(November 8, 2010)
Prayer House News!
Great weekend at Prayer House. Our Mission Convention went very well. We did great on our Faith Promises which means we will be able to continue to support our missionaries and possibly take on some new ones.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The is Family Week which means we don't have much going on this week so you can spend some time with your family.
==============================================
Devotional
A Higher Plane of Life
One Sunday someone gave a word in our service that began by saying, “I made you.” This “word” was of course, a word from the Lord, and it simply struck me when I heard it. Obviously, it wasn’t a new revelation to me; I have always believed that God made me. But when I heard it – I was struck with that truth once again. God made me. And because He made me I have an obligation to Him to become everything He wants me to be. Suppose God would have chosen to not make me? What would my life look like if I had not been created? I suppose it would have looked exactly like it did prior to by birthday.

Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your face You shall eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return. "

When God created the first man, he was formed from dust. Do you realize that dust by itself is incapable of holding its form? Thus, man was created to be dependent upon His creator.

The original intention was that man by necessity, would be continually sustained by God, through fellowship with Him. Therefore, all life apart from God will, by the creative design of God, fall into a formless heap. Isn’t it interesting that we humans have adapted a phrase to describe how we feel about ourselves when things are not going right and that phrase is that, “things or life, is falling apart.” When someone says, “My life or my marriage, is falling apart,” what are they referring to except that God is no longer keeping things together for them. Without God – dust just falls apart. Our lives are dust, our marriages are dust, our children are dust, even our jobs are merely dust, unless we fellowship with our God. God then becomes that which maintains life for us. Why is the divorce rate in the world at 75%? It’s because without God dust cannot stay together.

Years ago there was a rock group called, Kansas. They are still known for a song they sang called, Dust in the Wind. It’s a song that has no hope in it. It really is quite common for men who do not know God to have this perspective on life – because, without Christ – all we are is dust in the wind without any real purpose. Listen to the last verse of the song. Now, don't hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky, It slips away, And all your money won't another minute buy, Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Everything is dust in the wind. The bible does say that we have been made out of dust and that we will return to dust eventually. So in one sense this song writer was correct – especially since he was a song writer. For everybody knows that when composers die they go to the grave and eventually decompose and become dust.

Interestingly enough one of the members of that band got saved and is now singing and writing for the Lord. I would imagine that he no longer believes that we are nothing more than dust in the wind. For now there is something in his life that is holding him together.

=====================================================

Medication: A Merry Heart

(November 5, 2010)
Prayer House News!
The Passport to Compassion starts tonight at 4:45pm. This is going to be a powerful experience. It's the kick-off to our Missions Convention. We will end it on Sunday morning with Troy Darrin, missionary to Moldova.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please Pray: for David Short and the surgery he had on his back.
==============================================
Devotional
Psalms 119:122 Ensure your servant’s well-being;

let not the arrogant oppress me.

This must have been a time in David’s life when he was insecure in his relationship with God. He is challenging God to prove himself. “Ensure my well-being,” he cries. The Hebrew meaning of “ensure” is to give a pledge or token in times of trouble. The verse could also read, “Be bail for your servant,” or “Pledge yourself for me, so I can know that You will pronounce me safe on the Judgment Day.”

Have you ever come to the place in your relationship with God where you have said, “God, if I’m going to make it, it will be because of You and not me”? In this verse, as well as the previous one, David is feeling oppressed. He seems to be expressing dismay over how the arrogant are oppressing him. His heart is crying, “Prove to me again that You can keep me, and that You have pledged yourself to me. Be my bail.” When the oppressor comes on strong there are times when we sit back and wonder if we really know God.

If you are on a path “into” God, the common thing will be to experience oppression. Whenever God is calling us inward, it seems our world falls apart. Our “world” tends to be something we have created. We have worked hard. We have gained many things. We have a status and a reputation. We know our limits, and we tend to be happy with our world as we have designed it. Then God calls us “into” Him. In order to enter into His world, ours must fall apart. We must see that there is absolutely nothing we can do to gain Him through our design. Our plans, our goals, and our objectives must all die so we can take on His plans, His goals, and His objectives. During that time of death, we fully realize the only reason we are going to make it is because He has become a surety for us.

=====================================================
Medication: A Merry Heart

(November 4, 2010)
Prayer House News!
Today will be a busy day at the church. The team from City on a Hill will taking all day to set up for the Passport to Compassion. Then tonight is a dry run for the support team from our church.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please Pray: David Short is having his fifth surgery on his back today.
==============================================
Devotional

Psalms 119:148 My eyes stay open through the watches of the night,

that I may meditate on your promises.

David had a heart that burned for God. In Psalm 39:3 we read, “My heart grew hot within me, and as I meditated, the fire burned.” David would stay awake throughout the night just to meditate on the Word. And the more he meditated, the more the fire burned. I don’t imagine David was able to stay awake all night, every night. However, the challenge before us is: Do we have any sense of fire at all? Have we ever missed any sleep in order to meditate on the Word of God? Do we have a burning within us for God?

David had a fire that guided him through the night. Nighttime and darkness are often equated with times of oppression or trouble — it’s when things are not quite as clear as they are in the light. The children of Israel knew of the fire of God, also. In Exodus 13:21 we read, “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light.” The children of God were guided through the night by the fire of the Lord. The fire of God will guide us through the darkness of oppression. When we are in the heat of the battle, when we are in the darkest valleys, the fire of God that burns within us keeps us going.

Burn-out comes when we lose the fire. When there is no longer a burning in our hearts for our God, we burn out. There’s no flame left. In Exodus 3:2 it says, “There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.” As long as there is a godly fire burning within you, it will guide you through the night. It will never burn out!
=====================================================

Medication: A Merry Heart

(November 3, 2010)
Prayer House News!
There will be no Wednesday night classes, No Mighty Men or RPM on Thursday and no SNS on Saturday. We are getting ready for a big weekend. Our Mission Convention is going to be excellent. Hope to see you on Friday night for the Passport to Compassion.
==============================================
Devotional
Matt 27:46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"-which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

I don’t claim to know what all was happening at this time of forsaking. But since it does appear that it was Jesus the man hanging on the cross subsequently, you wonder if God the Father simply wanted Jesus to fully realize the lost-ness of man. Maybe for a brief moment God turned his back so that Jesus could experience the state man is in without God. Regardless of all of this or even why this all happened – Jesus comes out of this experience saying to you and I, that he will never leave us or forsake us. He says, I never want any man to ever experience the feeling of having no hope and absolutely no one to turn to.
Col 2:13-15
13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
When Jesus was nailed to the cross – He disarmed the powers of darkness. Remember, Jesus was experiencing first-hand the effects of the “hour of man,” and his powers of darkness. He came to understand the hopelessness of man, and what it means to be deserted and betrayed. And now having been nailed to the cross he could relate to when the original betrayal took place. You see, man was betrayed long before He betrayed God. Satan came to Eve and deceived her. He betrayed her and convinced her to go against the word of God. Those powers of darkness have ruled over man ever since. But now Christ made a spectacle of them on the cross and disarmed them.

=====================================================

Medication: A Merry Heart

"President Obama sent out an e-mail encouraging his supporters to take at least three friends with them to vote.
That's not how people vote — that's how women go to the bathroom."

(November 2, 2010)
Prayer House News!
Our ladies are praying today. Keep in mind we have a very different schedule this week because of getting ready for our Missions Convention this weekend. There will be no Wednesday night classes, No Mighty Men or RPM on Thursday and no SNS on Saturday.
==============================================
Devotional
Matt 27:46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"-which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

This shows us what a real man Christ was, that he could be forsaken of his God? We tend to think of Emmanuel, God with us, and his manhood as being indissolubly united in one person. If that were the case it would have been impossible for him to be forsaken of God because He cannot be forsaken of Himself. With that logic, it would have been impossible for him to have been scourged, and spit upon, and especially impossible for him to die.

Yet all these things happened and had to happen in order to complete the redemption of his chosen people. It was necessary for him to be both God's well-beloved Son, and to be forsaken of his Father. He could truly say, as many of us have said from time to time, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

This forsaking must have been something personal. Why have you forsaken ME? It was a personal grief that wrung from his heart. He knew what he was saying, and he was right in what he said, for his Father had forsaken him for the time. On the cross he bled; he died; and, before he died, his spirit sank within him, for he was forsaken of his God.

This was the final desertion. It was not a betrayal for God did not sell Him out, He did not give Him over to the enemy, but it was a desertion. It was bad enough that his disciples had all deserted Him, but now God has forsaken Him also. Have you ever felt like you cannot take it any longer? Have you ever said that? None of us can understand the light in which Christ walked. He was lock-step with His father all of his earthly days. He said, “I only do what the Father does, I only say what the Father says.” His life was full of light and He was the light of the world. So at the time when Jesus became sin for us and all the weight of the sin of the world came to bear upon Him – His Father could no longer look upon Him, He turned His back – and the sky turned black. Jesus had lost sight of the light of His father and he cries out, “Even you, Father, have forsaken me. When the cheering crowd turned against me, I understood, when my disciples deserted me, I understood that also, but why have you deserted me, why have you forsaken me.”

=====================================================

Medication: A Merry Heart

PALM SUNDAY


IT WAS PALM SUNDAY AND, BECAUSE OF A SORE THROAT, FIVE-YEAR-OLD JOHNNY STAYED HOME FROM CHURCH WITH A SITTER. WHEN THE FAMILY RETURNED HOME, THEY WERE CARRYING SEVERAL PALM BRANCHES. THE BOY ASKED WHAT THEY WERE FOR. "PEOPLE HELD THEM OVER JESUS' HEAD AS HE WALKED BY."
"WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT," THE BOY FUMED, "THE ONE SUNDAY I DON'T GO, HE SHOWS UP!"