Good morning to all from Atlanta, GA. Waine and I get to visit our Atlanta house this weekend and will be headed back to Thomaston this evening. The flu has hit our little hamlet so we have been quite busy in the practice. Our nurse practitioner has been sick for 4 days so please pray for her recovery. When you start working with sick children they can "get you" until you build your immunity. Those little rug rats have gotten me on more than 1 occasion. Its officially fall in Georgia. The nights get down to about mid-50's and the days in the 70's. We are blessed as a family and God is good.
I am continuing my journey in Malachi, chapter 3 verses 1 - 18 "I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple; the Messenger of the Covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty. I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. But you ask, ‘How are we to return? Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?' In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe, says the Lord Almighty. Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty. You have spoken arrogantly against me, says the Lord. Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you? You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out His requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it. Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His name. On the day when I act, says the Lord Almighty, they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not." Amen and may the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of His Word.
Do you feel treasured? Do you feel valued? Do you feel like you are SPECIAL? God says you are! He created us and hoped against hope that we would not yield to temptation and sin and even when we did He had a ram in the bush. He had all the bases covered. There are those that say "if he really loved us why did He tempt us?"--God didn't temp us Satan did and I for one believe that we (Eve and Adam) resisted Satan for a while and then Gave In. Its true today. Most of us can resist "up to a point" and then we give in. The secret to not giving in, is to rebuke the evil one and his lies. When we are weak, the evil one will come to destroy what little peace you have and then begin to work on your thinking. He fills your mind with negative thinking and despondency--he makes you think that the God of the Ages, the God of Abram, the God of your promises, does not remember you. He will tempt you, as he did Job; he will want you to believe that the calamity you are in or see around you is because God has abandoned you. This is the point that you need to rebuke Satan as God commands. This is the point that you look Satan right in the face and claim the victory that God died for you while you were yet in sin and that He never, no never leaves us or forsakes us. That is the point at which you grow and conquer to fight the Good Fight another day. God never withholds His love, mercy or grace. He is always there, we need only to turn to Him to see His face. We should just get out of our own way. We are to be obedient to His commandments; not because we get punished if we don't. We should keep His commandments out of our Love for Him. He commands us to Love Him and make Him the Center of our lives. He then commands us to love one another, sacrificially. He also commands us to give 10% of our earnings back to Him. This is also a commandment for your own prosperity. God doesn't need our money. He needs our obedience! There are probably a thousand reasons why you can't give 10%, you have this bill or that bill. Forget the bills they will get paid. Give God your 10% and see. The 10% is a small measure of your faithfulness.
If you think you lack abundance in your life then you need only open your heart and CELEBRATE TODAY. Celebrate reading this blog. Celebrate the breath in your lungs. Celebrate the life you lead. Celebrate the laughter of your children and grandchildren. Celebrate that the sun came up this morning. Celebrate the roof over your head. Celebrate that people love you and that they can receive your love. If you have not forgiven someone do so today--that's loving them. If you love someone who has harmed you that's loving God. Be happy today and embrace your life with God. You may be saying, "if only she knew what I am going through she would know I can't celebrate". My answer is that God is bigger than what you are going through and He is definitely bigger than anything I am going through. He is the Great I AM. He is all that I need! There have been times of trial when all I could do is put one foot in front of the other. There have been times when the only thing I could do is quote God's promises. There have been times when I just rebuked the devil a million times a day because he is a liar. Each step I took the cloud lifted more and I could see it was not me walking but God who was carrying me. God was always there, I had to change my vision!
To know God is to love Him. To Love Him is to serve Him. To serve Him is to love you. Now may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.
Stephanie
No comments:
Post a Comment