Today's Beginning

Psalm 67:6-7 (NLT), "Then the earth will yield its harvests, and God our God, will richly bless us. Yes, God bless us, and people all over the world will fear him." Monday... Do we really know what to do? We think we do, but do we really? I love how the Psalmist puts it in Psalm 67:6-7 (NLT). It says, "Then the earth will yield its harvests, and God our God, will richly bless us. Yes, God bless us, and people all over the world will fear him." We think we do, we really do think we know what to do. We think we have the answers and that all our blessings come because of us. We think we know what to do. Over in the book of Jeremiah the kings of Judah and Israel would bring Jeremiah a prophet of God to them to tell them what God said to him about their situation. I think they wanted affirmation that they knew what to do but they never listened to what Jeremiah said. Jeremiah 37:2 says, "But neither King Zedekiah nor his attendants nor the people who were left in th...

2 Corinthians 5:7 (NLT), "For we live by believing and not by seeing." Friday... We want to know exactly. We want so much to have a picture that we can see. Now there are a lot of questions about our future life and also about heaven. So many books have been written from what people think than from what God has said. But this is important for us to see. 2 Corinthians 5:7 (NLT) says, "For we live by believing and not by seeing." We too many times want an exact picture, we want to know exactly. And heaven is one of those things we want a picture of but that is not how God works. If he wants us to know exactly then he will tell us. And he hasn't given us a specific view about what heaven will look like but we still want to know exactly. Some want to know how we will look in heaven. What kind of body will we have. Now there are some things that God will tell us. Here in 2 Corinthians 5 he says in verse 3, "For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spir...

Psalm 63:7-8 (NLT), "Because you are my helper, I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your strong right hand holds me securely." Thursday... Life has its complications and opportunities. Yes it does but we don't need to go it alone. We really don't. I love how David puts it in Psalm 63:7-8 (NLT), "Because you are my helper, I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your strong right hand holds me securely." David tells us in verse 1 who he is talking about. He says, "O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land." And I love how he puts it in verse 8, "I cling to you; your strong right hand holds me securely." Yes, life has its complications and opportunities but we don't need to go it alone. Over in Jeremiah 33 the prophet writes in verses 1-3, "While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the...

Psalm 62:11b-12 (NLT), "Power O God, belongs to you; unfailing love, O Lord, is yours. Surely you repay all people according to what they have done." Wednesday... Yes, He is what we need. As individuals, we each have different needs. A lot of times they come from what we got or didn't get from our parents. But we do have needs. Now some want power. They had parents who stood up for them no matter what or some who didn't. They backed away because of fear or weakness. Or maybe it is love. They don't know what real love is or they had loving parents. Yes we have different expectations and needs. David in Psalm 62 in verses 11b-12 (NLT) says, "Power O God, belongs to you; unfailing love, O Lord, is yours. Surely you repay all people according to what they have done." Yes, God is powerful and he is not just loving, He is love. And it is amazing when this is true, where we turn for our needs to be met. Jeremiah prays in 32:17-19, "O Sovereign LORD! You ma...

2 Corinthian 2:8 (NLT), "So I urge you to reaffirm your love for him." Tuesday... There is more to correcting. For some, it is so easy to correct. They can have an I am better than you attitude and that definitely isn't good. But there are times that we need to correct and here in the church in Corinth, Paul in his first letter had to encourage the church to do some correcting of a man they loved but who needed to be corrected because he was hurting the church. He was a definite problem. Sometimes because of love we want to let things slide because of the hurt correcting would cause. Yes, there can be pain. Here in his second letter Paul says in 2:5-6, "I am not overstating it when I say that the man who caused all the trouble hurt all of you more than he hurt me. Most of you opposed him, and that was punishment enough." As I said, for some it is easy to correct but for others it isn't. But there are times when we have to correct and they did and now Paul co...

2 Corinthians 1:3 (NLT), "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort." Monday... So what do we do? We can go through difficult times and they can bring up a lot of questions. Now the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the church at Corinth starts out talking about troubles. In 1:8 (NLT) he says, "We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sister, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would not live through it." Now earlier in this chapter in verse 3 he writes, "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort." And no matter what we are going though that is such an important truth for us to remember and to share. Yes in those times of trouble we need comfort and God is our source. And then Paul writes in verse 4, "H...