Verse of the Day

Author: David Short

  • June 25, 2016

    BRINGING US ALL BACK TOGETHER AGAIN


    Ezekiel 34:15-16

    I shall feed My sheep and refresh them; and they will know that I am the Lord,” thus says the Lord and Master. “I shall seek the lost, bring back the misled, bind up the broken, strengthen the fallen, protect the strong, and feed them with judgment.”

    Encouraging Words

    It is such a blessing to know that we are loved so deeply by our Father in heaven. As a father myself, with children, step-children, and their children spread all around the world, I definitely appreciate the joy of bringing those who have been spread across the lands back together again. I know how much I love and miss those who are so special to me. It boggles my mind to think how much more my Father feels His love for us. Glory be to God!

  • June 24, 2016

    LOVED BY GOD


    Lamentations 3:52-54

    “You heard my voice;
    Do not hide Your ears from my supplication.
    You drew near at my call on the day I called upon You.
    You said to me, ‘Do not fear.’
    O Lord, You pleaded the case for my soul;
    You redeemed my life.”

    Personal Challenge

    It often amazes me how often people act like they speak for God and condemn others who don’t act, think, or live like they do. In doing so they call out these different people as being condemned and even hated by God. However, the scriptures and teachings of our church fathers clearly point our that our loving and merciful God hears the voices of those who sincerely call out to Him. He has throughout the history of mankind redeemed men and women who have committed every manner of sin. Sin is sin and it separates us from the love of our God. That is why He came to us and became one of us. He lived as a man in a sinful world and did not sin so that we can call out to Him and have Him hear us. That is true love and I am commanded to love those around me with this kind of love. It is not for me to judge another person’s sin for mine is bad enough. It is for me to love my neighbor and show them God’s love. Glory be to God!

  • June 23, 2016

    THE MIND OF GOD


    Judith 8:14

    You cannot plumb the depths of the heart of man, nor grasp the thoughts of his mind. How then do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and come to understand His mind or comprehend His purpose? No, brothers! Do not provoke the Lord our God to anger.

    Personal Challenge

    We have reached a place in our modern culture where we act as is we know what goes on in the mind of God. Wait! This verse was written over 2,000 years ago and was dealing with the same problem then. Solomon reminded us when he wrote Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun. Just as the author of Judith was trying to inform his readers that God is so far beyond us that we will never be able to understand His ways, so must we be reminded that our modern expression of what God thinks or what God would do is so far from the truth. We are not God and we must not try to dictate what God thinks about the conditions of our world or the state of the hearts of people around us. What we must do is live our lives in accordance with the teachings that He has given us. And the way that I understand these teachings, they boil down to two things: love God and love my neighbor. If I can master these then I will be much closer to seeing knowing God. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

  • June 22, 2016

    WE ARE LOVED!


    Jeremiah 40:6-9

    ‘Behold, I bring her health and healing for her wounds, and I will show them how to obey. Yes, I will heal this city and bring about peace and faithfulness. I shall return the captives of Judah and Israel and will restore them, even as before. I will cleanse them from all their wrongdoings by which they sinned against Me. I will not remember their sins by which they sinned against Me and withdrew from Me. This shall be for the gladness, praise, and majesty of all the people of the earth, who shall hear all the good things I will do. They shall fear and be provoked concerning all the good things and the peace I shall bring upon them.’

    Encouraging Words
    God loves us…no matter what! He loves us enough to forgive us of our sins…all of them! He loves us so deeply that He gave His Son to pave the way for us…forever. Here we have Jeremiah and his prophecy of how God will restore us to our relationship with Him to where it was before the fall. Glory be to God!

  • June 18, 2016

    Saint of the Week
    St. John Chrysostom

  • June 17, 2016

    BLOOMING WHERE WE ARE PLANTED


    Jeremiah 36:5-7

    Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands; and be multiplied and not diminished. Seek the peace of the land into which I carried you captive. Pray to the Lord for them, for in its peace you shall have peace.

    Encouraging Words

    I love how much of the Old Testament is an image of New Testament times. As Christians, we are exiled in a land that is not our own. We are ambassadors here waiting to be called to our real home. But until that time, just as the people of Israel were told by Jeremiah to be productive citizens in the lands that they were exiled to, we are told to be productive citizens where we are placed. We are to be lights of love, joy, and peace and not beacons of gloom and doom. We are to be encouraging and pointing those around us to the promise of a better kingdom and not people that tear others down. We do have a promised land that we are headed to, but are also recipients of the promise of life today. Glory be to God!

  • June 16, 2016

    WHERE IS GOD?


    Jeremiah 23:23-24

    “I am a God who is near,” says the Lord, “and not a God afar off. Can a man hide in secret, and I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord.

    Encouraging Words

    So, where is God when we need Him the most? He is right here with us. It is usually the condition of our heart that keeps us from seeing or feeling Him in our lives. God is everywhere, always. Some early church fathers even taught that if we were to descend into the depths of hell, He would be there, because that is the first place that Jesus went to upon His death. He went there to free the captives and to break down the gates of hell so that it could never hold us captive again. These fathers also taught that if I desire to know my God fully then I too must descend into hell. How do I do that? By becoming active in the lives of those around me whose life is filled with hell. The downtrodden. The depressed. The broken. The addict. The homeless. The poor and even the rich. The person whose lifestyle or belief or whatever is unacceptable to me. Really, is all of my stuff acceptable to God? What must be acceptable to me is that every person is created in the image of God and if I want to profess Him as my Lord then I must love my neighbor as He does. Unconditionally! Totally! Sacrificially! Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, THE sinner!

  • June 14, 2016

    HUMILITY AND REPENTANCE


    2 Chronicles 33:12-13

    Now when he was in affliction, he sought the face of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to Him. And the Lord received his entreaty, heard his cry, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

    Encouraging Words

    God always responds to, and restores, those who come to Him with a humble and repentant heart. Why is it though that we so easily depart from His ways and His presence and go our own ways? When He created us He gave us the ability to choose. His desire is that we choose Him and His ways. But when sin entered the world we began to neglect Him and chose to put our own selves at the center of our universe. The only way to correct this choice is to return to Him as Manasseh did with a humble and repentant heart. He will do the rest. Glory be to God!

  • June 13, 2016

    BEING POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND SAYING, “BULLSHIT!”


    2 Chronicles 32:7-8

    “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid of the king of Assyria, nor before all the nation with him, for there are more with us than with him. With him are arms of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God, to save us and to fight our battles.” And the people were strengthened by the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.

    Personal Challenge


    When did we become a nation of “settlers”? And I do not mean the kind of settlers that pioneered and settled this great country by overcoming every obstacle that arose before them. I have been doing my genealogy over the last year and have found that over 90% of my ancestors in the late 1600 to early 1700’s were here in this country as pre-colonials. My heritage is in men and women that wrestled this land from the oppression from overseas and the vast wilderness that lay before them here. And then the majority of them moved across this country creating and building settlements along the way.

    The kind of “settler” that we have become just drives me crazy. I hear over and over again, from good, god-fearing, and intellectual people that theY abhor the two political candidates that they have to choose from, but rather than fight for a third party, which does exist, they just “settle” for the least of the two evils. Bullshit! Do something instead of settling.

    I also hear how much everything is rigged and the media moguls of ABC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox, etc. are the ones controlling how we think and what we see. Again, bullshit! Turn off the television and do some real research. We have not watched any of these “mainline” channels for over 10 years now and have not missed a thing.

    I also hear so often that we need a different political system and then get all of the diatribes of all of the theoretical systems that would be so much better. Once again, bullshit! We have the one that we have. First of all, if you are not willing to register to vote, and then exercise that right intelligently, then you don’t have room to tell everyone how bad it is. It has built one of the most successful, prosperous, and free nations that the world has ever seen. Work within it if you want it to be different. Stop settling for things as they are and using your social media to bitch and pontificate about it, and do something to change it. I, for one, am going to vote for a different party…the two that we have are broken. If we would all join together and stop settling then maybe we can make a difference. Isn’t this what Hezekiah was trying to tell his people when he told them to be strong and courageous? Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

  • June 12, 2016

    PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE


    Isaiah 58:9-10

    Then you shall cry out, and God will hear you. While you are still speaking, He will say, ‘Behold, I am here.’ If you take away your fetter and the pointing of the finger, and the word of grumbling, and if you give bread to the hungry from your soul, and satisfy the humble soul, then your light shall rise up in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as midday.

    Personal Challenge

    To be able to someday live a righteous and holy life, one where my life shines as a beacon of Christ into the lives of everyone around me, I must life an active and participative life for my God. Righteousness, holiness, and salvation are not about a single point in time or a “sinners” prayer that I uttered some time in my past. Being godly, being righteous, being saved is a past, present, and future state in my life. I am to be doing the work of my Lord so that He can be doing His work within me. Glory be to God!