David

Spring Cleaning - Psalm 101

11:00 AM


Psalm 101, Philippians 2:9-11

Christians around the world are celebrating Lent. Lasting from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday, for 40 days ( not counting Sundays) people fast, give up a bad habit, or restrict themselves in some other way. All done with the intent of repentance and restoration. But why do we need a “religious holiday” to lead such a life? Shouldn’t each day be an opportunity to rid our lives from things that cause us to stumble in our walk with God? David thought so. And he gives us sound advice to do just that.


“I will give heed to the blameless way.” (Ps. 101:2) - Although we are all sinners who fall short daily, we can still choose to walk a path of righteousness. That means obeying the Word of God, letting Christ shine through us to others, and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And most importantly, staying on that path when only God is looking.


“I will set no worthless thing before my eyes.” (Ps. 101:3) - Just like we wear sunglasses to protect our eyes from the sun, David warns us to protect our eyes from the wicked things of the world. How often do we see what another has and get jealous? Or how many mindless hours do we spend watching television? And how much time today have we spent scrolling on social media? 


“He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me.” (Ps. 101:6) It’s said we are the company we keep. And although we are to be out in the world spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ, we must be careful. For we are to influence the ungodly. Not to be influenced by them. It’s important our inner circle be made up of people who can encourage and aid us in our Christian walk. 


As a man after God’s own heart, (1 Sam. 13:14) David wanted to lead a life he could be proud of. One that glorified God. That meant behaving wisely, practicing self control, and walking with integrity. We too should have a desire to be free of all the garbage in our lives that keep us from walking closer with the Lord. And as the change of the season is almost upon us, what better time to do some spring cleaning, and sweep out the cobwebs of sin! 


Pause and Reflect -

Reflect on this past week and all of the things your eyes saw. Was anything dishonoring to God? Have you set any guidelines as to what you will and won’t allow your eyes to see?


Do you know people who are “Sunday Christians?” Those walk the walk in church but forget about God Monday through Saturday? Why is integrity so important to the Lord? 


Finally let’s pray together, 

Our dearest Father in heaven above, hallowed be Thy name. Father, as we sing your praises through the day, as we consider your steadfast love and justice, we pray that you help us ponder the perfect way You have showed us to follow. Help us consider how to love kindness, do justice, and walk humbly before you. Oh Father may this be the motivation behind all we do. Through Your Holy Spirit, give us the power to overcome any wicked desires in our heart that rise against your Holy Name. Father help us fight against all arrogance. For Lord, we want to be poor in spirit, always depending on you. And finally Father, help us to live this day, this week, this life, with integrity everywhere we go. In Jesus precious name we pray, Amen.


Don't' forget to head over to our Facebook group at, https://www.facebook.com/groups/womenintheword2 to join in on the discussion. Also check out our public Facebook page at, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083156569388 and give us a like!


I can’t wait to hear your thoughts, and I pray your day overflows with love and blessings.

💖 Lisa

Becky Austin

Pretty Lies

4:00 PM



Our Reading: Psalm 28 and John 5:24


There are two kinds of people. Self seeking and God seeking. Among the self seeking are those who disguise their evil intentions and dishonesty with fake smiles, fake offers, fake promises, and pretty lies. The Bible warns against such people:

“Like the glaze covering an earthen vessel are fervent lips with an evil heart. Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously, believe him not.“ Proverbs‬ ‭26:23-25‬ ‭


David knew the sting of betrayal and the pain of not being able to trust the intentions of others.  It can be discouraging when you are an honest,genuine person in a world full of dishonesty and lies. But David knew who He could trust and who He could count on to righteously judge and demand accountability. 

“Do not drag me off with the wicked, with the workers of evil, who speak peace with their neighbors while evil is in their hearts. Give to them according to their work and according to the evil of their deeds; give to them according to the work of their hands; render them their due reward. Because they do not regard the works of the Lord or the work of his hands, he will tear them down and build them up no more.”Psalm‬ ‭28:3-5‬ ‭


There used to be a time when “ a man’s word” meant something and people cared about principles and integrity. If someone said “ I give you my word” or “ I promise”, you could depend on that wholeheartedly. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could always trust the words and intentions of others.  But, sadly, that is far from the case today. In fact, think of how many times a day you are given false or misleading information, presented with false advertising and schemes, and called by telemarketers with sketchy pitches. 

Satan, being the ultimate deceiver, is also hard at work to confuse you, and lead you away from truth. In fact, one of his favorite places to attend and plant his servants includes church. “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.” 2 Corinthians‬ ‭11:13-15‬ ‭


But no matter how many traps are set or pretty little lies are pitched your way, there is always a place of refuge. God is 100% honest, 100% genuine, 100% trustworthy. He represents unwavering,steadfast truth that you can depend on. 

“The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.” Psalm‬ ‭28:7‬ 


Reflection:

  1. Can you think of a time when you thought someone was being genuinely nice and helpful and they took advantage of you? How did you respond? 
  2. Do you ask God for discernment and wisdom to not be deceived, especially about spiritual matters? 
  3. Do you trust God and seek His Word as the ultimate source of truth? Do you realize He can not be your strength if you don’t trust Him? 


Prayer: Father, we thank you that we can fully trust You and Your intentions. Because we can trust You, You are our strength and comfort. We pray for Your righteous judgement against the evil intentions that are at work to craftily deceive us and do us harm.  We ask for discernment and wisdom as we study Your Word and apply your teachings. We may not be able to trust the words of mankind but we can always trust Your Word. 

2 Chronicles

Scripture Saturday ~ Fear of the LORD

12:00 AM

Saturday, April 7, 2018


Welcome to Scripture Saturday!

This coming week's memory verse is 2 Chronicles 19:9...

 These were his instructions to them: "You must always act in the fear of the LORD with integrity and with undivided hearts. (NLT)

 Have a blessed and precious day and week everyone!

custom

Giving Back What’s Already His {Judges 9-11}

12:00 AM





Did it surprise you that Jephthah kept his vow to God?

“At that time the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he went throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead, and from there he led an army against the Ammonites.  And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. He said, “If you give me victory over the Ammonites,  I will give to the Lord whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” Judges 11: 29-31

What, or who did he expect to come out of his house to greet him after his victory? An animal, a servant? Surely not his daughter! Only, "When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter came out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. She was his one and only child; he had no other sons or daughters.  When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. “Oh, my daughter!” he cried out. “You have completely destroyed me! You’ve brought disaster on me! For I have made a vow to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.” Judges 11:34-35

Surely Jephthah hadn’t expected his daughter to be the first one to greet him, but God knew! He could see that day as clearly as he saw into Jephthah’s heart and knew him to be a great man of honor and integrity. He knew Jephthah would keep his vow even if it meant giving God his most prized procession.

We all know the Lord’s enemy well enough to believe he had to have come and whispered in Japhthah ear, “What if your wife comes first? What if it’s your daughter? What if…? We can be confident he was doing all he could to keep Jephthah from keeping him from being the honorable man he was and keeping his vow to God during those days on the battle field and even after the victory.

The writer of Judges is careful to let us know that this was his only child.  He also allowed us to see Jephthah anguish when he sees his daughter come out celebrating, but he doesn’t permit us to see further into all Japhthah endured fulfilling his promise to God. We can only speculate what Jephthah felt that fateful day as he had to sacrifice his daughter and how he felt everyday afterwards until this life was over for him.

All parents have gained a bit of a glimpse of how that day must have been every time,

  • We have  to hand our infant or toddler over to a caregiver to go back to work outside our home
  • We’ve had to entrust them to a doctor or surgeon in hopes they will return them to us whole and healed
  • We send them off to school for the first time. It gets easier over time until we hear of another school shooting.
  • We wave and watch our child drive away in a car, on their own, for the first time.
  • We sit them on a plane to visit relatives and pray the plane reaches its destination safely.
  • We send them off to college or the military when there are always threats of war. 

Some of us may know exactly how Japhthah felt to have to bury his child and try to figure out how he’ll manage to live life without her, for that’s just not suppose to happen. All of these are known as release points, and I’m sure you can probably think of others you’ve had to live through.

When my children were little, I prayed for them each day; I’d pray for their day, their health, walk, etc. I even prayed for their future spouses and children! And often The Lord would come as I was praying for “my" children, and whisper, “Whose children, Sue?” and I’d answer back, “Mine”. He knew my heart; therefore I figured there was no point in compounding my sin by lying. Sure, I was very thankful to Him for giving them to me, but for now they were mine!

I even discovered a cleaver way to get around having these constant discussions with Him. I decided I could avoid saying, “mine” or “yours”, by simply praying for them by name. I honestly thought I had cleverly outsmarted God! (Can you imagine?)  

That was until one day, I had to board a plane that would take me thousands of miles away from “my children” to live. They were both adults according to the law, but they were still my babies and children were supposed to leave home, not the other way around. The walk to the plane was the longest, hardest steps I’ve ever had to take. It felt like I had cinder-blocks tied to my feet and I was walking through at least a foot of wet cement! The Lord was right there, “Keep going, don’t look back, one more step and then another.”   I managed to keep it all together until we walked into our new home; where I no longer had to try to be strong and the tears just burst forth, and kept coming.
Last photo taken before our move to TN in '99

I went through about a nine month period of mourning. Every day I’d put on my happy face and tried my best to make it through each day without letting on that my heart was broken on the inside. That was, until finally one day, the revelation hit me that an entire year would go by before we could all be under one roof as a family once more, and then for only one week.

I sank down to the floor in my sitting room and the "Martha" in me came out! “Lord, don’t you care!?” (Luke 10:40) How could He make me suffer so? Wasn’t He supposed to be a loving God? (It was NOT one of my proudest moments) BUT, The Lord answered back immediately, “This is why I was asking you to give your children back to Me all those times, so many years ago. I knew this day was coming, and I was trying to spare you this pain.”

I learned two very important lessons that day, actually three:

1.)    Our children are His! In truth everything we’ve been given is simply on loan for a time. We would do well to constantly be mindful of this fact, and be good stewards of all we’ve been given.
2.)    He truly loves us and always has our very best interests at heart, even when things don’t make any sense at the moment. He can be trusted.
3.)    He can walk with us through hardships because He knows the blessings that lie ahead. Both of my children are married to their best friends today! The Lord has given us  seven grandchildren (#8 arrives in August) and all of us now live only 10 minutes from one another in the same county! Our home is our grand’s second home!

That day, I realized that I had trusted God for my salvation, but I had never made Him Lord of my life, for I was still trying to be in charge. That day I trusted Him not only with the children He had given me, but with my life as well.

I’m sure The Lord helped Japhthah walk through those days and years afterwards. And I’m sure both he and his daughter are worshiping The Lord together today. I loved how the author mentions that a custom came about because of the two of them, (This became a custom in Israel—That the daughters of Israel went yearly to mourn the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.) for I’ll bet as the daughters remembered the daughter of Jephthah, their fathers were remembering his integrity.

God's faithfulness 19 years later!