GOLDEN WORDS
As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth
his children.
(1 Thessalonians 2:11)
The best inheritance a father can leave his children is a good example.
Daily Meditations by Pat Nordman ©
April 30
"So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up." Mark 1:31.
Jesus lifts: "He...lifts the needy from the ash heap." 1 Samuel 2:8, Psalm
113:7. We are all in ash heaps! "The Lord...lifts up all those who are bowed
down." Psalm 145:14. Jesus raises us from the day we are born and then raises us up
at the great day of resurrection: "...He will raise us also." 1 Corinthians
6:14.
"He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand." Psalm 40:1,2; "I will exalt you, O Lord, for
you lifted me out of the depths...O Lord, you brought me up from the grave" Psalm
30:1,3. "Then he went up and touched the coffin...`...Get up! '" Luke 7:14. He
touches our coffins of sorrows, excuses, doubts, hostilities and disabilities; whatever is
burying our hearts and minds under a worldly heap. He implores us to rise and explore the
possibilities, for He has destroyed impossibilities. "...You are set free from your
infirmity" (Luke 13:11), whatever it is. What a visualand comfortwe have here! He
encourages us to get up and out and doing for Him.
"...When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all...to myself." John
12:32. He Himself was lifted on the cross and lifted from the grave, that He might be the
Lifter up of us all. He lifts the weak, the ignorant, the humble, the poor and the
fearful; He lifts us all. When Jesus raised Lazarus, He told the tombwatchers to remove
the stone so He would be able to give Lazarus another life. So He asks us to take our eyes
off what is burying us; to obey His command to remove our stones and come to Him for our
new life, that He may lift us to summits we have never known: "...He enables me to go
on the heights." Habakkuk 3:19.
Pat Nordman ©
Excerpts from today's Spurgeon's Devotions |
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| "And all the children of Israel murmured." - Numbers 14:2 |
"How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God." - Psalm 139:17 |
Surely it must help thee to bear the chastening with resignation if thou art able to recognize thy Father's hand. For "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
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God is always thinking upon us, never turns aside his mind from us, has us always before his eyes; and this is precisely as we would have it, for it would be dreadful to exist for a moment beyond the observation of our heavenly Father. |
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Today's Bible Question ?
Which wife of David's was unable to bear children because she despised his dancing before the Lord?
Previous question and Answer:
What people even put sackcloth on their animals when they repented?
The people of Nineveh Jonah 3:8
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ARROWS by Cathy Vinson
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Children can enjoy marking up papers with arrows. Take a blank sheet of paper and add arrows and you'll see your eyes definitely pulled around. Arrows are important, for they signify direction. C S Lewis wrote that some are slowly becoming Christian while others are slowly becoming unChristian. What arrow direction would describe our lives? Philippians 3:16 sets a tall order: "Only let us live up to what we have already attained." What have we attained? Even the mere longing gaze upward can mean something, as King Nebuchadnezzar found. In being disciplined as a cow (Dan 4), he finally looked up. At that very point his sanity returned. What about the descending Christian? Please see Ezekiel 33. God is much more merciful in forgiving the many sins of the one who repents in the end than the one with a life of good works who turns away. To this, God says, "Yet your countrymen say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' But it is their way that is not just" (Ez 33: 17). It is better to be standing in the LOWEST PIT beginning to look up than to be in an ivory tower someday to turn your back. "Remember the height from which you have fallen" (Rev 2:4). The stakes are very high and spiritually impacted to be losing ground, losing height. "It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and to turn their backs on the sacred commandment that was passed on to them" (2 Pet 2:21). We need to go forward. The static cleanness after deliverance evokes a worst state than the first because of not going forward. God knows the arrow that would describe us. Let's look UP from wherever we are stationed. Let's meet the Lord from wherever our stance is...and continue doing so. "And God permitting, we will do so" (Heb 6:3). © Send a note to Cathy Vinson
, the writer of this devotion. |
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