Thanksgiving and where buy cialis Christmas
I wanted to let you know what I plan to do with the First of All Pray blog for the next several weeks. By God’s grace, we will complete the study on the book of James later on, but first I desire to spend some time next week focusing on the topic of thanksgiving. Only three entries will arrive next week; Thursday-Sunday I will be taking off to enjoy the holiday.
In December when I return to the blog, my plan is to write entries related to Christmas—five days, not six days each week—during the month.
Like many of you, I love the Christmas season; the atmosphere is filled with joy and expectation, warmth and well-wishes. Even more hardened souls open a bit during the holiday, and I believe a childlike vulnerability buried deep beneath coarse and rough exteriors peeks out in wonder at the lights, the snow, the carolers…and that nativity scene proclaiming the virgin birth of Christ. This is why Christmas has been so viciously attacked—it speaks with the profound innocence of childhood and hope, effectively arresting the emotions of those who don’t want to believe. In assailing Christmas, such souls hope to escape its message—one presented not only in song and words, but in life-changing power as well.
May you be blessed with joy, peace, grace, and abiding faith, hope, and love in the upcoming season!
Dorothy
Read MoreA letter from Trappist nuns from Azeir, Syria, August 29, 2013
Please forgive me if you do not think that religion and politics should be mentioned in the same breath. But many Christians in Egypt are in dire straights, and many others called by His name have been affected by the escalating warfare in Syria. Their perspective is important. The link below will send you to a letter written by Trappist nuns who are in the middle of the violence.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/09/a-letter-from-trappist-nuns-in-syria-blood-fills-our-streets-our-eyes-our-hearts.html#more (taken from Atlasshrugs website, 9-7-13)
Pray for wisdom and priligy osterreich kaufen conviction to do what is right for both our leaders and other international leaders who have a say in the whole scenario; pray, also, for the Lord to cover all those called by His name with His precious blood and to protect them with majestic signs and wonders.
Pray for us that we don’t allow our comforts to lull us into prayerlessness; pray that we will no longer find contentment in being unaware of what our brethren are dealing with across the globe. Indeed, the nuns themselves closed their letter with these words:
To those who truly have a heart for Syria (for mankind, for truth…) we ask for prayer…abounding, heartfelt, courageous prayer.
There’s no way I could have said it any better.
UPDATE:
Here’s another perspective, an Israeli one. I think I’ll be spending the day on Wednesday, September 11, in prayer. If you can, pray throughout the day, also.
The link is from an email sent out in the early hours of 9-8-13 by USPRN and includes a letter from an Israeli. http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=2c8533b164a12dac690d3544f&id=ccc295c53c&e=1124e96f98
We are called to pray, even (and especially!) for dire situations such as this in which we can’t determine direction with our natural mind. But we have a God in Heaven who hears us and who will intervene and show Himself strong if we will but ask! PRAY!
Dorothy
Read MoreWho satisfies you with good so your youth is renewed like the eagle
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalm 103:1-5 English Standard Bible
As you give yourself to the discipline of blessing the Lord and forgetting none of His benefits, His strength and ingen receptbelagd levitra gracious kindness begin to transform your life. You realize that you could never earn any of His benefits; you recognize that you are the recipient of unfathomable, unending grace.
Every benefit David extolled in Psalm 103 was based on what was still in the future—the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Now, in Christ, all these benefits belong to you. Unlike David, you have experienced the ultimate benefit—new birth—as a result of your faith in Jesus as Lord. You are a new creation, the old you has passed away and all things are made new, and He has promised to be with you always, even to the end of the age (see 2 Corinthians 5:17, Matthew 28:20).
The Lord has provided for all your needs; He has forgiven your sins, He has provided healing for your body, He has redeemed you from hell, and He has crowned you with lovingkindness and compassion. And like David, you will also find the need to remind yourself to forget none of those benefits. It is far too easy to drift away from His inestimable wonders despite how long you’ve known the Lord. You must continually stir yourself up by way of reminder concerning this treasure trove of benefits (see 2 Peter 1:13).
David wrote that the Lord “satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” NASB says He satisfies your years with good things; NIV says He satisfies your desires with good things; and KJV states that He satisfieth thy mouth with good things. The Hebrew word translated years, desires, and mouth is `adiy, and actually means “ornament”. It can also represent the bit in a horse’s mouth.
No matter which meaning you prefer, the bottom line is that one benefit of the Lord is to satisfy you with good, whether in years, desires, or your mouth! Perhaps, in line with the “bit in a horse’s mouth” definition, as you develop a lifestyle of filling your mouth with blessing God and recounting His benefits, you become like a disciplined thoroughbred, allowing God’s bit—a self-controlled mouth—to direct the course of your life toward fruitfulness and good (see James 3:3).
Who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
God satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. This is an amazing statement. It is your relationship with God which renews your youth, not Estée Lauder, workouts, or a scalpel. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, both experienced renewed youth as beautiful older women (see Genesis 12 and 26). Caleb, at 85, was as strong as he was when he was forty (see Joshua 14:7-12). Psalm 92:14 says of the righteous, “They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green.”
When your youth is renewed like the eagle, you are able to rise up above challenges and soar close to God, hidden under His feathers (see Psalm 91:4). Your perspective is broader than the vision of those who cling tightly to the ground; you seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God (see Colossians 3:1-2).
The Apostle Paul also wrote of renewal. He said, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). In a youth-obsessed culture, it is easy to get sucked into the vacuum of superficiality and acheter du cialis a agreable get fixated on externals. Yet David the king of Israel, surrounded by beautiful women, magnificent opulence, and men of war with imposing strength, remained strong as long as he blessed the Lord, and he was effective in his reign only as he kept his eyes fixed on the benefits of his God.
Isaiah 40:31 testifies that the individual who waits on the Lord “will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” Are you exhausted, worn out, feeling as if life has passed you by? Wait on the Lord. Command your soul to bless Him, even in your exhaustion, and recount to yourself all of His benefits. Renewal will come to your soul, and your body will drink in the refreshing. And you? You will mount up, renewed by the Lord, and soar like the mighty eagle.
Bless the Lord!
Dorothy
Read MoreWho crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits…Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion. Psalm 103:1-2; 4b
When you train yourself to bless the Lord, you align yourself with His purposes. You may not be clear as to what those specific purposes for you are, but when you step out of your feelings, logic, and the fast pace of life to give God the honor He deserves, He has a way of depositing understanding into your being, thereby empowering you to make wise decisions.
His benefits are not subject to the erratic conditions of our age or the particulars of your situation. His benefits are rock-solid because He is rock-solid.
David the psalmist commanded himself to bless the Lord. He commanded all that was within him—mind, will, and emotions—to bless the Lord’s holy name. He required himself to forget none of the benefits of the Lord. Yes, David was tremendously successful, but he was also tremendously tempted and attacked. It was due to his strict dedication to bless God and to forget none of His benefits that, when all was said and done in his life, it could be honestly recorded of him in Acts 13:22, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.” Even after the enormous failures of his life, David left a testimony that he was a man after God’s own heart who would do all His will. Why? Because he commanded himself to bless the Lord and to forget none of His benefits!
The Lord pardons all your iniquities, heals all your diseases, and redeems your life from the pit. These benefits parallel beautifully with what Jesus accomplished for you on the cross, yet there is more. Remember, every benefit David enumerated was merely a shadow of what we have been privileged to possess in Christ. We have the better covenant, based on better promises (see Hebrews 8:6).
Included among the benefits of the Lord is this one: He crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion (Psalm 103:4b). Your sins are forgiven, you have access to His healing bounty, and you are absolutely redeemed from the pit of hell. And to top it off, He places a crown on your head of lovingkindness and compassion!
I see three streams flowing from this one benefit.
First of all is the crown of lovingkindness and compassion. Your God views you, from the top of your head on down, with great favor and tender love. The crown of lovingkindness and compassion that He has placed upon you marks you as His and sets you apart. I have observed younger children on field trips wearing the same brightly colored T-shirts. This makes them visible so their teachers can spot them without difficulty. The crown God has placed on your head makes you easily visible to Him; it separates you from the rest of the crowd and grants Him smooth access for dispensing His love and compassion upon you. If you are His, you are a recipient of His lovingkindness and compassion. Don’t let yourself forget it.
Secondly, we have been crowned with lovingkindness and compassion. One definition of the Hebrew word for crown, `atar, is “to surround”. (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H5849&t=KJV ) In other words, He surrounds us with lovingkindness and compassion. Wherever you go, you can be confident that the Lord is going to see to it that you are surrounded with favor. That hasn’t been your experience? Then bless the Lord and forget none of His benefits! My sister, who has not yet received Jesus as Lord, recently told me that she challenged herself to think positive thoughts for a set number of days. She was shocked when strangers began going out of their way to be kind to her. If this principle works for a person who has yet to be convinced about the claims of Christ, then how much more will those of us who are in Christ—recipients of the benefits and promises—find lovingkindness and compassion surrounding us as we refuse to forget His benefits? Trust Him in this and refuse to forget this portion of His benefits. You will soon find that you are surrounded by a wide assortment of loving, compassionate, and favorable “coincidences”.
Thirdly, when you are crowned, it signifies that you are a member of a royal family. You have a crown to wear because your father or mother is of royal lineage. In your case, your Father is the King of the Universe, and His Son, your elder Brother, is King of kings and Lord of lords.
As you go about life, you are crowned with His favor and compassion. But this crown is not just about you. It is your identification with the Father, and it gives you an ambassadorship wherever you go. Yes, as an ambassador, you are a very privileged person, but you are also accountable to act as a clear representative of the One who sends you. You are crowned and surrounded by His lovingkindness and compassion, and you are a representative of His lovingkindness and compassion. “Much will be required of everyone who has been given much. And even more will be expected of the one who has been entrusted with more” (Luke 12:48, Holman Christian Standard Bible). That expectation is not to be viewed as tedious or difficult—“the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5b). It is because of that crown of lovingkindness and compassion that you are empowered to bring compassion and grace to the people in your life. If it feels impossible to you right now, then now’s the time you need to bless the Lord and to refuse to forget that He’s crowned you!
You wear a crown that targets you for God’s lovingkindness and compassion; you are surrounded by lovingkindness and compassion; and you are an ambassador of God’s lovingkindness and compassion. This is who you are!
Don’t forget it!
Dorothy
Read MoreWho redeems your life from the pit
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits…Who redeems your life from the pit… Psalm 103:1-2, 4a
Have you been commanding your soul to bless the Lord? If you have, you have likely experienced some resistance, but as you stick with it, strength, victory, joy, and resolve will rise up within you.
While you bless the Lord, are you also focusing on His benefits? He has pardoned all your iniquities and is the One who heals all your diseases. Both of these benefits were foretold by the prophet Isaiah. He wrote, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5).
The Lord has also redeemed your life from the pit according to the psalmist. In Tuesday’s blog, I mentioned that the benefit, “Who pardons all your iniquities” was the most important benefit on the list, and therefore was mentioned first.
You may wonder why I believe that pardoning of sin is more important than having a life that is redeemed from the pit. Romans 5:12 states, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” It was Adam’s sin that opened the door to sickness, death, and loss of fellowship with God. Without the complete forgiveness and remission of sin, neither you nor I would be able to enter eternal life with God when we died. The alternative—eternal separation from God—is the only available outcome for us unless we receive full forgiveness of our sin through the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ.
With this in mind, when David lists the fact that God redeems your life from the pit, this benefit hinges upon receiving the pardon of sin. First accept His wonderful forgiveness of your sin through Jesus Christ, and then, when you take Jesus as your Lord, He absolutely redeems your life from eternal separation from God!
Who redeems your life from the pit…
What is the pit? One writer asked, “If life is a bowl of cherries, then why am I in the pits?” Is the pit as simple as this tongue-in-cheek comment suggests, merely a drag of a life? Or is it more specific, referring, perhaps, to what is commonly called the “pit of hell”?
The word pit in Hebrew is shachath and can mean a literal pit or, indeed, the pit of hell. It also can refer to destruction or can signify the grave (see http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H7845&t=KJV ).
Therefore, whether He is redeeming your life from hell, an early grave, or a pit of destruction poised to ensnare you for months or years, He redeems your life from the pit. It is my opinion that this benefit is good towards all of the above. The bottom line is: He redeems your life from the pit. Don’t forget it!
What exactly does the Lord do when He redeems something? The answer to this question caught me off guard.
Ga’al, the Hebrew for “redeem” means, first of all, “to redeem, act as kinsman-redeemer, avenge, revenge, ransom, do the part of a kinsman.” The source further points out that this word infers that the One who redeems “…act[s] as kinsman, [does] the part of next of kin, act[s] as kinsman redeemer” (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H1350&t=KJV) .
When God redeems your life from the pit, He does so as your next of kin. He redeems your life because of His intimate sense of kinship with you. To Him, you are His next of kin, and He relates to you as such, with tender love, mercy, and concern.
At times, you can feel as if no one really cares, as if you are absolutely alone in life. Of course, as a believer, you know that God is for you and loves you, but that truth doesn’t necessarily hit home when you feel isolated, ignored, or invisible.
But when you read that God, as your next of kin, went to bat to redeem you—not just a nebulous “everyone”—can you picture Him, as I did, peering throughout history from before the beginning of time for the exact way and due season to redeem you—you, yourself? As I thought about this, I realized that I had tears in my eyes.
Perhaps you have no one in your life—either as next of kin or dear friend—willing to go to bat for you, to take up your cause, or to simply be there for you when you need a hand out of the pit. But here’s the good news: you do have a Redeemer. He, the God of the universe, has chosen to be your next of kin. Even if others forsake you, He is not ashamed of you. He, from the very foundation of the earth, carefully prepared the way for your life to be redeemed from destruction. And that’s worth remembering.
Hebrews 2:11 says it very clearly. “For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”
Your God—your closest Kinsman—through the blood of His dear Son, has redeemed your life from the pit. Never forget it.
Blessings to you as you bask in this redemptive love of your closest Kinsman!
Dorothy
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