Sat, Jan 27th - 11:24AM
Blessed Be the Lord I Chronicles 16:36 January 27
35And say ye, Save us, O God of our salvation, and gather us together, and deliver us from the heathen, that we may give thanks to thy holy name, and glory in thy praise. 36Blessed be the LORD God of Israel for ever and ever. And all the people said, Amen, and praised the LORD.
David ends this song to be sung at all worship services with “Save us, O God of our salvation, and gather us together, and deliver us from the heathen, that we may give thanks to thy holy name, and glory in thy praise. 36Blessed be the LORD God of Israel for ever and ever.”
Save us, O God of our salvation. This prayer is the prayer that we are still saying today. Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) Everything that God does has to do with our salvation, which is an expression of His own glory.
When we are able to come to the Lord in salvation, our goal should be to be gathered together to celebrate together this great salvation from the Lord. As we come together to celebrate this great salvation, giving thanks for that salvation is no problem. There will be glory to God in our praise.
God delights in the praise of His people. As we give Him that praise, God is moved to do things with us that we cannot begin to imagine! As God blesses us, we are reminded and encouraged to be even more thankful to the Lord for even more that He has done for us and through us.
Life is so wonderful if we will begin to take prayer and make it the means of our own personal relationship with the Lord. God has done so much for us to prove His love to us. He will continue to show us His love for us and give His provisions to us if we will just reach up to Him in prayer and hold fast to His promises to us.
Prayer is a wonderful privilege that we have and there really is no excuse to omit this privilege from our lives. When we make prayer a priority in our lives, God will make our lives a priority of His and that will make us more than we could have ever imagined!
36Blessed be the LORD God of Israel for ever and ever.
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Sun, Jan 21st - 10:32PM
Seek The Lord I Chronicles 16:9 January
9Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works. 10Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD. 11Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually.
David began this Psalm with "8Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people."
Prayer is imperative when it comes to our relationship with the Lord. Here is a Psalm that David wrote to celebrate the presence of the Arc of the Covenant with the people. The Arc represents God's presence. Prayer is the communion that we enjoy in His presence. When we come into His presence, we will rejoice and be in an attitude of worship with the Lord. Prayer will put a song on our lips and joy in our heart. As we come to the Lord in prayer, we will begin to rejoice in the Lord as we seek to come into His presence.
David tells us to seek the Lord and His strength and seek His face continually. God's strength is the greatest source of strength that we can have in our lives. God can do things in our lives that no one else can begin to do. I am reminded of the time that Jesus spoke and the storm stilled and people around Him said, "Even the elements respond to His voice!" There is nothing that God cannot do for you and me if we will just let Him.
David tells us to seek God and His strength. We are to look to God for His strength in our lives. We are to ask God for His strength and guidance in our lives. As we look to Him for His direction, we need to learn to follow His lead. God's strength comes to us as we surrender our wills to His will and make His way our way.
This is why seeking God's face continually is so important. Seeking God's face is another way of saying seek God for Who He is instead of what He can do. We must remember what God has already done for us and come to Him in thanksgiving with the attitude, "God if You never do anything else for me I will walk with You because of all that You have already done for me."
The great thing about seeking God's face is when we come to Him for Who He is and not what He can do; He does more for us than we could ask for! What a privileged prayer is indeed. Come to the Lord today and seek His face and discover the power and provisions that are ours in Christ Jesus!
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May God bless you all!
><> Bob
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Wed, Jan 17th - 8:29AM
I am His Song of Solomon 2:16 January 17
My beloved is mine and I am his.
In the Song of Solomon, Solomon writes an allegory that compares the love of a young woman and a young man to the love that Christ has for His church. In chapter 2 we see that Christ is her hope and her calling. In verses 14 and 15, Christ cares for the church, which is His bride in the New Testament. In verse 16, we read these words, “My beloved is mine and I am His.”
You and I need to understand that we are His. You and I belong to God. He created us and not only did He create us, He created us in His image! You and I are the expressed image of Almighty God! We are His whether we want to be or not! We were created by God and we were created for God. It only stands to reason that there was a purpose for our creation. The challenge of this life is to discover that purpose and then fulfill that purpose.
We cannot begin to understand our purpose until we come to the realization that “my Beloved is mine and I am His.” Our relationship to the Lord ought to be that personal and that intimate. We need to come to know the Lord in all of His glory and we need to learn to walk with Him moment by moment and day by day. We need to learn to trust His Word to the point that we know that we can depend on Him no matter what.
It does not make sense for God to send His Son to go to the cross so that we could be saved and then leave it up to us to struggle through this life the best way that we can and hope for the best. The cross represents life at its worst. Jesus took our sin upon Himself and He defeated death, Hell and the grave when God raised Him up from the dead. The resurrection represents life at its best! Because the same power that raised Jesus from the grave is the same power that is available to you and me to give us life today!
The reality that “I am His and He is mine” is true because He chose to have that kind of relationship with you and me. The desire of God’s heart and the purpose of our creation is so that He could be all to us and that we could be all to Him. God has chosen us; we have not chosen Him. If God wants to be my all, then I need to accept that truth and begin to live in His presence and experience His power and enjoy His provisions!
Praise God that I can pray, “I am His and He is mine!”
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Mon, Jan 15th - 9:21PM
Looking Unto Jesus Hebrews 12:2 January 15
2looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,
Prayer is a special privilege that God Himself has given to us. How we look to the Lord is a very good practice. The writer of Hebrews gives us a great lesson to follow. He writes. “Look unto Jesus.”
This statement carries with it some very special significance. There is a difference between looking at Jesus and looking unto Jesus. A lot of people look to Jesus in their prayers. They may take time to think about the Lord and His actions that have benefited them. When it comes to our faith in the Lord, what Jesus has done is imperative. Faith is believing that God is everything that He says He is and that He will do everything that He says He will do. His actions are and continue to be important.
However, when it comes to the decisions that we make on a moment by moment basis, we are to look at more than who Jesus is and what He has done; we need to look unto Him for what He wants to do for us NOW.
Looking unto Jesus is leaning upon Him and depending upon Him in that moment. Simon Peter asked to get out of the boat and come to Jesus in the midst of the storm. Jesus said, “Come.” Simon Peter did well as long as He looked unto Jesus and trust me he was doing more than just looking at the Lord!
When Peter took his eyes off of the Lord and he looked at the waves that were boisterous and he heard the wind that was whirling around him and he listened to the cries of the men in the boat, “Peter, get back in here… you cannot walk on water” he sank! He cried out, “Lord save me” and once again he looked unto Jesus and Jesus saved him.
Sometimes our faith is going to falter. Sometimes we are going to fail to stand, as we should. The devil is going to make us think that there is no hope for victory for us. The real challenge is not in how much faith I have; real victory comes when I look unto Jesus who is the author and finisher of my faith; it is the object of my faith that Jesus is interested in and as long as I am willing to look unto Him, I will find victory because He will give it to me!
When I pray my prayer is that I will always look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith!
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Sun, Jan 14th - 10:20AM
Strengthen My Heart Psalm 141:2 January 14
2Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. 3Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. 4Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with men that work iniquity:
Prayer is a precious thing to God. David was a man who learned the value of prayer and he loved it and depended on it. Prayer is a sweet savor unto God like incense was in the worship. As the smoke of burning incense rose up into the heavens and the sweet aroma, it represented the prayers of the saints of God. David wanted his prayers to be heard by God Himself.
David prayed that God would help keep him from the clutches of sin. David knew that prayer would keep him from sinning; he also knew that sin would take away from the effectiveness of his prayers. Prayer strengthens our resolve to restrain from sin and sin destroys that resolve! David prayed that God would give him strength to stand against sin.
Strengthen my heart against any evil; help me not practice wicked works that other men commit. David knew that the influences in the world were phenomenal. He knew that they would come from anywhere and everywhere. David also knew that God could give him victory over temptation and sin and he asked God to do so. David wanted to experience God’s deliverance and His design for his life.
David did not want to substitute his own selfish desires for what God had in store for him. He looked to God for His strength and guidance to turn from the evil influences that the world offers at every turn.
You and I would do well to make this prayer our prayer. We need to look to God for the wisdom to know what God would have us to in each and every decision that we make and then we need to ask God for the power to do what He instructs us to do!
Strengthen my heart Lord to do and be what You would have me be!
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Tue, Jan 9th - 7:14AM
Hear My Prayer Psalm 143:1 January 9
1 Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.
Prayer has an impact on the life that we live. The Psalmist asks God to hear his prayer. He knows that in his faithfulness to spend time with God in prayer, he will experience God’s righteousness. Prayer has an impact on the decisions that we make. Our lives are the result of the decisions that we make. We need to practice prayer in our lives. We need to pray as often as we think to pray.
God is faithful to answer our faithfulness to pray. Prayer acknowledges our dependence on God. Prayer allows God’s will and His way into our lives. God’s righteousness is given to us as we open our lives to Him in prayer.
As you and I commit our lives to the Lord in prayer and His will begins to make a difference in the decisions that we make, our lives reflect those changes. As we begin to reflect those changes, our prayers reflect those changes as well. As we come closer to the Lord, our communion with Him becomes more important. His will at work in our lives helps us seek to walk closer and closer to Him. Prayer is the medium that brings us closer and closer to the Lord.
Prayer has a profound impact on the lives that we live and the lives that we live continues to have an impact on our prayers. The more we pray, the closer we get to the Lord. The closer we get to the Lord the more committed to prayer we will want to be. We need to take the time to ask the Lord to hear our prayer, to give ear to our supplications and in His faithfulness and His righteousness He will answer us. As He answers us, He blesses us because of our prayers and that makes us more determined to spend more time with Him in prayer!
As we pray, God is able to bless us. As God blesses us, we become more determined to pray even more which allows God to bless us even more and an endless cycle can begin as we take hold of prayer and know that God will hear and He will answer our prayers for our lives!
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Mon, Jan 8th - 5:41AM
Ask Amiss James 4:3 January 8
3Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Most people will quote verse 2 where James says, “you have not because you ask not.” The problem is more involved than that. James farther qualifies his statement with verse 3, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
God wants to bless us. God wants us to pray. Prayer makes a difference in the things that God can and will do in our lives. How we go to God in prayer is imperative and what we do with what God give us is equally important as well. God will not bless us in ways that we cannot handle. Sometimes a blessing can be a curse.
James tells us that all too often, we ask amiss and that is the same thing as not asking at all. We need to look at our priorities and determine what the primary purpose of those priorities is. If our prayers are for things that honor our own lusts and desires as opposed to prayers and priorities that bring honor and glory to the Lord and to those are around us, we are asking amiss. God will not give us our requests if they will take us farther away from Him and His will and way for our lives.
As we learn to pray, we need to look to God for wisdom to know what to do and then look to God for the power to do what we know we ought to do. This is the real secret to dynamic and victorious living. When we make prayer that kind of priority, we will not ask amiss and we will learn to seek the things that are not consumed on our own lusts!
Prayer changes us from the inside out. Prayer helps change our priorities. Prayer helps us put our priorities in their proper perspectives. When we consume what we have and what we want on our own lusts, our lives are out of balance and there is no joy and any real happiness for that kind of life. Life involves giving ourselves to others and prayer helps us do that.
You have not because you ask not; ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Sun, Jan 7th - 9:05AM
Turn From Wicked Ways II Chronicles 7:14 January 7
14“if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
We have looked at two major parts to God’s Prescription for Revival. First of all, that call is for a select group of people, those who are called by God’s name. If we will humble ourselves and pray and seek His face, God promises us that He will hear from heaven and will forgive our sin and heal our land.
There is one other thing that God tells us that we need to do to experience real revival; He says that we must “turn from our wicked ways.” Here is the major mistake that most people in the pews make today. We come to church and we make our commitments to various things. We may even make a concerted effort to spend time in prayer with the Lord. We may even take time to get into the Bible and even memorize its verses.
However, we fail to turn from our wicked ways! We keep on making the same mistakes and committing the same sin. We fail to let what we know we ought to do make a difference in the person that we are and the life that we live. When our efforts to be a better Christian fail to make a difference in what we do and who we are, then those efforts are nothing more than religious exercise and God is not at all pleased.
God expects us as His children to humble ourselves and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways. He does not expect us to turn from our wicked ways without first spending time alone with Him in prayer either. There is a reason that these instructions come in the order that they come in. Humility and prayer must precede turning from our wicked ways or it will not work in our lives!
However, when we do come to God in humility and we pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways, God promises that He will hear our prayer from heaven and He will forgive our sin and He will heal our land. This is what we need in our lives today. This is what we need in our churches as well and in our land. God has never failed to keep His promises and He is not about to start now!
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Thu, Jan 4th - 6:10AM
Call Unto Me Jeremiah 33:3 January 4
3‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’
Jeremiah was in prison. God spoke to Jeremiah and said, 3‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ The privilege of prayer is ours and that invitation to pray comes from God Himself. God wants us to pray to Him. He expects us to pray to Him. He wants to show us great and mighty things, which we know nothing about.
God wants to show us His power. He wants to bless us. God wants to do great and mighty things in our lives. He wants others to see what He is doing in us and through us. God wants to reach a lost and dying world. Jesus said I am come that you might have life and you might have it more abundantly. As you and I come to Him, He answers us and will show us great and mighty things. God will demonstrate His power through us and others will be drawn unto Him.
The world does not need to see what you and I can do. The world does not need to see what we can do as a church. The world needs to see what only God can do! This is what the world is thirsting for. We do not need new programs in our churches. We need the power of God. We do not need new worship methods; we need the manifold power of God demonstrated in our lives as the people of God.
We need revival in our hearts and in our lives and in our churches today. When the church gets revived, then the lost are going to come because the power of God is going to be evident and people will see what God is doing and they will come. The world has seen enough of what we can do on our own. The world needs to see the great and mighty things that God wants to do in our midst.
So, how can we have this power? How can we have what God has for us? That answer is very simple. Call unto God. Take time to pray to the Lord. He promises that He will answer our prayer and He will show us great and mighty things, which we cannot begin to know.
The desire of God’s heart is to show us these great and mighty things which we cannot begin to know. He wants to fight our battles and He wants to bless our lives. He wants to do things for us that we cannot even imagine! All we have to do to set this into motion is to begin to pray to God and seek His face and make a commitment to walk with Him and He will make a difference in our lives and in the lives of our families and our churches and our communities.
God, help me to pray to You so that You can show me great and mighty things that You want to do in me and with me and through me!
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Wed, Jan 3rd - 6:29AM
Pray About Everything Philippians 4:6 January 3
6Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Be careful for nothing; do not worry about things. In everything by prayer let your requests be made known unto God; pray about everything. What advice! God delights in the prayer and praise of His people. He wants us to come to Him as often as we will do so. There literally is nothing that God does not want us to seek Him for. NOTHING.
Now, when there is cause for concern or you find yourself worrying, that is a sign to pray. Worry is the work of the devil to defeat you as a Christian. Faith in God is the only way to defeat fear and worry. Prayer is the solution to worry. When you are tempted to worry or fret, take your concerns to the Lord in prayer and you will find relief, if you will do what the Spirit tells you to do. One more time, prayer itself is not alone the answer. We must be obedient to the answers that the Lord gives us to our prayers. Obedience and faith go hand in hand.
When we go to God in prayer, we give Him our supplications or our requests and we also remember to give Him our thanks for all that He has already done for us. This is so important to remember because when we take time to thank God for all that He has already done for us, it helps us make those decisions that honor Him because we know that He will keep His promises to us because He has done so in the past.
Prayer brings the peace of God into our lives. Peace replaces worry when it is bathed in prayer. Worry is the result of a lack of prayer and a lack of faith in God. Peace is the result of the practice of prayer and the obedience to God’s Word in our lives. The peace of God defies all human understanding because it is right opposite what the world wants us to do.
When you and I take God by the hand and we carry our cares and concerns to Him in prayer and we do what His Word tells us to do with His strength and guidance, we receive His peace and He will keep our hearts and our minds pure and our lives filled with all the fullness that only God can give! That my friend is worth it all!
Do not worry about anything; pray about everything and the peace of God that is beyond our comprehension will keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus!
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Tue, Jan 2nd - 6:18AM
Prayer in the Morning Psalm 5:3 January 2
3My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
What a privilege it is to pray! God invites us to pray. He expects us to pray to Him. The Psalmist understood this. He came to the Lord and made a commitment to Him; “O Lord, in the morning I will direct my prayer unto Thee and I will look up.” There is no better way to begin ones day than to begin it in prayer with our Heavenly Father.
The Psalmist says, “My voice Thou shall hear in the morning.” He was saying in effect, God You can count on that. Here is what happens when we wake up and come to the Lord in prayer.
When we take time to speak with God, He is able to speak with us. The first thing that prayer does is, it puts us in line with the Lord and His will and His direction for our lives. Our time alone with God in prayer, allows Him to move us from where we are to the place that He wants us to be. So, when we make that commitment to come to God in prayer in the morning, what we are doing is allowing God through the privilege of prayer, to set the direction for our day!
Now, we have to understand that getting up and saying a prayer and then heading out to do what we want to do the way that we want to do it is not at all what God is looking for in us. He wants that prayer that we give to Him to be the first of many that we ill pray unto Him during the coarse of our day. However, the best time to begin those prayers is in the morning as we begin our day.
If you and I will begin our day with God, He will finish that day with us. However, when we fail to find God in the morning, it is no wonder that we find it difficult to find Him during the rest of the day. It is not that God is not listening; it is that we are distant and we are not in a position of surrender to His will and His way for our lives. We are going in our own direction and in a lot of cases, we stop to pray when we have done everything that we can possibly do to make our lives what we think they ought to be and we wake up and find out that we have made terrible mistakes and we want God to step in and fix the mess so we can do it all over again.
God wants to be our first response and not our last resort. He wants us to look to Him in the morning when our day is fresh and our routine has not been set yet. God wants to guide us and He wants to bless us and He wants to protect us and He will do those things for us if we will just allow Him to do so. Prayer is the key that allows God to do what He so much wants to do in us and with us and for us.
3My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
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"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you."
><> Bob <><
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Name: Bob Hadley of Saved By Grace Ministries
