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www.bible.com/1713/luk.9.24.csb

Just a quick note today. What is your priority when it comes to your healthcare plan? Jesus reminds us that if it’s anything, it needs to keep Him in mind. Losing your life may be tragic, but if the Lord is involved, your life will be saved. But if your primary concern is saving your life, then you will certainly lose it.

We find in this that no one really has control over their own life. Who of you can predict if you will be alive 24 hours from now? Why not spend your life for His sake? That’s where eternity is.

www.bible.com/1713/1pe.1.24.csb

The Bible is full of reminders like this. There is a God and you are not Him. You are temporary. He is eternal. If you want to last longer than grass, then you need to pay attention to Him.

My advice? Read His word. You might learn something.

Nothing too deep today. Just keep Him in mind today. God bless!

www.bible.com/1713/psa.23.3.csb

If you aren’t younger than 25, you’ve probably felt old. If you are over 40, you’ve definitely felt it. Feeling old is feeling out-of-step with today’s culture. The fact that today’s culture changes by the day doesn’t help. It takes a lot of effort to feel up-to-date and caught up with the modern “lingo” and jargon of emerging society. Sometimes I care, like when I’m trying to communicate with my kids, and other times I just let it go. I’m getting too old for this.

Thankfully, we don’t have to feel old. While the culture may leave us behind, we are not dead. In fact, we are more alive today than ever thanks to the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. By Him we are being renewed day by day. By Him we are emboldened to make right choices that please God and not ourselves. We can find life in Him if we seek it.

So what are you chasing today? The “rat race”? The “golden goose”? Or are you chasing after God as He leads us into life renewing service every day? It seems we have choice to make on this Monday. God bless!

www.bible.com/1713/2th.3.5.csb

This sounds like a great verse to share this daybreak, but when you read a big more about the trials that the Thessalonians were facing, and knowing this is that Paul wasn’t exactly welcome there (Acts 17:1-9), the love of God and the endurance of Christ take on new meaning.

For them to know the love of God is also a to know the consistent and painful rejection of your own children, and the heartbreak that love precedes. To know the endurance of Christ is to know the extent to which Christ demonstrated His own love for us by dying on a cross to suffer for the fullest extent of our sins.

These Thessalonians would suffer persecution at the hands of the neighbors, but Paul had already commended them that their love and faithfulness has been an example throughout the Christian world. They were living out the gospel message in the eyes of all. This is what happens when you have the ”doesn’t-quit” love of God and ”won’t quit ’til it’s done” endurance of Jesus. People notice.

Do you stand out among your peers today? I hope so. I pray that people notice you, not for who you are, but for the love and endurance you have for the gospel and for broken people. May you have a blessed day!

www.bible.com/1713/3jn.1.11.csb

When I took Greek in college, 1 John was our primer for learning and translating be language. The other letters of John are similar, in that they are not complicated in their language, but in their thought. That is our word for the day.

Don’t do evil. Do good. The godly do good and not evil. Remember that the next time you are wondering if you can give in to temptation. If you are God’s, then you don’t have time for evil. Yet, we are human, and part of us is always tempted by the world and its desires.

If you’ve given in, don’t despair. God is also gracious. If would be His again, repent, confess your sins, ask for His forgiveness. He is faithful and just to forgive. But don’t go back like a dog to vomit. Repentance means you don’t want to go back. Mean it when you say it.

Hope this helps.

www.bible.com/1713/pro.10.19.csb

Sin and words. Hmmm. Seems antithetical to what we are doing here today. Maybe I ought to keep this short. I believe the caution here is about talking so much you trip yourself up in your words, or that too free an tongue will spill out the contents of a wicked heart. Man’s heart is desperately wicked (Jer 17) and we ought to keep a tight rein on it. Someone who is given to words can slip and let evil words, biting words, too many words cause pain in others.

And there are occasions when talking is the wrong thing to do, like in the midst of profound loss and grief. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent. I think preachers, perhaps more than anyone else, know what it means to put our foot in our mouths. We make gaffes with the best of them, because we don’t know what to say. But let wisdom speak here. If you don’t know what to say, don’t speak at all. Sometimes your presence is all that’s needed.

I encourage you to be prudent in your speech today. As one wise Man once said, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Mean what you say, but don’t be mean in what you say.

www.bible.com/1713/2co.3.17.csb

If you believe in the Christian God at some point you’ve been taught the ”omni’s”, the omniscience of God, the omnipresence of God, the omnipotence of God. That is to say, God is all-knowing, everywhere, and all-powerful.

Our verse this morning teaches us that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So, that must mean that God’s Spirit, Who is omnipresent, must have freedom in all places, everywhere it is possible to be.

I remember this verse especially as it graced the front page of my hometown newspaper every morning. It seemed to say that God and liberty go hand in hand. But sadly, very few read this verse in context.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul is writing about the veil that Moses wore to protect the Israelites from the glory that reflected on his face from God’s presence. They couldn’t endure exposure to that glory. They asked him to wear a veil so they could talk to him. Paul writes that those in Christ (believers) see His glory as in a glass (a mirror, a reflection ) but one day we will see Him face to face. Unlike the Israelites, we welcome the glory of God’s presence. Because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (from the veil). We are free from veiling God’s glory because we have been saved from sin. We no longer stand in judgment but have been justified and can stand before Him and welcome His presence. I don’t think that’s what my hometown newspaper had in mind when they printed this everyday.

We often import the concepts of freedom and liberty into this verse, but it has more the sense of privilege. We have this privilege to come before Him with unveiled faces. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, we have this privilege, because we carry His Spirit as His gift to us. Wherever we go, there He is too.

May God bless you today, wherever you go, going in the will and pleasure of the Lord.

www.bible.com/1713/psa.59.16.csb

What better way to wake up than with His praises on your lips? For a God who has sheltered and protected overnight, given us the wherewithal to rise in the morning, what a glorious God we serve. Let us praise Him this morning, this wonderful Friday morning when we rise and draw breath, remembering that one day we will rise and draw breath anew in His Presence.

What joy Christian! What faithfulness on display, for our God has not forgotten us, not put us aside. He has remembered the condition of His people and has already acted on our behalf today, preparing the path before us where we will find His success planned and prepared. Christian will you serve Him today, to make Hia both Savior and Lord?

Today look for those opportunities He has prepared for you to share your joy and hope. He will put people in your path that need to hear. Praise the Name of the Lord!

www.bible.com/1713/rom.15.13.csb

”Someday, things are going to get easier. Someday they’re going to get brighter.” And so it goes. So where does this optimism come from? From where does this hope spring? Some folks rely on blind sense of hope, thinking things surely can’t get any worse. Some skip optimism altogether, and assume the worst of everyday.

And then there are believers whose hope is not blind, not inevitable. It is hope for a bright future because of the One who promises. God promises good things to those He loves. God is all-powerful, and He does not lie. Our hope is certain and secure in God.

Is your hope in God today?