Delight Greatly in God's Commandments

Psa 112:1  Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

Delights greatly in God's commandments.

DELIGHTS,  but not simply delights, DELIGHTS GREATLY. 

What are a few things you delight greatly in?  Stop and consider for a moment some of the things that delight you greatly. You know what it means to be delighted greatly. 

What are some of the things that please you immensely? What are some of the things that you favor a lot?  What kind of things do you exceedingly desire?

Is there a person that pleases you like that? Someone you delight in? Is there a televison show you enjoy tremendously and look forward to watching? Perhaps there's a special meal you absolutely crave and when you get it you delight in that meal- the satisfying taste it gives to you.  Maybe there's a special activity you desire and when you undertake it you feel a sense of happiness. 

The point is, you know what it means to delight greatly in something- you know that special feeling.  Now you have to ask yourself if you feel that sort of special feeling for God's commandments.  Do you?

Are we too caught up in the strictures of the commandments, are we immersed in the gravity of God's commands so that we can't find anything in them to delight in?

Can you delight in having  a God and no other God but that God?

Can you delight in not making any graven images to bow down to?

Can you delight in not speaking of God's name in vain?

Can you delight in the Sabbath of the Lord?

Can you delight in honoring your mother and father?

Can you delight in not murdering anyone?

Can you delight in not committing adultery with anyone?

Can you delight in not stealing anything?

Can you delight in not lying about anyone?

Can you delight in not coveting the things of others?

Can you delight in loving God and loving your fellow man?

We are told this quite plainly- 

Psa 112:1  Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

We are blessed when we fear the LORD and when we delight greatly in his commandments.

We need to delight in the LORD's commandments comprehending that they are given to us out of love.

We have a God who  cares so much about us that He wants us to learn love and we learn love when we seek God who is love. We are told if we love God we keep His commandments.  We comprehend the love in the commandments and delight to keep them because we know we love God and truly desire to God's will as we keep His commandments.

We may be tempted to break the commandments, but temptation is not sin until it is conceived in us, until it is indulged mentally, emotionally, physically. We can delight in knowing that the commandments of God protect us, guiding us to keep as close to God as we possibly can. 

By the grace of God may we learn to delight in His commandments.

All in His love!

Walk Worthy- Forbear

"Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love." Eph  4:1-2.

We have to live our lives in LOWLINESS, in MEEKNESS,  being LONG-SUFFERING, FORBEARING ONE ANOTHER- in LOVE.

Do we?

Just how forbearing are we?  Do we set limits on our forbearance? We say things like- "I've had enough."  We say those words don't we? We end our forbearance when we reach a point often times undetermined from the get go but decided upon during a situation that is not to our liking.   We are blessed beyond comprehension that our Savior didn't say those words concerning us and our behavior. He forbears with us. 

This doesn't mean we won't ever get angry, our Savior became angry at the results of sin.  Our Savior overturn money tables at the Temple, our Savior cried out His despair over the hardness of the Pharisees hearts.  But our Savior did not stop the soldiers taking Him to the cross and say, "I've had enough."  

Love demands forbearance.  People who do not forbear hurt others, they don't love them. A healthy, mentally, emotionally stable mother who abandons her child because the child is to difficult to deal with, is not loving that child.  A marriage partner who abandons their spouse because it's too hard to endure that spouse's bad habits (not talking adultery or abuse here)  is not loving that spouse.  When we stop forbearing we STOP LOVING.

We are called to forbear one another ALL the time, daily, minutely. Over and over our forbearance is tested. Satan loves to use our inability to endure irritations large and small against us.  By the grace of God we will be able to recognize Satan's ploys and call upon God to keep us from the evil that Satan would have us commit.

Please, Father, please teach us forbearance, teach us love, teach us to rely solely upon YOU.  

As Christ Forgave You

FORGIVE!

Col 3:13  Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

Mat 6:12  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Mat 6:14  For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

Mat 6:15  But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

FORGIVE!

Stop holding grudges! It doesn't matter  what has been done to you, and I mean that! I do, I really, really do. No, I haven't been through a lot of awful things others have been through and maybe it is easy for me to say this, I don't know. I have had my share of hard knocks, my share of private agonies that have given me the need to forgive others so I do understand that it isn't always easy to forgive.  I have also been in need of forgiveness, a lot of forgiveness.

Maybe it's because I need to be forgiven so much that I know I have to forgive those who have wronged me.

It's not always the case for people though, is it?  Needing to be forgiven equally to forgiving others. Some people have to forgive horrific things when they've never done anything nearly as horrific as what was done to them.  Some are quite innocent in the grand scheme of things compared to the awfulness they endure.  Yet there is something we do need to remember perhaps, something that puts things into perspective a little tiny bit-

A single sin left unforgiven by our Savior warrants death.  And that single sin warrants death because that unforgiven sin no matter how tiny separates us from our God.  And when we are separated from God we are separated from the very source of life eternal.  If we separate ourselves from the source of eternal life we have no eternal life, we have death.

No sin should be left unforgiven.

If we need to forgive someone for a one time horror, or a slew of horrors, then that is what we need to do because we need every single one of our sins to be forgiven. 

People will say they can never forgive the horrors beyond imagining, and shouldn't have to. They say this without realizing that our forgiving others HELPS US!  It is in a way- self serving to forgive, to truly forgive. 

And when we say we need to forgive someone we must forgive entirely. Forgiving means recognizing the wrong and choosing to NOT let that wrong keep us from loving.  That's what we want from our Savior when He forgive us, isn't it? We want Him to recognize we've sinned and choose to love us even though we have sinned.  We want Him to love us even though we've wronged Him, even though we've chosen to separate ourselves from Him in our sinning.  He is LIFE!

More tomorrow all by the GRACE of our LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!

When we forgive others we reveal our belief in Christ's forgiveness.

Are you one of God's elect?

Col 3:12  Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

Col 3:13  Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

The elect of God.

The elect must PUT ON these things.  To believe the elect automatically possess all the attributes here would be a mistake. We have to put on these things, just as we put on the whole armor of God.  We aren't taking a physical helmet and sliding it on our heads as Christian, we are taking the salvation offered to us and making it a reality to us, letting it protect us. And we must put on bowels of mercies, we have to be merciful. We have to put on kindness, we must be kind.  If we NATURALLY possessed these things would we have to put them on? NO.  We wouldn't have to be told to put them on if they were on us. We have to make an EFFORT to put these things, a conscious effort and we make a HUGE mistake believing that they should come naturally to us. That's a trap Satan loves to use with us. He'll waste no time getting us to believe that because we weren't instantly merciful we aren't truly Christ's. The same goes for being kind.  When we display something less than kindness and then use that to make us believe we aren't Christ's we are hurting our walk with Christ. We have to recognize that we must PUT on the mercy, PUT on the kindness and if we aren't putting it on, if we aren't kind or merciful in some instance we need to bow before Christ and seek forgiveness for the behavior that isn't that of elect of God.  We must comprehend we are NOT perfect but seek Christ's perfection, understanding we must ALWAYS seek Christ's perfection.  We need to be longsuffering, but our impatience proves that often impossible, doesn't it? We would despair over our impatience, our lack of humbleness, our not being meek if we seek these things as if they are of our own making. We must seek Christ first and know these things come from Christ, and put them on as Christ would have us put them on.

Forbearing one another, forgiving one another- if any man have a quarrel against ANY- even as CHRIST forgave you, so also do ye…..

We must forgive as we are forgiven and this is something we cannot ever afford to forget this, not ever.

When we are tempted to hold a grudge, when we are tempted to hold fast to the hurt that someone has caused us we are in a way asking Christ to do the same- to hold a grudge against us, to hold fast to the hurt we've cause Him, and that's the LAST thing we really want to do, in fact Christ CAN'T do that without us letting Him by us NOT forgiving others.  When we forgive others we reveal our belief in Christ's forgiveness.

When we choose not to forgive others we are revealing our disbelief in Christ's forgiveness of us- this is truth.  Because if WE can be forgiven all our awful sins how dare we have the audacity to believe we shouldn't forgive others ALL their sins!

Truth!

Please Father, please help us to put on all the attributes Christ would have us put on because of HIS mercy, because of HIS forgiveness, because of HIS LOVE for us we would be HIS.

Amen.

The Book of Truth

Truth- the Gospel.

The Gospel-the Kingdom of Heaven is Real.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Real-a Future Hope for All at the Second Coming of our Savior.

The things we should think on- true things and this is the greatest truth of all.

Php 4:8  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Whatsoever things are true- God is true, God's love is true, the Savior is true, the Savior's love is true, the Holy Spirit is true, the Holy Spirit's love is true.  We know these things are true beyond any doubt.  In a world where there is so much doubt THIS is not something we should doubt at all, it is the truest truth of all.

We need to THINK on this, we need to truly THINK on the true-ness of our Gods.  When we get caught up in thinking things that aren't true- when we get caught up in the worries and cares of this life- we have to pull our thoughts away from that and towards what we know to be true. 

We have a whole book of truth to study from, to think on.

By God's grace may we do this, may we think on the LOVE of our Lord.

Think on... this

What kinds of thoughts are we supposed to be thinking? Is this a strange question to ask? Probably because often we feel as if we have no control whatsoever over the things we think. We'll say stuff like- 'This just popped in my head.'  Or we'll say- 'My thoughts were all over the place.'  Things like that aren't uncommon and they are true. We do have thoughts pop into our heads and sometimes it does seem as if our thoughts are all over the place.  Our Bible tells us this--

Php 4:8  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Truth, honesty, just, pure, lovely, good report, virtuous, praiseworthy-these are the purposeful thoughts we are to fill our mind with.

So while we do have things pop into our minds, and oftentimes not very pleasant things, and while we do sometimes feel as if our minds are racing in a hundred different directions at once, when we are nudged by the Holy Spirit to remember this verse, we need to direct our thoughts away from what we might call 'bad' thoughts. We need to think on things that are true and by that we shouldn't think on things that are lies, or things that are unknown because if we dwell on the unknown we are dwelling on things we can't know are true or not.  For instance, if I start thinking about my future it is for the most part unknown- we are told this--

'Jas_4:14  Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. '

We don't even know if we will live to see tomorrow, yet this can't stop us from planning various things in our lives. If we all lived as if there were no tomorrow we wouldn't live very good lives. However we have to realize that beyond a certain point we must trust wholly in the Lord and not worry about our tomorrows. Easy to say, hard to do.

It is true that if I live until tomorrow that I might go shopping, I plan on going shopping to pick up a few things.  If I start thinking about the weather tomorrow I'm thinking about something I can't know for certain but I might believe a weather man telling me his predictions based on the science behind his profession. If I worry about tomorrow's unknowns I am not thinking on something that is true because the future is largely unknown and not full of facts, not full of truths. There are future truths and they are given to us by God through His Word.   Our Savior will return- this is a future truth I can think on, and should think on all the time. Our Savior took on flesh to reveal this truth fully to mankind.

More on all of this tomorrow, by the grace of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, all in HIS LOVE!

'...that I may win Christ'

Php 3:8  Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ

Is this truth?

Counting ALL things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord?

Counting ALL THINGS, yes, ALL THINGS but loss. Can we do this or are we too busy telling ourselves over and over that God understands, choosing to believe that God can bend His truths for us because He knows our limitations. Telling ourselves that God doesn't want us to suffer by depriving us of our *things*.  We give ourselves permission to accumulate all sorts of things, and to go to great lengths to keep those things.  We do this and we console ourselves. Yet how do we do this in truth when we read things like the above verse?  The Apostle said-  '… for whom I have suffered the loss of ALL THINGS, and do count them but DUNG, that I may WIN CHRIST.'

How can we believe that we aren't to suffer the loss of all things before denying any truth given to us by You?

We are so incredibly weak, at least I know I am.  I am weak! I scream out as Paul… That which I would do I do not, and that which I would not that I do!  I'm vile and weak! Thank GOD that Jesus Christ is MY RIGHTEOUSNESS, because I have NONE.

Please Father, all that I am called to do, give me the Holy Spirit whose power can do all that You will for me to do, I have no power of my own to do anything. My weaknesses, my failings are revealed to me daily, hourly, minutely and my sins are truly ever before me. Please, FORGIVE me, please help me to be Yours above all things, above all else.

Help me to be able to say that I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.  Help me to comprehend that to lose the things in my life is not Your punishment, but often a necessary allowance so we can grow in grace and knowledge of You. Truly You must be our all in all beyond everything else! Help us to live to this end- You, as everything to us, the most important part of our lives, more than anything else- with truthfully everything else being nothing but dung,  with You as EVERYTHING, truthfully, really everything!

Help Us LORD, help us! Keep us in YOU, keep us from all EVIL. 

All through our Savior's love, all in HIM, by Him and no other!

Amen.