Hello Friendly People,
Do you like spending time in the Old Testament looking at God's character, what matters to Him, and how He so wants to provide for us and protect us? I pray you will feel His love today, that you could absorb all that He has for you who believe and choose to obey Him.
Leviticus 26
V1 "Do not make idols or set an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.
V2 Observe the Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary, I am the Lord.
V3 If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,
V4 I will send you rain in its season , and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field fruit.
V5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
V6 I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country.
V7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you.
V8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
V9 I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you.
V10 You will still be eating last year's harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. "
Leviticus 25:20 You may ask , "What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?" v21 I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. v22 While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.
Chapter 25 is about the year of Jubilee, so it's worth your time to read and contemplate what it would mean to live a lifestyle of trust and obedience at this level. We may at some point in the United States have to fully rely on God's provision and safety.
V11 I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you.
V12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.
V13 I am the Lord your God who bought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke off the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
Hold your head high, God loves you and cares about every part of your life!
Never give up! Never give in!
Hi Friendly People,
What I've written today has been difficult because the reality of its truth frightens me. If God were to look at the church in the United States as He did Sodom and Gomorrah would He find many righteous? People who take correction from Him? People who aren't looking back at Egypt when things get hard? God is so merciful to give us warnings and chances to repent; will we listen?
Isaiah 30
V1 "Woe to the obstinate children" declares the Lord, "to those who carry out plans that are not Mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin;
V2 "who go down to Egypt [a place of bondage]without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh's protection, to Egypt's shade for refuge."
2Kings 18:21 Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man's hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him.
Psalms 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
V3 But Pharaoh's protection will be to your shame, Egypt's shade will bring you disgrace. Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,
Zoan: where Israelites once served as slaves.
V5 everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace.
V6 Through a land of hardship and distress of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation,
V7 to Egypt , whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing.
Rahab: a mythical sea monster, here symbolic of Egypt. The name itself means storm and arrogance.
Isaiah 27:1 In that day the Lord will punish with His sword His fierce great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent , Leviathan the coiling serpent: He will slay the monster of the sea.
V8 Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness.
V9 These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction.
V10 They say to the seers, "See no more visions!"
and to the prophets, "give us no more visions of what is right!
"Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.
V11 "Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!"
V12 Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:"Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit,
V13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
V14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern"
V15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
V16 "You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.' Therefore you will flee!
"You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.' Therefore your pursuers will be swift!"
V17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.
V18 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
He rises to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for Him!
V19 O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you.
V20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.
V21 Whether you turn to the right or the the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying , "This is the way; walk in it."
V22 Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"
O God, Merciful and Just, "We ask Your forgiveness and choose this day to put You in Your rightful place as our King the only true Protector and Provider. We will no longer run back to those places you have delivered us from. We will call to You for our help and not depend on the Pharaoh's of our land. We look to you for our peace and strength. We will honor Your voice in our lives and listen to Your correction. We will open our ears to Your instruction, we want to hear Your teachers, we want to hear the truth even when it hurts. We humbly ask You to tell us which way to go. You alone give us the power to give up our Idols and we ask You for Your help. Be our shade, our King, The Holy One of Israel. Amen.
Never give up! Never give in!
Hello Friendly People,
In the Healing Rooms ministry there is an hour of what we call "soaking time," a time set apart that is meant to empty yourself of this world's attachments and be filled (soaked) with the presence of God so that He can fully flow through your earthly vessel. It enables the divine transfer from your demands to Christ's commands. This man who felt so unclean and knew his home was in an unclean state understood this authority given Jesus and was able to bring the divine into his home, through that understanding. The process of yielding; knowing who is in authority in whatever realm you are operating and then submitting to that authority.
Matthew 8
V5 And when He entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him entreating Him,
V6 and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering great pain."
V7 And He said to him, "I will come and heal him."
V8 But the centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed.
V9 "For I, too am a man under authority, [my emphasis] with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it."
V10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled, and said to those who were following;
"Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel .
v11 " And I say to you, that many shall come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; v12 but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
V13 And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very hour.
Luke 9
V1 And He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons, and to heal diseases.
Matthew 10
V1 And having summoned His twelve disciples, He gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of sickness.
Never give up Never give in!
One by one He took them from me
All the things I valued most;
'Till I was empty-handed,
Every glittering toy was lost
And I walked earth's highways, grieving,
In my rags and poverty
Until I heard His voice inviting,
"Lift those empty hands to Me!"
Then I turned my hands toward heaven,
And He filled them with a store
Of His own transcendent riches,
'Til they could hold no more.
And at last I comprehended
With my stupid mind, and dull,
That God cannot pour His riches
Into hands already full.
- source unknown
I read this today written by Chuck Swindol and thought it worthy of passing on.
I have found great help from two truths God gave me at a time in my life when I was bombarded with a series of unexpected and unfair blows (from my perspective). In my darkest hours these principles become my anchor of stability, my only means of survival. Afflicted, confused, persecuted, and rejected in that situation, I claimed these two truths and held onto them like one beaten by wild waves, strong winds, and pounding rain would grab hold of the mast on a ship at sea, God took me through the consequences and kept me from becoming a bitter person.
Nothing touches me that has not passed through the hands of my heavenly Father, Nothing. Whatever occurs, God has sovereignly surveyed and approved. We may not know why (we may never know why), but we do know our pain is no accident to Him who guides our lives. He is, in no way, surprised by it at all. Before it ever touches us, it passes through Him.
Everything I endure is designed to prepare me for serving others more effectively, Everything. Since my heavenly Father is committed to shaping me into the image of His Son, He knows the ultimate value of this painful experience. It is a necessary part of the preparation process. It is being used to empty our hands of our own resources, our own sufficiency, and turn us back to Him--the faithful Provider. And God knows what will get through to us.
Listen to what Paul has to say: .
I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers in the sea, dangers among the false brethren.
Never give up Never give in!
Hello Friendly People,
Ezekiel is asked to lay on his side for the sins of Israel for over a year and then again for the sins of Judah on his other side for a month or so. He would be tied up during the process...... What marvels me is there is NO complaint, until he is asked to defile himself. God asks him to prepare a particular bread cake and roast it for all to see, the fuel being human dung. This is particularly sinful to him as he had not let, since youth, anything unclean enter his mouth.
Ezekiel replies to God, "Surely, You wouldn't ask me to defile myself by using human excrement? Can I use cow dung instead?"
God allowed Ezekiel's feelings and convictions to be honored. God could have said "It's okay, I will overlook it this time." Instead, He honored the sacrifice of obedience this servant, and friend, had made for Him.
Ezekiel 4
V1 "Now, son of man, take a clay tablet, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it.
V2 "Then lay siege to it; Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it.
V3 "Then take an iron pan and place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.
V4 "Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the house of Israel
upon yourself. You are to bear their sins for the number of days you lie on your side.
V5 "I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the house of Israel. [Are you thinking bed sores?]
V6 "After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year.
V7 "Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophecy against her.
V8 "I will tie you up with ropes so you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.
V9"Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, put them in a storage vat and use them to make bread for yourself.
You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side.
V10 "Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times.
V11 "Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times.
V12 "Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel."
V13 The Lord said, "In this way the people the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them."
V14 Then I said, "Not so Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth.
V15"Very well," He said, "I will let you bake your bread over cow manure instead of human excrement."
This, I know is some weighty scripture especially in light of the moral state of our country, but my intent is to bring attention to the characteristic of honor in this amazing prophet, Ezekiel.
Never give up Never give in!
