Tag Archives: God

Craving

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I am defenseless against peanuts.

Do I know that I should not eat the entire container of nuts in one sitting?

Yes, yes I do.

Do I do it anyway?

Yes, yes I do.

Because I really, really, love peanuts. They are a great. I just can’t help myself when I’m around them.

I have a craving for them.

I was thinking about craving and desiring things when I read this passage from Psalm 78 this morning:

29 So they ate and were well filled, *
for he gave them what they craved.
30 But they did not stop their craving, *
though the food was still in their mouths.

God gave the people everything they craved.

He gave them everything they wanted. But, they still wanted more.

The wanted more and more and more and more.

Because what they were craving was not filling.  Now, it might have filled the body.

But it didn’t fill the soul.

It didn’t meet their true craving.

Today, do you crave God?  Do you desire to spend time with Him. Do you long to know Him on a deeper and deeper level?

Can you not wait to spend time in His word?  With His people?  With Him in prayer?

What do you crave this morning?

What is it that you desire this morning?

If it is anything other than God, you will be disappointed.  If it’s anything other than knowing Him deeper, you will find it lacking.

God gave them what they craved. And it wasn’t enough.

Only Him.  Only knowing Him deeper. Only time with Him.

That’s the only thing that will fill our craving.

Heart’s Desire

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There’s a concept in scripture that we see a several times throughout the Bible, and it’s a powerful, powerful concept.

It’s something that can provide us great hope and great peace and joy.

It’s also a concept and passage that can be looked at the wrong way and provide us some problems.

We see this concept in one of today’s readings, from Psalm 37:

4 Take delight in the Lord, *
and he shall give you your heart’s desire.

Now, that sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

My heart desires lots of chocolate today. . . .

Or an Ole Miss victory over Arkansas this weekend. . . . .

Or a new computer. . . . . .

And, didn’t the scripture just say that God will give us our heart’s desire? So, doesn’t God want to give us these things?

I’ve heard that passage read in that way before. Some of us may be tempted to read it in that way today.

But, let’s look at what it says, – take delight in God and He will give us our heart desires.

When we delight in God, when we spend time with God when we grow closer to God, He changes our hearts.

And then, because our hearts are more like His heart, He gives us what our heart desires – more of Him.

Today, God wants to great you what your heart desires, or what your heart truly needs, more time with Him.

A deeper walk with Him.

More of His grace.

More of His mercy.

God wants you to know Him more and more and more.

God wants you to fall in love with Him today.  God wants you to have what you really need –  not stuff, not more, not power, not prestige, not any thing like this.

He wants you to have more of Him.

He is where life is found.  He is what is our hearts truly need.  He is what our hearts truly desire.

And He offers Himself to us today.

May we take Him up on His offer.

Help is on the Way

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I’m not a big fan of Westerns.  I don’t know why. I should love them.  My daddy loved them.  He loved the books.  He loved the movies.  I watched them a ton when I was a kid.

I should like them.

But, for some reason, I just don’t.

Except for Tombstone.  One of the greatest movies ever.

I’ll tell you what I do like though, in all the Westerns I’ve seen.

That moment when I looks bad. The guys in the black hats are going to win. It looks bad for the good guys. They are going to be defeated.  They are going to lose. Evil is going to triumph.

And then, from nowhere, here comes the Calvary! And the good guys win!

Help is one the way!

I thought of that as I read from Psalm 71 today:

14 But I shall always wait in patience, *
and shall praise you more and more.
15 My mouth shall recount your mighty acts
and saving deeds all day long; *
though I cannot know the number of them.

The Psalmist is waiting. Things are bad.  It doesn’t look good.  It looks like evil will win.

But, he recounts God’s saving acts in the past.  He recalls how God has been there.

How God has won before in the end.

And how God will win again the future.

It may look bad, but help is on the way.

It’s true for us today as well.  No matter what you are going through today, help is one the way.

Don’t worry.

God won in the past and God will win in the future. Don’t give up.

God will win.

Help in on the way.

Trust. Hope.  Believe.  God will win.  Help is on the way.

There is a God

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I used to be the token Methodist at the old Baptist Bookstore in Jackson, MS.  Now, Lifeway Christian Store. Anyway, when I was the token Methodist there, I always enjoyed the Christian shirts were used to sell. Some were good, some were pointed, some made you think.

And some were just goofy.

But there was one that we sold that always stuck with me.

On the front it said – There is a God.  And on the back it said, And you’re not it.

I always think of that shirt when I read Job 40 and we see God finally respond to Job and Job’s questions. This is what God says:

6 Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind:
7 “Brace yourself like a man,
because I have some questions for you,
and you must answer them.

8 “Will you discredit my justice
and condemn me just to prove you are right?
9 Are you as strong as God?
Can you thunder with a voice like his?
10 All right, put on your glory and splendor,
your honor and majesty.
11 Give vent to your anger.
Let it overflow against the proud.
12 Humiliate the proud with a glance;
walk on the wicked where they stand.
13 Bury them in the dust.
Imprison them in the world of the dead.
14 Then even I would praise you,
for your own strength would save you.

God basically says, Oh yeah?  You think you’ve got it all figured out?  You think you know everything?

What about this? Were you there when I made it all?  Were you there in creation? Can you answer these things?  Do you know it all?  Are you aware of everything.

There is a God.  And we are not it.

You.  Are.  Not.  God.

Relax.  The world doesn’t depend on you.  You are a part of the bigger whole. Everything is not life or death.

Relax. Breathe.  Listen.  Focus.  Look.

God is God.  You’re not.  You don’t have to live with the weight of the world on your shoulders.  You are just one person.

There’s a God bigger than you in control.  Relax.  He will take care you.  He will not leave or forsake you.

He loves you.

Trust in Him today. There is a God bigger than you are I.  Relax. Trust.

Even if it doesn’t look like it, He knows what He’s doing.

Trust.

Today.

An Arrow Pointing to Heaven

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One of my favorite quotes by Rich Mullins was when he talked about how our job in life was to simply be an arrow pointing to heaven.  All of our lives should be lived out in that way, pointing others to God and to His mercy and life.

We don’t live this life for us.  It’s not for our glory. It’s for  God’s glory.

Sometimes, through, it can be hard to remember that.

We see something happen in Acts that could have really trip Paul and Barnabas up:

11When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in human form!’ Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. . . 14When the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, 15’Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.

I’m sure we’ve all had folks think a lot of us before, but probably haven’t had too many folks tell us that we are a god.  Paul and Barnabas had been working really hard for the Gospel.

They’d been beaten, been kicked out of towns, been locked up.

Most of the time they were despised in the towns they were in.  In many towns they had literally been run out of town.

And now, finally, someone likes them! The entire town rises up and says, hey, you’re awesome.

You’re a god!

They knew it wasn’t true. They knew they were just flesh and bone. And part of me wonders if that didn’t feel good to them, for at least once, not be stoned out of a town.

But, they remembered what they were there for, to be an arrow pointing to heaven. And they used the fame they’d acquired to talk about the Gospel.

Today, that’s our job as well. We are to point to God with all we do. All we say. All we are.  We are to use the circumstances of our lives to point to God.

There’s a lost and dying world out there, in need of hearing and seeing the love and grace of God.  And it’s our job to point it that God.

With all that we have and all that we are, may we be that arrow pointing to heaven today.

Out to Get Me?

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I’ve told my folks before that when I was a kid, my image of God was that He was a really angry old man up in heaven ready to get me when I messed up.

He had a long white beard, He had long white hair. And He was mad.

I tell folks in my mind, God looked like a really angry Col. Sanders. And He was angry at me.

He knew how many mistakes I’d made, how much I’d done wrong, all way’s I’d messed up and He was going to get me.

He had His lightening bolt in His hand, ready to strike me.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve always liked this passage today in John:

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ 3Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.

In Jesus day, if something was wrong in your life, people through that it was because God was punishing you for something.  If you were blind, then it simply must because you had done something wrong or your family had done something wrong.

The could be no other answer.

That’s what the people thought.  So, they asked Jesus, who sinned?

And Jesus said – no one. No one sinned to make this happen.  It just happened, but God is going to use it for His glory.  God was not out to get this man born blind.  But, God was going to use his blindness for God’s glory.

Today, God is not out to get you.  He’s not out to trick you. He’s not out to destroy you.  He’s not waiting for you to mess up so He can punish you.

He’s not an angry Col. Sanders.

He loves you.  He’s pulling for you.  He’s on your side.  He wants to know you.   He loves you.

He is not out to get you.  He’s not.

He will used whatever is going on in your life for His glory.

He loves you.

Never forget.

What Consumes Your Soul?

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This morning as I read through some scripture this morning, I was thinking about the things that happen that get me in trouble.

Why do I choose to do wrong sometimes?

Why do I choose sin? Why do I choose the wrong path?  Why do I make bad decisions.

We all do, don’t we?  It’s part of our human condition. As Paul said, “The things I ought to do, I do not do, and the very thing I should not do, is the very thing I do.”

Why?

What can keep up from picking that wrong path?

Then I read part of Psalm 119:

20 My soul is consumed at all times *
with longing for your judgments.

What consumes your soul?  What is it that really consumes you?

What do you think about?  Where does your mind drift?  What is it that occupies your thoughts?  When you are thinking about nothing, what are you thinking about?

Is it God? Does God consume your mind?  Your will?  Your imagination?  Your very life?

Scripture tells us that God is a consuming fire.  He desires to consume all of us. Take of all of us, transform all of us.

Are we letting Him do that today? Are we letting Him consume us today?  Are we giving Him all of us today?

He desires to consume us.  Do we desire to be consumed by Him?  In that, in doing that, in allowing Him to consume us, we will find life.

What consumes you?  Is it God?  What consumes your soul today?

Is This Not the Man?

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This morning, as I was reading and praying, I was thinking about how hard it is to change.

We all have things in our lives we’d like to change.  We all have things in our lives we’d like to do different.

But, if you’re like me, you find that change is hard. We fall into routines, we do things the way that we’ve always done them, we pick up bad habits that are hard to drop.

And we can think, well, this is just the way that it is.  I won’t be able to change.  It is as it is, and this is just the way that it’s going to be.

I was thinking about change this morning, and I read this passage in Acts 9:

19b For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, 20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21 All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?”

The people ask of Paul, “Is this not the man that. . . ?”

Paul had changed.  But, if we remember the story of Paul, it wasn’t that he had enough will power to change. It wasn’t that he wanted it badly enough to change.  It wasn’t his desire to be changed that changed him.

It was God.

He had an encounter with God, and God changed him.  He was knocked off his donkey and the Lord changed him.

It was God that did it.  Not Paul.

Perhaps we are frustrated today because we are trying to do it ourselves and finding that we can’t.  Perhaps we finding that we don’t have enough will power. Perhaps we fall back into the old habits and feel guilty.  And feel like we can’t do.

And really, guess what?

We can’t do it.

Alone.  We can’t change ourselves by ourselves.

But God can.

What do you want to change today?  Give it to God. And give it again, and again, and again, and again.  Give it to Him each second, each minute, each hour.

Give it over and over again.

You will take it back.  I do, we all do.  Give it back.

God changed Paul to the point where folks couldn’t believe it was him.

He is still God. And He can still do it.

What do you want to change today?  Give it to Him.  Again and again.  And, He will change us.  For our good and for His glory.

Give it to Him.

Hope for a Monday

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So many of the Psalms have built into them a chorus.  A phrase that repeats itself throughout the Psalm.  I really like this about the Psalms.  It makes us keep coming back to the same point, it makes us keep remembering what is important; what is the thing that we need to remember.

In a Psalm I read today, Psalm 80, this was the refrain that kept coming back, over and over again:

3 Restore us, O God of hosts; *
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

The Psalm walks through the triumphs and defeats of Israel’s history.  It walks through the times when they had been faithful, as well as the times they had fallen on their face.

And, in both cases, this refrain is given – restore us oh God, Show us your light, and we shall be saved.

Today, our salvation doesn’t come from ourselves.  It doesn’t come from us being good enough.  It doesn’t come from us being perfect. It doesn’t come from anything we can do.  It comes from God.  All of it.  It all comes from God.

So, whether we are perfect and obey and do everything we are supposed to do.

Or,whether we mess up, fall down, stub our town and blow it.

It’s not about us.  It’s about God. It’s about what He’s done.

Place your hope today not in yourself and your might and your power.  Place it in God.  For it’s through Him we are saved, it’s through Him, we have hope, it’s through Him, we are restored.

Not of our own strength.  But from the light of countenance.

Rejoice in that today!  It’s gonna be a great day and a great week!  Rejoice in what God has done, rejoice in what God is doing, and rejoice in what God will do!

Good Reminders

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What is it in life that worries you?

What scares you?

What robs your sleep?

We’ve all got something.  Something that makes us uneasy, something that makes us fearful, something that keeps our hearts afraid.

What is that for you.

I’ve got a list of things that worry me.  I’m a worrier, it’s just how I’m wired.  I worry about church, I worry about family, I worry about friends. It’s just what I do.

So, I need to the words of Psalm 71 quite often

3 Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe; *
you are my crag and my stronghold.
4 Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked, *
from of the clutches of the evildoer and the oppressor.
5 For you are my hope, O LORD God, *
my confidence since I was young.

As big as my worries are, God is bigger.  As big as my problems are, God is bigger. As big as my stresses are, God is bigger.

And God is at work in all our lives. Do we really believe God led us to this point to leave us here?  Do we really think that God will abandon us after all these years?

God is with us. He is now, He has always been. He will be with us today and will be with us tomorrow.

What do we have to worry about?  What do we have to fear? Why do we have to be afraid?

We don’t.  God is with us.

I need to be reminded of that every once in a while.  Like today.

I don’t know if you needed this word this morning, but I did.

Thanks be to God, who is bigger than whatever it is we face.

Now, go out and live today with the confidence of being a child of God!