A classic from Charles Spurgeon

This is a classic that my wife and I read on June 8th it really spoke to me in where is my faith, Remember folks faith is the evidence of things unseen. Where are you placing your faith is it in that which is daunting in front of you or is it in the creator who created the earth in 7 days and raised the dead and made the red sea part. I enjoyed this I hope that you receive and enjoy this as much as I did.

“Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.”

Numbers 11:23

God had made a positive promise to Moses that for the space of a whole month he would feed the vast host in the wilderness with flesh. Moses, being overtaken by a fit of unbelief, looks to the outward means, and is at a loss to know how the promise can be fulfilled. He looked to the creature instead of the Creator. But doth the Creator expect the creature to fulfil his promise for him? No; he who makes the promise ever fulfils it by his own unaided omnipotence. If he speaks, it is done—done by himself. His promises do not depend for their fulfilment upon the co-operation of the puny strength of man. We can at once perceive the mistake which Moses made. And yet how commonly we do the same! God has promised to supply our needs, and we look to the creature to do what God has promised to do; and then, because we perceive the creature to be weak and feeble, we indulge in unbelief. Why look we to that quarter at all? Will you look to the north pole to gather fruits ripened in the sun? Verily, you would act no more foolishly if ye did this than when you look to the weak for strength, and to the creature to do the Creator’s work. Let us, then, put the question on the right footing. The ground of faith is not the sufficiency of the visible means for the performance of the promise, but the all-sufficiency of the invisible God, who will most surely do as he hath said. If after clearly seeing that the onus lies with the Lord and not with the creature, we dare to indulge in mistrust, the question of God comes home mightily to us: “Has the Lord’s hand waxed short?” May it happen, too, in his mercy, that with the question there may flash upon our souls that blessed declaration, “Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.”

Peter's foot shaped mouth

This morning I was reading in John 13 as the disciples sat around the table on the night of the last supper. I have studied this chapter so many times and each time I get something different I want all of you to take a moment and ponder Peter's passion to follow the Lord.

You see he was one one of the disciples that Jesus loved(Jn 13:23-24), that was only said about 2 others James and John, but in this case and for the sake of our devotional for today and the next few posts I want to look at the fact that Peter had a problem with desiring to do and say the right thing but it usually ended up with him shoving his foot and sometimes both feet into his mouth.

(John 13) 36Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, where are You going?" Jesus answered, "Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later." 37Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You." 38Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.
In studying this passage of scripture I have come to the conclusion that Peter may have wanted to follow Jesus even unto death but Jesus knew that he would bail at the first sign of adversity. Peter had to give the Lord his whole heart and everything about himself. A question to ponder. What are you holding back from the Lord that is keeping you from being used to the fullest? Does God have all of you? You may have a passion for Jesus, but will you bail at the first sign of adversity, personally I wrestled with this this last week. Next week we will Look at how Peter failed and if there is time also how Jesus restored Peter. Till then

Need?

I wonder some times how I can help others to see that the Lord love's them in spite of whether they see and feel his love. I know that at times I can be a little rough in how I handle things and I do realize that I am not the most gentle person in the world. I want to show God's love to others especially my wife, I struggle showing her that Love the most.

When others struggle the only responce that I can come up with is read your bible and pray every day. The scripture that comes to mind is found in Matthew 7 :7-11 7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Jesus made it really simple for us we are to ask Him, seek after Him and when we do that we will find Him; He also made it clear in Ch 6 of Matthew that He would provide for our every need Matt 6:25-34

5 months too long

OK so it has been 5 months and the few of you that still check on my blog are so faithful I am stoked to know that you still find some value in those words of a broken man. I will say this these last few months have been really like a new beginning for me well actually the last couple of weeks. You see I was not very humble and the Lord decided to break me of that pride that I had in myself I thought that if I was good enough that I could accomplish whatever was put before me. And secondly that pride had caused me to place my faith in the wrong thing. I was in the sin of pride and making sacrifices to God that were not what He was wanting.

Psalm 51
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (esv)

As I spent a week working in Hawaii these verses were running in my mind and as I dealt with being broken I had such a Joy that I cannot even begin to describe what I felt. When someone realizes that they have placed there hope in... and not in Christ, whatever happens to you will not go as planned, it really matters what happens because your hope is in the wrong thing. When we place our hope in the One who has called us and not in... it will not matter what happens. Because our hope is in the One who NEVER fails.

Matt 6:33
Seek First the Kingdom of God and its Righteousness and all these things Shall Be Added unto you. (emphasis added)(esv)

Prayer and Fasting

Jesus talked alot about prayer and fasting, as a matter of fact there is so much talk of prayer in the bible I am surprised that I haven't realized it before, I don't know why I guess that I have been so focused what I am doing that I forgot to have a relationship with Him. Or I guess that it could be that I just don't take enough time to actually talk have a conversation with the God that created the universe. It is kind of funny if you think about it we lowly little humans get to have a conversation with the creator, heck we can't even call George W. Bush and talk with him. I have realized something over these last few months of commuting to SB, that I need to talk less and listen more. The great Elijah had to even figure that one out God wasn't in the thunder, the wind, He was a still small voice. Chew on that for a while.

Thought for the Moment...

...well actually the 11:15pm thought as my daughter is still awake and my wife is trying to nurse her back to sleep so we can get some rest.

We were away last night and stayed down in Goleta so that Kelly could see her brother and sister-in-law when the came in from NC for Christmas, and what to our pleasure did we find when we came home ants and lots of them we just can't seem to get rid of the little evil insects and what else has happened that caused our stress level to be raised to another notch our daughter has decided that she doesn't want to sleep at night any more and I'll tell you what my wife is exhausted and it is wearing me out to see her not getting enough sleep. Why your asking yourself am I writing about this, let me explain we have been praying that the baby would start sleeping through the night I don't know how anyone goes through this I really think that we are beginning to loose our minds and it is really wearing on our "personal" lives yes we do get away for a few hours at a time but I really don't understand why God is allowing this to continue. This is not a question that I can answer all that I can think is that God wants us to learn to come to the end or ourselves to see Him in all this. Don't get me wrong but I don' t like it and really would like this stage of our lives to come to an end, I want to see my wife get some sleep and feel rested. That is what I am praying for amongst other things.


Now as for the ants, I hate them. I guess that we will have to deal with them untill we can bait and get rid of them. I'm gonna make them take a long walk off a short pier, if you know what I mean. Seriously I think that all of this and all of this stress is directly related to our spiritual lives. Think about it a lot of crap happens and we get a card from a friend that says they are looking forward to serving Jesus this next Year with us. I know that God has some great stuff planned for us. and It is my prayer that we will be able to serve in full time youth ministry this up coming year 1Peter 5:1-5. God Bless and


More to come...

Broken chains.

Those things in my life that were holding me back from effectively ministering to my family and my wife and others are now broken, I no longer have to fear what those things can do to me, God redeemed me a long time ago and I allowed satan to grip me in fear that I would fail at being pure in my marriage, with my wife and to my church, God had begun that work in me over 10 years ago and as I began to heal and allow him to work in me and direct my walk with Him all of those Chains began to break. God has moved us away from that which was binding me Broken those Chains.

Our God is a God that Breaks Chains, I doesn’t really matter how He does it, it is just the fact that He can and will Break those chains of sin that are binding you and keeping you from a truly intimate relationship with Jesus, keeping you from an effective ministry of reconciliation.

God is great and whatever may be binding you right now Porn, Lying, Drugs, Alcohol, an Affair, it doesn’t really matter what it is that is holding your heart captive Jesus can and will break those chains, you see it starts with replacing the bad with the good Psalm 119:15 I will meditate on Your precepts And regard Your ways.

God after God and His word the world tells us lies that the junk that it offers is good, it does look good, The bible tells us and shows us that what the word has to offer really is junk and the more that we spend time meditating on the Word of God the easier it will be to over come temptation. I leave you with this Matt 6:33 Seek first the kingdom of God and it’s Righteousness and all these things will be added unto you


Till next time