Today's Soul Food
 

 

FEBRUARY 8

GOLDEN WORDS


But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Matthew 5:44 - 45 (KJV)


"But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Matthew 5:44- 45 (NASB)


But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Matthew 5:44- 45 (NIV) 


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President Lincoln was once taken to task for his attitude toward his enemies. "why do you try to make friends of them?" asked an associate. "You should try and destroy them."

"Am I not destroying my enemies," Lincoln replied gently, "when I make them my friends?"


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These Christians love each other even before they are acquainted.

Saint Celsus

 

Daily Meditations by Pat Nordman


February 8

"We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies" 2 Thessalonians 3:11.

Martin Luther had much to say about gossip and its terrible by-products. Luther pointed out that when we gossip we are doing Satan's chores for him. He related an incident of a couple so happily married that it was the talk of the town. The devil couldn't cause disharmony between them, but he finally hit upon the trick: he sent an old hag to the wife to tell her that her husband was having an affair with another woman and he planned to kill her. The hag told her that she would find a knife under her husband's pillow. She then hurriedly went to the husband with the same terrible tale. Unfortunately for the wife, the husband found her knife first, and that was the end of the town's happiest marriage.

There are several vital lessons here: malicious tongues kill; Satan is behind the vicious tongue; trust your partner; and, above all, check your sources.

Gossip is verbal interest in the failings of others rather than their feelings. Our own faults should keep us busy enough    
praying to a forgiving and forgetting Father and offering prayers of thanksgiving that He so willingly overlooks our own many mal practices of tongue.

Pascal shares this verity: "I take it as a matter not to be disputed, that if all knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. This seems proved by the quarrels and disputes caused by the disclosures which are occasionally made." The busybodies are parasites who go about stinging the innocent with veiled but spiteful venom. Let us beware of the one who is busy with everyone else's business. Paul gives excellent advice to Timothy: "Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge..." 1 Timothy 6:20.
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Pat Nordman ©

 

 

 


Today's Bible Question ?


What was the name of Timothy's mother?   
 


Previous question and Answer:

According to Psalms, what color is the sinner after being washed by God? 

Whiter than snow (Psalm 51:7)

 

 

Excerpts from today's Spurgeon's Devotions

Spurgeon's Morning for February 8

Spurgeon's Evening February 8

 

"Thou shalt call his name Jesus."

- Matthew 1:21

 

"He shall save his people from their sins."

-  Matthew 1:21

 


When a person is dear, everything connected with him becomes dear for his sake. Thus, so precious is the person of the Lord Jesus in the estimation of all true believers, that everything about him they consider to be inestimable beyond all price.


Many persons, if they are asked what they understand by salvation, will reply, "Being saved from hell and taken to heaven." This is one result of salvation, but it is not one tithe of what is contained in that boon.

 
 

 

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Are You This Cold

It was Christmas Eve in Korea. An expectant mother walked through the snow to the home of a missionary friend where she knew she could find help. A short way down the road from the mission house was a deep gully spanned by a bridge.

As the young woman stumbled forward, birth pains overcame her. She realized she could go no farther. She crawled under the bridge. There alone between the trestles she gave birth to a baby boy. She had nothing with her except the heavy padded clothes she was wearing.

One by one she removed the pieces of her clothing and wrapped them around her tiny son - around and around, like a cumbersome cocoon. Then, finding a discarded piece of burlap, she pulled it over herself, and lay exhausted beside her baby.

The next morning the missionary drove across the bridge in her Jeep to take a Christmas basket to a Korean family. On the way back, as she neared the bridge, the Jeep sputtered and died, out of gas. Getting out of the Jeep she started to walk across the bridge, and heard a faint cry beneath her. She crawled under the bridge to investigate. There she found the tiny baby, warm but hungry, and the young mother frozen to death. The missionary took the baby home and cared for him. As the boy grew, he often asked his adopted mother to tell him the story of how she had found him.

On Christmas Day, his 12th birthday, he asked the missionary to take him to his mother's grave. Once there he asked her to wait a distance away while he went to pray. The boy stood beside the grave with bowed head, weeping. Then he began to disrobe. As the astonished missionary watched, the boy took off his warm clothing, piece by piece, and laid it on his mother's grave.

Surely he won't take off all his clothing, the missionary thought. He'll freeze! But the boy stripped himself of everything, putting all his warm clothing on the grave. He knelt naked and shivering in the snow. As the missionary went to him to help him dress again, she heard him cry out to the mother he never knew: "Were you colder than this for me, my mother?" And he wept bitterly.

When Christ came, He stripped himself of every royal garment and entered into our world of hatred and cold indifference. Why did He do it? Because He saw centuries of broken lives needing a Savior. And then He died of a broken heart. What broke it? The sin of human hearts. The long history of men making slaves of other men. Centuries of cannibalism and cruelty. Starvation and suffering. The worship of false gods in temples made with hands. War, bloodshed, crime, and greed - those things broke the heart of Christ.

But so did we. Our coldness broke His heart and now it freezes Him out. We complacent Americans who are saved, satisfied, and sitting! We who pray, "Give us compassion for a lost world," and then "sacrifice" a dollar for missions. We with our elegant homes and brimming garbage cans. We who have the money, knowledge, and manpower to take the gospel to every creature, and yet we don't. We who say we love the lost, and neglect to tell a lost neighbor about a loving Savior. Jesus love lies frozen between trestled lips that ought to be warm to speak for Him.

Lord, we take off our garments of pride and self-righteousness, glittering but transparently filthy rags that they are, and lay them at Your feet. In our naked need we cry, "Were you colder than this because of us, Lord?" And we weep bitterly, because we know You were. 


 

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February 8 Leviticus 16:1 - 18:30


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Today's  Devotion

 

 

But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.

Job 16:5 (NIV)

The Decision

by Cathy Vinson

 

When we think of the most important decision that is ever made, some of us might think it is the decision to accept Christ. This isn't necessary wrong. But ONE decision has been made to precede all decisions; that is GOD'S decision to have mercy. We can almost hear the decision-making process in the heart of God:

"I was enraged by his sinful greed;
I punished him, and hid My face in anger,
yet he kept on in his willful ways.
I have seen his ways, BUT I will heal him;
I will guide him and restore comfort to him"

(Is 57:17)

Do you feel the anguish and the pause...a pause turning Him in mercy? God will instead heal this man He's created. Something will have to give, though. And that will be Himself.

We are totally bent on proceeding willfully, "yet he kept on." God says to us, "You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say 'It is hopeless" (Is 57:10). After giving out punishment after punishment, God is, so to speak, at the end of Himself. What will he do? The songwriter says: "He placed His love upon the altar." Why?

Why does He love? "God IS love." How tenderly He looks at us: "...nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before Me-the breath of men that I have created" (Is 57:16)

Oh, how He loves His man! In God's vulnerability, He will place His love, His healing...His Son upon the altar and call out "Peace, peace to those far and near...and I will heal them (Is 57:19b).

Behold the decision of Father


"Peace, peace to those far and near...and I will heal them

(Is 57:19b)

 
... ONE decision has been made to precede all decisions; that is GOD'S decision to have mercy.

Send a note to Cathy Vinson , the writer of this devotion.

Other Whispers from the Wilderness Devotions are found HERE

 

 

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