daily IMPACT by selahV today

LISTEN TO MY WORDS...I implore you.

Sometimes I feel like Elijah.  I know God is far more powerful than the gods of this world--He and He alone makes the "Baals" of life foolish.  He sucks the power of their influence up with a fire that can consume the ocean.  I know this and I rely upon this.  And then when I am weakened by the threatenings of life and I get weary and tired, God sends His sheltering vine to comfort me.  And I, like Elijah, rely upon that temporary comfort and forget my woe for a while.  Then God sends a worm to remove the shelter in which I've taken comfort.  And I think, why did He bother to send the comfort only to remove it so soon?  At times like these I find my mind void of words adequate to describe the majesty and wonder of God.  I read His Word and cry out in my solace and hear the echo of my mind.  Can God hear me?  Why can I not hear even a whisper in the wind?

"Listen to my words, O Lord, give heed to my sighing and groaning.  Hear the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to You do I pray."  Psalm 5:1,2.

How dare I tell God to listen to my words!  How dare I tell Him to heed my sighing and groaning!  How dare I implore Him to give audience to the sound of my cry?

I dare because He has torn the veil that separates me from His presence.  I dare because His Son has given me entrance to the Holy of Holies.  I dare because He is my God.  He is my King.  And it is to Him and Him only that I pray and seek a word, a whisper, a nod from His throne.  Do you need God to hear you?  Through Jesus, you have every right to talk to Him.  Will you exercise your right today?      selahV

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]

CONSEQUENCE FOLLOWS

When I was growing up, if I didn't clean my plate, I didn't watch television.  When I tried to smoke a cigarette that my elder brother gave me, my dad made me write the Ten Commandments twenty times.  (You'd think "ten" would have been sufficient.)  It took three nights to complete that task.  When I went on a three-mile trek with a friend and played with her all day at her house, my step-mother wore me out with a beech-tree switch when I returned.  Life was not peaceful for me when I disobeyed.

Nothing's changed.  Peace eludes me when I fail to rest in the promises of the Lord--when I do not trust His word and follow His leadership.

The Israelites would not listen to the leadership of Caleb and Joshua.  They wanted to stone them when the other spies reported how the giants were in the land God told them to go in and possess.  So because of their disobedience and faithlessness, they didn't get to enter the promised land. {Numbers 14:1-35)

"And to whom He did swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed [who had not listened to His word and who refused to be compliant and persuaded] ?  So we see that they were not able to enter [into His rest], because of their unwillingness to adhere to, and trust in and rely on God [unbelief had shut them out]."  Hebrews 3:18,19.

How much frustration and angst do we endure because we do not follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit?  How empty are we of joy because we seek pleasure in our own desires and way?  What fellowship do we lose with the Lord because of our faithlessness?  Our unwillingness to abide in Him?

As a child, I was a lot like the people of Israel; I did not listen to the leadership in my life.  And I paid the consequences and lost many privileges.  Today, I strive to eagerly pursue the heart of God.  I long to be what He wants, to love as He loves, to show mercy as He shows mercy.  I know I have my salvation, and the security promised in Jesus is mine.  However for the Believer, there is much, much more; there is a life abundant when we rest in Him.

We believe, Lord.  Help our unbelief.  selahV

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]   

JUDGED, COUNTED AND APPOINTED

I stand absolutely amazed today. I was thinking about how long I’ve been writing these devotionals. Every day since September 1st of 2007. I haven’t counted how many that is but I think it’s somewhere around 210 posts. To think that God has granted me the strength to write when I have been so sick I could hardly see, stirs me to praise Him. To ponder how much He’s taught me and shown me through His Word thrills me.

He has made me able to write when I didn’t feel like writing. He’s prompted and convicted me. When I had no words to offer anyone–when I felt empty and tired. He’s encouraged me. When I was heartsick. He comforted me. When I believed all resources were gone to continue. He provided.

He “made me able”.

Because God judged me and counted me faithful and trustworthy, Jesus gave me thoughts to share. I was moved to tears tonite when I thought about it. Me. Jesus chose me. He appointed me to this stewardship of ministry. It doesn’t matter what others write. It doesn’t matter how many read this. It doesn’t matter who doesn’t. I write because Jesus chose me and appointed me because He had a plan for my words–for someone. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

How blessed I am to have such an opportunity to serve my Lord. How grateful I am to do what I love to do. How absolutely amazed I am to think He counted me faithful and trustworthy. Considering all I was and am, it is a miracle. An absolute miracle, I tell you. And I give thanks.

“I give thanks to Him Who has granted me [the needed] strength and made me able [for this], Christ Jesus our Lord, because He has judged and counted me faithful and trustworthy, appointing me to [this stewardship of] the ministry.” 1 Timothy 1:12.

Yes, I write for Someone–and perhaps the someone who most needs it is not you or any other–but simply me. I know I’ve certainly learned a great deal these past few months. selahV

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]

WE DARE NOT FIGHT

 Sometimes we think we need to forge ahead.  We think it is our responsibility to fix something because, after all, we are the ones who messed it up in the first place.  We make horrible decisions based on impulse.  We follow a trail of action based on a plan we thought best.  And when we realize it wasn’t at all what God expects from us, or it veered off course from His will, we struggle to make things right.

Sometimes we can’t fix things.  Sometimes we have to accept things as they are and live with the consequences of our choices.  Sometimes people die with the consequences of their choices.

How needful it is that we stay close to our Lord.  How critical it is that we know Him intimately.  How imperative it is that we obey when He first speaks.

“…Do not go up or fight, for I am not among you–lest you be dangerously hurt by your enemies.” Deuteronomy 1:42

Israel didn’t obey God and they were faced with enemies of the Amorites.  The Lord promised to go fight “for” them, but they did not depend upon His promises.  “Yet in spite of this word you did not believe (trust, rely on, and remain steadfast) to the Lord Your God.” Dt. 1:32.

How many times do we fail to trust our Lord and end up wishing we’d listened?  How often do we go ahead and try to fix it all and ask Him to come behind us, join us, or go before us to rectify our circumstances?  Too often for me to count.  He is not there to help me when I reject Him and His perfect plan.  When God is not in the plan, the plan will fail.

Help me hear, Lord.  Nudge me harder.  Do not leave me in the mess of my own making, nor let me try to correct the uncorrectable.  Forgive me, Lord when I focus on my indadequacy and inability and say “no” instead of “yes”.  selahV

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]   

WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND

 Sometimes God calls us to do something we simply cannot understand.  It may be a simple thing.  It may even be something we feel is totally beyond our ability to do.  It may be something we know from our limited experiences in life is absolutely impossible.  Sometimes it is simply a word of faith we must utter to another encouraging them that God is going to work this out in their lives.

What I don’t understand doesn’t make it impossible.  It is irrelevant that I have an experience which pits a command of God against what I know of life.  Such was the case for Peter when he had been fishing all night without a catch.

“When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon (Peter), Put out into the deep (water), and lower your nets for a haul.” Luke 5:4

Peter balked at the order, but then finally acquiesed.  He put out into the deep.  He lowered his nets.  And he pulled in a “haul” so great it broke his nets.

I wonder how many hauls in life I’ve missed because I didn’t put out into the deep and didn’t lower my nets.

It didn’t matter to Jesus what Peter understood.  It didn’t matter to Jesus what experience Peter had to rely upon.  It only mattered that Peter obey.  It didn’t even matter that Peter was reluctant and hesitant in his obedience.  For even after Peter voiced his objection, he did what Jesus instructed “on the ground of His word.”  And Jesus rewarded his obedience with a miracle.

Did the miracle prove Peter’s faithfulness?  I don’t think so.  Did it prove Peter’s humility to follow a command?  I don’t think so.  The miracle proved that obedience supercedes all our understanding.  When we obey Jesus, He can be trusted to manifest Himself.  Peter heard Jesus.  Peter balked.  Peter obeyed.  Jesus did the rest.

“The unexplained things in life are more than the explained.  God seems careless as to whether men understand Him or not; He scarcely vindicates His saints to men.  Understanding comes only by obedience, never by intellect.”  Oswald Chambers.

When we do not lean on our own understanding, but the faith we have in the Word of the Lord, He is ever-faithful to produce in our lives that which will bring Him glory.  selahV

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]

CASTLES IN THE SAND

I love to build sandcastles.  I love to see others build sandcastles.  I love digging a moat and watching ocean waves come in and out, tease and eat the sand dunes around the castle.  I even love it when a "big one" races to shore and gobbles up the castle, forcing me to build another.

Not so with my life.

I don't like my life so easily eroded.  I don't like waves of trials and tribulation to sneak in and wipe out the dunes I've built and stationed around myself---my faith, my hope, my witness---as protection.  Yet, it happens as surely as the storms of life barrel in and raze my towers and pillars.   

"For everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words [in order to heed their teaching] and does them, I will show you what he is like:  He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the torrent broke against that house and could not shake or move it, because it had been securely built or founded on a rock." Luke 6:46,47.

I remember singing a song as a child, "The wise man built his house upon the rock...and the storms came tumbling down...but the house on the rocks stood fast".  The song was a picture of this scripture passage. 

Pillars erected in obedience to Christ's teachings are likened to building a house upon the rocks.  Any progress achieved in my life is built by Christ and my obedience to His Word.  Anything else is simply wasted efforts---building a house on the shifting and vulnerable sand.  Church attendance, faith in people, trust in ideals and methods are scoops of sand.  Reading God's Word, listening to sermons, attending Bible studies are, in and of themselves, scoops upon scoops of castles in the sand.  For Jesus went on to say:

"But he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built his house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking and ruin of that house was great." Lk.6:49

It takes more than hearing and reading God's word to build a house able to withstand the turbulence and storms of life.  The very foundation of our faith rests in our obedience to the words we hear and read.  OBEDIENCE.

Oswald Chambers wrote:  "The term 'obey' would be better expressed by the word 'use'.  For instance, a scientist, strictly speaking, 'uses' the laws of nature, that is, he more than obeys them, he causes them to fulfill their destiny in his work.  That is exactly what happens in the saint's life, he 'uses' the commands of the Lord and they fulfill God's destiny in his life." MFL 54.

As we use the commands Christ---do them, follow them, act upon them---God builds upon the pillars of our faith, secures our walls and fortifies our our witness to the world.  selahV

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2008]