THOSE WHO CONSIDER THE POOR ARE BLESSED!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY APRIL 28, 2022.

SUBJECT: THOSE WHO CONSIDER THE POOR ARE BLESSED!

Memory verse: "He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and He will pay back what he has given.” (Proverbs 19 vs 17.)

READ: Psalm 41 vs 1 - 3:

41:1: Blessed is he who considers the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.

41:2: The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies.

41:3: The LORD will strengthen him on his bed of illness: You will sustain him on his sickbed.

INTIMATION:

The Bible often speaks of God’s care for the weak, poor, and needy, and of his blessing those who share this concern. Providing for the poor is not just a suggestion in the Bible. The need for believers to care for the poor is a constant theme in the Scripture. But often we do nothing, caught up in meeting our needs and desires. Perhaps we don’t see enough poverty to remember the needs of the poor. 

God said neglecting the poor is a sin. Helping the poor is a command that may require a change of attitude on your part. 

God wants our generosity to reflect His own giving. Helping the poor is also an active part of religious life. As He has blessed us, we should bless others. God has a special concern for the poor. He insists that those who have material goods should be generous with those who are needy. He who gives to the poor is assured deliverance, blessing, strength, and mercy from the Lord because he had shown the same to the poor. 

When you show mercy to others, the Lord will show you mercy as well: “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” (Matthew 5 vs 7.) We should reflect God’s concern for the poor by giving and by helping those less fortunate than ourselves. God counts on believers to provide for the poor, and we should use what God had given us to aid those less fortunate. Look beyond your regular giving and think of ways to help the needy. This will help you show your regard for God (as Creator of all people), His creation, share God’s goodness with others, and draw them to Him. It is a practical and essential way to make faith work in everyday life.

Many times we do nothing, not because we lack compassion, but because we are overwhelmed by the size of the problem and don’t know where to begin. God doesn’t expect you to eliminate poverty, nor does He expect you to neglect your family while providing for others. He does, however, expect that when you see an individual in need, you will reach out with whatever help you can offer. 

Many people conclude that people are poor through some fault of their own. This kind of reasoning makes it easy to close their hearts and hands to the needy. But we are not to invent reasons for ignoring the poor. We are to respond to their needs no matter who or what was responsible for their condition. There is no excuse for ignoring the poor and needy within our reach.

It is everyone’s responsibility to care for those less fortunate. Families should help other family members, and towns are to help their community. One will not only seek out the poor to help them, one will ensure to make it easy in society for the poor to survive. 

Helping and caring for the poor and less privileged amongst us is a demand placed on us by God, and it is strictly for our own benefit because God has promised to reward us with deliverance, blessing, strength, and mercy. And God is not a man that He can lie and the sin of man that He can repent or change His promise. What He says He will do is as sure as day and night.

Prayer: Abba Father, I know Your word is yes and amen. Endue me with the spirit of generosity, especially to the poor and needy in our society, that I may obey You in giving and showing mercy to others and quality for Your rewards, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

The Great Exchange

 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed. (Romans 1:16–17)

We need righteousness to be acceptable to God. But we don’t have it. What we have is sin.

So, God has what we need and don’t deserve — righteousness; and we have what God hates and rejects — sin. What is God’s answer to this situation?

His answer is Jesus Christ, the Son of God who died in our place and bore our condemnation. “By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he [God] condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). Whose flesh bore the condemnation? His. Whose sins were being condemned? Ours. This is the great exchange. Here it is again in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

God lays our sins on Christ and punishes them in him. And in Christ’s obedient death, God fulfills and vindicates his righteousness and imputes (credits) it to us. Our sin on Christ; his righteousness on us.

We can hardly stress too much that Christ is God’s answer to our greatest problem. It is all owing to Christ.

You can’t love Christ too much. You can’t think about him too much, or thank him too much, or depend upon him too much. All our forgiveness, all our justification, all our righteousness is in Christ.

This is the gospel — the good news that our sins are laid on Christ and his righteousness is laid on us, and that this great exchange becomes ours not by works but by faith alone. “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Here is the good news that lifts burdens and gives joy and makes strong.

JOIN US ON YOUTUBE

 

Children of a Singing God

 

And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. (Mark 14:26)

Can you hear Jesus singing?

Was he a bass or a tenor? Was there a down-home twang to his voice? Or was there an unwavering crystal pitch?

Did he close his eyes and sing to his Father? Or did he look into his disciples’ eyes and smile at their deep camaraderie?

Did he usually start the song? Or did Peter or James, or maybe Matthew, do it?

Oh, I can hardly wait to hear Jesus sing! I think the planets would be jolted out of orbit if he lifted his native voice in our universe. But we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken; so, Lord, go ahead, do it! Sing!

It could not be otherwise but that Christianity be a singing faith. The founder sang. He learned to sing from his Father. Surely they have been singing together from all eternity. Don’t you think so? Would not infinite eternal happiness in the fellowship of the Trinity sing?

The Bible says the aim of our singing is “to raise sounds of joy” (1 Chronicles 15:16). No one in the universe has more joy than God. He is infinitely joyful. He has rejoiced from eternity in the panorama of his own perfections reflected perfectly in the deity of his Son.

God’s joy is unimaginably powerful. He is God. When he speaks, galaxies come into being. And when he sings for joy, more energy is released than exists in all the matter and motion of the universe.

If he appointed song for us to release our heart’s delight in him, is this not because he also knows the joy of releasing his own heart’s delight in his own image in his Son by his Spirit in song? We are a singing people because we are the children of a singing God.

BRIDLE YOUR TONGUE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY APRIL 27, 2022.

SUBJECT: BRIDLE YOUR TONGUE!

Memory verse: "You are snared by the words of your mouth; you are taken by the words of your mouth.” (Proverbs 6 vs 2.)

READ: James 3 vs 2, 5, 8 - 12:

3:2: For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.

3:5: Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.

3:8: But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 

3:9: With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God?

3:10: Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not be so.

3:11: Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? 

3:12: Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

INTIMATION:

The tongue is the flexible muscular organ in the bottom of the mouth used for tasting, swallowing and human speech. Without the tongue speech is impaired. Therefore, if you control or bridle your tongue, you have controlled your speech. What you say and what you don’t say are both important. To use proper speech you must not only say the right words at the right time but also not say what you shouldn’t. 

Examples of an uncontrolled or unbridled tongue include gossiping, putting others down, bragging, manipulating, false teaching, exaggerating, complaining, flattering, and lying. Before you speak, ask, “Is what I want to say true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? and so on.

Our words are part of ourselves; they are ourselves. We create a mental condition with our words, and words coming from your heart goes out into the air to thrill or throb the hearts of those that listen. Life is largely made of words. If your words are full of love and peace and fidelity, they are born out of your heart life. We declare war with words. Divorces and defeats are made up of words. Children become what words make them. 

We dare not be careless with what we say, thinking we can apologize later, because even if we do, the scars remain. A few words spoken in anger can destroy a relationship that took years to build. Before you speak, remember that words are like fire; you can neither control nor reverse the damage they can cause.

Our words dominate us. At times our words are right and pleasing to God, but at other times they are violent and destructive. You might be imprisoned with your own words. You talked failure and failure held you in bondage. You said that you did not have faith, and doubt arose like a giant and bound you. You said that you could not, and the moment that you said it you were whipped. A woman said the other day, "I always speak my mind." She has few friends. Only pity causes people to go see her. Her lips have been her curse. It isn't so bad speaking your mind if you have the mind of Christ, but as long as you have a mind dominated by the devil, few people care to hear your mind. 

Learn that your lips make you a millionaire or a pauper; wanted or despised; a victor or a captive. Cultivate the habit of thinking big things, and then learn to use words that will react upon your own spirit and make you a conqueror. Your faith will never register above the words of your lips. Thoughts may come and persist in staying, but you refuse to put them into words and they die unborn.

Learn from our Messiah, His confessions proved to be realities. Jesus confessed that He is the Light of the World. He is it. The rejection of Him has plunged the world into a new darkness. He said He was the bread from heaven, and it is true. The people who feeds upon His Words never suffer want. His Words were filled with Himself, as we act on them, they fill us with Christ. 

We were made in God’s image, but the tongue gives us a picture of our basic sinful nature. God works to change us from the inside out. When the Holy Spirit purifies a heart, He gives self-control so that the person will speak words that please God. The believer's words should be born of love and filled with love. Our words should never bruise or hurt, but should bless and heal. 

Prayer: Abba Father, I know the creative power of words, for the world was created by spoken words, and by my words I will be justified, and by my words I will be condemned. Bridle my tongue, O Most High, endue me with spirit of self-control that I may speak words abundant in love, trust, and confidence in You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

You Were Made for God

 

“For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.” (1 Samuel 12:22)

The name of God often refers to his reputation, his fame, his renown. This is the way we use the word “name” when we say someone is making a name for himself. Or we sometimes say, that’s a “name” brand. We mean a brand with a big reputation. This is what I think Samuel means in 1 Samuel 12:22 when he says that God made Israel a people “for himself” and that he would not cast Israel off “for his great name’s sake.”

This way of thinking about God’s zeal for his name is confirmed in many other passages.

For example, in Jeremiah 13:11 God describes Israel as a waistcloth, or belt, with which God chose to highlight his glory, even though there were times when Israel was temporarily unfit. “For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.” Why was Israel chosen and made the garment of God? That it might be a “name, a praise, and a glory.”

The words “praise” and “glory” in this context tell us that “name” means “fame” or “renown” or “reputation.” God chose Israel so that the people would make a reputation for him. God says in Isaiah 43:21 that Israel is “the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.”

And when the church came to see itself in the New Testament as the true Israel, Peter described God’s purpose for us like this: “You are a chosen race . . . that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

In other words, Israel and the church are chosen by God to make a name for him in the world. This is why we pray first and foremost, “Hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:9). This is why we pray, “Lead us in paths of righteousness for your name’s sake” (see Psalm 23:3).

When we speak of being a God-centered people, remember, this is because we are joining God in his God-centeredness. And on this side of the cross, that means being a Christ-dependent, Christ-exalting people. “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake” (1 John 2:12). “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).

REINSTATED TO ABUNDANCE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

TUESDAY APRIL 26, 2022.

SUBJECT : REINSTATED TO ABUNDANCE!

Memory verse: "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; For You have created all things, and for Your pleasure they are and were created" (Revelation 4 vs 11).

READ: Psalm 50 vs 10 - 12; First Timothy 6 vs 17:

Psalm 50:10: For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.

50:11: I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are Mine.

50:12: If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all its fullness.

First Timothy 6:17: Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us all things to enjoy.

INTIMATION:

God created all things, and therefore, owns all things. He created all things for His pleasure, and as well as ours. God is not in want of anything because He is sufficient in all things. God created all things including us. He made us special by creating us in His image and likeness. And we are made sufficient in God's own sufficiency (Second Corinthians 3 vs 5).  

In the beginning God placed everything that man could use and enjoy in the Garden. God saw to it that Adam lacked nothing, as he was created in His own image and after His likeness, leaving nothing to be desired by him. God gave Adam dominion over everything. Adam was the master of the kingdom given to him, and was empowered to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it. God only placed Himself above Adam as his master.

God's Will of abundance for mankind was supreme until that fatal day Adam committed high treason against God by doubting God's integrity, and believing God's permanent enemy. According to the Scriptures, the woman was deceived but the man was not (First Timothy 2 vs 14), meaning that Adam knew what he did, and the implications of what he did. He tried shifting the blame on the woman when God enquired of him concerning his did (Genesis 3 vs 12).

When Adam partook of the deadly tree, he died, not physically but spiritually. Spiritual deadness is the nature of Satan. That nature consequently overtook Adam's once righteous spirit, and he became one with Satan. Every phase of Adam's life came under the curse of his new god, Satan. He was driven from the Garden; abundance was no longer his to enjoy. He had to toil and sweat in order to survive. His beautiful life was overrun by thorns and thistles both in the physical and in the spiritual world.

The Lordship of God provided only good. Poverty and lack came only after Adam changed god and began to operate under Satan's dominion, the author of poverty.

It is obvious that God desired man to live in abundance, but by Adam's own choice, the lordship of Satan engulfed him in a curse that resulted in poverty and lack. 

God's heart yearns for His people to be free, and through His infinite wisdom, He has continually provided deliverance for man and freedom from the curse of poverty. God, in His infinite mercy that endures forever, sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, for our sake, to pay the supreme price: "Surely He has borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace upon Him, And by His stripes we are heeled" (Isaiah 53 vs 4 - 5). 

Through our believe in Christ Jesus, our Sacrificial Savior, He gave us right to become His children (John 1 vs 12). We are reinstated to our original position with Him. His wish is that you shall prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (Third John 2). In accordance with His Will for us, in prosperity and sufficiency, He has given us back all things in Christ Jesus to enjoy, Hallelujah!

Prayer: Abba Father, to You be glory for the great things You have done. My sufficiency is in You who made heaven and the earth. Thank You for my redemption in Christ Jesus, and uphold me by Your generous spirit, in Jesus' Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!