Psalm 41:1. Dignify those who are down on their luck; you’ll feel good – that’s what God does. 2. God looks after us all, makes us robust with life – Lucky to be in the land, we’re free from enemy worries. 3. Whenever we’re sick and in bed, God becomes our nurse, nurses us back to health. 4. I said, “God, be gracious! Put me together again – my sins have torn me to pieces.”“The Message”
“All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence in our favor. … Have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without His notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?” –Benjamin Franklin
God is such a gentleman he takes care of me so beautifully. In him I feel totally safe. It means I can go to him and tell him everything knowing that in him I will find the security, advice, love and above all, he will work with me to find a solution. His love for me makes his care for me his priority. He loves me as an individual and doesn’t exploit me.
When you meet the man who is a keeper there are things that he does that prove to you that he is a gentleman who is going to cover you. Some are easy to see and others, take time to see. First off, he knows his manners as a man and he walks on the outside, in front of you down the stairs, behind you up the stairs, he opens the door for you, pulls out the chair for you while dining. You get the picture; he knows what a man is supposed to do. In him you will find security and love because his main priority is God and his family.
He’s not into what I call over-the-top PDA (public displays of affection). There are men who grab their woman’s butt in public. You know what that says? It’s actually a type of marking you publicly as his property. He is showing other men that yes you are his. Some women think that he loves them so much he can’t keep his hands off of them and they are flattered but let’s get real, it’s inappropriate. This type of behavior is really about his pride and insecurity and marking his territory and not about his woman at all. Holding hands and a kiss is not to be confused with a make out session, the former being normal. Your naked pictures are not on the Internet because it’s sexy but because you are a commodity. Don’t get these things confused with each other as it’s not an indication of love.
The man whom you choose, covers you in prayer, guards his heart and takes his role seriously so that you stay safe and secure in your place.
The woman who grabs the attention of a man of this stature is a woman who is respectful of herself. She isn’t obnoxious or rude with him. She doesn’t discuss him excessively picking him apart with her friends. She isn’t exploiting him or wasting his time. She is mature and sees the man for who he is and not what his potential could make him one day. She certainly would not waste his time with games and presuppositions. The woman who grabs the attention of this man, is self-assured and ready for a lasting relationship.
James 4:1. Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves.
2. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.
3. And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way.
4. You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way.
5. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.”
6. And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”
7. So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper.
8. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field.
9. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious.
10. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.
11. Don’t bad-mouth each other, friends. It’s God’s Word, his Message, his Royal Rule, that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You’re supposed to be honoring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it.
12. God is in charge of deciding human destiny. Who do you think you are to meddle in the destiny of others?
13. And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, “Today – at the latest, tomorrow – we’re off to such and such a city for the year. We’re going to start a business and make a lot of money.”
14. You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing.
15. Instead, make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.”
16. As it is, you are full of your grandiose selves. All such vaunting self-importance is evil.
17. In fact, if you know the right thing to do and don’t do it, that, for you, is evil. -“The Message”
Oh Lord, that I may be a good listener!
Proverbs 8:33. Mark a life of discipline and live wisely; don’t squander your precious life.
34. Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me, awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day’s work.
35. When you find me, you find life, real life, to say nothing of God’s good pleasure.
36. But if you wrong me, you damage your very soul; when you reject me, you’re flirting with death.”-“The Message”
My final resolution is Commitment to Jesus Completely. Pastor Rob Koke taught on three forms of commitment and I have to say that I want when God searches my heart for Him to find that my commitments to him are core and not private.
For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son. God gave it all. The very least I can do is give Jesus everything. Everything means all of it. It means I have to make a commitment that reaches beyond my selfish ambition.
There are three forms of commitment according to Pastor Rob Koke.
There is the belief in God that is public commitment. Public commitment means that you say it because it sounds good. Politicians say at the end of their speeches, “God bless you and God bless America.” They say it because everyone says it and it sounds good and it’s good for business. Public commitment is what we say because it sounds good. There is no other fruit to bear witness to that belief. Only words. Merely words. Some of us come to church on Sunday because it pleases our spouse or our parents or in our mind it’s what we are supposed to do but in no other way do we show any sort of commitment to Jesus. It’s not displayed in our lives.
Then there is Private Commitment. Private commitment is what we think we believe, and we really do think we believe it until something happens to prove our commitment and we find out we didn’t really believe it after all. This is like Peter when he at the last supper with Jesus, after saying you are the Messiah, after following him for three years he says to Jesus, I’m going to the mat for you. Jesus says, “Peter, before it’s all over tonight you’ll deny me three times.” Peter is like NO WAY, NOT GONNA HAPPEN. But it happens.
Private commitment, as I understand it, is I believe my house is going to serve the Lord until another idol rises against it. A woman, raised her children in church, her husband and she were elders in the church, she grew up in the church and she goes still today. Only her children have grown up and moved away and her husband has died. She has found love again but to do things right and get married, she must give up her husband’s pension. So she says in her heart that God will understand her fornication and she and her friend move in together. After all, it’s not her fault the government is the way it is. Suddenly her testimony is tainted and everyone is shocked. Private commitment, we believe it to be right until it might cost us something. Private commitment shows a distrust of God. We need to trust him that he will work it out. Private commitment is, I don’t believe there should be pictures of half-naked bodies on the Internet, until I look at my kid’s MySpace and then I think that it’s her own private site and none of my business. It isn’t that I don’t love God. I believe Peter loved God, the woman who is shacking up loves God and the parents struggling with the kid’s MySpace page love God but it’s a love that is willing to be put aside for what we want.
Finally there is core commitment. Core commitments can be that we believe if we stand on a rooftop and jump we will get hurt because no matter how much we will it to be different, gravity takes over and we fall rather than soar. Core commitment are those things that we believe that can’t be shaken no matter how much we try. Job had core commitment. He said, I don’t know what is going on but I know God is God. Abraham had core commitment. He was going to sacrifice his son but He knew God will not forsake him. Peter had core commitment after he wept bitterly, met up with his frailty and overcame it.
Lord, help me to trust you. To be so entwined in your life so that our hearts look like one. That would bless me beyond imagination!
My fifth resolution is to study the bible and not form my own idea of what it means. The Lord asked me an important question a few months ago. He said, “Where can deity dwell? Many lift their hands in worship and sing Hallelujah but their homes are legacies of chaos.” I repented that day and went home to earnestly seek out if I was the one he was speaking about because I really want to live a holy life. Not a religious life, there is a HUGE difference.
I’d like to live a life that honors God. One that looks different than my neighbors. I want to live a life that glorifies the Father and doesn’t stain the name of Jesus. That means I have to live out what the bible says and not what my excuse is. It means that maybe I have turn some shows off that are just not healthy for my family to watch. It means that just because every other kid on the block is getting drunk at parties doesn’t mean mine have to be. It means that I am not going to bring my children to wrath by standing in church and saying one thing and going home and doing another. It doesn’t mean I am going to be perfect, or that God expects me to be, but there is a long way from excuses and perfection.
I was praying for my TLC women because I saw something that struck my heart. I have a nice big group when we do self-focused bible studies. In other words, when I bring a study that is helping the women overcome some of their life struggles then they LOVE it! When I do a bible study to study the word of God for it’s own merit, they don’t love the study or me as much. They don’t do their homework. They drop out in record numbers. I was praying that their private commitment of ‘what’s in for me’, becomes a core commitment of ‘my testimony is not the only way to help people’. Knowing the word of God, for the word’s sake, and not my own, is what’s important. As their leader the buck stops with me, what am I not communicating to them? I have to accept that responsibility.
We all know what the Lord hates. Yet we call ourselves believers and then continue to sin. We can’t keep talking out of the both sides of our mouth and continue to have any sort of testimony in our communities. Pastor Mark Crow preached a message in which he quoted statistics on church attendance. He said the builder generation the generation of WWII was 65% churched, the Baby Boomers were 32% churched, the Gen Xers were 16% and this new generation is 4% churched. See, we said we loved the Lord but we didn’t teach it to the next generation and if we did it did not match our walk.
If we are going to rationalize the word and make excuses as to why we are addicted to porn or alcohol or shacking up with our significant other or have a society where we take pride in being called a baby mama or baby daddy then we really can’t say we are believers. The words and the actions don’t match up and actions speak louder than words. And our kids are watching what we do not what we say. Lord let us become the women you’ve called us to be and not women who say one thing when our lives clearly show another.
My fourth resolution is my tithe before wants. Everyone of you know how I feel about tithing. I believe in it and I give my tithe not out of a feeling of I must but out of a feeling of I want to. I am a cheerful giver. When I was first a believer I was taught to tithe and the reason for it and I got it! How could I not give him everything when he gave me everything?
Only I have confession to make. I have absolutely no problem tithing my money. I give tithes and then some, I give offerings and plenty of them but I don’t always give the tithes of all of my life. Remember tithe is not just money. That would be easy for me to give I’m not a control freak about the tithe. I am a control freak about the 80% I live on I’ll admit that. What I don’t always give is my time and talent. Sometimes, I tithe my time to the Internet, sometimes to a good book, sometimes I tithe my time to sleep, sometimes I tithe my time to a good friend who I want to share a tea and gossip with and many times I tithe my time to chores and work.
I’ve become really good at fooling myself. I say, “My whole life is a tithe, I work for the church.” Not true, the time I work for the church is service to others and not about my personal relationship with the Lord. Sometimes I feel like Jesus is speaking to me when he said to the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, “Could you not have kept watch with me an hour?” I am so so sorry at the time and I try to do better but just like the disciples I go back to the slumber of my life. I don’t neglect my prayer life, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t take the challenges that come my way necessarily as first fruits but rather I take them for granted and sometimes give what is leftover.
This year, I’m striving to stay awake. Take an assessment of your life. Do you tithe? Money? Time? Talent? Or do you give the leftovers? It will determine your life’s blessings. Wisdom comes from the Lord. God knows I need more wisdom, yet the word tells us she cries in the street. I want to still her cries this year and I want to sit at her feet. That demands my attention and the best of me, not what is left over.
Luke 2:8. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
9. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
12. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
15. When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16. So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.
17. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,
18. and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
19. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
20. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
May your home be filled with Joy as you celebrate our Savior’s birth!
Pastor Susan 