VOM ESV Verse of the Day Moment with the Persecuted
Ever wonder why justice is perverted in the U.S. and in every nation under the sun?
“The exercise of justice is joy for the righteous, but is terror to the workers of iniquity.”
Proverbs 21:15
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2(A)Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter (B)various trials,
3knowing that (C)the testing of your (D)faith produces (E)endurance.
4And let (F)endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be (G)perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5But if any of you (H)lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and (I)it will be given to him.
6But he must (J)ask in faith (K)without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, (L)driven and tossed by the wind.
7For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,
8being a (M)double-minded man, (N)unstable in all his ways.
“Oh my Lord, I cry out to you, for I need nothing else. God I hate the sin that lurks within me. Rub out my desires and my self-intentions. Take my sin far from me and renew a right spirit within me. Lord if You don’t act, I have no hope and I have no joy. Only in Your Son do I find my strength; lately I have been weak. Oh my Lord, to hell with this culture, the devices and the gadgets. Oh how I loathe the evil one and his manipulation of these things in my life and in the life of those I love. Lord bring Your swift justice upon this land and may Your judgement come soon. May You save those whom You will. I can’t even begin to imagine what the blood from the ground is crying out to You – their pain must be horrible. But oh Lord, You and You alone are good. I know you are trustworthy, but my flesh rebels and sets it’s eye upon many lusts. Yes Lord, crush my flesh with it’s desires so that I see You in Your beauty. If it be Your sovereign will, remove the physical lusts and purge them forever into hell. Oh God, my cry to You is for victory and for steadfast boldness in the name of Your dear Son – Christ Jesus the Lord. Help me, Oh Lord, to have a true and holy understanding in the carrying out of Your will and Your commandments. For if I remain as I am, I am a fool who is without understanding, and worse yet, a blasphemer of Your name. So, oh God, give me clarity, wisdom and understanding for the sake of Your name. If I am sent to hell, You are just in doing so and all of heaven will praise You. All glory, honor and praise is Yours! Your feble and weak servant. Amen.” Jeremy B. Strang
“Enoch walked with God…”
Genesis 5:22,24
In recent days the Lord has had me pondering, thinking about, praying about, meditating upon and studying what it really means to “walk with God.” I cannot help but start by asking myself many questions. So I ask of you to let me share a few of them with you.
1. Does the Gospel pour forth from my mouth whenever I speak?
2. Are my eyes and ears continually being filtered?
3. Do I really care to grow in holiness and desire truth?
4. Does the overall style of my life, while speaking no words, show a growing image of Christ Jesus?
5. Is Christ on my mind throughout each and every day?
6. Do I think about and pray for lost souls every day?
7. Am I truly seeking to understand and know God and share His love with other people? What is/are my true motive(s)?
8. Is my life marked by continued prayer?
9. Is my wife and children second only to God and yet before all other activities, things, works and people?
10. Do I have a true desire to walk with Christ?
11. Have I been acting upon presumption? Acting in faithlessness? Acting in unbelief?
12. Am I focused on the problems, sin and bondage of this world and in my life, or the risen Lord and Savior?
13. Are there any areas of my life that I have not submitted to the Lordship of Christ Jesus?
14. Are the things I have learned actually becoming a reality and application in my life, and in such a way that I have been marked by a radical transformation and hatred towards my sin?
15. Can I be alone with God and in such a way that the things of this world do not distract me and no one can save me from His conviction, His presence and His truth?
These are only a few questions that I must answer to the Lord. To answer these questions quickly or arrogantly would be, for me, to sin. Only the Lord really knows my answers! May it be that He reveals them to me. What about you? Do you know what it means to have a ‘relationship’ with Christ? What it means to “walk with God?” Come back soon and check out more to come in the near future. May we all grow in holiness, sanctification, conviction and repentance of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen!
Enjoy the video below!
Stop Worshiping & Idolizing Celebrity Preachers – Paul Washer from I’ll Be Honest on Vimeo.
Very good message for us to rest in God.
The Apostle Peter tells us, “If God…spared not the old world, but saved Noah…bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes…making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly; and delivered just Lot…[then] the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations” (2 Peter 2:4-9).
Despite the severity of these examples, God is sending a clear message of comfort to his people, as if to say: “I have just given you two of the greatest examples of my compassion. If, in the midst of a world-engulfing flood, I can deliver one righteous man and his family out of the havoc…then can I not deliver you also? Can I not provide a miraculous way of escape?
“If I can send down fire-and-brimstone judgment that consumes entire cities at a time, yet I manage to send angels into the chaos to deliver Lot and his daughters…then can I not also manage to send angels to deliver you out of your trials?”
The lesson here for the righteous is this: God will do whatever it takes to deliver his people out of fiery trials and temptations. Think about it: It took the opening of the Red Sea to deliver Israel out of the clutches of its enemy. It took water out of a rock to save those same Israelites from their wilderness trial. It took miracle bread, angels’ food literally sent from heaven, to spare them from hunger. And it took an ark to save Noah from the flood, and “angel escorts” to deliver Lot from fiery destruction. The clear point is that God knows how to deliver his people, and he will go to any extreme to accomplish it, no matter what their circumstance.
Peter’s phrase “God knoweth how to deliver” means simply, “He has already made plans.” The wonderful truth is that God already has plans for our deliverance even before we cry out to him. And he doesn’t sit on those plans; he only awaits our cry for help. We may be entangled in the struggle of a lifetime, wondering how God will deliver us, yet he is ready all at times to put his plan into action.
We see this illustrated in Jeremiah 29, when Israel was in captivity to Babylon. Here was perhaps the greatest trial God’s people had ever experienced, yet the Lord promised them: “After seventy years, I will visit you and perform my Word to you.”
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11). The last phrase literally means “to give you what you long for.” God wants us to keep praying so we’ll be ready for his deliverance.
“1 Corinthians 2.14 speaks of such unregenerated persons in this fashion: ‘The natural (soulish) man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.’ Such men as are under the control of their souls with their spirits suppressed are in direct contrast to spiritual people. They may be exceedingly intelligent, able to present masterful ideas or theories, yet they do not consent to the things of the Spirit of God. They are unfit to receive revelation from the Holy Spirit. Such revelation is vastly different from human ideas. Man may think human intellect and reasoning are almighty, that the brain is able to comprehend all the truths of the world; but the verdict of God’s Word is, ‘vanity of vanities.’
“While man is in his soulish state he frequently senses the insecurity of this age and so he too seeks the eternal life of the coming age. But even if he does, he is still powerless to uncover the Word of life by his much thinking and theorizing. How untrustworthy are human reasonings! We often observe how very clever persons clash in their different opinions. Theories easily lead man into error. They are castles in the air, tumbling him into eternal darkness.
“How true it is that without the guidance of the Holy Spirit intellect not only is undependable but also extremely dangerous, because it often confuses the issue of right and wrong. A slight carelessness may cause not merely temporary loss but even everlasting harm. The darkened mind of man frequently leads him to eternal death. If only unregenerated souls could see this, how good it would be!”
Taken from “The Spiritual Man” page 53 ~ Watchman Nee
