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"