Atypical Pastors Wife
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"The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing.  He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul."  

Delightful bites from the Word of God.

The Psalm 119 Series-Gimel

6/22/2013

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David knew that the Word was full of wonderful things.  He did not find it burdensome.  Even though he knew that it was impossible for man to keep all the law, he delighted in pleasing God by walking according to it.  And the more that he knew of it, the more he longed to know more of it.  Isn't this how we should feel about Christ?

"I am a stranger on this earth."  At first I thought this an odd line.  It seemed out of place, but then it seemed that David was seeing the great contrast between the principles of the World and the principles of the Word.  He desired to live as part of God's Kingdom instead of as a citizen of the world, filled with it's arrogance and pride.  He sought wisdom from the Word and not the counselors of the world.  He looked to God for approval, not to men.  He knew that God only approves of His Word, not the opinions of men.

Much of the modern church lives with as much of the world in it as it thinks it can justify.  Unfortunately the source of worldliness is evil.  Evil is deceptive and subtle and before we realize it has us sucked into its deceptions, which only increase and spread until it has sucked the life of God right out of us.  David delighted in living separated from the world systems and the opinions of others.

Today, many professing Christians disdain any type of separation for the sake of holiness, in fact, holiness is treated as a dirty word, an irrelevant and antiquated thought.  The focus is only on positional righteousness and denies practical righteousness except what makes us more comfortable.  Our justification was bought at the cross, but our sanctification is accomplished through our Spirit empowered works.  We have dirtied the holiness of God and denied the power of grace to produce a life that is different from the world's way of living all in an effort to incorporate as much of the world into our lives as possible because our deceived way of thinking says that we have to be like the world to win it.  The result?  The world has won us.  Like a man who sets his gaze on a seductive woman, we have looked on it, desired it and finally we have embraced it.  Now we are just like it and the distinction of being Christlike (with the power that it provides) is missing and renders us irrelevant and powerless to meet the greatest need of mankind.  We are an impotent church.  In our fleshly efforts to be relevant to the world, we have become irrelevant to the world because we have nothing to offer them that they don't already have and nothing to give them that they need.  The world does not need our Christianized worldliness!  It needs an answer!

Christ called us to separate ourselves from the world.  Then He empowered us to do it through the forgiveness of sin and the infilling of the Holy Spirit.  He created a suitable habitation for the power to separate ourselves to reside in.   The same power that enabled him to remain sinless in this world now lives in us.  His power has not changed, therefore we live without excuse for our pathetic lives, still imprisoned by the bonds of sin.  Our sin is the norm instead of the exception as we continue to cheapen and dilute the power of His blood to save, deliver, heal, and keep us. 

God called us to be holy.  He gave us all we need to be holy.  He will judge us according to what we did with his commandments.  Our justification is only the beginning for it is what opens the door for us to step into the power of God and live holy, set-apart, world changing lives.
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The Gift Card

6/19/2013

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I'm very hard to shop for.  I have to try clothes on because of my height so it's hard to buy my clothes.  My kitchen is small so I don't want anything else that I have to store in there.  I hate to dust so I don't have a lot of things sitting around and I have very little places to set them anyway.  I don't like gardening so to buy me flowers to plant is more of an irritation than a blessing and although I appreciate cut flowers I much more appreciate looking at them while they're still in the ground.  But every now and then I get in the mood to buy something or I'll see something that either I or someone I know needs or wants at a good price.  Usually I don't have extra money at the time and have to pass it up unless....I have a gift card.  
My history with gift cards is a source of irritation with my family though.  They buy me a gift card and I end up buying something for someone else with it, but hey, that's what I like to do.  I love shopping for other people.  So if I have a gift card in my wallet then I can purchase whatever it is that catches my eye.  For me, a wallet full of gift cards is the best present you could ever give me.  That way, it's ready when I'm ready!  Some people think that gift cards are a cop out for people who don't want want to put much thought into a gift, but to me, gift cards are the bomb! Cash slips out of my wallet much too easily for those little things like school lunch money, outings with friends, youth group activities, school field trips, school projects...are you getting my drift?  I have 3 little money suckers that live with me who always seem to be a few dollars short and who are hard to resist!  LOL! If I truly want to use my money for something I want to use it for, then it had better be in the form of a gift card.  

Jesus is our gift card from the God. He never expires. He has already paid the price and purchased our salvation.  And He is waiting...waiting for mankind to either desire what He paid for or to realize that the they need what He paid for because there is no way that they could ever afford to pay for it themselves, no matter how much money they happen to have at the time. 

What will you do with God's gift card?  Will you leave it sit, unused?  Or will you take it and enjoy the endless benefits that have already been

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The Psalm 119 Series-Beth 

6/15/2013

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After reading only the first two letters, I am impressed at how closely related purity, blamelessness, and the law are.  If you don't love purity you will not love the Word.  If you do not love the Word, it is impossible to be pure in life.  The Word is a boundary or guardrail for our life to keep us on the path of life.  The guardrails are not guarding a wide road, but a narrow one.  With all the hyper-righteous and self-righteous teaching today that deletes, devalues, and de-emphasizes the law, is it any wonder that professing Christians struggle so much with worldliness and sin?  

When David spoike of the Word, he was speaking of the law.  That's about all the Word that was written in his day.  We say, in modern Christianity, that we pray for a heart like David's yet we disregard the very thing that created that heart within him.  The whole law has not been abolished, only the sacrificial part.  There is no more need for sacrifice because Christ was sacrificed, once for all, but the moral law remains.  The 10 commandments still apply!!  The prophecies in the law that are yet unfulfilled were not done away with, they WILL come to pass to fulfill the law.  The principles that the law established remain for God has not and never will change, nor has His view of sin softened.  If anything, it has become more severe because it cost Him His only begotten son.  In the OT acts of lust (adultery, fornication) were sin.  In the NT, just the thoughts of such things are sin.  In the OT murder was a sin.  In the NT, thoughts of murder are the same as committing them.  The difference?  The indwelling of the source of power to not sin!  When the Holy Spirit came upon people in the OT, they did miraculous things.  How much more miraculous should our lives be now that He abides?  We are without excuse!

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