shadow

WE NEED A LAND HEALING

In 1974 Coca Cola came out with a commercial song called It’s the Real Thing. This little ditty took the airwaves by storm for several years and had everybody in the country humming the tune and pattin’ their feet. “It’s the real thing … what the world wants today,” the young people sang. And so it is today. People everywhere are looking for something real …”the real thing.”

Click the link below, pat your foot along with me, and listen to the song. Then click back into today’s Dose of Encouragement as we start our week with a question. How do you know “the real thing” when you see it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDSnjjdGh5M

 

WE NEED A LAND HEALING

if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

On Monday I talked about the day Jesus blasted the Sanhedrin, the governing body of religious and political leaders of His day, the conservatives, and the liberals. They were misleading the people – speaking lies to them as if the lies were the truth. They considered their man-made laws not just equal with God’s law, but above God’s law. At one point Jesus said they’d placed so many laws on the people it was impossible for anyone to obey them all. And he called them hypocrites for it.

In the process of putting their own laws above God’s, they totally left out the things the people needed most all. In

Matthew 23:23 (NLT) He said,

“…but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith…    

The Sanhedrin was made up of both the religious leaders and the governing leaders. It was the church house and what Americans call the White House all in one. The leaders adopted their own agendas – their own ideas and beliefs that often had no resemblance to the Word – the educational training – that the Lord had given to them through the years. They had adopted their own way and sent God’s teaching down the highway. And in the end, it led to the destruction of the nation.

So, as we go to the polls and vote for our Sanhedrin – let us take our cue from those in the Scriptures who listened to the wrong crowd – and let’s send up a cry for our nation that we would repent and turn back to God and His ways. For as it is written
…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV)

May we return to Him and see the healing of our land.

Until Next Time,

Your Traveling Partner,

Brenda

LISTEN TO THE RIGHT GUY!

In 1974 Coca Cola came out with a commercial song called It’s the Real Thing. This little ditty took the airwaves by storm for several years and had everybody in the country humming the tune and pattin’ their feet. “It’s the real thing … what the world wants today,” the young people sang. And so it is today. People everywhere are looking for something real …”the real thing.”

Click the link below, pat your foot along with me, and listen to the song. Then click back into today’s Dose of Encouragement as we start our week with a question. How do you know “the real thing” when you see it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDSnjjdGh5M

 

LISTEN TO THE RIGHT GUY!

“But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.”

2 Peter 2:1

Well, I might as well address the white elephant in the room. It’s silly season. Our nation is embroiled in a viciously divided election battle that is bringing hypocrites out of the woodwork. In our day, we have republicans and democrats, conservatives and liberals. In Jesus’ day, they had Pharisees (conservatives) and Sadducees (liberals). And they fought just like their counterparts fight today.

Everybody claims to be a pundit – a teacher of authority who starts sentences with “I think”, or “I believe.” But I am not going to do that. It’s not about me or what I believe. What I am going to do is listen to the One Who really is the authority so I won’t be deceived. And I will offer His words for our encouragement and for our wisdom.

Again and again the Gospels record Jesus’ strong rebuke of those who said they were people of God yet lived and led others in direct opposition to the Word of God. The majority chose to follow the popular agenda being spouted by the leaders instead of standing on the Truth of His Word. And they ended up losing their country because of it. Sound familiar?

As we go to the polls next year, I beg you not to listen to the political parties of our day, but listen to the truth of God’s Word. Not a single one of the candidates running will line up totally to it because we all fall short of perfection. But we can vote for those candidates who line up most closely with the truths of His Word this country was founded upon, and who – and this is where the rubber meets the road – live and govern the way they SAY they believe. Remember our verse this week from I John 2:4? Listen also to Jesus’ voice in John 10:27-28:

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 

 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; 

no one will snatch them out of my hand.”(NLT)

Some don’t like to hear this, but our country was founded on the truths of God’s Word. It was founded on the principle that the God of the Bible is our God. To prove it and cast it in stone, Bible verses were chiseled in concrete monuments all over our capital city of Washington D.C. – and still point us to what this country was founded upon.

Until tomorrow,

Your Traveling Companion,

Brenda

LYING LIPS

In 1974 Coca Cola came out with a commercial song called It’s the Real Thing. This little ditty took the airwaves by storm for several years and had everybody in the country humming the tune and pattin’ their feet. “It’s the real thing … what the world wants today,” the young people sang. And so it is today. People everywhere are looking for something real …”the real thing.”

Click the link below, pat your foot along with me, and listen to the song. Then click back into today’s Dose of Encouragement as we start our week with a question. How do you know “the real thing” when you see it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDSnjjdGh5M

 

LYING LIPS

“The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth.”

Proverbs 12:22

What happens to a person who hears the truth, rejects it, but then pretends to believe it? One look at the life of Judas Iscariot will show us.

“But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor – he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples money, he often stole some for himself.”

John 12:4-6 (NLT)

John 12:4-6 gives us the key; Judas was a pretender. He pretended to believe what Jesus taught, but he didn’t. He pretended to be a God follower, but he wasn’t. He hung around for what he could get out of it personally. Judas was more interested in his own agenda than he was in the purpose to which Jesus had called him. The deceptive hypocrisy led to his utter destruction.

In that day many believed Jesus had come as a conquering king to rescue them from the politics of the day – from a king that oppressed the people. Judas even liked that Jesus fed the hungry and healed the sick, but he was more interested in how Jesus could benefit him personally and bring to pass his personal and political agenda. He liked what he thought was this new up and coming political leader could do to pad his own pockets. So he pretended to believe.

But, when Jesus would do or say something that didn’t match Judas’ agenda, he would show his disapproval. In John 14:22 he questioned Jesus’ motives when he asked why He wouldn’t reveal who He was to the whole world – right then. Within days of John 12:4-6 above – the encounter with Mary’s perfume and his displeasure with Jesus’ answer – Judas went to the very hypocrites Jesus had rebuked. There he secretly offered to hand Jesus over for 30 pieces of silver. And so he did.

He sold his own soul to pad his pockets with 30 pieces of silver. He insisted on his own agenda instead of God’s for 30 pieces of silver. He was so certain his political agenda was right, that for about three month’s wages, he turned his back on God.

In this climate of political unrest, let us ask ourselves, “Is my own personal agenda worth turning my back on God’s Word and plan – for any price?”

“Oh Lord, let me hear your voice and your voice alone –

not that of my own or any other person jockeying for positions of authority

in this deceived world in which we live.”

Until tomorrow,

Your Traveling Companion

Brenda