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Tuesday, June 1, 2010 Email Email   Facebook Facebook TwitterTwitter   Print Print

Day 153

GOD OF RETRIBUTION

For the Lord is a God of retribution;
he will repay in full.
Jeremiah 51:56

 

FROM THE FATHER'S HEART
My child, never let bitterness take root in your heart. When you feel angry, come to Me, and let's talk about it. Don't take it out on someone else. Untreated, bitterness can eat at you and grow like a cancer throughout your system. Instead, empty your garbage at My feet, and let Me take care of your enemies. I am the God of retribution, not you.

A GRATEFUL RESPONSE
Although revenge may seem sweet, it will only sour my heart and stifle my life. You know how to deal with my enemies better than I, Lord. You never overlook sin or injustice, and You are always watching out for Your own. You are the God of retribution; vengeance is Yours.

SIMPLE TRUTH

Render unto God the vengeance that belongs to God.

For more from Rebecca, please visit www.rebeccabarlowjordan.com

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©2002, Rebecca Barlow Jordan, Daily In Your Presence, Used by Permission, All Rights Reserved

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Encouragement for Today

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June 1, 2010

 

Even This

Marybeth Whalen

 

 

  "So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children. And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them." Genesis 50:21 (NIV)

      

Devotion:

I hung up the phone, still not believing what I had just heard. My husband, our main income earner, the provider for our family of eight, had just lost his job. I felt numb. I felt sad. I felt angry at his employer.

 

But by later that afternoon, all of those feelings were melting away and being replaced by one feeling: peace.

 

In the months that have followed, we have seen God at work. We have felt His presence. We have learned to trust more and pray harder. And we have felt that abiding peace in the midst of uncertain circumstances. We have practiced true childlike faith in that we don't know what's coming next, and yet, we simply trust. Our faith has been shaken but not broken. We have come to a new level in our marriage and in our own individual walks.

 

As we have faced this trial of being jobless in a bad economy with six little faces looking at us for provision, we have learned what it means to not worry about tomorrow (Matthew 6:34). We have learned to say "We have everything we need for today" and leave it at that. We can't predict or control the future, yet we know with certainty that God has already been there, reaching where we can not go and making the rough places smooth, just like He promises in His word (Isaiah 42:16). God has used this job loss to make Himself more real and reachable to us than He was before.

 

Is it odd to say that this job loss has been a blessing? A pathway to a new place we could never have reached if things had stayed the way they were? God uses everything in our lives to draw us closer to Him. Even the bad stuff. Even the stuff we never would choose. Even the trials that shake us, that leave us different than before.

 

In my novel, The Mailbox, the main character Lindsey finds that God used some unexpected circumstances in her life to bring her to a place she would never have imagined. She learns that she can even be grateful for the heartache and welcome the paths that looked like wandering. These paths weren't on her map, but they were on God's. She can see His fingerprints on every wrong turn, every tear, every setback. And in the center of all of that, she can see the grace and mercy that were extended to her time after time. She sees a loving Father who can take our scraps and make a beautiful garment.

 

Throughout this trial, my prayer has been for God to take even this and use it for His glory. As I write, I do not know what will happen with my husband's job. I do not know what direction He will take our family in. But this I know: I can trust wherever He leads. And I can know that He does use everything—even job loss, even the hard things of life. In the end we will find Him faithful. In the end we will find Him true. In the end we will see what He has done and marvel at His ability to use everything and waste nothing. Even this.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Dear Lord, I know that You will use even this in my life to radiate Your glory. Help me to worry less and trust more. Help me to keep my eyes fixed on You even as the waves crash around me, for I know that You are there in the midst of this storm in my life. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

 

Related Resources:

Do You Know Him?

 

The Mailbox by Marybeth Whalen

 

Visit She Reads for an exciting giveaway today!

For more encouragement, check out Jobless - Hopeful
You are My Hiding Place, Lord: Finding Peace in God's Presence by Emilie Barnes

Application Steps: 

Spend time journaling about something that are hard in your life right now. Do you believe God can use even this? Write down what you are feeling and thinking and then copy today's verses in your journal.

 

Reflections: 

Is worry or anxiety or fear gripping you? How can you stop hanging onto those feelings and let God's peace replace them?

 

Power Verses:

Hebrews 12:11, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (NIV)

 

Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (NIV)

 

 

© 2010 by Marybeth Whalen. All rights reserved.

 

Proverbs 31 Ministries

616-G Matthews-Mint Hill Road

Matthews, NC 28105

www.proverbs31.org

 

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Day by Day

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Tuesday, June 1, 2010 Email Email   Facebook Facebook TwitterTwitter   Print Print
 
Violence
by Charles R. Swindoll

2 Timothy 3:1-5 

Like sticks of dynamite taped together with a short fuse, our times are really volatile. Anger is ready to explode into physical violence at the slightest provocation. This entire globe seems brimming with hair-trigger hostility, ready to flare into full-scale disaster.

It's not just a vast global problem, however. It's personal. It's in your neighborhood. Your school. Where you work. Home security systems are no longer considered a luxury for the rich. Even teachers are not safe in the classroom.

But I must confess, the final straw of shock came when I read of the murder of John White in a quiet neighborhood in southwest Cleveland. The killer? A nineteen-year-old hired by White's two kids. That's right. His seventeen-year-old son and fourteen-year-old daughter paid $60 to have their own father killed.

The teenagers paid off the murderer, then hid the body in a back room of the house. After that they used their dad's credit cards to go on a ten-day spending spree. While their father's body was decaying in the utility room, they were cooking meals in the kitchen a few feet away and enjoying themselves in the living room.

After being caught, they openly confessed the entire, bizarre event. When asked why, they answered: "He wouldn't let us do anything we wanted." The dad had angered the kids by trying to enforce an evening curfew and by not allowing them to quit school or "smoke pot." So they had him killed.

Centuries ago, in a stone dungeon, the apostle Paul wrote his last few sentences. Yet, today, they stab us awake with incredible relevance: "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be . . . arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy . . . brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless" (2 Tim. 3:1-4).

The Greek term he chose for "difficult times" means, literally, "fierce, harsh, hard to deal with, savage." It is used only one other time in the New Testament, when it describes two demon-possessed men as "extremely violent" (Matt. 8:28).

An apt description of our times. Yet there is a glimmer of hope amid this flood of violence. It is this: Christ's coming cannot be far away. These "last days" of pain—though they may seem to pass slowly—are daily reminders that our redemption draws near. And "we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. 15:51-52).

Like, fast. Really fast. Faster than a short fuse on sticks of dynamite.

When everything looks hopeless, we have the comfort of our eternal Hope.

  

Excerpted from Day by Day with Charles Swindoll, Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. (Thomas Nelson Publishers). All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.

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Discover the Book

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God's Chosen People: Preserved

 

As we open to Jeremiah 30-31 we are looking at the 12 keys God has given us in His Word to identify the nation among nations that will signal the end of days. Those people are the Jews, the nation of Israel, His Chosen People of Promise:

 

These keys are only part of the evidence, as we shall see that the prophesied "last days" are upon us and that our generation will likely see the remainder of Bible prophecy fulfilled.  

 

There are so many more specific prophetic passages to be fulfilled in the last days; based on the prophecies, which have already come true, we must conclude that these too will literally unfold in the not-too-distant future.

 

Thus God has declared that the most appalling time of utter destruction both for Jews and for the entire population of the world lies yet ahead. To speak in Biblical terms God says watch out, "the time of Jacob's trouble" (Jeremiah 30:7) spells danger and misery for the entire planet.

 

What Does God

Say Specifically?

 

Look with me at this incredible summary of all specifics God has revealed about His Chosen People of Destiny, the Jews. 

 

Now, feel the impact of God's Words to a man standing out in the sands of the Middle East, in a Land called Canaan. God spoke in Genesis 15 and said, I am giving this Land to your children forever as a testimony to all the World, that I AM GOD!

 

1. God stakes His reputation on people He identified as His chosen people of destiny, the Jews, the descendents of Abraham, and He named them Israel.   Deuteronomy 7:6-7 "For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. 7 The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples."

 

2.  God promised to give a land to His chosen people of destiny the Jews with clearly defined boundaries (Genesis 12:1; 13:15; 15:7, 18-21) to Abraham. Genesis 15:7 "He also said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." He renewed that promise to Abraham's son Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5), to his grandson Jacob (Genesis 28:13), and to their descendants after them forever (Leviticus 25:46; Joshua 14:9; etc.)."

 

3.  God promised to bring His chosen people of destiny to the Promised Land. Exodus 6:7-8 "I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD."

 

To continue reading this message including more about what God has revealed about His Chosen People of Destiny, please copy and paste this URL into your browser bar: http://www.dtbm.org/sermon/gods-chosen-people-preserved-/

 

 

 

For more from Discover the Book Ministries, please visit discoverthebook.org
and 
click here to listen to Dr. John Barnett at OnePlace.com.

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