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JUNE 10 "JUST A LITTLE DISOBEDIENCE"

    A little disobedience can’t hurt, right? Well then, let’s remove that scripture in Proverbs that God put in there that says, “ a little fly spoils all the ointment”. As we are busy reading about all the good things Solomon is doing “for the Lord”, …..the building of the Temple, the making of all the Holy Artifacts that will be used for worship and sacrifices for generations to come; there, mixed in the middle of all that, we read “he also built similar living quarters for Pharaoh’s daughter… whom he had married ”.  In the middle of all that good, surely there is room for a little faux-pas? Surely the Lord will overlook my one little transgression in the midst of all this good I’m doing.  Solomon was not the last person to ever think like that.  Many of God’s people think like that, not just Solomon. If Solomon was waiting for a sign, a bad omen to convince him he had done wrong, he didn’t get one. He didn’t’ get struck with lightning, the ground did not open...
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JULY 9 “THE TRAGEDY OF OUR LIVES PENNED…”

You were probably were skipping through the lineage in today's reading and probably missed what was penned about two of Ephraim's sons. Ezer and Elead, "these two were killed trying to steal livestock from the local farmers". If we continue to read out, this incident is described as a "tragedy". Ephraim mourned a long time for his boys, it was a senseless death. No doubt, Ephraim did not need his boys to steal cattle for him. It was a senseless act, a daring act, a stupid act, that cost these boys their lives. Their stupidity and this tragedy is penned in God's eternal Word. In recent months, we have had a number of senseless and stupid deaths in our city, mostly by young teens and twenty year olds. Maybe our prayer for our families should be "Lord, don't let their be stupid and senseless deaths in our family". The prayer that would have to follow that would be, "Lord, let the communication lines flourish in my home among our family...
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JULY 7 “BLESS ME LORD”

THERE is a lot of stats about sons and tribes that might just cause you to doze off in our text today, but you can miss a great nugget of truth and revy (revelation) in the midst of it. Verse 10 "Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, " oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory!” I  would say that request is a number of things ....#1, it's pretty gutsy, #2, it's pretty self-serving, #3 it's pretty honest, maybe too honest or maybe not! Because surprisingly, God doesn't rebuke him for being so self centered and audacious to ask that God bless him and his family. What about the rest of the world, there's people starving all over the world and all your concerned about is that God bless you and your family, c'mon! So what is God's response...."And God granted his request!" What are you serious?! God granted him his request......well why don't I pray that then, why can he ask that and I can't? Who said you couldn't??? Why ...
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JULY 6 “I ADMIT IT, I’M ONE OF THEM”

 Paul's main problem is not that he believes in God, most people do.  Paul's main problem is that he is attached to a  certain group  of people that believes in God, " followers of The Way " he calls it and then goes on to say that is is also known as " a cult" .  Who in the world, who in their right mind, wants to be associated with a cult?! People who are enticed into cults are more often than not, people with issues, people who are mentally & emotionally weak, naive and in short..., stupid. The hardest thing in the world for a person who is none of the above, ..is to   "admit"  that they are in a group of religious people that are known as a cult. Many will not  "admit"  to this, many are not willing to die a  social death  and end up walking away. I never wanted to be perceived as a individual that was mentally and emotionally weak, naive, vulnerable and stupid, but when I  "admitted"  that I was a  ...
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JULY 5 “GOD’S PROVIDENCE SO IMPORTANT “

   If you don't understand "Providence" then you have to read today's reading. Paul is pretty much a dead man. 40 men have made a vow not to eat or drink until they have killed Paul. However, as it would "happen" to be, Paul's sister's son (Paul's nephew) happens to overhear the conversation of these men conspiring to kill him. He reports this to Paul and then Paul has his nephew go tell the one in charge of Paul's security/safety and the plan is thwarted. As we get ready to tackle on the 2nd half of the year, God's Providence is definitely something we want to contend for. He really is the God that goes before his people and prepares the way. He can circumvent events on our behalf, even in to our favor. He can cause the schemes of the enemy to be thwarted. From the time we wake in the morning until the time we lay our head down on the pillow that night, there are so many unknown factors. The idea is not to go through the day looking over...
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JULY 4 “FREEDOM FROM WHO?”

   It's ironic (or maybe not) that on the 4th of July, "Independence Day" that we read in Psalm about people wanting to be free, about people breaking off the chains and being free, ironically they are wanting to break off the chains from God, "l et us break off our chains and free us from the slavery of God ". Could anything be more ironic than that? Than wanting to break free from God to be free, but yet only God can bring true freedom. We can say, today in the 21st Century that humanity has followed through in this quest to free themselves from the chains and slavery to God. Today, America is more of a secular Nation than a Christian one and the question, then to ask is ...."are we more free than we were before?" The answer is definitively "NO". We freed ourselves from the slavery of God only to become enslaved by everything else.      Today, many will celebrate their Freedom, all the while using the things that enslave them, to celebrate ...
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JUNE 3 "THE BAD GUY ISN'T ALWAYS THE BAD GUY"

         The bad guy isn't always the bad guy, sometimes he's the good guy.  It's easy to read this story today and read it dismissing David as the calloused killer, insensitive to the lives that he is affecting by having these innocent people murdered. These parents and citizens must be filled with hatred and animosity towards David. I seriously doubt that this is easy for David to do and the text does make mention to his sparing Mephibosheth from the slaughter. David is simply trying to help Israel, Saul is the culprit and the reason behind why David must do, what to many is, a senseless slaughter of innocent lives. David inquiries to God why the famine (which is also leading to the death of innocent lives) and God's response to David is, “ It is on account of Saul  and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.” Saul is long gone now and David is left with the mess left behind by the previous King. A true leader is one th...
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