I have 3 FREE ebooks on Amazon today and Friday
Resolving Trust Issues: freeing the heart
Interior Heart Decorating: following God’s blueprint for grace
Breaking The Yoke: setting the captives free
Author: jma47
Wisdom’s Irresistibility
In Acts 6, seven men where chosen to serve. Here were the qualifications. Verse 3 says, “…seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom…”
Stephen was one of the seven. Verse 8 says that he was full of faith and power. Some of the Freedman (former Roman slaves) took issue with him. Verse 10 says, “And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.”
Paul was another who spoke with wisdom. 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 says, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Paul prayed for the saints in Ephesus. Ephesians 1:17 says, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.”
He prayed for the folks in the church at Colosse. Colossians 1:9 says, “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.”
Two great prayers! When you see someone struggling in their walk with the Lord, pray these Scriptures over their lives. We all need God’s wisdom so we can see our lives through His perspective.
I love Psalm 119. Listen to verses 97-99. “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation.”
Note how the one who wrote those words linked wisdom to his meditating on God’s word. As we meditate on His word, He reveals things we do not know through the power of His Holy Spirit within us.
Hidden within our trials is the navigating wisdom that we need. It is only hidden because He wants us to rely on Him. When we ask, He will reveal it. James 1:5 says that we can ask the Lord for wisdom, because He will lavish it on us in abundance. (John 3:34)
Magnify Part Three
One of the essential ways that we magnify the Lord is through praise, worship, and adoration. Psalm 147:2 says, “While I live I will praise the Lord; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.”
New songs come from within. They bubble up because we are so full from gazing at the Lord. We sing them back to an audience of One. They are a form of heart-worship that is not practiced, nor something thought out nor perfected. The songs bubble like a spontaneous combustion of inner joy. It is the heart-praise-fruit of communion with the Lord.
David wrote Psalm 63. I can just imagine him sitting before the Lord, allowing his heart to be filled with wonder and awe. Verse 3-4 says, “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.”
Verse 5 in the Amplified says, “My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.”
Yesterday afternoon I continued my reading in the book of Acts. I read Gamaliel’s advice in chapter 5:33-40. Verse 39 says, “But if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it–lest you even be found to fight against God.”
Fact: COVID19 has been allowed by God. He has the power to stop it, but He hasn’t. It made me pause. I asked the Lord how He wanted me to pray about this pandemic. He said: Praise Me. My character never changes.
2 Chronicles 20:22 says, “Now when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes…and they were defeated.” When Judah was about to be overrun by the enemy, the Lord gave specific instructions to the king. Verse 21 says, “…he appointed those who should sing to the Lord, and who should praise the beauty of holiness…”
Let us collectively spend part of our prayer time praising the Lord for His character that never changes. Psalm 36 5-6 names three of them: mercy, faithfulness, and righteousness.” I would encourage you to write out as many of the Lord’s attributes that you can think of. Then as you gaze upon Him in your quiet time, let your heart be filled with wonder and awe, and express that back to Him in new songs.
2 FREE EBOOKS
Today and tomorrow I have 2 FREE ebooks on Amazon
Anchor of Hope: steadfast sure and immoveable
Essence of Your Life: anointing hurting hearts
Magnify Part Two
David said in Psalm 34:3, “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.” To magnify is to make something more visible, because it was too small to see distinctly.
The Lord is most clearly seen, or magnified, to others as we emulate Him. We may be the only Bible they read. 2 Peter 1:4 says, “By which have been give to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature…”
We are partakers or sharers of His nature. In order to magnify Him, we need to exemplify His character. Our trials are His instruments to develop that character of Christ in us.
Another way we magnify Him is through our right responses to our trials. Believers and unbelievers are watching how we navigate through difficult or adverse situations in our lives.
I think of how the Lord displays His church. Ephesians 3:10-11 says, “To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Peter and John magnified the Lord when the man who had never walked from birth was healed. John 3:9 says that all the people saw him walking and praising God. Can’t you just imagine it? Verse 10 says, “Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened.”
What about the blind man Jesus healed in John 9? The Pharisees questioned him. The now fully sighted man answered in verse 32. It says, “Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind.”
May the Lord be magnified in our lives. Right now is our opportunity to practice this truth. When countless are restless and agitated, our right responses would glorify Him. Let us emulate His patience and peace in the midst of this pandemic.
Magnify
When I was still in grammar school, my two younger cousins taught me the power of a magnifying glass. I first found them huddled over something. To my horror, they were ‘frying’ earthworms!. My loud protests caused them to change course. They showed me how to catch a leaf on fire. That continued until my uncle came upon the scene and my lesson was abruptly stopped. However, I never forgot the power of the sun through a magnifying glass.
Psalm 138:2 says, “…for You have magnified Your word above all Your names.” This verse continues to amaze me. Think of the power of Jesus’ name.
Remember this scene? The detachment of troops, and the officers from the chief priests and Pharasees came to arrest Jesus. When He said, ‘I am He’ they drew back and fell to the ground (John 18:3-8).
Acts 4:12 says, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which they must be saved.”
Philippians 2:10-11 says, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
John 15:16 says, “…and whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”
The name of Jesus is powerful in every aspect of our lives. Yet, David said that he magnified God’s word above His name. We have the privilege to magnify the Son who is the living word.
How do we do that? One way is to make His word our essential. Job did. Job 23:12 says, “I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.”
Jeremiah did. Jeremiah 15:16 says, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.”
His word, when it is magnified in our heart, will expand within to increase our capacity to embrace and practice what He has commanded us to do. It is not a duty, but a supreme honor and privilege to drink deep of His word daily.
More Free Ebooks
3 FREE ebooks today and Monday on Amazon
Free To Be You: embracing your uniqueness
Triumphing Over Shame: healing from abuse
Freedom From Self-Hatred: embracing your design
The first one is from the last chapter in Victorious Garden, and the others are from the first two chapters in Victorious Heart: intimate communion with God
Removing the Superfluous Part Two
Another essential is to personally apply God’s word to our heart. Joshua 1:9 said to observe to do. I lived under the sound of the word. It wasn’t until 1972 that I learned that there were principles in His word to live by. Commands are not suggestions.
Matthew 6:25 says to not worry about our life. Verse 33 says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Worry is a distraction. It preoccupies our thoughts and keeps us from implementing our essentials.
Isaiah 41:10 says, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”
Fear is another distractor. It occupies our mind. The antidote is Isaiah 26:3 which says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”
Keeping a record of wrongs is another distractor. Please say these words out loud: You bore the sin of the one who hurt me. You forgave the one who crushed my spirit. You gave me Your forgiveness to forgive as I have been forgiven.
When we refuse to forgive those who hurt us, we clutter our hearts with walled in bitterness and resentment, and we leak defilement over those around us.
Wallowing in the past, holding onto things that are passed, and rehearsing the hurts, keeps us self-focused. It blocks are God given gifts. It defiles our fruit-testimony.
1 Peter 2:1 says to lay aside. Verse 2-3 says, “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”
Worry, fear, unforgiveness are non essentials that need to be laid aside. They stunt our spiritual growth. Confess them as sin and move forward. Embrace God’s word. Hide it in your heart. Fill your heart-reservoir with truth that will set you free. It is experiential truth that clears the heart of the superfluous so it can be occupied with the essentials.
Removing the Superfluous
Superfluous means excess and unnecessary. Cluttered desks, cluttered tables, and cluttered living spaces cause our thoughts to be cluttered and undisciplined.
When I typed the 35 ebooks in 2016, I put two spaces after each sentence. It was the way I was taught back in high school. However, in compiling seven ebooks into a paperback, I have to delete the extra space. You would be amazed at how much it saves in the printed product.
The superfluous in our lives is an entanglement. 2 Timothy 2:4 says, “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
We are soldiers in God’s army. In order to have clear minds, we need to remove the superfluous. This sheltering in time is a great opportunity to evaluate the essentials.
An essential is something that is absolutely necessary. It is extremely important. Therefore anything that pulls us away from walking in truth needs to be removed. 1 Peter 1:24-25 says, “…all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
Verse 25 reiterates for us that God’s word is an essential. It is through His word that we learn the truth to apply to our hearts. 1 John 1:6 says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”
Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Part of speaking truth in our hearts comes from verbally speaking God’s word.
Psalm 46:10 says, “…Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 131:2 says, “Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Psalm 23:2 says that our Shepherd leads us beside the still waters.”
Moses’ words to the children of Israel are great words for us as well. The uncrossable Red Sea was before them, and Pharaoh and his army behind them. They were in a humanly impossible situation. Exodus 14:13 says, “…Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today…”
Learning to be still before the Lord is an essential. We cannot hear His still small voice when our heart is cluttered with the anxieties and cares of this world. Jesus went apart from the crowd to be alone with the Father.
3 FREE ebooks
FREE ebooks today and tomorrow on Amazon
Heart Forgiveness: embracing truth that will set you free
Watermarks: authenticity of a follower of Jesus
Trophies of Grace: steadfast endurance
These are from chapters 4, 5, 6 in Victorious Garden. Note: it helps to put J Marilyn Adams after the title in the search.
M's Creations 