Golden Nuggets (Nov. 24)

Psalm 7 - "You get us ready for life.  You probe for our soft spots, you knock off our rough edges.  And I am feeling so fit, so safe: made right, kept right.  God in solemn honor does things right."  (The Message)  Ummm, wow.  God cares about our hearts plain and simple.  Our character is what He is shaping within each one of us.  He is continually shaping and molding us to what He desired for us from the very beginning of time.  It hurts and sometimes seems like a dark place, but we must trust that He is doing something good in us and through us.  He is not wasting our time at all...now, we might be, but He is not.  You see, He loves us so much that He keeps at it.  If He didn't care this would be so much easier...but He does care and thus, there are seasons of trials in our lives.  He is so good at making beauty from ashes and so be His.  Embrace the seasons that He sends us through...He is knocking off the rough edges so that we are made right and kept right.  Psalm 8 we could respond much like David when he says, "what am I that you are mindful of me," but the answer is that we are His.  He made me.  He made you.  You and I are His so therefore He is very mindful of us always.  Even at my worst season of life, He is very mindful of me.  Amazing.  You might want to stop at this moment and go watch John Piper's video called more loved than you imagined.  Here is the link -

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=yset_chr_syc_oo&p=john+piper+sermon+jams#id=9&vid=b0790b61c20b554d491467e6edddb3de&action=view

Psalm 9 - God is a safe-house for the battered.  Listen, He doesn't have a safe-house for us to go to when we are battered, HE IS OUR SAFE-HOUSE.  He is our sanctuary during bad times.  Where do we turn when we are being battered?  A friend?  An addiction?  To some form of chemical?  We must turn to Jesus.  And when we come to Jesus, we can relax and He is never sorry that we came!  Because of this truth, it says that David writes this chapter of his life with a full heart.  May we know that no matter what, we can always come to Jesus...and He welcomes us always.  May we too have full hearts because of His faithfulness in our lives.

Jeremiah 35 - I am so sorry about referencing Jeremiah, but like I said earlier...as soon as I made a comment about not liking Jeremiah, Jesus made me swallow Jeremiah for my own personal journey.  It is great stuff...it is just that we need the context to appreciate and embrace Jeremiah.  Listen to this thought by Eugene Peterson about Jeremiah 35 - "how can people who are conditioned to a life of distractions and indulgences be moved to live at their best, to be artists of the everyday, to plunge into life and not loiter on the fringes?"  And yet somehow we think that "religion" will save us.  No!  No!  No!  A critical relationship with Jesus is the only hope that we have...EVER!  Why?  Because He knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knows we are broken and left to ourselves we will destroy anything that is good...so He came down.  He took on flesh.  He moved into our neighborhood.  So He says to you and I, come close and I will handle you and your stuff.  We have a Father who has a huge desire for us to live in total relationship with Him.  You know that He has set us apart for a life of love.  Why don't we do it?  Lazy!  I am lazy!  You are lazy!  We want it to come easy...but that is exactly how Satan wants us to live.  No!  May we be diligent and hard workers in cultivating a healthy relationship with Jesus....may we stop with the "religious" side of Christianity and go after the heart of Jesus.

Jeremiah 36 - I loved that Jeremiah, during the time of King Josiah, heard the book of Deuteronomy read outloud...and it stirred his heart, possibly he was 10 years old when he heard Deuteronomy.  And when Jeremiah listened to Deuteronomy it created in  His heart three key things:  God's Faithfulness to His people; God's heart for His people; God's dreams and desires from His own.  So Jeremiah lived it out and then eventually wrote about it...thus the book of Jeremiah.  The book of Jeremiah is birthed from the book of Deuteronomy.  King Josiah honored Deuteronomy and it led to a revival in Jerusalem, but then 17 years later, King Jehoiakim (Josiah's son) burns the scroll containing God's Words.  So will we lift up the Word of God like Josiah that leads to revival or will we set aside the Word of God (burn it) like Johoiakim that leads to captivity and destruction?  Oh, may the Word of the Lord be our life...may we know the living God because of what He has given us.

Jeremiah 37-38 - interesting event takes place in this chapter...  All of sudden I had a new vision...this chapter is played out years later with Jesus and Pilate.  We have Jeremiah who is serving the Lord faithfully and yet, being treated as a criminal.  We have Jesus who is serving the Lord faithfully and yet, being treated as a criminal.  So Jeremiah is taken before Zedikiah who hands him over to be punished.  So Jesus is taken before Pilate who hands Him over to be punished.   But there is a third person in this story of Jeremiah, his name is Ebed-Melech (a foreign eunich..what???)  Ebed-Melech rescues Jeremiah.  But there is a third person in the story of Jesus, His name is the Holy Spirit and He rescues Jesus from death.  Here is where our story is better than Jeremiah's...Ebed-Melech eventually dies.  The Holy Spirit, never dies.  He lives in us...today and tomorrow and forever.  Be alive friends because we are alive in Jesus.

Acts 24 - Paul says, I serve and worship the same God our ancestors served...I embrace the Scriptures.  I live hopeful that God will raise me from death and give me eternal life.  Ummm, couldn't we agree with each word of Paul?  I serve and worship the same God that Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David served...I seek the Scriptures that Moses, David, John, Peter wrote.  I live hopeful to hear the words, well done good and faithful servant, welcome home.  Keep at it friends.

Acts 25-26.  I love the courage of Paul to speak so boldly about his Jesus.  The only way that Paul could be so brave and courageous is that he knew Jesus intimately and he was prayed up.  I think, those two things should be very important to each one of us.  Because Jesus intimately would say to us much like He did to Paul, "why do you go against the grain...I've handpicked you to be a servant (like Jesus) and witness (for Jesus) today" (Acts 26 - The Message).  Because I have handpicked you...I will show you how...YOU FOLLOW ME!

Judges 20-21 - I really don't know what to do with Judges.  But here are two things I observed from these final two chapters!  Am I my own authority?  Or is God my authority?  I sadly have to answer truthfully, most times I am my own authority and because that is true, that means that I don't need God at that moment.  This pretty well sums up the book of Judges.  What I thought was interesting is that in Judges 20, they consult the Ark of the Covenant, but guess what?  The Ark of the Covenant has not been mentioned any other time in Judges in this context which ultimately means, they consulted the Lord very little if at all.  Why?  Because they were their own authority...and when we are our own authority, we don't seek the Lord as we should.  Boy, that was painful to encounter this morning in my reading and just as painful to type it out now.  Uggh.  Lord have mercy on me as sinner!

Ruth 1 - Less than a year ago, I taught on Ruth and it might have been one of the best teaching times of my life.  That book has impacted my life greatly.  One lesson I gained from Ruth is that kindness can literally change a nation.  As you open up to chapter 1, you read in Judges 21 that people did whatever they wanted to in their own eyes.  As you close up Ruth 4, you read how Naomi is holding in her arms, David's grandpa...David was the greatest king to serve Israel.  From David came revival, peace, and Jesus.  A nation was changed because of Ruth's kindness to Naomi in the season of death.  A Moabite woman (Moabites came from when two daughters slept with their drunken father Genesis 19) who knew very little of God, if any...she might have picked up on God's faithfulness from Naomi and her husband.  But the most unlikely character comes into play and shows us what kindness and true love looks like.  Oh, I am so glad that God opened my eyes to Ruth...powerful book.  Nothing is impossible for God.  NOTHING!