Oct 31, Ez 25-28

I'm so thankful that today, on All Hallow's Eve - that you reign in the world and that nothing goes on without you knowing about it!
25.14 - And people say that God is love (and that is all), but these three words: anger, wrath, vengeance...don't sound very loving...they are disciplining words...but I guess that is love in the long run...
26.13 - Even the music will be stopped...when the people don't worship and love God only.
28.2 - Often times it isn't even other things that i make a god in my life - it is me. Here it is says that they made themselves gods - doing what they wanted to do - worshipping themselves. Lord, let me not follow after my heart and know what i want out of life - let me follow after you, ask, believe, and obey you and not myself - so that i may know your favor.

Oct 30, Ez 21-24

21.17 - His fury is righteous and just. He set the standard and we do not follow it. We can never say that God is unjust or unfair in anything He does, because everything we get is grace.
23.49 - Again, we don't have to bear the sin of our adultery - Jesus did it for us. And thus we shall know that the Lord is God.
End of 24 - He took away their pride - where they worshiped. He doesn't want us to worship where we go to church (Summit) but he wants us to worship Him. There is such a vast difference!

your Beauty was perfect

A lot of reading today - must have read it wrong yesterday or a mis print - oh well.
16.14 - For your beauty was perfect through the splendor that I bestowed upon you. I do wish physically I could live up to that, but I can't - oh, please help!
16.15 - Oh, but if I had just read the next verse. Oh, never let me trust in my own beauty. That is what I do when I am thin. That doesn't mean I can't be thin - but let me trust in you no matter how long my hair is, what I weigh, what size I wear - or how good of a teacher I am - never let me trust in my self instead of you and play the harlot!
16.28 - Playing the whore doesn't satisfy...nothing will besides you. I try so often to fill it with other things and it just isn't going to help - only you will satisfy every desire that I have ever had and ever will have because that is how you created me
16.31 - I would never consider myself a harlot because I won't take payments. Who cares?? Than I am just being reckless with my heart and going after every thing looking to be loved. I have the best husband at home!
16.32 - Again, read the next verse!
16.60 - What a powerfu little word...yet.
16.62 - That you may know me!
16.63 - When I atone for all that you have done. Every time I play that harlot - that is the sin that has been covered by the eternal covenant that my God made with me when He sent JEsus.
18.23 - God takes no delight in the death of the wicked - but wants all men to come to repentance.
18.32 - So turn, and live - REPENT! Do do wicked things.
20.6-7 - He has given us the most beautiful land anywhere. yet we choose idols and play the harlot - but he wants us to know him because of who He is.
20.9 - He acts because He is jealous for His name. He did not want it to be profaned then - nor now.
20.12 - The Sabbath is use to sanctify. use that in my life!
20.26 - Why does he provide and why does he judge - so that we may know Him for who He is
20.32 - why do we want to be like other nations - whorring after other gods, worshipping wood and stone when we have a living God?
20.38 - By discipline you will know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out of your sin.

Oct 28, Ez 13-15

Thank you jesus - my thoughts were his morning, what do i get to read. Thank you for energy and awakeness!
13.1-7 - It is a risky thing to prophecy. To know that you are saying something the Lord has said - you better be knowing that it is from Him. Thank you that we have the Word - we know what you have said. Give me your Word when i need to help someone - not my own.
13.8 - Opposite of Rom 8.31 - "If God is for us, who can be against us?" BUt, if God is against us because we sin in His name - than everyone's against us - just like the other nations came upon Israel.
overall - 13 - you shall know that I am the Lord God.
14.6 - What a great verse for looking at sin!
14.11 - This is the rest of verse 6 I feel like.
15.the end - Don't make our land desolate because we have sinned against you. I guess I should put that the way it should be. Don't let us sin so that we might live in front of you!

At My House

9.6 - "Begin at my house" Lord - I pray that you would start (really continue) to reform Durham and bring your glory here by starting at your house. Convict sin where it is in us - your Body. Its not easy to pray - but Lord do it. There is no question of who - everyone. Everyone needs your discipline because we are your children being sanctified every day.
11.10 - Out of judgment comes knowledge.
11.12 - Even in our disobedience - we will come to know that the Lord is God
11.19-21 - Let me be pliable in your hands - ready to do what you want me to do. If I get cocky Lord knock me down off my high horse. Because instead of knowing me, I want to know you. Instead of other's knowing me or any of the gifts you've given me, I want them to know you and only you.
12.28 - Perform it Lord - whatever it might be. Because we know that whatever you will say is exactly what we need to hear: as individuals, a body, as evangelists, as prophets, as worshipers. Thank you for still wanting to speak to us.

Little later this morning - Oct 26, Ez 5-8

I've been getting up early and starting the day praying with one of my friends, but I was disobedient this morning and stayed warm and therefore fell back asleep. But I like being in the Word before going to work.
5.8 - He will execute judgments for His great name - in their midst because they have disobeyed.
5.13 - Jealousy, glorious, wrath - all to satisfy Himself.
6.9 - Sort of reminds me of the Black Pearl - if they leave no survivors - who lives to tell of its fame? God wanted to leave some alive so they could tell of what He had done in their midst.
7.19 - No money is going to help in the throne room. nothing else will satisfy us - only God.
Judgment and they will know the Lord. No discipline and they will not know. Sounds like proverbs to me.

Oct 25, Another Major Prophet - Ez 1-4

When i saw that this was next I said yeah! I immediately thought of ch 36, but show me some other good stuff in this book.
1.28 - His response to seeing the glory of God (like so many others in the Word) - he fell face down, another right worship posture.
2.8-10 - Ez wasn't going to the nation of Israel with good, happy news. He was going with words of mourning. But, he was to eat - then share. God urged him not to be rebellious like the rest of that nation.
3.3 - These words of mourning tasted like honey to Ez. Just like Ps 19 says - let us treat the word of God as it is honey and sweet and get our fill of the word! (Just to be hungry for more).
3.15 - The task is often overwhelming - but we have a God who is bigger than the task at hand whatever it is!
3.27 - his mouth was shut unless he had a Word from God. God - let me speak wisely and words that are of you - and not just to hear myself talk.

Good morning - Oct 24, End of proverbs

28.5 - Help me to seek you and understand justice. Understand and know that I deserve hell and by your grace and for the glory of your name you chose in your wisdom to save me from eternal separation from you.
28.14 - Keep mine as a heart of flesh as brought to me only by you (Ez 36)
29.18 - Give us righteous prophets in our day - ones that will give us vision for the future, especially at the Summit as we continue to seek your face for where we are to go next.
29.20 - Make me stop and think before I talk: whether in my prayers, or in my interaction with girls, or in my interaction with outsiders (Col 4).
30.5 - Every WORD of God proves true - thank you for a faithful and exact Word that I know I can trust because of the One who spoke it.
30.32 - Since I have been foolish enough to praise myself in the past - I pray that you would cause my hand to go over my mouth when i feel like doing it again (29.20)
31.11 - What can I do now that would cause my husband to trust in me?
31.15 - Work this in me, don't let it always be a struggle - reward me with your presence while it is still night
31.25,26 - Give me wisdom, strength, and dignity - may they characterize me even now. There is some work to be done - or grace to be indebted to.

Oct 23 - Prvo 25-27

25.1 - What an odd statement - "it is the glory of God to conceal things." God gets more glory by not showing us everything in life that we WANT to know, and by only giving us the things that will lure us to trust him more in everything we do.
25.27 - It is not glorious to seek your own glory. How often I do that, say things that I have done or am doing just so I can get the praise from other people - most of the time it is people who don't even matter in the long run.
26.11-12 Already I have returned to my own folly, and I am not wise in my own eyes - but how much do I think I am.
26.17 - KEep me out of everyone else's affairs - I don't need to get in on them and I don't need to know everything that is going on everywhere.
27.6 - Deep accountability - that is what I long for and what I need. How I miss it here, thank you for giving me an sharpener, but I pray for a mentor.
27.9 - "Sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel" - thank you for few people in my life who will give me earnest counsel.

Oct 22, Prov 21-24

21.1 - Sovereignty
21.2 - Weigh my heart Lord in the decisions that you put in front of me to make.
21.3 - Right worship- Rom 12.2 - is worth more than all the blood in the world
21.4 - Sin is often times for me more inward than outward.
21.9 -help me to be a non-quarrelsome wife
22.6 - One of the verses I clearly remember because it was imprinted on our yearbooks one year at LCS
22.24-25 - You will pick up on the habits of those you hang out with - so choose your friends wisely.

Oct 22 - A day late - Habakkuk

2.3 - Everything - even the visions that He gives the prophets - come in their duely appointed time. God's timing is perfect.
2.14 - The cry and deliverance of the Lord - "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord" They will know the preciousness of the Lord, not just the Lord himself.
2.20 - What a way to worship - "let all the earth keep silent before him."
3.17-19 - EVen when nothing else is going right - "yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in the God of my salvation, God the Lord is my strength"

Oct 20, The end of 2 Kings

I really thought this day would be split - but I guess we are going to finish it today!
20.5 - The prayers of the righteous avail much - but they still act in accordance with the will of God. It isn't like God shifted plans when Isaiah prayed - He wanted to get the glory from adding years to Hezekiah's life.
21.3 - He not only left them standing but he built them when they had been torn down.
21.13 - Even dish washing is in the Bible
22.11 - Hearing of the Word made even a righteous king rent his clothes because he knew that he had failed the things written in it, but most importantly, he had failed the God who wrote it.
22.19 - God hears the humble and is close to the broken-hearted - even if we are broken over our sin.
23.3 - follow the leader.
25.29 - He was able to dine at the king's table. I'm so glad I have a place at the banquet table, not because I get an allowance for doing good things, but because "living he loved me, dying he saved me, buried he carried my sin far away, rising he justified, freed me forever, one day He's coming back, glorious day!"

Oct 19, 2 Kings 17-19

What a great night of prayer and praise and choir practice. Man, to look forward to the days of being in on Wednesday nights - or Chris moving it to another night. Monday nights are good, but oh, the power in there on Wed nights - thanks God. I know its the same power - but multiply by experience and number. Thank you for the break from teaching this week - even though I love it - thanks for letting me sing "you're everything to me, more than a story, more than words on a page, of history, the air that I breathe, the water I thirst for, the ground beneath my feet, oh you're everything..." help that to be true.

17.7-23 - The exile of Israel was because they were idolators: sinned against God, feared other gods, walked in the customs of other nations, secret wrong things against the Lord, built high places in their towns, made offerings on the high places, provoked the Lord to anger, did wicked things, served idols, wouldn't listen and were stubborn, despised statutes and covenant, went after false idols and became false, followed nations around them, abandoned all the commandments of the Lord, made and worshipped metal images, burned children as offerings, witchcraft provoked the Lord to anger, led other nations astray.

17.33 - God has no competition and wants us to not have any in our lives.
17.41 - This is opposite the legacy that Chris was talking about tonight. But then Hezekiah comes in and starts a new legacy. Can't change the past, but can direct our future by following God and leading the way.
19.19 - The end is everything..."That all the kingdoms of the earht may know that you, O LORD, are God alone."

Oct 18 - 2Kings 13-15

Give yourself away...I'll give and I'll hold nothing...back
13.5,6 - God gave them a savior, but they didn't turn from their sin. Sound familiar? We have been given the SAVIOR and yet we still wallow in our sin - I wallow in my sin - all the time.
13.23 - Kindness and compassion on them based on his covenant - His eternal covenant which cannot be broken

Oct 17, nathan's b-day, 2 Kings 9-12

10.27 - What a thing to say...they made the house of baal a bathroom. According to the Word of the Lord no doubt, like the rest of this passage...
12.3 - Won't they ever learn to take down the high places so that no more sacrifices could be made?

Oct 16, 2 Kings 5-8

5.1 - Pain is no respector of persons (4Him song). Naaman was a great man, in high favor, mighty man of valor - BUT he was a leper.
5.11 - The cure is sometimes not what we would think - but what God wants to do is what matters.
5.14 - Obedience is something that must be done.
8.19 - God keeping in line with his prophecy and his promise

Oct 15 - Alan's B-day - 2 Kings 1-4

4.44 - The last few words of this section sums it all - according to the Word of the Lord. Whatever the Lord wills - will happen. No one can defeat His Word!

Oct 14, 1 Kings 20-22

20.4 - Even though this was said to a king, may I say it to my KING - "As you say, my lord, o King, I am yours, and all that I have." - Take my life, and let it be, always only for my king

Oct 13, 1 Kings 16-19

Just spent an amazing evening with a friend of mine who is a true sister in Christ, iron sharpening iron, convicting, edifying, sharing, loving, laughing...

16.31 - As if it was a light thing to walk in the sins of his father. Lord, it is never a light thing to walk in any sin...ANY sin! Make me remember that in everything I do. Rom 7.
17.24 - Lord, I don't want to have to raise the dead to make others see that you are with me. May it be even so that the people will know that the Word of the Lord in your mouth is truth. May people hear what comes out of my mouth and know that you live and are God!
18.21 - how long will you go limping between 2 opinions?...This is what the Lord says to me in many areas of my life: including strongholds that aren't him.
18.38 - Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering. May our lives be lived to you in a burnt offering, not for us, but so that others would know that you are God!
18.39 - Oh, what a response to the consummation!

Oct 12, 1 Kings 13-15

When you vocalize things, both to others and to God in prayer, it helps to ease the situation. God does use other people who are wiser than you to help clear things up! Surround yourself with godly counsel.
13.24 - Always obey even the simplest of commands from the Lord because there are consequences of our disobedience.
15.26 - The sins of the leader makes its way to the people. Respect and trust your leaders and make sure you pray for them and that they are walking after God (close after God).

Oct 11, 1 Kings 10-12

11.1-2 UhOh, in the end of 10 we see that many things would probably start to go to his head, and sure enough they do. He thinks he is smart enough to disobey God. That's what sin is.
11.2b "For surely they will turn away your heart after their gods." I think this goes for all idols. They usually turn us not only to themselves, but to something else that is a distraction.
11.36 - He had to keep this in order to keep with the promises and the prophecies. See, no one can thwart the plan of the Lord - even with sin.
12.24 - Obedience - plain and simple

Oct 10, 1 King 8-9

8.11 - Boy, wouldn't this be a "happy" problem: the priests couldn't minister because of the cloud - which was the glory and presence of the Lord. Oh, that we would have that very problem. That we wouldn't be able to stand in worship due to the presence of the KING in that place.
8.12 - "thick darkness" This is what it means to have God's presence of His holiness among us when we worship.
8.41 - 43 - Solomon prays that "when foreigners come" because they have heard of HIs greatness - then they will know you as God and fear you and your name. That is the reason for missions and worship!
8.58 - Good verse on God choosing us..."that He may incline our hearts to him." The rest of the verses talk about obedience and God being near to us, but this clearly says that Solomon is praying that God would incline - would bend - our hearts toward HIM!

Sunday, Oct 9, 1 King 4-7

Good day in worship. Many thoughts in my head throughout both of them. Thank you for the Word and its use in conviction, encouragement, and edification, and the pursuit of holiness.
4.29 - Solomon was so wise - he did ask for it and God gave in abundance - just as He said He would. "breadth of mind like the sands of the seashore" - the same analogy used to describe the offspring of Abraham (his descendants).
6.12 - "If then" God's logic statements. We often don't follow through on the "if" part.
6.38 - 7 years - the number of perfection. The House of the Lord took perfection to build.

Oct 8 Sticking with the OT - 1 Kings 1-3

This is a combination of two days - this weekend. I start a new book: 1 Kings.

1.4 - I guess you can lie in bed and not "biblically know" a woman. Go David - restraint, but also health reasons.
1.29 - Toward the end of his life, he can again count on the rescueing and faithfulness of God - "who has redeemed my soul out of every adversity."
1.40 - Wow, there was an earthquake due to the noise from the of the people when Solomon became king.
2.1-9 - David's dying remarks (last wisdom) to Solomon - his son: Be strong, be masculine, keep God's charge, walking in his ways, obeying his laws, walk before Him in faithfulness, act according to wisdom
3.28 - They knew even his justice to be founded on God's word.

Oct 7 - Catch up from having no computer - Ps 93-100

WEll, since I stayed at a friend's houe, I didn't have access to a computer, so I actually had to write it down on a piece of paper! (GASP!)
93.1 - The ending punctuation mark could have come after the first three words!
93.3 - Even the creation (every where we look ) worships you.
93.5 - Holiness befits (is at home, looks good, befits) your house.
94.10, 11 - He who disciplines the nations - does He not rebuke? He who teaches man knowledge - the Lord - knows the thoughts of man, that they are but a breath - great verse - SELAH.
96.3 - Thailand is what we are called to do.
All this music - both from people and creation - that live in worship to God. Why do I find it difficult to do in my daily life: eating, working, talking, driving, spending, etc.

Oct 6, Ps 90-92

Finally, one on time!
90.12 - Be wise in knowing that the days are short - life has an eternal perspective.
90.14 - One of Piper's verses - Lord, Satisfy me, like I've been reading and learning - knowing that you are the only one who can do that, no matter how spiteful I get at people who have done me wrong or the blessings i don't have or the marriage i'm not in.
90.14-17 - Great verses to dwell on for Thailand - these are it:
Satisfaction comes from you and only you!
Rejoice and be glad!
Let your work be known to your servants (the missionaries and us) and to their children (as we are able to work with them)
We want the favor of the Lord!
Establish the work of our hands!

Oct 5 - Actually today's reading: Ps 87-89

88 - I wonder what this son of Korah was going through that he was so distraught - this definitely has to be a lament psalm. Oh that I may be like him when I get discouraged and downcast - lifting up my hands and my prayers to you instead of going to other people all the time.
89.11-13 - the very thing I taught on tonight - the sovereignity of God!
89.34 - I will not violate my covenant. This is God's staying true to Himself! This is why I like Him - He can't change, because that would mean that He isn't God!

Oct 5 - Ps 83-86 - Catch up #2

Keep right on going - Psalms are great - let me tell you!
83.16-18 - What great verses! All sorts of good things tonight: Shame us when we go against you so that we may seek your name. Consume us. Let us know you the God Most High over all the earth. Let that be our missions prayer as well!
84 - What a great psalm - even in song:
84.1 - Why do I think other things are so much lovelier than your dwelling place? I need and want to yearn to be in your presence. Create that desire in me!
84.10 - Only you can make this true in my life - oh how I pray this!
84.11-12 - These are our blessings: favor, honor, good things, sunlight and shield in danger, someone stable we can trust in! Let me walk in integrity!
85.2 - At the end of this verse about God forgiving our iniquity and covering our sins - it says to dwell on this thought. I can imaging the choirmaster and psalter singing this and then just pausing and standing there. But they didn't even have the full knowledge of Jesus yet - and I don't have it fully - keep pouring into my life till I see you Jesus - better is one day!
85.6 - Revive us to rejoice in You! When we are revived (brought back to fullness of life) than we will see our full joy and our pleasures forevermore!
86.11 - Teach me Your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name. May everything in me fear your name and know that you are GOD

Honey from a rock

Another day in the psalms. I just spoke on some of the psalms - but neither are these. Good books. JD used a well-known Lewis quote out of Reflections tonight at prayer meeting. Good stuff!
79.8-9 - He will not bring against us our sin and our guiltiness because we are under the blood of Christ His Son. That is His compassion. And why does He help us and bring to us salvation - "for the glory of Your name".
80.3, 7, 19 - "Restore us O God" by letting your face shine on us. Restoration comes through being in God's presence (like Moses, Isaiah, Peter, Paul).
81.8 - God is pleading with us to hear his admonishing - to hear Him when He disciplines us (those whom He loves). We will not get anything good from listening, serving, and loving other gods or things or idols, etc.
81.10 - He saved us in the past and we have reason to think that He would fail us now? Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. All in the midst of discipline and remembrance!
81.16 - Finest of the wheat, honey from the rock - I WILL SATISFY YOU! These are the best of things that He will give us and then He will satisfy us Himself! What a great promise - if I will hear and obey the ways of the Lord.
82.8 - God has all the nations! What a great missions promise! Judge the earth, but I pray, in your wrath - that you would remember mercy. I begin praying for Thailand right now - that you would begin judging our hearts, but preparing the hearts of the people of Chang Mai right now. You have set before time this trip and these people that you will allow us to minister to. Thank you for that - thank you for hopefully letting me be a small part of what YOU are going to be doing there.

October 4 - Psam 76-78

76.4 - Even better than His creation. Creation gives us a glimpse of what God's glory looks like (Rom 1).
78.7-8 - Even if I may never have kids of my own, let me always work and minister to teach the next generation of your goodness and glory, whether it be college kids or kid kids.
78.30 - Let me never get satisfied with my desires - let me only get satisfied with you, not your gifts.
78.72 - Let me lead with integrity of heart and skillfulness of hands - let me not slack!

Oct 4 - The Entire Book of Lamentations

This book was also written by Jeremiah - so he wasn't done telling the thoughts of the nation of Israel - but I'm sure it is the same old story.
1.3 - We can do whatever we want and chase after the wind (as Solomon says) but 'she has found no rest' - we will never rest and be completely satisfied in anything but Jesus.
Chapter 2 - the Words that tell of the anger of God when His people defile His name: anger, swallowed up, wrath was thrown down, he has cut off, burned like a flaming fire, bent His bow, slain all, poured out His wrath like fire, become like an enemy, swallowed up, destroyed, violently treated, despised, rejected, abandoned, determined to destroy, destroyed and broken. God is jealous for His glory!
Lam 3.21-26 - Recall and have hope in this. God loves me with a forever love. Lord is all I need. He is good to all those who wait and seek Him. Not for a husband - for salvation.
Good reminder of what I am teaching tomorrow night as well.

October 2, Catch #1 Again, End of Jeremiah

Finally, we are at the end of Jeremiah. What a good book. I've learned the more of what I know is toward the beginning and more of the stuff I don't is at the end. But, I love the prophets. We often think that the words that God spoke to men is only in the prophets, but all the writers of Scripture were prophets in their own way - because they all communicated what God said to them through the Spirit and put it on paper!
49.4-5 - Why do we trust in things we do (as a church, as an individual) - even the things we do well and in the name of God - can be stripped away. God work in spite of our good things. We pray that you would use them, but not to the degree that people start looking at us and not at YOU! Because you still have the power to strip away and burn up our treasures!
50.34 - Their Redeemer is strong, the LORD of Hosts is His name. He will surely plead their cuase. Oh, God, thank you for redeeming me. Please hear the cry of our church today and bring people today who need to see your glory, see your face, see You move in their lives - so that they may live, and so that further more - YOU may get all the glory.
51.15-16 - Creator and Sustainer - not like the deists (Jefferson).
52 - last verses. What a picture of grace. The prisoner released by the king, his prison clothes thrown off, and then he dined with the king the rest of his life - what a picture of our life saved by grace! :)