You can't beat God giving!

Luke 20:27- Luke 21:19 “You Can’t Beat God Giving” No Matter How You Try!

The fact that Jesus had just reproved the religious system of his day and discussed far more than they had bargained for, when they questioned Him, notwithstanding; Jesus is swift to commend giving to the Lord. Just because there are men whose sin it is to “devour widow’s houses”. The widow’s mite is still counted in heaven. Truly Jesus saw it from where he stood and He still sees every sacrifice made for His name’s sake. Some of us are giving out of abundance and God sees that. But, when the heart and mind and pocket is empty and the gift is given, Jesus still takes notice.

I am so glad that Jesus saw that woman and pointed her out to the disciples. They would have no reference of what was expected in the NT giving, had Jesus not made that distinction. Only the grace of God can move the heart to give to the last mites. Perhaps the devil moves on some in religious garb to fleece God’s sheep, but God is not a wolf. HE sees and knows when you are giving to the real Kingdom of God and when you are giving to be seen of men. She put in more, He notes. There are some who put something in and it is noted, but, she put in more than them all. Gentle Savior who is not remiss at noting the small gift, even after a hard reproof.

Sometimes my maternal anger blinds my eye to the good that another child is doing. Not like Jesus. It is almost as though His heart is more eager and had to look very diligently to find something to commend, after that reproof. He found it though. Giving to the Kingdom is always good. God always sees, even when He is reproving. I am so very grateful that small gifts from a difficult circumstance are counted in Heaven.

For God's Glory

2 Samuel 22:51

David was never rash in speaking against the Lord’s anointed. Here is a great example of the priority of right allegiances. After God had shown him the sin of Saul that needed to be repented of and cleared up, corporately; then, his soul was freed to express the anguish of having his soul divided in that longstanding conflict between himself and the great king of Israel.

He as it were discusses the love of God’s people and the anguish to be at odds with her king for so many years of his life and the blessing to serve his people as king for the glory of God. This is a sweet and careful expression of service in his heart of love. What a man after God’s own heart?

Able to love the people and hate the sins that God loathes. Attach himself to what God loves and try to detach himself from what God hates. How difficult a course was spread for him, in his earthly pilgrimage. But for our instruction and direction that we would entreat the Lord for His real expressions of blessing and help to us. To ask and beseech His presence in our worship and in our lives and to truly love His Church with a love of seeking Her good and Her blessedness on the earth.

She is His Bride and we will see Her beautified, now and throughout the course of history. We will groan Her detours and Her false sons “in her pale”. God will get the glory in our highest allegiance being the truth of God’s Church not being an afterthought or misused.

“I do love thy kingdom, Lord, The house of Thine abode, The church Thy blessed Redeemer bought, With His own precious blood.”

Charles Bridges, Psalms 119 link,

Uphold me with THY Free Spirit!

2 Samuel 12 I skipped the weekend readings and I am glad that I did. I hate hearing of great men stumbling and falling, here and there. This was the man after God’s own heart. I always say, when I get there, what hope is there?

Where is the hope if David, who knew God’s presence in victories and defeats, the same, was such a fallen one, here? Thank God for back-up men. Thank God for men who have the stability to reset the fallen pillars. This was Nathan's part, here. God's restorer. The Holy Spirit himself gave the marching orders for that correction. What wisdom and right setting of corrected priorities. Some men wouldn’t have been corrected. Saul had Samuel and couldn't receive the correction at all. Samuel wouldn't even dare go to Saul with a correction. He said, "God do you want Saul to kill me?" Some men couldn’t have been addressed on the issue. This is what made David the man after God’s own heart. His heart was sharpened to continue to pursue righteousness, even against his stubborn persistent remaining sins.

Psalm 51…Then (when I am restored) I will teach transgressors Thy way and sinners will be converted unto Thee.

Is this our prayer in corrections? Is this what we are enabled by the Holy Spirit to pursue, in our constant struggles and foibles. Pursuing God and other’s souls for God. David won others hearts by his dearness. David won women’s hearts by his strength and conquering, but these things mean nothing, if at last his soul was lost. It wasn’t though. His soul was secure in Christ, who was still to come. God would cleanse David’s seed to the last dregs of sinfulness in order to bring the Messiah through his lineage. HE had to believe that he was a sinner and needed a sacrifice for his sins and that this sacrifice would be powerful enough to justify his soul and justify his communion with God, which had been pre-paid. God came to them before the price had been paid. He was communing with them on credit, as it were. David believed. Nathan believed that his words wouldn’t fall on deaf ears. He wisely entreated the King of the Jews. He didn’t rashly come before his thrown with, even just and right accusations. It could have been another way. He could have been the next Urriah suffering and dying in the wrathful moment of unresolved conflict with God. God said enough is enough. David received the reproof as from His mighty Savior.

All my sins on Jesus are laid. David’s sins put Jesus on the cross and my sins did, also. The prepaid and the postpaid, just the same. God, the father is cleansing the personal and the private sins and the public sins in Christ’s ever effective payment. Will we believe in the future redemption of the body, as the Old Testament Saints believed in the future communion with God in Christ? Jesus said qoting Ps 110:1 “How could David say “The Lord said to my Lord” sit here until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet?” David really believed in a conquering Messiah, whose payment justified the present reality of God’s communion with His people. We must believe that the payment having been paid that we have peace with God.

Does our restoration teach transgressors God’s way? Does our sin drive us to our Savior for cleansing and healing? Does our reproof lead us to believe God’s truth about us? God grant our souls true and rich communion with You, without which there is no salvation. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

Praise God for the Via Dolorosa!

Praise God, His redemption price was paid for me! Surveying the Wondrous Cross is a blessed meditation for Good Friday. Surveying the hymns and meditations of those who have come before us is also a worthy meditation.

"Were the whole realm of nature mine, It were a present far too small, love so amazing so divine, Demands my life, my soul, my all"

The realm of nature that is mine is really God's and he lends it to us. How do we present it to God as a blessing to Him? How can we build anything for God? We can't, all we can do is rejoice that He is in charge of what we can't control. This is bigger than me, God, we exclaim. "Praise Him, Oh Lord I will praise Him" and I will glorify His name with what I have charge of. In that way we are already unified with creation to praise the one true and living Creator!

In direct opposition to Heidi's grandfather, who gave up living for the loss of his dearest daughter, is my imagination of the Heavenly Father. Grandfather's grief could not be abated and God used dear Heidi child to draw him outside of his grief, in the story.

God is always, always seeking ways to avert the judgments that our sins call upon ourselves. He will be entreated on every hand and He shows in His Word that here and there and all over the scriptures, this corporate sin called for stripes and this is only as far as I would let that judgment fall on the people. Only the hand of mercy holds up the judgment from off of our heads.

"With tender hand, from shades of night to blades of light, Oh praise his name, He's lifting us up.

" We can know that He holds the realms of nature and the situations that we are in, in His very considerate care. He draws us close to Himself in good providences, but in the dire providences, I have found Him, even closer.

As I lay unable to even breathe or see purpose in the ticking of the clock to another second past that moment, He was there and He was giving me a sense of being in his very hand. He emotionally brings me to myself, when the grief strikes me again and again. He has a worse grief for those who are apart from Him.

Lord, had you been here, my son would not have died, I say, in my grief to Him every Easter. He says to me, I am the resurrection and the life, He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. I get it in a new way every year. And every year I walk through that dark valley of remembrance, only to find newer and newer expressions of His loving purposes in every step. I hate the process, but I love my Savior's great love.

2 Samuel 1

I think, if there is ever a chapter that I avoid in scripture, it is 2 Samuel 1-2. I do hate seeing two dear souls depart from oneanother, in such a way. I love thinking of the way that God had knitted the hearts of Jonathan and David and what opposites that they were such suitable and loving fellows.

Warriors, the both, competitors and yet challengers to oneanother in the very best sense of the words. Neither had to play down to the other’s ego. Both had the baggage of hard providences and it didn’t darken their love. Who was the better marksman? Who was the better leader? Who was the better listener? Who was the better friend? They loved eachother with self sacrifice on both sides of the ledger and it was clear, in David’s grief that he felt the loss.

My mind wonders could Jonathan have lived after his father’s demise? It would have been an oddity, certainly for him to defer to David in the crown. But his heart was so bound with his father’s that I think that there was no way that he could have lived on after such a huge earthly loss. God had sent David into his life to unbound his heart from his father. But it was impossible, apart from the spirit’s intercession to unlock the damage that had been already done. Fathers can drive too hard, sometimes. “Provoke not…lest they become discouraged.”

Jonathan was empowered by David’s carefree life. His unhindered spirit and unprovoked soul and David was driven by the same thing that discouraged Jonathan. An amazing comradery they enjoyed, not a shred of jealousy. If I had no attention, says Jonathan, I would be like you. If I had been driven, says David, I would be like you. The Lord is my shepherd, He drives in a different way than father or brother. I had many unfettered hours loving God in the fields. No paternal overbearing angry hand to press me sore. God met me there. David taught Jonathan about a God who can heal, the broken hearted, battered soul. You must be the king, Jonathan knew.

Christ is the only one who can pick up the broken pieces of that kind of father/child misbond. In the NT, I can imagine Jonathan going on and being successful at life after father’s passing, but not in the Old Testament. Christ’s daily intercession is needed. He is the dearer than David.

“Jesus, He meets you where you are. He heals you secret scars…Jesus the friend of the wounded heart”

1 Samuel 25 --God bless the woman whose God is the Lord!

Nabal and Samuel death were recorded in the same chapter.

There is significance to me of this loss on both sides of the ledger. The place of women had risen so much in the days of Samuel, I think. I see Hannah’s prayers and the blessing that women can be and do and grow, because of the loving prayerful intercession of women for the life of God’s Word in their day.

Samuel, though not perfect, was God’s means to bring a godly standard back to Israel after their wanderings of heart. Foolishness died in Nabal and it was as though the blindness that thinks that there is no God,{there is no David?} died with Nabal.

God would use another woman after Deborah, to show that women are not at all an afterthought in the covenant. God uses their ministry to preserve life and to guide the young and to pray most of all that we would never return to Ichabod. God is very sensitive to the pains of the women in these circumstances.

God in the New Testament has just the similar pattern of deliverances for us. Obedience draws his favor and when we promote licenciousness in the name of grace and mercy, we are most of all deceived. If God spared not the angels and every transgression of Israel was recompensed, How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation. Repentance is called for, not justification of self, because we can’t help it. Jesus paid it all for everything ,but presumption. Especially for us who are in the deluge of Mercy and Light.

Hannah to Abigail, godliness in womanhood to be attained unto. Hannah was perceptive of the spiritual downfall and prayed for God to change it. Abigail was a political force and her prudence of provision and forethought abated a war. God has use for the women whose God is the Lord. Halleluia, what a Savior.

“Lord, give us grace that we, like them the meek and lowly, on high may dwell with Thee.”

Dolly, reminds me of the woman at the well here.

Genesis 47

Genesis 47:3 And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers. Genesis 47:4 They said moreover unto Pharaoh, For to sojourn in the land are we come; for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks; for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan: now therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. Genesis 47:5 And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee: Genesis 47:6 The land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell: and if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. Genesis 47:7 And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Genesis 47:8 And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? Genesis 47:9 And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

"DAD?" I imagine Joseph saying, "I said don’t give him your whole life story… Dad?" I said Pharoah is a man of authority, they don’t want to hear that stuff from little people like us. Who has authority with God? Responds Jacob, all of our father, by faith. Jacob blessed Pharoah and Joseph learned who is really in authority.

Teach me Thy Way, O LORD! 1Sam 16 {Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me}

Some things come not out but by prayer and fasting. (a treasured find from Bishop Pilkington linked)

1 Sam 16: 1-2

Look that Samuel, who had grown up with Eli and Hophni and Phinehas as examples, was more afraid of Saul, than God. God, he will kill me? He knew that the fear of God was not in Saul. That is the difference, I think, more than not completing things that God told Saul as fruit of this. The fact that God’s man knew that he was fierce and unyielding when the anger caught hold of him, was a first mark of his apostacy. But those sins hadn’t been attoned for in Christ.

God I am yours, was David’s continual reminders to God. I am seeking You and I don’t want You to leave me. How great many things we seek after and do we look at God as he did? That is another difference. Tremendous reminder from Pastor Walden. David reminded himself and God regularly. I am Thine.

David was a picture of our covenant in Christ and Saul seems a picture of the cutoff ones between the old and new covenant. We want what we want. We don’t want to trust in the sacrifice of Christ as our atonement. We want to follow the way of the nations. Follow the nations to trust Christ and be grafted in. I see this as the beauty of the comfort that was found in Saul’s upheaval only in the song of David. Only David’s song enfleshed in our Savior will bring healing at last to the nation. They took a long detour outside of God’s will. Christ has pure and complete redemption through the blood of the Lamb.

God says to Abraham, we have a deal. I am saving up for a great redemption of you and yours. You think you can pay half, but you can’t and I am going to spot you on this one. All the way to the cross of Calvary and until then we will have sweet communion with eachother and no soul will enter heaven on the earth who doesn’t follow after you, but a day is coming when My Son will be the way, the truth and the life. Halleluia, for the privilege of watching God unfold his loving plan and deliberate expressions on untoward people such as us. We are in Abraham through Christ and the Jews may be in Christ through Abraham, maybe? Saul wasn’t. Some weren’t but all who come to God through Christ will be saved.

Conforming and learning to look correctly at my grief and not open my mouth in unbelief to God, was challenged in the message this morning. I am Thine and You are Good and I accept Your outworking in pain and in enjoyments. I have no right to be angry with You. I will remind myself that You are Good. I have seen God answer me in those kind of prayers. Still, sometimes when my upsetment hits, my mouth wants to challenge God’s right. This was a reminder not to do that.

sermon by Cal Walden on Psalm 86

Daily Bread thoughts as we said goodbye to dear neighbors.

Luke 10:1-24

I see hospitality again and then in the middle, Jesus talking about Satan falling from heaven as lightning.

What is the connection? You will or will not be received with the Gospel and that is the spiritual battle. You may or may not be received for the Gospel sake that is the struggle of soul and spirit.

Satan is influencing the dissemination of hospitality to his cause as well. Pr 7 and 8 look at the difference between the foolish woman and the call of wisdom.

He is on the earth and you will have to engage him. These are his earmarks and Jesus tells us. God is the ultimate conqueror, but He engages us in the conflict. So often I feel that my soul will separate from my body because there is such a struggle of soul.

How can you know God for so long and still stumble so? How can you see God’s goodness and doubt Him as you do? Jesus rejoiced in Spirit in this passage and the battle is a corporate one and not an individual one. It is won in families and churches where God has revealed it unto the “babes” for his glory.

A warrior in spirit and a child in faith and a serpent in wisdom and a dove in malice, seems too hard for me. By flesh it is impossible, by grace it is our lot to pursue.

Judges 19

Sometimes it is our lot, in consecutive reading to happen upon the more sordid topics of scripture and Judges 19 is certainly that. What debauchery and how our depravity wants to wade in the slough of despicable nature in one way or the other. Either we engage the sordid thought and linger there to our shame and ill profit or we judge those who do. Both are just as dangerous to the soul and the behavior.

I love to remember the grace of God and rejoice that He has saved me and remember the redemption of others in scripture and how they also processed these debauched seasons of history. Ie.In the book of Ruth, I love the sentiments of the women as they blessed her. God is the only difference between us and your people. The believers will always know that. God allows us in His mercy to see this with Israel in Judges 19-

Are we different from Sodom? Are we different from Moab? Who we are taught to despise as dogs? This shows that but for the mercy of God, debauchery of every account is more rampant among us than we know. No sooner is the word penned that they are doing what is right in their own eyes that they are fallen in total depravity of behavior. Ruth’s women said the Lord Bless you like Tamar. Redeemed inspite of what people will say about you. They have labels that they put upon us as women for our heritage, but only God is the strength of my life and my portion forever” May God cleanse and redeem you that you would be among the matriarchs for the distance that you have come and your deep love for our sister. All that seems in their blessing of her. We don’t see your skin and your difference we only see that God has touched you and that is enough for us. Shame on the time of the judges, but may we be always knowing that lack of respect for the means of restraint can cause a swift social decline and prayer and crying women have oft been the means God has used to clean up the pits where we’ve fallen.

The Gift of New Testament Communion with God is a greater covenant

The Bible in a year {meditations} Judges 13-15 and Luke 6:27-49

What a greater treasure we have in Christ, even than the ability to have the spirit come upon us as Samson did. We have the abiding presence of God the Holy Spirit. We have a more excellent promise of being more than a conqueror in the battle that matters most; our soul’s great battle.

Daily, the Phillistines of our own temptations come upon us and the blessed Holy Spirit allows us the sense of His help to grow in mortification and when we fall, an advocate pleading for us. Are we the wise people building upon the Rock? Are we seeing the winds and the waves beating upon us as all houses will? Truly they beat upon us. We may stumble and bumble, numerous times and we can know that God is endeared to us through Christ.

We have just as much of Him as we desire to have. He is predisposed to be concerned about us because of the sacrifice of Christ. He is loving and kind and tender hearted and giving us the best gift most; Himself. Everything else is just a byproduct of who He is to us.

Are we His? This should be our most important identity. Are we building for Him? This should be our greatest expression of service. Are we enjoying communion with Him? This should be our most precious relationship. I think that is the hardest. So many dear ones and so little time to enjoy them, still God says to us, as Jesus said to Peter and as Elohim said to Abraham…”Lovest Thou Me More than these?”

You have a loving heart to God and He will challenge you to love Him. In giving for the building for His Kingdom, in devotions, in service to family and church. Samson and even Abraham had not the depth of communion as the Church has in Christ. Halleluia, what a Savior.