Tuesday, October 1, 2019

My Sin Is Ever Before Me


Help me Lord.
My sin is always there.
Forgive me by Your majestic power.
How can I do what I don't want to do instead of doing what I want to do? 
Evil draws me, I run but it catches me. 
But You O Lord bring deliverance. 
I desire You Lord.
I speak of Your great mercy.
I share Your wonderful truth.
That truth is life to those who are perishing.
Save Lord according to Your word.

26 Help me, O LORD my God! Save me according to your steadfast love! 
27 Let them know that this is your hand; you, O LORD, have done it! 
28 Let them curse, but you will bless! They arise and are put to shame, but your servant will be glad!  - Psalm 109:26-28

But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." - Matthew 15:25

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.  - Psalm 51:1-4

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. - Hebrews 12:1-2

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. - 1 John 1:7-10

21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.
22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own,
26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. - Hebrews 9:21-28

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. - Romans 7:14-25

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. - Hebrews 4:15-16

4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith.
5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? - 1 John 5:4-5

8 The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 
9 The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. 
10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and all your saints shall bless you!  - Psalm 145:8-10

21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. - 1 Corinthians 1:21-24

13 For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?"
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for "Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world."  - Romans 10:13-18

10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead-by him this man is standing before you well.
11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." - Acts 4:10-12

My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!  - Psalm 119:25

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.  - Psalm 119:37

Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise;  - Psalm 119:41

Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope!  - Psalm 119:116

I entreat your favor with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise.  - Psalm 119:58















The All-Satisfying Object



Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

The quest for pleasure is not even optional, but commanded (in the Psalms): “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

The psalmists sought to do just this: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1–2). “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).

The motif of thirsting has its satisfying counterpart when the psalmist says that men “drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights” (Psalm 36:8 NASB).

I found that the goodness of God, the very foundation of worship, is not a thing you pay your respects to out of some kind of disinterested reverence. No, it is something to be enjoyed: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8). Taste. Taste! And see.

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103).

As C.S. Lewis says, God in the Psalms is the “all-satisfying Object.” His people adore him unashamedly for the “exceeding joy” they find in him (Psalm 43:4). He is the source of complete and unending pleasure: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).


John Piper 

What’s on both sides of your valley?



BIBLE MEDITATION:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4



DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Psalm 23 is perched between Psalm 22, which tells about the crucifixion of Jesus, and Psalm 24, a prophecy of the coronation of Jesus. It is a beautiful trilogy about the Savior’s cross, the Shepherd’s crook, and the Sovereign’s crown.

Psalm 23 is the valley between the blood-drenched slopes of Mount Calvary and the sunlit peaks of Mount Zion. Thank God for every valley, because there must be a mountain.

ACTION POINT:

If you are in the valley today, remember that you wouldn’t be there had there not been mountains to cross. There is vision in the valley and hope in the hills.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Monday, September 30, 2019

The Most Liberating Discovery

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. (Philippians 3:1)

No one had ever taught me that God is glorified by our joy in him — that joy in God is the very thing that makes our praise an honor to God, and not hypocrisy.

But Jonathan Edwards said it so clearly and powerfully:

God glorifies himself towards the creatures also [in] two ways: (1) by appearing to . . . their understanding; (2) in communicating himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying the manifestations which he makes of himself. . . . God is glorified not only by his glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. . . .

[W]hen those that see it delight in it: God is more glorified than if they only see it. . . . He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it.

This was a stunning discovery for me. I must pursue joy in God if I am to glorify him as the surpassingly valuable Reality in the universe. Joy is not a mere option alongside worship. It is an essential component of worship. Indeed the very essence of worship — being glad in the glories of God.

We have a name for those who speak their praises of God when they have no pleasure in what they praise. We call them hypocrites. Jesus said, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me’” (Matthew 15:7–8). This fact — that authentic praise means consummate pleasure and that the highest end of man is to drink deeply of this pleasure for God’s glory — was perhaps the most liberating discovery I have ever made.


John Piper 

Is what you do for Jesus keeping you from Jesus?



BIBLE MEDITATION:

Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults.
Psalm 19:12



DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I believe in church attendance, but if your relationship with the Lord and with others is suffering, then you need to stay at home and get on your face before God.

Sometimes a businessman will get very prosperous in his business—and at first it seems a good thing. He tells his wife, “Honey, you know how I couldn’t give you much when we got married? Well, now I can.” But soon the pursuit of a nice home and nice things consume him. A sadness descends upon his wife and children, and they lament, “Oh, Daddy….Oh, husband…what we would give to just have you spend time with us.”

ACTION POINT:

What tragedy it would be if what you do for Jesus keeps you from Jesus. Stop the cycle today. If you know you’re a workaholic, stop it. If you know your walk is far from God, get it right.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Awakening


Definition of awakening: 
act of waking up: the moment of becoming suddenly aware of something vitally important 

for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."  - Ephesians 5:14

Wake Up!

We are not responsible for when or how God moves.
He is sovereign.
He can do anything He wants, anywhere He wants, anytime He wants with anyone He wants. 
However, we are responsible as a church for creating an environment, an atmosphere where if and when God is ready to move we are ready to receive it!

Get ready!

The church wakes up.
Prayers go up.
God shows up.
Heaven sits up.
Eyes tear up.
Sin packs up.
Spirit stirs up.
Angels listen up.
Worship picks up.
Body gets up.
City is shook up.
Lost looks up.
Satan backs up.
The demons are jacked up.

Barriers that prevent awakening 

1. Hardened hearts

But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. - Romans 2:5

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, 
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 
9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 
10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.' 
11 As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'" 
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
15 As it is said, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion."  - Hebrews 3:7-15

The people are the church!
Our problems stem from hardened hearts.
Crime, love of self, chasing money, rotten politics, etc

And the Lord said: "Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,  - Isaiah 29:13

Where's the passion?
Are we just going through the motions?

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.  - Psalm 34:18

Dear God, break us and soften our hearts!

2. Deadly pride!

16 There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: 
17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 
18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, 
19 a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.  - Proverbs 6:16-19

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." - James 4:6

Pride will destroy your soul.
It says we don't need God.
Holy God is waiting.
Help us God not to be found without You.

if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. - 2 Chronicles 7:14

Dear God, we repent of our pride and seek Your holy Face!

3. Disobedient decisions!

7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, 'How shall we return?'
8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In your tithes and contributions.
9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you.
10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
11 I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts.
12 Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts. - Malachi 3:7-12

You cheat God by lack of tithes, because you are disobedient because of a hard heart.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. - Matthew 6:21

You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. - Deuteronomy 8:18

Your skills, your smarts, they are a gift from Almighty God.

Dear God, please forgive our selfishness and lack of trust!

4. Grieved Spirit!

30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. - Ephesians 4:30-32

We have grieved the Spirit.

Definition of grief:
Feelings of distress, sorrow, heartache and heartbreak 
To cause sadness
Deep sorrow, especially that is caused by someone's death

We have grieved the Spirit, by our unholy actions!

And she said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" And he awoke from his sleep and said, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free." But he did not know that the LORD had left him. - Judges 16:20

" I remind you that there are churches so completely out of the hands of God that if the Holy Spirit withdrew from them, they wouldn't find it out for many months."
A. W. Tozer

Have mercy Lord!

Dear Holy Spirit, we ask for Your forgiveness.
Send an awakening!


Thanks Pastor Kevin!!


Make War with Unbelief



In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:16–17)

When I am anxious about getting old, I battle unbelief with the promise, “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46:4).

When I am anxious about dying, I battle unbelief with the promise that “none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:7–9).

When I am anxious that I may make shipwreck of faith and fall away from God, I battle unbelief with the promises, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6); and, “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

Join me in this battle! Let us make war, not with other people, but with our own unbelief. Unbelief in the promises of God is the root of anxiety, which, in turn, is the root of so many other sins. The sword of the Spirit is the word of God, Paul said in Ephesians 6:17. The shield by which we quench Satan’s fiery deceits is faith (verse 16) — faith in that very word of God. So take up the shield in your left hand and the sword in your right hand, and let us fight the good fight of faith.

Take up the Bible, ask the Holy Spirit for help, lay the promises up in your heart, and fight the good fight — to live by faith in future grace.


John Piper