Sweeter Than Honey

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalm 119:103

I wonder how many of us got tired of hearing our moms tell us, “Eat this, it’s good for you!” And you can bet that if it required a lot of coaxing, it wasn’t the most appetizing dish on the table!

Thankfully, there are a few items on the good-for-you menu that go down a little easier than eggplant or brussels sprouts. Like honey, for example. Who doesn’t love a glob of honey slathered thickly on buttered toast? And not only does it taste good, but scientific studies show that honey has great medicinal value. For one thing, it helps reduce cholesterol. It’s loaded with antioxidants that help fight cancer. And a bit of honey and lemon mixed with hot water has a sure soothing effect on a sore throat. In food world, there’s nothing else quite like honey. No wonder the psalmist David used it to describe God’s Word when he exclaimed, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103).

If we’re honest, our attitude doesn’t usually match up to David’s. Can we really say that God’s Word is “sweet” or, for that matter, “sweeter than honey”? Usually it’s more like, “Oh, I guess it’s good for me, so I have to read it.” When we engage the Bible with that attitude, it’s no wonder that it seems like a bland, flavorless experience.

So let’s start reading the Word expecting to have a meaningful, personal encounter with God. For me, it cannot be just an exercise in reading through the Bible in a year or making sure I read a chapter a day, or any other system that allows me to put a tic mark on my spiritual checklist next to the “Bible reading” obligation. Each encounter with Scripture has to be a search for something that is relevant to my life. I need to read until I hear Him speak in a way that reaches to the core of me. If it comes quickly, I may not need to read further. But if it takes more time than I had planned, I need to keep reading until my soul, heart, and mind have been revitalized.

When I read about the fact that God is sovereign and fully in control of everything that is happening in my life (Jeremiah 10:23) and ultimately manages the whole universe (Colossians 1:16-17), how sweet is that? When I read that He will never leave me or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5), and that He works everything to a good conclusion (Romans 8:28), it settles my spirit with a sweet taste. When I read that this world is not my home (1 Peter 2:11) and that my home is heaven, a place where God will wipe away every tear (John 14:3; Revelation 21:4), there could be nothing sweeter!

The more we read the words and promises that fill our hungry hearts and provide healing antidotes to our wounded souls, the more we will understand the psalmist’s enthusiasm for God’s Word. I’m telling you right now, when your life goes south, when you are confused and don’t know what to do, your next best meal is not going to help you at all. But the words of God will be just what you need. So, go ahead—eat it—not only is it good for you, it’s sweet!

Whatever your approach, reading the Bible should be a dynamic experience that is alive with flavor and excitement. As you continue to connect with God through His Word, relish every morsel. After all, His words are sweeter than honey!

YOUR JOURNEY…

• Do you agree with the psalmist that God’s Word is “sweeter than honey to my mouth”? Why, or why not?
• If it has been a while since you’ve tasted the sweetness of God’s Word, perhaps it’s time to change your approach to Scripture. If so, try one of these suggestions: (1) Read a few psalms each day along with one chapter in Proverbs; (2) search through the Bible to learn all you can about a topic such as love or money; (3) read through a short New Testament book in one sitting; (4) choose one passage and memorize it.

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/sweeter-than-honey/

Set Boundaries (2)

“Its parts should have equal concern for each other.”              1Co 12:25 NIV

When you buy a house, you need clearly marked boundary lines to let you know what’s yours and what’s not. Good boundaries make good neighbors. The Bible says, “Seldom set foot in your neighbor’s house—too much of you, and they will hate you” (Pr 25:17 NIV). So, how close is too close? Let’s look at three kinds of boundaries we establish between ourselves and others. Rigid boundaries. These are designed to keep others at arms’ length and protect your private, self-absorbed world. Without saying a word, your attitude says: “Keep out, trespassers will be prosecuted!” Why do we create such boundaries? Fear! We fear being known, controlled, hurt, or feeling inadequate and inferior. And our rigidity prevents intimacy. Our unwillingness to be vulnerable or to compromise leaves us defensive, isolated and lonely. Closeness and intimacy are things we long for, yet fear and avoid. We think, “You can’t hurt me if I keep you at a safe distance.” But it doesn’t work. God designed us to share life’s victories and defeats, not to live in isolation. We are to “have equal concern for each other. If one part [person] suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” (1Co 12:25-26 NIV). Rigid boundaries rob you of life-enriching relationships. “So what’s the answer?” you ask. Reach out! You were created to give to others, and to receive what they have to give back to you. In giving you are fulfilled, and in receiving you are made complete. Anything less is just existing.

http://theencouragingword.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/set-boundaries-2/

Beyond Just And Fair

Working conditions in England during the 19th century were abysmal. Men, women, and children labored in dangerous factories during the day and went home to dirty tenement slums at night. Many of the factory owners cared little for the well-being of their employees.

But during that time, the owners of the Cadbury chocolate company were different. Quakers by conviction and business entrepreneurs by giftedness, they focused on improving the working conditions of their 200 workers. The Cadburys built a state-of-the-art factory with heated dressing rooms, a kitchen, and recreational areas. And to care for the employees’ spiritual needs, the workday started with Bible study.

Colossians 4:1 tells us: “Masters, give your bondservants what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.” Certainly the Cadburys sought to give their employees what was just and fair. But their heavenly orientation motivated them to go a step further to meet physical and spiritual needs.

Though we may not own a company, we do have regular contact with a variety of people. As believers, it is important to be ethical in our dealings. We can also, with God’s enablement, care about others’ well-being through prayer, encouragement, and the meeting of physical needs (Gal. 6:10).

Lord, thank You for loving us and meeting our needs. Often You bring people into our lives who need Your love and care. Give us wisdom to creatively reach out a helping hand that we might share Your kindness.

God blesses us so that we can bless others.

http://odb.org/2012/11/05/beyond-just-and-fair/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+odb%2Ffeed+%28Our+Daily+Bread%29

Redeemed, Released, and Redirected

“Loose him, and let him go.”                                                          Jn 11:44

When Jesus stood at his friend’s grave and said, “Lazarus, come forth,” His friend, who’d been dead for four days, shuffled out, still bound from head to toe in grave clothes. His grave clothes didn’t just fall off the minute Jesus spoke to him. No, he needed someone to “loose him, and let him go.” There’s an important lesson here. When you accept Christ, He changes you from the inside out. But certain experiences in your past can slow you down, keep you bound spiritually, and determine how you see yourself. And while the Holy Spirit does the initial work, transformation is a process—one that needs the help of others. It doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time. The Bible says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2Co 5:17 NKJV). You’re “becoming”! When Jesus saves you it’s like emerging from the tomb wrapped in the grave clothes of your past. What are those grave clothes? Negative influences and thought patterns, low self-esteem, old habits, destructive relationships, etc. That’s why God sends people to love you, help liberate you and release you into your potential. It’s important that you identify these people and build your life around them. It’s also why you need to develop an intimate relationship with God through prayer and Bible reading. Through His Word, you get a true picture of how He views you. Through prayer, you get to know His heart and begin seeing yourself through His eyes. When that happens, you begin to live redeemed, released, and redirected.

http://theencouragingword.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/redeemed-released-and-redirected/

Turning Moments into Eternity

“Your throne was established long ago;   you are from all eternity.” — Psalm 93

We talk about eternity a lot. God is eternal. The soul is eternal. The afterlife is eternal. But do we really understand what eternity means? How can we, who live in a finite world where everything is temporary, understand the concept of infinity?

I once heard it explained this way:  Imagine a beach next to a great ocean. On the beach there is a pile of sand – but not the kind of pile that a child makes. This pile of sand is the size of a mountain! It soars all the way up to the sky. Now imagine that a bird comes and picks up a grain of sand in its beak. It travels across the ocean and puts the grain down on the other side. Every thousand years, the bird returns to the beach and takes another grain of sand and drops it on the other continent. How long will it take to the move the mountain of sand to the land across the ocean? That’s a peek into eternity!

Psalm 93 moves. It has a definite motion. It begins by affirming God’s eternity and ends the same way. In the middle we hear of a roaring ocean with “pounding waves” (v. 3). The motion of the psalm, appropriately, is that of a wave. It begins with the calm stillness of the eternal God, just as a wave begins in the quiet of the sea. The middle of the psalm is loud and dynamic, like a wave about to crash into the shores. But it ends with a return to the stillness of the beginning, just as a wave quietly recedes back into the sea from which it came.

The message:  Our lives are only a wave in the vast and endless sea of eternity. Sure, we can make a lot of noise with our voices and pound the pavement with our feet, but very quickly, we will return to the quiet stillness of the sea that we came from. What’s a wave in comparison to the great ocean? That’s our lives in contrast to eternity.

I used to have a teacher that would often preface our Bible study by reminding us that we were “turning moments into eternity.” When we do good deeds and study God’s Word, we create moments that last forever. Most of what we do in our brief lives is gone and meaningless once we leave the world. But our good deeds last forever. They live on for eternity.

How will you spend your time today? Will the hours be lost once they pass, or can you make them last forever? What can you do today that will turn your moments into eternity?

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/turning-moments-into-eternity

Jesus Is Near

Samuel, who was 4, had finished eating his dinner and asked if he could be dismissed from the table. He wanted to go outside to play. But he was too young to be out alone, so his mother said, “No. You can’t go outside by yourself. You need to wait for me to finish and go with you.” His quick reply: “But, Mommy, Jesus is with me!”

Samuel had learned well from his parents that the Lord is always by his side. We see in our Bible reading today that Jacob had learned that lesson too. His father Isaac had blessed him and told him to find a wife from among his mother’s family (Gen. 28:1-4). He followed that directive and traveled toward Haran.

As Jacob slept, the Lord came to him in a dream and said, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go . . . ; for I will not leave you” (v.15). When he awoke, he knew that he had heard from God, and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place” (v.16). Confident of God’s presence, he committed himself to following Him with his life (vv.20-21).

If we have received Jesus as our Savior (John 1:12), we can be confident and take comfort in the truth that He is always present with us (Heb. 13:5). Like Jacob, may our response to His love be wholehearted devotion.

Thank You, Lord, for walking with us every day. You are our guardian, friend, and guide. May we sense Your loving presence and always know that You are close by our side. Amen.

Our loving God is always near—forever by our side.

http://odb.org/2012/10/10/jesus-is-near/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+odb%2Ffeed+%28Our+Daily+Bread%29

Love for the World

“The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 2 Timothy 4:18

It was a cold December morning. Dressed in a white execution gown, he was led to the wall of the prison courtyard with the others. Blindfolded, he waited for the last sound he would hear: the crack of a pistol echoing off the prison walls. Instead, he heard fast-paced footsteps, then the announcement that the czar had commuted his sentence to 10 years of hard labor.

So intense was that moment that he suffered an epileptic seizure—a malady he would suffer the rest of his life.

Fyodor Dostoevsky was sent to prison, where he had only a New Testament to read. In it he discovered something more compelling than his socialistic ideals. He met Jesus, and his heart was changed. Upon leaving prison, he wrote to a friend that the Lord was so dear to him that if he were to find out that Jesus was not in the realm of truth, he would rather have Jesus than the truth.

Dostoevsky returned to civilian life. He wrote feverishly and produced the novels The House of the Dead and Crime and Punishment, followed by his personal memoirs and many other works.

The sorrowful end of this story is that he never grew as a believer in Jesus. His church attendance was sporadic. He neglected Bible study and the fellowship of other believers. He began to drink heavily, and gambling left him penniless. He had left prison with his heart aflame for Jesus, but he died with nothing more than smoldering embers.

As a writer, Dostoevsky left a legacy that places him among the literary greats. One wonders what impact his life could have had if he had stayed faithful to God. In the words of the great poet John Greenleaf Whittier, “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’”

Keeping on track for Jesus in good times and in bad is the only way to finish life and face eternity with few regrets.

YOUR JOURNEY…

• What things in my life have sidetracked my passion and enthusiasm for Jesus?
• Why is it so hard to stay faithful to Him?
• What will I do differently today to reflect my love for Jesus?

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/love-for-the-world/

Missionary Weapons (1)

When you were under the fig tree, I saw you —John 1:48

Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us— it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, “If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion”? Yet you won’t rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God’s training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person’s true character.

A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private “fig-tree” life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.

Are you saying, “But I can’t be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn’t come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready”? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God’s work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.

God’s training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.

http://utmost.org/missionary-weapons-1/

Making It Real

“The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the other dwellings of Jacob.” — Psalms 87:2

There is a story told about the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, which profoundly shaped his outlook on life. One day, as Buber sat in meditation, he heard a knock at the door. He was on such a spiritual high, he wasn’t even sure that he had heard it. He tore himself away from the feeling of ecstasy and opened the door.

A stranger was standing there, and sensing that he had interrupted something, he told Buber that he would come back a different time. Ever the gentleman, Buber told the visitor that he was welcome now. The man came into Buber’s house, and they sat down to talk. But Buber wasn’t really listening. His head was still in the clouds. The visitor stammered and stuttered, but couldn’t get the words out. Eventually, the fellow apologized and politely excused himself. Buber went back to his meditation.

Later, Buber heard that this man had taken his own life. He had obviously come to visit Buber because he was seeking advice and encouragement, but Buber had been too wrapped up in the mystical world to see the real word before him. Buber was stricken with grief and regret. He realized that a mystical high was not the goal of real spirituality. Helping people in need is a genuine encounter with the Divine.

The psalmist wrote, “The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the other dwellings of Jacob.” The Talmud asks, what’s the difference between the gates of Zion and the dwellings of Jacob? And why does God prefer one over the other?

According to the Talmud, the gates of a city were where people would interact with one another. It’s where they would do business dealings and meet with each other. The city gates were always busy and teeming with life. The dwellings of Jacob, on the other hand, are a reference to the quiet and contemplative setting of study halls and places of worship. There, people would commune with God.

God prefers our interaction with each other to our interaction with Him. Not that He doesn’t love prayer and Bible study; it’s just that He loves it more when we take what we’ve learned and put it into action. The goal of spirituality is not to live in ecstasy; it’s to live in reality – and make real life better. Feelings and inspiration must be translated into our actions.

When we serve others, we serve God.

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/making-it-real

Take and Read! by Mark D. Roberts

Romans 13:11-14

Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.

Romans 13:14

Augustine did not become a follower of Christ until he was in his thirties. As a young man, he freely indulged his sexual appetites even as he exercised his vast intellect. Yet the faithful prayers of his mother worked on Augustine’s heart. He came to the place of realizing that his life was lost without God, but he felt trapped in his wanton lifestyle. In desperation, he found a private place in a garden, where he begged God to forgive him and set him free. All of a sudden, he heard a nearby child chanting: “Take and read. Take and read” (tolle, lege in Latin). Believing this to be a message from God, Augustine found a copy of the Bible and flipped it open randomly. The first words he read were: “Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires” (Rom. 13:13b-14). In this moment, Augustine received God’s grace and gave his life to the Lord. In his words: “For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away” (Augustine, Confessions, 8.12.29).

Ironically, Augustine turned out to be not only one of the most influential theologians of the church, but also one of her most competent interpreters of Scripture. Yet God used the “flip method” and a simple reading to transform Augustine’s life. The Word of God has the potential to do the same in our lives, again and again.

As you know, I don’t generally approach the Bible with a “flip method” strategy, nor do I recommend it as a primary means of spiritual discernment. But whether you open the Bible to any random passage, or whether you are working along with me passage by passage, the most important thing is that we “Take and read.” If, like Augustine, we approach God’s Word with an open and eager heart, he will speak to us, teaching us, correcting us, healing us, leading us, and renewing us.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: Have you ever had an experience like that of Augustine, where you turned randomly to a biblical passage that God used powerfully in your life? What encourages you to read the Bible? What gets in the way of your faithful Bible reading?

PRAYER: Gracious Heavenly Father, how I thank you for your grace given to Augustine. In his moment of desperation, you spoke to him through your Word. You changed his heart and his life. Thank you for meeting Augustine where he was and for reaching out to him in such an unusual and surprising way. How good you are!

Father, though I don’t think you want me to approach your Word simply with the “flip method,” I do know that I should “Take and read.” Help me to be faithful in my Bible reading, both for daily devotions, for study, and for faithfulness in doing that which you have called me to do in my work. May I read your Word! May I know it, devour it, reflect upon it, and obey it! As this happens, may I grow in my relationship with you.

All praise be to you, Gracious God, for making yourself known to us in Scripture! Amen.

http://www.thehighcalling.org/reflection/take-and-read-0