I have some small victories, or rather large in my mind, to share. I got to go to church yesterday again! My mom drove us and Parker and I stayed and Sam went back to her house so that I could really attend church and soak it all in. It was awesome! Every song was about God's love, hilarious and the message was amazing too, I'll get into that later :-) Secondly, I ran 5 minutes on my elliptical this morning and I'm still breathing, lol! I know, some of you are like what 5 minutes??? Well for a girl who ran 3 miles 6 days a week for two years and hasn't done anything since November of last year...5 minutes is a marathon!
I didn't get to blog yesterday because of church and other stuff! But I was in the Word before church and got something from God that totally spoke to me and then it went along with something my pastor said in his message yesterday. Love how God talks to me and ties it all together.
In a previous post I spoke about Hezekiah and his illnesses. How God spoke through Isaiah and told him to tell Hezekiah that He has heard his cry and that He was going to heal him. (2 Kings 20) God sent me back to that story but in Isaiah 38:17, " Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. IN YOUR LOVE you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back." I didn't see this before now, but along this whole theme of God really showing me His love and me really actually seeing it in it's fullness. I thought this was really interesting. " In Your love, you kept me from destruction." It's no wonder the enemy wants to keep us from really understanding and knowing God's love for us. It's so powerful it can keep us from destruction. Amazing.
We are doing a series in our church right now called " Save Your Household, Preparing for the storms ahead". Our pastor is really passionate about this subject. At one point in the message he started talking about the enemy being like a lion. One way that lions hunt is in a pride. A few of them will go on one side of the prey and then one lioness or lion will go on the other side. That main hunter will roar and scare the prey right into an ambush where the rest of the lions are waiting to devour that prey.
1 Peter 5:8-9, " Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings."
Our pastor said (and I paraphrase:-), " The enemy is roaring as loud as he can to scare you into to running right into the very thing that will devour you." Or destroy you. It could be anything depending on what your journey is right now. We have to be aware of this. The roar can't be louder than the loving voice of God guiding us in the right direction and leading us into all truth.
That really speaks to me right now. I am embracing God's love and the enemy is behind me trying to roar loud enough to send me running right back into fear and doubt so that it can completely devour me. I know this is getting long, but one more scripture! You will want to read this!
Isaiah 38:18-20, " For the grave cannot praise You, death cannot sing Your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. The living, the living - they praise you, as I am doing today; fathers tell their children about Your faithfulness. The Lord will save me, and we will sing with stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the temple of the Lord."
The point is, we can't do anything for God if we let the enemy devour us and send us to the grave! But the living, the living...they are the ones who praise You. We have to keep ourselves alive and alert so that we can soak in all of His promises and fulfill the destiny that's on our lives. That is good stuff! Stay on your guard and if there is somebody roaring at you...don't run into the trap, stand firm knowing that your faith in God will guard and protect you and continue to lead you in the right direction.
No comments:
Post a Comment