And in the end, what do you live for, what keeps you going, what inspires you and moves you, what makes your life worth living, what is the source of your joy and happiness?
If you can answer that, then you have a higher, worthy life. Otherwise you are not much different than the lower animals, just surviving and doing the basic biological demands of living, reproducing, and dying.
For me to live is to follow and obey God's Will.
How about you?
Consider today's meditation by Charles Spurgeon:
October 7
Morning
“Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant?” Num_11:11
Our heavenly Father sends us frequent troubles to try our faith. If our faith be worth anything, it will stand the test. Gilt is afraid of fire, but gold is not: the paste gem dreads to be touched by the diamond, but the true jewel fears no test. It is a poor faith which can only trust God when friends are true, the body full of health, and the business profitable; but that is true faith which holds by the Lord’s faithfulness when friends are gone, when the body is sick, when spirits are depressed, and the light of our Father’s countenance is hidden. A faith which can say, in the direst trouble, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,” is heaven-born faith. The Lord afflicts his servants to glorify himself, for he is greatly glorified in the graces of his people, which are his own handiwork. When “tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope,” the Lord is honoured by these growing virtues. We should never know the music of the harp if the strings were left untouched; nor enjoy the juice of the grape if it were not trodden in the winepress; nor discover the sweet perfume of cinnamon if it were not pressed and beaten; nor feel the warmth of fire if the coals were not utterly consumed. The wisdom and power of the great Workman are discovered by the trials through which his vessels of mercy are permitted to pass. Present afflictions tend also to heighten future joy. There must be shades in the picture to bring out the beauty of the lights. Could we be so supremely blessed in heaven, if we had not known the curse of sin and the sorrow of earth? Will not peace be sweeter after conflict, and rest more welcome after toil? Will not the recollection of past sufferings enhance the bliss of the glorified? There are many other comfortable answers to the question with which we opened our brief meditation, let us muse upon it all day long.
Evening
“Now on whom dost thou trust?” Isa_36:5
Reader, this is an important question. Listen to the Christian’s answer, and see if it is yours. “On whom dost thou trust?”
“I trust,” says the Christian, “in a triune God.
I trust the Father, believing that he has chosen me from before the foundations of the world; I trust him to provide for me in providence, to teach me, to guide me, to correct me if need be, and to bring me home to his own house where the many mansions are.
I trust the Son. Very God of very God is he-the man Christ Jesus. I trust in him to take away all my sins by his own sacrifice, and to adorn me with his perfect righteousness. I trust him to be my Intercessor, to present my prayers and desires before his Father’s throne, and I trust him to be my Advocate at the last great day, to plead my cause, and to justify me. I trust him for what he is, for what he has done, and for what he has promised yet to do.
And I trust the Holy Spirit-he has begun to save me from my inbred sins; I trust him to drive them all out; I trust him to curb my temper, to subdue my will, to enlighten my understanding, to check my passions, to comfort my despondency, to help my weakness, to illuminate my darkness; I trust him to dwell in me as my life, to reign in me as my King, to sanctify me wholly, spirit, soul, and body, and then to take me up to dwell with the saints in light for ever.”
Oh, blessed trust! To trust him whose power will never be exhausted, whose love will never wane, whose kindness will never change, whose faithfulness will never fail, whose wisdom will never be nonplussed, and whose perfect goodness can never know a diminution!
Happy art thou, reader, if this trust is thine! So trusting, thou shalt enjoy sweet peace now, and glory hereafter, and the foundation of thy trust shall never be removed.
The Christian Life is a life of incredibly difficult, seemingly unnatural acts. We are to love, forgive, help, share, care, endure, sacrifice, be humble, contrite, pure, and other humanly impossible tasks. No natural human being can do all this. On top of all that we are to believe on a figure of history from thousands of years ago, accept Him as the Son of God, come to Him in humble, contrite state of mind, accept His absolution and redemption, and call upon this Jesus as the Savior, the great Redeemer of our lives and our souls. We are then to go forth and live a Godly, blessed lives as a blessing to others.
OK, not too bad a deal! Do able. Acceptable. Good news indeed!
Consider today's thoughts from James Ryle:
October 6
The Exemplary Life
"Live an exemplary life." (1 Peter 2:12, The Message).
Exemplary means "serving as a commendable pattern to be imitated." No pressure here, but may I ask what about your life as a follower of Jesus would others say is exemplary?
If the question leaves you a bit unsettled that's a good thing. Because it shows that you at least care.
Some of us squirm out of false humility. "Aw shucks," we reply, "why, golly, there's nothing in me that even comes close to being like Jesus." Oh, grow up!
Others of us squirm for more substantial reasons. We know two things. One, we are called to something better. And two, we are settling for less.
Peter said, "Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul." (1 Peter 2:11).
Jesus wants to fill us each with His spirit, thereby making our lives exemplary. He wants us to be good friends, good parents, good neighbors, good employees, good employers, good people. So good, in fact, that even those who otherwise oppose us cannot help but commend our lives.
This is do-able. So. let's do it!
The key is being filled with His Spirit.
May God fill you with His Holy Spirit today and always.
Wednesday and the week is well underway. Much was done yesterday on Tuesday, with catch up and clean up today on Wednesday. Thursdays are for cleaning up, Fridays for finishing touches... and so it seems.
Yet each day is a fresh start, each day is one to live for God and let God live through us. Each day is a new and glorious day.
But, this world is demanding, this world is full of cares and troubles. Consider these thoughts from George Morrison:
October 5
Chapter 23
The Perils of Unsettlement
None of these things move me— Act_20:24
These Words Paul Spoke on His Way to Jerusalem
Paul was journeying to Jerusalem when he spoke the words of our text. They were addressed to the elders of Ephesus whom he had summoned to meet him at Miletus. It was a journey attended by much hazard, and Paul was aware how hazardous it was. The spirit of prophecy, in every city, had testified to the hardships that awaited him. Yet though bonds and imprisonment were in his prospect, and perhaps a shadow darker than imprisonment, the apostle was able to say in all sincerity that none of these things moved him. With an unwavering and undaunted heart he held to the route that he had planned. Like his master, in a still darker hour, he set his face stedfastly towards Jerusalem. In other words, this great apostle had overcome the perils of unsettlement, and it is on the perils of unsettlement that I should like to speak for a little while this evening
The Prospect of Christ's Return Provided the Spirit of Unsettlement
Now no one can read the New Testament without observing that this was one of the deadliest perils of the apostolic church. However fiercely other evils tried them, this one seems to have had peculiar power. The early Christians, like the Elizabethan mariners, had broken into an untravelled sea. They were beyond the experience of the ages. They lived in the daily hope that Christ was coming And all this wrought such a ferment in their hearts, and seemed to release them so from common obligations, that with all its victories and all its virtues the early church was a-quiver with unsettlement. Men threw their tools down and refused to work. They studied everything save their own business. Why should they take provident care against tomorrow when at sunrise tomorrow Christ might come again? So did there spread through apostolic days a spirit of unquiet and unrest, and men, through the very wonder of it all, were prone to be unbalanced for a little.
We Too Are Beset by an Age of Unsettlement
But though circumstances are very different now, this peculiar danger has not vanished. Today, not less than in the days of Pentecost, we are beset by the perils of unsettlement. I am not speaking of the characteristics of the age, though it is the fashion to call this an unsettled age. I take it that every age which has had life in it has been an unsettled and unsettling age.
I speak rather of these large experiences which befall each of us upon our journey when I say that we are still exposed to the swift and subtle perils of unsettlement. Sometimes they reach us through a staggering sorrow which lays the palace in ruins at our feet. Sometimes through the thrilling of good news, or the excitement or variety of travel. Sometimes through the calling of the summertime, with its mystery of light and beauty, touching our hearts and strangely stirring them with cravings which we cannot well interpret. In such ways, and in other ways as evident, are we all in danger of unsettlement. We lose our grip on what we used to cling to. We begin to drag our anchors unexpectedly. We are restless and know not what we want, and we lack the unity that makes for power, and so do we learn out of our own experience the perils which the apostle mastered.
Unsettlement Caused by the Monotony of Life
Indeed, the very concentration of today leads to the intensifying of this danger. When life is narrowed into a dull routine, unsettlement is very easily wrought. In the old days, when life was larger, men were less ready to be thrown off their balance. Familiar with a wider range of circumstance, they were not so lightly moved away by novelty. But now when that large liberty is gone, and men have to concentrate unceasingly, they have lost the power of responding quietly to what is new or strange or unexpected. They are more easily cast out of their reckoning than men who traveled across a larger field. When life is monotonous, even a little incident has the power of disturbing greatly. And so the very monotony of labor, which is so characteristic of today, makes it an easier thing to be unsettled.
Unsettlement Is the Pain and Privilege of Youth
Let me say in passing that this is a peril from which no man can hope to be exempted. No quiet sheltering of home or task will ward off the inroad of unsettlement. It is true that as life advances it grows less. With the passing of years comes the passing of unrest. In the fulness of its disturbing strength, unsettlement is the pain and privilege of youth. Yet God has so ordered this strange life of ours that into every lot, however sheltered, sooner or later there break out of the infinite those things which are mighty to unsettle. There are perils which we can shun in prudence. We can shape our course so as to avoid them. But this is a peril which we cannot shun, though we had all the wisdom of Athene. Suddenly a great sorrow is upon us, or the thrilling of unexpected joy, or we waken to hear, with hearts that burn within us, the calling of another summertime. From such disturbance there is no escape. We cannot expel the angels when they visit us. We must open the door to them and bid them welcome, and say, "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord." Only thus can we hope to use for good that recurring disturbance of the heart which falls upon us all, in diverse ways, amid the joys and sorrows of humanity.
Unsettlement Makes our Work Harder to Perform
Well now, let us consider one or two of the evils of unsettlement, and the first and most evident perhaps is this, that it makes our work harder to perform. For most men work is hard enough, even when they give to it an undivided mind. It takes every power and faculty which they possess to be honest toilers in the sight of heaven. But work becomes doubly hard for all of us, and to certain natures grows well-nigh impossible when these powers are inwardly distracted and will not answer the summons of the hour. It is not easy to do the common duty under the shadow of overwhelming sorrow. It is not easy to ply the daily task under the new glow of a great joy. It is not easy to take the burden up and to go quietly to our familiar place when the glad and open world is calling us. That is the commonest peril of unsettlement, and I take it there is no one here but knows it. Labor grows irksome; duty becomes irritating; drudgery is well-nigh intolerable. And yet this drudgery, for every one of us, from the dullard to the loftiest genius, is the one road that leads, o'er moor and fen, to the sunrise and the welcome and the crown.
Unsettlement Relaxes the Hold of Our Good Habits
Another peril of unsettlement is this, that it relaxes the hold of our good habits. We come to find, in our unsettled hours, that they do not hold us so firmly as we thought. Most of us are the creatures of habit in a far larger measure than we think. If it is to them that we owe many a weakness, it is to them also that we owe many a virtue. There are few men who can look back upon their lives, with gratitude to God that they have done a little, without recognizing what a debt they owe to one or two habits which were early formed. Such habits may be very simple, yet they have a wonderfully redeeming power. They redeem every day from being wasted and every energy from being ineffectual. If a bad habit is the worst of curses and leads by the road of bondage to the dark, a good habit, through the grace of God, is one of our surest and most priceless blessings. Now it is always one peril of unsettlement that it relaxes the hold of our good habits. It lifts us out of the embrace of good ones and throws us into the embrace of evil ones. For always, when we lose our self-control, sin, as the Scripture says, coucheth at the door waiting to call us to what we practiced once but have long through the grace of God forsworn. All men have a hunger for the good, but all men have a bias to the evil. It is that bias which the devil uses in the season of a man's unsettlement. Torn from his center by unexpected incidence, caught into new and strange environment, a man is in peril because his grip is weakened on the steadying and simple habits of his past.
Unsettlement Is the Enemy of Prayer Regularity
And especially, will you let me say in passing; is this true of the sweet habits of the interior life. Unsettlement is the peculiar enemy of regularity in private prayer. I take it that most men pray in secret. I trust I am not mistaken in so thinking It may be only a few words— it may be very formal— yet is it better than no prayer at all.
But who does not know how this interior grace, which we may have learned beside a mother's knee, is apt to be shed off like an old garment when the hour of unsettlement arrives. I grant you that in a great catastrophe there is an instinct in the heart to pray. It is often then, when all the deeps are broken, that the pride which never prayed is broken too. But in all the lesser unsettlements of life when there is disturbance only, not catastrophe, there is the constant peril of forgetting the sweet and secret exercise of prayer. I have known men who prayed through years of drudgery, and who ceased it when great good fortune came. I have known men who prayed right through the winter, yet somehow in summer they forgot to pray. I have known men— yes, and women too— who would never have dreamed of omitting prayer at home, who yet omitted it, not once only, amid the excitement and the stir of foreign travel. That is a grave peril of unsettlement. There is not one of us but is exposed to it. It is appalling how lightly we are held by the secret habits of the interior life. A glimpse of liberty, a day of sunshine, a stroke of luck, a touch of one we love, and it may be— God only knows— that we shall throw ourselves upon a prayerless bed tonight.
Resolute Continuance Is a Mark of a Great Character
Now it is always one mark of a great character not to be easily or lightly moved. A certain quiet and fine stability is generally one of the hallmarks of the noble. When Saul was chosen to be king of Israel and when the people shouted "God save the king," we could scarce have wondered if that swift elevation had unsettled him and turned his head a little. And it has always been held as a proof of Saul's nobility that he passed with a quiet heart through that great hour, and with the cry of the people in his ears went back to guide his father's plough again. Of course there are natures more prone than others to yield to the pressure of unsettlement. There are dogged natures and responsive natures, and there always shall be till the trumpet sounds. Still speaking broadly and generally, we may say that to be unsettled lightly is a bad sign, and that one mark of nobility of character is a quiet and resolute continuance. The question is then how we, not being great, can hope to attain to that continuance. How can we organize into victory the common perils of unsettlement?
Aloofness Is Not the Answer to Unsettlement
Let me say first, and in a negative way, that it is but a sorry victory to stand aloof. It is not thus, as I understand my Bible, that God would have his children live. There are men who never take a holiday, they are so filled with dread of its disturbances. Knowing how certainly it will unsettle them, they prefer to forego it altogether. And while in the aged or the infirm of body such a reluctance is easily understood, with others it is a road to peace that is perilously near to cowardice. We were never meant to live our lives so. We were never meant to bar the gates like that. To shut the summer out, and to shut love out, is not victory, it is defeat. In many of the choicest gifts of God there is a terrible power of unsettlement, and a Christian was never meant to reject the gift because of the unsettlement it brings. There was once a philosophy which wrought along these lines. It was called the Stoical philosophy. It sought to achieve serenity of life by steeling the soul against the passions. And do you know what happened as a fact of history? Well, I shall tell you what actually happened— one of two results was found in life. Sometimes men won the serenity they craved, but they won it at a tremendous cost. For love was banished and the charm of things and the touch of sympathy that makes us brothers. And sometimes in the very hour of victory, nature, trampled on, rose to her rights again and in her passionate and overmastering way swept down the defenses they had built.
It is no use fighting against nature. It is worse than useless fighting against God. We are not here to stand aloof from things and to steel our hearts against disturbances. We are here to welcome whatever God may send, whether it be sunshine or be sorrow, and somehow out of all unsettlement to wrest the music of our triumph-song
Unsettlement Is Helped by Seeing Things in Their Proper Proportions
Well now, one great help to that is learning to see things in their true proportions. Without a certain feeling for perspective, we can never be quiet in the thick of life. You remember what Dr. Johnson said to a friend who was worrying about a trifle? "Think, sir," he said in his wise way, "think how little that will seem twelvemonth hence." And if we only practiced that fine art of thinking how little many a thing will seem twelvemonth hence, we should be freed from much unsettlement today. It is good to know a big thing when we see it. It is not less good to know a little thing. There are people to whom the tiniest burn is as swift and dangerous as the Spey. And always when you have people of that nature who have never taken the measurements of life, you have people who live on the margin of unsettlement. Next to the grace of God for through bearing, there is nothing more kindly than a little humor. To see things in a smiling kind of way is often to see them in the wisest way. For as there are things, and always shall be things, that strike to the very heart of human destiny, so are there things, and always shall be things, that are so trifling as to be ridiculous. It is amazing how many worthy people seem never to have learned that simple lesson. You would think they had never heard the words of Jesus about swallowing the camel and straining at the gnat. And so are they always in peril of unsettlement, not because their experience is exceptional, but because they have never learned in life to see things in their true proportions.
See the Hand of God in Everything
But the greatest help of all is this, it is to see the hand of God in everything When a man has come to see the hand of God in everything, he touches the secret of the weaned heart.
I have noticed among domestic servants one very common reason of unsettlement. It is that they do not know who is the mistress and have to take orders from half a dozen people. And all of us are servants in God's house and always in our service we shall be irritable unless there be one voice we must obey and one will which gives us all our orders. That was the meaning of the peace of Job. He saw God always, and he saw Him everywhere. "The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away," said Job, "blessed be the name of the Lord." It was not God today and fate tomorrow. It was not heaven in the morning and blind chance at night. Through light and shadow it was God to Job, and that was one secret of his rest. So is it with us all. To have many masters is always to be restless. "I have set the Lord always before me," said the Psalmist, "therefore I shall not be moved." To see His hand in the least and in the greatest, in the burden no less than in the blessing, is the sure way, amid all life's unsettlement, to have the heart at leisure from itself.
Lord, grant me Your love and Grace to accept Your Will for my life, to go where You would have me go, do what You would have me do, say what You would have me say, and live each moment in Your Holy Grace.
October is a nice month, comes in warm and usually sunny, with the chill of autumn in the air, the cool evenings still fine enough to go walking and enjoying the respite. As we pass through this month of harvest, the sun moves further south, the first hints of winter come knocking, and we end the month on a true statement of God's love. For if Halloween have any validity, then certainly God is God of all and He reigns over all.
So dear heart, this month is just as important as Christmas and Easter to verify God's love for you.
Today's meditation, from F.B.Meyer:
October 4
LOVE AND LIBERTY
"None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord: and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's."-- Rom_14:7-8.
THE KEY to this wonderful chapter, so full of sound judgment and sanctified common sense, is the reiterated reference which the Apostle makes to the Lord, which occurs some ten times in fourteen verses. The fact of Jesus being Lord both of the living and of those who have died, and are living on the other side of death, is the solution of the difficulty as to what the Christian should do or leave undone.
Let each of us stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, or at least before the reflection of that tribunal which is mirrored in the tranquil expanse of conscience, and we shall have an unerring guide for conduct.
The question agitated in Rome was as to the observance of the seventh or first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath; and, what principle should direct the use of food--that of Leviticus, or of common use. The Apostle insists that these are not questions which affect either our personal salvation or our acceptance with God. In his opinion they are matters for each individual Christian to settle and decide for himself. There are certain questions clear as light, or black as night, about which there can be no controversy; but there are other questions for the solution of which each must apply one or other of these general principles for guidance through the maze.
What would Jesus Christ, my Lord and Master, wish me to do? I am His servant, and He will let me know His will by the teaching of His Spirit in my heart. Whether I act or forbear, it must be done unto Him; and in my liberty or abstinence I must give Him thanks.
What is best for others? I have an influence over some; perhaps more look to me for guidance than I know. I must be on my guard not to put a stumbling block in another's way. Though certain things are innocent to me, yet, if they will destroy, directly or indirectly, one for whom Christ died, it will be better for me to abstain from them.
What is best for myself? I ask God not to lead me into temptation, but I must not put myself into it. I must put aside all weights as well as sins, that I may follow Christ as He goes forth to the conquest of evil.
PRAYER
O Lord and Master, may we be faithful to Thee in the little things, always following the inner light, till it lead us into the perfect day. AMEN.
May God love you and bless with the Holy Spirit, to guide you and love you. May you have the peace and love that can only come from God, through the Holy Spirit, based on the Sacred Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Heaven... why do we so want it, revere it, and have so little understanding of it? By definition, it is where God resides, where the saints go to after death separates the human form, and where all is perfect.
However, since God is with us now, here and now, then by default we ARE in heaven now. We don't appreciate all of it because we can not feel the full loving presence of God. When we do get to that point, then indeed, we are getting closer to Heaven and into God's presence. That goal of Godly awareness, of His Love, seems to be the purpose of all the other human forms of god seeking... meditation, rituals, ritualistic praying, and so many other human derived forms.
The true way to God is self elimination and thus God manifestation.
Consider today's thoughts from James Ryle:
October 3
The God Who Helps
"You call out to God for help and He helps — He's a good Father that way. But don't forget, He's also a responsible Father, and won't let you get by with sloppy living. Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God." (1 Peter 1:17, The Message).
Some knuckle head somewhere back in time coined the phrase, "God helps those who help themselves." I suppose the guy was a dad, and he was trying to motivate a sluggish child to get with the program. Or more likely a parish priest trying to get his congregation up off their butts. But whoever it was, and whatever their motivation — the statement is false.
The truth of the matter is this — God does NOT help those who help themselves. He helps the helpless. He helps those who call out to Him.
God is not interested in helping us do our own thing with His assistance — for it will still be "our own thing."
And apart from the perfunctory acknowledgement to The Man Upstairs — He receives little or no glory for our achievements. We keep it all for ourselves.
God helps those who want His help, need His help, and ask for His help. But, being responsible, He expects us to take the help He provides and become the best we can be in whatever it is we are doing. Knowing at all times, and in all things, that all the glory belongs to Him.
Need some help today? Ask God....and just watch what happens!
May God bless you today with His Love and Presence!
How are you on this fine Sunday? Are you at peace, do you have a beautiful love, are things in life going the way you want them to be going? Me neither!
Of course we truly wish and want life to be as we see it for ourselves - with wealth, fame, honor, and the things that seem to go with those - love, sex, materials possessions and such. This is the "normal" way of life for us as homo sapiens. We strive, it's in our nature. We fight, that too is in our nature. We do so many cruel and inhuman things to one another.
Of course, that leads to all kinds of misery for the "losers". The poor are always there. The human misery is incalculable.
That's why God in all His Infinite Love sent His Son Jesus to us - to redeem us out of our misery. To give us Hope. To give us a better way. To teach us to love one another, honor each other rather than hate one another.
But even among God fearing Christians, the old ways die hard. Today's meditation addresses that issue: From Bob Hoekstra:
October 2
Spiritual Greatness through Childlike Humility
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" And Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Mat_18:1-4)
Our God is great. "Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable" (Psa_145:3). Since we were created to know our great God, we have a yearning to find true greatness. The counterfeit path to greatness for the world, the flesh, and the devil is through self-exaltation. "I will be like the Most High" (Isa_14:14).
The heavenly path to find spiritual greatness is through childlike humility.
The disciples asked Jesus who had truly found greatness in His kingdom. "At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, 'Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?' " No doubt, to their amazement, he placed a little child in the middle of them. "And Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them." How could this small child give insight into their query? Jesus' words must have been staggering for them to receive. "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."
In the first place, no one can even enter into the Lord's kingdom without having a change of mind from the natural perspective of fallen humanity.
We have such a self-sufficient, self-exalting viewpoint on life and how to find greatness. In order to become a child of God, we must be willing to adopt the Lord's perspective. Instead of us being capable of developing a valid ("great") life on our own, we must take the place of a humble, inadequate, needy child, looking to the Lord of life to give us eternal life.
Then, in order to grow in spiritual greatness, we must be willing to continue in a daily walk of childlike humility. "Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
This teaching had to fall like a stinging indictment upon their hearts, since their motivation in asking was based upon their repeated arguments over which of them was the greatest in His kingdom! "Then a dispute arose among them as to which of them would be greatest . . . But there was also rivalry among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest" (Luk_9:46 and Luk_22:24).
O, great and awesome Lord, I confess that I have often sought greatness through the self-exalting paths of this fallen world. Many times, I have compared myself to others, thinking that would make me the greater. Lord, I repent. Lord, I want to walk before You day by day as a humble, needy, dependent child of the great King of Kings, Amen.
Humble, needy, dependent child of the great King of Kings! Who wouldn't want that?
The magical transitions now begin= summer into autumn, heat to cool, leaves turn colors, holidays and festivities come, life begins another cycle.
How are you, oh my soul?
I am looking for illumination, inspiration from God Almighty, through the Holy Spirit, by the Sacred Sacrifice of my Lord Redeemer Jesus Christ. I would that I would know more of my Lord, to server Him better and more, to love my Savior more, to devote my all to Him. I would that I could be filled each moment by God's Immaculate Love so that I can conduit to others.
I know that my life is not to be one of ease or sinecure. I praise my God for all the growth and all the love that I've been given through my challenges and trials.
I ask you to consider that each day you are blessed and you are a loved and cherished Child of God... through and because of Jesus's Holy Sacrifice. From that all follows:
consider today's meditation by Bob Hoekstra:
October 1
Scorn for the Scornful, Grace for the Humble
Surely He scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble. (Pro_3:34)
The scriptures emphasize the Lord's commitment to pour out grace upon those who walk in humility, while opposing the path of those who walk in pride. "But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble' . . . Be clothed with humility, for 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble' . . . Though the LORD is on high, Yet He regards the lowly; But the proud He knows from afar" (Jam_4:6; 1Pe_5:5; and Psa_138:6).
In our present verse we have another pointed example. "Surely He scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble."
It is an absolute certainty that the Lord will scorn the scornful. "Surely He scorns the scornful." The scornful person shows arrogant disregard for the Lord and His righteous ways. He is a mocker of godliness and a boaster in wickedness. The Lord will assuredly scorn such people. He will treat them with a holy disdain. He will reject their path with holy contempt.
For so many of us who have a heart for the Lord, walking scornfully before the Lord is not a likely threat. However, somewhat related attitudes may become a part of our walk (even inadvertently). Pride and haughtiness are two of the most common, and most deadly. "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Pro_16:18).
These companion evils could both be summarized as self-exaltation. Such an approach to life always results in devastating downfalls. These attitudes and their consequences are most fully illustrated by the history of the devil himself. Before he became the ultimate rebel against God, he was a magnificent, privileged angelic being. "You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God . . . You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you." (Eze_28:14-15). This iniquity that developed was self-exaltation. "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! . . . For you have said in your heart: . . . I will be like the Most High" (Isa_14:12-14).
This haughty exalting of self brought a disastrous fall, which will end up forever in hell itself.
May we daily chose to walk with God's humble saints, refusing to join the ranks of the proud, with their self-advancing schemes. "Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud" (Pro_16:19).
Lord God Most High, I repent of the times that I have exalted myself in word or deed or attitude. I renounce the prideful path of self-advancing humanity. I want to identify with Your humble saints, looking to You to shape and use our lives through Your abounding grace, Amen.
