PRAYER FOR A BRAND NEW WEEK - MAY 17, 2021

Most kind and gracious Heavenly Father, we are grateful at the end of another day for Your kindness, mercy, grace and long suffering.

In Your Mercy You looked down on the poor estate of Your people, had pity on us so much so that Your Son stepped off His Throne, to become sin, Who knew no sin.
In Your kindness therefore You allowed Him, Who willingly did not consider equality with You a thing to be held on to, to sacrifice Himself according to Your divine plan.
In Your long suffering, You hold back Your final wrath not wanting many to be lost, but everyone to come to repentance.

In Your grace, You reached down from Heaven and pulled sinners such as I, out of the fiery pit, cleaned us off, put a new robe of righteousness on us and set us on a course to live in the Eternal Realm, even now, amongst a lost and dying world.

We are so grateful for Your love, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, oh Lord my God in Heaven.

We are humbled by Your goodness in that You provide for us, not just food and shelter in the natural, but supernatural nourishment which is new every morning.

We are mystified that even when things do not add up, and we feel adrift in a sea of loneliness, confusion and chaos, Your Grace is sufficient for us.

We are overwhelmed that You, my God, not just know the very hairs on our heads, but You call us by Name to such an incredible extent, You sent the same Spirit Who raised Christ from the dead, to live in us.

Most glorious and wonderful God, we ask in the same vein as Your long-departed servant Spurgeon, who now abides with thee...we ask "Christian, lovest thou thy Savior? Is His name precious to thee? Is His cause dear to thee? Wouldst thou see the kingdoms of the world become His? Is it thy desire that He should be glorified?"

Lord, the answer is YES to all those questions!

You are our delight. We love You, Your amazing Son, the Creator and the Powerful Holy Spirit.
You are the Pearl of Great Price....more precious than gold or silver.

Your cause is more dear to us than life itself. We are committed to the end.

Your wish is our desire that we live out our days in righteousness, holiness and humility, seeking justice for all, but Your Kind of Justice not the world's. Seeking the good life for all, not the prosperity heresy of the modern church, but the abundant life which cometh from abiding in Thee. Our desire is Your command, to goeth forth and make disciples of all men, women and children and to bring them to the Foot of the Cross.

You are our first love - we shall never abandon Thee for the corrupt, evil and perishing things of this world.

Therefore Lord, as we begin a new week and head to a new day, may we rest in the everlasting Arms. May we surrender all that we are, which is absolutely nothing compared to all that You are.....and Lord, may we awake each and every day of the next week, to love, serve and obey Thee in all that we say, think and do, in Jesus' Most Precious and Holy Name, AMEN AND AMEN!

AUTHENTIC BIBLICAL LEADERSHIP NOT ALWAYS A GIVEN

The discipline of God is not a thing to be taken lightly. On a personal level,  His Elect – those who are saved and bound for Heaven – are saved, yes. However we are also to be tested and tried to be molded into the Image of Christ. Trials and tests take many forms. Just like a carbon coal-like substance is mined, and then pressed down into a diamond, the child of God must be pruned, molded and shaped into Christ-likeness.

This is the discipline for the personal, spiritual life of the true believer.

However, did you know that the Lord also will discipline a group of people? He will do so, whether it is a church which has strayed and most definitely, entire nations!. The Lord said so. He did it. He did it many times. He is and will do it again.

Most of the countries of the world have abandoned the One True God of Heaven – Yahweh. It is blatantly obvious from the daily news accounts for decades. After the Protestant Reformation and its spread west, Europe turn from God.  England, which gave us the great Christians of the 1700’s and 1800’s is now mostly Islamic. The Father of Missions  was the Englishman William Carey. The Wesley brothers broke away from the legalism of the Church of England and brought the Grace of God to both the Old and New Worlds. The Prince of Preachers is the great Englishman Charles H. Spurgeon, who is still studied and quoted by both English and American Christians.

But something happened, both in the U.K.; Europe and North America. After the prosperity of the post-World War the men of God became creatures of comfort, especially here in the United States. Good living; wealth; the loosening of solid Biblical standards allowed that generation and subsequent ones (Baby Boomers, their children and Generations W, Y and Z) to grow up under diminishing leadership which standard was set by God.

The absence of fathers (good and bad) has destroyed all American cities along with ungodly social policies. Now in all strata of society, we see the dearth of the authentic manhood in the homes.  When this has happened in the past, God removes His Mighty Hands and here is what happens:

ISAIAH 3:1-12

1   For behold, the Lord [God of hosts is going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah

Both [supply and support, the whole supply of bread

And the whole supply of water;

2   The mighty man and the warrior,

The judge and the prophet,

The diviner and the elder,

3   The captain of fifty and the honorable man,

The counselor and the expert artisan,

And the skillful enchanter.

4   And I will make mere lads their princes,

And capricious children will rule over them,

5   And the people will be oppressed,

Each one by another, and each one by his neighbor;

The youth will storm against the elder

And the inferior against the honorable.

6   When a man lays hold of his brother in his father’s house, saying,

“You have a cloak, you shall be our ruler,

And these ruins will be under your charge,”

7   He will protest on that day, saying,

“I will not be your healer,

For in my house there is neither bread nor cloak;

You should not appoint me ruler of the people.”

8   For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen,

Because their speech and their actions are against the Lord,

To rebel against His glorious presence.

9   The expression of their faces bears witness against them,

And they display their sin like Sodom;

They do not even conceal it.

Woe to them!

For they have brought evil on themselves.

10   Say to the righteous that it will go well with them,

For they will eat the fruit of their actions.

11   Woe to the wicked! It will go badly with him,

For what he deserves will be done to him.

12   O My people! Their oppressors are children,

And women rule over them.

O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray

And confuse the direction of your paths.

Why is this important in 2019 and beyond? It is significant because of the paucity of Biblical leadership in the home,  CHURCH, school, community, city, state and country.  It is blatantly flaunted by those who oppose God, via the corrupt culture, mass media, academia and in all levels of politics. Biblical leadership has been replaced by a confused, ungodly and dysfunctional "leadership" model, where the few real men of courage and Christ stick out like a sore thumb, and are called all kinds of unsavory names.

Still, though despised by the current culture of this perishing world, these authentic men - a remnant of God raise Godly families, follow the Word of God and remain in His grace and favor....and will continue to do so, until Christ returns.

Is there a solution for this? Yes – only when the Second Adam – the Lord Jesus Christ, returns on His White Horse in the soon-coming future and begins His 1000 Year reign on earth. Amen.

A VERSE AND A THOUGHT: PSALM 24: 8 - "JESUS - THE KING OF GLORY!!!"

Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle (Psalm 24:8)

THOUGHT:

Our point of reference of historical times for Kings and Rulers of bygone eras, are from books and movies. For most of human history, all major towns and cities had some sort of fortification or system to keep evil out and protect the townspeople.  This was necessary because mankind has always been sinful and evil, since the Fall of Man, recorded in Genesis Chapter 3.

The more significant the town or city, the stronger the fortress, turrets and wider the walls so that you could ride a chariot around it. Then when the ruler of king of that town would return from a campaign, or even hunting out in the countryside, the armorbearer would always have to call out to the Gatekeepers to “Open the Gates”. After the gatekeepers inquired as to the purpose of the visit, the armorbearer would say “It is the King, Let the King come in” (or something to that effect).

In this instance – Psalm 24:8, this is no ordinary King and He doesn’t need permission to come into any part of His Creation. This is the King, Commander and Creator of the Universe.  This is the Lord Jesus Christ. In this current Age, until the church/believers/Christians are called Home at once, in the final raising up, He still announces Who He is to the hearts and lives of all peoples, from all corners of this blessed earth.

The Majestic Lord, Who is currently occupying the Throne on the Right Hand of God the Father, still offers a Royal invitation to join Him in Eternity in Heaven – FOR FREE. There is an equation to fulfilling the requirements to being a resident of the Eternal Kingdom. He had it written down for us – confess (ask forgiveness wholeheartedly – after realizing you’re going down the wrong road); then believe in your heart (with every fiber in your being) that Jesus is Lord, then you SHALL be saved!  Did it cost you money in a church collection plate? No. Did it cost you obeying a bunch of rules and tenets of some man-written religious rule book? No. Did you have to go do something for it? No! Why not? Why would the King, Whom we assume will be a high-taxing, hard-driving, high-living monarch like all the other kings and rulers of the earth, give something away for free?

The free gift from the Royal Throne of Heaven is only free for one reason – the King paid the freight.  He did not send some lesser subject to do it, He came off His Majestic Throne, after creating ALL we see around us, and lowered Himself to be just like us in the flesh. The one major and most significant difference between This Eternal King and the human He became like, for only 33 years is this – He never sinned.  The King only never sinned, He came to explain everything  written about Him from Genesis to John the Baptist as well as the Law of Moses, which He told to Moses.

There is no mind like His. There is no work like His. There is no one comparable. He is not only the beginning and the end, He is in the middle of all history. History will boil down to only His story.

ACTION:

Knowing Jesus as Savior of all mankind is excellent. Knowing Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior is even more important to your final destination. At death, people go one of two places. There is no such thing as purgatory.  In order to KNOW the King as He really is, He must be completely the LORD of your life, as well as Savior. This means everything.  Here is how we proceed:

-     Take your foot off the gas pedal of your life. He owns the vehicle of your life, let Him drive from now on. It also reduces your stress level

-     Leave no corner of your life unswept by the Blood of the Lamb, the Washing of the Word and the Conviction of the Holy Spirit.

-      Allow the Holy Spirit, Who is the Ultimate Gentleman, to turn on the search light and recover every hidden cobweb and buried sin action from even from when we were 5 years old. Then repent of it and move on.

-     If your church does not teach on the Holy Spirit because “that is a Charismatic thing”, forget that – the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God and does not follow church or men’s doctrines. He interprets our prayers and the thoughts of our spirit and communicates them with the Lord Jesus Who intercedes with the Father.  If you think your prayers are not answered, consider this – are you fully committed as a Christian to Jesus and if so, repent, surrender to Christ and ask the Holy Spirit to take full control. Do not grieve Him. He goes to the background when that happens. So keep it real, real clean and ask for His intervention. You will not regret it.

Psalm 24 has 10 verses. Verses 9 and 10 are the same as verses 7 and 8, so this is the end of this majestic ode to our great God and King – the Lord Jesus. There is a twofold purpose here. The first one is for the church of the Jesus to wake up from culturally induced slumber and realize just Who He really is! This makes a huge difference as we see less and less reverence for the power and holiness of God in most of our western churches these days, as well as less focus on making disciples.

Secondly, on an individual level, opening the gates to the King of ALL Glory, means the extreme vetting of our hearts and souls to ascertain, in the affirmative, if Jesus Christ TRULY is the Lord of our lives. Anything else is vanity. Amen.

"Before we can have any right idea of the love of Jesus, we must understand His previous glory in its height of majesty, and His incarnation upon the earth in all its depths of shame. But who can tell us the majesty of Christ? When He was enthroned in the highest heavens He was very God of very God; by Him were the heavens made, and all the hosts thereof. His own almighty arm upheld the spheres; the praises of cherubim and seraphim perpetually surrounded Him; the full chorus of the hallelujahs of the universe unceasingly flowed to the foot of his throne: He reigned supreme above all His creatures, God over all, blessed for ever. Quote from Charles H. Spurgeon's "Morning and Evening Devotional" - March 28, 2018

FORGET NOT HIS BENEFITS (PSALM 103:2)

SUNDAY MORNING DEVOTION 

BY CHARLES SPURGEON

It is a delightful and profitable occupation to mark the hand of God in the lives of ancient saints, and to observe his goodness in delivering them, his mercy in pardoning them, and his faithfulness in keeping his covenant with them. But would it not be even more interesting and profitable for us to remark the hand of God in our own lives? Ought we not to look upon our own history as being at least as full of God, as full of his goodness and of his truth, as much a proof of his faithfulness and veracity, as the lives of any of the saints who have gone before? 


We do our Lord an injustice when we suppose that he wrought all his mighty acts, and showed himself strong for those in the early time, but doth not perform wonders or lay bare his arm for the saints who are now upon the earth. Let us review our own lives. Surely in these we may discover some happy incidents, refreshing to ourselves and glorifying to our God. Have you had no deliverances? 


Have you passed through no rivers, supported by the divine presence? Have you walked through no fires unharmed? Have you had no manifestations? Have you had no choice favours? The God who gave Solomon the desire of his heart, hath he never listened to you and answered your requests? That God of lavish bounty of whom David sang, "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things," hath he never satiated you with fatness? Have you never been made to lie down in green pastures? Have you never been led by the still waters? Surely the goodness of God has been the same to us as to the saints of old.


Let us, then, weave his mercies into a song. Let us take the pure gold of thankfulness, and the jewels of praise and make them into another crown for the head of Jesus. Let our souls give forth music as sweet and as exhilarating as came from David's harp, while we praise the Lord whose mercy endureth forever.

(courtesy Bible Gateway)
(image courtesy google)