Memorial Day.   This is a day to remember all those who gave something of themselves so that we are who we are, able to go to church, carry our Bibles, spend the evening with friends discussing our Christian beliefs. In other words, we have freedoms not available in many other parts of the world. I believe that the United States is part of God's plan. I don't believe that this country with its unique government was created outside of God's plan for His creation.  I believe that this country was and is part of a bigger plan.   I don't think that makes us superior to other countries.  I believe that even bad governments are part of God's plan, meaning that He uses the messes we make as well as the good we do as part of His ultimate plan for all of creation.  He knew before time began, for instance, that there would be trips to the moon, a space station with a group of scientists and astronauts living there.  I have no clue what that has to do with His plan, but

John 16:1 - 3 " 1 All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. 2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. 3 They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. " These are some of the words that Jesus tells the disciples before He is arrested. He is warning them what is going to happen and why.  Notice the second part of verse 2.  He is laying the groundwork for their acceptance of Saul/Paul.  "in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God."  Isn't that exactly what Saul thought when he was pursuing followers of "the Way', before He met Jesus.  See Acts 7:57 - 8:1 "At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the fe

Joshua begins where Deuteronomy ends, at the death of Moses.  The Book of Joshua begins with "After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua...." I want my life to end that way, with the words "the servant of the Lord" associated with my name.  I know I will never do anything great like Moses.  I am not looking for that kind of recognition (or calling!!!!).  I just would like to be known as someone who is a servant of the Lord.  I don't know how to accomplish that. I would like to be greeted in Heaven with "Ah, Sherri's here.  She is a good and faithful servant of our Lord." I know one way to do this is to obey God's beaconings.  When He asks, I reply, "when and what?"  When He says, "go", I go.  When He demands, I respond.  Unfortunately, I don't always or even frequently respond that way. I don't take the opportunity to look for what He might what me to do.  I don't look for oppo

Dear Lord, I praise You every day.  You deserve praise, regardless of my circumstances or the world's circumstances.  You set the universe on its course and gave instructions how to maintain it.  We didn't listen. We blame the world's problems on You or on Adam and Eve.  In reality, if we had been living in the Garden of Eden up until the time of .....David, someone or everyone would have chosen to disobey.  Satan is the perfect example of that.  We are certainly no better. I praise Your holy name. I praise You because of who You are: Creator, Sustainer, and because of Your character: holy, righteous, full of mercy and grace.  You are all powerful and yet completely caring and loving.  You are incorruptible.  You are unconquerable.  You are love, power, might and mercy.  You grant us grace and peace.   Your Holy Spirit fills me with desire to know You and obey You. Your Holy Spirit opens my eyes to see You clearly in the world around me.  Your Holy Spirit opens my ears

Job struggled under the weight of Satan.  One day the angels presented themselves to God and Satan tagged along.  Job 1:7-8 T he LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."  Now this concerns me. I know, it is God and we can trust Him completely but really!  God just dangles Job in front of Satan like a carrot in front of a horse. God almost dares Satan to try something. Satan has a quick comeback, chiding God (Job 1:9-11): " Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand

Luke 22:31-32 (NIV ) "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." This passage takes place after the Last Supper and before the garden when Jesus asks the disciples to pray with him, immediately before Jesus is arrested. The timing is about the time when Judas leaves to call the ones who are to arrest Jesus.  It is before (Simon) Peter denies Jesus 3 times. Here's what bothers me.  1) Satan asks permission to "sift [Simon] as wheat" and apparently is given permission.  2) Jesus says that he prayed specifically for Simon because he knew this was going to take place. Why didn't he also pray for Judas?  This is what I think about the prayers for Simon.  Notice that Jesus calls him Simon here, even though He'd been calling him Peter. Perhaps use of Simon instead of Peter indicates that Simon is not or will not be "the

Romans 14:19 (ESV) "So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding (1 Cor 12:25) that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another." When we were in school, learning to read and comprehend, we were taught to read complete paragraphs or whole stories to get the meaning of particular words, sentences, the paragraph or story.  Sometimes when reading the Bible, we read one sentence or phrase and God uses that to speak to us.  It is also important to read the complete story, paragraph, book to get the rest of the story but sometimes one or two phrases speak to us. The above passages together, in separate epistles, form a very cohesive command - for lack of a better word.  We should pursue what makes for peace AND mutual upbuilding. We should work to create or keep the peace amongst other believers, especially those in our local congregations and communities. We should do this so that the body of Bel

This morning, I was sitting outside listening to the birds chattering, the leaves rustling, and the other noises that are about on an early Monday morning.  Genesis 3:8a (ESV) says "And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day..." This passage hurt me and calmed me at the same time.  There was a time when God, in His magnificence, walked in the Garden. This sound wasn't the wind rustling the leaves, birds chirping, or the water babbling in a nearby stream.  This sound was God walking in the Garden.  Oh, what a gift that would be!!  To be walking with God in the Garden.  To hear Him approach.  To be THAT close. Then comes the rest of the verse: "and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden."  They were in the Garden with God. They couldn't enjoy "the cool of the day" with God. Their sin caused them to lose their joy and wallow in guilt.  They

Praise God from Whom ALL blessing flow. We don't sing this very often.  I've heard the song all my life, so often that I don't spend time actually thinking of the words.  Just sing.  Come to find out, a lot of the song is directly from various passages of the Bible.  I looked up the lyrics .  The first link I found listed the Bible passages. I really get a thrill when I find parts of songs in the Bible. Today was consecration Sunday at church.  It was also Pentecost Sunday.  Seems a good time to be particularly grateful and worshipful.  So, please listen to the song (link above) and read the words.  Meditate on them.  Pray the words and thank God for the Holy Spirit that fills you.  Thank Him for and as the source of all our blessings. Here are a few links of other renditions.  Enjoy and Praise God.  Here is a whole congregation using sign:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHCGwJvKRBY David Crowder Band Here's a nice one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaKTrdNu

  The Upper Room devotional for May 21, 2010 Thought for the Day is this: "If people judged God by my actions, what would they know of grace?" This question makes me drop my head in shame.  I am afraid I do not reflect God's grace very well. Actually I have a pretty dismal track record on the subject. I know some scripture. I know what grace is. I know that God loves me and everyone around me and away from me, even my enemies. I know. I know. I know. But I don't act like I know. I don't talk like I know. I don't reflect God's grace very well at all.  I was part of a skit once where the premise was to see if there was enough evidence to "convict" me of being Christian.  Of course, I had all the right answers.  It was a skit, you know. I knew ahead of time what I was supposed to say when the "prosecution" presented its case. I knew the responses (lines) to the accusatory questions.  Yep, I was convicted in the skit. I was convicted

Romans 4:15 (NIV) " because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression." (NLT)   " For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!)" (ESV) "For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression." Three ways to say the same thing: Without law, there would be no sin.  Everything would be acceptable because nothing would be unacceptable. The word "anarchy" comes to my mind when reading this verse.  I looked it up on dictionary.com .  It says (among other things): "confusion; chaos; disorder".  The origin is "lawlessness, lit., lack of a leader, equiv. to ánarch ( os ) leaderless".  Yet another says: "Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose." When God created the universe, He also enacted the laws of the universe.  Like....gravity - we stay on eart

I'm in a bit of a funk.  Have been for a couple of days.  I've been reading my daily readings.  In the Daily Bible, I'm into a few days of Proverbs. The publisher has them bunched by topic so it is interesting and boring at the same time.  The same proverb is repeated over and over.  I guess we need to hear it repeatedly to get the message.  I haven't gotten the message yet. Because my readings the last two days didn't spark anything, I decided to look back on past notes. This is what I found.  Jeremiah 10:23-24 is entitled "Jeremiah’s Prayer" in the New Living Translation.  The prayer includes a few more verses but these verses are my prayer: 23 I know, L ord , that our lives are not our own.       We are not able to plan our own course.   24 So correct me, L ord , but please be gentle.       Do not correct me in anger, for I would die. Jeremiah's prayer acknowledges that we can plan our lives but when we do we invariably do something that

2 Timothy 3:16 says: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," The word "all" is what I focused on for whatever reason.  So I did some searching. I knew that there were documents, sometimes called scripture, that are not in the modern Bible.  I also know that the New Testament was not written when Paul wrote the second letter to Timothy.  Just exactly what did Paul mean by "all scripture" being God-breathed?  I looked up the word scripture in a couple of Bible dictionaries. One dictionary was at biblegateway.com . It says that when this passage was written in a letter to Timothy and later ended up in the New Testament, it must mean the Old Testament.  It also says that the OT at the time of Jesus is the same as we now have.  But that is up for debate or we wouldn't have a Catholic Bible and a Protestant Bible. Another online dictionary says: " Scripture means a writing,

Revelation 12:10 When I heard a loud voice in heaven say:    "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God,       and the authority of his Christ.    For the accuser of our brothers,       who accuses them before our God day and night,       has been hurled down." From Darkness There will be a day when we will no longer fight with guilt and fear, trials and temptations.  Satan will no longer be able to make us feel bad, play on our weaknesses, smile at our losses.  There will be a time when the accuser, satan and his minions, will be gone.  "Hurled down" says the author of Revelation. After all this turmoil that we experience every day, sometimes within ourselves and sometimes on the outside, this will end. Famines, wars, bug and mouse infestations, incest, murder, colds, stubbing our toes, suffering indigestion after a great meal, death, disease, all if it will be gone.  We will no longer need to ask for forgiveness from fri

This year, Ascension  Day was Thursday, May 13.  We don't spend a lot of of time in my church discussing the day of Ascension probably because it is usually a week day.  It is recognized 40 days after Jesus resurrection. Someone somewhere probably knows where that number of days came from. I don't. Ascension Day is the day that Jesus left, or was taken up in the presence of the disciples and went to home to heaven.  Luke 24:51-52 tells of this: "While he [Jesus] was blessing them [the disciples], he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." Then, Jesus was gone. This was not the first time Jesus was gone.  The first time was just weeks before when he was crucified and buried.  The first time, the disciples fled and deserted Him. ( Matthew 26:56 and Mark 14:50 - "Then all the disciples deserted him and fled."   Some were afraid ( Mark 16:8 ... ."because they were afraid. ".) A

God used two arks in the early lives of His people.  One was to save them from the world-encompassing, cleansing flood.  The other was to save them from eternal damnation.  After creation of the world and eviction from Eden, the peoples of the world grew increasingly bad. At one point, it was so bad that God was grieved.  Genesis 6:6-9 Verse 6 says: " The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. " Verse 8: " But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD."  Verse 9. ... "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God."  This time God had Noah build an ark with instructions that upon completion he was to load it with his wife and sons with their wives along with a boat load of animals.  Thus the animal part of God's creation was saved from destruction. The second ark was quite different but had a similar function - to save God's creation

Colossians 1:9 (NIV) .... asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. This passage tells of Paul's prayer for the Colossians.  He asks God to fill them "with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding".  For some reason when I read this passage, the word "knowledge" is what I saw.  It reminded me of the Garden, where there were two specific trees mentioned. Genesis 2:9 mentions these two trees.  The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  "And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."  Notice that there was no tree of the knowledge of God's will. I guess that was not necessary since they did not know good or evil, they only knew God...... at that point.  In

I know. There have been loads of sermons, books, devotions, etc on this passage but ....that's proof that the Bible is a living document.  Each time you read it, you can learn something new, or see something from a new perspective.  So, with that in mind, I'm going to look at Mary and Martha again.  Luke is the only gospel to record this story.  We don't get another perspective based on the storyteller. These five verses are all we have. Additionally, we don't get the benefit of actually hearing the speaker's tone of voice.  We don't know if Martha was complaining, or poking fun. Martha says, " Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me! "  Try to say that using a playful voice.  Sounds completely different than when you say it with a harsh complaining tone, doesn't it?  Maybe there was an on-going joke about Mary always showing up late when any work was to be done.  Maybe Martha was giving

Today, I am discouraged .   Oh, I have hope but it is clouded by the Enemy's arrows.  Like that term?  I stole it (sort of) from the Bible study we are doing called Putting on the Armo r.   We are supposed to pick up the shield of faith , which is something else I have. I have hope and I have faith.  You would think that would be enough.  But today, I just feel discouraged and frustrated. Today, I know what the devil's arrows are.  You see, there are things going on that seem to be so counter-Christian....at church.  People are frustrated and discouraged. Good people. People who have faith and hope. People who LOVE Jesus.  They are so frustrated that they are focused on what's bad.  I'm  not trying to diminish the issues.  I just wish that we could instead focus on the good and look for ways to be proactive, instead of "there's no use".  Instead of hashing and rehashing, we should stop each other in each other's tracks to refocus on what we can do no

Proverbs 27:21b (NIV) but man is tested by the praise he receives . People, me included, like to be praised.  "Hey, like your hair."  "That dress looks nice on you."  "I wish I could lead a Bible Study like you do." "I wish I had your voice."  We take these as words of encouragement.  We feel a pat on the back - job well done. I never thought of praise as a test.  But it is right there in the wisdom book of the Bible, Proverbs 27:21b .  " but man is tested by the praise he receives."  How can words of encouragement be a test?  We don't get much additional guidance about this from the rest of that verse: " The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold".  It is really a stand-alone verse as though we should know exactly what it means. Here are my thoughts. Silver and gold go through refining processes (crucible and furnace) that make them pure.  All the impurities or bad stuff comes out during the processing.  I th

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,        because the LORD has anointed me        to preach good news to the poor.        He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,        to proclaim freedom for the captives        and release from darkness for the prisoners , [ a ] Footnotes: Isaiah 61:1 Hebrew; Septuagint the blind   What caught my eye on this was the footnote.  The passage is " release from darkness for the prisoners " but the footnote says it could also be translated as " release from darkness for the blind ".  Doesn't that make a difference?  I'm thinking the spiritual blind and possibly some of the physically blind since Jesus did  cause the blind to see. But wait.... Isn't there a huge difference between people who are in prison and those who are blind? I think of prison as a block walled building, with few windows, lots of bars, rigid routine, extremely structured routine, and loss of all types of freedoms.

Have you ever thought about the statements: I pray for you, or I am praying for you, or I will pray for you? I have heard people say, and have said myself, "is there anything I can do besides pray?  I'll pray for you but can I do more?"  We say this as though it is a last resort, a last ditch effort to get something done, as though all hope is already lost.  These are said as words of comfort when nothing can be done. In reality, prayer should be the first AND the last thing we do. I usually say I'll pray for you.  This is a promise to sometime in the future pray for you.  Sometimes I write it down to do it later.  Sometimes, I stop what I am doing, as soon as I am done with the conversation that prompted the promise, and pray.  Sometimes, it is more constant, or regular, like part of a daily prayer added to a list of other situations and people to pray for. Today as I think of the sentence, I pray for you, I think of 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (ESV) "pray with