Tag: Scriptures

The Whole Counsel of God

Psalm 119 Part 5 (verses 153-176)

Psalm 119 is a beautiful testimony to the words of God. The psalmist meant to refer to the Torah, the first five books, called books of the Law.

But is that ALL that the psalmist spoke about?

The psalmist referred to what he believed were the words of God, but that is because he only regarded the first five as God’s revealed word. However, the church has come to recognize more than that. First, we believe God revealed himself to Moses in the Torah, and that through a lengthy editing process we have those first five books in their form today. However, other books, books of history, like Joshua and Ruth, were also recognized as being inspired by God. Note how that sentence was worded. It was not that “the church claimed they were inspired” or “the church or councils chose them for the Bible.” The church and church councils only recognized the inspiration already in the text. We saw it in the books of the prophets like Isaiah and Malachi, in the apocalypse of Daniel, and even in the Psalmists own words of 119! Later, we would recognize God’s voice in the writings of Paul, in the Gospels, in other letters, including the letters of Peter, John, and the apocalypse given to John. 

These 66 books compose the Scriptures, in both Old and New Testaments. When we read Psalm 119 and the psalmist’s passion for, meditation on, and memorization of scripture, for us this covers ALL these books. The psalmist was this passionate about Leviticus, how much more should our soul sing when reading the Gospel account of the salvation of humanity! How much more should we rejoice in committing to memory the words of the Word of God, Jesus Christ. (John 1)

Read Psalm 119 (or, hopefully, re-read it!) and focus on what we have seen over the past few days:

As you read Psalm 119, see the artistry of one who so deeply loved God’s words, and allow it to show you the beauty of God’s scripture from Genesis to Revelation. 

As you read Psalm 119, praise God for the fact that he would reveal himself in the scripture and how much more he would reveal himself through his beloved Son Jesus Christ. 

As you read Psalm 119, recognize the Torah’s important role in beginning the Revelation of God to his people, and may it propel you to continue to walk in God’s way through the life and teachings of the fulfillment of the Torah in Jesus. 

As you read Psalm 119, pray, meditate and memorize God’s words so that they may be a lamp unto your feet and a light to your path, and that you might keep your way pure. 

As you reads Psalm 119, may you fall in love with the words of God, the Word of God, and ultimately, with the God who loves you. 

-Jake Ballard

Read or listen to today’s Bible reading passages at BibleGateway.com here – Ezekiel 33-34 and Psalm 119:153-176

2021-seekgrowlove-bible-reading-plan-1Download

The Truth, the Full Truth, and Nothing But the Truth

Psalm 119 162 163

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Let’s pray it will be a great year of growth as we strive to follow Him well, relying daily on the truth of His Word.  Today, we welcome Susan Landry with her words of truth, encouragement and challenge as we look to begin our Bible reading plan with Matthew 1 on Sunday, January 6!

 

One of my favorite things about Scripture is my reliance upon the fact that it is totally, completely, absolutely, supremely TRUE.  I’ve become convinced over the years that my feelings lie to me.  As I’ve come to this conclusion, I’ve also come to realize that when my feelings lie to me, the best way to combat that is to tell myself the truth.  This has kind of been my mantra for some time.

But it got challenged recently.

I was feeling discouraged and the thoughts that were running on repeat through my head wouldn’t quit.  I tried my usual weapon of pausing and assessing my feelings to see if I could find the lie and then find a truth to combat it with.  But what I kept coming back to was that what I was feeling discouraged about WAS true.  It was a fact, in fact.

And so I wallowed in my discouragement for a few days, feeling rather hopeless, before God placed a verse in my head…a verse that was also true.  A lightbulb went on as I saw that what had been running through my head was a HALF-truth, it was not the complete truth.

Psalm 119 18 43

I may have screwed up, but the full truth is that God can work with that.  He can bring something good out of it, even.  And because I know His word is true, I can trust that and have hope even when it doesn’t feel true.  My story doesn’t end with a half-truth…and neither does yours.

 

Friends, this is why it’s so important to be in God’s word regularly.  He can’t bring verses to mind if you haven’t read them.  You can’t know the full truth if you aren’t reading it.  I’m so excited to start this New Year of reading the Bible together!

The full truth:

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

 

-Susan Landry

Messages from God

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We may take instant messaging for granted. We have grown accustomed to communicating with each other in real time. Instant messaging in 1844 was a little bit different.  Samuel Morse was a co-developer of Morse Code and helped to develop the commercial use of the electrical telegraph. Morse sent the first official telegraph message on May 23, 1844.  And it is interesting to me that he encouraged a 17-year-old named Annie Ellsworth to choose the text. It was, “What hath God wrought?” This statement is from the King James Version of the Bible from Numbers 23:23.  We might read it as, See what God has done! This statement is from one of the messages pronounced by Balaam and his experiences should convey the importance of only giving the true message of God.

When the Israelites traveled into Moab, King Balak sent messengers to Balaam, a pagan prophet. Balak wanted to pay Balaam to place a curse on the Israelites. Balak’s message was, “A people that has come out of Egypt covers the face of the land. Now come and put a curse on them for me. Perhaps then I will be able to fight them and drive them away.” But God said to Balaam, “Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed.” Balaam consults with God and does refuse to go with the first group.  Later a second set of messengers arrives.  They delivered this message, “This is what Balak son of Zippor says: Do not let anything keep you from coming to me, because I will reward you handsomely and do whatever you say. Come and put a curse on these people for me.” Balaam does go with the messengers, but he has a strange conversation with his donkey on the journey. And an encounter with the angel of the LORD makes him state on his arrival, “I can’t say whatever I please. I must speak only what God puts in my mouth.” King Balak takes the pagan prophet to three locations inquiring a curse to be pronounced on the Israelites, but each time, Balaam blesses the Israelites. The first three messages of Balaam are blessings on Israel and the last four messages are warnings to the countries that will be conquered.

Later in Deuteronomy 23:5 we are told why God insisted on blessing the Israelites. It states, “However, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you.”

Balaam missed the point of the messages that he delivered. God loved the Israelites. He continued to send messages of His love and hope to them throughout time. Just as the Apostle Peter said, “You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. (Acts 10:36) How blessed we are that God’s message of love is available to us all.  We don’t need to wait for a prophet from a far away land. God’s message is in the scriptures and He speaks personally to each one of us. Praise God for this Message!

-Rebecca Dauksas

 

 

 

 

Over 3,000!

Picture1rebecca

I like books. But I find that I like the idea of reading a book, more than I actually like reading the book. Some of you can relate. I have books that I started, but just never finished.  I like the possibility of what the book is promising. Maybe it is becoming more organized, getting better grades, learning another language, do it yourself projects, restoring an old car, …there are countless things that we can learn from books.

The greatest book of course is the one that God has given us.  It is the book that we continue to read through our lives. Why? We have been doing some in depth Bible study during our Grow devotions. What is it that this collection of 66 books is promising to the reader?

The Bible makes some incredible promises. Promises that have happened, that are happening and that will happen. And of course, the importance of these promises rests in the fact that they are offered from God.  He is speaking through the scriptures to us. For instance, the promise that we can know who God is. “Come near to God and He will come near to you”. (James 4:8) Or the promise that we can become God’s children. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1) We are also offered the promise of forgiveness. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Those promises are amazing because we can be forgiven and we can connect with our Creator. We can grow our relationship with Him so close that we can call Him, “our Father”. And just like a loving Father teaches a child the things they need to know, He teaches us through the scriptures.  We can learn how to make decisions and how to live. And He promises us His Holy Spirit. His Spirit enables us to live lives that show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I recently read that a Bible scholar states that there are over 3,000 promises from God through the scriptures. That is huge, but we know that those promises will be fulfilled because God is the one making them. We can trust God because He will follow through on His promises. So no matter what, lets continue to study this incredible book with a message of love that is filled with promises written from Our Father.

 

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 2 Peter 1:3-4

 

-Rebecca Dauksas

 

 

E.R.

Psalm 119

emoyer-ER

 

E.R. debuted in 1994.  Each week, episodes were filled with exciting, heart wrenching and dramatic events based in a Chicago hospital emergency room.  The show often portrayed incredible measures taken as residents applied their medical school backgrounds to treat and save patients.   
Well, there are times we all find other things that we might put first in our day to day lives.  We may need some “healing” or “revival” in our own relationship with God.  Eleven times in Psalm 119 it mentions some sort of revival.  Terms like preserve, restore, spare, give, are mentioned throughout this chapter.  In the darkest of hours you may not feel like His Word is enough.  You may not feel like it is relevant to what you are going through or that God is near. You may have filled your time, your actions and your mind with everything but time in His word.  If this feels somewhat familiar to you consider this:  “Feelings follow correct behaviors and not the other way around”.  God’s word is a foundation for us all.  We need to turn to him and be in His word.  Don’t expect a quick fix. Instead, prepare to be transformed by him being more present in our life. So when we stumble, we need to get back up again, be dedicated to reading his word and trust on his strength for a full recovery in our lives.

-Emily Moyer

Not As a Human Word

MONDAY

1 Thessalonians 2-13

Please read 1Thessalonians 2. My perspective in writing these devotions is that you are reading the scriptures. Nothing I write can be as important to you as what God can say to you as you read his word.

 

1Th. 2:1   You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain, 2 but though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition. 3 For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; 6 nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, 7 though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. 8 So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.

 

1Th. 2:9   You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was toward you believers. 11 As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, 12 urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

 

1Th. 2:13   We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers. 14 For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone 16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins; but God’s wrath has overtaken them at last.

 

1Th. 2:17   As for us, brothers and sisters, when, for a short time, we were made orphans by being separated from you—in person, not in heart—we longed with great eagerness to see you face to face. 18 For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again—but Satan blocked our way. 19 For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? 20 Yes, you are our glory and joy!

 

I highlighted verse 13. We can ask ourselves, “how do I receive the word of God?” Do we see it from a human perspective, or is God speaking to us.

 

Let me add one thing right now. It’s likely that most of the people in Thessaloniki heard the word rather than read it. Only about 10 percent of the people could read. That means this letter was written to be read out loud. It also suggests that we might understand it better if we study it as a speech rather than a work of literature. For example, if we focus on the written word, we might spend a lot of time digging into the meaning of each word. If we take a rhetorical approach, meaning understanding it as a speech, we focus more on the impact of the words. Those who study rhetoric think that this letter sounds like a half-time speech given to a football team that is winning but needs to be encouraged to play hard in the second half. Paul doesn’t write as if the Thessaloniki Christians are messing up, but rather as if they need to be encouraged to keep doing the things that they have already been doing well.

 

Again we ask, “Do you hear this word as the word of the Lord?” What does it look like when someone hears the word of the Lord?

 

-Greg Demmitt

What a Powerful Tongue You Have!

Tuesday

prov 18 21

Today’s reading is Proverbs 18.

The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:21

Have you ever thought about your words bringing life to someone else? Yet, we see this throughout the scriptures. God uses human beings to communicate who He is. God used human beings to speak and record His commandments and instructions. The Jews were entrusted with the very words of God (Romans 3:2).

Sometimes we may not realize how important our words can be. We certainly don’t want our conversations to make us gossips, quarrelsome, and fools (We don’t want our mouths to invite a beating.) But, as the children of God, it goes beyond avoiding bad conversations and sharing God’s message. God has entrusted us with the Gospel Message.  Good News of who He is, Good News of His Son Christ Jesus and Good News of the Coming Kingdom. We are given the opportunity to communicate that message so we can connect others to God through His Son.  God entrusted Jesus with the message that everyone needs to hear.

Christ said to his disciples in John 6:67-68, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

We sometimes forget that our study of the scriptures is important because we are receiving a message from God, a message that we can share with others.  I want to make sure that I get the message straight and the story right because this message “has the power of life”.

By Rebecca Dauksas

(Photo Credit: http://puttingonthenew.com/2013/11/10/proverbs-1821/)

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