DYSMAS CONDUIT
FREE FOOD
(Isa 55:1)
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2009
Question for the day: What is one thing you would not live without?
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
Romans 5
(The Message)
Listen at
http://www.audiotreasure.com/webindex.htm
Developing Patience
1-2
By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
3-5
There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!
6-8
Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
9-11
Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!
The Death-Dealing Sin, the Life-Giving Gift
12-14
You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we're in— first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.
15-17
Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?
18-19
Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.
20-21
All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.
CURRENT PRAYER REQUESTS:
Please pray for Mike and Sandy Brommer as they spread the Lord’s Seed and witness to His glory while on the road today. Please pray also that the Lord will lead him to Kingdom-profitable loads to carry, and that He grants them safe passage today from
.
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.
Please pray for us and our son Ryan who has been our “prodigal” for the last several years. He recently called us and wants to come back home to live with us. Home now is in
ENCOURAGEMENT FOR TODAY
September 15, 2009
The Empty Chair
"For this reason, since the day we heard about you,
we have not stopped praying for you." Colossians 1:9a (NIV)
Devotion:
What is one thing I would not live without?
The answer is a team of prayer warriors.
I surround myself with specific groups of women who pray for me and me for them. I have a Moms in Touch group at my son's school, an "around the world team" made up of friends in different states, local girlfriends, and P31 sisters.
For years these women have been praying for me. I have shared my dreams with them, and we have prayed together over God's calling and plans for me. The power of prayer is amazing, and we've seen God work in unbelievable ways. Let me share one instance that was undeniably prayer in action.
About two weeks ago, I was running out the door to my weekly prayer group at school. Just before I left, my husband reminded me to send an overdue e-mail. Telling him I'd do it later, he chimed, "There's no time like the present." So I quickly turned on my laptop and as I did, a new email came in.
Have you ever waited on an answer to come through email? It could be about a job, a test result, or maybe a response from a friend or family member. Regardless, you know when the answer comes it will impact your life. I was waiting on news about a ministry endeavor.
What I found in that hurried moment was an email telling me there would be a meeting at 10:00 that morning to determine the outcome of the matter. I was asked to pray that they would seek the Holy Spirit together as decisions affecting the ministry I serve in were made.
Quickly I forwarded the e-mail to my "around the world team" and headed out the door, with emotions running high. I cried all the way to the school prayer group, where I told them about the 10 o'clock meeting as well. The girls gathered around me and prayed.
When I got home, I read the prayers that had come in from my "around the world team." Bev had prayed there would be an empty chair in the room in which Jesus would be sitting, leading the conversation at the meeting.
Later that afternoon I received a call. The ministry opportunity was going forward! I had prayed about this for two years and approached it many different times. Praise God, things had moved forward in ways I never could have dreamed or imagined!
Recently, I met with one of the women who sat in the 10:00 meeting. She told me the meeting had gone so well it was as if Jesus Himself was right there in the room! I asked her what I'd wondered: "By any chance, was there an empty chair at the table?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact there was. We sat around the table with four chairs and there were only three of us." I imagined Jesus in that fourth spot.
Oh girls, the power of prayer! Believe that God will perform a miracle for you! Never, ever underestimate the power of friends praying. Find some girlfriends today and commit to praying for each other.
Dear Lord, thank You for hearing our prayers. Thank You for bringing into our lives other women who lift us up in prayer. You know the plans You have for us, dear Father, and we lift our prayers to You, waiting for Your direction and timing, in Jesus' Name, amen.
Application Steps:
Pray and ask God who you should invite to be on your team of prayer warriors.
Reflections:
Do you need a miracle for your marriage, child, job or health? Pray without ceasing.
Do you have a calling that you need to take to your prayer warriors and spend some time praying over?
Power Verses:
1 Thessalonians 5:17, "Pray without ceasing." (NASB)
James 5:16b, "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." (NIV)
…and…
TURNING POINT
Dr. David Jeremiah
Slaying the Giant of Temptation Part 1
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Why is it so difficult to remain strong when we are tempted?
We watch an inappropriate movie because a co-worker recommended it. We involve ourselves in gossiping situations which we know are not edifying or appropriate. And what happens?
We find it hard to be strong because we never should have put ourselves in the situation, and find we're too weak to resist in our own strength. Dr. David Jeremiah teaches us the secret to escaping those moments of weakness as he shares his message, "Slaying the Giant of Temptation."
Series: Slaying the Giants in Your Life
11-12These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don't repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don't be so naive and self-confident. You're not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it's useless. Cultivate God-confidence.
13No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it.
14So, my very dear friends, when you see people reducing God to something they can use or control, get out of their company as fast as you can. – The Message
VIEW OR LISTEN AT
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Turning_Point/
GDLC Message: http://www.gdlc.org/worship/sermons.aspx
Find us at…
http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php#
or
No comments:
Post a Comment