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(Isa 55:1)
MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2009
Question for the day: Have you ever been judged by others or had presuppositions placed upon you? How did it make you feel?
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
1 Corinthians 9
Listen at
http://www.audiotreasure.com/webindex.htm
1-2
And don't tell me that I have no authority to write like this. I'm perfectly free to do this—isn't that obvious? Haven't I been given a job to do? Wasn't I commissioned to this work in a face-to-face meeting with Jesus, our Master? Aren't you yourselves proof of the good work that I've done for the Master? Even if no one else admits the authority of my commission, you can't deny it. Why, my work with you is living proof of my authority!
3-7
I'm not shy in standing up to my critics. We who are on missionary assignments for God have a right to decent accommodations, and we have a right to support for us and our families. You don't seem to have raised questions with the other apostles and our Master's brothers and Peter in these matters. So, why me? Is it just Barnabas and I who have to go it alone and pay our own way? Are soldiers self-employed? Are gardeners forbidden to eat vegetables from their own gardens? Don't milkmaids get to drink their fill from the pail?
8-12
I'm not just sounding off because I'm irritated. This is all written in the scriptural law. Moses wrote, "Don't muzzle an ox to keep it from eating the grain when it's threshing." Do you think Moses' primary concern was the care of farm animals? Don't you think his concern extends to us? Of course. Farmers plow and thresh expecting something when the crop comes in. So if we have planted spiritual seed among you, is it out of line to expect a meal or two from you? Others demand plenty from you in these ways. Don't we who have never demanded deserve even more?
12-14
But we're not going to start demanding now what we've always had a perfect right to. Our decision all along has been to put up with anything rather than to get in the way or detract from the Message of Christ. All I'm concerned with right now is that you not use our decision to take advantage of others, depriving them of what is rightly theirs. You know, don't you, that it's always been taken for granted that those who work in the Temple live off the proceeds of the Temple, and that those who offer sacrifices at the altar eat their meals from what has been sacrificed? Along the same lines, the Master directed that those who spread the Message be supported by those who believe the Message.
15-18
Still, I want it made clear that I've never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I'm not writing now to get something. I'd rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or impugn my motives. If I proclaim the Message, it's not to get something out of it for myself. I'm compelled to do it, and doomed if I don't! If this was my own idea of just another way to make a living, I'd expect some pay. But since it's not my idea but something solemnly entrusted to me, why would I expect to get paid? So am I getting anything out of it? Yes, as a matter of fact: the pleasure of proclaiming the Message at no cost to you. You don't even have to pay my expenses!
19-23
Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
24-25
You've all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You're after one that's gold eternally.
26-27
I don't know about you, but I'm running hard for the finish line. I'm giving it everything I've got. No sloppy living for me! I'm staying alert and in top condition. I'm not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.
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 them to Kingdom-profitable loads to carry, and that He grants them safe passage today.
Hello all... Little Keegan is doing pretty well. He has not had any set backs for a few days!! Praise the Lord!!! His hand is doing much better. The redness and pain seems to be gone. He has been 6 days with nothing to eat... Not an easy obstacle... It's sort of hard to explain to a baby why we are not giving him anything. He will be able to eat again starting Monday... They will give it back to him little by little. If he is able to keep it down and go up to his regular amount and not have anything else go wrong then he will be able to go home. We hope to bring him home either Wed or Thur!!! Please pray for our little man. He has been such a trooper!!! His heart is doing really good. Thanks for the prayers and thoughts.... God is good....
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.
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 5, 2009
The Shape of His Love
Susan Meissner
"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law."
Romans 13:8 (NIV)
Devotion:
Have you ever let fear influence your perspective? My husband still teases me about a time that I did.
When our family lived in
One night during bat season, I awoke to the sound of those wings. I looked up into the darkness and there on the ceiling was the chevron shape; its wings spread like the Caped Crusader. I had a sleeping husband next to me and no tennis racket.
I jostled Bob awake and rasped out the frightening news.
"Bob! There's a bat above us!"
He jolted upright and I hushed him quickly. "Where?" he whispered.
"Right there!" I pointed to the ceiling. "See?! What are we going to do?"
He looked beside the bed for a shoe, a magazine, anything. "I don't know," he said. "I think I am going to have to turn on the light."
"No! He'll start flying around!" I squeaked.
"I need a racket."
I was practically hyperventilating as Bob reached over to his bedside table and turned on the lamp. We braced ourselves for chaos. Light replaced darkness, revealing not a bat but our adjustable ceiling lights, shaped like a V because I had put them that way nine years earlier.
I had let fear convince me something was true when it wasn't. Not only did I rush to judgment, but I used my fear to convince someone else that what I believed was true.
Too often we pass judgment on people and situations we know little about. History has shown us that when we judge in ignorance we can make terrible mistakes. When we allow our view of someone or something to be swayed by suspicions or what the crowd says, we can make a tragic error of assuming something is true when it isn't. Fear tutors us to think that way. It warps our vision.
Jesus said He has only two expectations of us: Love God, and love others—including those whose ways we don't understand, who behave differently than we do, and who "flap their wings" when we'd rather they didn't. When we love God completely, we find the grace, mercy and wisdom to love the rest of the world. Plus, we are told in 1 John 4:18 that there is no fear in love.
When we make love our highest and best pursuit, fear and judgment dissolve as quickly as the shadows in my bedroom when I turn on the light. I am learning to let His light show me the shape of His love.
Dear Lord, You are the essence of love itself. We know that the more we love, the more we bear Your image to a world that so desperately needs to see it. Help us love more and judge less, in Jesus' Name, amen.
Application Steps:
Choose an organization in your hometown that ministers to the homeless and spend a couple hours offering compassion, hospitality an service. Check and discard any preconceived notions you may have about the homeless, letting God replace these impressions with His love.
Reflections:
Have you ever been judged by others or had presuppositions placed upon you? How did it make you feel?
Look at Romans 8:14-16. What does the apostle Paul say here about fear?
Reread our key verse—have you left the debt of love outstanding?
Power Verses:
Colossians 3:13-14, "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." (NIV)
Matthew 7:1-3, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (NIV)
…and…
TURNING POINT
Dr. David Jeremiah
Stay Calm - Part 1
Monday, October 05, 2009
Are you feeling the effects of these troubling days?
People are losing their jobs, their homes,
and their life savings at alarming rates.
We can't turn on the news without hearing
about another freak accident or natural disaster.
In the midst of all this chaos, we can't help but ask,
what on earth should we do now?
In this message from Dr. Jeremiah's newest book,
Living With Confidence in a Chaotic World,
we'll discover what the Bible says about staying calm,
even in the midst of difficult times.
Series: Living With Confidence in a Chaotic World
THE MESSAGE
1-4
"Don't let this throw you. You trust God, don't you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I'm taking."
5
Thomas said, "Master, we have no idea where you're going. How do you expect us to know the road?"
6-7
Jesus said, "I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You've even seen him!"
VIEW OR LISTEN AT
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Turning_Point/
GDLC Message: http://www.gdlc.org/worship/sermons.aspx
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