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.