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.