From Your Heart and With Your Mouth

Today is Thursday, March 21, 2019. Sixteenth day of Lent.

Day 22,288

SEVEN DAYS until Opening Day!!!

Quote of the Day

“Any time not spent on love is wasted.”
Torquato Tasso, Italian poet, 1544-1595
BrainyQuote

Word of the Day

Palimpsest ~ a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text. (Dictionary.com)

C had to go back to Concentra yesterday morning, for a final visit relating to her fall from last week. The doctor there gave her some encouraging thoughts about the effects of her accident on Monday, as well. He said that if there had been any internal injuries, they probably would have made themselves evident already. The bruises continue to spread, but the bigger ones are changing color and aren’t as brightly purple as they were Tuesday evening. She is also experiencing some pain in the chest/ribs area, making breathing a little tough. But, overall, she feels okay, and the pain in the lower part of her body is much better. We appreciate all of the prayers and love we have received from our Facebook community. Community is so important. We are not meant to walk this journey alone.

C has also found the car she wants. She has visited a local dealership and they will have it in the color she wants by tomorrow. She plans to stop by on the way home from work tomorrow (Friday) to do the paperwork and such. It is a 2019 Honda Civic EX, in “Cosmic Blue.” Very nice looking car.

TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL AND PRAYERS
All Scriptures are from the ESV unless otherwise noted

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Psalm 16:11

Today I am grateful:
1. That C continues to be okay after that wreck.
2. That our confidence in the Lord is not shaken.
3. For the joy that comes in the presence of the Lord.
4. That salvation is available to all who will call upon the name of Jesus.
5. That God put the desire in my heart to call upon the name of Jesus.

Be sober,
be watchful.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion,
seeking someone to devour.
Resist him,
firm in your faith.

Thanks be to God.

(The Book of Common Prayer, 1 Peter 5:8-9a)

(From Faith That Matters)

Today’s reading is “Salvation Available for All,” by Dallas Willard.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 
Romans 10:9

“The kingdom of God is . . . indeed the Kingdom Among Us. You can reach it from your heart with your mouth–through even a shaky and stumbling confidence and confession that Jesus is the death-conquering Master of All.”

I know I don’t often go full-on evangelist in this blog. That’s not really why I’m here. Not that I don’t believe in evangelism, because I certainly do. But my whole thrust in these devotionals is usually geared toward the things that God is currently doing in my own life, in my own spiritual formation and transformation. But this reading by Willard caught my attention today.

This “kingdom” to which we refer has always been here. Longer, in fact, than we humans have. “But it has been available to us through simple confidence in Jesus, the Anointed, only from the time he became a public figure. It is a kingdom that, in the person of Jesus, welcomes us just as we are, just where we are, and makes it possible for us to translate our ‘ordinary’ life into an eternal one. It is so available that everyone who from the center of his or her being calls upon Jesus as Master of the Universe and Prince of Life will be heard and will be delivered into the eternal kind of life.”

And I will add what Dallas has said so many times. That eternal life beings NOW! We don’t have to wait until we die to experience it!

Father, thank you for this great salvation! Thank you for putting me into your Kingdom! I thank you that it is so easily available for anyone who will simply call upon the name of Jesus. I pray that someone will read this today and be prompted to do just that.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13)

Soli Deo Gloria!!

It’s A Matter of the Will

Today is Thursday, December 22, 2016. Only three days until Christmas!

Quote of the Day

“Love is when he gives you a piece of your soul, that you never knew was missing.” – Torquato Tasso

Word of the Day

Crepuscular – of, relating to, or resembling twilight : dim; also, occurring or active during the twilight.

Today is Date Nut Bread Day. It’s pretty much all I can find for December 22. All you Seinfeld fans, just hang on for tomorrow.

We had our Secret Santa gift exchange yesterday. My person seemed to really like the sausage/cheese box I gave. How can you go wrong with snack food, right? I received a box of Kenneth Cole “Mankind” fragrance stuff. It has a tube of hair/body wash, “eau de toilette” spray, and a tube of after shave balm. Not sure what I’m going to do with the after shave balm. If you’ve never seen my picture, I’ve had a beard since college.

Nothing much going on today. Except that we are taking our pastor’s parents out for dinner tonight. We’re going to our old standby, Haufbrau steakhouse.

C had fun at her leadership team event, last night. They went to this place called the Red Door Escape Room, in Southlake. It sounds like a fun place that we need to take R & J to. They put your team in a room, and you have to solve a series of puzzles to “escape.” There’s a time limit, though. If you don’t solve all the puzzles in time, you disappear forever. Oh, wait. That’s not right. They still let you out. Apparently, only 33% actually solve all the puzzles. C and her group were in a “Once Upon A Time” themed room. That sounds like so much fun to me!

65 days until the first Spring Training game.
102 days until Opening Day.

TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL

Thursday in the fourth week of Advent

Psa 95:6-7  Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice,

Psa 90:12  So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Psa 18:2-3  The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.

Psa 101:6  I will look with favor on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me;

(From Praying With the Psalms)

Psa 145:14-21  The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. The LORD preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

“The diversities of God’s goodness find root in the varieties of human need. Every discovered mercy in God finds application in human want. And every realization of human desire is an invitation to grace.” Beautiful words by Eugene Peterson. No way I could adequately paraphrase.

“Father in heaven, I find my desires and needs an index to your will and promises.
What I long for and require is what you bring to me in your steadfast love.
Purify my desires and satisfy my being with the salvation in Jesus Christ. Amen.”

(From My Utmost For His Highest)

Joh 6:44  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

“When God draws me, the issue of my will comes in at once.” Chambers says we should never “discuss when anyone when God speaks.” What he means by this is that our belief is an act of the will, and any kind of intellectual discussion is pointless. Do not misunderstand. We are to love God with our MINDS, as well as with our hearts. But the action of belief is not based on intellect. “Will I dump myself down absolutely on God and transact on what He says?”

It is a surrender of the will. We do not surrender to “persuasive power.” Rather it is “a deliberate launching forth on God and on what He says until I am no longer confident in what I have done, I am confident only in God.” It is, as they say, “blind faith.” And it must be an act of the will. The growing of the intellectual understanding comes after this.

Father, I praise you because you have been working this in me, this year. I have seen the importance of believing the words of Jesus as much or more than believing in Jesus. Thanks to the writings of some other people that you have place in my life, this year, I am understanding this more and more. I pray that you continue shaping my will to the point that all of my confidence is willfully placed in you and your Word, and none of my confidence is in me or anything I have done or can do. Help me to completely surrender.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Glory be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, so it is now and so it shall ever be, world without end. Alleluia. Amen.

Grace and peace, friends.

Discernment Is For Intercession, Not Criticism

Today is Wednesday, November 23, 2016. One more day until Thanksgiving.

Quote of the Day

“Any time not spent on love is wasted.” – Torquato Tasso

Word of the Day

Callithumpian -Designating a group of people making cacophonous music or noise using a variety of instruments, utensils, etc., as a demonstration of a general feeling of celebration, dissatisfaction, etc.; of or relating to such a band or its music. For example, Polyphonic Spree.

Today is Fibonacci Day. The Fibonacci sequence was introduced to the world by Leonardo of Pisa, who was also known as Fibonacci. It is a sequence of numbers, beginning with either one or zero, in which, after the first two numbers, each number is the sum of the preceding two numbers. For example, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144. and so on.

94 days until the first Spring Training Day.
131 days until Opening Day.

Not much happening, today. However, First Baptist Church in Mineral Wells will be laying to rest a dear friend of their church family, as well as our personal family. Please be in prayer for them around 10:00 today, if you happen to think of it.

TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Psalm 34:8

Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. Psalm 86:4

With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! Psalm 119:10

I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High. Psalm 7:17

To him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, for his steadfast love endures forever;
and brought Israel out from among them, for his steadfast love endures forever;
with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love endures forever;
to him who divided the Red Sea in two, for his steadfast love endures forever;
and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever;
but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for his steadfast love endures forever;
to him who led his people through the wilderness, for his steadfast love endures forever;
to him who struck down great kings, for his steadfast love endures forever;
and killed mighty kings, for his steadfast love endures forever;
Sihon, king of the Amorites, for his steadfast love endures forever;
and Og, king of Bashan, for his steadfast love endures forever;
and gave their land as a heritage, for his steadfast love endures forever; Psalm 136:10-22

“History is a museum through which the praising person can stroll, finding down every corridor evidence of what God has done in judgment and deliverance. Everything we observe is inserted in the story of praise and labeled as an exhibit of ‘steadfast love.'”

“God, give me a mind as relentless as this psalmist’s in discovering instances of your steadfast love. I want no gaps in my praise and no blanks in my thanksgiving. Amen.”

(From My Utmost For His Highest)

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Psalm 123:3

“The temper of mind is tremendous in its effects, it is the enemy that penetrates right into the soul, and distracts the mind from God.”

I could probably just end the day’s devotion with that statement, but there is another idea in the reading that needs to be expressed as well. But we must be careful in allowing our mind to indulge in certain tempers, as they can easily distract us from God. I know this full well, as I indulged in just such a temperament yesterday, and it translated into a sour mood which affected how I felt about almost everything! It is so easy to fall into this, but we must guard our minds against just such tempers.

The other danger Chambers mentions is the idea that we must always be vindicating ourselves. Jesus never explained things (except for when his disciples asked him for explanations of the parables). We must resist the temptation to lust for vindication.

In the area of discernment, we must also beware that our discernment doesn’t turn into criticism. Oh, how I am guilty of this! “God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.”

Father, help me to heed these teachings, today. I need them so desperately in my spiritual walk, as I have fallen prey to all of them. Help me to control the temperaments that I allow my mind to indulge. Help me to not need vindication always. And most of all, help me to not every use discernment as an excuse to be critical of people.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” . . . Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:15, 18)

Grace and peace, friends.