The faithfulness of God

God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Deuteronomy 7:9
The Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.

Thoughts on today’s verse

God is faithful and his covenant is a covenant of love. He will not forsake us and will treat us better than we deserve just as a loving parent treats a rebellious child better than s/he deserves. But our hearts must be tuned to honor God as God, not as just a good luck charm or a weekly guest into our otherwise busy lives. What we do must be done in awareness that it is done before and for him!

Prayer:

Faithful God, thank you for loving me so sacrificially and steadfastly. Thank you for the way you preserved your promises to the Israelites and brought Jesus just as you promised. I trust your promise to send him back to bring me home to you. Please receive the deeds and words of this day as my thanks to you for your covenant of love with me and those I love. Through Jesus, your gift of love, I pray. Amen.

From Heartlight.org

If only we were all perfect

Why do you think they call it "True North?"

The one who lives with integrity lives securely, but whoever perverts his ways [acts deceitfully] will be found out. Proverbs 10:9

None of us is perfect. That state of being is reserved for us in eternity after we turn in these used earth suits. But we can be sincere and truthful, and behave according to the truth of the Gospel. Christian integrity is solid ground. It’s a very comfortable place to live and prevents much of the stress that would otherwise occupy our minds. Proverbs 2:7 tells us, “He stores up success for the upright; He is a shield for those who live with integrity.” And in Psalm 84:11, “…The Lord gives grace and glory; He does not withhold the good from those who live with integrity.”

But there IS a second half of the verse we started out with … that part about perverting our ways. It’s a completely different ending if our lives are characterized by deceit, folly, tricks and just plain wickedness. It may not be today or even next year, but God promises that the misdeeds will be judged. “There is nothing covered that won’t be uncovered, nothing hidden that won’t be made known.” (Luke 12:2).

“With integrity you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide.With integrity you will do the right thing,so you will have no guilt.With fear and guilt removed you are free to be and do your best.” Zig Ziglar

Transformation? Or renovation?

Metamorphosis ... a complete change.

“. . . that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).

Have you checked out the “Self-Help & Self-Improvement” section of your local book store? There’s Addiction & Recovery, Emotional Healing, Personal Growth, Meditations and everything in between. At Barnes & Noble’s online store there are nearly 14 thousand selections in the Psychological Self-Help category alone!

In his bestseller, Wishes Fulfilled, author Wayne W.Dyer tells us that “…your wishes, all of them, can indeed be fulfilled. By using your imagination and practicing the art of assuming the feeling of your wishes being fulfilled, and steadfastly refusing to allow any evidence of the outer world to distract you from your intentions, you will discover that you, by virtue of your spiritual awareness, possess the ability to become the person you were destined to be.”

The just shall live by tenaciousness … or by faith?

The pavement on the Christian road of life.

Short and sweet … easy to rattle off when the trouble belongs to someone else, isn’t it? But it doesn’t take long for a genuine Christian to discover that life isn’t a bed of roses. And all of a sudden “faith” becomes a rather thorny issue: is it the same faith that brought us to Christ? Or was it simply an emotional “bridge” that carried us over a time of trouble in our life?

Genuine faith is a commitment to the God who saved us in the first place. It is a choice of the will empowered by the Holy Spirit that gives confidence to our Christian experience. The apostle Paul referred to this in his 2nd letter to Timothy: “But I am not ashamed, because I know the One I have believed in and am persuaded that He is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12 HCSB).

So what about you? Are you a “grin and bear it” sort of Christian? Or have you really placed the length and breadth of your life in God’s Hands … by faith.

“You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials so that the genuineness of your faith—more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6,7 HCSB)

“Faith is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience” (James Russell Lowell)

The Changed-Heart Religion

Christianity is exclusive in that the God of heaven will change man's heart ... it is His work, completely without human works.

Unlike any other religion, Christianity represents a forgiving God Who seeks to change man’s heart … it is supernatural and requires no works:

From TimelessTruths.org:
If you are interested in finding what is really truth—what the Bible really teaches, then the subject of this article will be of great interest to you.

After dealing with the backsliding of the children of Israel, warning them of sure judgment for their sins and transgressions, the Lord promised a remedy for their unconverted and hardened hearts. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”* (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

We see from this promise that God is in the business of actually changing people’s hearts. God is able to operate on the cold, hard, stony heart with no love for right or for Him and change it into a soft, warm, responsive heart, full of love for the things of God and everyone else. What a mighty God we serve! A willful, wicked heart into a submissive, obedient heart. Praise His Name!

…

A Godly Life as Distinguished From a Good, Moral Life

Many people are trying to live a Bible life without a changed heart. They are attracted to the beauty and virtue of a godly life and try their very best to live such a life. It does not work as it reads in their Bible. Their faith stands in the wisdom of men instead of the power of God (I Corinthians 2:5). The blessing is not there as it should be. There is no real victory.
The Changed-Heart Religion.

READ MORE AT THE LINK.

Days of Heaven Upon Earth … A.B. Simpson

Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called (1 Corinthians 7:20).

O ye who complain about your calling or fret about the changes and trials of life, how do you know but that these very changes are the divine methods by which God’s purposes of blessing and usefulness concerning you be fulfilled? Had Aquila not been compelled to leave Rome and break up his home and business, he would probably have never met with Paul, and been called to the knowledge and service of Christ through this providential meeting. Had he not been a working man, and pursuing his ordinary avocation he would not have been brought into contact with the apostle. It was in the line of their calling, their common duties, and the providential changes of their life that God called them. And so He meets us. Do not try hard to run away from it, but, as the apostle has so finely put it, “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called, let him therein abide with God.” Make the most of your incidental opportunities.
A.B. Simpson

Got humility?

But the humble will inherit the land and will enjoy abundant prosperity.
Psalms 37:11

What is the fee for peace and prosperity? Simply an attitude change! But how many of us are willing to pay that price? Humility is an oft elusive quality that we seem to beat into submission as we struggle to make our point or defend our turf. The aftermath of always being right, whether we are or not, is never an enjoyable one. The price of admission for peace and contentment on earth has actually already been paid … if we would just “check our carnality at the door.”

Is there rational evidence for the existence of God?

Authors Boa and Moody explain that there are essentially three possibilities as to the origin of the universe and the implications about God:

1.  That the universe emerged from nothing. Little needs to be said about this notion. Nothing produces nothing. This premise is neither logical nor reasonable.
2. That the universe is eternal. There are three strong scientific reasons why the universe is not eternal: (a) the big bang theory, (b) the abundance of hydrogen, and (c) the irreversible decay of the universe.
a. The discovery by Edwin Hubble that the universe appears to be uniformly expanding in all directions leads to the conclusion that the universe had a beginning. The Big Bang theory is not merely a proposition that matter expanded from an infinitely small position. It is the proposition that the universe had an absolute beginning—that before this event not even space nor time even existed at all!
b. Hydrogen is continually being converted into helium through the process of nuclear fusion. This process is irreversible, so the abundance of hydrogen in the cosmos belies the notion of an eternal universe.
c. The second law of thermodynamics says that while the total amount of energy remains constant (the first law), the availability of usable energy in the universe is constantly declining (the second law). Apart from the intervention of a supernatural agent (God), the stars would have burned out and the universe would have run down like a clock with no one to wind it back up. The logical conclusion is that it cannot be true that an infinite amount of time has passed because the universe would have reached a cold and lifeless state of absolute equilibrium.
3. That the universe was created by an eternal being. By process of elimination, the existence of an omnipotent God is the most reasonable conclusion for origin.

To my friend in Ohio

Please know that I am praying for you. God is on our side … there is no fear in Christ.

The new wave of patriotism

This post is just a little unusual — but I thought you might appreciate the link.

John Hinderaker (Conservative Minnesota lawyer & member of Claremont Institute) of Powerline blog posts a thrilling performance of the local high school & elementary school (his daughter is one of the little kids) performance of Battle Hymn of the Republic … patriotism is not dead, if THESE kids have any say in the matter. You must see this!

Powerline