Today’s Scrip-Bit 21 October 2018 Lamentations 3:22-23

21 Oct 2018 Leave a comment

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

Lamentations 3:22-23. ​It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

 
Glory be! It’s Sunday my people! That means the Lord’s house is open to whosoever will, that may come in humble repentance and expectant heart to receive His wonderful mercy, grace, LOVE and forgiveness! Please, let us not refuse this divine invitation, because it might just be the best decision we ever make. 
 
And as always, to soften our hearts and make them more receptive to God’s Word, we open with some praise and worship, sending up thanks and glory to our heavenly Father for His undeserving goodness to the children of men. And today’s hymn is that ole faithful from Charles Wesley; ‘LOVE Divine, All LOVES Excelling.’ 
 
So, without further ado, let’s raise our hearts, heads, hands and voices heavenward and give God the glory. As one magnificent choir now: ‘LOVE divine, all LOVES excelling,joy of heav’n, to earth come down, fix in us Thy humble dwelling; all Thy faithful mercies crown. Jesus, Thou art all compassion; pure, unbounded LOVE Thou art; visit us with Thy salvation; enter ev’ry trembling heart. 
 
Breathe, O breathe Thy LOVING Spirit into ev’ry troubled breast! Let us all in Thee inherit; let us find the promised rest. Take away the LOVE of sinning; Alpha and Omega be; end of faith, as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty. Come, Almighty, to deliver; let us all Thy life receive; suddenly return and never, nevermore Thy temples leave. 
 
Thee we would be always blessing, serve Thee as Thy hosts above, pray and praise Thee without ceasing, glory in Thy perfect LOVE. Finish then Thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be. Let us see Thy great salvation perfectly restored in Thee. Changed from glory into glory, till in heav’n we take our place, till we cast our crowns before Thee, lost in wonder, LOVE, and praise.’ 
 
Yeh friends, mighty sounds of praise and worship! And before I add my two cents worth, (smile) I’d like to include a short description of that hymn from the Hymnary.org site. It says: ‘Addressed to Christ, this text begins as a prayer for the indwelling of his LOVE in our lives: “fix in us thy humble dwelling” and “let us all thy life receive” (st. 1-2). 
 
A tone of praise and adoration runs throughout the text. But the final stanza is clearly a prayer for sanctification, for consistently holy lives. Though this stanza was an outcome of the Specifically Wesleyan doctrine of perfection, it is our fervent Christian prayer that our sanctification will ultimately lead to glorification. As is customary in a Charles Wesley text, biblical allusions abound.’ 
 
And it’s some of those allusions that I want to deal with today. And we begin with ‘joy of heav’n, to earth come down, fix in us Thy humble dwelling; all Thy faithful mercies crown.’ They say that alludes to: ‘And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.’ (Rev.21:3) 
 
And the scholars offer this explanation: ‘The presence of God will be with His people, and He will forever dwell with them. A primary purpose of redemption will be accomplished: the complete fellowship of God with His redeemed people.’  Oh my fellow believers, what a glorious day that will be, when the Lord will wipe away all tears and pain, sorrow and crying and no more death will grieve our souls. (Rev.21:4) 
 
And turning now to our Bit which talks about the Lord’s compassion. ‘​It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.’ Yeh friends, if the Lord wasn’t like Wesley says: ‘Jesus; Thou art all compassion; pure, unbounded LOVE Thou art;’ we’d be gone through long, long time. 
 
And how can we forget the first words of the hymn eh? ‘LOVE divine, all LOVES excelling…’ That certainly purports to one of the greatest passages in the Good Book: ‘For God so LOVED the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ (John 3:16) Mama Mia! Where, and what would we be without God’s great unconditional LOVE eh? I shudder to contemplate it!  
 
And when Charles talks about ‘Alpha and Omega,’ the passage that immediately comes to mind is again from John’s Revelation: ‘And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst (thirsty) of the fountain of water of life freely.’ (Rev.21:6) Yes friends, I can’t wait to get that ‘water of life,’ the eternal sustenance and provision. (smile) 
 
And ‘Praise thee without ceasing,’ surely refers to the constant praise that goes on in heaven, where the seven beasts and twenty four elders bow continuously before the Lord and cry, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.’ (Rev.4:8) Meanwhile the elders throw their crowns and themselves before the throne of grace and sincerely declare: ‘Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.’ Rev.4:11) 
 
Now when he talks about, ‘Changed from glory into glory,’ there’s no doubt that the scripture he’s referencing is: ‘But we all, with open (unveiled) face beholding as in a glass (mirror) the glory of the Lord, are changed (being transformed) into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.’ (3 Cor.3:18) Yeh friends, bit by bit we’re becoming more Christ-like, led by the Holy Spirit, as is the Father’s dearest desire. 
 
And finally, ‘thy new creation,’ refers to one of our favourite and well known passages from Bruh Paul to the Corinthians. ‘Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.’ (2 Cor.5:17) 
 
Friends, I have to leave to go and get ready to go to Kingston, the duchess is on my case. (smile) So I pray that we will all have a blessed and perfect day, as we live in faith for Jesus. Much LOVE!
 
…living for Jesus…is infinitely more rewarding…than living without Him… 

Today’s Scrip-Bit 20 May 2018 2 Corinthians 9:8.

20 May 2018 Leave a comment

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

2 Corinthians 9:8.    And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

It’s Sunday once again friends, the Lord’s Day, and all roads lead to His sanctuary, to praise, worship, fellowship, hear His word and receive strength and confidence to go out and do His work with diligence and excellence in the upcoming week! 

And that’s partly why the Bit is this late; the ole fella finally darkened the church’s door after about three or four weeks of absence. Hn! I can’t remember being that long away from church for several years now. Anyway, we’re back, and did enjoy the fellowship and the reading of the word. 

And as always, on Sundays we begin by opening our mouths, and lifting up our voices in songs of worship and praise. It helps to soften our hearts for the word that comes later. (smile) And today’s song of praise is simply titled ‘Our God is able.’ And that’s an undeniable fact. So let’s belt it out with sincere hearts and strong voices. 

‘Our God is able. He will never fail. He is Almighty God. Greater than all we seek. Greater than all we ask. (Chorus: He has done great things. Lifted up. He defeated the grave. Raised to life. Our God is able. In His name we overcome. For the Lord, Our God is able.) 

God is with us. God is on our side. He will make a way. Far above all we know. Far above all we hope. (Chorus) God is with us. He will go before us. He will never leave us. He will never leave us. God is for us. He has open arms. He will never fail us. He will never fail us. (Chorus -repeat).’ 

Oh friends, every word we sang there is indeed gospel truth, for our God is indeed able, as Bruh Paul declared to the Corinthians in his second missive to them. ‘And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.’ What an awesome God we serve and worship my brethren! 

And if you don’t believe, just look at what happened on the Day of Pentecost, which the church is celebrating today. Before Jesus ascended to heaven, He told the disciples to remain in Jerusalem: ‘For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.’ (Acts 1:5)

…But ye shall receive power, after that (when) the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8) 

Yeh friends, who could make such a remarkable promise and keep it eh? ONLY our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! And we read it every year at Pentecost time, but it still boggles our imagination. 

The Good Book says that on the Day of Pentecost, ‘they were all with one accord (purpose or mind) in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven (divided) tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.’ (Acts 2:1-4) 

Wow, mih people! Can you imagine that scene back in ole Jerusalem on that first day of Pentecost? It must have been really wild, since there were oodles of people in Jerusalem at that time, many of them foreign born, and when the disciples emerged from their house and began to speak in several languages, so that those foreign born could understand in their own languages. Mama Yo! It must have been almost cataclysmic! (smile) 

‘Now when this was noised abroad (the sound of the wind occurred) the multitude came together and were confounded (confused), because every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? 

And how hear we every man in our own tongue (language or dialect) wherein we were born? …And they were all amazed and, and were in doubt (perplexed), saying one to another, What meaneth this?’ (Acts 2:6-8, 12-13) 

Oh fellow believers, ONLY our God is great enough to turn things on their head like that! But as always there are disbelievers and mockers, who said that the men were drunk. But Peter got up and preached his finest sermon that day, informing them that it was the coming to pass of an old promise of our God, from the days of the prophet Joel: 

‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God. I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams… And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ Acts 2:17,21) 

Yeh mih people, the Lord promised many other signs and wonders within that passage, but the most important was the last one; that whosoever should call on His name will be saved. Glory Hallelujah! The most glorious promise in the Good Book! 

And that also marked the beginning of the Holy Spirit coming to dwell within every believer to lead and guide them in the ways of the Lord. So it’s obvious that our God is able my brethren…able to do all that’s necessary to keep us going. Please don’t ever doubt God’s ability, and give Him plenty thanks and praise, for that is wisdom at its highest. Much LOVE!

…if God could speak the world into existence…what other mighty works can’t He do eh…