Today’s Scrip-Bit   24 July 2023 Proverbs 14:34.

24 Jul 2023 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Proverbs 14:34.        Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach (shame) to any people.

Prologue: Yes, it is late and long, but it’s certainly worthwhile reading and putting into immediate action. (smile) 

Aye Monday, come on down, we’re ready for you. We believers in Christ Jesus are no longer afraid of you and your evil patron, Satan, who try to frighten us into having bad Mondays and not witness properly for our Lord and Saviour. But all of that is over now, because we’re getting rid of our fear of Mondays, and instead ramping up our faith, so that we will not be ashamed of the fearful and ungodly way we behave on Mondays. We’re totally embracing the scripture that says: ‘The Lord has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of LOVE and a sound (disciplined) mind.’ (2 Tim. 1:7) 

We’ve talked it for a long time, but now we’re finally putting it into action, beginning with our fear and resentment of Mondays! So, you and your evil buddy, Beelzebub, can try all you want to intimidate us, but it won’t work any longer, because we’ve finally seen the light, the awesome light that is our Leader, Jesus Christ of Nazareth! And all God’s people said a loud and grateful ‘Amen!’ 

Now friends, please don’t make me a liar, or a laughingstock after I’ve put myself on the line. Let’s go out this Monday with plenty vim and vigour, confident that we can make a positive difference in this disaster-filled world. And is it ever filled with natural disasters; droughts, famine, earthquakes, forest fires, floods, pestilences, severe heat waves, like many of us have never seen before, volcano eruptions, you name it, our world is filled with it. 

And we now blame climate change for almost everything that happens to us, and some of it is indeed attributable to changing weather patterns, because we have over the years screwed up the fine balance of the Lord’s system, but what about our own sinful and ungodly behaviour eh? Don’t we think that the rampant, runaway sin that’s currently permeating our world possibly has something to do with the disastrous situations that we’re facing on all corners of the globe. 

We have obviously forgotten these wise words of Cousin Sol in Proverbs: ‘Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach (shame) to any people.’ (Prov. 14:34) And he’s not referring to individual righteousness there, but to a nation that adheres to God’s righteous standards as found in His moral law. And this commentary explains: ‘That means that we can declare if we are doing what Jesus told us to do, if we’re acting like Him, LOVING like Him, forgiving like Him, and boldly declaring God’s Word, then we are righteous. If all believers across the world just simply acted like Jesus, then the nation that they live in will be changed.’ 

And, unfortunately, I don’t know of any nation to which that designation can now be applied, for man’s inhumanity to man has skyrocketed way out of all reasonable proportions. Everywhere you turn is either wars or rumours of war, hate and anger abound, with strife from the highest echelons of the society to the lowest. Dire poverty and economic deprivation are widespread in a world of plenty, sickness is endemic in a world that has taken enormous strides in medicine and technological advancements. 

But the power elite still control most of the earth’s wealth and power, and the rich are getting richer while the poor are indeed getting poorer. And you can classify it as a cliché, and it might be trite or somewhat overused, but it’s still true. Meanwhile racism and religious intolerance and nationalism are on the uptake, bringing with it much despotic and dictatorial rule. What a foolish lot we are to be continually falling for the glib promises, or rather lies, of our politicians, who are only interested in their own aggrandizement. Where will it end eh? 

Remember friends, sin, the original sin of our forefathers Adam and Eve, is what began us down the deadly path on which we’re currently trodding. And what the Lord said through the prophet Ezekiel still stands: ‘The soul that sinneth. It shall die….But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live and not die.’ (Ezek. 18:20a, 21) 

And despite the Lord in His grace, mercy and LOVING-kindness  providing a way out of it for us. That’s through believing in His Son Jesus Christ who came to earth and sacrificed His sinless life so our sins could be paid for, we are still mired very deeply in sin. Bruh Paul writes to the church at Corinth: ‘For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.’ (2 Cor. 1:21). 

That certainly hasn’t done us much good, for there are few places in our world right now where serious strife isn’t taking place or being fomented. We all seem to be unhappy about something, and instead of trying to work it out peacefully with our neighbours, like the Bible wisely advises, the trend is to escalate the situation. Chuh! What a foolish animal is mankind! He can’t see the forest for the trees, and every move he makes, just seems to make matters worse, because selfishness and greed are so prevalent. It’s all about me, myself and I, for those who still use those pronouns. 

These are the words we ought to live by: ‘Recompense (repay) to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest (have regard for good things) in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in (depends on) you, live peacefully with all men… Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.’ (Rom. 12:17-18, 21) 

And I know to some of us, that might sound rather simplistic, but friends, the truth is usually simple, it’s we who tend to make it complex, because we wrongly belief that simplicity is not powerful enough for us to live on. But it surely is. Just look at how Leader, Jesus Christ lived down here on earth nuh; it was a quiet, simple but powerful and difference-making life, an example that we His sincere believers ought to follow, instead of the noise, the clamour. strife and complexity that the enemy is gladly feeding into our lives, and we are foolishly sucking up. 

Oh my fellow saints, remember we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, that means we ought to be setting the example for the world, so that they can see Jesus mirrored in our words and actions. So please, please, I plead with us that from today, from this time henceforth we WILL fully embrace the example of Jesus and let our salt and light shine forth and reinvigorate our badly damaged world, so we can begin to heal it. That’s all Jesus is asking of us. Now, let’s lift our heads, hands, hearts and eyes heavenward, and through our Monday Morning battle Hymn, invoke the divine help of our heavenly Father. 

As one sincere voice: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, we, Your humble servants, praise Your Holy Name and thank You this Monday morning for life and strong faith in Christ, despite the mass confusion in our world. Heavenly Father, You are the ONLY ONE with the power to solve our many problems. Yes, we have all sinned and seriously disobeyed Your Word, but You are a merciful, forgiving and gracious God, who has faithfully promised to hear and answer our prayers when we humble ourselves, pray, and sincerely seek Your face. 

So, we come to You now, with sincere repentance in our hearts, pleading for wise guidance and direction to alleviate our problems. Oh Father, please ease the pain of the many suffering from negative situations, show them Your awesome grace and mercy. And faithfully keep Your promise to prosper us if we turn from our evil ways. Show this evil world that You are indeed Jehovah Rapha; the God who heals! We pray this in the holy and blessed name of Your Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Amen! And again, we say: Amen!’ 

And having made all those requests, it now behooves us to change our evil ways, and live a godly and righteous life, if we truly desire to see heavenly help. Much LOVE!

…sin is what drives us away from God…but when it overwhelms us…it’s also what points us back…to the everlasting arms of God… 

 Hear our podcast at https://open.spotify.com/show/3aVfqIC1CqwGybISs9dZ             

Today’s Scrip-Bit 25 April 2020 Mark 6:50b.

25 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mark 6:50b.    Be of good cheer (take courage); it is I; be not afraid.
 
And the world keeps turning, like the Lord planned it to: it’s pages quietly and unconcernedly rolling along from one day to the next, regardless of what happens from one day to the next! (smile) And it’s finally rolled around to this Saturday in what’s supposed to be spring time, but we haven’t seen any rain in such a long time that the old adage ‘April showers bring May flowers’ is in danger of not being true this year of the Coronavirus. But what else is new eh? Cousin Sol said long ago that there’s nothing new under the sun. Yes: ‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.’ (Eccl. 1:9) 

And yuh know, if the wisest man ever said that, then it ought to be so. (smile) But it also shows up in our age old cliché that ‘History repeats itself.’ And that is oh so true. If we look back we can see every powerful society that ever walked the earth making the same mistake of getting too full of themselves, too big for their britches, replacing God with man made idols as they obtained some basic knowledge of life, and then getting fat and lazy off of their prosperity, which meant they stopped growing and began falling behind into eventual oblivion. 

And the same thing is happening in our current society, and our current worldwide trouble is simply a reflection of our stubbornness, hard heartedness and highly egotistical nature. It’s a wake up call from the Creator to the created, warning that we’re on the edge of a terrible precipice, and if we don’t heed the warning and repent and turn back to Him, a whole lot more damage will be done to our world. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! End of sermon! And friends I’m chuckling here, because I never came out to preach this morning, but that’s where I was led, so please take it easy on the ole fella nuh. 

But moving right along, since it’s Saturday, that lazy, late wake up day – most days are like that now though – let’s see what interesting quotes our friend Anselm sent us this past week, as he aspires to inspire us for a brighter tomorrow…and do we ever need one! And he seems to have been on progress kick this past week. Hear this first quote: ‘Delay is the enemy of progress.’ And so it is! Laziness and procrastination, and anything else that keeps us from doing what we have to do, is in fact delaying our progress. We can’t progress unless we get up off our fat fannies and do what we need to do! 

And the next quote also declares a great truth: ‘Comfort is the enemy of progress.’ Yes my people, as we said above, that’s why most societies eventually die. We start out by working hard and making progress, then when we reach a certain point of prosperity, we believe we can now rest on our laurels and enjoy what we have. But the sad fact of the matter is that continued prosperity depends on continued hard work, and resting comfortable on one’s laurels only eats away at said prosperity. 

It’s like your savings in the bank. The more you put in the more you will have, but when you stop putting in and only withdraw, then it will wither away li’l by li’l until it runs out. Well it’s the same way with progress and prosperity. Unless you keep building, working and saving, you will stop making progress and eventually fall. 

Now hear this one: ‘Some quit due to slow progress. Never grasping the fact that slow progress is progress.’ That’s more gospel truth my brethren! Good progress is usually a creeping thing that includes some failure in between. We don’t just begin something today, if it’s a worthwhile project, put in a li’l elbow grease and declare victory or significant progress tomorrow. No friends, progress is a time consuming thing, and ofttimes needs a lot of blood, sweat and tears before it can be significantly achieved. 

And that’s a major problem for this generation. We the parents have not taught the children sufficiently about waiting and working and being satisfied or contented with a little, that’s why they’re all going crazy, feeling entitled to everything while not wanting to work for or make a sacrifice for anything! That thing called true progress is ever so slow my people that sometimes you can’t even see it, although you know you’re making it. So let’s not quit when it looks like positive things are not happening for us nuh. It just means that the Lord is working in the background, doing the hard and dirty work that’s necessary to move us forward. 

In light of all that, it is therefore necessary for us to quickly befriend this next quote and hold on to it tightly, as our very lives may depend on it. ‘Courage means to keep making forward progress while you still feel afraid.’ And isn’t that the living truth! All of us feel afraid at some time or other in our lives, so it’s not a matter of never being afraid, or never having fear, for fear is a natural aspect of human life. But the important thing there is like Sister Joyce (Joyce Meyer) puts it: ‘doing it afraid.’ That’s what courage is really all about; doing what we need to despite the fear or anxiety we might feel. 

And the only thing that really conquers fear is faith! That’s why the most used command or warning in the Good Book is ‘Fear not! Do not be afraid!’ Moses said it thus to the Israelites when they were leaving Egypt and the massive Egyptian army was hot on their heels: ‘Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation (deliverance) of the Lord, which he will show to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever.’ (Ex. 14:13) And that promise did come true in spades as the entire Egyptian army was drowned in the Red Sea when the Lord closed it back up. 

And the psalmist gives us this small but everlasting treasure: ‘The Lord is on my side, I will not fear: what can man do unto me?’ (Ps.118:6) Yes friends, if the Lord is on our side, man cannot prevail over us. And Isaiah drives it home on the Lord’s behalf. ‘Say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not: behold your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense: he will come and save you.’ (Is. 35:4) And he did exactly that through His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

And when Jesus walked on water towards His disciples and they were afraid, His comforting words were simply: ‘Be of good cheer (take courage); it is I; be not afraid.’  Yes my people, simple, but oh so reassuring words from our Master. That’s the beauty of His philosophy and words! 

And we’ll end with this most important warning from Bruh Paul to Timothy in his tough times, which we all ought to know by now, even if we didn’t know it before Covid-19. (smile) ‘For God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power (His Holy Spirit), and of LOVE, and of a sound (disciplined) mind.’ (2 Tim. 1:7) Now let’s go out and use those marvellous gifts in His work nuh! Much LOVE!

…fear and courage…two sides of the same coin…