(December 7, 2011)
Prayer House News!
On this Day in 1941 the attack on Pearl Harbor change America forever.
Let’s take some time to thank God for those who defended our nation.
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This is Family Week for our church. Take some time to meet with other families or spend more time with your own. There are no services at our church tonight!
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. The Devotional for this week is taken from my message from Sunday.
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Devotional!
Jesus’ Purpose
We were made to live in closest touch with God. That is the native air we are to breathe. Outside of that air our lungs are badly affected. The air of this world is too heavy. It's full of disease, and gases and dust. In it we choke and gasp. Yet man does not know why. A man without Christ gropes about in the night made by his own shut eyes. He doesn't seem to know enough to open them. And sometimes he will not open them because the hinge of the eyelid is in the will. And having shut the light out, he gets tangled up in his ideas as to what is light. He fulfills the prophet Isaiah’s words about those who put darkness for light, and light for darkness.
No one has suffered criticism like God has. Men who have the smallest insight into who He is and the world-wide plan of salvation he has for mankind will challenge him for not doing what they believe he should do.
1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
The bible tells us that even we who know God and have surrendered our hearts to him barely know him. Our insight is no more than what it would be if we were to look at everything through smoked glass. As Christians we gain a faded glimpse of what He is like but we still know very little – and yet we will challenge God and question his motives. We keep trying to bring God down to our level of understanding and make him accountable to us. That is shameful – it is shameful to accuse the one who died for us that he doesn’t really care for us.
If that is how it is for those of us who know God just think what it must be like for those who by their own will refuse to bend their will to His and open their eyes.
At one time man knew God well; close up. And that means he was loved, openly, and without restraint. But one day a bad choice was made. And the choice made an ugly kink in his will. The whole trouble began there. A man sees through his will. That is his medium for the transmission of light. And that applies to Christians and non-Christians. And within a man’s will he is sovereign. This is why we preach and teach and reach out to people; it’s with the hope that they will bend their will - open their eyes - and once again hear the word of God. If they refuse to bow their will to God’s there is nothing God can do to keep them from an eternity without him.
Man came into being by the breath of God. God breathed Himself into man. The breath that God breathed out came into man as life. The very life of man is a bit of God. Man is of the essence of God. Every man is a presence-chamber of God. God is a Spirit. Man is a spirit but he lives in a body. He thinks through a mind. He is a spirit, using the body as a dwelling-place, and the mind is his sharpest instrument.
Because of his free will God has put some checks in place.
Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all the innermost parts of his being.
Our spirit, our gut feeling, our inner sense is actually the lamp of the Lord. It searches our innermost parts and it speaks to us. It’s a part of God’s attempt to get us to open our eyes – or to bend our will – to see what He sees so that we can once again hear him speaking to us and learn to walk as he walks.
Every sin first lives in the imagination. The imagination is sin's brooding and birth-place. A picture created in our mind, a lingering glance, a wrong desire, an act--that is the story of every sin. The first step was disobedience. That opened the door. Typically the very first thought of sin shocks us. That is in part the workings of the lamp of God within us. (pray) We are shocked at what our minds are capable of but that shock or shame is actually meant to be a safety valve. Shame (which is a work of the Holy Spirit) is the recoil of God's image. When we do something shameful we feel the Spirit of God withdraw from deep within.
Genesis 3:10 And he said, "I heard the sound of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself."
The Hebrew word, yare' (yaw-ray) is the word for “afraid.” and it means to fear but it is connected to morality – it’s to fear morally. You could use the word shame here also. Shame comes from an understanding that what we are thinking of or doing is morally wrong. After Adam had sinned they heard God walking through the garden wanting to talk to them as had been their custom but they hid from him because they were morally afraid or ashamed of what they had done. Shame is sin's first checkmate. It is man's opportunity to turn from sin. Shame works to our advantage as long as we heed its counsel.
There are only two places where there is no shame: 1. where there is no sin;
Where there is no sin there is nothing to be ashamed of. Where there is not sin there is nothing to be afraid of. If Adam had not sinned he would have welcomed the presence of God he would have run to him when he called instead of hiding from him.
The only reason man fears death is because of sin. When there is no sin or when our sin has been eradicated by the blood of Jesus there is no fear of death. So the first place there is no shame is where this is no sin. The second place where there is no shame is 2. where sin is deeply imbedded. Man by his own free will and continual refusal to acknowledge the lamp of the Lord searching the deepest parts of his heart – can quench the Holy Spirit to the point of no longer feeling any shame for his sin. At that point he will indeed feel there is nothing wrong with his life the way it is, while the whole time being blind to all the death and dirt around him. There is no shame once sin has gotten so deep within the heart of man, or once a sin has been committed so often that he no longer has any sense of the spirit of God, the lamp of God searching him. That indeed is a dreadful place to be.
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Medication: A Merry Heart
Intelligence

Two goobers were digging a ditch on a very hot day. One said
to the other, "Why are we down in this hole digging a ditch
when our boss is standing up there in the shade of a tree?"

"I don't know," responded the other. "I'll ask him."

He climbed out of the hole and went to his boss. "Why are we
digging in the hot sun and you're standing in the shade?"

"Intelligence," the boss said.

"What do you mean, 'intelligence'?"

The boss said, "Well, I'll show you. I'll put my hand on
this tree and I want you to hit it with your fist as hard as
you can."

The goober took a mighty swing and tried to hit the boss's
hand. At the last second, the boss removed his hand and the
goober hit the tree. The boss said, "That's intelligence!"

The goober went back to his hole. His friend asked, "What
did he say?"

"He said we are down here because of intelligence."

"What's intelligence?" said the friend.

The goober put his hand on his face and said, "Take your
shovel and hit my hand."

(December 5, 2011)
Prayer House News!
We had a good Sunday with a number of people raising their hands in brand new commitments to Jesus! That’s what it’s all about.

I trust you had an excellent weekend also.

This is Family Week for us. That means we allow you to stay home on Wednesday night with the hopes that you will spend more time with your family or even fellowship with some other families.
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. The Devotional for this week will be my message from yesterday.

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Devotional!
Jesus’ Purpose
Don’t you just love Christmas! I love the season, I love the reason for the season, I love the music; it’s just a great time of the year. It does get a little tiring though with all the special events and parties that take place and usually by the time New Year’s Day is over I’m ready to get back into my normal routine. But since it is the Christmas season I thought it would be appropriate to focus on our Lord, because after all – if it were not for the birth of our Savior there would be no black Friday and our retail stores would have to come up with a new reason to get us to buy stuff.

I’ve been reading SD Gordon’s book called, Quiet Talks About Jesus. In it he throws out an idea about why Jesus came to earth asking the question, what was his purpose? What is the true purpose or idea behind Christmas? Gordon suggests that God is spelling Himself out in Jesus.

“Jesus is God spelling Himself out in language that man can understand. God and man used to talk together freely. But one day man went away from God. He left his native land, Eden, where he lived with God. He left, and in leaving he lost not only his native tongue but also how to walk with God.

Have you ever tried to learn another language? I remember back in the ninety’s’ I was going to Spain on a regular basis. Lou and I have been in many different cities throughout Spain as I was traveling and speaking at conferences. I was gradually learning the language. I could at least greet people and ask where the bathroom was. I remember trying out this new language once while I was preaching. I had noticed that on the men’s room door it read “caballero” (which means gentlemen). I thought that men were called caballeros. It’s actually pronounced cab-ee-yare-o. So when I got up to preach I told them that I was a bien caballero. I messed it up pretty bad. Well when I got done my interpreter told me that I just told them that I was a fine horse (caballo [ca-buy-o]). Talk about putting your hoof in your mouth. Anyway I eventually picked up several words because I was going there often enough to use them. The more you use a different language the more fluent you become in it. However, now that I don’t go there very often I have forgotten most of those words.

Adam left his native land and through going away he lost his native speech. He was no longer talking to God on a regular basis. He no longer walked with him like he once did and subsequently forgot the sounds of His words and the look of his footsteps. His ears grew dull and then deaf. Through lack of use he lost the power of speaking the old language and the effects of walking as God walked.

The scriptures indicate that God has always been eager to talk to man. The silence is hard on him. God is hungry to be on intimate terms again with his children. So he decided on the only language man could understand. He decided to send his son to earth as a man, a man who would speak both the language of the day as well as reintroduce the language of Eden and the stride of God. Jesus is God spelling himself out so man could once again understand who He is.

Let’s think about Eden for a moment.

Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (27) And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

In this picture we see man fresh from the hand of God. A spirit, in a body, with unending life, partly infinite, like God in his capacity for love, for holiness, and wisdom, with the gift of sovereignty over the lower creation, and in his own will. Like Him also in his capacity for fellowship with God. For only like can have fellowship with like. Men do not have fellowship with animals. We can love a pet but they cannot meet the needs we have for fellowship in our lives. It is only in that in which we are alike that we can have fellowship. So we have these two in Eden, God and man, walking side by side, working together, friendship in spirit; and partnership in service. This man is in a garden of trees and bushes, with fruit and flowers and singing birds, roses with no pricking thorns, soft green grass with no weeds, and no poison ivy, for there is no hate. He is walking with God, and talking with Him as His chosen friend.

Genesis 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

God brings His created beings one by one to man to be catalogued and named, and accepts his decisions. What an endearing picture. These two, God and a man in His likeness, walking and working side by side; likeness in being; friendship, fellowship in spirit; partnership, solidarity in service. And this is God's thought for man!

We all understand that God is Sovereign--the sovereign of this world and all worlds. However God created man to be a sovereign in the realm of nature, and over all the lower creation. He was given dominion, kingship, over all the earth-creation. Man is a king. He is of royal blood. He was made to command, to administrate, to reign.

But there is more here. The chief characteristic of an absolute sovereign is the regal power to choose, to decide. Man was made a sovereign in his own will. God is the absolute sovereign. However, He has made man an absolute sovereign in one realm, his will, his power of choice. There is one place where man reigns alone, an absolute ruler, where not even God can come save as He desires and that is in the will of man.

If that bothers you, remember that it was God's sovereign act that made it that way, subsequently God remains sovereign in making man a sovereign in the realm of his will. There every man sits in regal solitude. If man did not have a free will then there would have been no reason for the Son of God to be born a man - to come and save us from the choices we have made because without a free will we would have only made the choices he desired for us. Without a free will Adam and Eve would never have eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Without man having a free will God would never have had to instruct him to only eat from the tree of life. When they took of the fruit – they exercised their will over God’s will. If that is not the case then we would have to say that God willed for Adam to sin which would be a complete contradiction of his character.
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Medication: A Merry Heart
A preacher was standing in front of his congregation one Sunday, when an angel of the Lord appeared to them.
He said to the pastor, "You've done such a great job leading this congregation, I'm here to grant you one of three things. You may have wealth, wisdom or great fame."

The pastor said, "I don't even need to think about that one...I'll take wisdom."

The angel waved over the preacher and *Poof*. The preacher stood dazed a bit, and after a moment, someone yelled, "Say something wise."

The preacher said; "I should have taken the money."