Day 103 with Nicky Gumbel

Psalm 45:1-9

Psalm 45:6 “Thy Throne , O God, is for ever and ever.”

Remember the everlasting authority of God. This Psalm reminds us that Jesus is the King, chosen by God. He has all power and authority in this life eternity.

Psalm 45:7 “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”

Anointed means chosen. Anytime you hear the word anointed remember that God chooses. God chose Jesus, anointed Him to be glorified through His death and resurrection. God has anointed us, his children. He chose you! What grace.

Luke 15:1-32

15:2: “And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.”

The religious crowd complained. Sound familiar? Often times, the religious crowd are the ones still complaining today. They complained that Jesus would receive sinners and break bread with them. They still do the same today. Most of the time, It seems that the church would rather the sinners stay away. Not necessarily in word, but in deed and in spirit. Lord, help us to love the sinners like you love them.

15:8 “Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?”

These verses give an analogy of the value of a lost sheep, the value of a lost coin, and the value of a lost son.

15:20 “his father ran, and fell on him, and kissed him (over and over).”

What love. I can relate to this love. I love my own son with this love. Yes. I will watch for him. I will RUN to him. I will kiss him over and over and over and over… So thankful that my father does the same for me.

Luke 15:24 For this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

The friends would rejoice over a sheep that came back home, but not a boy? The community would rejoice over a coin that was found, but not a son?

15:32 “for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”

Deuteronomy 19-20

This is part of Gods plan for justice. If you are involved in a fatal accident, there will be a city of security and protection. However, if you intentionally kill someone, you will be hunted down and you will repay what you have taken. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth… (What?! Ouch!) hand for hand, foot for foot, life for life. This news will spread, and people will fear (respect) the law, the consequences of their actions, and they will henceforth commit no more such evil among you.

Moses continues to give instruction to Israel about how to go into the land. How to battle against cities, and how to take the land for their own possession. Moses tells them who to kill and who to let live. Seems very brutal. God uses Israel as his instrument for judgment against the nations that have committed abomination against Him.

Take Away

Lord, Help me to love people like you do. Help me to see others through your eyes. Help me to show grace and kindness to the ones who deserve it least. Help me to value the souls of man, like you value the souls of man. I want to see people as worth more than my “sheep or silver”.

God, I want to obey your specific plan for my life. Help me to see your justice around me. Help me to see the difference between the political banter of justice, and your true justice. If my heart is out of alignment with your, please help me see from your perspective.

Today, I will look for opportunities to love your righteousness and to love those who are difficult to love. Please let your Spirit remind me of this throughout the day.

God is Always Good , GOD IS ALWAYS IN CONTROL

These are a few verses and thoughts on my mind lately.

Proverbs 16:9 “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.”

Proverbs 21:1 “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as he rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”

Have you ever felt like God wants to do something in your life but people keep on getting in the way? Other people keep messing up God’s plan for you? I have definitely had moments where I have struggled with that. Moments where Jesus and I knew what we were doing, we had a plan, but obviously all these other people who keep “getting in the way” are not as “in tune with Jesus” as I am! (wink)
These two Proverbs have reminded me recently that sometimes we start thinking that we are in control of the ship, sometimes we believe that other men (Presidents, Leaders, Bosses) are in control of our lives, changing the very course of our future at a whim.

Rest assured, God is in control. I have seen the masterful devising of men, I have seen hearts both good and bad in authority, but they are not in charge. God is always in control.

What an incredible comfort.

It is my responsibility to live by faith and trust that God is the one steering this ship and even the hearts of all them that lead.

Psalm 37:23  “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.”

My Apologies

I have not blogged in far too long. What is crazy is that I love to blog about what I have been learning, and I have been learning and thinking about so much over the last month, but I have not made the time to blog a priority. So I owe whoever reads this, maybe just myself, an apology. It is really neat to write down what you are learning, because you can always go back to this and remember what you have forgotten that you learned. 🙂 Well, here is something that God has been teaching me.

Silence and Solitude

I have been reading a book called: Spiritual Life: The Foundation for Preaching and Teaching for my Spiritual Formation class at Liberty University, and I have already learned so much. In this book, one of the greatest lessons that I learned was about Silence and Solitude. Westerhoff begins this section by asking a profound question: “Why are you not willing to spend one hour each day with the self that you inflict on others the rest of the day?” He asks this in the context of people never taking time to be alone, in quiet solitude, just to listen to their thoughts and communicate with God. Westerhoff explains that all throughout the word of God, we see moments where God speaks to someone in a time of silence. What is so ironic to me, is that WE NEVER EXPERIENCE SILENCE. At least I do not. I get up in the morning, take care of the kids, run around getting ready. Run to work, stay busy all day, and then at the end of the day there is always something busy to fill by time. In further detail, any spare moments of potential silence is taken up with social media like facebook, twitter, and instagram. I am not against these, but they are definitely time space fillers. It seems like my tendency is to check these things as soon as I wake up, all throughout the day, and then just before I go to sleep. When do I experience silence and solitude? If I do not experience this, then how do I expect to hear the still small voice of God in my life. I have been challenged to make time for silence in my day. It will be tough, but I keep going back to my time at the wilds as both a camper and counselor. I remember waking up in silence in my cabin, going down by the creek to do my devotions in silence, talking to God in silence, hearing God in silence. I have not made that kind of intimate time with God a priority in my life, and I know that it is vital to a growing relationship. I want to hear God, and I am willing to silence everything else to do so, if that is what it takes.

The ironic thing is that God decided to teach me this lesson while we have my two nephews staying with us, and the house has been anything but silent. This lesson is one that I am serious about, but it will not be easy this week! 🙂

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Some tips for establishing silence in your life:

1. Set Boundaries on time fillers / wasters. (facebook, twitter, instagram, etc.)

2. Schedule a time to be silent.

3. Set a Place where Silence is possible. (not on a city bus, or subway)

4. Turn off any possible distractions. (cell phone, ipod, ipad)

5. Let people around you know so that they can help protect that time for you.

A Walk Through The Bible… PART 1

I have often been bothered by Sunday School. In my experience growing up, there were many different churches that I was a part of, both big and small, where the Sunday School program was simply a mini church service before the real church service. Frankly, I never understood the purpose of it. I did not appreciate getting up extra early to attend a lower quality and less organized mini church service where we sing, take an offering, go over announcements, and listen to a message, before the “real” main service where we did the same thing again. In fact, as I try to remember the lessons that I learned in Sunday School growing up, I realized that a lot of time was wasted.

In my opinion, Sunday School should exist for one main reason: DISCIPLESHIP

Sunday School should be a time and a place to LEARN about Gods word. Not necessarily to be preached to, the pastor is already going to take care of that, but it is an opportunity to teach our Biblically illiterate world about the Bible. Hence the name: Sunday School.

At Suncoast Youth Group we take this seriously, in fact, we are methodically walking through every book of the Bible memorizing a concise summary about each book. Each Sunday morning we fellowship for a bit, and then we go through the books of the Bible. Many have asked about our list of books and the summaries we have chosen. I have basically read John Phillips commentary and chosen something very similar to his summary. I would never claim that these are comprehensive summaries, but they are definitely more thorough than most people in our church would know. Most of our teenagers are learning more about Gods word each Sunday than I knew even after four years of Bible College, and we do it in a relevant, fun, and exciting method of learning. I am so proud of our teenagers, and I am thankful that they are so diligently learning about God’s word!

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Genesis: Creation, Fall, Flood, Babel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph

Exodus: Getting God’s people out of Egypt

Leviticus: Getting Egypt out of God’s people

Numbers: Census, Complaining, Change

Deuteronomy: Moses Preaches: Backwards look, Inwards look, Forward look, Upward look

Joshua: Authority Change, Battle, Conquer, Divide

Judges: Judges

Ruth: Kinsman Redeemer / a Romance between Ruth and Boaz

1st & 2nd Samuel: Eli, Samuel, GIVE US A KING, Saul, David

1st & 2nd Kings: One nation divided into Israel (North) / Judah (South)

1st & 2nd Chronicles: A Parallel to I and II Kings but from Gods perspective

Ezra: The Second Exodus

Nehemiah: Gods people build a wall

Esther: Esther, Mordecai, Haman, Gallows

Job: He Had it all, Lost it all, Gave God the Glory, Got it all back

Psalms: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

Proverbs: Practical Wisdom for all ages, comparing the wise and the foolish

Ecclesiastes: vanity of vanities: All is vanity / He had it all, and it was not worth it.

The greatest thing about this study, is that the teenagers did not just memorize a list of information, but they use the list of information to explain the story of the entire book in their own words. I tell our teenagers that they know more about the Bible than their parents do. Is that the case in your home? Get studying Gods word! Sunday School teachers? Let’s not waste time!