Why? Because...

You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.
James 4:2 NLT

The Truth behind most fights and arguments is that someone is not getting what s/he wants or his/her own way. Why? Because they're living by the way of the world - the idea of doing whatever it takes to get what they want, no matter who gets run over in the process... as long as it's not them.

God's way is so different. It's all about putting someone else's needs before our own. Serving others while waiting on God. Preferring one another in love (Romans 12:10). Why? Because Christ set that example for us. He WANTED to bypass the Cross if there was any way to do that and still accomplish what our Father wanted (Luke 22:42). But there wasn't, so did He call the 10,000 angels to rescue Him? No. Why? Because everything Jesus did was about following the Father's perfect will.

Are we seeking the Father's will or still making our own plans and praying to ask God to approve them? If God says, "No", do we choose to accept His answer as perfect or choose the phone-a-friend option? If God is silent, do we wait for Him or forge ahead in our own strength, with our own plans to make something happen?  Psalm 27:14 NKJV reads, Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage. Why? Because when we do, it goes on to say, He shall strengthen your heart...

Prayer:

Father, 

           You are the cause of all things good and perfect. We want to know and follow Your perfect will. Give us the courage and strength of heart to be able to wait on You. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

Repost by Request -

For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

Colossians 1:19-20 NLT

I cannot always wrap my mind around the depth of God’s love for mankind or the lengths to which He goes to prove His unconditional love for the vilest of mankind, but I believe with every fiber of my being that God is everything Scripture proclaims Him to be. I thought I might need to preface today’s promise with that declaration of faith because I may throw something out here that maybe you’ve never thought about. On the other hand, maybe I’m the last to realize it. I finally realized today that God understands - on a very personal level - the stress in life when dealing with people...

In today’s society, there’s much to be said about stress. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Frederick Saunders, author and poet, provided this famous quote ~ Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.

American theologian, Danzae Pace, said this about stress - Stress is the trash of modern life - we all generate it but if you don't dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life.

I agree with both of those, but the quote that actually comes closer to my personal definition of it is this - Stress: The confusion created when one's mind overrides the body's basic desire to choke the living daylights out of whoever is not following one’s preferred plan…

God knows what it feels like to be angry. He knows first-hand the frustration and stress caused by people not following the preferred plan. It started in the Garden of Eden, remember? And how about those Israelites in the wilderness? And then in the Promised Land? And then...?

I don’t know about you, but when I get stressed in or about a situation and it becomes prolonged, I want to rid myself of it. Cut it off, kill it – whatever it takes to be gone. I want to be done with it. If I get to that place and I can see no change in sight or no hope of change, then I find myself at a crossroad – an intersection where I can choose what suits my flesh (which is to cut and run) or I can choose to follow God. If I choose to follow God’s example, I have to properly weigh all the components to determine the best outcome of love in action for all involved. First and foremost, I must recognize and understand what hangs in the balance.

That's what God did. He weighed it all - all the sin and evil and wickedness of all mankind for all time - and chose His love over killing all of us and wiping out the human race.

When we hit that intersection, we must recognize and understand what hung in the balance. It was His Son.

In the book And the Angels Were Silent, Max Lucado defines it best - 

Calvary is a hybrid of God’s lofty status and His deep devotion. The thunderclap which echoed when God’s sovereignty collided with His love. The marriage of heaven’s kingship and heaven’s compassion. The very instrument of the cross is symbolic, the vertical beam of holiness intersecting the horizontal bar of love.

For God in all His fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through Him God reconciled everything to Himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s Blood on the Cross.

The Cross. The intersection of holiness and love - the perfect drop-off location for our load of stress.

Prayer:

Father,

Thank You for creating the ultimate intersection and loving us in spite of our selfishness. Set us free from our own road hazards. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

Come, Let Us Sing

O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
Psalm 95:1-3 KJV

I was in Miss Richardson's seventh grade music theory/sight reading class at Sydney Lanier Junior High in Houston, Texas - longer ago than any of us wants to remember. She taught the beauty of blended voices; two-, three-, four-, and even five-part harmony! It was there in that college-sized classroom that I first imagined what Heaven's choir might sound like as the acapella voices choreographed in perfect harmony rang out in strains of the Navy Hymn, ♪♫ Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm doth bind the restless wave...♪♫

For years, I was adamant about perfection of the parts. Always striving for perfection. Then one day, I was prompted to read this Scripture passage again, so I did. Again. So I did. Again! What was I missing? 

Our Promise for Today reads make a joyful noise. It doesn't say one thing about perfection. It says absolutely nothing about perfect harmony or carrying the melody line. 

So, even if you can't carry a tune in a bucket with handles and help - Come let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise unto the Lord our God - for He is a great God! And worthy to be praised!

Prayer:

Father,
            We come, singing unto You. We will make a joyful noise to You - the rock of our salvation. We come before Your presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto You with words of praise. For You are a great God, and a great King above all gods. We want to worship You in Spirit and in Truth. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

If We Believe

For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
James 2:26 KJ21

Do you ever wonder why you do some of the things you do - the ones you wish you didn't do? Are you willing to seek and find the answer, the root of why?

The Truth is - What we believe determines our actions. I'm not talking about mental assent; agreeing with the possibility or likelihood of something. I'm talking about truly believing. For instance, how about God?

Mental assent agrees there is a God or likely a 'higher power', but it really doesn't change the way the he/she conducts business or treats others. Mental assent assumes he/she is basically a good person and that all 'good' people go to heaven. 

Truly believing that God is who He says He is will change your life. It will change the way you do business, the way you treat all others (not just those you know.) It will change your priorities and your activities in life. It will change how and where you spend your hard-earned money. Yes, your money...

True faith in God and His Word will cause us to do good works. If we believe.

Prayer:

Father,
          We want our faith to be alive and growing in You. Open Your Word to us in new ways. Reveal Yourself to us so that we may be more and more like You. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen 

Treasure Hunting

This is what I have asked of God for you: that you will be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love, and that you will have the rich experience of knowing Christ with real certainty and clear understanding. For God’s secret plan, now at last made known, is Christ himself. In him lie hidden all the mighty, untapped treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Colossians 2:2-3 The Living Bible

Did you ever hunt treasure when you were a child? What a great adventure! Quartz that sparkled like diamonds; iron pyrite that you just knew was real gold. And the wealth of it was going to solve all your problems. How sad you might have been to discover that while pretty to look at and sparkly to behold, your young dreams were dashed by the reality of imitation minerals and stones.

What treasures do you seek now? Things that sparkle and shine? Where are you digging for the buried treasure? Is your map reliable?

If we will seek the treasures that are eternal, we have the perfect map - Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Verse 3 of our text for today tells it perfectly, For God’s secret plan, now at last made known, is Christ himself. In Him lie hidden all the mighty, untapped treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Let's not settle for shiny imitations. Let us seek our True Treasure - the One whose light will always shine true for us.

Prayer:

Father,
            Thank You for providing everything we need for the grandest adventure of all. Help us to walk firmly in the paths You have laid out for us. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

*The S Word

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. 

Romans 12:1-2a NLT

The S word... Sacrifice.

When I think of sacrifice, I think of death. Something has to be killed to be considered a sacrifice - whether it was a bull in biblical times or the desires today that we choose to lay down (kill) within ourselves. Our Promise for Today is about giving our bodies to God as a LIVING and holy sacrifice - so basically to lay ourselves on His altar...

And to stop crawling off the altar to get away from the fire of His holiness.

Just something to think about.

Prayer:

Father,

          Please continue to draw us closer so that the dross and impurities in our lives are burned away in the fire of Your holy presence. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

WWW

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2nd Timothy 3:16-17 NIV

How often do we utilize the world-wide web (www) to find answers to our questions? I am amazed (and often dismayed) at what can be found by typing a few words into a favorite search engine. Although, I once tore down a washing machine, fixed it and put it back together based on what I'd found on the WWW.

However, often times, a minute piece of information may be omitted, be incorrect or not verified (such as in Wikipedia), but perhaps we don't find out until it's already too late. Or we take everything at face value because it's written in black and white. That can make for some troubling times.

There is only one truly trustworthy source of information. I use it as my personal search engine. It's the WWW that never leaves me dismayed. It doesn't leave anything out of the equation, so I can always get the information - ALL the information - that I need. You know I'm talking about the Bible. It's God's Words, Way and Will for our lives. WWW. Go ahead. Search for anything. It has all the answers.

Prayer:

Father,
          Give us wisdom in how to better search out Your Holy Scriptures for the answers we need to live our lives for You. Continue to provide Your strength so that we will be thoroughly equipped for every good work. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen