You are a chosen vessel of the Lord

"But the Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings and the children of Israel." (Acts 9:15) 

You too are a chosen vessel of the Lord, 

to bear His name before all you come in contact. 

He will show you how 

and in what way. ... 

but not necessarily the way you think it should be.

Remember ... ? 

His ways are not your ways. 

His way is better, far better 

than anything we suppose.

We are to show "cares for the things that belong to the Lord - how he may please the Lord."                          (I Corinthians 7:32)

Whatever our stage in life, 

the Lord's desire is for us to care, 

to be concerned about what is pleasing to Him.

Sometimes you run when you're scared or frightened or frustrated; sometimes you withdraw. 

God doesn't want us to be stagnant, but to run, run with endurance, in the way He has destined for us. 

"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured ... lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls." (Hebrews 12:1-3)

The Lord knows your heart
He knows your innermost being

Remember ...? 

He formed you.

He understands your desires, 

your misgivings,
your pain

He tells us to lay aside every hindrance, every sin which traps us so easily. 

Discouragement is not a sin, nor is frustration or disappointment.

But all can lead to places God does not wish us to partake in. 

God has forgiven you
He has cleansed you 

of your sin

of your guilt

He has pardoned you

He has restored you to righteousness. 

God does not keep a record of your wrongs

He is not like your peers

who remember

and bring before you

your faults, failures, 

making claim to 

disqualification.

Who are they to judge

Who made them Lord

What makes them higher and more powerful than the Lord God Almighty? 

He has pardoned you

Of what matter, 

of what consequence is it

when others put us down. 

Their level is not where God wants you.

He has forgiven you.

Once. Twice. and more. 

He forgives us our trespasses 

again and again, 

when we actively seek His forgiveness

and live the life 

He has chosen for us. 

 

"But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you." (Luke 10:10-11)

Whatever city

Whatever church

Whatever congregation 

Whatever people

if so embittered 

against you

to not receive you

then wipe off the dust

wipe the slate clean

move on 

It is not they who ultimately decide your path. 

It is God. His will. 

Follow Him. 

Jesus went places of which His disciples cringed.

Jesus' determination super-ceded those who followed Him. 

He listened and discussed with others, 

But it was His Father to whom He obeyed. 

The hostility we face should not deter us 

from following and being obedient 

to our Lord Jesus Christ. 

We need to meet our opposition 

head on, 

not withdraw from it.

Move on and do. 

Perhaps 

not literally, as moving your place of residency to another 

but symbolically, within your heart and soul

Don't become complacent

Don't let those who oppose 

control. 

Let God. 

The Lord spoke to Paul in a vision, saying
"Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you." (Acts 18:9-10)

Do not be afraid. 

Do not keep silent.

Sometimes silence of words is necessary, 

but the silence of the heart need not be.

Seek the Lord

Seek His way for you to go. 

He is with you.

He is always with you.

Nothing another says 

because of their fears and unstableness

can truly harm you

if it is to the Lord 

we look and seek and pray and be.

He is our enabler. 

Our all. 

In Him do we trust. 

Amen. 

Will you follow, will you obey?

Yesterday, Jan. 3, was my husband's birthday. He had a grand celebration and a belated Christmas with family and friends. The day before, on Saturday, we attended a funeral for a longtime member of our church. He would have been 100 years of age in February. But his life here on earth was fulfilled and the Lord took him home.

Earlier on Saturday I did my devotional study, which led me to Luke 9:57, "Lord, I will follow You wherever you go." My thought was we should not say, Lord, I will follow You wherever You go, and then find excuses. It is excuses we find too readily, reasons why something won't work, even when the Lord tells us to do it. Whether we are in Christ or in our selves, we all face similar trials and tribulations. How we respond, react, shows our true colors, our true allegiance. For all the new beginnings, the new starts we desire, do we continue to make excuses or do we define ourselves by following the Lord in everything?

Do we say, "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go, ... but let me first go and bury my father ... let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house?" (Luke 9:57, 59, 61) But Jesus says, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62)

According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Fear is the net that evil throws over us, so that we become entangled and soon fall. Those who are afraid have already fallen. If we are on a difficult mountain climb and are suddenly consumed with fear, we will surely stumble. Hence, such anxious good intentions do us no good. We can certainly never make a new beginning with them."

Fear.... we can't succeed. Do we rely on ourselves or do we seek that greater power -- the Almighty God -- to overcome our fears, and ultimately the evil that consumes us? The title of Bonhoeffer's devotional, "I want to live these days with You," depicts how I would like to live my life.

Only You
Have the answers
to all I seek
to all there is

Only You
can enable me
and protect me
guide me along the paths
chosen

Only You
can be my best.

He is

This is the day ...
The day
The Lord
has made

He has made
Every day
and
All
that is in it

He is
The mighty one
The all-powerful one
The one
who sees
All
who searches
across the mountain tops
and into the caverns
and valleys.

He is
The one
who looks
beyond our outer beings
and sees
within our souls.

He is
The one
who knows
what we fel
and understands.

He understands
our longings
our desires
our agonies

He --
The Lord
The God of all creation
The God of the universe
The God of me
The God of my beloved Jimmy

He is
The one
who says
who commands
who restores
who teaches
who loves
who sent

His Son ... Jesus.

The Lord
He is
The one
who tests
our allegiance to Him
who stands by us
protects us
enables us
to do whatsoever His will is for us.

He is
The one
who removes
obstacles
that may be deterrents
to His will for us.

He is
The one
who rejoices
in our small beginnings
who watches
our struggles to go on
who hears
our prayers
of fear and pain and despair

He is
The one
who completes us.

He is
The one
whose Spirit
Lives on
Through His Son,
Jesus Christ,
who gave His life for mine.

He is
The one.
My Father. My Lord. My Eternal Friend. My Jesus.

Cathy Orrick Luders
11.6.2009

"The unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God"

God is greater than you or I. God is the great I AM. Yet there are many who treat Him as nothing.
Such evilness to be found in the United States, in our very own back yards. The most recent upheaval coming to my mind is the ruling handed down April 3 by the Iowa Supreme Court making it legal for homosexuals to marry.
How sickening.

Have we returned to the days of Sodom and Gomorrah?
(Genesis 19: 1-5, 13, 23-28) "Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. And he said, “Here now, my lords, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way. And they said, “No, but we will spend the night in the open square. But he insisted strongly; so they turned in to him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
Now before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally ... For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it. ... The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace."

God destroyed the cities to rid the wickedness that prevailed within, but following the path of God was not their way. Disobedience to God's commandments was the way of so many; sin became rampant once again and has continued to be the norm down through the ages.

How dare we ignore the Almighty God. How dare we claim there is no God. How dare we expect Him to sit back and be pleased with what He witnesses. He is not pleased. I am not His spokesperson. He does not need someone to speak for Him. He is. But I am His child, and as His child, I must follow Him and be obedient to Him, showing others the way to true freedom, to eternal security, achieved only one way, through faith in Jesus Christ, His son, who paid the utmost price, going to the cross, dying for the sins of us all, and then too, the eternal punishment when you refuse.

You think, you claim you have no use of Him. One day Jesus will return. One day all of you who profess followers of Christ are imbeciles will discover how much truth is known. One day your end will come and you will have no where to turn, no where to go, but deep into the dark endless pit of hell. The Bible is true. God is perfect. One day you will see how misinformed you really are. God's wrath will be upon you. God will destroy all the evil.

It cannot come soon enough. I wish we didn't have to go through these times. It will get worse. But with God beside me and you, my fellow believers, we will prevail.

"Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge." (Hebrews 13: 4)

"You shall not lie with a man as with a woman: It is an abomination." (Leviticus 18: 22)

"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20: 13)

"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, ... will inherit the Kingdom of God. ... Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord and the Lord for the body."(1 Corinthians 6: 9-10, 13b)

"Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness ... those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God." (Galatians 5: 19-21)

"For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, ... that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter (or her sister), because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit." (1 Thessalonians 4: 3-5a,6-8)

I pray Psalm 119: 133, "Direct my steps by your word, And let no iniquity have dominion over me."

For other reading: Church History - the Homosexual Age
Bible Probe

Preparation, planning, praying ... an important part of waiting

When I started writing this morning and getting into God's word, I wasn't quite sure where I was headed. Sometimes I have a hint of where God is leading me and sometimes I end up pondering for days what he is trying to teach me. Today it seemed to be more about pursuing dreams and getting out of comfort zones, not being okay with the status quo and not going off on tangents that may lead to places we are not supposed to go.

In "Pursue Your God-Given Dream," Daniel Ekhaifo says God seems to be preparing us and positioning us gradually for something better.

I agree with that thought. All along our journey with God we travel through peaks and valleys, good times and bad times, learning ... God is preparing us for something better. Our whole trip or journey in life is one big preparation for something better. And when God has in place what needs to be in place, then He sets us down, often abruptly, in the midst to proceed and pursue.

As we abide with God -- praying, meditating, studying, obeying, following -- He abides with us. Abiding with Him does not mean we won't have trials and tests. It does mean He will be with us as we go though them, enabling us to remain at peace and confident that God knows what He is doing even though we ourselves do not.

God will change our situation suddenly. You might think when you are laid off your job or fired it was a God thing, and it could be, but that's not always the case. God knows about every situation and He may allow things to happen, but just because He allows it, does not mean that was His plan all along.

Depending upon your personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you may know if this is (or is not) the Lord's plan and where to go from that point onward. But you have to wait, be patient, seek out what God is saying to you and proceed.

Sometimes we wait a very long time. We are not to just sit back and wait for God to make things happen. We are to prepare and plan and pray as we await God's instructions, then proceed, trusting God to provide.

God will change our situation suddenly. We must be alert to the Lord's presence everywhere and at all times ... where we least expect to see Him.

We must not become attached to the status quo -- our comfort zone. When we settle for less it is to our disadvantage wherever we are.

For every opportunity that comes our way we should attribute it to God. Give Him all the glory and honor for everything. Through Him we can be a blessing to another, we can be anothers' opportunity. When we abide with Christ, His demeanor will shine upon us as we seek to fulfill His purpose for us.

Where does God want me to go ... with everything? I think about my dream, my purpose, my plan of action. I must remember to always keep God at the helm to accomplish any desire God has given me, big and small.

Like I've said before, alternative ideas can thwart your God-given dream, causing you to lose sight of where it is God wants you. Even if the alternative is a good idea ... that doesn't mean you should go there. If you feel pulled in different directions, talk about it with God. He will never steer you wrong. He will never fail you.

El-Shaddai ... God Almighty ... God All Sufficient. Be Thou My Vision.

"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God." (2 Corinthians 3: 5)

So true. No reason to fret whatever the situation, the circumstance. God is All Sufficient. He is everything we need. When we are one with Him, what have we to fear? He will make us strong for the journey, the pilgrimage of our life.

~~~~~~~~~~

In today's Gazette, Steve Buttry, former editor and now Information Content conductor, wrote a commentary, "No room for smugness as Gazette experiments." (You can read it on his blog: stevebuttry.wordpress.com) He reminds us the newspaper is "just a delivery system, not the actual product. Our true product is news, information, meaning, context, connection to the community and connection to the marketplace.

The newspaper is a vehicle, one of many ways to spread news and other information to the public. It is not the actual product.

The Bible is also a vehicle, one of many ways to spread the word of God to millions of people. The Bible is not the actual product. The Gospel is.

The written word is a vehicle, as is the spoken word, sign language, radio, television, the internet, palm-held computers, and undoubtedly many more. All a vehicle -- a way to effectively and efficiently deliver, transport, spread, communicate the end product ... whether it be news and information or the gospel of Jesus Christ. If one method is faltering, then we try another. If we stop trying, death is just around the corner. ... at the next light perhaps.