Chrysalis

On January 8, 2020   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 39:1

I said, “I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth as with a muzzle while the wicked are in my presence.”

You know, I was just missing David so here is a quip from a psalm of David. The more time I spend with David’s writings the more I like him and the more I learn. I told you that meditating on God’s goodness has a transformative effect on the inside of you. Well, the more time I spend with David, the more I see how close and personal a relationship with God can be. David’s walk with God illuminated his life and it now it is having that same effect upon us.

Learning to walk hand in hand with God has got to be the greatest joy of all time. David’s walk showed him, daily, the ways of God so that he could walk in them. On this day, David received a revelation about his words. A friend of mine once said that we need a Word of the Day on the words of our mouth weekly, if not daily. Probably, I need to be reminded daily that I am creating my world by the words of my mouth. Additionally, we sin with our mouths more than any other way, so it is wisdom which says to guard our mouths.

How do you guard your mouth though? First it is the simple recognition that the tongue can be a violent member and needs to be guarded. Second, of course, we pray asking God to help us with our mouths. These need to be daily steps: remind yourself to guard your mouth and ask for the Father’s assistance. Beyond that, these meditations on God the Father and His ways begin to set up positive strong holds within your spirit. When you read a verse like this one, the next step is to think about it for a few minutes. What does this verse mean? What were the circumstances in which David wrote these words and what circumstance do you see yourself in that would bring this verse to life? How will you guard your mouth?

These simple questions turn into ponderings and it is those ponderings (meditation) which change your inner self. The “work” of Christianity is personal transformation. We are supposed to be changing into the very image of Christ. This takes time but it also takes effort and that effort is putting your thoughts on Christ so that they impact who you are on the inside. You are daily becoming the butterfly when you allow God’s Chrysalis to do its work. The chrysalis is God’s word meditated on within your own heart.

Our greatest liability may be our tongues, but it is harnessed by the spirit of God residing within us. The power within us is far greater than the weakness of the flesh. As you meditate on Yahweh and how He can influence your day, the things of the world begin to lose power and you will find it easy to guard your tongue, your temper or anything else. It’s a process. Daily, you are being transformed into the picture of Jesus so ponder these scriptures. Plant them in the fertile soil of your spirit and let them grow within you.

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Revival

On January 7, 2020   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Isaiah 57: 15

For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Although God lives in a high and holy place, above and beyond all that we can even imagine, He also has come to make His abode with each of us. Why? So that He can revive us. No matter how weary you become; no matter how stressed and overtaxed you are, the Spirit of the living God has come to live with you so He can build you back up and restore you. He is even ready to come to your aid when your heart is burdened or injured. He knows your deep concerns and hurts. He recognizes how weary you are from worry and the concerns of life. He wants to be your ready helper. He wants to be the one you turn to for restoration. He can take you to that high and holy place with him and refresh you with His springs of living water.

There is nothing or no one in this earth, above or below, that is more important to Him than you. Rather than just sit on His holy throne in the lofty places, he wants to be with you. All that He has done throughout history He did in order to accomplish this goal. His primary desire is just to be with you and help you. It is all He has every wanted. He is your hiding place and your refreshing water. His life is in you.

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Goodness

On January 6, 2020   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 83: 16- 18

Fill their faces with dishonor, that they may seek Your name, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and dismayed forever, and let them be humiliated and perish, that they may know that You alone, whose name is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth.

This is a very human sentiment. In fact, I would wager most of us have had this same feeling at one time or another. Sometimes we might feel these emotions towards our foes. At other times, perhaps, it is the thought we have towards the unsaved critics of our Lord. In either instance, it is a perfectly natural human reaction. It may even sound righteous. It is not, however, the evangelistic plan of our Father. Nor is it the way He deals with antagonists.

God said that His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55: 8) and this is one of the ways we see our differences. That is not to say, however, that our ways cannot mirror His. We must see His ways first, though, before we can model them. That is one of the ways that I pray the Word of the Day serves you, illuminating God’s thoughts and ways. As we peruse the Bible, or even the verses from the Word of the Day, we get to know Yahweh better because He is revealed in the pages of the book. The more we look at the scriptures the more we see how Father approaches situations.

Today’s passage brings to my mind the goodness of God. Though I might pray a sentiment like Asaph’s our Father would not react the same way. He is full of love and reacts from a position of love. He is chagrined by those who fail to include themselves in His love. He wants them to know peace, love and wholeness. Rather than shaming them forever, allowing them to be humiliated and to perish, He sent His son to save them. He sacrificed His son for the very people who wanted to obliterate Israel from the face of the earth and even from memory. Love is a crazy thing, isn’t it? It makes large demands, one of which is unfailing compassion.

I like this verse because it forces me to think about God’s approach to the world and His ultimate goodness. And, it is good to meditate on God’s goodness. The more we think about how God responds with goodness, the more we understand His position in all things. Meditating on His nature brings understanding at a very deep level. The more we meditate on how God thinks and acts, the more automatic those responses become in our lives. Our meditation on God plants the seeds of His ways in our hearts so that we begin to react as He does. That is the stuff of transformation. If you want to be like God, ponder His ways. Soon, those seeds will begin to produce a harvest and you will be more and more like Yahweh and living in the fullness of His peace.

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Father Christmas

On December 24, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Matthew 1: 18 – 21

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Santa Claus is an icon, the world over, for kindness and giving but who is this Santa Claus? He has many names and is idealized in many forms and costumes. He is ageless and has magic powers. For all his iterations, there is but one inspiration, your very own father.
I have thought about Santa Claus quite a bit this year. The word “Santa” means holy. Who is more holy than our Father? Some don’t like to focus on Santa Claus because that image may take away from the real message of Christmas. While it’s true that some people see nothing but reindeer and a jolly old man as the image of Christmas, I love what Santa means to me.

I am still a child at heart so I wouldn’t enjoy the fullness of Christmas without the bells and bows, Santa and snowmen. I love it all and I like how it all makes me feel but Santa is more than a jolly old soul to me. He is an image of my heavenly Father. When I hear the word “Santa” I hear “holy” and that makes me think of Yahweh. I love the Christmas cartoons with their jovial yet inspiring messages but all of that is a mere shadow, a reflection of the great joy our Father brings. Only God could provide the inspiration for a character as benevolent as Santa Claus. And I think, Virginia, the real Santa Claus is Yahweh, our beloved Father and God.

Christmas is the celebration of the first gift isn’t it, the gift of a son who is Immanuel, God with us, but also a savior, the perfect, spotless lamb destined to be the sacrifice for a people who were lost and dying. Our Father gave us His own son on what has come to be known as the first Christmas morn. Santa Yahweh gave the most precious gift ever conceived, which we continue to celebrate thousands of years later. He is the jolly gift bringer who still bestows gifts upon His children. His entire being is that of joy and benevolence. He is the perfect image of Santa Claus and more. He is the Christmas Spirit we hear about but fail to recognize.

Enjoy your Christmas, enjoy it as fully as ever you have. Be filled with all that Christmas means. Gaze upon the nativity scene on your table and ponder the miracle of that glorious day. Let Christmas carols warm your heart and when you see images of Santa, grin to yourself because you know the real Santa Claus. You know the original, rather than the imitations. Let the Father, and the season fill you with real Christmas cheer.

Merry Christmas everyone!
Until next year, Happy New Year and Blessings!

 

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Hey Kids!

On December 23, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 82: 6

I said, “You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High.”

This is a challenging bit of scripture, but the key is that it is scripture. If you value scripture as God’s word to us, then you have to deal with troublesome passages instead of reading over them and discarding them.

In context, God was talking about the lost people in the world. They are lost and without understanding, He said. His next words are, but I have made you Gods and sons of the Most High. In other words, if there are lost souls wandering around in darkness then activate your office as a god and as a child of the Most High to help them.

Father God has given us authority and dominion in the earth and of all the things we seem to misunderstand, this has to be one of the biggest. We keep begging God to do something, yet His response is, “Haven’t I made you a God? And, are you not my child, my lineage, a child of the Almighty? You have the authority to change the situation. I gave you power, might and dominion. I gave you the authority to operate in this realm. Exercise your authority.”

This challenges me and I hope it does you as well. I wrote an email today where I said, “God bless you,” not a bad sentiment, right? But no sooner did it flow out of my fingers, maybe even before I could finish typing it did the thought ring through my mind, “You bless them!” In other words, it is the story of Moses that God turned on me today. In Exodus 14: 15 – 16 is recorded this exchange, “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to start moving. Raise your staff, stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide the water.” Our God is kind and gentle but I hear Him saying through my filters, “Why are you whining to me when I have given you both the power and the authority to remedy this situation? Do what you have been commissioned to do.”

This is a good passage and a good theme to spend some time pondering. What has God empowered us to do? How is it that we can bless others? How do we use what God has given us to bring about His good in the earth? As always, we are delighted to hear your thoughts.

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Prayer

On December 20, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Job 22: 28

“You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; And light will shine on your ways.”

I want to change the way you and I think about prayer. As we charge into year 2020, I believe this is a great time to do so. I hope you have big plans for 2020. We are beginning a new decade and one that has been dreamed about for years. Science Fiction books and movies looked forward to this coming year and now it is upon us. Let’s have a great year and a great decade. If you are 85 years old this year, 95 or 15 set a new goal, a big goal and strap on your rocket boosters. 2019 was for sitting. Now is the time for setting an ambitious goal and going for it with gusto.

To make 2020 different from its predecessors we are going to have to look at things differently and do things differently. We might as well begin with one of our most sacred strongholds: prayer. If we keep praying like we prayed last year, we will get what we got last year. If you got what you wanted, that is great. If you didn’t then we should look at growing our understanding of working with God so that 2020 becomes a year of fabulous results and tremendous memories. I want for you the best of everything so let’s begin today preparing for a super year and decade.

For many of us, prayer amounts to asking God for what we want. We ask Him to do something for us. That is not an incorrect perspective, just an incomplete one. There is a lot more to manifesting our partnership with Yahweh than just asking Him to fulfill our wish list. The Christian experience has sometimes reduced prayer to little more than begging God to do something in our lives. We are active partners with God, so we need to learn our role in His way of doing things and then be fully prepared to step into that role in 2020. Today’s verse is the clue we need to send us on our way.

God did not create us so powerless that all we can do is beg Him to be active in our lives. He has spent eons pouring out His power and teachings so that we can be His partners. That means that He has empowered us to say something and have those decrees established. So, what does that begin to look like? You can pray for God to heal you. Good but let’s not pray a begging prayer, “Oh God, please heal me. Please, please God, touch my body with your healing.” That sounds good but, actually, it is unbiblical. God said he already has healed us (1 Peter 2: 24). So, we need to move to the next step – declaring. That is where today’s verse speaks to us. Decree a thing and God will establish it. We already know God’s will, it is for us to be healed, now declare God’s will, “I am healed. By his stripes, I am healed. Healing, manifest in my body.”

Whatever you need or want works by this same principle. The power to create whatever solution you need is resident in you right now (Romans 8: 11). We’ve got to start saying something. Once we do, the angels and the Holy Spirit can bring it to pass. We already know that all of God’s answers to our prayers are, “Yes” (2 Corinthians 1: 20) so what is stopping us from having all He agrees to? it is our not taking the next step, decreeing. We say, “Father, heal me.” He responds, “Okay, speak it and it shall be done according to your word.” That is the part we are missing.

Let’s get ready for a big year in 2020 by preparing ourselves now. Begin speaking the desire of your heart. The power is already in you. The answer to your question is already there. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring it up out of your spirit to your mind. Go inside yourself and understand that the power which created the universe is resident within you right now. It’s only a matter of letting that out now. God has already given you the answer to your prayer, it is the Holy Spirit. Start working with the spirit to get what is inside you right now, to the outside.

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Immanuel

On December 19, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 73: 23 – 24

Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory.

When Isaiah prophesied about the coming Messiah, he said the savior would be called Immanuel. Immanuel means God is with us. That is one of the most important pieces of prophecy in the entire Bible. It is a key piece of theology. God is with us.

Jesus’ coming to earth, his sacrifice and subsequent resurrection change the entire dynamic between God and people. The temple moved. Instead of being an edifice made of stone and mortar, the new temple is you. God has come to live in us and to be with us continually. He is now intertwined with us and us with Him. There is no separation other than that which we create. Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him,” (John 14: 23). Jesus and the Father intend to make their abode with us. Jesus also promised that the Father would send the Holy Spirit who would come and be with us forever (John 14: 16). So there you have it, all three persons of the Trinity coming to earth to live in and with you always.

This is the dream and hope of the psalmist. He recognized God with him. He also hints at an important aspect. As long as we are with God, He is with us. He will never leave us nor forsake us, but it is important that we are “continually” with Him also, as the psalmist wrote. He made a decision to be continually with God and then acknowledged that God had taken hold of his right hand to lead and counsel him all the days of his earthly life. Then, at the end of his days, he knew and expected that God would receive him into glory. In other words, their partnership will never end. God was with him all the days of his earthly existence and then the Lord received him into the heavenly abode of God. That is the promise we have, God with us. Grab hold of His right hand and enjoy life with Immanuel.

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