead, then was restored and lived again, bodily and is in the Heaven today!

I want to know Jesus so that I will one day be in heaven today. Thank You for hearing my prayer.


God bless you today. Love you in Jesus!

Feel 5/15/21

I don’t want to feel

like you aren’t there

even if you seem

far, I’ll run through Air

I don’t like to feel

like Job in the midst

of his counselors reel

he knew the truth of the mist

Your love is breath

like the kiss from an ocean

I can travel deep

there You are instead

Like a knight whose plight

is to save not just me

but all who need You

And I’m like the steed.

As the valleys widen

As the doubts make minds

careen far off places

only to crash to vines

Because when one thinks

there is mercy no matter

how far in space

once one seeks forgiveness there is love finding latter.

Further through the life

As far as can go

though men doubt my thoughts

they still must know-

that the servant’s heart

must seek passion, Christ

Or else there’s deep death

and the pain seeks vice.

But there is a way

God I know with my heart

That my redeemer

lives, life creates a start

God I know to feel

never care of man’s traps

because You know MY HEART

that is on the map.

A hope to feel

Of what seems not there

But you’ve proved me again

And again your grace is flair

I can tell endless tales

can so feel Your presence

no matter what happens to me

is worth all That sentence.

God I want to know

that heart of Jesus

seek Him in the morning

His love as warm as night ceases.

God I don’t want to feel

that Your love doesn’t matter

You brought ones together

as the led ones gather.

God I hope You lead

as I’m lead by You

To take the stage

And say “God I feel You!”

Just Be Love- 4/27/21

Three people died in my life over a period of about two years; I had another mental breakdown. I have had too many to count by now… sigh

Sometimes I’ve thought I’d known it all. I think I’ve gotten it all together yet God proves me wrong.

So many times I’ve thought I’ve unlocked the mysteries of God but then hardships happen that are beyond hard-to-take…

But we aren’t supposed to have all the answers. God is mysterious. There are things so mysterious about Him people try to comprehend them and don’t succeed. A pastor well-known on tv and has many books believes whole-heartedly in God yet doesn’t believe in the trinity. Another …. wait, I should say, and a so-called “pastor” I personally call an “over-comforter” only focuses on the good stuff in Christian life to the point I’ve found his way about things excruciatingly simple. Yet these people are human, people that are focused to do all they can for the glory of God. Maybe they are good at guiding anyone who loves Him or wants to improve themselves.

But hear this: God has mysteries we aren’t supposed to comprehend! I believe that is because He doesn’t want us to depend on ourselves or any worldly logic or even many “intellectual” discussions going from assumptions (science calls “theories” which according to a worldly intellect that has the highest I. Q., means something based on fact) etc. Scientific analysis that is proven to be a true about whether or not there is evidence in it, is still “but we believe THIS instead cuz this we believe is factual.”

God has many mysteries. Some people dubbed crazy religious nuts are the ones that are claimed incorrect and wrong. They might even be claimed “biased” or “incorrect based on data.” It’s not “fair.” Either thoughts, God is still the truth! Whether you think the world was founded by God or a huge round of trillion to one, hugely unfathomable circumstances.

God wants us to live for Him, and that’s that! God wants us not to have all the answers because we’re supposed to not have “everything to know” about the world and it’s many grand mysteries.

There is even a song I love. It’s an old hymn. It goes “if every stalk on earth a quill,” and a paper stretched out across the sky. Then in the tune you can picture ocean filled with ink, and if He wanted, could write about the love of God for anyone, for any people groups, for people just hurting for people suffering for people just wanting a friend, for people who just happen to label themselves “straight” or “gay” for people who struggle constantly fighting their drug habits, for people weary and sick of life giving their bodies away for people just sad they can’t do anything in life, for people who just want an ear to listen, for someone who listens to the news and is scared to death about Black Lives Matter and Antifa (Antifa though is worse. The founding of BLM has flaws but at least at the core of the people who are frustrated by it there is a people who are hurting, people sick of the horrible atrocities that happened during slavery, people sick of the injustices that they face in the world, awful prejudices and hate, being insecure to go out because they don’t want to be treated differently. That is understandable. But Antifa is just whiny bull-poop, haha!). God wants to show love to everyone, regardless of skin, creed, religion, even any form of struggle- to “drain the ocean dry.”

The love of God is vast and amazing. We’ve got to love not hate. We need to be for each other not be alone, we need to just love each other!

Lift up another in prayer. Show mercy and not judgement or seeing condemnation. We should not assume and think to judge, to condemn, before knowing each other but keep finding just how wonderful God, His people, His word, His majesty, His excellence, His patience, all things that are God’s that from whence He is, was, will work through and guide us, and many we just show love to one another.

Be a good example and love not hate. Be good to one another, not drive a stake in the middle of things, not shake things up when things are going well or to stir the pot and play things a certain agenda. Just be love!

Just please let’s all avoid the dern politics too, hehe! I myself became convicted of that. I’m a little ashamed more than I am about talking of things that really matter. I am a little ashamed to be a republican. Fanatics in the party sometimes drive a wedge between ones and not know someone by shouting at them before they truly know the issues. I am however not ashamed to be a Christian.

Just be love. Be love to and for each other. That’s all that God wants from us. And be love now because the world is ticking.

Quick Quip- Do you love?

I was just reading a book speaking and defending Christ and the Holy Bible versus a cult group. It is a common cult began around the 19th century and is still common to this day. It has got me wondering, do I love people around me?

I mean as in a person commanded by God, do I really care if I avoid witnessing? Too often is it easy to avoid something if one doesn’t come across teasing, spiritual attack at times, and even serious persecution. But the Lord has commanded us.

I think of so many people even ones I have contact with on a daily basis. Do I really love them if I avoid sharing during at least one moment Christ to them? It’s worth it even with all the name-calling and negative responses I might get.

In my country a lot of Christians avoid talking about God because its too easy but ones should think of this. Do you want all the people you don’t know if they know Jesus to go to hell? I think not!

If we don’t we should all love first… then pray and depend on the Holy Spirit as the Word will help us with the rest. Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness… it’s all good to the great God who is love.

 

 

Quick Quip-To Disciple

I should not only think this as our church’s Missions Conference is coming up and it is to disciple but that is one commandment of God we sometimes neglect to think about.

We should as a church guide others spiritually to help mature the body but also to make servant disciples of Jesus Christ. It is God’s goal that His word be spread everywhere the one following Jesus will go for their mission so it must be so and intentionally done.

For too long I have felt like ones within the church. I kept letting feelings and insecurities hold me back, thinking that I lost Christ’s calling at least once every year but it is not true (it probably was a tactic from Satan to think that way).

And now I hope you desire if you spend time in His word when you can to do so for people of your church or join one to gain fellowship, guidance, and learning of what the bible tells of through the books of amazing stories. Talk to new people visiting and get to know them. Also share Christ with people that if spirit-led would be situations of opportunities presented by God’s will. He will give you chances, then people will by Christ’s power be saved!

I want to be one of many who want to share with each other as we are united by His blood and now share each others love and gifts within God’s family.

Be like a disciple-maker today!

Jesus said:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. ~Matthew 28, verse 19