To Bring Him Joy

“ The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew 1:1 Abraham was the father of the nation so that is where Matthew started. David was God's chosen king- the only one of whom He said was a man after God's own heart. Though neither was perfect as is recorded in their stories in the Old Testament. But the women mentioned in this genealogy are what caught my attention this time as I was reading and starting writing this almost four months ago, sometime around Christmas. I was reading the passages pertaining to the birth of Christ and Matthew 1:1-17 arrested my attention. These women in the genealogy occupied my thoughts for a number of days. Women were not usually included in a genealogy in this day and time and so it is rather unusual that Matthew did include them. They are not included in the begets in Luke's gospel. Of course, the scriptures are God breathed and thus God had a purpose in each author writing what they did...

“ And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.” Nehemiah 8:9-12 ESV The women's ministry in our church, like many other churches, has women's Bible studies throughout the year. Recently, I had the honor of leading a small group discussion on our study through Nehemiah. Nehemia...

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this:‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Jesus  (Mark 12:30-31 ESV ) Ahh, this has been the prayer of my heart for some time now. I think that I have prayed it almost daily for my family for over 8 years now. It is usually what I pray when I wake up in the middle of the night. Many times when asked if I have any prayer requests this is what I ask for myself and my family. My prayer has gone something like this: Father God, please help Cary and I, Kayla, Katina, Keanan and Kenton to love You with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves -beginning with one another. Why have I made this my almost daily prayer? Because Jesus said that this is the greatest commandment and if I love God and love man I will fulfill all the commandments. ...

“ James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” James 1:1a HCSB I 've been reading the book of James in the Bible almost daily for several days now. It is so cool to take a book of the Bible and do this. It helps you to see so many things that you probably didn't notice before. I try to read the whole book at one sitting, after all, it was written like a letter. I know that we don't write or receive letters much any more, especially not long ones but I think if you were to receive one you would sit down and read the whole thing. I have done this with some other books of the Bible as our teaching pastor suggested it last year ; plus , some reading plans that I had seen also suggested it. Anyway, this year as those posts about reading the Bible through came up, I thought I needed to pick this up again and felt led to James. I was about to do this one day when God stopped me very short on this first half of the first verse. I was quite surprised beca...

     " Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving."   Colossians 2:6-7 ESV How often do we "abound in thanksgiving"?  It actually means: to overflow, to excel still more, to increase in excellence. I don't think that I can claim to excel in thanksgiving much less excel still more or increase in excellence. I am way behind when it comes to thanksgiving. It should be my daily attitude and practice but to often it is not. This is telling of a couple of major things: that I don't really know God, who He is and what He has done and I don't know myself, how sinful I am and what great need I have. Or I have lost focus, forgotten these most important things, it is the Gospel, after all. Throughout the Old Testament this phrase is repeated in some form over and over again: “Oh give thanks to the LORD for He is good, H...

I am not a huge sci-fi fan in general but I have gotten into some because of watching a few shows with my teenage sons and my 20 something daughters  (sometimes dad gets in on the watching action as well). We pick a show and start at the beginning and watch through as many seasons as are available.  The sci-fi started with Stargate Atlantis but now we are on Dr Who. Many times over the years after we have watched a movie or TV show I have asked my kids who was most like Jesus in that show and then we have a good discussion about it.  Sadly, there are more and more shows that there is no one to be found who is like Jesus at all. But what is amusing to me is when a show that is fairly anti-God, pro-super science accidentally gives a fairly good picture of the gospel! It is funny that things that we accept in our heroes we don't like, even hate about God.   This idea hit me when my youngest son was replaying his favorite narrative from one of the  recent shows ...

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing." James 1:23-25 ESV " So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." James 4:17 ESV I must confess that this is me way too often. I have been the beneficiary of hearing a lot. I have sat under gifted preachers and teachers most of my life. I have heard God's direction and followed and I have heard God's direction and skirted around it, done things to dull it, I have said with Moses, "but God I can't". Therefore, these verses hit me like a shot in the heart. I have known the ri...