Smiling with God...

“So, if you think your are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. but when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so you can stand up under it.” 1 Corinthians 10:11-12 I know everyone pick this verse, and says, “God will give you a way out.” Yes that is true, but there is so much more to what Paul is saying here. First he warns us from verse 11; “So if you think you are standing firm... be careful....” What a warning. He outlines here that temptation doesn’t happen in the darkest, dangerous, or the most depressing times in your life. It appears when it looks like you have it all going for you. After the temptation that is when the dogs come out. That is when the hunt begins, the time where you think you have it all together, then boom, your tempted to fall. But that is where the beauty of the verse begins. Now Paul outlines

So Joshua said to the Israelites,“How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?” Joshua 18:3 By now Joshua is old. He must have been leading the Israelites for like almost 40 years. And now after all of that the Israelites still haven’t distributed the land among them. But here, they finally do it. The finally decide to break it up and distribute it. They finally participate in the spoils. But it’s how they divided up the land. First they made it a point to distribute (Josh 18:3), then they appointed leaders to survey the land and describe it (18:4). They brought everything back to Joshua and he then went to the Lord and let God distribute (18:6). Good process to follow. If you examine it, you can take the situation and apply it to any problem. First you must address it, then you get an account of what was exactly the situation, and when it is all sorted, you go and pray over it and allow God to

Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.” Joshua 3:5 What a talk. What a charge. Consecrate yourself! Man, if a leader told me that before I was about to enter a promise land. I would be psyched! That means you know God is going to do some something awesome. When I saw this I immediately was drawn to this verse. God was about to bust out the hammer, and bring out the bacon. He was stepping to the plate and getting ready to hit a home run. He ask His people to consecrate themselves and get ready for something great. So after I read this I got to thinking, how come God don’t do anything like this now? I mean how come no one says to me, “consecrate yourself!”? Yes, I know that this is a special time for the Israelites and they were going over to conquer in the promise land. But I know that this just sparked expectancy in their hearts. They must have become more aware that the next day was going to be awesome. S

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.” 2 Corinthians 2:12 This is what I like about Paul. His utter reliance upon the Spirit of God. Here he states and makes and makes a case on how closely he relies upon the Spirit of God. He knows that with absolute certainty that there isn’t anything worthy of doing unless you rely upon the Spirit of God. He then goes on to make the case that he does this because of the intricate wisdom and insight you can get when you are tapped into such a power. Paul states in some of his observations: “the spirit not content to flirt around on the surface, dives into the depths of God and brings out what God planned along.” “Spiritually alive we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing...” and finally, Paul answers a question from Isaiah “Is there anyone around who knows God’s Spirit. anyone knows what he is doing? it has been answered: Christ

“But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and fi you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.” Deuteronomy 30:3 God is straight forward. You really don’t need a Master’s degree to know what to do for God. He gives the commands and we have a choice, follow, or not to follow. It’s not that hard. But here we see that it is important to follow and to make sure that your heart is in it all the way. God knew that one day the descendants of the Israelites would turn away from Him. He knew that one day the kids would hear the stories and it would just be regulated to mythical belief. He knew that it would one day be that the God who did all the miracles during this time would be forgotten in the history books of their culture. Shouldn’t surprise anyone, it happens. History has proven it, that as cultures d

“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” Galatians 5:16 Living in the Spirit that is what Paul has asked the believers here go do. He outlines that by living in the Spirit you will not gratify your sinful nature. You will not focus in upon the things that are not good for you. By living in the Spirit you will do things that will gratify God. So the question is, why do we not live this type of life. Obviously this will always be a problem, the Galatians had this problem, and it does not look like we are any different. But to live in the Spirit, to really be focused in upon the Lord you can live free and your actions will be glorified to God. How do you get to this point? Love God, draw to Him, and grow closer to Him. So now poses the question. How much do I live by the Spirit. Really if I am truly honest with myself. Not much. I can only pray that God will guide me and direct me more. This is what I truly desire to live in

“Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death, you must purge the evil from among you...” Deut 21:21 “You must not desecrate the land that Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.” Deut 21:22b Kind of an interesting study in Deuteronomy, God lays down the law that reveals what to do in war and also what to do if you accidently killed someone. What is interesting to see is the theme that God is going after here. He is striving to keep the land Holy. That there is no unrighteousness or wrongdoing in the land. He stresses swift justice in order to maintain the integrity of the place they are in. What is interesting is God is showing the importance and the seriousness of righteousness. I think the one theme here is to purge, purge the evil in my life. Purge even the accidental evil that was committed. Be swift and be quick to eradicate the bad. Kind of like a colon cleanse. It’s tough but it does take out all the stuff. I did it one time. I went through the whole

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put everything- all she had to live on.” Mark 12:43-44 Jesus here takes his time to point out to his disciples that on what the sacrifice this widow was making. Normally, tithing was the norm and others gave, while others gave a lot more. Everyone saw rich people and normal people putting money into the pot, but here Jesus takes his time to point out that this woman here gave it all. She went all in. Much like how Caleb and Joshua came back to report to the Israelites about the promise land that, it was conquerable, and with they had no fear of what was to come. They had total trust in the Lord that He would fulfill his promise. Here is are two examples of what it means to go all in. Often times in my life I get caught up in my emotions. I think of times where I said things like, “Y