The Power.

I just bought a book by Joyce Meyer called, "The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word." It has already been a great help to me. Joyce says that by speaking God's words aloud we are strengthened and the evil angels must leave us.

The Bible verses are listed by topic such as: Courage, Depression, Forgiveness, Peace, etc. She also writes each verse as though you yourself are speaking it.

As an example:

"I am gentle and forbearing with others and if someone has a complaint against me, I readily pardon him; even as the Lord has freely forgiven me, so must I also forgive." Colossians 3:13

"He heals my broken heart and binds up all my wounds." Psalm 147:3

"I'm sticking with God. I say it over and over again - He is all I have left. He proves to be good to me and to all who passionately wait and diligently seek him. It's a good thing to quietly hope for help from God."
Lamentations 3:24-26

This is something I posted Oct.30, 2010

I used to wonder what it meant to "grieve the Holy Spirit".  I thought this was a good explanation, although it may mean more than this.

Ephesians 4:29-32

"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."


This is an excerpt from "Our Journey," by James Macdonald


"When you gave your life to Christ, the Holy Spirit came to live with you. Now he's never leaving. When Jesus says, "I will never leave you or forsake you," he's talking about the ministering presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.

In Today's passage, where it says, "do not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom you were sealed, the point is that the Holy Spirit can't go anywhere. He's not leaving. Everywhere you go? He goes. Everything you say? He hears. Everything you feel? He bears with, and when we are unforgiving, we grieve the Holy Spirit.

The word grieve there is lupeo; it means to wound or to injure. We grieve the Spirit of God when we hold back forgiveness and cultivate bitterness in our heart. The Spirit of God who came to be resident within us can't go anywhere. So he has to live with these damaging, destructive, sinful choices that we make to hang on to our injury and disappointment with people instead of displacing it and releasing it through forgiveness.

We don't live alone. Considering our internal companion should give us continual motivation for the way we live."

He Shares in Our Sorrows.

God doesn't ask us to go through anything that he hasn't gone through himself. He came as a man, suffered terribly and died. In addition to this is, "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." Isaiah 53:4

 All the grief we feel here on earth he feels with us. 

Daily Light on the Daily Path
Anonymous

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MARCH 15 MORNING

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Perfect through sufferings.—HEB.2:10.

My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry here, and watch with me. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.—And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.—Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.—I looked on my right hand, and behold, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Matt.26:38,39. -Luke 22:44.Psa.116:3.--Psa.69:20. -Psa.142:4.Isa.53:3.

http://christianbookshelf.org/anonymous/daily_light_on_the_daily_path/march_15_morning.htm

"Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you."

I find the thought that this earth has nothing to be desired besides God to be an amazing one. We all have desires for our life here and for the lives of our loved ones. But what is the main and most important desire? God and God alone. 


We may lose everything we love on earth through war, sickness or other circumstance, but we have God.  And He is enough.

The verses go on to say, "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:25-26

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

My flesh and my heart faileth,.... Either through vehement desires of communion with God deferred, see Psalm 84:2 or through afflictive dispensations of Providence, being smitten and chastened continually, Psalm 73:14, or through inward trials and exercises, by reason of indwelling sin, temptations, and desertions: or rather the words are expressive of the body being emaciated by sickness and diseases; and the heart fainting through fear of death, or rather failing at it, being at the point of death; the heart being, as philosophers say, the first that lives, and the last that dies:

but God is the strength of my heart, or "the rock of my heart" (h); when overwhelmed with distress through outward trouble, or in the lowest condition with respect to spiritual things; when grace is weak, corruptions strong, temptations prevail, and afflictions are many; then does the Lord support and sustain his people, and strengthens them with strength in their souls; and in the moment of death, by showing them that its sting is taken away, and its curse removed; that their souls are going to their Lord, and about to enter into his joy; and that their bodies will rise again glorious and incorruptible:

Running Water.

I was washing some dishes this morning and had trouble with our tap. If you move it a tiny bit too far the water is too hot, then if you move it a tiny bit the other way the water is too cold. I felt frustrated and complained about it. Then I heard God say to me, "Many people don't have running water." I said, "That is true, and not only do I have running water - I can have it hot if I want to."

The Lord has been showing me time and again (I'm a slow learner) that I should be grateful for what I consider small things. They aren't small. No blessing is small. I just need to look around my home to find many things to be thankful for. I can look outside and see the beauty of nature. I can look in a mirror and realize I can see, think, and feel.

Father - help us all to be grateful for all your many blessings.

Abraham's Love and Generosity.

In writing about Abraham, Dwight L. Moody said it showed his greatness of character when he told his nephew Lot that he could have the choice of whatever land he wanted. Abraham was generous, kind and humble. He was the opposite of the rampant greed we see in corporations and most billionaires today. And imagine if the country of Israel acted like Abraham and said to the Palestinians, "Take half of the land and we will take the other half."  There would be no hatred, no war, no death.

Moody tells this story about a poor miner:

In Colorado the superintendent of some works told me of a miner that was promoted, who came to the superintendent, and said:

"There is a man that has seven children, and I have only three, and he is having a hard struggle. Don't promote me, but promote him."

I know of nothing that speaks louder for Christ and Christianity than to see a man or woman giving up what they call their rights for others, and "in honor preferring one another."

Love pushes out greed. Jesus said, "Give and it shall be given unto you, a good measure,  pressed down, shaken together and poured into your lap."

The Mundane Things of Life.

I read an article by Doug Helmer called, "Walking in the Mundane." He says that although we may think people of the Bible had exciting lives, most of their lives were full of doing the mundane. He says most of Noah's life wasn't about animals coming into the ark and riding in the ark to safety. His life was spent making a living and in his spare time building a huge boat. He had to cut down trees, make them into lumber, nail it and put pitch on it. This took many years.

Helmer says, "Noah's life was a testimony to walking faithfully in the mundane. His decades as a lumberjack and shipbuilder testify to the God-honoring power the person that faithfully walks the long, hard road of obedience really has."

I often think of Jesus and how most of his life entailed being a carpenter in a small town. No one knew who he was; he seemingly did no miracles during this time, he simply worked with wood and created things for people to use. This was the mundane life God chose for Jesus until he was called to preach the good news.

I made my husband happy today by making a nice lunch and dinner for him. This is mundane work I do every day, but I've realized lately how precious my job is. I'm sure it makes God glad to see us doing mundane things with a thankful spirit and seeing that although it may seem like we do small things, they are necessary,  good and make someone happier.