Latest Thoughts of the Day

Genesis 1:7

7/21/2017

So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.

This is the carrying out of the intention He expressed in the verse before, in preparation to the naming of this expanse in the following verse. God purposes, he accomplishes, and He names the things that He creates. Thank You, Lord, that you ordained from before the foundation of the Earth to bring us into being and to draw us to yourself. Thank you for moving the hordes of history to bring into being each individual who exists today. And thank You for the individual way in which You drew individual sinners to Yourself through your Son. You have fulfilled Your own great purposes from Eternity past, accomplished in the present and declared in the future, for the glory of your Son. You have given us Jesus.

Revelation 2:1

7/20/2017

To the angel of the church in Ephesys write: "These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands:

God raises up godly leaders to serve His church, and He fellowships with those churches when they meet in the Name of Jesus. May the leaders in our assembly hear the voice of Him who sits upon the throne, and may He truly draw near when we meet together in His Name! He may have words of commendation and also of blame, as He does to Ephesus. He may have aught against us. He may rejoice in our standing firm. But may He ever hold in his hand the leaders He has raised up, and may He ever walk in our midst! May our hearts hear and respond with joy and eagerness, to the voice of Jesus!

Jude 2

7/19/2017

Mercy, peace and love be your in abundance.

We need these three from God if our life is to have any happiness at all. God must help us in our need, He must take away any enmity between us and Himself, and He must love us with an everlasting love. This is God’s attitude toward us in Christ Jesus, His Son. We thank Him for sending Jesus to reconcile us to Himself! But we need to have these qualities toward others if we are to be used of God in this world. Lord, work in us a heart of mercy toward others, an abolishing of enmity with all men, and a love like Yours toward sinners. We want not only to enjoy Your blessing in our lives, but also to display that blessing to people in the world around us. Grant us mercy, peace and love in Jesus.

3 John 2

7/18/2017

Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as you soul is getting along well.

If your soul is not getting along well, may God send hardship, sickness, opposition, frustration, or whatever else is needed to bring you close to Himself. Things seeming to go well for us is not necessarily a mark of God’s favor. It may indicate a time of particular testing, to see whether we will serve Him as well in prosperity as we do in times of trouble. Lord, help us to draw near to you this beautiful day! Or change the tenor of the day, if we tend to stray. Soul-prospering is all that truly matters in our life, for this it is that keeps us close to You. We need You every hour. Keep us close to Yourself, Lord Jesus.

2 John 2

7/17/2017

...because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:"

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” The only way that human beings can know Truth is to know the One who is the Truth. To have Jesus is to have the truth, and since this involves knowing the Person of Christ, living in us and being with us always and forever, John can speak of the ruth being in us and with us forever. Thank You, Lord, that this is our hope and confidence. We trust too much our understanding when we think that it can bring us to the Truth. Believing is seeing, and receiving is knowing the truth that God has for man. Help us, Lord to know what You have revealed, to see it all summed up in Christ, and in everything, to know Jesus.

I John 2:1

7/16/2017

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ the Righteous One.

The goal of God for us, and our personal goal, prompted by the Holy Spirit, is that we live lives free from sin. But the problem is even deeper than we ourselves think. Our nature has been twisted by sin, and the tendency to sin permeates our being, so that try as we might, we are going to fall. Besides being saved once and for all by Jesus, there is a transformation work that must go on day by day. We must learn the pervasiveness of sin, that we might hate it with our whole being and look to Jesus Christ will all our heart and soul. You are our Hope, Lord Jesus.

2 Peter 2:1

7/15/2017

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves.

Every age has its false prophets saying what the people want to hear, gaining notoriety and perhaps wealth for themselves. These prophets always fall when the society they deceived falls. Peter warns of those who try this in the church of Christ, even denying the Lord who died to purchase her redemption, in order to craft a message some want to hear. But they destroy themselves. Those who depart from Jesus will perish. Rejecting the Lord brings God to reject them. Lord, help us to love the Lord who bought us! Help us to resist false teaching and help those under its influence. Help us all hold fast to Jesus.

1 Peter 2:1

7/14/2017

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.

Peter agrees with Paul that we were all dead in our transgressions and sins and that in ourselves, that is our flesh, lies no good thing. We don’t start off good and get better. We plumb the depths to begin with, and recognize the sin from which we must be cleansed. And the blood of Jesus, God’s Son cleanses us from all sin. Therefore, let us root it all out and be done with it forever. All pride and deceit and envy and slander must go. Lord, help us to turn our back on these ways of relating to other people and to seek holiness and peace. Help us break bad habits in relating to others and seek in everything to do them good. Help us today to be like Jesus.