December 28, 2024 -- Philippians 1:1 -- Suggestion for a New Year's Resolution

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:
Philippians 1:1 ESV
 
The New Year is just around the corner. Perhaps you’ve decided to ditch New Year’s resolutions. Or maybe, you are, right now, considering whether or not to make any. Let me make a bold suggestion: decide that this year you’ll memorize Scripture—methodically and intentionally working through passages of the Bible.
 
Why? Here are a few reasons:

• “I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You” Psalms 119:11. The Word of God directs your living and warns you against the sins that are crouching nearby ready to pounce on you.

• When Jesus was tempted by Satan, He quoted Scripture. So that is a pattern for us to follow as well in defeating the attacks of the enemy.

• What else do you use to fill up time? Dead scrolling through various media platforms? Watching endless bad movies? Gaming? As Christians memorize, they can declare, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth” Psalm 119:103

Late in November I spoke to a friend about my decision to memorize Scripture. I was going to start with Philippians. He decided to do so with me. (Even as I write this, I am amazed and humbled, and thankful for his reply). TBH, he is already done Philippians, and I am struggling to master the first two chapters. What is the point? I am sixty verses further along than if I hadn’t started at all. And he has learned of his capacity to store up Scripture in his heart!  I find that these passages, which I must review, a lot, have now taken hold of my heart. At various times throughout the day I will be thinking about them, my mind is working on memorizing and I see the inestimable value of the Bible as it applies to daily life.
 
If you were to memorize about 5 verses a day, well then, in 5 years you’d have memorized the whole New Testament. If you memorize a verse a day, you’d be way farther ahead in your memorization of Scripture than you are now. If you memorize a verse or two a week, you’ll train your brain for memorization. It is not a contest. Memorizing is a wonderful way to know God better; His word is the gateway to knowing Him.
 
The passage for today reminds believers that they are saints through the accomplished work of Jesus Christ. Paul will be addressing some serious issues among the people of Philippi, but he does so aware that their righteousness is not their own but is anchored in Jesus. He is our source of unity. His Spirit fills us so that we are not content to wallow in our sins, but because of His salvation it is our ardent desire to break free and walk in the fullness of life which is already ours in Christ Jesus, and this to the glory and praise of God.
 
Father in heaven, thank You for the past year with all its joys and sorrows, its lessons and losses. All that has happened, happens today, and will happen in 2025 take place under Your watchful, Fatherly care. Blessed be Your Name. A New Year is about to begin, guide Your people through it by Your Spirit so that Jesus Christ will be enthroned in our hearts. Direct us by Your Spirit so that He will work in us both to will and to work for Your good pleasure. Amen.

P.S. that final sentence of prayer is from Philippians 2:13, another benefit of memorizing Scripture is that it begins to influence your prayer life.
 
https://youtu.be/-44GH3NhdIA?si=DqiDcDOwAtLMr2tF I Asked the Lord that I Might Grow
 

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December 26, 2024 -- Matthew 6:9-15 -- Make your list and check it twice

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread,
12 and forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 6:9-15 ESV
 
The words of the Lord’s Prayer are so familiar. People can usually recite it unison, even if they have not darkened the doorway of a church for a very long time. When people are about to pray it together, the only questions are: is this prayed in the King James version with Old English; are we praying debts and debtors or trespasses and trespassed against us?
 
Why consider this prayer? Step 8 requires the addict, the Christian seeking to live his life according to the Bible, to clear his slate of all offenses and wrongdoing which begins this way, “I make a list of all the people I have harmed and become willing to make amends” (Overcomers Workbook, page 138). The gathering of names happens simultaneously with prayers seeking to yield one’s heart to God so that once the list is made the heart is submitted to God. Then one will be filled with holy courage to go through the next step of meeting with others and making amends.
 
The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most basic teachings, one of the most familiar, and one Jesus’s teachings which are easiest to ignore. Rather than humbly confess, many Christians fall back on their so-called rights or argue about all the ways in which others have hurt them rather than looking to Jesus through Whom all our offenses have been punished. He bore the punishment for our wrongdoings upon His Person at the cross. He is our peace. He is our reconciliation.
 
When King David slept with the wife of his friend Uriah, one of the best Generals, then when Bathsheba was found to be pregnant by David, and David had Uriah killed, to whom did David cry out for forgiveness? It was to God. First and foremost, David confessed his sin to God the Holy One. Though David had sinned against Uriah, sinned against Bathsheba, sinned against the servant (who when David spied her on the roof and lusted after her that brave faithful servant said, “isn’t that Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite”? II Samuel 11:3 ESV). David sinned against his wives. David sinned against his nation, the people for whom he was supposed to be a leader in virtue and righteousness. Yet, to whom did he confess? David, when confronted with his sin cried out: “Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment” Psalm 51:4 ESV.
All our sins, wrongdoing, inaction at the times we know the good we should do and don’t do it, or our incomplete doing of the good we know we ought to be doing, all moral failure, all infidelity, all of it is first committed against the great, majestic, holiness of God. Sin is a sign of the corruption that still grips the heart of Christians.
 
It is precisely why Paul wrote “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God Who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” Philippians 2:12b-13a. When the totality of God’s gracious forgiveness which has been granted to you in Jesus Christ masters your mind and humbles your heart, you are then prepared to meekly ask the forgiveness of the people you’ve offended. It is important to note the meek are not doormats. Those who are meek have by the Spirit’s power one of the attributes of Jesus, Who described Himself as meek. That is, having great power, but cultivating gracious kindness towards others so that they are not bowled over by power but won over by mercy.
 
Whether or not the other person forgives you ultimately is not the point. You are prepared to make amends. You have released the anger, dug up the root of bitterness and let go of your right to exact revenge. You are prepared to let God’s cleansing forgiveness forged in you by His Spirit purify you. So when you actively begin making amends the person or people to whom you are preparing to make amends can either forgiven or not forgive you, you have yielded yourself to God and acted according to His commands. In fact, by doing this, what you are praying in the Lord’s Prayer, that most basic teaching, you are seeking to put into practice.
 
Father in heaven I confess my prideful will needs to be conquered by Your salvation which Your Spirit is still working out in every area of my life. Spirit of God conquer my will and put steel in my spine so that with the courage of Christ I will not be at all ashamed in my fellowship with Jesus nor in my interactions with others. Spirit work out the Father’s will and good pleasure in me so that in obedience to Jesus I will, as far as it depends on me, live at peace with everyone. Applying in every situation the reconciling peace granted through Jesus Christ, on the basis of Whose work I pray.  Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/px-eU1QjQiU?si=Y4ceDaIEssiHnkEi Psalm 51 Shane and Shane
 

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December 24, 2024 -- Romans 12:17-21 -- Unlocking past offenses and opening up to forgiveness

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus! 

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:17-21 ESV
 
In his landmark book Respectable Sins, author Jerry Bridges notes there are sins among Christians which do not receive the urgent attention that they must have. For example, discontentment, or anger, or thanklessness and so on. It is a reminder that sin is not considered as hideous and wicked as it ought to be among the people of God. Polite Christians who regularly fill the pews Sunday after Sunday are horrified by murder, or by great acts of violence, but seem to have come to terms with “lesser” sins.
 
The passage today, yes, it is the same one as was studied yesterday, points out the fact that sin is evil. The acts of word, thought and deed do violence to the holiness of God. The gauge of sinfulness is not how much it did, or did not, affect the people around us, the true measure of sin is how offensive it is to the holiness of the Living God. The trespasses regularly committed and constant inclination to choose wrong rather than clinging to what is right are evidence of how shriveled our souls truly are. These are signs that the Spirit has much work to do to bring believers into the fullness of the life that is ours in Christ.
 
I put to you one area of great neglect is that of making amends. Where former offenses and words and actions have negatively affected others, rather than making them right, there is a great tendency to act as if nothing has ever happened. People are civil, good enough. But all too often what is missing from the community of believers is the evidence of the newness of life that is ours in Christ by which the Spirit prompts believers to be reconciled in every case of offense.
Excuses are often made. “It’d be opening a can of worms and right now things are good”. Or “Let sleeping dogs lie”. The fact is, true righteousness requires that, as far as possible, as much as it depends on you, live at peace with others. Where the Spirit of God has led you to know there is brokenness within relationship, person to person, or family to family, or individual to church, or leadership resentments, such lingering unrepaired relationships sour worship, hinder church growth, and worst of all, grieve the heart of God our Father.
 
First things first. Ask the Spirit of God to give you a heart that is right before God, one that is humble and willing to examine the person or people, or perhaps lists of people, to whom you need to make amends. Starting there will likely put a halt to allowing “respectable sins” which linger among the people of God from continuing to grow and bear bitter fruit.
 
The glorious Good News of Christmas is that God, in full compassion and mercy, sent His Son Jesus to reconcile a people to Himself who in every possible, any conceivable, every wicked way have offended and violated His holy majesty. Jesus stepped into the messes humanity made, makes and will make, and brought reconciliation is every instance of offense against God. There is full hope, true and lasting forgiveness made possible by Jesus’s incarnation. Reconciliation between God and people. Reconciliation between people among themselves. Reconciliation even within the quiet of one’s own heart, where the storms of life too often result in horrible self-talk and painful alienation from God. Jesus’s beautiful title, related to today’s study is: “Prince of peace”.
 
Father in heaven, I confess this is a huge area of my life that I really don’t want to look at. I’d rather let bygones be bygones. All the while I admit to You from the darkest corners of my own heart, that I nurse resentments against others while expecting them to just drop all accusations and wrongs they hold against me. What a confused and helpless people we really are. Thank You, Father in heaven, that You have through Jesus Christ overcome every evil, so that it was punished to the fullest extent on the Person of Your Beloved Son. Thank You, Father, that through Jesus we can be fully reconciled to You and to one another. Spirit of God, break down every stubborn wall of resistance and every argument we make against the command to be make peace in every case of offense. Prince of peace, by Your Spirit, through the powerful Word, rule in our hearts this day. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/Pr2RG-xR2lA?si=Yax_leUPqW8MmOsN “Prince of Peace”
 

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December 23, 2024 -- Romans 12:17-21 -- Making Amends

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:17-21 ESV
 
Those who are following the Overcomers material now move from asking God to place positive character traits them to Step 8. Here the commitment reads as follows: “I make a list of all the people I have harmed and become willing to make amends” (Overcomers Workbook, page 135). Now look at the passage from Romans once again. Now look Step 8 (yes, I’ll wait, just do it).
 
As those who are transformed in Christ, moved from being bent on evil and twisted by the effects of it, your new life so thoroughly transforms your outlook that it becomes your urgent desire for others to experience the same freedom in Christ you now have. The motivation for making amends is directly linked to your life in Jesus Christ. The Spirit places in you positive character traits, renewing your heart and mind so that you are more like Christ. As the people belonging to Jesus, you long for others to know the freedom and peace you have as a committed follower of Jesus.
 
Now, the Spirit will bring to mind people you have not thought of in a long time. People who you’ve actively tried to avoid. People who wounded you. People who you wounded. People you robbed. People you cheated to get away with your addiction. People who you betrayed as you allowed sin to reign in your mortal bodies. It will be overwhelming. It is so hard to face the mountains of hurt you have caused others in your life. It is much easier to nurse your own bitterness and resentment. To do so is to let the new life that is yours in Christ shrivel up. Do not go there.
 
Trust first, that God has placed in you new character traits. He is making you more and more like Himself because He has adopted you as His beloved child. Second, He has, through the reconciling work of Jesus, completely forgiven you. He remembers all your sins. He knows more of them than you’ve ever been able to remember. Sins you committed. Good you meant to do and left undone. Doing what is good, while leaving unattended that which is best. Letting your life be ruled by your feelings rather than what He commands. Yet God has chosen to set aside the remembrance of all your sins in view of Christ, upon Whose person He has punished them.
 
Third, in view of His great forgiving love, you are now moved by the goodness of God to help others find the freedom that comes through the Gospel of peace. You are prepared to face their anger, their bitter “what took you so long” sarcastic reproaches, their disappointment. Why? Because the way forward will be freedom that can only be found in complete obedience to Jesus. That is what Romans 12 commands and Step 8 invites you to do.
 
Making this list does not mean you have to drop everything and start right now in making amends. Writing down the names of people you’ve harmed will lead you to the humble awareness that you have caused a lot of damage. You will realize how freely, how perfectly and how fully God has forgiven you. He does not keep a list of your sins. By making such you will likely find the Spirit of God regularly leading you to pray.  You will know your ability to move forward in this Step can only be achieved through the great and gracious power of God. That is the point.
 
 
Father in heaven, thank You for the full, great and free forgiveness You have granted me through Jesus Christ. Help me to make a list of people I’ve harmed. As I do so, send Your powerful, gracious Spirit to hold me together. To remind me of Your past graciousness which leads me to this present moment of desiring to extend Your grace and love to others in my life. Keep me in the moment, so that I don’t get ahead of myself, but slowly, deliberately and conscientiously, I allow You to work through this process for the greater healing in my relationship with You, with others and even within my own mind and heart. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/SHd2zQQsHUw?si=UjEAZsyRReSCUnr1 O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
 

Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.

December 21, 2024 -- Philippians 1:27-30 -- How do you conduct yourself when suffering?

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. 29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, 30 engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
Philippians 1:27-30 ESV
 
Paul is writing to the Philippians from his prison cell. He is encouraging the people of this local congregation to do what he is modeling for them, namely, not to be frightened in anything by their opponents. Why? Standing steadfast in the faith while facing trials and temptations and tests is a clear sign to those who oppress you, persecute you and would seek to bring you down that your strength is found in Jesus Christ. You follow Jesus not only when things are going well for you; no! You follow Jesus Christ when your life is in the vice-grip of struggle and sorrow because you know that believing in Jesus Christ is linked to suffering.
 
Face it, life is suffering. It can be poor health. Unmet expectations in your family life. The unexpected death of a loved one. Financial hardships. Difficulties with your peers. Those are standard. But add to this being a Christian as you face standard hardships. You know your burdens increase because people are watching you as you walk through those difficult times. They’re waiting to see if you really are a follower of King Jesus through it all, or if your faith is hollow, empty words.
 
Notice how suffering has two directions. Your enemies who see you enduring for the sake of Jesus Christ are warned that their judgment is sure if they do not repent and believe in Him. That is one direction of good faithful suffering. Second, you endure suffering and find that all you believe about Jesus is true. That is the other direction, your head knowledge becomes deeper understanding, and your own heart is strengthened, and faith grows.
 
It is important to add, what you do publicly and what you do in private must also be consistent. How you conduct yourself through good times must be consistent with your pattern of life in suffering.  Your manner of life, your outlook and your confidence in Jesus, must not waver. Christ Your King is equipping you for fullness of life in Him every minute of every day—He has granted you His Spirit. The promised Helper Who lives in you. Who directs you in the word. Who reminds you that all the promises of God are: “Yes” and “Amen” through Jesus Christ, Who is the Faithful Witness. Your ability to endure is itself a gift of God as you submit yourself to His will.
 
O LORD GOD, when Thou givest Thy servants to endeavour any great matter, grant us also to know that it is not the beginning but the continuing of the same until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth the true glory; through Him that for the finishing of Thy work laid down His life, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Prayer of Sir Francis Drake, April 19, 1587; Divine Service Book for the Armed Forces, 1950

https://youtu.be/9zGbdg1YCYY?si=4SYG2-rNFWtFIdTz “Afflicted Saint, to Christ Draw Near”
 

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December 20, 2024 -- Galatians 6:1-3 -- Temptations and victory in Jesus

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Galatians 6:1-3
 
In the last two studies focussed trials and tests. Today it is on temptations and the victory that is yours through Christ. Temptations are different from trials (which are common to all people) and tests (which are administered by God for the refining of faithfulness) because these are Satan’s devices designed to lure you away from God.
 
Notice how contagious temptations are. You are cautioned, your desire to help someone who has been caught, or overtaken, or captured by a sin, can be the exact point where you become tempted. Distracted by the sin the other struggles against, you yourself can become tempted to sin. Here is an example of this. Police do a drug bust and find lots of drugs and money. The work of police is to enforce the laws of the land and to bring criminals to justice, where, if the system is functioning well, those caught in sin are rehabilitated. However, a police officer in the pursuit of duty might be tempted by the wads of cash and take some. What was purposeful and proper work becoming a place of great temptation and becoming in the sin being fought against.
 
You who are in Christ Jesus are already God’s beloved sons and daughters. The Devil, unable to mount an assault against heaven, will then seek to hurt and wound God’s image-bearers. He will strike out at the Christians he can reach as his way of getting at God. The Bible describes you as the “apple of God’s eye” (Psalm 17:8). You are precious to God, as precious as eyes which humans instinctively and reflexively guard. The only way for temptations to overtake you is to go, eyes wide open, after them. Reflexively stepping back if the person you seek to help is refusing to repent and turn to God.
 
The passage gives several warnings.

• First, there is a warning against pride. While helping others, if you think you are impervious to the same temptations, you will find yourself to be sadly mistaken and will perhaps wind up falling to the same temptations.

• Second, the law of Christ is given not to spoil your fun or make life burdensome. The law of God is the pathway of a fruitful life, one filled with holy adventure and fullness of life lived according to the purpose of God. Temptations from Satan are like those in Eden, where the Devil makes you question the goodness of God and His commandments.

• Third, the restoration of the fallen one must be carried out in a spirit of gentleness. Earlier, in Galatians 5, Paul wrote about the fruit of the Spirit. Gentleness is a character trait of the Holy Spirit, given to men and women who are led by the Spirit and fight spiritual battles in prayer and as the Word directs.

• Fourth, do not isolate yourself. When you are tempted and struggling against sin, go and find fellow Christians and admit your temptations, your moral failures and your sin so that you can be restored. This is an allusion to “whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire” Proverbs 18:1; the more you isolate yourself, the more you will be propelled into the grip of temptation.

Finally, dear brothers and sisters, know it is the purpose of God to lead His children in sanctification—that is, into increasing holiness by the work of the Spirit. Jesus’s work at the cross is the only act of supererogation (not only fulling the whole requirements of the law but actually superseding it so as to make the grace and blessings of God available to others). When you need His forgiveness and blessing, in the strength of the Spirit fight against your own sinfulness and cry out to Jesus. He will reconcile the remorseful to the Father. He will lead you deeper into the blessedness of being a beloved son or daughter of God. Sin loses its appeal in His presence. In His presence there is fullness of joy.
 
Jesus, guard me by Your Spirit so that I will be faithful in my obedient walk with You. When I am confronted with fellow Christians who have become entangled in sin, keep me humble and by Your Spirit equip me to be a holy, well-protected ambassador of Jesus to bring the one entangled in sin to your throne of grace and mercy. Father in heaven, thank You that in Your presence is fullness of joy. The Devil would refute that and tempt me to self-pity and isolation. Dear Father in heaven, break through the hissing whispers of the enemy so that I will hear Your voice in Scripture and know it is You Who call Your beloved children to faithfulness and fullness of life that is rich with adventure and blessing through Jesus. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/A5Ka5YlK6wc?si=IEGMzAnNgshVM6sL Joy, Joy —David Phelps
 
 

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December 19, 2024 -- II Corinthians 12:7-9 -- A test is different than a trial

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
II Corinthians 12:7-9 ESV
 
What glorious visions and instructions Paul must have received from the Lord Jesus Christ. Earlier in the chapter he described being caught up into heaven where he saw visions and received instructions too wonderful to tell. Note his incredible honesty here. Those visions could have become a source of boasting and something which would feed his conceit. Conceit is vanity or self-love. However, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His great purposes and for the strengthening of the man Paul, but also for the good of the men he mentored and the various gatherings of people he served, allowed Paul to face a difficult test.
 
The nature of the test is not described. The point is that a Christian man or woman will realize there are circumstances, people, events and so on which God has uniquely suited to test you for faithfulness to Him. The “thorn in the flesh” is not this or that single thing that will be the same for all people. No. Tests are events or circumstances that any believer, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, will experience in his own life and as he experiences it the believer will understand what is happening is God’s refining work. It is a test for faithfulness.
 
Note that Jesus has Satan on a leash. The Devil harassed Paul, and it must have been terrible and hard, but the Devil can not go further in harming Paul. Why was this trial allowed? Paul was incredibly gifted. An evangelist winning souls for Christ. A mentor. A teacher. A gifted Old Testament scholar. A healer. Used mightily by the Holy Spirit to write so many books of the New Testament. Paul, by his own confession, was given to conceit. What the Devil intended for evil, to break Paul down, God was using for good, to keep Paul from conceit.
 
But even more than this, by this test, Paul was driven to prayer. The man who is always praying for others, now had to pour out his heart to God in urgent, longing prayers for himself. He was taught how much he himself needed God for every moment of his life. This test for faithfulness is “an open book test”. Those were my favorite in school. You’d have an exam in front of you, but you could use the textbook of the class to drill down and give answers. Paul had the whole Old Testament as his open book as he endured this testing. He knew Abraham had been tested for faithfulness. He knew David’s running from King Saul was a test for faithfulness. God never abandons His own. He will, however, refine them, shape the, and prepare them for His desired ends: that His people grow in holiness. When you experience testing, go to the Bible. Read.
 
A test like what Paul endured is different than a trial. Trials are common to all people. It is what happens when life happens. You are in a rush and you get a flat tire. You are planning a wonderful outdoor event, and unexpectedly it rains. These are things everyone experiences. A test is sent by God, tailored by God, so that the believer is transformed. These are for Christians to grow. For Christians, who like Paul, learn to pray more deeply, seek God more humbly.
Tests reveal character flaws. Tests reveals where one is self-reliant rather than wholly God dependent. Tests show how much or how little one is given to prayer. Tests chisel away sinful patterns and traits. Tests show the limitless grace and mercy and love of God.
Let me explain. If you let your child do whatever he wants, there is a problem. What if he is playing near the street and is unaware of the dangers of stepping into traffic? What if your child is playing in the shallow waters in an area where there is a strong undertow? Wouldn’t you warn your child? Yank him out of danger? The tests of God are his perfect means of boxing Christians in so that they learn of greater dangers that are lurking nearby, while keeping them from ultimate destruction.
 
Paul realized his weakness is the point of greatest receptivity to the power, love, and blessings of God. He boasts in his weakness because that is the very place he is most open to all that God is teaching Him. He is most aware of the power of Jesus Christ. he realized the Spirit of God is present, enabling him to pray, planting in him positive character qualities. Tests are also training grounds by which the Father, through the help of the Spirit within, prepare the believer for greater opportunities for obedience and service to Jesus. It is a preparation for a promotion in grace and service.
 
Father in heaven thank You for the rich salvation that is already mine in Jesus Christ. Thank You for bringing me into Your family through Jesus work of salvation. More than this even, thank You for the fact that Your people will be brought to completion and perfection. When I am presented with a test, direct Your Spirit to sustain me, and by this testing cause me to receive positive character qualities and by this to grow deeper in faith and obedience to Jesus. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/9zGbdg1YCYY?si=HPpTevfyumbUwU0G “Afflicted Saint, to Christ Draw Near”
 

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December 17, 2024 -- Psalm 59:16-17 -- When trials come, and oh boy, they will...

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

But I will sing of your strength;
    I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.
For you have been to me a fortress
    and a refuge in the day of my distress.
17 O my Strength, I will sing praises to you,
    for you, O God, are my fortress,
    the God who shows me steadfast love.
Psalm 59:16-17 ESV
 
The word but is a coordinating conjunction. It is a word that signals there is a contrast in what follows from what was presented before it. The previous verses spelled out the trials of the man of God who was faced with many enemies. These enemies hated him because of his love and devotion to the LORD of Hosts—that is, the God Who is in charge of heaven and earth and angel armies.
 
Trials are common to all people. Pouring rain on your wedding day. Missing connecting flight and getting stranded at an airport. A postal strike that delays the cheque you were expecting so that you can’t afford something you need. The Psalmist is leading the child of God in the proper response to the trials of life. It is what Step 7 confesses: “I humbly ask God to place healthy character qualities in me” (Overcomers Workbook, page 123).
 
Rather than venting his anger and expressing fury, the Psalmist turns to God. He chooses to sing to God, in fact the phrase “I will sing” is repeated and made emphatic “I will sing aloud”. In effect he is asking God to let the voice of praise to drown out the discontent and frustration which might lead to sin. God is the fortress of His people. Though the enemies rage and the troubles of life pelt the walls of this refuge, His people are safe within His protection.
 
The promise is confirmed in Jesus Christ, “I know My Own and My Own know Me” (John 10:14a). A little bit later Jesus notes He gives His followers eternal life, and His Father has given these people to Jesus. No one and nothing can snatch the people of God from the Father’s hand (cf: John 10:27-30).
 
A few lessons can be drawn from this.

• Trials are common to all people. God-haters and God-lovers will both alike have trials in their lives.

• Christians realize these common-to-all-people trials are used by God the Father to draw His people closer to Himself.

• How you handle such trials might lead others to see the impact Jesus has on your life. So the potentially frustrating trial become instead a point for witness to the goodness of God.

• Trials open your heart to God the Father. When trials come, and they will come, you cry out to God, asking Him to refine your character and by His Spirit give you all you need to endure them and become more like Jesus.

 
Teach me, Father in heaven, to receive and implement in my life
the teaching of the psalmist, so that in every trial I would cry out:
But I will sing of your strength;
    I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.
For you have been to me a fortress
    and a refuge in the day of my distress.
O my Strength, I will sing praises to you,
    for you, O God, are my fortress,
    the God who shows me steadfast love. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/DV-V4xZMQx0?si=2RgzQ7iorA987RjC Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
 
 

Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.

December 16, 2024 -- Mark 6:30-34 -- Facing triggering troubles and refining fires

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.
Mark 6:30-34 ESV
 
What triggers you? Say life is going on as usual and a few things happen all at once and you get furious. Or you get overwhelmed, and you justify a quick return to sin. You shop to make yourself feel good (with money you don’t have); or you gamble for the thrill of it and crash afterwards. You know your pattern of self-soothing wrong doing. Why mention this?
 
I urge you to ponder Jesus and His life. Remember He is truly human and truly divine. He walked this earth as a man and never once sinned in thought, word, or deed. Now consider this triggering time. If you have a couple of minutes, read Mark 6:14-44. Jesus had sent out His apostles two by two to prepare the way for His arrival at various towns. His dear cousin John, having been imprisoned, was killed by Herod, and the news just reached him. As the news reached Him, His disciples returned, filled with stories they wanted to share. No doubt He was ready to grieve. The passage noted Jesus was ready to go to a desolate place. That is shorthand for a place away and a place for intimate prayer before His Father in heaven. He didn't have time to eat. Meanwhile, the crowds ran towards Jesus to be taught, healed, and to see the spectacle that Jesus is. Then these crowds, staying long, were hungry and needed to be fed. The disciples were unsure what to do. They pressed Jesus to find a solution. The point in all of this? Jesus could have been triggered. At this time, humanly speaking exhausted, overwhelmed, tired, grieving, perhaps tempted to be frustrated with His disciples’ lack of faith and annoyed by the helplessness of the crowds demanding so much of Him.
 
Jesus though completely, fully human, that is, as human as you are and I am, never sinned. All His grief, all potential frustration, all temptation to an angry outburst, all exasperation with the hapless disciples knocking about and any other emotions, which if left unchecked would be a highway to sinful action, all of these He willingly rejected that He would, as the passage notes, have compassion on the people and serve them.
 
Step 7 requires the Christian to pray (daily, or as many times a day as is needed!) “I humbly ask God to place healthy character qualities in me” (Overcomers Workbook, page 124). The same Spirit given to Jesus in His humanity is the Spirit Who by command of the Father and the Son fills you. Life in Christ is possible because His Spirit is the connecting lifeline Who makes living for Jesus possible. Your triggers and flashpoints, your daily potential frustrations and unexpectedly overwhelming situations are all be used as teaching moments where the Spirit of God shows You the pathway of obedience to Jesus, so that the fruit of righteousness is exhibited to the people around you, who then will see: Jesus is real. They’ll be questioning: “How can you go through all you’re going through and still be sane?”
 
Answer: It is the fullness of life that is mine in Christ. It is the Spirit of God Who is using every circumstance of my life, good and bad, hard and sad, to produce in me the purity of faith that is like pure gold having been made pure by the refining process of trials. The goal of God is not your comfort. God’s purpose is to make you holy, as He is holy. Such holiness enables the follower of Jesus to bring honour to God in every circumstance of life and has the added benefit of bringing the believer to the place of joy knowing that whatever trial you are going through is being used by God the Father to perfect you.
 
Father in heaven, I confess how much and how greatly I fear refining trials. I just want to pull away when circumstances are too hard, go somewhere and nurse my wounds. Or worse, do whatever I think will make me feel better, but will be worse for me than ever. I need You. Please keep me from sliding back into old ways and wicked patterns. Father of all mercies, place the fruit of the Spirit in me so that I can patiently endure all that is happening with the complete, unshakeable confidence that I am being refined like gold, made pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/qyUPz6_TciY?si=FrJ2WewT2qu3Iwao “Though You Slay Me” Shane and Shane
 

Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.

December 15, 2024 -- Proverbs 14:13 -- Question: what kind of fruit is your life bearing?

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

The backslider in heart will be filled with the fruit of his ways,
a good man will be filled with the fruit of his ways.
Proverbs 14:13 ESV
 
When a Christian desires to follows Jesus Christ, that new desire is evidence that the Spirit of God has taken hold of the heart and is giving new impulses which are in keeping with the new life that comes through the Gospel. Jesus was approached by the Rich Young Ruler who began his question by addressing Jesus as “Good Teacher”. Jesus stopped him right there observing, “No one is good except God alone” (Luke 18:18-19 ESV).  Ah, do you see the problem? Old Testament and New Testament no man or woman or child is good.  Then, how can a good man be filled with the fruit of his good ways?
 
The point Jesus is making is first, He is God. He is fully human and by the work of the Spirit in His humanity He walks in perfect harmony with the will of His Father in heaven. He is good. Second, He is the source of good. If one is not in step with Jesus, one can’t be good. In the Old Testament, sacrifices pointed to the goodness of God which is given through Jesus Christ. He would be One sacrifice to take away sinners’ guilt and the punishment they deserve. Third, it is by faith in God that the goodness of Christ is applied to the life of the believer and kept in the believer by the Holy Spirit. Finally, if the Rich Young Ruler were really interested in the goodness of Jesus, He would have  acknowledged Jesus's power to give him true joy, and in view of that joy left his love of money and replaced it with a love for Jesus, the treasure greater than any evaluation or ability to price.
 
As believers follow Jesus Christ, their lives are transformed. They are granted the righteousness of Jesus. The old life with its patterns of sin and former willing cooperation with evil are being dismantled. For this reason, those who find victory in Jesus Christ pray “I humbly ask God to place healthy character qualities in me” (Step 7, Overcomers Workbook, page 123). It is a heartfelt admission there is no good in me that is “naturally occurring”. Any good found in me must find its source in my union with Jesus Christ—the Captain of Salvation. The struggle is real. It is constant. The Devil hates Jesus, but unable to attack Jesus directly, seeks to tear at and kill those who are becoming more and more like Jesus.
 
The Bible is filled with examples and illustrations of the “fruit” that is granted to believers. For example, there is the fruit of righteousness (Philippians 1:11). There is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). There are examples of bitter fruits as well, for those who refuse to walk with God. Those who know God exists, but refuse to follow Him, are clearly identified by the root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit (Deuteronomy 29:18). Face it, your life will always bear fruit, clear evidence of Who or what you are following. Those who run with the Devil bear fruits like: maliciousness, attitudes of disobedience to parents or authorities, gossip, bitterness, murderous thoughts and so on. Those who follow Jesus Christ will bear good fruit, evidence of the life of Jesus in Whom they are united to God and to other believers.
 
Father in heaven, I humbly ask You to remove from me the root of bitterness. Renew in me a desire to know Jesus and follow Him. By Your Spirit’s presence, plant in me the goodness of Jesus so that my life will bear good fruit to the praise and glory of God.  Amen.

https://youtu.be/PNww8F6G9U8?si=sZF4B8KAA3NmgTnL
Make My Life a  Prayer to You

Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.

December 13, 2024 -- Proverbs 13:6 -- Sin overthrows the wicked, righteousness guards the believer

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless,
but sin overthrows the wicked.
Proverbs 13:6 ESV
 
What does sin do? Sin twists the sinner, contorting him to fit its malicious, hell-sent purposes. Acting in step with what is immoral or wrong or contrary to the will of God works death in the one who walks that way. It is a silent killer. Its effects aren’t easily detected early on, but the cumulative layers of evildoing will one day hit like a widow-maker heart attack.
 
Righteousness is a word that is repeated so often in the Bible. It is the attribute of God which reveals He always acts with perfect justice and perfect love. Those who believe in Jesus Christ receive the fruit of righteousness through His accomplished work. Believers are set apart from non-believers by this one critical attribute, the perfect obedience of Jesus is credited to them and sealed to them by the Holy Spirit.
 
Believers have the righteousness of Jesus which prompts them to bring glory and praise to God. Confidence in Jesus prompts the believer to continually pray Father in heaven, take away my character defects, my sins, and my constant inclination to sin and renew a right spirit in me. David prayed, “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle” Psalm 56:8. These restless tossings and those fountains of tears are a sign of repentance. Believers who sinned cry out to God, ill at ease with themselves, until God has restored them. Beware of the horrible state of becoming so comfortable with your wickedness that you can commit them and not experience a twinge of conscience. It means you are being overthrown by your own sinfulness, so blind to it that you can’t see how it is killing you.
 
Desiring to walk in the ways of God is clear evidence you are a beloved son or daughter of God the Most High. Confessing to God every time you have stepped from the path of righteousness is a clear sign that the work of Jesus is being applied to your heart. Finding that life in Christ is the only life worth living is evidence that the righteousness of Jesus is guarding you. The Spirit is healing you so that Jesus's righteousness is life and peace and joy as you grow closer to Him..
 
In God, Whose word I praise, in the LORD, Whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?
I must perform my vows to You, O God; I will render thank offerings to You.
For You have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling,
that I may walk before God in the light of life.
Amen.
 
Today’s prayer is Psalm 56:10-13 ESV
 
https://youtu.be/ZYkZE8AogDE?si=C153aabXybn7mtMm God of All My Days
 

Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.

December 12, 2024 -- Ephesians 1:3-4 -- The grace of Jesus that breaks every lie of the Devil

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
Ephesians 1:3-4 ESV
 
Some of the preachers I listen to refer to the grammar of grace. This is what they mean by that expression. First the blessing and love of God reach the believer, so that he is transformed from an object of the wrath of God to a forgiven child of God. Second, a believer knows in his heart and mind and soul that he is precious to the Living God, through Jesus Christ and this spiritual blessing is kept safe in heaven and is sealed in him by the Holy Spirit. Grace first, then in view of the grace received we realize there is work to do.
 
As believers, children of the Most High God, we are called to be holy and blameless. From the place of grace, we enter the race to leave former sins and more fully embrace the grace that is ours in Christ. We fight former sins not so that we can be pleasing to God, we already are pleasing to God through Jesus. We fight former sins as beloved sons and daughters who want to get closer to God.
 
At Step 6 believers commit themselves to working out the grace of God into every part of their lives as they say, “I am ready to let God take away all my hurts, character weaknesses, and wrongdoings” (Overcomers Workbook, Day 45, page 114). The Devil often uses past events, sins, or wrongs committed against you, to try and drive you away from God. He hisses at you as if you were unworthy or even hateful to God. It is an old lie and worn-out trick.
 
God spoke grace into your life precisely because you were once an object of wrath. God spoke grace into your life through Jesus Christ precisely because you could not reach out to Him, you could not heal yourself. You needed Him. And before you even knew the greatness of your need, before the world was created, He chose you in love. He knew all your brokenness, all your sins, all the things you thought would make you unacceptable, and He said, “You are mine”.
 
Whatever past lies grip you or wrongs you have committed and confessed to God so you are forgiven threaten your security in Jesus Christ, remind Yourself these things are precisely why God sent Jesus and then sealed the love of Jesus into your heart. Now, go and sin no more. In the strength of the heavenly blessings that are already yours in Jesus Christ, embrace His grace which is for you.
 
Father in heaven, thank You for the depth of love You have demonstrated to Your people in Jesus Christ. Precious Lord Jesus, thank You for the wells of salvation You provide, which assure and reassure me I am Yours. Beautiful Spirit of God, hold to my mind, heart, and memory the accomplished work of Jesus so that graced by His redeeming love I can rise up and live an ever more holy and blameless life which You, Holy Spirit, bring to reality in me. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/q6613kvET6M?si=CoZX_kz2pg4hubEL “Let Me Be a Child of Peace”
 

Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.

December 11, 2024 -- Joshua 22:32-34 -- How can this fighting ever end?

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Then Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, and the chiefs, returned from the people of Reuben and the people of Gad in the land of Gilead to the land of Canaan, to the people of Israel, and brought back word to them. 33 And the report was good in the eyes of the people of Israel. And the people of Israel blessed God and spoke no more of making war against them to destroy the land where the people of Reuben and the people of Gad were settled. 34 The people of Reuben and the people of Gad called the altar Witness, “For,” they said, “it is a witness between us that the LORD is God.”
Joshua 22:32-34 ESV
 
The background is so important if this small portion of bible reading is to make any sense. When the people of Israel were prepared to take the Promised Land West of the Jordan, the tribes of Reuben and Gad chose territory to the East of the Jordan. The other tribes were angry at first, until Reuben and Gad (and to be fully accurate the half-tribe of Manasseh) explained they’d cross the Jordan, enter the Promised Land, and fight with the rest of Israel to conquer all the land the LORD was giving to them. Now that all the battles were done and Reuben and Gad returned to their territories, their wives and children, their flocks and herds and cities and pasturelands a report reached the leadership of the tribes of the Promised Land that Reuben and Gad built an altar. This is a direct violation of the command of God as such an altar could only be built where the LORD commanded His people to build it and make sacrifices on it.
 
Old wounds were ripped open among the tribes in the Promised Land. Perhaps Reuben and Gad had an agenda against them after all! War was about to break out among the people of God because of the altar, which could be considered an act of treachery. The Reubenites and the Gadites explained, that no this is not an altar for sacrificing, it is an altar of witness. It large enough to be seen on the other side of the Jordan. It stands as a sign so that the rest of Israel will know, whenever they pass by it, that the family of God which lives farther away from them, separated by waters, are still part of them. They belong. They chose to be faithful. They and their families will worship the Living God at His tabernacle, wherever He places it. What happened becomes for all the people an Altar of Witness, a monument to remind the people of their past and the future they will forge together.
 
Beloved, sometimes our sins and our hurtful acts committed as husband and wife, or as members of a congregation, or as a church against another church (or nation against nation) become a bone of contention. Every remembrance of it stirs up anger and frustration. How then can we live in the harmony God intends for His people?
 
The Altar of Witness pointed to the Altar at the Tabernacle. It is the was place where sacrifices were offered. Those sacrifices were a reminder to the people that God had set aside His just anger against all their sins and would vent His anger until Jesus, the full and final sacrifice for sins, would come. How can we as believers get along when there are so many hurts and wounds and landmines among us in our relationships? It is the work of Jesus—He is our Altar of Witness. He is the full and final sacrifice that enables us, as the people of God, to live in real and deep community.
 
Our old arguments and fights and resentments can become one of two things: a source of contention that deepens the rift between people or an Altar of Witness. Every time you reach the same place of anger, you can rehearse it and hate it and hate the person or people who incited that int he first place. It is what the world does. It is deadly poison that sours relationships so that even generations later old enmities become inflamed and the cause of rivalry and fighting. However, the Word of God shows a better way. The very place of conflict is the place where the warring parties remember the work of God. In the Old Testament that is an altar, in the New Testament, that is the cross of Jesus Christ.
 
At the cross believers know that God has accomplished the work only He could. The Father, in love chose people for His Own. The Son, in love and fullness of submission to the Father’s purpose and for His glory, offered Himself as the sacrifice that takes away the anger of God against sin, and removes the thorny barrier which sin and hatred that had been erected between warring factions. The Holy Spirit applies the love of God and the healing forgiveness of Jesus so that former enemies can live together in peace.
 
The very bone of contention, the place where anger was incited, now becomes a monument to the endless love of God and the forgiving grace of Jesus and this is sealed by the Holy Spirit. Believers can say, “remember how we used to fight about this? What a glorious God we serve, that we can be reconciled and healed!” Wait a minute! What about the times when I am prepared for healing, but the other party keeps throwing it in my face?
 
Beloved, I Peter 3:1-7 speaks to this, a believing spouse and an unbelieving spouse in conflict. The believing spouse will live for Jesus with such commitment and submission to Jesus that the other will be won to God. A  wife might win her husband to God, or a husband with his great gentleness might win his wife to God. It is evangelism, costly and difficult right in one’s own home. When the conflict is broadened, between families or churches, the command is not to repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling. (Reviling is hurling abuse and bitterness and cursing against the other person). When you are abused, like Paul you can say, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake” (Colossians 1:24).
 
Being a Christian is costly. We submit our joys to God and our lives to God and our on-going hurts and wounds and the very things that are plaguing us. Step 6 is: “I am ready to let God take away all my hurts, character weaknesses, and wrongdoings” (Overcomers Workbook, page 111). Are you? Seriously, are you prepared to endure all suffering for the sake of Jesus and to share in His suffering and so also to share in His exaltation (as Philippians 2:1-11 commands)?
Then let very abuse and wrong-doing committed against you cause you to look to the Altar of Witness, or, as New Testament believers, look to the cross of Jesus Christ—where ultimately every wound is healed, every wrong forgiven. It is also the place where the judgment of God is enacted against the world. All who refuse Jesus, will themselves be punished to the fullest extent of God’s just anger against sin. They will be punished for their sins and their haughty rejection of God’s goodness. If you’ve ever really considered hell, the horrors of it, the depths of it, the terrors of it; then in this life, looking to Jesus, you are prepared to do what you can to help people find in Jesus such healing and such grace that even old rivalries and reviling can find their healing in Him alone.
 
Father in heaven, there are countless times I see what others did, or do, and I can feel my blood boil. But a passage of Scripture, like this one, remind me that You saw, see, and know what I will commit against You, and yet in love You gave Jesus Christ so that His cross is witness between of us Your limitless love. In the precious Name of Jesus, forgive me all my waywardness and all my reviling against others. Spirit of the Living God help me to live in such dedicated submission to Jesus that my love, like His, will bear all things. believe all things, hope all things, endure all things and like Jesus’s love my love poured into my heart from the well of living water, will never end. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/ogS5n0QtSm0?si=1dwEOgDSQ59SVzUf “While You Were Sleeping”
 

Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.

December 9, 2024 -- Mark 1:14-15 -- Cooperating with God's treatment plan for your healing

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Mark 1:14 ESV
 
Mark deliberately writes of Jesus’s public ministry framing it so that Jesus’s first words are a call for the people to repent. Led by the Holy Spirit, Mark ensures that the readers of the Gospel know that Jesus is calling people to leave their past, get up, intentionally to move away from all their wrongdoings and turn to Him. There is a great urgency in all of this for the Kingdom of God is at hand.
 
When Jesus walked the earth, He was the living declaration of the love of God. When Jesus was betrayed, and tried in a court stacked against Him, and crucified, the judgment of God against the world, against Satan and against sinners was openly revealed at the cross of Calvary. All who turn from their sinful ways to Jesus Christ find in Him healing from their past, their guilt, their wickedness. Those who do not turn to Him will be fully, for all eternity, punished for rejecting Jesus and punished for their own sinfulness. Repentance is both the turning away from sin, but it also involves turning to God and finding in Jesus Christ the soul, mind and body healing that all our senses yearn for.
 
Be aware, to turn from the pathways of addictions, malicious evils and apathy against the Living God will result in a keen awareness of all the reasons why prior to this you didn’t dare to approach God. There is the fact that others remember you in your old ways and now will sneeringly mock you for turning to Jesus. There are weaknesses in your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual make-up which will interfere with your walk with God. They are deep enough to make you stop and wonder, “Can God really love a train-wreck like me?”
 
The answer echoes through-out the passages of Scripture: “Yes”! God does not allow sinners to keep destroying themselves in their sins. He moves people by His Spirit to see how hateful and vile sin really is, He empowers such people to turn from their evil ways, and to find forgiveness and healing in Jesus. It took a long time for you, fueled as you were by all your sins, to get where you were in your depraved and corrupt condition. God has the power to heal you. He has the love and the will to heal you. It is a process of healing that takes time. Let God’s power move you both to will and to work out this salvation into every part of your life.
 
Think of it, when a patient is ill and the doctor gives medication, there is great relief in knowing what the condition is. Then gratefulness in knowing there is help for it. Then there is start of the medication and treatment plan. Sometimes the treatment is so hard and affects the patient so that he wonders, isn’t this worse than the illness itself? No. The body and mind are marshalling all the resources needed to cooperate with the medications and surgery to bring the full healing. That is what happens spiritually. God has diagnosed your condition. You were dead in your sins. He has revived you. He is applying the healing. It is a wonder, a great miracle, He has brought you from death to life. Now He is bringing His saving power into every part of your life.
 
Repentance is that continual activity of listening to the Great Physician, and continually submitting to His regime of healing, so that you do not get sicker, comatose and die. But instead, walk in the healing victory He has in store for you.
 
The return of Jesus is near at hand. Repent. Turn from your sin, walk in the healing He is bringing you. Renew your commitment each day to accept His treatment plan as it is laid out in the Word.
 
Father in heaven, I confess I can feel so stuck. As if there is no noticeable change in my mind or my body in this warfare against the soul-sickness of sin and its lingering effects. Thank You for the work of Your Holy Spirit consistently applying to me the healing of Jesus Christ. On my best days, help me to thank You for all You have done and all that You are doing; on my worst days show me how to cry out to You for all the help I need so that repentance really will be the on-going pathway to the full healing You intend for me and for every single one of Your children. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/uYHpJnfy2lQ?si=zkOTYNdIxntNxa5w Make Room
 

Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.

December 8, 2024 -- I Corinthians 13:1-6 -- This might be the hardest step of all

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
I Corinthians 13:1-6 NIV
 
Many of us are so familiar with the soaring words of I Corinthians 13. Perhaps read at weddings. Memorized in Sunday Schools. It is, however, not merely a nice little text, it is the explosive, life-altering explanation of the love which God has shown to His people in Christ Jesus. Read through the descriptions of love, practical, ethical, moral, persistent as the phrases pile on phrases giving full explanation of what love truly is.
 
Some of you might have noted this is not the translation I usually work with for these devotions. Today it is the New International Version (revised in 2011). The reason I chose that version is the translation at verse 5. Where the ESV has resentful, the NIV has the more to the point “keeps no record of wrongs”. At Step 6 in the Overcomers Material, participants admit: “I am ready to let God take away all my hurts, character weaknesses, and wrongdoings” (Overcomers Workbook, page 108, Day 43). All my hurts. Let that sink in. There are so many hurts and wrongs and betrayals committed against us, and we treasure them up and justify our own bad behavior.
 
Jesus is the only True Man Who never, ever, kept a record of wrongs. When you think of all the sins, betrayals, character assassinations committed against Him, all the wrongdoings and good intentions gone awry, and the list could be endless, it really is staggering to realize He is as human as we are, but He didn’t sin by storing up resentments against others. He kept no record of wrongs, no heart-hit-list against His enemies, not even against His dearest disciples who, one by one abandoned Him, which must have been most cutting wounds of all. He took on Himself all such wickedness committed against Him and bore it to the cross, where He was punished for the sins of all.
 
What is love? It is patient-kindness, living the unbreakable love of God outward to all the people you meet. They are unworthy. So are you. They are just going to take advantage of it. So do you take advantage of God’s love. One the one hand you reach greedily for more and more of God’s love all the while hoarding and trying to hold back love that needs to flow into the life of those who worked evil against you. Christians are supposed to be the most radical group of all: no matter how wronged, hurt, wounded we are, we will pray over all such who hurt us, have hurt us, and we hand them to the mercy of Jesus. We do this, so that, with a clean head, a clean slate emptied of every record of wrongs, and a clean attitude, we as Christians are prepared to meet all people with the never-ending love of God that flows to us through Jesus’s accomplished work which is sealed to you and me by the Holy Spirit.
 
Day 43 in the workbook suggests students write down all the resentments and hurts and wounds which are keeping them from experiencing the fullness of love that is theirs in Christ. As you write that list, I suggest you put a light, pencil line through each one and in bold write beside it: “Paid in full at Calvary.”
 
 Then consider the resentments others have against you. For your sins. For your lack of kindness. For the wreckage left by your addictions, like alcohol, drugs, porn, anger, over-spending-in-order-to-feel-good, pride, gossipy ways, self-centredness, keeping a record of wrongs. Now, pray that on this list others might have against you will also, by the grace of God, have those record-holders be moved by the Spirit to cross them out and write: “paid in full at Calvary”. But even if they do not, you walk in the great freedom of the forgiving love that has been poured out to you in Jesus Christ. Now, go and live for Jesus showing to all that you walk in the greatness of His forgiving love. In the never-ending stream of Jesus’s love which wells up in you unto eternal life, you will be prepared to meet all accusations and all resentments hurled against you with patience, humility and a heart willing to be reconciled. That reconciliation is not cheap, it comes at the great cost of Jesus Christ, His perfect life, and sinless Person, punished so that we would walk in freedom of the Father’s electing love.
 
 
Father in heaven, it is too hard. Too lofty a thing to attain, this living love out loud like Paul wrote to the Corinthians. I confess I am skilled at keeping a record of wrongs, and quite remiss in knowing about the wrongs I’m committing against others. Often, I’ll be surprised at the variety of ways in which I have hurt others and I am not prepared as in Christ I ought to be to humbly confess my own sins and seek reconciliation. Teach me the way of love so that in true fellowship with Jesus and with others I will live the extravagant, life-changing love that is mine in Christ. God, I have already failed at this so much. I admit, even as I am praying this, my head and heart like a horse straining against the reins I am shying away from really digging in and praying it with conviction. Spirit, help me to be even more sincere in making this prayer and erasing all the records of wrong I have so that nothing will hinder my intimacy with Jesus. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/Cyek-LrYBV8?si=cv3djJOjj0NXv-5e Take Me to the Cross
 
 

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December 6, 2024 -- Proverbs 24:3-7, 15-16 -- Fallen Christians who rise again and again through Jesus

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

By wisdom a house is built,
    and by understanding it is established;
4 by knowledge the rooms are filled
    with all precious and pleasant riches.
5 A wise man is full of strength,
    and a man of knowledge enhances his might,
6 for by wise guidance you can wage your war,
    and in abundance of counselors there is victory.
7 Wisdom is too high for a fool;
    in the gate he does not open his mouth.
Lie not in wait as a wicked man against the dwelling of the righteous;
    do no violence to his home;
16 for the righteous falls seven times and rises again,
    but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
Proverbs 24:3-7, 15-16 ESV
 
For those who are keeping track, the current step is 6, where the Overcomer states: “I am ready to let God take away all my hurts, character weaknesses, and wrongdoings” (Overcomers Workbook, page 106). Prior to this step, those who overcome the world in Jesus are those who have confessed they are helpless, powerless against their sins. They commit their lives to God and trust Him to guide them. Now, that is wisdom.
 
Look at the first part of the Bible reading today. Wisdom—that is the work of Jesus and His forgiveness and healing applied deep into the heart of the believer by the power of the Holy Spirit—builds a beautiful home. Those who are in Jesus Christ are by His salvation are clearing their lives of all the filth and sins and wreckage their addictions and sins and consequences of wrongdoings have brought down on their heads. It is hard work. In fact, it is waging war against your past. The result is the believer’s home—his heart, mind, and body are a temple—for the Holy Spirit Who lives in them.
 
Notice just a few verses later it is recorded the righteous stumble. Believer, you who triumph in Jesus Christ, know that you will still struggle against sin and at times you will fall before its power. In fact, you’ll be cowed by it, wrecked by it. Tortured by it. There are so many times believers isolate themselves and are a target for temptation. Other times believers are angry and as Ephesians teaches, their anger gives a foothold to the devil. Some believers are Christian bullies. You meet Christians who are resentful. What’s the point of rehearsing all of this?
 
When you are saved in Jesus Christ you know, like a very ill patient with a gifted, patient doctor, how many times you despairingly have to turn yourself in to Him for His care, knowing you have neglected (again, and again, and again) His prescription for your healing. He has come to save you to the uttermost. When one of His patients falls into sin, He does not give up, He applies His healing. In fact, Hebrews teaches Jesus is the High Priest Who prays for His people, and by His priestly work He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him since He always lives to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25).
 
Ah, churches and pew sitters, wake up. You are saints who sin. You are people who are held safe in Jesus Christ, and you will, as Paul so eloquently states it, be people who know what is right but do the wrong anyways. Read Romans 7:15 and following. Paul bluntly states I do what I do not want! Churches are supposed to be houses of healing. Churches are supposed to be places where broken-hearted people who know their own sins find refuge and healing. The fact that a saint who has fallen goes back to chapel or to church or to fellowship with other Christians is precisely the sign such men and women are housed in wisdom (remember, wisdom working in us builds a house of strength and glory in Jesus). Let your church, your fellowship group, your home be a place of healing, where saints who have sinned are restored in the love of God.
 
The Bible never pulls its punches. David sinned against Bathsheba. And late in life he finds a beautiful virgin and sleeps with her (doesn’t marry her, doesn’t make her a concubine). David, a man after God’s own heart is a sinner, who, when confronted with his sin, repents. Paul, the much-loved author of 13 New Testament books was a murderer. After he was captured by Jesus and changed, he still had anger issues—he and his dear companion Barnabas had such a sharp disagreement they separated from each other in their missionary work.
 
The reason this chapter of Proverbs is so hopeful, and life-affirming is that believers, those called righteous in Jesus Christ, are those who after they fall into sin arise. They confess their sin. They are received in a community of faith that brings them to Jesus Christ, the Captain of Salvation for healing. Jesus by His Spirit puts steel in the spine of His soldiers so that they will go off in their company of saints to continue the battle. He is praying. He will save you to the uttermost.
 
 
Father in heaven, by Your Spirit help our churches, families, and local fellowship groups of believers recapture the sense that these are hospitals for wounded, sin-infested soldiers who continually need the healing, forgiving balm of Jesus applied to their lives. Jesus, thank You for Your prayers, Your tenderness, Your work by which believers are saved to the uttermost. Father in heaven, help us, as believers, to lift one another from places of brokenness and weakness and rise once again in the victory that is won through Jesus Christ. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/evXmTDHPyTQ?si=cTXzmSc0zXnXdM9Y Joy to the World!
nb: this carol is so appropriate for today because stanza 3 says “no more let sin and sorrow grow”; it acknowledges believers in Christ still need, oh urgently and desperately, need His healing, saving work.
 

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December 5, 2024 -- Romans 5:18-21 -- The hard truth implications of this new life in Christ

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit’s power: Sh’ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5:18-21 ESV
 
Simplified now. The passage teaches the one trespass was the sin of Adam. He disobeyed God and by his sin all his descendants are sinners. The Bible is clear, all people on this earth are one race. One family. All, if they could, trace their line of decent, would go right back to Adam and Eve. Then came the love of God in Christ Jesus. His one act of righteousness was a life lived without any sin. His perfection through-out his life meant that He is the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all people. All who believe in Jesus are therefore counted righteous in Him.
 
The grace of Jesus, His forgiving work is applied to every area of our lives. It is the incredibly good news of the Gospel. Sinner, you are forgiven in Christ. Now, there will be some who read this and shout: “Woo-hu! I have, like 007 a licence, not a licence to kill, but a licence to sin however I want, whenever I want, and wherever I want, and Jesus’s righteousness will be applied to me”. (In that very thinking you see how sin clouds all your judgment and shows the rot of deadness that persists in you.)
 
Sin is rebellion against God. To continue to sin is to say to God, I want all Your presents, but NOT Your presence. I can’t stand it. That means the righteousness that could be, or should be yours in Christ, really hasn’t touched your thinking, your heart and your attitude. When the Spirit of God grabs a sinner by the scruff of the neck and yanks him from death to life, snatching him as it were from the very fires of hell, that man, that woman, that child is grateful. So filled with relief and joy and hope that sin and the hatefulness and the venom of it is repugnant. It is replaced with thanksgiving. Enumerating endlessly all that good that is yours through Jesus!
 
As is written in Romans 6—we died to sin in Christ Jesus, there is no way we would ever want to go back there again. Step 6 in the Overcomers workbook states: “I am ready to let God take away all my hurts, character weaknesses, and wrongdoing.” In the previous step we submitted our life to God as He guides us. Now the one who overcomes in Jesus Christ is saying: “I trust He will begin His healing work in my life.”
 
Salvation worked into my life and my soul means that I must forgive people who were unspeakably cruel. Just as God forgave me in Christ Jesus. The measure of their sins against me never even reached my anklebone, while the least of my sins against God had me drowning in my own filth. There is no comparison at all. That is why a sinner set free in Christ turns and wants to forgive others, longs to show to others the goodness Christ has shown him.
 
This Step really gets to deep wounds. Sins committed against you. Sins you have committed. Unless the powerful Spirit of God gets in you and works out the salvation of Jesus, everything dies on the vine here. Our character weaknesses, our inclination to sin, and our pride will prevent the healing work of God from reaching us and we will pack it in and head back to the handbasket that will sail to hell.
 
Do not give up. God as been saving men and women like yourself, since the dawn of time. He knows His work. He is tender with the broken; he is patient with the penitent; He is direct with the proud crushing their ignorant pride so that they will be cleansed and made to be a fit dwelling for the Spirit of God. The Father in heaven delights to show compassion and heal people who, humanly speaking, should never, ever be able to get along. It is what I often experience in Bible Studies in prison settings. Like yesterday. The gathering of men present: such differences between each man—crimes, ages, where they’d lived, socio-economic status, education—and there they were, reading the Bible together. Praying. Trusting in God to do what humanly speaking is impossible: to share the Gospel, to grow in righteousness and work their way back to reintegration as men truly transformed by Jesus Christ.
 
Devotional Sentence: Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
 
ALMIGHTY and Most Merciful Father;
We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep.
We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.
We have offended against Thy holy laws.
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done;
And we have done those things which we ought not to have done;
And there is no health in us.
But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.
Spare Thou them, O God, which confess their faults.
Restore Thou them that are penitent;
According to Thy promises declared unto mankind
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And grant, O Most Merciful Father, for His sake;
That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life,
To the glory of Thy Holy Name. Amen.
 
Confession. DIVINE SERVICE BOOK FOR THE ARMED FORCES, 1950, page 3 & 5.
 
https://youtu.be/M7670CXvPX0?si=PurgT-3wMEPKTxt- Casting Crowns “I Heard the Bells”
 

Copyright © 2024 Sh'ma Christian Ministries, All rights reserved.

December 4, 2024 -- Psalm 141:5 -- Faithful friends vs stubborn sins

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—
it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it.
Psalm 141:5a
 
It happens more often than I ever hoped it would that a man I once met in prison is released. That is not the problem. Then he returns to prison. That is the problem. Often, he hesitate, neglecting to attend Bible Study because he is too ashamed. Too embarrassed. Too worn out by his sins. In our Overcomers group men will tell the guy who has returned to prison, get over to the Overcomers group. Come on out.
 
In the first place there will be kindness. Every single one of us knows the power of sin. There are the hauntingly familiar sins. There are the temptations that never quite seem to let us go. There are the floods of justifications we offer when we do wrong. All these, and many more reasons, prove the urgent need a man has, a woman has, a youth has, for true and deep accountability. So, one who is aware of his fallen condition needs gentle welcome and tenderness to deal with the open wounds of failure.
 
Second, as Step 5 states it: I confess my character weaknesses and wrongdoings to God, myself, and another person (Overcomers Workbook, Canadian Bible Society, page 100). Why do we fail? Simply, we refuse to acknowledge the power of the sin that still lingers in us. Yes, believers belong to Jesus Christ. Yes, believers know the power of the Holy Spirit living within them. But it is all-too-often-too-true that believers also, knowing the good they should do, choose the evil. When a believer meets with an accountability person, that brother or sister in Christ, knowing the weakness and inclination to sin the other struggles against, will be brutally honest so that sin will not get a victory.
 
Why? Well, look at the text one more time. The work rebuke can be translated: judge, correct, criticize. The whole point is when temptation has begun its work in you and you are gripped by it, you are already planning more evil than your own mind will allow you see. You are prepared to deceive yourself. A true, honest, fellow Christian will spot in a second what you are hiding from yourself. An honestly righteous person won’t care about your feelings but will guard you against yourself so that you don’t take a hard fall and lose so much ground you had gained in your walk with God.
 
Sin has consequences. They are greater than the lies that the enemy would lead you to believe. Temptations begin to blind your perspective, and you forget how bad the last go-round with sin was. Patterns of evil will numb you so that you are more and more inclined to stumble back into the same sin and shrug your shoulders and call yourself helpless. You’re not!
 
A good brother or sister in Christ will call out what you are thinking of doing and will help you fight the good battle of faith. Why is it oil on your head? In Bible times, oil was used to cleanse wounds and form a barrier protecting a wound against infection. When a sinner morally fails, violates the commands of God, he wounds his relationship with God, himself and others. Preventative conversations that expose one’s motives and keep the person from going ahead with the intended sin is like an oil of healing, applied, affirming the righteousness of diverting one’s path and makes the face shine with the glory of obedience to God.
 
It is hard work to be a Christian. At verse 3 the Psalmist asks the LORD to put a guard over his mouth. How easily people can sin with their words. It takes the might of a military person to hold back the inclination to sin. In Philippians 2 Christians are commanded to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. It is a fitness routine and any slacking in it will result in flabby, unfit Christians.
 
The result of all of this is joy in the LORD. The result of fighting against the temptations of the flesh and sinful inclinations of the heart is the blessing of direct conversation with God, no embarrassment or shame. The result of meeting together for deep and true accountability is to guard one against sin; but where one has stumbled, it is the task of a Christian to help the other to stand again and find the healing grace that is already theirs in Christ Jesus.
 
 
ALMIGHTY GOD, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men; we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed, against Thy Divine Majesty, provoking most justly Thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for Thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please Thee in newness of life, to the honour and glory of Thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
(The Confession—to be said by all. Divine Service Book for the Armed Forces, 1950, page 51)
 
https://youtu.be/lXsXmoOXQK4?si=vz6mVxgPTcMhQPLa Remember Not, O God

 

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December 2, 2024 -- Proverbs 15:31-33 -- Accountability in your walk with God

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

The ear that listens to life-giving reproof
will dwell among the wise.
Whoever ignores instruction despises himself,
but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.
The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom,
and humility comes before honor.
Proverbs 15:31-33 ESV
 
The original language is quite graphic. First there is synecdoche—one word describing the whole person. The wise one is a man or a woman who is “all ears”. Listening for God, hearing His voice in Scripture, attentive obedience to His Spirit’s directing of the conscience and a committed awareness that the LORD uses godly friends to direct his living. What is that person listening for? Life-giving reproof—that is discipline and instruction, correction and guidance on the way of life.
 
Whoever ignores instruction can also be translated whoever lets go of it. It is as if godly counsel and instruction goes in one ear and out the other. You hear what is good and right and life-giving but in obstinacy you turn away from it, well you are proving you hate your life, and you hate your very soul. Such defiant behavior shows you are refusing God’s promise that you are made in His image and made for glory and excellence according to His purposes.
 
The word “listen” is repeated twice in these brief passages as is the word “reproof”. Reproof, that is discipline or correction, or godly advice is given in response to the words of one who pours out his soul. I find in this passage a pattern for the godly. When you are walking with God it is all too easy to be negligent and brush over one’s sins. To do so is to hate your life and to despise your soul. But when a dear friend, one who with the compassion of the LORD, and great tenderness, speaks the instruction and correction of God into your life, you, wounded though you are, have the Spirit-given ability to hear and respond. The words of God are life-giving and hope bringing.
 
Believers are called to have one, maybe two, dear friends who have the right to speak advice and counsel to them. These siblings in the LORD Jesus share your desire for godliness and the love of life that is available through Christ Jesus. They will be ruthless in exposing faults in you thinking and calling out bad behavior but do so with the kindness of the Gospel which affirms the purpose of doing this is to grow in the fear of the LORD and instruction in wisdom. The friendship is such that you will also be able to see whatever is hindering their walk with God. Unless the people of God are humble and humbled by the Spirit, then pride will close their ears and as verse 29 of this same chapter indicates, the LORD will not hear their prayer.
 
It is fascinating to me that groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and others like it have co-opted the original material of the Bible and made it their own. AA focuses on mutual accountability, which is great, but Christians seem to have drifted from this penetrating, honest accountability among themselves. Perhaps it is too general a statement, but it seems that Christians rarely practice this critical discipline. I strongly advise Christians to find a friend or two and decide to pray together, open your hearts to one another, share the areas of weakness and any tendency to sin, and confess the sins you’ve become entangled with so that you will grow in the fear of the LORD, in instruction in wisdom and humility which is evidence of a life that has as its great focus the joy knowing Jesus and Him once crucified and now exalted at the Father’s right hand in glory.
 
Father, I don’t want my sins and the bad things I keep heading to to block my relationship with You. I want to be a follower of Jesus and one whose prayers You hear and answer. I ask that Your Spirit give me a fellow friend or two who walks with Jesus so that together we can correct and be corrected by one another and by this grow in our obedience to and rejoicing in Jesus. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/R8mLTdQQXg4?si=RSwlnsrUEvavOvhE Psalm 16 (Fullness of Joy)
 

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December 1, 2024 -- Proverbs 1:8 -- The power of Confession with accountability

People loved by the Father, by the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching…
Proverbs 1:8 ESV
 
When you were little (for some of you this will be a real stretch of the imagination) your father and your mother were your accountability persons. When you did something wrong and they noticed it, they confronted you. Their instruction was the God-given model and example of what accountability looks like in daily living. The instruction of the father and the teaching of the mother are meant to guide your steps. When you stray, then your parents (who likely already know you stole a cookie, or broke a window, or hit your sister) meet with you and ask you about your sin, or your wrong action. You squirm. You blame others. But you know that your parents already have you dead to rights (caught red-handed).
 
The pattern is established by godly parents. When you sin, and all people sin, then the child, or man, or woman must confess that sin to their parent, and to God. Parents then teach their children to pray to God, asking His forgiveness and strength to walk in the way of holiness. Such godly parents also model the post-sin love of God. Yes, you confess, but you also find relief and acceptance. As a child grows older, friends become their accountability partners. That naturally occurring transition reveals why it is critical that teenagers choose good, godly companions. Friends who are worldly will lead believers into wicked paths and try to live as if there are no consequences.
 
Note as well, if the pattern of sin, confession, prayer that godly parents are called to model for their children is missing or warped, there will be consequences. Children hear it when one parent speak lies to a manager. Little ones notice mom spending time in front of the TV watching what is clearly not acceptable according to family values. By these and countless other ways, the child learns to deceive. It undermines the healthy family life which God has established. Holy family patterns are established when a parent, caught red-handed in wrong, humbly acknowledges sin and wrong-doing and during family devotions prays for forgiveness.
 
When you encounter Jesus Christ, His standard of holiness, His perfection, then you realize your life does not measure up. It is not acceptable to be blaming parents, or friends, or co-workers or the world’s influence for your own waywardness. Jesus is not asking you about others, His radiance and goodness require you to examine your own heart and require you to confess your own sin. Where the godly example of parents was lacking, or a young-to-the-faith Christian did not have such instruction, then it is the Spirit of God who leads a man or a woman to self-examination and repentance.
 
In the Overcomers material, Step 5 is: “I confess my character weaknesses and wrongdoings to God, myself, and another person” (Overcomers Workbook, Canadian Bible Society, page 95). Character weaknesses are the inclinations to sin, attitudes and impulses with which all people are born. A child does not need to be taught to sin—that comes naturally. A child needs to be discipled in the way of godliness—that is new territory. When you have a godly accountability partner, then the desire to sin, the impulses to wrong-doing or self-destructive patterns are confessed so that their powerful hold is broken before they lead to actions. At that moment the Spirit of God ministers healing to the mind and heart.
 
Confession of rebellion, lies, strife, and all other transgressions against the commands of God prevent the evil from continuing in the heart. Confession puts a stop to the evil action and the lies or whatever else is going on, throwing back the curtains of concealing darkness and letting the light of God’s mercy and love reach the cold depths of the heart whose words and actions betrayed God. A good accountability friend (or parent) acknowledges the wrong. Sees you through the consequences of your wrong or sin and constantly points you to the healing mercy of God, all the while praying for you and showing you in person, what the mercy of God looks like.
 
 
Oh God my Father, I can easily lie to myself, acting as if my sins could escape Your notice. Thank You for the godly ones who instructed me in my youth in the way Truth. I confess my desire to keep up appearances, rather than exposing myself to holy scrutiny. Lead me to a Christian friend who will hear my confession and even listen to the weaknesses in me that are tempting me, and let this person be one who I can hear and encourage in godliness, so that together our great desire is to honour God with mind, mouth and motives. Thank You, God of Glory, that You already know the absolute worst about my life, and You have provided the Savior, the One Whose blood made ^propitiation for all my sins. Amen.
 
^propitiation: at the cross, Jesus’ blood and body were sacrificed. Meaning that He took on Himself the just and proper anger of God against all your sin, so that God’s kindness and mercy would be yours.
 
https://youtu.be/TxC16duiHvQ?si=dUrDyykd4mpz8tBn O Lord, My Rock and My Redeemer
 

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