As I sit before God and read His word, the Bible, I realize He is teaching me many things about Who he is and How he works in our lives. One of the miracles of reading the Bible is although you may have read passage of scriptures numerous times; God reveals something more, something deeper, just for YOU that he wants you to know… That’s a BEAUTIFUL thing!
I shared with you in earlier blogs, how God lead me to read the Gospels. I was only going to read the red words of Jesus, but God quickly corrected that notion and said I needed to read everything in context to get the full flavor of what was going on and how he worked and moved in the lives of people, circumstances and situations. I discovered not only was he working in the lives of His people, the Israelites, but He was also working in the lives of those people who were AGAINST Him, the Egyptians, during that time in the Bible and many others as you read further.
One of the BIG takeaways in reading the Bible is God will do, work, move, etc., in whomever lives He chooses including animals and all creatures. This is how we build and nurture a wonderful relationship with Him by getting to know Him through His word. Everything is the universe is at His command. It makes Him WHO He is, the ALMIGHTY GOD of the UNIVERSE… AWESOME! This makes for fascinating reading as it helps me relate to how God is moving and working in my life. It gives me the grace and patience to move forward and to open my heart to him more and more for Him to use me as His vessel in the capacity He needs… AMEN! Love & Blessings!
Last October God impressed upon my spirit to read His word. I must admit, I have never read the Bible in its entirety. God knew that. So, He had me to start with the New Testament and now I am reading the Old Testament. Folks, I have made so many discoveries, which I believe is ONE of the reasons God wanted me to read His word in its entirety. The Bible is the first communication God speaks to us. If you want to know how God thinks and His attributes, it is found in His word. As you start to read, the Holy Spirit will start showing you things and teaching you things about YOU, the World, and everything in between.
Consequently, as I am reading 1 Samuel 16:14, I knew the story of Samuel and King Saul was disobedient and the infamous phrase Samuel said to him, “It is better to be obedient than to sacrifice.” I knew the story. However, this time what jumped out at me was the second part of verse 14. We know that the spirit of the Lord left King Saul because of His disobedience. But I never realize, “…and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.” I have always associated evil spirits with the devil, Satan. We talk about demonic spirits and evil spirits and they are associated with the devil. I know God caused Pharaoh’s heart to be harden towards the Israelites while Moses was trying to set them free. We know God’s purpose in that was to show his power and might to ALL. We know the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, but it was not described as an evil spirit. We know Satan was there to tempt Jesus. It was also a beautiful illustration of when Satan tries to tempt us and how we should resist Him. So, I needed to delve into the purpose of the Lord sending an evil spirit to King Saul to trouble him.
Another beauty about knowing the Bible for yourself is you discover over and over there is nothing new under the sun, in which we find in God’s word. This is true. Although we are living in modern times, anything we face is not new to God. It may be new to us like COVID, but God was dealing with plagues since the beginning of time and some of them He sent purposely. So, King Saul has this evil spirit sent by the Lord to trouble him… Hmmmm.
Well, when the spirit of the Lord left King Saul, it was a sad day. A sad day indeed that the Lord sent an evil spirit in the place of His spirit upon King Saul. Folks, this is deep. Sometimes an evil spirit can come upon us because of our disobedience… There, I said it! Could it be, that we are struggling and having hard times because we are out of God’s will for our life? We want to blame Satan, but sometimes it maybe us and the bad choices we have made, like King Saul made. King Saul was miserable after the Lord’s spirit left him.
Without God’s spirit in our lives today, we are miserable beings. Some of us may not know the source of our misery, but in some instances, it may be the spirit of the Lord has departed from our lives. King Saul’s constant disobedience left him as a wretched man. His pride got the best of him. And although he would say he was doing things for God and making sacrifices unto the Lord, God saw King Saul’s heart. As a resulted God no longer wanted Saul to be king and had David anointed as king.
In this story we see the process of how God deals with situations. Overnight, David did not become king, nor was Saul overthrown in an instant. But we can see the hand of God in this situation as he works in Saul’s life, David’s life, and yes, Samuel’s life as he is God’s messenger in all of this. So sometimes God deals with us. His spirit may leave us and we too may go through some misery because of our disobedience. But we know if we repent, and turn away from our sinful ways, God can restore us back into His fold. Love & Blessings!
Our LOVE for Jesus should run deep. When you think of all he endured and how he has set us FREE, the gratitude and the thankfulness to Him should cause us to want to live our lives representing Him on the Earth. Consistently, this is how we can honor Him is by having Him the Lord and Savior of our lives. Jesus said, these people honor me with their lips and with their hearts are far away from me, Mathew 5:9. He also said something similar to religious people of his day that were healing the sick, prophesying, casting out demons among other things. He said there will come a day that he will dismiss them and tells them to depart from Him because He never knew them, Mathew 7:21-23. Wow! This chills me every time I read it. These people were busy! Busy doing God’s work; yet, they missed it, according to Jesus! That should be penetrating to every heart. It should give us an immediate gut check!
It is one thing to know about Jesus, to know about God, to know about the Holy Spirt, to know the Bible, etc. Undoubtedly, it is clearly on a different realm of having an intimate relationship with Him. Confidently, having Him Lord and Savior of your life, and Him having YOUR HEART secures our eternal futures. That is what God looks at, our heart.
During this Easter season and moving forward, remember to love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. As Jesus was crucified on the cross for us, our souls will be crucified, too, but our spirits will grow more and more into the love of God and what he did with sacrificing his son, Jesus, for us and THEN leaving the Holy Spirit to be our comfort and guide. It is truly a beautiful and amazing thing that words cannot capture the fullness of it. Lovingly, embrace and appreciate what was done for YOU! Love & Blessings!
Palm Sunday is the commemoration of the triumphant entry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. The people welcomed and greeted Jesus into the city by waving palm branches and scattering them in the rode way as He made His entry. His entry was significant as he was riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. A donkey is seen as an animal of peace versus a horse that is seen as an animal of war. This entry upon a donkey was also seen as fulfilling prophecy in Zechariah 9:9, “The Coming of Zion’s King – See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The people had heard of Jesus’ great works of healing and the raising of Lazarus from the dead among other signs and wonders. So, they were genuinely happy to see Him in Jerusalem. I am sure most wondered what He could do for them.
In all of this celebration, Jesus also posed a threat on many levels especially in the political arena. How do you justify murdering an innocent man? You chump up charges against him. That is what they did to our Lord and Savior. Charges of blasphemy claiming to be King of the Jews was one of the charges. There were other false accusations against him as well. Palm Sunday also marks the first day of Holy week. All of this set the stage for Jesus’ crucifixion at the end of the week with His resurrection on Easter Sunday. So much was going on within this span of time, but none of it by accident. For we know this was Jesus’ purpose on the Earth. He knew this. It was hard on his humanity to endure what he endured. But He relied on the Father to lead and guide him through this agony. What an example for us! We will have agony moments in our lives, too. Yet, we too, have God and the Holy Spirit to help us endure. Thank you, Jesus! Love & Blessings!
God continues to speak to us as we seek Him. He speaks to us as we continue to serve Him. Daniel LOVED the Lord. He refused to stop praying three times a day after the king wrote a decree against it. After the king threw Daniel in the lion’s den, God spoke to Daniel assuring him he will deliver him because he continues to serve him. God’s word is His primary way of speaking to us. And yes, He has multiple ways of speaking, but as you start reading God’s word a miraculous thing starts to happen. So, he impresses upon your spirit certain things about Him, you, others, direction for your life… It is full with all kinds of messages for us, if we pay attention to what He is saying.
As God’s word sinks into our hearts and spirit, we start recalling things throughout the day of his word. It can be certain passages of scripture or it can be songs, or it can be something someone else shared with you with God’s influence on it. It is really a beautiful thing. I remember a heavy season in my life of what seemed nothing was going right. In truth, things were going right in all areas of my life except in one or two areas that I could not figure out why things transpired the way that they did. It occurred to me that sometimes God allows us to go through things so we can see the reality of life. This means although we may do things in the right spirit and heart, some things we will never experience unless we go through some hard times.
Hard times prepare us for the next level of our life. Depending on how we handle those hard times, God will promote us to the next level in our life. As I was exiting this heavy season in my life, God sent a song to my heart in the middle of the night, “The storm is passing over.” Then He sent me the above message about Daniel how he will deliver me just like he delivered Daniel out of this heavy season to the next level of my destination. Love & Blessings!
I love how throughout the Bible God gives us insight on how He works with his people. For example, Joshua:23 tells us God provided rest for His people. He gave Israel this rest because He gave them the supernatural strength to defeat the enemies that stood in their way of possessing the land God had given them.
We read in the previous blog, how God allowed them to defeat numerous kings and their kingdoms. In verse 6 of Chapter 23, we see God is asking them to be courageous to keep and do all the things Moses wrote in the book of the law not turning to the right or left. Today, God continues to expect us to be courageous in our journey with Him. Although, Jesus has come to bear our sins, we still should have a heart, a courageous heart to not willfully sin before God. This is the importance of our intimate relationship with God. He knows our heart. He knows the difference between lip-service to Him and heart-service to Him (Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 15:8).
Joshua: 23 goes on further to tell us about God’s passion for His people and he urges them not to go back to their old ways. He then warns them if they do, He will no longer protect them, cover them, and bring evil things to them until it destroys them (v. 15). Whoa! The chapter ends in verse 16 with God’s anger being kindled against them if they turn from Him and tells them they will perish!
Deuteronomy 4:24 characterized God as a consuming fire and jealous. One of the reasons God’s anger is so strong is because He hates sin. Why? Because yes, sin destroy us, and that angers God. This is how deeply He loves us. It starts with our pride and thinking we know better than God. From there, we start doing our own thing like the children of Israel and everything goes downhill from there. We see it time and time again throughout the Bible. The same thing happened to Satan and he became separated from God eternally. We always talk about a God of love, but we serve a God of anger. This is just one example the Bible warns about what sin does to us. Bottom line is it separates us from God. It removes God’s promises from our lives. So, God will fight for us. He will fight our battles, He will give us rest, but He will also turn against us, if we turn from him…Take heed. Love & Blessings!
Moses was a tough act to follow. God did AMAZING things through Moses. When you think God cannot top what He did with Moses, you read what He did through Joshua. To see the background, God promised the Promise Land, which we now know as Israel, to the Israelites. However, they had to go in a possess the land. We know the account of the spies Moses sent in to survey the land, people, live-stock, etc. The majority if them did not think they could overtake the land except Joshua and Caleb. They thought they were well able with the help of God…But God, who makes the difference in ALL situations.
Consequently, of that generation of Israelites that were set free by God’s mighty hand, Joshua and Caleb’s families and everyone 20 years old and younger were permitted to possess the land. Because of disobedience Moses did not make it into the land and because of the older Israelite’s murmuring and complaining they did not make it in. Oh, what lessons we learn here!
The mantle was now passed to Joshua. Joshua chapter 11 starts out with, “And it came to pass…” (KJV). We know with that phrase something significant is about to happen. Now Joshua was a warrior, a fighter, but when you read what Joshua was up against starting with chapter 11, I was overwhelmed for him as I was reading it. This is his first war on his own without Moses. I believe we all can agree we would have been at least a little nervous.
We read in chapter 11 he has seven kings he must conquer! I can imagine Joshua must have swallowed hard. However, verse 6 in chapter 11 says God told Joshua do not be afraid! That is God reassuring him that He would be with him AND by tomorrow He would deliver those kings and their kingdoms in his hands… Wow! Then God told Joshua how he wanted him to defeat the enemy. It was quite bloody. It is jaw dropping to read. Verse 20 of chapter 11 says, “For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.” (KJV). When I read this entire chapter I first laughed out loud, then my mouth was left wide open of the awesomeness of God!
Chapter 12 continues with more bloodshed as Joshua then slaughters thirty-one more kings and kingdoms. God told him how to do it, and after he witnessed what happened to Moses by not being obedient as God asked, Joshua made sure he carried out God’s instructions as He told him…more lessons for us to learn. One key is Joshua did not do this on his own strength. He led the Israelites through war as God instructed… Something for us to ponder as we look at our lives and relationship to God. Are we following God’s instructions to us? Love & Blessings.
In the New Testament, there are two instances where Jesus marvels at people’s actions. In Mark 6:1 -6, it says Jesus marveled at the disbelief of the people of his hometown. These were the people who knew him.
The other instance was the man who asked Jesus to heal his son in Matthew 8:5-13. The man’s faith told Jesus you do not have to come and see your son, but on your word, I believe that my son is healed.
It the same with us today…Will Jesus marvel at your faith or unbelief? I would rather have that child-like faith and honor God in all that I do and say and believe when I do not see than to insult and offend God with my disbelief. God is watching us. God hears us. Are you telling God on a daily basis throughout the day how much you are thankful for what he did, does, and will do for you? This is what makes God smiles. This is what God marvels at. This is what God honors.
Many times God’s blessings will not look like what we expect but sometimes it will be bigger and greater than what we expect. Take the dive, risk, abandonment of trusting God no matter what. Ask yourself the question, do I want God to marvel at my faith or my unbelief? Love & Blessings!
In the book on Numbers, Chapter 14: 11-45, the Lord is having an interesting conversation with Moses. After 400 plus years in bondage God sets the Israelite people free from Egypt. He shows them many signs and wonders, miracle after miracle and the people still complain. When they get to the promise land spies are sent in to check out the land. There are two reports given to Moses about the land. One is optimistic the other is pessimistic. This is the promise land that God had already promised them and they still did not believe God for it. We see in the conversation that God is having with Moses that he wonders how long the people will provoke him. God talks about doing away with them by sending a pestilence and disinheriting them and raising up another people that will be mightier than them. Moses appeals to God’s long-suffering character and his mercy forgiving nature on behalf of these murmuring people. God agrees not to do away with them totally. Instead, He promises they would not inherit the promise land, but their little ones would below 20 years of age and Caleb and Joshua, who brought back the optimistic report, and their seed. This is a lesson for us that God rewards faithfulness and murmuring and complaining will block blessings and the promises God has for us. The Lord continues his conversation and calls them an evil congregation. He also removed His covering and protection and gave them over to the enemies… Woe unto those who murmur and complain. Your murmuring and complaining will talk you out of what God has for you. Love & Blessings!
Our God is omnipresent! He hears and knows ALL that is going on throughout the world. We sometimes forget this in our flesh. We sometimes distance ourselves of who God is and tend to think He was that way back in the Biblical day, but don’t mistake He is the same God yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). In Numbers 12 there is an account of Moses’ brother, Aaron, and sister, Miriam, who talked about Moses because he married an Ethiopian woman AND they questioned if Moses was the only one God can speak to… WHOA! And the Bible says, God heard them! Folks, this is good reading! The Bible described Moses as a meek man in this chapter, meaning he probably did not say a word to his siblings for talking about him. But the Lord called the three of them to a meeting in the tabernacle and got the siblings straight. Folks, it was not pretty. I encourage you to read it for yourself. We see many life principles here. Of course, watch what you say about people because God is listening. We should be building each other up and not tearing each other down. It goes back to the old adage… If you can’t say something nice, keep your mouth shut. The other life principle is it does pay to be meek! It is how the Bible described Moses. It is also one of the Beatitudes in Mathew 5:5. It tells us we do not have to defend ourselves when people come up against us. Which leads to the third life principle… God is our vindicator! God will take care of the people who come against us. We are called to continue manifest the Fruit of the Spirit in ALL situations. Sometimes that means we remain silent and let God handle it as He did in Numbers 12. Love & Blessings!
