Third Day

  • Overflowing to Empower

    “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).
    Paul places two images before us–drunkenness and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

    There are certain things that drive people to drink. The pressures of life, the demands that are severe that lead to some type of stimulation to overcome it. There are some things in life that causes one to take a drink to undergird, to give confidence, to help, and to give strength. There are a lot of situations that stir people to drink.

    In contrast Paul says that we are to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  For He will stimulate, strengthen, subdue the human failures and feelings and satisfy us with His workings. There is no shame to feel the sense of need. We were not made to be self-sufficient, independent creatures. We need Someone to help us feel adequate to face life; do not be troubled by that.

    Herein is the real and great secret of Christianity. It is the possibility of being filled with the Spirit of Christ. Each child of God has the Holy Spirit living in them, but many are not filled with the Holy Spirit. They have the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit does not have them. The Holy Spirit is present but He is not president. He is resident but He is not residing. He resides in you but maybe He does not preside through you. He is our inner supply for every need.

    Christianity is not just about coming to church, getting a blessing, and then going away to live in the light and warmth of the blessing until it leaks away. No, we have much more than that. We drink {believe} into Him and “Out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water,” John says, “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive” (John 7:39a). That is the strengthening that comes from within, and He is plenty for the situation. So drink in and drink up, for by Him we live and move and have our being.

     

     

     

     

  • Sinners and Their Enticement

    “My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother” (Proverbs 1:8).

    The culture will try to dictate what you are to believe and how to behave. The culture changes but the culture should not change us. We are to go into the culture and choose to confront the culture with the gospel.

    It is the job of the father and mother to teach their children the right way, which is God’s way. The father and mother choose to be the professors in the home, using the Word of God as their main text book, and with total dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

    When parents live with an agenda that says, “Me and no other” will rule and reign in my child’s life, they are setting themselves up for a fall, and their children. We are to live in the fear of God and not by our own set of fears. When we live with God’s total control over any thing that takes place in our children’s lives, then we can know God’s power. The culture entices but God’s leadership through the parents can be much stronger when children are taught with truth and love.

     

     

     

     

  • Tempered Steel

    “Then he {God} chose David, his servant, handpicked him from his work in the sheep pens. One day he was caring for the ewes and their lambs, the next God had him shepherding Jacob, his people, Israel, his prize possession” (Psalm 78:70-71).

    Financial reversals, betrayal, depression, family difficulties, and the consequences of poor personal decisions can wreck a person’s life.  David left tracks for us to follow. Just read the book of Psalms and you will see that David encountered being knocked out of the saddle many times. But David found God to be faithful. The dismal swamps were also seen and David was weighed down, but he also felt the fresh, exhilarating winds on the mountaintops of accomplishment.

    God works strangely. He often enriches by impoverishing. King David was a man taken from the pasture tending sheep to the palace leading a nation. How did God get David in the place of shepherding a nation? He used trapdoors and pit stops. He used transition. God used anointing by the hand of Samuel in secret, of course, but God used anguish by the hand of Saul in public to train and teach David the leadership God had for him.

    You don’t ascend to the status of an All-Star overnight without difficulties and obstacles. Many of us have forgotten that many people go through trials and difficulties, fall through trap doors, and face many pit stops in their lives. We forget that God is working for them and in them.

    Look around and see if you are caring and carrying these “misfortunates” in your prayers and actions. See if the Lord is first place in your hearts for them? Ask yourself do you really care? Sometimes we spend so much more time in other pursuits that we forget how good God has been to us. There is a trail. There is a path God has designed for them and for us. And it would be great if we recognized them as the hand of a merciful and good God.

     

     

     

     

  • Bitterness

    “Let all bitterness…be put away from you” (Ephesians 4:31).

       Bitterness is often called righteous indignation. It demands one’s rights. It is a dark, debilitating, deadening disease. It will kill you and it will kill others.

         Many of us, as James Mallory says, have an “emotional hall of injustice,” and we like to visit it often. We like to polish the statues of those who hurt us. We like to  mull over all of those incidents where we were treated unfairly and unjustly. We don’t say it but many times we are really upset at God.

          This must be rejected. By the act of the will, a child of God must turn from this great sin. We need to turn to God and confess it is a reality in our lives. When you go to God in prayer take those who are on your hit list, those who make you angry and bitter, take those things which have come into your life, and allow the God of glory to teach you through it. You will see yourself and you will see God.

     

  • Moab

    “For your name’s sake, O LORD, preserve my life! In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble!” (Psalm 143:11)

    No one plans on dying in Moab. But Elimelech did. His two sons did. This man, whose name means “My God is King” left Bethlehem (The House of Bread) to go down to the place of backsliding. Moab came into being by Lot (Abraham’s nephew) and his oldest daughter. It was incestuous and ungodly. The child’s name was named Moab (Genesis 19:37). The Moabites had a false god by the name of Chemosh (Numbers 21:29). When a Moabite man was desperate for the help of Chemosh, it was a common practice for the father to sacrifice one of his children to this demonic god (2 Kings 3:26-27).

    It was to this land that Elimelech took his family. He left the land of Bethlehem to “improve his family.” Elimelech lived a lie. Elimelech was the king of his own life, and it’s certain the Lord wasn’t. During the days of judges this man typified a man “who did what was right in his own eyes.” Instead of following the path of repentance and faith, trusting the Lord to provide for his family’s needs during the famine months, he moved to follow what seemed best to him. He chose the road to Moab.

    Don’t streak down to Moab. It’s not worth it. Stay the course! Stay with God! Don’t become a platinum member of this club. The price and cost is too high. Elimelech, preoccupied with packing his U-Haul for Moab, never sought the solution: Jehovah God. Whatever you do–whatever I do–we both need to turn and run to the Lord. Ride out the hard times while trusting in the goodness of God.