Pray for the nation and the Obama administration's response to North Korea. South Korean and U.S. troops raised their alert Thursday to the highest level since 2006 after North Korea renounced its truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels...
Sounds like this situation with N Korea is getting pretty serious.
1 God�you're my God! I can't get enough of you!
I've worked up such hunger and thirst for God,
traveling across dry and weary deserts.
2-4 So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open,
drinking in your strength and glory.
In your generous love I am really living at last!
My lips brim praises like fountains.
I bless you every time I take a breath;
My arms wave like banners of praise to you. (The Message)
(The Message doesn't break the verses at the same point, so I just quoted through verse 4.)
"[David] does more than simply pray; he sets the Lord before him as his God, that he may throw all his cares unhesitatingly upon him, deserted as he was of man, and a poor outcast in the waste and howling wilderness.
"Even when so situated, in a wild and hideous solitude, where the very horrors of the place were enough to have distracted his meditations, he exercised himself in beholding the power and glory of God, just as if he had been in the sanctuary."
(Commentary from Heart Aflame: Daily Readings from Calvin on the Psalms)
Side note: It is this psalm from which Beaker, Rich Mullins's best friend, took the lyrics of the wonderful chorus "Step by Step."
Oh God, you are my God
And I will ever praise You.
Oh God, you are my God
And I will ever praise You.
I will seek You in the morning
And I will learn to walk in Your ways
And step by step You'll lead me
And I will follow You all of my days.
"God's Desire to Save"
1 Timothy 2:3-4
3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (ESV)
First of all, what is good and pleasing in God's sight? We have to look back at yesterday's passage to see that. It is the command that we pray for all people, especially those in positions of authority.
Oddly enough, Paul's command to pray for the "king" was subversive. That kind of took me by surprise, but it does make sense. After all, if you have to pray forthe caesar, that means you aren't praying to him, which implies that he is not supreme.
"But what about Paul's statement that God wants everyone to be saved? If not all people will be saved (Matt. 25:31-46), do Paul's words contradict the truth that no purpose of the Lord's can be thwarted (Job 42:2; Matt 19:26)? Or must we embrace a universalism in which God will one day redeem hell itself?
"Let us consider two answers to these questions. First if 'all people' means everyone without exception, the Lord's will is not ultimately done when people reject Him. Yet as Reformed teachers have often said, the Greek word translated 'all people' can mean all kinds of people--leaders, followers, rich, poor, Jew, Gentile, and so on. This interpretation makes good sense, as Paul lists a certain class of people--rulers--when he tells us to pray for 'all people' (1 Tim. 2:1-2). John Calvin says that God's desire for the salvation of all 'means...there is no people and no rank in the world that is excluded from salvation.'
"Second, if 'all people' refers to every person without exception, then universalism is our conclusion only if God's desire to save is absolute. But the Lord desires one thing more than the salvation of all--His glory (Isa. 48:11). In one sense, God can truly want all who have ever lived to be saved; however, this desire always defers to His will to glorify Himself, the will in view when the Bible says His will is always done. The Lord is glorified when sin is punished in hell, and so God's supreme desire is met even when people are not redeemed."
Sorry for the extensive quote, but this is a rather complicated subject, and I didn't think I could do it justice in my own words.
By the way, I agree 100% with the article.
"Preach the Gospel to Yourself"
1 Corinthians 15:1
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, (ESV)
"To preach the gospel to yourself means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life."
It means that we take the words of Romans 4:7-8 at face value when they tell us that those whose sins are forgiven and covered are blessed. It means we believe the testimony of God when he says in Romans 8:1 that there is "therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!" Hallelujah!!
It means that we believe the words of Isaiah 53:6 that tells us that God has laid on HIM the iniquity of us all! And it means that we dwell on that wonderful promise of Psalm 103:12 that tells us that God has removed our sin from us as far as the east is from the west (in a straight line...that's infinity). And finally, it means that we believe God when he says that he has blotted out our transgressions and remembers our sin no more! (Isaiah 43:25)
Now THAT is some really good news!
I thank you that you are my God and that I can earnestly seek you every day. I pray that you will lead me, "step by step," and that I will be faithful to follow you all of my days.
Rejoice in that today!
Grace and peace, friends!