The behavior or the heart

Daily Bible reading: 1 chronicles 5-6, Hebrews 10, Amos 4, Psalm 85

When I first decided I was going to give my life to Christ, I thought that if I stopped sleeping with my boyfriend and getting drunk that I would be free from sin in my life. Boy, was I wrong! I raised my hand and eventually stood up to receive Christ, not knowing the extent of how much he wanted my life.

I thought it would be easy, modify a few behaviors and go to church every Sunday. I was only used to my old way of doing things, if I wanted something to change in my life I had to change it myself. So I went through the motions of mustering up all the willpower I could to stop doing the things that were “impure” in my own eyes.

The more I read the Bible and learned from the Godly people around me, the sooner I realized that becoming more holy was not about who could “white-knuckle it” the most. God’s grace was so much greater than our willpower and his desire for us is not that we would have behavior changes but rather heart changes.

Hebrews 9:13-14 says, 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

When Jesus sent his son to die on the cross, he did away with the old religious way of doing things. People were becoming too caught up in the list of do’s and don’ts and not allowing Christ to penetrate their hearts. God wanted the people to know he is not in the business of changing behaviors, he is in the business of changing hearts. The scriptures says that although the old religious rituals were able to cleanse us outwardly, the blood of Christ is able to cleanse our consciences. He is able to dig so deep that he can cleanse our thoughts, intents, motives, attitudes, and our own ideas of wrong and right. He is able to make us truly holy and pure, not just have the appearance of it.

God is not in the business of changing behaviors, he is in the business of changing hearts!

Mel Miller

Tomorrows reading: 1 chronicles 7-8, Hebrews 11, Amos 5, Psalm 86

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Bible Reading: 1 Chronicles 3, 4, Hebrews 9¸ Amos 3, Psalm 83, 84

A Cleansed Conscience

Scripture has a lot to say about our conscience. Everyone is born with one and it begins to exhibit itself at an early age. Even a very young child knows when they have done something wrong or something they were told not to do. When my sons were little I would know they had done something they knew they were not supposed to do when they hid or acted guilty, even before I actually knew they had done something wrong. The first thing Adam and Eve did when they disobeyed God was try to cover themselves with fig leaves, and then they hid from God. Why? Their consciences told them they had disobeyed.

Heb. 9:14 says, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God.” Did you know your conscience could be cleansed? A conscience is not something you can touch but yet it can become defiled by the acts that lead to spiritual death. (Titus 1:15). 1 Tim. 4:2 says that a conscience can become seared, so you are no longer listening to your conscience.

Our conscience can be pricked (John 8:9 KJV); we can have an evil conscience (Heb. 10:22). We can have a good conscience (1 Tim. 1:19), a clear or pure conscience (Acts 24:16, 1 Tim. 3:9).

It takes the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse a conscience. Apart from that we will be exactly like Adam and Eve; trying to cover our own wrong doings and hiding, or trying to drown our conscience in over-work, addictive behavior, alcohol or drugs. Thankfully we do not have to resort to any of those things. Jesus gave himself as a once, for all sacrifice so we can have a cleansed conscience. He not only forgives our wrong doings, he forgives the guilt!! “I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’ – and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” Psalm 32:5.

As we walk with the Lord and keep communication clear with him we can experience Psalm 84:7. Go from strength to strength!! And we can say with the Psalmist “Better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere.” “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”

How awesome that we don’t have to try to achieve a cleansed conscience in our own strength¸ but tap into what God provided for us

God is good all the time,

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Today’s Bible Reading: 1 Chronicles 1-2, Hebrews 8, Amos 2, Psalm 81-82

Who rescued you? Think about that for a moment. Our first impulse is to give our best Sunday school answer, “Jesus!” Instead marinate on the question. Do you really know who has rescued you? Do you know him, can you hear his voice? Now think about what you were rescued from.

Psalm 81: 5b-10 says, I heard an unknown voice say, ‘Now I will take the load from your shoulders; I will free your hands from their heavy tasks. You cried to me in trouble, and I saved you; I answered out of the thundercloud and tested your faith when there was no water at Meribah. Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings. O Israel, if you would only listen to me! You must never have a foreign god;; you must not bow down before a false god. For it was I, the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things.

I ask you this because all too often I feel like we tend to forget. We get rescued from this awful situation, condition of the heart, disease and so on. We were on death’s doorstep and all of a sudden we are rescued by our Lord and Savior. Then we celebrate because there is this new lease on life and everything is peachy keen with our savior. There are immense feelings of joy and extreme graditude to the hero of our story and it lasts for a time, but whether it is just the cares and circumstances of life we begin to forget the incredible act of heroism that Jesus played by rescuing us. He becomes this once upon a time a really good guy helped me out, but now my life is my own, I’m doing good and I’m living it the way I want, type of story. We forget the goodness of the God that saved us and start bowing down before worldly idols. Whether is is TV, media, alcohol, “the one”(more like “the many”), fill in the blank. We give these little gods more reign and say in our life than the one who rescued us.

My mom worked at a bar and knew a man that was an alcoholic. He was diagnosed with cancer of the liver due to in part the excess amount of alcohol he consumed. He gave up alcohol. Fought the cancer and won. Not too long afterwards he had his family back and was living a much better quality of life, then however it happened he started drinking heavily again. The disease came back and he passed away. It was so frustrating from the outside because he got a second chance at life and he forgot what he had been rescued from and started to pursue his idols again.

In the scripture the writer says, “I heard an unknown voice.” Even the writer of this Psalm had forgotten the voice of the Lord, his Rescuer. Thankfully our God is a good and persistent God. He sends a reminder to the psalmist of who he is and what he has done for them and to remind them that if they would only remember and listen to his voice then there would be blessings involved.

If you are like that Psalmist and have forgotten the voice of your Rescuer, I pray that today you would heed his voice again and remember what he has rescued you from and that he would fill your life with every good thing.

Maybe you are at a place in your life where you are realizing that you still need to be rescued. As it says in this scripture you only need to call on the Lord and He will rescue you. Ask Jesus to come into your life, be your Lord and Savior (savior just means that he is the one who has saved you), admit that you have sinned and need him to rescue you. It’s as simple as that.

Where ever your at today I pray that we would remember the goodness of God and all that He has rescued us from and keep on surrendering our life to him so that he can continually fill our lives with every good thing!

Live Life Extraordinary,

Alayna

Tomorrow's Bible Reading: 1 Chronicles 3-4, Hebrews 9, Amos 3, Psalm 83-84

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Bible Reading - 2 Kings 24, Hebrews 6, Joel 3, Psalm 79

Tomorrows Bible Reading - 2 Kings 25, Hebrews 7, Amos 1, Psalm 80

Dream Big - Ben

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Daily Bible Reading: 2 Kings 23, Hebrews 5, Jonah 2, Psalm 78

How Do You Distinguish Good From Evil?

Hebrews 5:14 says “Solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” From this verse it is obvious that it is necessary to distinguish between good from evil. If everything was black and white it would easy. If there was a line drawn down the middle; on one side was good and on the other side was evil, no problem.

This verse says that there is some training involved in distinguishing good from evil. That training is solid food which is constant use of the Word of God. Earlier in this chapter Paul (assuming that he wrote the book of Hebrews) says the people he was writing to should be teachers but they still needed milk and not solid food.

Verse 12 in the previous chapter (Heb. 4:12) says “The word of God is living and active. Shaper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” If we are going to be skilled in distinguishing between good from evil, we need to be constantly hiding God’s Word in our hearts and become skilled at knowing what it says.

Notice that the Scripture does not say to distinguish “good and evil,” but “good from evil.” Something might seem good on the outside but on further inspection really be evil. A constant diet of solid spiritual food is the way to become skilled at knowing the difference.

2 Kings 23 contains the account of King Josiah’s actions after the Book of the Law had been found. He called all the people together from the least to the most important and read the Book of the Covenant to them. He didn’t have a scribe read it for him, he read it himself. Then he “renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord, to follow the Lord and keep his commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul.” Then he went on a cleaning rampage. He distinguished good from evil!! He got rid of all things devoted to idols that had been placed in the temple by various kings from the time of Solomon on. Shrines, Asherah poles, quarters for male prostitutes, women who did weaving for Asherah, statues of horses and chariots that had been placed at the entrance to the temple. He tore down high places that had been set up by Solomon hundreds of years previously for the gods of his foreign wives: Astoreth, Chemosh and Molech where people actually offered their children in fire.

King Josiah set an awesome example of what can and should happen when God’s word is read and heeded. So the answer to my question, “How do you distinguish good from evil?” is to be faithful and diligent in reading and studying God’s word.

“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” Psa. 119:11

God is good all the time,

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Bible Reading -2 Kings 22, Hebrews 4, Joel, Psalm 77

In today's reading Hebrews 4:3 really stuck out to me. It reads, "For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard." There are two groups of people listed in this one verse. Those that profited from the hearing of the word and then those that did not. The one simple difference between the two is that one mixed their faith with what they heard and the other group did not. Faith is our investment and when invested it gets returns.

Romans 12:3 references the fact that we all have been given a measure of faith. I believe that it is what we do with that measure of faith that gets us access into the kingdom of God for it says in Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God". We are saved by the grace of God as we invest our the measure of faith He has given us into His grace. It says also in Hebrews 11:6, "And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him". Everything we receive in the in the kingdom of God is accessed through our investment of faith.

I think sometimes we forget this extraordinary yet simple investment. We forget that it is what got us into the greatest life changing relationship ever. We need to realize that what got us in is what keeps us in and keeps us growing. I remember the day I opened my first savings account. It was one of those really exciting moments in life. It was one of those moments that I felt I had finally made it. If memory serves me correctly I think I opened it with $100. As time past I watched my account grow and grow because of one simple thing... I was investing into that account. To think that the account was going to profit me a whole lot without me investing into it is as ridiculous as me to think that the Word of God will profit me something without me mixing my faith with by applying it to my life.

The saving grace of Jesus Christ has been appropriated to my life as I exercised the measure of faith I do have. We need to take this same principle and applying to every other area of our lives so that we can experience more and more growth. We cannot walk around in disbelieve and fear we must read the word apply it our life in faith and then we will get the results. That is why James says, "don't just be a hearer of the word but be a doer". When we do the word we are applying our faith to the gospel and that is when we get the results!

Faith... our investment, mix it with the word and it will profit you in every area of your life.

Tomorrows Reading -2 Kings 23, Hebrews 5, Joel 2, Psalm 78

Dream Big - Ben

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