DYSMAS CONDUIT
FREE FOOD
(Isa 55:1)
Question for the day: Have you ever felt like you’d been uprooted?
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2009
What can we pray for YOU about today?
Good morning,
This is just a reminder that every day, while we are studying God’s Word to add to our website, someone from our ministry, Dysmas Conduit, is holding you up before the Lord in prayer. May He greatly bless you today as you pursue His will and He is glorified through you.
God’s blessings, our love,
George & Sidney Granger
Today’s Chapter in God’s Word
Acts 6
Listen at
http://www.audiotreasure.com/webindex.htm
The Word of God Prospered
1-4
During this time, as the disciples were increasing in numbers by leaps and bounds, hard feelings developed among the Greek-speaking believers—"Hellenists"—toward the Hebrew-speaking believers because their widows were being discriminated against in the daily food lines. So the Twelve called a meeting of the disciples. They said, "It wouldn't be right for us to abandon our responsibilities for preaching and teaching the Word of God to help with the care of the poor. So, friends, choose seven men from among you whom everyone trusts, men full of the Holy Spirit and good sense, and we'll assign them this task. Meanwhile, we'll stick to our assigned tasks of prayer and speaking God's Word."
5-6
The congregation thought this was a great idea. They went ahead and chose—
Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit,
Philip,
Procorus,
Nicanor,
Timon,
Parmenas,
Nicolas, a convert from Antioch.
Then they presented them to the apostles. Praying, the apostles laid on hands and commissioned them for their task.
7
The Word of God prospered. The number of disciples in
8-10
Stephen, brimming with God's grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them. But then some men from the meeting place whose membership was made up of freed slaves, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and some others from Cilicia and Asia, went up against him trying to argue him down. But they were no match for his wisdom and spirit when he spoke.
11
So in secret they bribed men to lie: "We heard him cursing Moses and God."
12-14
That stirred up the people, the religious leaders, and religion scholars. They grabbed Stephen and took him before the High Council. They put forward their bribed witnesses to testify: "This man talks nonstop against this
15
As all those who sat on the High Council looked at Stephen, they found they couldn't take their eyes off him—his face was like the face of an angel!
CURRENT PRAYER REQUESTS:
Please ask everyone to pray for Margaret Reid. She is Melissa's aunt. Margaret is a Christian. Margaret says she is ready to go to the Lord and just as happy to stay here and spend more time with her family. She is having surgery on Friday at 10:30am and is not expected to make it through surgery. Thank you. God Bless You too! Love Bear and Melissa
THANK YOU FOR PRAYING FOR PASTOR BOB ALLMANN
Please remain in prayer concerning his continued healing and that he is upheld by the Spirit, becoming physically strong as he returns to serving the Lord… what he loves to do!
Please continue to pray for Billy Hamburg, whose doctors found 5 tumors in his bladder. He had surgery June 29th and the biopsy results showed a cancerous condition. He will be undergoing chemo & radiation treatments and will need the Lord’s Hand to overcome his anxiety as well as the cancer.
ENCOURAGEMENT FOR TODAY
August 20, 2009
Surrendered - For the Display of His Splendor
By Renee Swope
“They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.” Isaiah 61:3 (NIV)
Devotion:
My dearest friend, women’s ministry director and mentor was moving - hours away! This was the woman who had believed in me, invested in me and encouraged me. She’d also prayed for me and stood beside me as I overcame fears and doubts, following God's call into ministry.
How was I going to make it without her?
Trying to find a distraction for my despair, I decided to tackle long overdo yard work. As I headed out to our shed, I noticed a rose bush the previous homeowner had planted. It was in full bloom, displaying her splendor through gorgeous pink blossoms across the center of our split rail fence.
How did that happen? I wondered.
Although I’d never used it, I remembered seeing rose fertilizer in our shed so I decided to use it. I pulled the weeds away from the bush’s base so the plant food could sink into the soil and noticed the root ball had four sections.
Should I leave the sections all together or divide and place them at different posts on the fence?
If I planted them at separate posts, their vines would eventually connect and create a blanket of pink draped across the whole fence. With that image in mind, I knelt before the blossoming beauty and pressed my hands into the dirt to find the right places to separate the root ball.
At that moment, I sensed God whisper to my heart that the rose bush was a picture of what He was doing with the women's ministry I loved. Each of us serving on the ministry team had been carefully planted in our giftedness, nurtured and encouraged through prayer, equipped through training and fertilized by opportunities to serve. We had become a display of God’s splendor.
But, like this plant, we had reached the fullness of His glory in our current soil. I sensed Him telling me that we were ready to be divided into separate plants so that His glory would be more fully displayed, as He planted each of us uniquely and individually in new places of ministry.
I couldn’t bear the thought of it. Would there be more pruning? More breaking up of what had taken years to establish? This was nowhere in my plans and dreams!
It is so painful when God allows our dreams to be shattered, our hearts to be broken, our relationships to be separated and our fears to be realized. I really doubted what God was doing. I doubted any good could come from such loss. I doubted that I could make it through the pain. Yet, as I imagined God's glory being more fully displayed, my heart settled into a place of surrender. It wasn’t my plan, but if it was for His glory, wasn’t that what I wanted? Wasn’t that what Jesus did? Would I also trust Him to ease my sorrow and bring something good from it?
That day I knelt on holy ground in front of my rose bush and surrendered the broken dreams in my heart. Even if it meant letting go of what I loved so deeply, it would be worth it if others would see HIM more fully in my life and eventually in my ministry.
Are you in a season of being uprooted? Has God re-arranged your plans and your future? Are you struggling to trust His ways?
Jesus’ life and death displays God’s promise to turn our despair into divine joy and our loss into a legacy as we depend on and trust in Him. I didn’t think I could make it. But five years later, I see how God took my doubts and sorrow and used them to draw me into absolute dependence and sweet surrender to Him – for the display of His splendor.
Lord, I want to reflect Your glory through the display of my dependence on You. As painful as it is, I realize Your splendor is revealed in my brokenness as I rely on Your love and strength. I put my trust in Your plans and not my own today, in Jesus' Name, amen.
Application Steps:
Reflect on today’s power verse, Isaiah 61:1-3. List ways that God has, or ways you want Him to fulfill these promises in your life.
Reflections:
Am I going through a season of surrender? Am I struggling to trust God’s ways?
Power Verses:
Isaiah 61:1-3, “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, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.” (NIV)
…and…
Turning Point
Dr. David Jeremiah
Falsely Accused - Part 1
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Did you know that about ten-thousand people in the
may be wrongfully convicted of a serious crime this year?
According to a recent study, the leading cause of this gross injustice
is misidentification by eyewitnesses.
This is proven in the case of a man serving twenty-five years for a crime he never committed –
all because of the account of one witness.
It must be heartbreaking to be wrongly accused in this way.
In his message, "Falsely Accused," Dr. Jeremiah reminds us that
God is at work - even in an unfair world.
Series: Church in Action 5: The Faithful Prisoner of the Church
1-3
Three days after Festus arrived in Caesarea to take up his duties as governor, he went up to
4-5
Festus answered that Caesarea was the proper jurisdiction for Paul, and that he himself was going back there in a few days. "You're perfectly welcome," he said, "to go back with me then and accuse him of whatever you think he's done wrong."
6-7
About eight or ten days later, Festus returned to
8
Then Paul took the stand and said simply, "I've done nothing wrong against the Jewish religion, or the
9
Festus, though, wanted to get on the good side of the Jews and so said, "How would you like to go up to
10-11
Paul answered, "I'm standing at this moment before Caesar's bar of justice, where I have a perfect right to stand. And I'm going to keep standing here. I've done nothing wrong to the Jews, and you know it as well as I do. If I've committed a crime and deserve death, name the day. I can face it. But if there's nothing to their accusations—and you know there isn't—nobody can force me to go along with their nonsense. We've fooled around here long enough. I appeal to Caesar."
12
Festus huddled with his advisors briefly and then gave his verdict: "You've appealed to Caesar; you'll go to Caesar!"
VIEW OR LISTEN AT
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GDLC Message: http://www.gdlc.org/worship/sermons.aspx
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