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“Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied. “Throw it down on the ground,” the Lord told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭4‬:‭2‬-‭3‬ ‭NLT

Our devotional this morning, the White Hat (the man in charge) asked how many times do you hold something dead in your hand? We hold dead things in our hands for too long. Throw it down and God will make it come alive, bring a dead man to life. Throw it down…

“I wanted to say thank you for reaching out to me and for all you guys are doing for this community. I cannot imagine how many people have been reached for Christ, and have seen a glimpse of his love because of people like you and your husband. Sometimes it takes a hurricane to wake us up to the love of God.”

The above statement came from a homeowner that we couldn’t help. This gives us strength…

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light “ (1 Pet. 2:9)

That’s us, “holy nation” the church. If you are a believer, a child of the living God, the Lord Jesus YOU are THE church…

“Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28).”

Every Christian should memorize this verse, keep it close to your heart. When the opportunity comes to witness, you can tell why Jesus came into this world and what His mission was…

“But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible (Matt. 19:26).”

Anybody, regardless of who you are- can have salvation if you recognize that you have nothing to offer to God, come with empty hands, come to Him as beggar. Come like that and He can save you. With God all things are possible…

“For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost (Matt. 16:11).”

Jesus came to Save…

“And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only (Matt. 17:8).”

JESUS ONLY! He is the One who is the authority! Jesus only, a good motto for us all…

“He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:15-16)

‘Thou art the Christ,” the Messiah, the Anointed One, the One who was predicted in the Old Testament- the Son of the living God- This is who Jesus is!!!

“And Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it’s You, bid me to come to You on the water (Matt. 14:28)

“Expect great things of God, and attempt great things for God.” William Carey.

You stand alone. We, you, us, are sinners and each of us will stand alone before God and He will judge us on the life that we led here on this earth. “Every tub must sit on its own bottom.” We stand alone…

“If religious books are not circulated among the masses and the people do not return to God, I do not know what is to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be. If God and His Word are not received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendency. If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will. If the power of the Gospel is not felt through the length and the breadth of the land, anarchy, misrule, degradation, misery, corruption,and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.” Daniel Webster…

“The longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of the truth that God governs in the affairs of men.” Benjamin Franklin…

Is it nothing to you?

“ But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me: my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” Psalm 3:3…

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give an heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26.

“and He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for our’s only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 John 2:2

Our rig looks small among all these RV beasts, nice park in Dalhart Texas…

“He is not here: for He is risen as He said.” Matthew 28:6.

Tomorrow is Resurrection Day. Do you know Him???

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Psalms 84:5…blessed is the one who has the One who is the way, the truth, and the life…

“Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.” Isaiah 24:33.

Nature will respond to the King when He comes to rule. Christ Jesus is the only One who can end this period known as the Great Tribulation…

“The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.” Isaiah 21:1.

“As sweep the whirlwinds through the south, so comes it from the desert, from the land that strikes terror.” Dr F.C. Jennings.

Babylon, with its glitter and glamour and as the foundation of idolatry and false religion, was a mirage in the desert!

There was no life giving water for the souls of men and women.

How about your church Pastor, church leader, deacon, church member? Is your church, are you, a life giving fountain…. Or just a mirage in the desert of this world??? This is a heart searching thought…

Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Proverbs 3:27

We averaged two properties searched each day. One day, with a team of 8, we completed 4 jobs. We lost two days of work to bad weather. We traveled 2210 miles. We worked and served with some of the best followers of Christ. Colorado, Texas, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. I probably forgot one or two states. Please pray for our Team Arizona that is still serving, Colorado Disaster Relief, the communities of Superior and Louisville. Thanks for all the prayers of our church, Mosiac, and all our AZDR prayer warriors…

For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. Isaiah 14:1

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH Is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. Isaiah 12:2.

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. Isaiah 11:9

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6

Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loves another has fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8.

Someone has said that Christians are a lot like tea bags. You don’t know what they’re made of until you put them in hot water. Thought to ponder…

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6.

The best thing possible to the man under the sun, the natural man. A poetic picture of old age. Verse 1- Get back to God, Solomon advises. Do it while you are young. The description of old age in this chapter is accurate. this chapter is amazing and a must read!

Verse 2- You don’t see as well as you did in your youth.

Verse 3- The keepers are the legs. They tremble, they stumble, and they make us groan. We no longer stand erect, we stoop with our shoulders. Grinders are teeth. Yikes! We need more light to read.

Verse 4- The hearing goes away, but the slightest of sounds wakes us. you don’t sing as well as before, it’s harder to carry a tune.

Verse 5- You don’t like heights. You don’t like to fly. Fear can dominate your life, you just don’t enjoy taking the chances that you used to. A blossoming almond tree is white on top, like us older people. Little things can become a burden. Less tolerant, more little inconveniences bother us. Romance is Gone.?..? The long home is eternity. Death is creeping up!

Verse 6- Organs of the body. The silver cord is the spinal column. the golden bowl is your head for your brain. The pitcher is the lungs. The wheel is the heart.

Verse 7- No such thing as soul sleep. The body sleeps, but the spirit or the soul returns to God that gave it.

Verse 8- When as a child, I laughed and wept, Time crept; When as a youth, I dreamed and talked, Time walked; When I became a full grown man, Time ran; When older still I daily grew, Time flew; Soon I shall find in travelling on, Time gone. Author unknown.

Thou knowest, Lord, I’m growing older. My fire of youth begins to smolder; I somehow tend to reminisce And speak of good old days I miss. I am more moody, bossy, and Think folk should jump at my command. Help me, Lord, to conceal my aches And realize my own mistakes. Keep me sweet, silent, sane, serene, Instead of sour, crusty, and mean. Author unknown

May the Lord, give us the grace to grow old gracefully!

Above all, FEAR GOD, keeping your eyes out for the final Day of Judgement. With all of the complaints Solomon had about the nature of creation, there is no doubt as to the existence and justice of the Creator. God is mentioned at least forty times in this book….

Jesus Christ is the only solution for life’s problems. Jesus has given His promise to people of any and all ages…”…him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37).

Looking at the injustice in the world. A wise man once told me, “We are all one decision away from stupid.” One moment away from a sin that can have devastating effects.

Verse 2, the right hand is the hand of strength. If you are wise, that is where your heart will be, at your right hand. Whatever you do , do it with heart, do it for the glory of God.

Verse 3, a fool never has to carry a sign about him that says he is a fool. You will know as soon as he speaks.

Verse 8, be careful with sin. If you are a child of God, you will not get by with it. Eventually God will judge that sin.

Verse 10, keep your tools sharp and in top condition. Put in the work to keep your tools in shape. Read and study the Word of God, and be ready for His call.

Verse 11, people in the church will do and say things that hurt, even those that are supposed to protect the flock.

Verses 12-15, the fool, the foolish, the foolishness of the fool. Beware the fool. No common sense can be found in the fool.

Verse 17-18, alcohol has destroyed so many lives. Don’t be lazy

Remember life under the sun. Come to the cross and seek the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!!!

Chapter 7, looking at man’s sin, looking at the incurable evil of man, that “man under the sun,” that man that is unilluminated by God’s Spirit, that man sees no advantage in being righteous. In versus 13-21, that man has fuzzy thinking with regard to spiritual things, not getting the meaning of life on this earth and how life ends. Verse 12 speaks to my heart, “For wisdom (Jesus) is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom (Jesus) giveth life to them that have it.” Jesus Christ is wisdom!

Chapter 8. Looking at the mystery of the divine providences, at life’s uncertainties. The man under the sun, without a Savior, can concentrate on nothing, floundering, only occasionally giving a nod to wisdom. He only acknowledges the king’s rule. To this man life is a riddle and no absolutes about the future can be known. Nothing about life in general can be known. Utter sadness. Death really is a mystery to the unsaved man.

Chapter 9. Looking at the world’s wrong standard of values. Pay your debts, be honest, live a good life. By now, you have to wonder how this book got into the Bible. Solomon is speaking of life apart from God.

We all need to look to and seek Wisdom, Jesus Christ the Savior…

Looks at the best way of travel for the man under the sun.

Verse 5, “As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.” The Lord Jesus said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Don’t let what you don’t know mess with what you do know. Look at the chair in the photo above. Every one knows how to sit in a chair. People say, here sit down, have a sit, take a chair, rest your feet, take a load off. You probably will sit right down without giving one moment of thought about the chair. How is the chair constructed? Who built the chair? Was it this fellas first day on the job? What type of materials did he use? Probably none of these questions go through your mind as you just sit in the chair by faith.

“For by grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).”

In chapter five Solomon tries something that should be of interest to us all, religion. He intends to find satisfaction in religion, and guess what, he can’t. Through out history, religion has damned more people then it has saved. You can easily research this on your own. The difference between Christianity and all other religions is the Lord Jesus Christ! A relationship, not a religion. If you have religion, kick it to the curb and get Jesus Christ.

Verses 1-8 Solomon tells how he seeks to be satisfied in religion.

Verses 10-14 Solomon now, seeks satisfaction by pursuing enjoyment and wealth. When I was young and unsaved I always believed wealth would be the greatest thing ever. It won’t. Wealth is never condemned in the Bible. Making wealth an idol, that’s wrong. So is being a cheapskate. Both are wrong. One of the things Ecclesiastes teaches us is not to hold onto anything to tightly. Greed, a modern day problem. It has only one cure, Jesus…

There are three words that I want to give to you as we close out 2021 and move into 2022 – “Expect good things”. These words are not just a feel-good philosophy. There is no “name it and claim it” health and wealth promise to them. Instead, these words are all about perspective. When your eyes are on God and you are trusting Him and serving Him, then good things will happen. Now, in all honesty, they may not always feel like good things. But faith isn’t built on feelings; it is built on the character of God.

So, because God is our Father and we are His children, we can always expect good things from Him. During this year, if there is ever a point you begin to doubt that truth, just remember to tweak the definition from what you think is “good” to what God promises is “good”. It is that perfect faith in Him that will open the door to the peace that passes all understanding, and which will take us through whatever we may face in the year ahead.

Romans 8:37-39
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Expect good things from God…

Living for God’s Glory

“Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom” (Psalm 90:12 NLT).

Where are you in your life today? Are you in the morning of your life? Are you in the afternoon of your life? Or, are you in the evening of your life?

Of course, I know I’m getting toward the end of my race in life. I don’t know how many more years I will live or how many more years of ministry I will have. But I do know that I’m not in the beginning of it.

Those who are young will say, “I’m in the morning of my life.”

But you never know when the Lord will call you home. My son Christopher was only 33 years old when he was unexpectedly called home to Heaven. So we don’t necessarily know where we are in the race of life.

That’s why we want to be ready to meet God. We need to realize that Jesus died on the cross for us, and we need to turn from our sins and ask Him to come into our lives. Then we will find the meaning and purpose of life that we’ve been seeking. Not only that, but we will have hope for the afterlife.

So what kind of difference is your life making? What kind of legacy are you leaving?

My prayer is that you will live a life that is worth emulating. Corrie ten Boom was a very godly woman who suffered horrible things during the Holocaust, including imprisonment at the Ravensbruck concentration camp, and she lived to tell the story. She made this statement: “The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.”

We think that success is a long life. Well, maybe success is a long life—if it is lived for the glory of God. But even if it’s a short life, if it’s lived for God’s glory, that is still a success. It is not the duration but the donation.

Receive Him today! Don’t wait. There is no better day than today!

Thanks to Pastor Greg Laurie and Harvest Ministries for this devotion….

Amen!!!…Thanks to Dr. Adrian Rogers and Love Worth Finding ministries for this devotion…

“Vanity” is the key word, it occurs thirty-seven times. The key phrase is “under the sun,” which occurs twenty-nine times. “I said in my heart,” a man’s heart. Conclusions that men reach through their own intelligence.

Come to Jesus today…

“It is because the spirit of unselfish service personified by the life and the teachings of Christ makes appeal to the inner conscience and hope of every man and every woman in every part of the earth. It transcends in the ultimate all lines of race, of habitat, of nation. It lives in the midst of war, of slavery, of conquest. It survives prohibitions and decrees and force. It is an unquenchable Spring of Promise to humanity.” President Franklin Roosevelt.

[W]e remember another night long ago. Then a Child was born in a stable. A star hovered over, drawing wise men from afar. Shepherds, in a field, heard angels singing: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” That was the first Christmas and it was God’s great gift to us. This is a wonderful story. Year after year it brings peace and tranquility to troubled hearts in a troubled world. And tonight the earth seems hushed, as we turn to the old, old story of how “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” President Harry Truman.

“An angel of the Lord appeared to them [shepherds] and said: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of voices praising the Heavenly Father and singing: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of holiday preparations we forget that the true meaning of Christmas was given to us by the angelic host that holy night long ago. Christmas is the commemoration of the birth of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, whose message would truly be one of good tidings and great joy, peace and good will.” President Ronald Reagan.

Hebrews 10:37-39
“For yet a little while,
And He who is coming will come and will not tarry.
Now the just shall live by faith;
But if anyone draws back,
My soul has no pleasure in him.”
But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
Ephesians 2:8-9
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. Verse 10.

A woman of character, a woman of strength is the meaning of “Virtuous.” She is a woman of real ability.

The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. Verse 11.

This wife is faithful, she is good with money. She is a helpmate, not a servant! This is what God has intended for us, His children. God made Eve to be the other half of Adam. Adam was only a half of a man until God made Eve and gave her to him. This is absolutely true as you look at any successful marriage where God is put first…

She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. Verse 12- She is a real helpmeet…

She seekth wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. Verse 13- She doesn’t mind working.

She is like the merchants’ ships; she brings her food from afar. Verse 14. She is a bargain hunter, spending money wisely.

She rises also while it is yet night, and gives meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. Verse 15.

She is a wonderful mother, knows how to work in shifts, and keeps a good house.

She considers a field, and buys it: with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard….She girds her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. Verses 16-17.

A woman of ability!

She perceives that her merchandise is good: her candle goes not out by night. Verse 18.

Proven by her, “Man’s work is from Sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done.”

She lays her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff….She stretches out her hand to the poor; yes, she reaches forth her hands to the needy. Verses 19-20.

She is a giving, generous person

She opens her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Verse 26.

She is both wise and kind in her advice and admonitions.

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Verse 30.

A woman that fears the Lord is the most most important thing!

Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates. Verse 31.

Don’t wait for Mother’s Day to honor our mothers.