Yesterday some of my insecurities and fears surfaced.  I know in my head that God is greater than all of them, and yet I am so weak at times.  I think that is why I am drawn to a couple of verses from my reading in Hebrews this morning.  It is a simple prayer the author of Hebrews writes, a simple prayer that I am praying this morning.

Now may the God of peace--
    who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus,
the great Shepherd of the sheep,
    and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood--
 may he equip you with all you need
    for doing his will.
May he produce in you,
    through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him.
    All glory to him forever and ever! Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21, NLT)

This God who defeated the grave, who keeps His promises, who brings me peace; He is the one who will equip me for whatever I face today.  I am right to recognize that I am inadequate to the task.  He is God and I am not, of course I am no good on my own.

There was a little line in verse 9 of this chapter that seems to be on repeat in my head: “Your strength comes from God’s grace.”  Ah, grace.  That sweet, sweet gift that just keeps on giving me everything I need to faithfully live in this world.

I will never be able to conjure up the power to overcome my fears, and that is a really good thing; for if I could do it on my own the glory would all be mine.  That is not what I want my life’s story to be.  All glory to God who gives me strength for all of my days.  Strength to do His will through the power of Jesus Christ who is alive and working in me.  It’s a good prayer for the start of my days.
 
May  grace, peace, and mercy from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ be upon you dear reader.
Debra

I’m actually a day behind in my reading after a very busy weekend.  I don’t “sweat” those days when I get behind-that’s not what my time in God’s Word is about.  I keep a journal by my side as I read and I want to share with you what I wrote as I began my time this morning.  When I started reading my mind kept jumping to all sorts of things I need to work on today and I realized that I was not even paying attention to what I was reading…what was I reading?  So I grabbed my journal and penned this prayer:
“O Lord God, so many distracting things on my mind today.  Help me to just come into Your presence and be with You.  To delight in spending this time in fellowship with You. To be willing to sit here and soak You in-to soak in every word You speak to me today.  I don’t want to rush my time with You.  I want to savor it and delight in it as if I was actually sitting at Your feet like Mary did all those years ago.  So clear my mind of distractions and tune my heart to You.”

God used that moment of stopping and writing out this prayer to draw me in and keep the outside world away as I once again turned to God’s Word.  My reading in Ezekiel had me asking Him questions as there were things I just didn’t understand-and still don’t.  Over and over throughout Ezekiel I have been reading of the Sovereign LORD and I am latching on to that right now.  God being Sovereign.  And in today’s reading I was struck how Tyre made itself out to be god-that all it had, riches, beauty, etc, were somehow a product of its own making rather than the blessings of the Sovereign LORD and I wonder if perhaps that is why Jesus said it is so hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; they begin to think it is all about what they have done rather than what God has provided.  There is a warning there for me I would be wise to consider.

The next passage that jumped out to me was Hebrews 11:24-27.
 It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.  He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward.  It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible.

The line that really caught my attention was “he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible.”  That really seems to hit on a problem we face as followers of Christ.  How do we keep our eyes focused on someone we cannot see.  That is why I sometimes struggle to focus when I sit down to read my Bible.  I am in a relationship with someone that I cannot visit with face to face-I can’t even call Him up on the phone and have a conversation.  But that makes my time in God’s word all the more important, otherwise it is simply a one-sided conversation.
I would encourage you, dear reader, that if you are struggling with this time in the Word that you stop and pray.  Have a little talk with Jesus and just see what He does for you as you pick up your Bible and begin reading.
 
May  grace, peace, and mercy from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ be upon you dear reader.
Debra

This morning I specifically asked God to give me wisdom and understanding as I read His Word.  Once again today I have a very clear picture of the differences between the old and new covenants and just what Christ Jesus accomplished for you and me.  We have so much to be thankful for.

But I also came across verses that made me pause and think about how I live my life.  The first occurred in Ezekiel 20:12 which reads: Also I gave them My sabbaths to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.(NASB 1995)  The NLT renders this verse: And I gave them my Sabbath days of rest as a sign between them and me. It was to remind them that I am the Lord, who had set them apart to be holy.  I stopped to consider God’s Words here about the Sabbath.  I pretty much just think of it as a day of rest-but it is a day of rest that has a purpose even for us.  How much time after I get home from church do I enjoy thinking about God’s sanctifying work in me.  Thinking about my Sovereign Lord who chose me in Christ to be His very own.  Spending these last few days in the book of Ezekiel this is HUGE.  Much like my thoughts earlier this week regarding the Lord’s Supper I am wondering how I am going to apply this to my Sundays in the future.  I’m not yet sure so will have to keep you posted.

As I read further in Ezekiel God really brought me to consider what He was saying to the leaders in these verses.  In essence they and their ancestors wanted more than anything to be like the nations around them.  They were so drawn to the world around them that they refused to be set apart as holy-they refused to honor the Sabbath.  What about me?  Do I too desire to be like the world, to not stand out as different somehow?  Does the world woo me with its enticements so that I put God on a back burner-that I put His sanctifying work in my life as less important?  That Sabbath rest may be necessary for a weekly reset as I am so prone to forget who I am in Christ.  No wonder God has put all these things into place to call me to remembrance.  I really need to take them seriously.

Verses 32-38 in Ezekiel were hard to read.
 “You say, ‘We want to be like the nations all around us, who serve idols of wood and stone.’ But what you have in mind will never happen.  As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I will rule over you with an iron fist in great anger and with awesome power. And in anger I will reach out with my strong hand and powerful arm, and I will bring you back from the lands where you are scattered.  I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, and there I will judge you face to face.  I will judge you there just as I did your ancestors in the wilderness after bringing them out of Egypt, says the Sovereign Lord.  I will examine you carefully and hold you to the terms of the covenant.  I will purge you of all those who rebel and revolt against me. I will bring them out of the countries where they are in exile, but they will never enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

God has a message for these people-I am going to judge you according to the terms of our covenant.  And I am going to do it “face to face.”  What a terrifying prospect.  To be judged by God face to face, and come to terms with the knowledge that you are guilty of everything He accuses you of.  All I could say at this point, was thank God I am reading Hebrews and being reminded that I am under the New Covenant and that nothing I do will ever be held against me.  Christ has made sure that when I come face to face with God I shall be blameless before Him.  Just let the wonder of that sink in for a moment before reading further….
...
...
...

When I came to Psalm 107 I fell in love with it. Partly because of the closing words which felt like a sweet answer to my prayer.  Psalm 107:43 reads:
Those who are wise will take all this to heart;
    they will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.

So what am I taking to heart this morning?  Lessons learned from the history of Israel and their relationship to the Sovereign LORD.

Psalm 107 is a psalm of redemption, not just for those who have faithfully followed the Lord but also those who rebelled against God.  Each group mentioned ends up crying out to God in their distress and He hears them all and answers their cries and saves every single one of them.  He saves all who call out to Him who desire to be saved.  Those who turn to the LORD in their time of great need. 
What particularly stood out to me was verse 9:
For He has satisfied the thirsty soul,
And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.
All I could think as I read those words was that Jesus gives us Living Water to satisfy our thirst so we are never thirsty again.  And Jesus is the Bread of Life who fills us with what is good. Here tucked in this Old Testament verse is the very thing we experience as the redeemed of the Lord today.  The work of Jesus was sitting right there in those words.  That’s so cool! 

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary (Psalm 107: 1-2)

When I came to the words in Proverbs and it was as if God was speaking these words directly to me.  “Be wise my child and make my heart glad.”  Well, it made my heart glad for sure as I give thanks to the Lord this morning for He is indeed good and His lovingkindness never, ever ends.  It is limitless and boundless.  And I am one of the redeemed who will say so.  Praise God!

May  grace, peace, and mercy from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ be upon you dear reader.
Debra