A Devotional Thought From Psalms

O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.     Psalm 34:3

Many years ago before we were married this verse became important to my wife and myself. It was sort of an unofficial statement of what we wanted our married lives to be. Both of us were, and are, committed to sincere and honest faith and trust in Jesus, and we wanted to do the two things mentioned here by David. We wanted to magnify the LORD and exalt His name.

We wanted to expand His role in our lives and make what others see of Him in us bigger and bigger, and we wanted to exalt, raise high His glory. We wanted our marriage to be an example of two people who love one another living together to God’s glory.

Let me tell you, that is the way to be married! Loving God first, and loving your spouse and family as God wants you to is the best way to live. It holds everything in place, and makes everything better. No doubt you’ve heard the humorous assessment of marriage attributed to the Amish: “Kissin’ wears out, cookin’ don’t.” Well, when the husband and wife magnify and exalt God’s name together nothing wears out. The romance, joy, happiness, love, interest, comfort, and overwhelming blessings of marriage just keep getting better and better.

Be faithful to God, be faithful to your spouse, be faithful to your family, then you’ll have the best of life no matter the circumstances of your life.

Father’s Day 2016

God is the Father we are all trying to emulate.

He is the Father we are all trying to show to our children.

He is the Father we ourselves love and want to be like.

So that brings us to a question about God’s fatherhood.

What kind of Father is God so we can model our behavior on His? (Not just human fathers, but all Christians)

1.     1. God is love – He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (1 Jn 4:8)

God’s life, God’s essence, God’s relationship with his creatures, with humankind, with his family the church, is all love.

               He gives sun, rain, food to the just and unjust – He is even handed, and loves even those not His children. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:45

               You want to be like God? Live a life characterized by love.

2.    2. God is faithful – Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it (1 Th 5:24).

No matter who we are. No matter how many times we fail, or fall into sin, God does not give up on His children.

I will be there for you because you belong to me.

Be there for your children, family, and others.

3.     3, God responds to prayer and is generous

Do you remember Jesus’ parable?

⁷ Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

⁸ For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

⁹ Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

¹⁰ Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

¹¹ If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Fatherof lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (James 1:17).

Little boys often say: I want to be like my dad. Christian fathers want to be like their heavenly Father. All Christians should want that.

A Devotional Thought From The Book Of Esther

And the king said, What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him.     Esther 6:3

Mordecai, the uncle of Esther, Queen of Persia, was probably a low level executive in the administration of Ahasuerus, as he is called in the Bible, known to secular history as Xerxes. Modecai “sat in the king’s gate.” On one occasion he became aware that two of the door men in the king’s palace were plotting against the king. Bigthan and Teresh were their names, and their plan was to terminate Ahasuerus’s reign “with prejudice.” Mordecai discovered the plot, and sent word to the Queen who informed the king. The king judiciously had the matter investigated, and when the truth was discovered he had Bigthan and Teresh hung, when we hear that term we think hung by the neck until dead, but in Persia in those days it meant hung by being impaled on a giant stake with a spear point at the top. A full police report was then included in the official court documents (chronicles) of King Ahasuerus.

Mordecai may have been disappointed. There was no “Citizen Hero” ceremony in the court, no cash reward, not even a participation ribbon. All that happened was the report of Mordecai’s patriotism went into the Congressional record.

Well, if you know the story of the book of Esther you know  it was all good, that God was in control, and since the King’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, God was getting ready to turn it whithersoever he will.

On the very night that Haman, the would be “Hitler of the Old Testament,” had decided to execute Mordecai and the Jewish people, across town at the palace Ahasuerus could not  get to sleep. God would not let him although the king didn’t know it. So to pass the time and get himself good and drowsy the king called for the most boring thing he could think of, the chronicles of the administration, to be read to him. Normally that would put anybody to sleep, but not tonight. Tonight the historian just happened, I think by God’s direction, to read how Mordecai saved the king’s life, and the king asked, “What did we do to reward Mordecai?” The historian replied, “Nothing, nada, niente, niets, zero, zilch, zippo” (So to speak).

This little incident and that answer, saved Mordecai’s life, and eventually the lives of all the Jewish people of Persia. If you want to know the details pick up the story at Esther 2:21 and read through the end of chapter 9.

But here’s a lesson for modern-day believer/citizens. Do what is right as a citizen of the nation realizing the nation is called to obey and honor God’s righteousness. Even when you disagree with the king’s direction of the country, honor him. Follow God’s directions for life even if the nation is turning away from them. Work, save, take care of your family, vote, protest peacefully, obey the law, be a good neighbor, love your enemies, seek peace, pray for the nation, be a part of the quiet majority who want a great, honorable, righteous, way of life to be the essence of your country.

            Having done this, like Mordecai, wait and see what God will do, what blessings He will bring, and pray that the nation’s king will not be able to sleep.