Daily Bible Reading

~ servantone1

JESUS SPEAKING

      ‘Now Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry.  Now when the tempter came to him, he said, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”  But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (Mathew 4: 1-4.)

INSPIRED THOUGHTS

      After being baptized, Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days, where Satan tried to tempt and control him through manipulation.  He called into question Jesus’ deity, and appealed to his bodily desires for food.  The Lord replied by quoting a single scripture, saying “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  There are bodily needs and there are spiritual needs; the stomach requires food, but the heart (spirit) requires the word of God.

      Some years ago, I had been ministering to a woman who was almost spiritually dead.  She couldn’t stop doing drugs but continued to profess her faith in God.  When asked if she was reading the bible every day, she replied, “No.”  Oddly enough, when told that daily bible reading would bring about a transformation in her life, she didn’t seem to believe what I was saying.  When asked what had occurred when she did practice daily bible reading in the past, she roughly replied, “I would read it for a while, and then my life would get better, and then I’d stop reading it, and I’d go out and revert back to my old ways.”  She, like many others had failed to understand the truth of what is revealed in this scripture; that the spirit needs to be fed with the bible every day; not two days a week, or one week out of a month, but daily.  The spirit controls the body, and when the sprit is starved, it becomes weak; permitting the fleshly desires take control.  Human beings are then guided by their immediate appetites for food, for sex, for drugs and alcohol, etc.  Regaining control simply requires an adequate dose of daily bible reading.

      Today, we all need to be feeding ourselves with the word of God.  How much time does it take to read a proverb, or to go through a portion of scripture?  Every day we spend a half an hour or more eating food; does opening the bible for ten minutes and consuming the word of God seem too difficult?  Give God’s word a chance in your life.  Make it a part of who you are, and you will find a strength to overcome and endure anything that may come your way.

      “Lord Heavenly Father, we come before You today and we ask and pray that You would give us a hunger for Your word.   Give us a desire to feed our spirits with Your divine power.  Provide for us new insights as we read, that we might be excited by every new truth we uncover.  We love you Father, we praise You, and we thank You; and we ask and pray all of these things, according to Your will, in Jesus Christ’s name.  Amen!”  God bless all of you.

Priorities

~ servantone1

JESUS SPEAKING

      Jesus had just finished speaking to a rich man who had come to ask him a question; “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  The rich man claimed he had been faithful in keeping each of the ten commandments; still, Jesus told him he lacked one thing; he needed to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor; only then could he come and follow The Lord.  This proposition was too much for the rich man to concede; causing him to leave under a cloud of sadness.  The scripture below is what followed.  Then Peter said, “See, we have left all and followed you.”  So Jesus said to them, “Assuredly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom  of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18: 29.)

INSPIRED THOUGHTS

      Peter draws attention to the fact that he and his fellow believers had left everything to follow Jesus.  Jesus responded by promising to replace what they had sacrificed, but in even greater abundance.  And yet there was one stipulation placed upon the rewards; just giving things up wasn’t enough; the sacrifices had to be made for the sake of the kingdom of God.  Jesus also identifies two kinds of rewards; those provided for them in the present time; during their lives upon the earth; and the rewards coming to them after their deaths (eternal life with God.)

      Jesus presents us with a list of things that people commonly put before God.  Some who were called, refused to sell their homes and go out into the ministry field with Jesus; their homes were the most important thing in their lives; for some it was their parents; for some, their brothers; for some, their wives, and for still others, it was their children.  Life is full of priorities; and everyone has something in the top spot; and whatever is in that top spot set’s the limitations on every other valuable thing.  Without fail, everyone serves the number one priority in their lives.  [I once asked a man who claimed to be a believe in Jesus, how much time he spent brushing his teeth in the morning and the evening.  Apparently, his daily tooth care comprised about 4-5 minutes.  Then I asked him how much time he spent reading the bible; his response was “0.”  I said, “Then it’s safe to say, that in your life, your teeth are more important than God?”  Without coercion, he recognized the truthfulness of my statement.  A person who spends a lifetime putting God off will, in the end, be put off by God.

      Today, in our daily lives, God must come first.  He has too become the number one priority, and everything must come in second.  Yes, sacrifices are necessary to make this happen.  Selling all our possessions is not necessarily what he is asking us to do; but he is asking us to put Him ahead of those possessions.  If a man puts wealth into the place where God should be, he has too sacrifice his love for money; choosing instead, to replace it with a love for God.  And yet, not everyone has placed wealth above God.  Many have placed family, loved ones, children, time, possessions, freedom, recreation, sleep, drugs or alcohol, a job, a car, a house, land, education, etc.  We can place God first if we are willing to release our grip on whatever it is we’re serving; only then can we truly serve Him.

  “Lord Heavenly Father, help us to sacrifice those things that are preventing us from serving you.  Give us the strength to place You first; and may we not be afraid to make changes in our lives.  Please be the number one priority in our hearts; be the thing we love the most.  We love You Father, and we look forward to Your coming Kingdom.  We praise You, we thank You, and we love You, and we ask all of these things, according to Your will, in Jesus Christ’s name.  Amen.”  God bless all of you!

An Eternal Foundation

~ servantone1

JESUS SPEAKING

   “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of  mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.  But everyone who hears these sayings of mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rains descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell.  And great was its fall” (Mathew 7: 24-27.)

INSPIRED THOUGHTS

   In this scripture, Jesus initially identifies one group of people: all those who hear his words.  He further divides this group into two distinct categories.  The division is based solely on the response to what the listeners have heard.  One group puts into practice what they have learned from Jesus, and the other group does not.  Those who take action are wise, but those who do not are foolish.  Both groups are likened to builders, who undertake the construction of a house.  One builds on solid rock (unmovable, sturdy, and permanent), and another group builds on sand (movable, shifting, and impermanent.)  Every human being is a building, and their actions and behaviors are the product of following a blueprint.  Some blueprints are terrible, some are wonderful, but only one blueprint is eternal.  The wind and the rains, and the floods that Jesus is talking about are the forces in life that attempt to break us down; to cause us to fail and give up hope.  Everyone suffers setbacks; everyone suffers trials, and those who don’t practice the teachings of the Lord crumble when those trials arise.

   Along the coast of Southern California, many individuals have constructed lavish mansions on the cliffs overlooking the ocean.  Every so often a mudslide or a sink hole will bring down a huge portion of the cliff upon which one of these houses stands.  If you watch the news, you will occasionally see a picture of a half of a house standing on a cliff; while the opposite half lays on the beach below; buried by the cliff that gave way.  Once in a while, a house built on a solid enough foundation will hang over the cliff, fully intact, with nothing but air flowing beneath it.  The same thing is true for those in this world who build their lives upon the teachings and sayings of Jesus Christ.  This world will eventually perish; it will undergo complete destruction; and yet whatever we have built in this life according to God’s design will not perish; but will instead, last forever.

   Today, much like our Lord, each one of us is a carpenter.  We are builders who have a blueprint to follow.  A life that takes shape because we follow the directions outlined for us by our eternal God, will never end.  The other life, the one that follows instructions given to us by anyone other than Jesus Christ, will be destroyed.  Eternal life is not obtained solely by what we have heard, but by what we have done as a result of what we have heard.  Obedience to God is how we build our lives upon an eternal foundation.  If we read His word and do His word, we will not pass away with this present world; but rather, we will spend an eternity with Him in paradise.        

“Heavenly Father, we come before You and we ask that You give us the strength to do what we have heard from Your Son.  Give us more opportunities to implement your directions for living; may we know deep pleasure and great satisfaction in completing the tasks that You have given us to do.  May we always strive to please you, and to be a blessing to all of those around us.  We love You Father, we praise You, and we thank You, and we ask and pray all of these things, according to Your will, in Jesus Christ’s name.  Amen.”  God bless all of you!