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(Isa 55:1)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2009

Question for the day: What do you most long for?

What can we pray with 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

Galatians 2

Listen at

http://www.audiotreasure.com/webindex.htm

What Is Central?

1-5

Fourteen years after that first visit, Barnabas and I went up to Jerusalem and took Titus with us. I went to clarify with them what had been revealed to me. At that time I placed before them exactly what I was preaching to the non-Jews. I did this in private with the leaders, those held in esteem by the church, so that our concern would not become a controversial public issue, marred by ethnic tensions, exposing my years of work to denigration and endangering my present ministry. Significantly, Titus, non-Jewish though he was, was not required to be circumcised. While we were in conference we were infiltrated by spies pretending to be Christians, who slipped in to find out just how free true Christians are. Their ulterior motive was to reduce us to their brand of servitude. We didn't give them the time of day. We were determined to preserve the truth of the Message for you.

6-10

As for those who were considered important in the church, their reputation doesn't concern me. God isn't impressed with mere appearances, and neither am I. And of course these leaders were able to add nothing to the message I had been preaching. It was soon evident that God had entrusted me with the same message to the non-Jews as Peter had been preaching to the Jews. Recognizing that my calling had been given by God, James, Peter, and John—the pillars of the church—shook hands with me and Barnabas, assigning us to a ministry to the non-Jews, while they continued to be responsible for reaching out to the Jews. The only additional thing they asked was that we remember the poor, and I was already eager to do that.

11-13

Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. Here's the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That's how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that's been pushing the old system of circumcision. Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade.

But when I saw that they were not maintaining a steady, straight course according to the Message, I spoke up to Peter in front of them all: "If you, a Jew, live like a non-Jew when you're not being observed by the watchdogs from Jerusalem, what right do you have to require non-Jews to conform to Jewish customs just to make a favorable impression on your old Jerusalem cronies?"

15-16

We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over "non-Jewish sinners." We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.

17-18

Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.

19-21

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

CURRENT PRAYER REQUESTS:

Please pray for Mike Brommer as he spreads the Lord’s Seed and witnesses 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 Mike safe passage today to Bettendorf, IA.

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 29^th 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.

UPDATE:

After more testing, the doctors have found that, despite the number of tumors found in and around the bladder, that the cancer has NOT spread to any surrounding muscle tissue or organs. They are looking at completely removing the bladder and replacing it with a piece of intestine. WE PRAISE GOD AND GIVE HIM THE GLORY FOR THIS; WE ALSO PRAY THAT BILLY WILL RECOGNIZE THIS AS GOD WORKING IN HIS LIFE!!!!!!!!!

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR TODAY

October 27, 2009

Abba Father

Ariel Allison

"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear,

but you received the Spirit of sonship.

And by Him we cry Abba, Father.

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."

Romans 8:15-16 (NIV)

Devotion:

The cross that marks my father's grave is nothing but a broken tree branch lashed together with twine. Knee high weeds grow above the sunken ground where the rustic casket lies. The last time I visited his grave was late at night as I stared at the makeshift cross with the help of flickering headlights. The sharp chill of a Tennessee autumn surrounded me and once again I felt the longing.

What I longed for, as I stood on that frigid hilltop, was not the physical presence of my father. It was what I had never really gotten from him—the feeling or assurance of his love.

A year earlier I sat beside a dying man and choked on my sorrow as I asked, "Daddy, do you love me?" I got my answer hours before he slipped into eternity.

He looked at me with startling blue eyes. My resolve to hold it together began to crumble. I feared his answer. What if he said no? How would I live with that knowledge? But even worse was the thought of standing over a grave and never knowing his answer.

His blue eyes clouded with tears. "I'm sorry," he said, his tongue swollen and dry. "I'm sorry I haven't said it. I do love you."

For the first time in my life, my father and I wept tears of joy together. It was a holy moment, a gift from the God who loves me more than my earthly father ever could. Before he passed on, I got but a taste of what our relationship should have been. It was a drop of water on the tongue of a thirsty woman.

Jesus taught us to refer to God as "Abba" or "Daddy." Jesus knew it would be difficult for some of us to approach God as our Father. However, only God can fill the empty places in our hearts that long for a father's love. He offers a living water, a living love, that quenches our thirst. We simply need to admit that we are empty and thirsting for our Father - our heavenly Father.

I've longed to be the delight of my father. Not for a moment on his deathbed, but for the entirety of my life. This longing has caused my heart to hunger deeply for my heavenly Father. My Abba. He says that I am His child, and assures me that He loves me. In those words my heart finds the father I've been looking for my entire life.

The rustic cross above my dad's grave represents the truth that I have a Father who loves me. I have a Father who will never leave me nor forsake me.

And so do you.

Father God, help me to know You as my Father, the One who will never leave me nor forsake me. Heal my broken places and teach me what it means to be loved, in Jesus' Name, amen.

Application Steps:

It is hard to know the love of Father God if you've never known the love of your earthly father. If you feel distant from your heavenly Father, ask Him to come closer, and invite His Spirit to dwell within you.

If your earthly father has been a source of pain in your life, pray that God will give you the courage to forgive.

Reflections:

Do you need to allow yourself the freedom to grieve the loss of a father's love, and seek the love of your Father God? Be honest with yourself, and God about this.

Power Verses:

2 Corinthians 6:18, "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." (NIV)

Psalm 10:14, "But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless." (NIV)

Psalm 68:5, "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling." (NIV)

…and…

TURNING POINT

Dr. David Jeremiah

Stay Consistent - Part 2

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Aren't you thankful for modern technology?

We can get nearly everything done with the click of a button.

Getting projects finished so quickly allows us to hurry through life, accomplishing more than we ever thought possible.

Although being efficient is great,

there's one thing that shouldn't be hurried - our walk with Christ.

Dr. Jeremiah continues in his new series,