Luke 1:30-31 “And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in they womb, and bring for a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.”

Has God ever interrupted your plans?

Mary was doing what she was expected to do - what was right for her to do - what she, Joseph, and not doubt their family, had planned to do.

Then God interrupted her life with a new plan.

Has God interrupted your plans?

Sometimes it can be exciting. Sometimes it can be scary. Other times it can be very confusing.

Yet our response needs to be like Mary's  - adjust our plans to God’s will!

This Christmas week let us examine our own response to the changes God has or is brining into our lives.

May the God who never changes help us to deal with life that is always changing!

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God…”

The source and purpose of the rest of the Bible rests upon this one phrase.

The source and purpose of our daily lives does the same.

Today let us live with the driving consciousness that everything begins with God.

He is the one who meets our needs, sustains our hearts and gives purpose to everything we do.

Let us begin each day, each conversation and each choice with God.

I Corinthians 8;1 "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."

 

When we must determine if something is  "right or wrong" there are many common and biblical questions that come into play. 

 

What does the bible teach? (II Timothy 3:16-17)

 

What doe the authority in my life demand? (Romans 13:1-6)

 

What  does the ministry that God has called me to demand? (Acts 16:1-4)

 

Yet one of the most ignored questions is in our text for today.

 

How will this decision impact my fellow believer?

 

Today, let us remember, that each of us has a circle of influence.

 

Within that circle  other believers are watching and responding to the choices we make in action, attitude and speech.

 

Let us make the "right" choice that will encourage and strengthen. And certainly avoid anything that will harm them.

 

Before you choose for yourself, think about others! 

James 1:5-8 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways

 

Wisdom has been defined as the best means to the best end.

 

We all face situations in our lives, on a regular basis, in which we need the wisdom that only comes from God.

 

To receive what we need requires: 

 

1. Specificity  - "Let him ask" is repeated twice. Just thinking, talking about or worrying about your need for wisdom is not praying! Praying involves us talking to God about that which is on our hearts.

 

2. Faith  - "ask in faith" Trusting that God wants to and will answer the prayer of His children. God knows the wisdom you need to day. He is willing and able to give it to you.

 

3. Right thinking  - "double minded man" Do not allow your uncertainty about what the next step to make move your mind (and heart) all over the board. So many people allow what they dont' know to cause them to doubt what they do know. II Corinthians 10:5 tells us to bring every thought into captivity.

 

Today - if you need wisdom - let me encourage you to set aside a specific amount of time to pray - a specific place in which to pray - and a specific list of what you are asking for.

 

What we will find is that our loving heavenly Father is waiting - eager - and willing to give us the wisdom we need when we need it!

Psalm 39:7 And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.

 

The word "hope" means expectation. The psalmist is saying that all he expects to need or find comes ultimately from God.

 

Today, who or what are we ultimately looking to in order to make life work?

 

Our lives are filled with daily duties and obligations. We realize that before God and man we must be faithful to the tasks at hand.

 

Yet the danger is that while we focus on our responsibilities or those of others, we lose sight of our dependence upon God.  

 

Today may we faithfully discharge the duties of our lives with our hope clearly and completely resting in the Lord.

 

When all we have is God - we find His is all we need!

 

Pastor Tony

 

P.S. Thanks for your prayers while Karen and I were in South Korea. We had a great time and are excited to be back.

Daniel 1: 8 "But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself."

Daniel was young – in a foreign country – and under the authority of the ungodly!
Yet he did right. How was that possible?
Because he knew “Purpose Proceeds Performance”If we want to do right – we must purpose in our hearts to do right.   
The challenge of righteous behavior starts not with what we do but with what we purpose.
Today let each of us examine the “purpose” of our life.
Let us surrender the purpose of our heart to what pleases God in every area and at every time.

This morning I was reading my devotions in Ezekiel 28-30. Within this passage we see God's response to pride. He will not accommodate it, nor will He ignore it.

The verse in James 4:6 came to my mind: "But He gives more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble."
 
Today let us take inventory of our hearts.

Are we cultivating or accommodating a prideful spirit?

Have we developed an over-inflated view  of our own significance?

Is our pride eclipsing the work of the Spirit and causing us to be unusable in God's purpose?

If the answer is yes, if pride is found abiding in our hearts, let us confront it with a vengeance.

Let us confess it and forsake it. Let us take our pride to the feet of the cross and lay it down!

God wants to work in us and through us today. He wants to sustain us and empower us by His grace.

Let us humble our hearts so that we can surrender our lives.

May God be glorified today in each of us as we surrender our pride and replace it with total dependence and devotion to the One who loves us most!

Jeremiah 42:20-21:  For you were hypocrites in your hearts, when you sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it. And now I have this day declared it to you; but you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD your God, nor any thing for which he has sent me unto you.

A righteous prayer is no substItute for a right choice!

The Jews were playing “the game”.

Sounding very committed in their prayers but when it came time to obey God they chose poorly.

Today, are you praying the right prayers and making the right choices at the same time.

Let us commit ourselves to connecting the choices we make throughout the day with the prayers we utter early in the morning, late at night and in our times of deepest need.

Let us pray hard and walk right!

II Timothy 1:3-4 “I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day; 4Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy;”

Paul’s prayer for Timothy was not clinical but compassionate. He was mindful of the heartache that Timothy had to deal with.
That leads me to a question for all of us to ask ourselves: Have we forgotten the heartache of someone who needs our payers?
How many times do we tell someone “I will be praying for you” only to mention it once or twice and then the burden fades from our minds.
There are some heartache that never go away this side of heaven.
Today let us reexamine our prayer list and see if we need to add someone that we have forgotten!

Psalm 78:41 “Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel”

Are you limiting God?

Psalm 78 gives a summary of Israel’s history from the calling out from Egypt to the setting up of David’s Kingdom.

Throughout the passage the goodness of God is magnified as well as the forgetfulness of His people. One of the results of forgetting God’s goodness is that within our hearts we “limit God”.

“Limiting God” in this verse speaks of limiting our view of God, coming to the conclusion that God is not up the challenge. How does this happen?  When we ignore the goodness of God.  

Have you gotten so consumed with the demands of this week or the challenges of life that you have forgotten the goodness of God. Have you stopped dwelling on all the ways in which His

 goodness has played out in your life? 

I have two challenges for you today:

#1 - Take time today to dwell upon the goodness of God revealed throughout His word and throughout your life.

#2 – Share with at least three different people (one on one) how God has been good to you.

Remember the saying: “God is good all the time – All the time God is good!”

Reconciliation continued from last week's pastor's e-note:

Luke 15:19-21 (the prodigal son to his father) “And am no more worthy to be called your son: make me as one of your hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight, and am no more worthy to be called your son.”

Last week: Accept and act upon your guilt. 

Today: Having accepted your guilt now what?

1.      Do not assume upon the grace of forgiveness  (19)

The son realized that he was worthy of nothing. At the end of the day reconciliation demands that the sinner relinquish any claim upon his own interest.

2.      Allow the person you sinned against to do what they choose to do (20)

The father chose to respond in demonstrative love. This love originated and energized from the inside of the father not the behavior of the son.

3.      Acknowledge with great specificity the sin you are dealing with  (21)

The son did not deal in generalities but in light of what he had done against his father. Do not hide your guilt behind general terms but name it and own up to it. Before God, and when needed before man, let us ask for forgiveness.

If anyone comes to you to ask for forgiveness do not interrupt their asking for forgiveness. They need to ask for forgiveness more for themselves than for you.

These steps cannot be side-stepped. They must be taken by each of us who have sinned and those who have sinned against us.

Luke 15:17-18 "And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!  

I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,"

 

Have you sinned against another person and in so doing you have distanced yourself from them?

 

Stop making excuses. Start accepting responsibility for what you have done and the fruit it has produced. 

 

Sin will always take us farther than we want to go, cost us more than we want to spend, and keep us longer than we want to stay! 

 

Today - accept and act upon your guilt.  Take the initiative and seek to reconcile.

 

Next week we will share some more thoughts on the topic of reconciliation. D.V.

Psalm 44:1 "We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old."

 

The youth of our day are in desperate need of adults who have, and are, experiencing God.

 

They need adults who are willing to share the greatness of God's work in their lives.

 

This week spend time remembering what God has done in your life. How He has shown Himself faithful and true.

 

Then ask the Lord to lead you to someone younger, who is willing to listen as you share the goodness of our great God!

 

Let us make a point to seek to encourage the younger generation to follow God's word not only through instruction but by example in word and deed!

This past Sunday we learned to identify and reject false teaching.

In Job 36 the speaker is Elihu, one of Job’s friends. He is trying to explain away Job’s suffering based on a wrong understanding of how God works and what God’s word says.

Job 36:11 “If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, an their years in pleasures.”

Yet the truth is that God uses difficulties and suffering to accomplish His will through His children.

II Corinthians 12:9-10 : Paul had the thorn in the flesh I Timothy 5:23 - Timothy had a stomach condition

Hebrews 11:35 : People who are living by faith are suffering great heartache  

II Timothy 3:12 teaches that all that live Godly will suffer.

Today make sure you're drawing your conclusions and expectations about life from God’s word not man’s logic. (be it your own or someone else’s)

“Let us trust and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.”

Esther 9:18 "But the Jews that were at Shushan assembled together on the thirteenth day thereof, and on the fourteenth thereof; and on the fifteenth day of the same they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness"

Esther and the Jewish people were spared and given a great victory over their enemy Haman.
They responded with a yearly festival called Purim in which they celebrated God's power and deliverance.

Today let each of us have our own "Purim".

Let us take time to rejoice over the ways God has worked in our individual lives and families.

May this rejoicing be seen by our actions and shared by our words.

James 4:15 "For what ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that."

 

We are called to faithfully and rightly spend time thinking, planning and doing. 

 

Yet all of our work needs to be surrendered to the promise that God has a plan that is best and the power to make it happen.

 

Today - let each of us "REST IN THE WILL OF GOD"

I Timothy 1:1-2 "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith; Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord."

 

Do you need more grace? (God doing for you what you can not do for yourself)

 

Do you need more mercy? (God withholding from you the negative consequences you deserve)

 

Do you need more peace? (God calming your spirit and mind in the midst of all the movement in life)

 

Then remember that our God and Saviour Jesus Christ is our hope. Our only hope.

 

Ask Him for the grace, mercy and peace you need today. He knows what you need and how to give it to you.

 

In the midst of your most pressing challenges today turn to the only source that can sustain you, the person, presence and power of Christ.

Luke 1:6-8 "And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years. And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course,"

 

In the midst of great disappointment (no children) both Elizabeth and Zacharias were faithful in two very important ways.

 

Fist they "did right"! In their individual lives they chose to follow the Lord in obedience to His word.

 

Second, they "stayed committed" to the ministry to which God had called them.

 

They did not allow a broken heart, that had no expectation of relief, to throw them off course.

 

Life, this side of heaven, is going to to be filled with plans that do not work, desires that are not met, and pain that will not go away.

 

The question is, "Will we still be faithful?"

 

This week may we examine the commitment in our personal lives to being and doing right, regardless of the condition in which we find ourselves.

 

Hebrews 9:14 "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead

works to serve the living God?"

 

Freedom & opportunity are two sides of the same door! It is true in government and is certainly true in our relationship with God.

 

We are free from the power and penalty of our sins. This freedom is found in the sufficiency of the blood of Christ!

 

This freedom is designed to lead to a singular focus on ministry - for all of us! We are to serve the living God.

 

Today, let us celebrate our freedom in Christ with a unreserved commitment to serve God with confidence.

 

Remember - we are all "saved to serve!"

"And he (Jesus) 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."

 

The prayer of submission.

 

Jesus, hours before the cross, pours out His heart to the Father, acknowledging the difficulty that He was facing and the natural desire to avoid it.

 

Then comes the sweet prayer of submission.

 

The prayer begins with the word "nevertheless" and concludes with the phrase "as thou wilt".

 

The first (nevertheless) is the prayer of abandonment; willing to give up whatever plans we might have or hold dear to our hearts.

 

The second (as thou wilt) is the prayer of acceptance; willing to embrace the Fathers will as the best.

 

Today, let us pray the prayer of submission in word, in deed, and in response to the difficulties of the day.

 

If you are having your own "garden of Gethsemane", make a plan to spend some concentrated and extended time in the prayer of submission. You will find, as Jesus illustrated, the strength you need to fulfill the calling of God upon your life.

 

Pastor Tony

 

NOTE: "Pastor's enote" will be taking a two week break because Karen and I are on vacation. (April 9- 23) Looking forward to reconnecting afterwards.

Matthew 4:1-5 "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted  by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."

 

Temptation often comes while we are doing God's will. Christians sometime think that the will of God insulates us from the attacks of Satan. Yet the truth is righteousness can often act like a magnet.

 

If we are doing right and seeking to glorify God in our lives, we must beware that we are in danger of spiritual attack. This is compounded if we are physically under stress.

 

Let us do the same thing Jesus did. Respond with the Word of God. No matter in what form the temptation comes fill our heart and mind with God's word.

 

May the Lord guide each of us today as we seek to stay right as we are doing right!

Revelation 5:9 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;

 

Do you sing? This is a question that can produce a variety of answers and editorial comments.

 

But this morning I want to ask another question "WHY do you sing?"

 

There are two reasons for you and I to sing today - and every day of our lives:

 

1. Christ controls what and when things happen. The book can only be opened by Him and will not be opened until He decides.

 

2. Christ has redeemed us by His blood. We are saved, born again, adopted, secure, free, justified, sanctified, redeemed, bought with a price, a child of God, all because of the blood He shed for us

 

You might not consider yourself choir material but that should not stop any of us from singing from our hearts to the One and for the One that saved us!

 

Sometime today - take the time - find a place (even if you feel you must do this out of earshot of others) - and sing a song of praise.

 

 

TO GOD BE THE GLORY

 

To God be the glory great things he hath done! So love He the world that he gave us His Son,

 

Who yielded His life an atonement for sin and opened the Lifegate that all may go in.

 

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the earth hear His voice!

 

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the people rejoice!

 

O come to the Father thru Jesus the Son, and give Him the glory great things He hath done.

Romans 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”

Don’t be ashamed – in fact let us be bold!

Our world is in need of the gospel. 

North Carolina is in need of the gospel. 

Dare County is in the need of the gospel.

Every unsaved person you and I come into contact today, and every day, is in great need of the gospel!

Let us not become so busy living with people that we forget to ask were those same people will spend eternity.

The Gospel of Chris is powerful.

Today – Live it out through a compassionate heart and holy life. Share it with confidence and conviction!

Galatians 6:7 “Be not deceived God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap”

The seed is small the result is not!

Each word we speak and choice we make is like a seed planted in the garden of our life.  At first the seed falls out of sight. Then it is forgotten. Yet, over time it begins to grow until it eventually bears fruit.

Do not become careless – for God will not become forgetful!

Good seeds produce a good harvest.  Remember each word and choice today is a seed.

Let us commit ourselves to sowing seeds that will bring fruit to the glory of God.

Have a great day planting!

Pastor Tony