If I May For A Moment, Take A Breath,

And just look out at the view

The beautiful view of all that I've been through

The beautiful view of all He's brought me through

All of my messes

Turned into beauty

But only at the point of surrender

At the point of Surrender

I find myself glorified

Only to point the glory

To the One who makes me glorious

Though this mountain climb is not yet over

Though I know there are sure to be rough times ahead

I have this eternal hope and joy

Christ has made me His

And He has overcome the world

Nothing this world can throw at me can break me

As long as I trust in Him

As long as I follow His plan

With the simple understanding 

That sometimes My wants are not His plan

But He is my only need

So I chase Him

As He brings me with Him on this adventure called abundant life

If I may stop for a moment

and just look out at the view

knowing that even the most beautiful of pictures

couldn't amount to You

HE'S JUST SO DANG GOOD (PSALM 19): Rejoicing The Heart

Psalm 19:8A

⁸ the precepts of the Lord are right,
    rejoicing the heart;

     So what's a precept? I bet that is what many are asking as they read this... If many are reading. Well one really cool thing about this here internet thingy is the fact that we can type in things like dictionary.com and lo and behold.... A DICTIONARY!!! :D

     

Precept-a commandment or direction given as a rule of action or conduct.

     I find it simple to restate it this way 

"the commands of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart..."

     When I read God's word I see many commands, but I've never really thought about them this way until I recently found my way through this psalm again. His commands are not only right but they rejoice the heart. 

     Now that isn't to say that following His commands will always be easy, but in my experience God's commands have brought joy to my heart when I follow them, even when they were hard to follow. There is a joy of knowing that we've done what is pleasing in God's sight regardless of what the world thinks.

     What we must be careful of is the fact that this world also has commands. It has many, and most of them are not Godly at all. This world commands us to get the biggest toys, commands us to have the most money, commands us to be the most popular, commands us to do things that leave us empty in the end. It's crazy because the world may never admit that it does command these things, but look at what this world glorifies on television, and the internet. We've glorified things that do not truly rejoice the heart, and getting caught up in chasing the demands and commands of this world will lead us into a state of joylessness.

     I think simply of the first commandment

Exodus 20:3

You shall have no other gods before Me

     This simple command is such a great reason to rejoice. The ONE TRUE GOD that rejoices the heart does not want us to give our lives over to anyone/anything else. He's the eternal God, and apart from Him we are eternally broken hearted. The only one who can fix an eternal brokenness is the Eternal One. 

     His commands lead us to Him ultimately. Why settle for the commands of this world. The world doesn't rejoice the heart. It may bring about a temporary happiness, but it doesn't rejoice the heart. God's commands rejoice the heart, when we look at them the correct way, and follow.

HE'S JUST SO DANG GOOD (Psalm 19) Making The Wise Simple

  Psalm 19

⁷ The law of the Lord is perfect,^[c]
    reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,    making wise the simple;

Testimony-the statement or declaration of a witness under oath or affirmation, usually in court.

    Have you ever thought about the fact that every word in the Bible is inspired by God? Well if you didn't, Paul did :)

2 Timothy 3:16

All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,

     That being said think about even the testimonies in God's word. Those things that make the modern day wiseguy say "THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!"         

     

The creation of the earth

The sun standing still

Jonah and the Whale

Super old ladies giving birth

Abraham and Isaac

Seas being parted

Dead being raised

Fire falling from the sky

Angel Armies surrounding enemies

...........

Christ living a sinless life

Christ on the Cross

Christ risen from the grave

     Things that the modern wiseguy says don't make sense.... Are the same things that the wiseguys have been saying don't make sense since the beginning, and yet God still does them and still testifies about them. 

     But what about us, those who claim Christ? Do we find ourselves doubting the testimonies of God's word? Do we look back on such great power that He has displayed in His word and even in our own lives, and yet still find ourselves walking in lives of doubt?

     Now understand that when I say walking in lives of doubt, that I don't mean having doubts here and there. What I mean is living a doubtful life. A life so much led by doubt that we simply miss out on seeing God move, because we chose not to do what He's called us to. 

     When we choose not to do what God has called us to do, we walk in doubt that what He has is good for us, we live in doubt that He can really bring us through what it is He's called us to do, and we live in doubt that He is truly powerful over all things. We find ourselves leading ourselves.... We're deaf with no hearing aide and blind with no walking stick, and we trust us?!

His testimony is sure

Making even the wisest of men simple

His testimony tells of His power

His testimony tells of His love

His testimony testimony tells of His heart for us

His testimony is sure

Let's be sure of our God

You know how people say

"You're so full of yourself."

Let our prayer be this

"Lord if I'm full of myself

empty me completely, and fill me with You.

I want to be so full of You! I don't want to be sure in me,

but in You!"

HE'S JUST SO DANG GOOD (Psalm 19) Part 1 reviving the soul

This may blow your mind

read slowly and pay attention

and just allow the blowing of your mind to happen

capiche :)

Psalm 19:7-9

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul;

The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;

8 The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;

9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;

the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether

   
Take a moment to think about that first part!


(Open moment here)




(close moment and continue reading)


The law of the LORD is perfect. Perfect meaning without flaw. Not only is the law of the LORD perfect, but it revives the soul. Now lets not think of the law as just rules okay, but seeing as God is the sovereign ruler of all things, lets look at the law of the LORD as His very word. The word of God is PERFECT and it revives the soul. 

     Every word that comes from His mouth is without flaw, and theres pure beauty to that. Not only are His words without flaw, but, being perfect, His words also come with power. When God speaks, what He speaks becomes! Lets look back at the creation of the world. God SPOKE it into existence, with His perfect, soul reviving word. He did not lie when He said "Let there be light." Nor did He lie when He said "It is good." AND HE SHOOOOOLE DIDN'T LIE WHEN HE "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make for Him a suitable helper." CAN A BROTHA GET AN AMEN!!!

(say "Amen" out loud)

     So why do we ignore the words He says to us sometimes? When He tells us to put something down, or when He tells us to pick something up. When He says "Do not be afraid. I am with you." When God speaks to us personally or through His word, why do we ignore and rebel? His words are not to harm us. If we read Jeremiah 29:11 we will see that God has BIG plans for us. It's not God's intention to harm us with His words, but instead to give us a life worth living. 

     Now don't get me wrong here. The things He says to us will not always be easy to take in, but we must remember something. His LAW IS PERFECT AND SOUL REVIVING!  By His word's He calls into a life led by Him. The life that we are meant to live. It will most definitely be a dangerous life in some way, but we must remember God's plan is not to bring us harm, this doesn't mean that the world will not aim to harm us in some way, and it does not mean that God will always stop them from harming us, but God's plan for us is to give us the life that He has for us. The life that deep down we all truly long for.

     

We can't experience true life, a soul revived, 

apart from Gods word. We WILL NOT experience that. 

Don't just read God's word

take it in, and trust Him

     many will just read His word

and pretend that it doesn't matter,

and the many will miss out on the revival of their souls

will you?

IN TENTS WORDS FROM JESUS

John 5

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 

Jesus said that to a man that He had healed, earlier that same day.

     Sometimes I feel like the world makes Jesus out to be a God who condones all of our sinful actions. It's as if the world tries to tell us, and has convinced many of us, that Jesus is simply okay with us sinning. All we have to do is toss our "repentant" prayer up into the air, and BOOM washed clean. We will be okay. We can continue on in sin....

"What shall we say then?

Shall we continue on in sin so that grace may be abound?

CERTAINLY NOT!!!!" -Paul

     This verse really reached out and caught me, and I don't even think I've begun to grasp how much this verse has caught me. To know that Jesus doesn't just sit and condone sin, and to know how much we act as if He does. 

      Notice that He doesn't say that He will do something bad to us, but instead that it is our sin that does bad to us. Jesus says these words to this man in love. "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." These words must be loving words. I sense an urgency in these words! "STOP SINNING!"

     Sin is a destroyer;in fact, God's word says that it seeks to devour(Genesis 4:6) us, and it is the weapon of one who seeks to kill us(John 10:10) 

I'm not saying we could ever be perfect here on this earth,

but I do think that we should take sin more seriously.

I imagine this man who had been healed 

didn't take sin seriously up until this moment.

He sinned and treated it as if it wasn't bad....

Kind of like having an infected leg, and not getting it treated...

Eventually you either have to cut it off or it spreads and destroys and eventually 

......

well eventually it kills

Healing is found in Christ, and when we receive His healing

we ought not open the wound back up!