Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Job 41 & 42; 2 Corinthians 1 & 2



/ TODAY'S VERSE from HEARTLIGHT -- http://www.heartlight.org/
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This came: November 15, 2006

VERSE:
Trouble and distress have come upon me, but your commands are my delight.
-- Psalm 119:143
http://www.SearchGodsWord.org/desk/?query=Psalm+119:143
THOUGHT:
This verse is hard for me, because I know I am so blessed.
Trouble and distress do not seem to be a part of my vocabulary right now. But I know in many places in the world this statement is true of Christians who are under attack and live under the threat of persecution and possibly even death. But their love for God and their commitment to obedience is greater than Satan's threats because God's will is their delight.
PRAYER:
Majestic and holy God, I ask you to bless and liberate your church under persecution. But Father, I also ask that if physical deliverance is not what is coming, I pray for my brothers and sisters and I, that we may be found faithful in death before surrendering to compromise in life. Please strengthen our faith: we believe but help our unbelief. Empower us through your Spirit to be obedient: forgive us when we fall. Most of all, deliver us into your glorious presence without fault. I pray this in the name of Jesus, in whom I find my salvation and assurance. Amen

Tonite is our New Community service and we are celebrating communion…it’s always an amazing experience. I hope we get some new people coming. We being a seeker oriented church do not always get the participation at the believer level. We believe it IS a journey and that people will come when they are ready but it’s always cool to see someone TRY something they before would have thought NOT for them….I pray for promptings for them…I pray for them to be moved to come and in the coming see that it’s not about anything but our relationship with You through Your Son. I pray for all of us to be so focused on You that THAT love just oozes out of us….what a world it would be you know IF we could just live in YOUR LOVE……trusting that through THAT LOVE YOU ARE DOING all that needs to be done and we….well we’re just conduits….just broken vessels filled with YOUR love…..we all are broken I am finding out….none of us more or less than another…….just loved by this amazing God who wants us in relationship with Him……so simple we complicate it…

The point of the journey is to WANT what God wants MORE than anything….Larry Crabb….I guess Job really got that…at the end of Job God says…Job 42: 7 After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job's prayer.

Job definitely cried out to God and told Him he wasn’t happy and downright angry with all that had happened to him but he trusted….he revered God…he trusted God……and until he demanded for God to……..he had it right???
We can bitch and moan to God..... but at the heart we must KNOW that we can’t demand anything out of Him because of anything we may think…….we can shake the gates of heaven in emotion demanding Him to help us and until we try to justify what it is we want… we’re ok??
Because if I trusted You with everything…well then I’d be at the end of my journey and the point of the journey is that IT IS a journey and my prayer is to grow in that direction…..just like Job…..?????
And then Paul…..suffering, persecuting and persecuted Paul says…2 Corinthians 1: 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9 Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our
behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

Pretty much saying we are going to suffer….life in Christ,with Christ is NOT without suffering……but we can help those better BECAUSE we have suffered??
And isn’t it in the suffering that I DO cry out to God…..
And then…..18 But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No." 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." 20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. 21 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Whoa….sealed in ownership…..in sonship because of Christ…all of it too wonderful to know and beyond what I can any longer deny………..
2 Corinthians 2: 14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. 15 For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? 17 Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.

It’s a journey……I am in Christ becoming, can pray to become the fragrance of life…and doesn’t a flower give out it’s aroma best sometimes in the being crushed or wrinkled or being a broken vessel…it just ...it just starts making sense….light bulbs going off …firewor….just…..just….. …….be still and know that YOU are God……Psalm 46:10

And then this came today:
Daily Meditation for November 15, 2006
written by Henri Nouwen

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Embracing the Universe

Living a spiritual life makes our little, fearful hearts as wide as the universe, because the Spirit of Jesus dwelling within us embraces the whole of creation. Jesus is the Word, through whom the universe has been created. As Paul says: "In him were created all things in heaven and on
earth: everything visible and everything invisible - all things were created through him and for him - in him all things hold together" (Collosians 1:16-17). Therefore when Jesus lives within us through his Spirit, our hearts embrace not only all people but all of creation. Love casts out all fear and gathers in all that belongs to God.

Prayer, which is breathing with the Spirit of Jesus, leads us to this immense knowledge.

I do have faith and yet today…..my heart just hurts…..it’s in the hurting that I know He is……

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I get Heartlight and Henri Nouwen emailed to me every morning too...

:)

I think I was suppose to have this tattooed on my arm so I would not forget:

The point of the journey is to WANT what God wants MORE than anything….Larry Crabb

B