Let Go, Know God

On July 30, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 46: 10        GW

Let go of your concerns! Then you will know that I am God.

Yesterday I used today’s verse in making a broader point. Today I want to take you into it more in depth. Yesterday I used the NLT version of Psalm 46: 10 which says, “Be still, and know that I am God!” In order to see God’s hand manifested in our lives, we have to be still, quiet and allow Him to be God. Without the benefit of stillness and quiet, it is challenging to hear God.

Another very important aspect of being still is letting go of our worry and putting our trust in Him. It really is a package of trust that allows God to be active in our lives. Doubt shuts Him out. Our worry and keeping our hand in things interferes with God showing up in our lives.

Yahweh God respects our free will very highly. He absolutely will not violate your right to make choices. That also means, though, that He will not step into your business and take over, even if it would be good for you. He knows that would be dysfunctional and that He needs to let you choose for yourself. Therefore, you have to invite Him into your business. He will gladly advise you but only when you allow His participation. If you pray for His help and then lean on your own strength, you are pushing Him out. He wants us to let go of those concerns, turning them completely over to Him.

As you think about this verse, especially as seen from the two different translations, I think you will gain a keen perspective on how to let God be Lord in your life. You may see ways you have restricted Him in the past. Living in Him and with Him means intertwining with Him in every aspect of your life and even every aspect of His. As you release your concerns to Him, He will increasingly minister answers to you. Remember to quiet yourself down and listen for His voice. As He speaks advice, do as He says. You are going to see some fabulous and interesting changes in your life.

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Quietly

On July 29, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 62: 1, 5         NLT

I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him. Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.

I hope you are enjoying Psalm Mondays. I am. We are, in a practical way, getting to look particularly at David’s thought life and relationship with God. Today’s verse gives a great insight to David’s success. It also may point out a liability that we deal with in the modern society which David was not hampered by.

David learned to be still, quiet, even silent before God and this is a major part of his success. I often think he learned this very important skill in fields tending sheep. While his big brothers were off fighting in wars, David was stuck keeping watch over the sheep. It is pretty boring out in the field, by yourself at night. In those quiet hours, though, he learned to speak with God and more importantly, to listen. One will never hear God without quiet. Psalm 46: 10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God!” The psalm makes a good point. We will find it difficult, if not impossible, to know Yahweh as God unless we learn to seek Him in the silent times. To know God as God; to have Him show up as God in your life, you have to be able to communicate with Him. If you can hear Him, you can be led, taught, guided and instructed in your everyday life. When we cannot hear Him, He can’t lead us. We need peace and we need to quiet in order to hear God’s voice.

The difference between David’s time and ours is technology. There are so many distractions in our lives. We have televisions, movies, music, computers, etc. David had stars and moonlight; and silence. In that silence he learned to hear God.

We could all do with a little silence. Unlike David, we have to create quiet in our lives. If we really want to have God be God in our lives, we need to wait quietly and patiently before him. That may be a bit of a lost art but worthy of rediscovering. Maybe we need to get some sheep and go live out in the fields with them. If not that, perhaps just setting aside time where we control our internal and external environment. Slow down, quiet down and let God lead you to victory.

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Don’t Do It Now

On January 16, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Joshua 1: 8

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

You’ve heard the popular saying, “Do it Now.” It was a great message and helped a lot of us in our everyday life. In fact, that saying has become part of the cultural jargon of our age. So, why am I telling you not to do it now? There is a time to be still and that is the subject of this Word of the Day.

Have you ever sat down to meditate and your mind been flooded with the myriad of things you need to do? Of course. Me too. We run at such a fast pace at times that it is challenging, no, very challenging to slow down physically, much less mentally, long enough to meditate.

Today’s verse is one of my favorites because it is so poignant. Moses has just died and Joshua is about to take over for him. Yahweh Father spoke with him regarding this huge task and God gave Him the best advice He had. Today’s verse is that advice. Now, to my way of thinking, if meditation is the single piece of advice God gave the one who was to lead His people, Israel, then it must be really important. Note that God didn’t say, “Pray Joshua, make sure you pray every day.” No, He told him to meditate. So, I took that to say that meditation is really important stuff. So, I set a goal to meditate daily.

Wow, what a challenge that turned out to be. First, I couldn’t sit still. I used Dr. Jim Richard’s guided meditations to help me learn to calm my physiology. Then, I found my mind was running rampant. Dr. Mark Virkler taught me Psalm 46: 10, “Be still and know that I am God, (KJV).” Well, easier said than done but I knew this stillness was important. The NASB says, “Cease striving and know that I am God.” Wow, that is loud. It goes along with some of our recent Words of the Day about letting God work in your life. I needed to master this skill, and I finally did. One of the things I had to learn, though, is “Do not do it now.” I had to discipline myself to let things wait. I had a to do list with each item prioritized. I knew the most important things to get done but I actually treated them all as if they were “A” priorities. If something came off of my master list and onto my daily list, then it felt to me like an imperative. Those things haunted me when I tried to meditate. Additionally, when I slowed down a tick, all sorts of other to do’s and ideas came to mind. Finally, I learned to put my to do list or even just a pad of paper and a pen beside me when I sat down to meditate. As those things came to mind, I wrote them down and went back to meditation. Sometimes it was more of a mind purge than meditation but then again, that turned out to be one of the benefits of meditation. Some of the things God had been trying to show me for ages freely flowed out of my sub-consciousness as soon as I got still for a moment.

Whatever your “A” priority is, and I am hoping meditation is one of them, you may have to learn, as I did, not to do everything else which comes to your mind. We have to learn to calm ourselves down and stick to our task. Writing down those other things is one way to help you stay on task. You cannot always do everything now and get the priority items done. Those are usually the more involved tasks, the ones which take a bit of time and concentration. It is so easy to do the little minute tasks instead of sticking to the big, important item. You will feel like you got a lot done but you will not be accomplishing the important, life altering tasks. Put these on your schedule, block out time for them on your calendar. Close your office door, turn off you cell phone and focus. Breathe deeply and settle your physiology. Breathe and relax your mind. Turn your eyes on Jesus. You will see that he is there with you and that he is already paying attention to you. Then ask him to help you with your task. Invite the Holy Spirit to be the leader. Put your mind on them and let them guide and support you. I promise you, this is a better way to work than the haphazard way I did.

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I can Hear

On September 26, 2018   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Isaiah 50: 5

The Lord God has opened my ear.

Do you know that you stand in the shoes of Jesus? That is what it means to be in him and in him is our goal and calling. This is the New Covenant. What does this have to do with today’s verse? You have been positioned to hear the voice of God exactly as Jesus did. Jesus didn’t speak or perform on his own initiative. Everything he did and said was at the direction of the Father. He heard God speaking to him and followed the Father’s instructions. This is the plan for us too! “But I cannot hear Him speak,” you say. I beg to differ. God has opened your ears as He did Jesus’.

Jesus went further. He said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me,” (John 10: 27). So, you can hear him. And that is the end of the debate. Jesus says you can hear him, so you can. He knows of what he speaks. The question, then, becomes why are we not following his voice as he said his sheep do? Why are we unaware of our ability to hear him?

When I had my law practice I learned something about this. Often, I would take a vacation to the mountains for a week or two of quiet and solitude. I took my Bibles and books and settled in for some quiet time with God. I noticed, though, that it usually took me a couple of days before I began to hear anything or even receive anything in my spirit. My world was so full of stimulation and noise that it took a couple of days to settle myself. I think of Psalm 46: 10, “Cease striving and know that I am God.” The King James Version reads, “Be still, and know that I am God.” My world was too chaotic, too full of being busy and on the go to ever hear God. I didn’t have the time in my regular day to slow down long enough to hear the Lord speak to my spirit. It took me several days of peace and quiet to be able to really be still in my spirit. I like how the God’s Word translation relates Psalm 46: 10. It says, “Let go of your concerns! Then you will know that I am God.” Most of us don’t let go of our “stuff” long enough to know Him as God. Even when we go to bed at night we still turn things over in our minds. During the day, the TV is on, people are talking to us, we’re working, etc. How much quiet time do you have just to ponder? People don’t think any more. They don’t have time. There is no sitting on the porch in a rocking chair just contemplating the world.

So, even though God has opened our ears, we rarely have space for Him to speak into. It takes a quiet, calm spirit to hear the Lord. He doesn’t yell, He whispers. He speaks into the stillness. I bet if all televisions and cell phones went on the blink for a month two things would happen; you would read a lot more and you would hear God’s voice. What if you made a decision that you and your family would have one hour of quiet time when no electrical or electronic device could be used. Do you think it would impact your life? You might talk with your spouse, your kids. You might even get to know them. Best of all, you might get to know your heavenly Father better too. What about thirty minutes? Will anyone take me up on thirty minutes? Twenty? Even if you only did one hour one day a week it would make a difference. Maybe you could do it two or three days a week.

I promise you – you can hear God, you can hear Jesus. You only need to give them an environment into which they can speak. If you will do that, you will hear them. Don’t forget to use your journaling skills too.

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Ministry of Music

On August 26, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

2 Kings 3: 15

“But now bring me a minstrel.” And it came about, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him.


What a fascinating passage. The story is about Elisha. The king of Israel petitioned Elisha to inquire of the Lord for him. So, Elisha ordered that a minstrel be brought to play for him and when the minstrel played, the Spirit of the Lord fell on Elisha and he began to prophesy.

One of the lessons I have been studying over the last few years is how to quiet myself down so that I can hear the voice of God. One of my key tools is to play anointed music. Often I sing along as well. Other times I play music which has no lyrics so as not to distract myself. In fact, I have some playing right now.

Each of us needs to know the techniques which work for getting ourselves into a quiet state of mind and spirit. Elisha knew his. He called for the musician. As the saying goes, “music has charms to soothe the savage breast.” The music was the tool Elisha used to move himself into a state of heart and mind that was conducive to his cooperation with the spirit with God. You see, the music didn’t make God do anything. God was ready. Elisha, on the other hand, knew that he needed a moment to get quiet so he could hear what the voice of God would say to him.

Look around you. How much quiet in our minds, spirits and environments do most of us have in a day. We run at a fast pace with little time to even think. No wonder we have a hard time hearing God. God speaks in the quietness of your spirit, not in the chaos. We actually have to tune ourselves to His station every now and again if we want to hear what He is saying. It is hard to do that if our internal radios are blaring everything from work to workouts, meetings to meals. We are busy and the noise of our lives are blocking out God. Perhaps each of us needs to call for the minstrel and let the soothing strains transport us to a rendezvous with Yahweh.

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Reboot Your Mainframe

On April 25, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Mark 6: 31

And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while.”
I am sure you have noticed that every once in a while your computer needs to be rebooted. Sometimes I use my laptop for several days without turning it off. I just put it to sleep and wake it up when it is time for it to work again. I am not letting it really shut down. Eventually it will complain and start failing in its tasks. So, I have to reboot it. I have to let it completely reset itself.

We need the same thing, a complete reboot. Many of us allow ourselves a little sleep but few hours of deep rest. We are like our laptops. We close our eyes like we close the laptop and sleep but we never really turn all of the machinery off and allow ourselves a deep rest. Jesus knew this was neither healthy nor ultimately productive.

One would think that if you worked with Jesus that there would be a great impetus to work day and night. Wouldn’t that have become even more pressing as the apostles learned that their time with Jesus was limited. More importantly, wouldn’t you expect Jesus to work day and night knowing that his time was short? There was so much to be done and such a short amount of time to accomplish it all. Why stop to rest? People are going to hell in a hand basket. Surely, of all the jobs any of us have Jesus’ was the most important ever. With all that weighing on their shoulders Jesus took himself and his apostles away to a quiet and lonely place to get some deep rest. They didn’t just go somewhere and take a power nap and then go right back to work, they actually “went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves” (v. 32).

We need to do the same thing. None of us has a job that is so important that we shouldn’t take some time away. We need that away time to reset and refresh. It is so hard to hear God even speaking to us when we are busy and harried. When you slow down a bit you find music and poetry and God’s thoughts rising up out of your spirit. There has to be time when you “shut down” everything and just commune with God in your spirit. God actually does want you to take a vacation but He does not want you to turn it into another busyness ritual. Slow down and be still. Just sit in the lounge chair and listen to the birds. You are going to be surprised how much Dad has to say to you and you will get the refreshing you need. Shut down your own system. Reboot your hardware and your software. You are going to feel better and even work much better.

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Powered by Quiet

On February 26, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Isaiah 30: 15

In quietness and trust is your strength.

How is that for a counter-cultural statement? I don’t think many of us associate strength with quiet? I think we connect strength with activity and energy. Walking with God requires us to learn an entirely new model. In the quiet, contemplative moments is where we actually find our strength. It is there that we forge the bond of trust.

Probably most of learned that when a problem presented itself it demands that we “do” something. And for many of us I don’t think that meant to go to a quiet place and meditate. No, we are doers. We apply action to problems. I cannot even count the number of times I have inquired of God, “What do you want me to do?” “Nothing,” He says to me. Are you kidding? Do nothing? That is not the way we are programmed but I am learning that God knows what He is talking about. I am most effective when I slow down and pray. I want to do something active to confront an issue but God is teaching me that the power is in the stillness. He has legions of angels poised to handle problems and frankly, they are much more capable than I. What I have, though, the thing which distinguishes me, is prayer. If I can be disciplined enough to quiet my heart and calm my mind then Father God will show me the way. In that stillness are answers. Not only that, but there is also encouragement and strengthening through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

If we will retreat into our prayer closet when confronted by a problem then our dear Father will meet us there and will subsequently meet our need. When we open our heart and our ears He is faithful to pour Himself into us. And when you have been touched and filled by the Father don’t you think you will have the courage to trust and find great strength? If you need strength it is found in the quiet attentiveness given to the Holy Spirit. Settle yourself and seek God’s face. Look to Him with your inner being in the calm assurance of His love. Love never fails but it can be difficult to touch when you are in an energetic rampage. Calm down, settle yourself. In the quiet of your heart your strength will be renewed.

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