DYSMAS CONDUIT
FREE FOOD
(Isa 55:1)
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2010
Question for the day:
Do you know where your owner’s manual is?
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
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.
Please continue to lift up in prayer Christopher Trombley. Chris had surgery done on his right lung that
Removed a large mass. Pray for God’s continued healing hand upon Chris and that the mass is not cancerous.
Pray for God’s healing of Chris in his recovery.
Pastor Kurt
Praise God! Pastor John is home and on the mend. Please keep praying for a quick and speedy recovery. Pastor John and Phyllis thank you so much for all of the prayers!!
Thank you!
Pastor Ed is still in the hospital for additional tests. He feels better and is ready to get out of hospital.
Chuck
Really think we need to lift Pastor Kurt up in prayer. Protection for him as
both other Pastors are having health issues. --Colette Schaible
From Lauren Gibbons:
Please pray for my oldest grandson's grandpa, Papa Bud. He was diagnosed with peritoneal mesotheleoma (cancer of the lining of the peritoneum which surrounds abdominal organs) last spring. He's been undergoing chemo but it's not working. He's planning to undergo a fairly new very invasive operation in April. They scrape the cancer cells and fill the lining with a warm chemo treatment directly in the infected area. The doctor has done 80 surgeries. Not sure the success rate, and of course there are certain risks, but with God on Bud's side, I'm trusting that he will be healed and a walking testimony for Jesus. He needs prayer for salvation/healing. Thanks so much for extending your faith along with me and the rest of the family.
Please lift up in prayer the family of Carol Noack and Susan Datte who are mourning the passing of their brother Edward Schultz.
Phyllis just called and said that Pastor John is out of surgery. He is in the recovery room right now. They may be keeping him overnight because his gall bladder is inflamed. Please pray for a speedy recovery.
Phyllis says thank you all very much for the prayers.
Jackie
Please lift up in prayer Chris Trombley who is having surgery to remove tumors from his right lung at noon today.
Pray that the tumors are not cancerous and that God would provide his strength, peace, and comfort to Chris’s family.
God watch over this young man, protect his life and grant him healing in your time.
Pastor Kurt
ENCOURAGEMENT FOR TODAY
February 18, 2010
Don't Read Your Bible
Lysa TerKeurst
"Turn my eyes away from worthless things;
preserve my life according to your word."
Psalm 119: 37 (NIV)
Devotion:
I have a request today. Don't read your Bible.
Does that shock you? Relieve you? Make you angry at worst? Curious at best?
Read on and see what I mean by my request.
There have been many days in my Christian journey where God was reduced to something on my to-do list. Somewhere along the way I picked up a checklist of sorts with what good Christians are supposed to do: Pray. Read your Bible. Go to church. Don't cuss. Be nice.
Being the rule following girl I am, I subscribed to the good things on that list and waited with great expectations to receive the zap of contentment and happiness good Christians girls are supposed to exude. But then I felt something was wrong me. I still felt restless. I still reacted in anger. I still felt a bit hollow.
I was going through all the motions but didn't feel connected to Jesus. Others around me seemed very connected. They would talk of being 'moved by the spirit.' They would hear from God Himself. They would clap their hands and shout amen in the middle of a sermon that sounded like Greek to me.
I often felt like a weightless soul grasping at the air hoping to somehow snag this Jesus that was just out of reach. Have you ever been there?
Have you ever sat in a church service watching everyone else eagerly flip open their Bibles to the exact right passage while you were left sweating because you didn't have a clue how to find what they were reading? Have you ever walked out of church watching everyone else smile and shake hands and seem so gentle while you mentally beat yourself up for throwing the orange juice carton across the kitchen that very morning?
Suddenly this nagging sense creeps in that you don't belong- that you'll never get it- that you don't have what it takes to be a Christian. That's where I was. I lived there for a long time until someone challenged me to stop simply reading my Bible because it was a thing on my Christian checklist. They challenged me to experience God.
In other words, look at the words in the Bible as a love letter. God's love letter to a broken down girl. A love letter not meant to simply be read... but a love letter meant to be lived.
I won't lie. It took a while. It took many days of sitting down with my Bible while praying gut honest prayers. I told God I wasn't connecting and didn't understand. I asked Him to help me. I begged Him to help me. Finally, one verse suddenly came alive to me one day. I literally felt moved when I read it. I think I read it 100 times that day. I memorized it and thought about it all day long. All week long. Maybe all month long.
I was overjoyed. I had a verse. A verse where Jesus spoke tenderly and clearly and specifically to me. It was Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans to prosper not harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope." Slowly, I added more verses. Day by day. Chapter by chapter. And eventually my Bible became my greatest treasure, my love letter.
Every day now I open up God's word with great expectation and intentionally look in the chapter or two I read for my verse for that day. Usually one verse among the many I read during my devotion time, grabs my heart and I know was meant just for the day ahead. And then I attempt to live that verse out in some way that very day. When I make the connection between what happens in my life that day and why I needed that verse, I experience God. I see Him being active in my life and I become even more deeply aware of His constant presence.
I'm sure some Bible scholars would probably take issue with my simplistic approach. But it sure has helped me throw less orange juice cartons across the kitchen.
And 'less thrown cartons' sure seems like a step in the right direction to me.
So, back to my original statement. Don't read your Bible. In other words don't simply read it because you have to check it off the Christian to do list. Read it with great expectations of connecting more deeply and living more authentically with God.
Dear Lord, thank you for showing me the Christian life can be so much more than a checklist. I want to not only read your Word, I want to live it each day. Please give me the wisdom to understand and the courage to become more like You each day, in Jesus' Name, amen.
Application Steps:
Read Psalm 119 today and make a list of some of the amazing ways God's word can help us everyday.
Each time you sit down to read your Bible, ask God specifically to help you understand and apply what you're learning.
Reflections:
Which of the promises from Psalm 119 touch you most personally right now?
Power Verses:
Psalm 119: 15-16, "I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word."
Psalm 119: 66, "Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I believe in your commands." (NIV)
YOU TUBE SONG FOR TODAY
We Will Hold On
Paul Baloche
(Thanks to Lauri Potter for this selection)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UsWdoP8pOQ
…and…
Taking a trip on the Bible Bus
James 1:22-25
22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his own face in a mirror;
24 for he looks at himself, goes away, and right away forgets what kind of man he was.
25 But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who acts-this person will be blessed in what he does.
Listen to Scripture at
http://www.audiotreasure.com/webindex.htm
Listen to Thru the Bible
Dr. J.
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Thru_the_Bible_with_JVernon_McGee/
Please send your prayer requests to
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