Fear the Lord and judge with integrity, for the Lord our God does not tolerate perverted justice, partiality, or the taking of bribes.
Have you ever found yourself caught between two fighting people? Each has their side of the story which they think is right but yet you know the truth lies somewhere between the two stories. Take the road that leads to integrity. Don’t choose sides but instead find ways to push grace in the conversation.
PROCLAIM HIS GOODNESS
Psalm 71:14-18
In Jesus’ Name, I Pray God’s Will for You
I pray that you will praise God more and more with each passing day. May your mouth tell of His righteousness and of His salvation all day long. May you never cease to declare His faithfulness and goodness in your life. I pray that you will proclaim the goodness and kindness He showed you since the days of your youth. I pray that you will continue to declare His praises to the next generation.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
The third time He said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” Peter replied, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You!”
You look into your life today and what do you see there? Failures, broken purposes, promises not kept, commandments violated, purity stained, everything sullied! Jesus comes and looks into your face, with that calm, holy, searching gaze of His, and says, “Do you love Me?” As you are about to answer, you think of all you have done that has been dishonorable and sinful. You are speechless before Him. Yet you are conscious that you do love Him; that in your heart, beneath all your sins, failures, and faults–there is love for Him. What a comfort it is to cast yourself on His knowledge of what is in you! Perhaps men sneer, and say that one who has stumbled as you have done–surely cannot love Christ. But Christ knows the love, even amid the sins and failures.
I am glad that perfection is not the test of discipleship. We may be full of faults. We go on stumbling every day. We do nothing beautifully. We misrepresent the Christ whose name we bear. We hurt the friends we want to help.
Christ knows all these sad failures. He looks at the stained scroll we fold up at the close of the day–with the blots on it. But while He sees the worst, He sees also the best; and He loves on loves unto the uttermost! “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You!”
For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. Respect everyone, and love the family of believers. Fear God, and respect the king.
Faith in Jesus sets us free from the power of sin and death! Yet, our freedom is not an excuse for bad behavior. When Jesus is Lord of our lives then our actions should reflect his character. We should live lives that show respect for others and trusts in God as our provider and guide.
Thanksgiving
In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Praise to God, immortal praise,
For the love that crowns our days;
Bounteous Source of every joy,
Let thy praise our tongues employ.
Quit you like men
Be brave. Cowards always get hurt. Brave men generally come out unharmed. Jeremiah was a hero. He shrank from nothing. He faced his king and countrymen with dauntless bravery, and the result was he suffered no harm, but came through the siege of Jerusalem without a hair being injured. Zedekiah, the cowardly king, was always afraid to obey God and be true, and the result was that he at last met the most cruel punishment that was ever inflicted on human heart.
The men and women that stand from the beginning true to their convictions have the fewest tests. When God gives to you a good trial, if you can stand the strain, He is not always repeating it. When Abraham offered up his son Isaac at Mount Moriah, it was a final testing for the rest of his life. Do not let Satan see that you are afraid of him, for he will pursue to the death if he thinks that he has a chance of getting you.
Be true, be true,
Whether friends be false or few,
Whatsoe’er betide, ever at His side,
Let Him always find you true.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”
The eye of our faith must be ever fixed on Jesus, for the Person of Christ is the grand object of faith, and to lose sight of him is to lose sight of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Is he not the same Jesus now that he was on earth? He is exalted, it is true, to an inconceivable height of glory, so that when John saw him, even as if in some measure veiled, he fell at his feet as dead. But he is the same Jesus now as when he was the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as he wears the same human body, so he has the same tender, compassionate heart. All that he was upon earth as Jesus, he is in heaven still. All that tenderness and gentleness, all that pity to poor sensitive sinners, all that compassion on the ignorant and on those who are out of the way, all that grace and truth which came by him and were manifest in him, all that bleeding, dying love, all that sympathy with the afflicted and tempted, all that power to heal by a word all manner of sickness and disease, all that surpassing beauty and blessedness whereby he is to those who have seen him the chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely One, he not only retains in the highest heavens, but is, so to speak, endowed with greater capacity to use them, for all power is given to him in heaven and earth, and all things are put under his feet, and that not only for his own sake, but that he might be the Head over all things to the Church.
PROMISED INHERITANCE
Galatians 3:22, 26-27, 29
In Jesus’ Name, I Pray God’s Will for You
May you understand that you are a child of God through your faith in Christ Jesus, and that when you were baptized into Christ you were clothed with the glory of Christ. Since you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise given to him. May you receive what was promised by God to those who believe in His Son. May you understand your great inheritance as a child of the living God.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
