Author: David Short

Exodus 34:14

(for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord God, a jealous name, is a jealous God),

Personal Challenge

This is one of those challenging verses that we find in the Old Testament. Isn’t jealousy a passion? Aren’t the passions what cause us to sin? God loves His children so much. He entered into multiple covenants in the Old Testament. He always wanted to protect them, and us, from those things in the world that will pull us from Him and into painful situations. As any loving father, He is jealous for the protection of His children. He knows the pain that will occur by worshipping false Gods and strives to keep us true to Him, for our own good. So, what are the false God’s that we are worshipping today? Our possessions? Our political party? Anything that causes us to take our eyes off of God, is another god. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy!

Matthew 8:23-27

Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”

But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

Personal Challenge

Sometimes I must ask myself, “Do I really trust Jesus?” He is always present in our lives. Sometimes it feels like He is napping over in the corner, but He is still present. The question is never whether or not He can calm the storms in our lives. It is whether or not I believe He can. If he was sleeping in the boat during the midst of the storm, He must have been confident that nothing was going to happen to Him or His disciples. It is my faith in the stormy times that weakens, not His ability to be the Lord over the storm. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on my the sinner!

Exodus 19:5-6

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be a special people to Me above all nations; for all the earth is Mine. You shall be to Me a royal priesthood and a holy nation.’ These are the words you shall speak to the children of Israel.

Encouraging Words

Whenever God enters into a covenant, He designates the other party as special and set apart in His sight. He did that in this accounting of his covenant with Moses and the nation of Israel. He continued to do this throughout the old testament as He confirmed His covenant through His prophets and kings. He established a new covenant through Jesus, one that goes through the remainder of eternity. What is our part of His covenant, if we choose to be a part of it? We are to obey His voice and keep His covenant. In this new covenant, our responsibility, our covenant with him, is if we want to be called His children, then we must love Him above all, even life itself, and to love our neighbor above ourselves. These two actions are the fruit which our commitment to Him will be measured by. Lord, have merry! Lord, here mercy! Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Matthew 8:13

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour.

Encouraging Words

Too many who profess to be Christians look to God to be their vending machine in the sky. Put a prayer in the slot and out comes whatever we asked for. God’s activity in our lives is based upon our willingness to work synergistically with Him. As He tells the centurion in this passage, the level healing of the centurion’s servant is commensurate with the level of the centurion’s faith in what God can and will do. God wants us to be working with Him, not just asking Him to take care of our wants and needs. Glory be to God!

POWER AND WISDOM

1 Corinthians 1:22-24

For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Personal Challenge

Power and wisdom are two things that mankind has been pursuing ever since Adam and Eve chose to eat of the forbidden fruit. The end results of this pursuit are always the same, separation from God. Christ left behind the glory and power of heaven in order to become a man. He lived a lowly life instead of some princely life in order to humble himself for us. He died on a cross in order to defeat death. It is no wonder that so many see His life as a stumbling block and foolishness. It is through Him and His actions that we can find life. It is through life in Him that we receive power and wisdom to be His disciples. Glory be to God!

Exodus 15:2

The Lord became my helper and the shield of my salvation;
He is my God, and I will glorify Him;
My father’s God, and I will exalt Him.

Encouraging Words

It is indeed encouraging to be able to look back on my life and my relationship to my God and recognize that my God is also my father’s God. To have been raised in a family who loved God passionately and attempted to pass that love on to the next generations is indeed an honor and something to be thankful for. It does not have to mean that we worship our God the same way but that we all still worship God. It is my desire that someday my children and their children will be able to look back and proclaim this same thing and project their worship of our God, our helper and the shield of our salvation. Glory be to God,

NO SORROW, NO ENVY, NO ANGER

Sirach 30:21-24

Do not give yourself over to sorrow,
And do not distress yourself deliberately.
Gladness of the heart is the life of man,
And rejoicing by a man lengthens his life.
Love your soul and comfort your heart,
And put sorrow far away from you;
For sorrow has destroyed many,
And there is no profit in it.
Envy and anger will shorten your days,
And worry will bring premature old age.

Personal Challenge

Life is comprised of choices. Every thing we do or don’t do, every where we go or don’t go, ever thing, is boiled down to a choice. Even if something is thrown at us that is completely out of our control, we still must make a choice of how we will deal with this. Sirach points out some very important, life changing, things that we have a choice to make about. There will always be things in our lives that cause sorrow, but we must choose to not give ourselves over to that sorrow. We must choose to not deliberately distress ourselves for there is enough stress in the world already. We must choose to put sorrow away from us, to run from envy and anger, and to not let worry shorten our lives. Doing this will give us a much better life. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Level, have mercy!

Matthew 7:24-25

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

Personal Challenge

Salvation is a process and not just a one time event. I know that there are many who will argue this point with me but that is fine. Jesus Christ gives us our salvation through His works of incarnation, sinless life, death and resurrection. Our faith in Him begins the journey of our salvation process, often called sanctification. As Jesus, Himself, proclaims in this passage, as well as many others, we must not stop at proclaiming Him as our Lord, but do what He tells us to do. We are to build upon that faith by doing His works.The core essence of His work is to love God and love our neighbor. The love your neighbor part is the one that is getting so abused by those who are proclaiming to be Christians. Who is my neighbor? Republicans! Democrats! Independents! Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and the rest of the current and former elected officials. Immigrants and those who have been born in this country. Those who are gay, straight, married, unmarried, you name it. And the list goes on and on. My neighbor is anyone and everyone who breathes air and has a heartbeat. We may not agree with what the believe or do, but we are still to love them as people created in the image of God. We CANNOT proclaim to be Christians in one breath and then spew hateful conspiracy theories and other harmful rhetoric in the next. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have master! Lord, have mercy!