Christianity Oasis Forum

[totallylovedbygod4]

Welcome to Noonday Devotion

You can't imagine what an amazing joy it is to share with you once again. I hope you are so blessed by what God has laid on my heart.

Please take time to click on and read and listen to the links and please pass on these devotions to all your friends and contacts. I know that these devotions are read on all 5 continents.. isn't that amazing

Thanks and God bless

Keith

NOONDAY DEVOTION BY KEITH

ARE YOU DESPISING GOD OR HIS COMMANDMENTS?


2 Samuel 12

9 Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, doing evil in His sight? You have slain Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife. You have murdered him with the sword of the Ammonites.
14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord and given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child that is born to you shall surely die.



As I was reading the account of David in this chapter, the Lord asked me these 2 questions.

Verse 9 Do I despise God's commandments?

God gives us commands that are not options. Like in Matthew 28:19-20, Ephesians 5:18 and Philippians 4:4.

So why Do I/you find it so easy to disregard them?

When we do, we cause hurt to the heart of the Father. God does not see things as shades of grey.. he sees obedience or disobedience.

Like Joshua said, you can not falter between two opinions. You cannot sit on the fence as a christian.. it is obedience to the commands of God or nothing.

The command to love one another, we cannot say well I will love this person and not another, to do this is to be disobedient to the command of God. You cannot pick and choose which commands of God, you want to obey.. we have no choice but to obey.. amen

He then asked me this question

Verse 14

This really spoke to me. Have I done anything to give the enemies of the Lord, a reason to blaspheme?

My/your life is probably the only thing people will see of Jesus, you are his representative here on earth.

Do you reflect him 24/7 or do you give a bad impression of your Saviour?

Have you sin in your life that gives unbelievers a wrong impression of Jesus. Let me ask you this, do you use bad language?

If you do then, this is not good, I use this as an example. James says blessing and cursing .. these things ought not to be so James 3:7-10 and Ephesians 4:29-32 (Paul)

You are being watched believer. Is my/your life a true reflection of Jesus?

God bless you

Keith



Guest Teaching by Pastor Johan

Seeking God's Will for Ministry

Dear Friends in Christ,



Sometimes our lives get filled with such confusion and conflicting circumstances and needs and opportunities that we can get a headache just thinking about them. We know we want to serve the Lord in some capacity, perhaps a volunteer part-time position or even going in to full time service...but there are all these unanswered questions and loose ends and unresolved priorities and insufficient funding that we just want to sink down into our easy chair and forget the whole thing.

It is at this point that we need to apply a few organizational principles and faith and a lot of prayer, and to realize that...

...God is not the author of confusion, but of peace....

1 Cor 14:33a (KJV)

AND

The LORD is near unto all them that call upon him,

To all that call upon him in truth.

He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him:

He also will hear their cry, and will save them.

Psa 145:19 (KJV)

It has been my observation after all these years that God puts a desire in our hearts to serve Him, maybe very subtly at first, and then goes about leading us around until He creates that desire in us. We may not desire His will at first, but eventually we will get a deep down hunger for what He wants us to do, and become willing to let go of what we wanted to do in the first place.



And near the end of the process, it seems that He keeps our new desire just out of reach until we really come to the point of just crying out in prayer for Him to fulfil what our new desire is, and what His original desire was all along.



Perhaps it is that you are at this point right now. God is right at the doorway of fulfilling the desires of your heart, but you have to do a few things to go "over the top" as it were. Circumstances have become so confusing and decisions seem so conflicting that you just can’t see the path ahead in any clear way. If you are at this point, for whatever kind of decision you need to make, try this...



Get a big piece of paper or a legal pad and use it as a tool to organize your thoughts to figure out what you are going to pray for. You need to kind of "download" all those conflicting facts and ideas onto some paper where it will stay in one place and stop swimming around, and you can evaluate it on its own merits and compare it to other courses of action.



1) Identify what the desire of your heart is.

Make a few columns on a really big piece of art paper and put in those columns all the confusing details of what your life decisions are. Perhaps right now all these facts and decisions are swimming around unorganized and un-prioritized in your mind.



Make the headings of these columns something like this...and be brutally honest, and do it in a prayerful attitude, or you won't get a good result. Assume that there is a perfect solution to this problem, which is the kind of solution only God can construct...

What do I really want to be doing with the next few years.
What are my absolute necessities? Time, travel, expenses, pay, benefits, insurance, etc.
What things would I be willing to give up?
What things am I unwilling to give up?
What things can me in no way give up?
Would I be willing to raise financial support from friends, relatives, etc, and get monetary monthly faith commitments from them to go into a ministry if that ministry can't absolutely support us full time, but we feel that the Lord is absolutely leading us there?
2) Now, you can compare what opportunities you have with what is your bottom line of needs, and see what is missing and how far you are away from this as a goal. Then you can make a list of those things that you expect the organization to do for you, (pay, housing, benefits, etc), and present it to them in a kindly way saying this is our fleece, our bottom line, if you can fulfil it, we are there, if not, we will wait for the Lord's direction about some other ministry (and there are plenty of ministry openings out there, by the way).



Bottom line here...get this all laid out where you can see it and prioritize it, then pray like crazy for the Lord to reveal His will to you ...to open the right doors and close others until He shows you what His will is, and moves a few mountains out of the way so that it can be done. And in all your prayers, always keep the attitude...



...Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me:

Nevertheless not my will, but thane, be done.

Luke 22:42 (KJV)



Set your minimum requirements and stick to them, knowing that the Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and He knows you have need of these things...and that He doesn't want you to go spinning off in some direction that He doesn’t want you to go in, but wants to gently lead you as a shepherd so that you find just the right pasture.



In everything you do, put God first,

And he will direct you and crown your efforts with success.

{7} don’t be conceited, sure of your own wisdom.

Instead, trust and reverence the Lord,

And turn your back on evil;

When you do that,

Then you will be given renewed health and vitality.



{8} {9} Honour the Lord by giving him the first part of all your income,

And he will fill your barns with wheat and barley

and overflow your wine vats with the finest wines.

Prov 3:6-9 (TLB)



May your life be filled with peace and success as you seek to serve Him...



Your Friend

Johan Lourens



Special Sermon

I hope you are stirred by this sermon by this amazing man of God



http://www.sermonaudio.com/playpopup.as ... 1011116191



Guest Website

Please take time to read and be blessed by this website

http://www.kidsalive.org/