Be Still and Know

Be Still and Know

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am the Creator of heaven and earth.

Be still and know that I knit you together in your mother’s womb.

Be still and know that I discern your thoughts from afar.

Be still and know that I am the God who heals.

Be still and know that I am the God of comfort.

Be still and know that I am steadfast and abounding in love.

Be still and know that I am slow to anger.

Be still and know that I will not leave you nor forsake you.

Be still and know that I am a refuge in times of trouble.

Be still and know that I forgive your sin.

Be still and know that I have a plan for you.

Be still and know that I am sovereign.

Be still and know that

Be still and know that I am God.

• Psalm 46:10, Psalm 139:19, Psalm 139:2, Exodus 15:26, 2 Corinthians 1:3, Exodus 34:6, Deuteronomy 31:8. Psalm 46:1, Jeremiah 31:34, Jeremiah 29:11, Acts 4:24, Psalm 17:8
• Scripture from www.biblegateway.com

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The Power of His Word

I know personally the power the Bible can have in one’s life. I didn’t grow up in a house that had a Bible. I received my first Bible in 1999 from Karen Henson and JoAnn Allen. It quickly became one of my most treasured possessions. Children often have a “lovey” that they carry with them and sleep with weather it is a stuffed animal or a blanket and over times it shows how loved it is by how ragged it looks. The same is true of my first Bible. It looks a little ragged. The cover is torn, pages are marked up, the maps and concordance have fallen out and the binding is coming undone. It is well loved and has been well used.

There is tremendous power in the Word of God. It has the power to bring life.

John 20:31

but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

The entire book of John was written so that we might come to put our faith in Christ and in doing so have life in Him. The Bible has the power to take those who are dead in their sinful lives and give them new life in Christ.

The Bible has the power to transform our lives because it can speak directly into our circumstances and our relationships. I remember a time when I was very irritated with my husband. I opened my devotional and the verse for the day was this:

Proverbs 27:15-16

¹⁵ A continual dripping on a rainy day
    and a quarrelsome wife are alike;
¹⁶ to restrain her is to restrain the wind
    or to grasp oil in one’s right hand.

Talk about conviction! This verse spoke directly to my heart. I was being quarrelsome and trying to be right. I was more focused on being right than being right with God. It completely changed the way I viewed the situation and thankfully, the Lord transformed my heart and I no longer felt the need to argue.

There is tremendous power in His Word. It brings life and it transforms our lives but only if we open it and read it. What does your Bible look like? Is it is still in pristine condition? Might I suggest that if it is, you need to open it and read it more often. It will speak into your life and transform you to become more and more like Christ. Open the Word and read it for yourself today. You might just be surprised by what you read and it might just help you in whatever you are facting today!

• Scripture from www.biblegateway.com

How Great is our God

“Sometimes when we get overwhelmed we forget how big God is.” AW Tozer

I love that quote by AW Tozer. It is so easy for us to look at our circumstances and what we are currently facing or going through and feel overwhelmed. When we do, we are making ourself and our circumstances big and our God little. We need to be reminded that we serve a mighty, powerful and amazing God.

We have a God that created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. Just think about that for a moment. We have trouble creating crafts, projects for work, home improvement projects with all the supplies and our God created everything we see out of NOTHING.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

When God’s Son, Jesus, was here on earth, He did so many miracles. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind and helped the lame walk.

Matthew 4:23

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

Matthew 15:30

 And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them,

Jesus did greater things than simply healing people, He raised the dead to life.

John 12:9

When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus^[ was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

Our God is greater than we can even take in or comprehend. Take a few minutes to think about how great our God is. When you look at His greatness, our weakness, our difficulties and our troubles don’t seem so insurmountable. Because as His children, His Spirit dwells within us, we are never alone. Regardless of what we are facing, God is sovereign. Perhaps we need to see ourselves as smaller and our God as greater in order to put difficulties in perspective.

Luke 1:37

“For nothing will be impossible with God.”

• Scripture from www.biblegateway.com

Fasting and Praying

In continuing the series on observing a holy Lent, today we will look at fasting and praying. Biblical fasting is going without food. Both the Greek and Hebrew words for fast mean a voluntary absence from food. There are many people in both the Old and New Testaments who fasted. Fasting is always associated with praying, the two are interconnected.

Ezra 8:21

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.

Nehemiah 1:4

As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

Matthew 4:1-2

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.² And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

“Fast and pray in order to humble yourself and purify your worship. In fasting we are not trying to get something from God, but seeking to realign our hearts’ affections with His. In fasting we can more readily say, “We love you, Lord, more than anything in the world.” Lust of any kind is perverted worship, but fasting enables us to cleanse the sanctuary of our hearts from every other rival.” (International House of Prayer – Fasting)

Lent is the perfect time for us to seek the Lord through fasting and praying so we can better align our hearts with the Lord and seek His will for our lives. There are many ways to fast but one of the easiest ways to start is to fast from after dinner on one night through the start of dinner the following night. It requires you to skip breakfast, lunch and snacks. It is a very doable fast and when it is accompanied with prayer can really help us seek the Lord in a powerful way.

Look at your calendar this week, what day can you set aside for fasting and praying? Mark it on your calendar, begin praying to the Lord about your fast today and then follow through with it. May the Lord bless your time of fasting and praying and may it help you draw even closer to Him.

• Scripture from www.biblegateway.com

Self-examination and Repentance

We are 18 days into Lent. How has your Lent been going so far? Have you done anything different in the last 18 days? Do you feel closer to the Lord today than you did 18 days ago? Last week I talked about how to observe a holy Lent. The invitation in the Book of Common Prayer that is said before ashes are imposed during an Ash Wednesday service invites us to observe a holy Lent. This invitation goes on to tell us how to do just that.

It starts by self-examination and repentance. So what does self-examination look like and how do you do it? It starts by taking a close look at your life and seeing where your life is in line with God’s will and where it isn’t. It is looking at your life and and the sinfulness in it. Often we realize we have done something wrong and we ask the Lord for forgiveness. Seeking His forgiveness is just the beginning. We are to follow it with repentance which is a turning away from our sin.

Self-examination is more than us looking at what we feel is the sinfulness in our lives, it requires us to seek the Lord and ask Him to reveal to us areas where we are sinning. Often we are sinning in areas that we aren’t even recognizing as sin. We tend to rationalize, justify and minimize our sinfulness. During Lent, the Lord calls us to shine a bright light on our sinfulness and allow Him to highlight areas we may not even recognize ourselves.

Once the Lord shows us an area of sinfulness, we need to repent. Repenting is difficult because it is completely turning away from that sin. It is not ‘trying’ to do it but actually doing it. When the Lord shows us our sin and we look at it from His perspective, we realize how wretched it is in comparison with His holiness. When we understand how truly ugly and hurtful our sin is, we are inspired to turn from it.

If you have not taken the time for self-examination, there is no better time than the present. If we are to observe a holy Lent and be transformed this Lenten season, we must start by taking a hard look at our sinfulness. If you have not had to repent of an area of sinfulness yet this Lent, it isn’t too late. This is one of those situation that we try to avoid and put off when all we need to do is just do it.