I am running low on jokes. So what that means, is now that I have figured out this email thing again, I am ready for y'all to send me some new jokes. Especially considering that Chuck doesn't think I am that funny. So don't abandon me now. -mike
LET'S PRAY TOGETHER
Lord, let our souls rise up to meet you as the day rises to meet the sun.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with us: wherever He may send us;
Lord, yesterday is out of reach, tomorrow is beyond our sight
But today we will serve You, stir our hearts to love as You love.
Today comfort the needy, Today help all caregivers, leaders, and public servants
Today convict the hearts of the sinful and lost, especially if that is me.
may You guide us through the wilAmen
MEDITATION
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (2Timothy 1:7 ESV)
We continue to story of the faithful Ten Boom family and their arrest and incarceration by the Nazi’s during WWII…
When Casper ten Boom, Corrie’s 84-year-old father, was asked by his captors if he knew he could die for helping Jews, he replied, “It would be an honor to give my life for God’s ancient people.” Ten days after the arrest, Casper died.
How did a self-educated watchmaker in the Netherlands come to see things this way? Where did his peace and sense of power come from when he and his precious family members were in mortal danger? If you read In My Father’s House and The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom it becomes clear that Casper’s faith was rooted in daily prayer and study of the Bible. He saw God as present, loving, and all-powerful.
Corrie, 51, and Betsie, 59, were eventually taken to Ravensbrück, a female concentration camp 55 miles north of Berlin, Germany, where they fought fear while being abused, beaten, starved, and worked to the bone. That’s not all that happened in Ravensbrück or in the two previous prisons in which they lived, however. In those dark places, cramped with evil, fears, and unspeakable darkness, the sisters lived as a light, teaching the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ on a daily basis. Indeed it was the by life of Jesus Christ they survived.
“As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of help and hope. Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
I would look about us as Betsie read, watching the light leap from face to face. More than conquerors. . . . It was not a wish. It was a fact. We knew it, we experienced it minute by minute—poor, hated, hungry. We are more than conquerors. Not 'we shall be.' We are! Life in Ravensbrück took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory.”**
We will continue with the Ten Boom’s tomorrow as we see God’s hand continue to uphold the family through more hardship.
**Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place
DAILY SCRIPTURE READING
Our daily scripture reading comes from the following link… http://listenersbible.com/devotionals/biy/ If you have any insights into our daily readings, please feel free to share them with me. I would encourage you to visit https://bibleproject.com/explore/1-2-kings/ for an overview of the book of 1st Kings and https://bibleproject.com/explore/acts/ for an overview of the book of Acts. These videos will help with the “big picture” and the main themes. 1 Kings 16:8-18:15 The list of kings continues. This has got to be better than the soap operas my mom used to watch when I was a kid. One thing to note, is that even though someone does “evil in the eyes of the Lord,” there is no correlation between the length of their kingship and their actions. We want there to be, but there just isn’t. Elah will reign for 2 years. Ahab, who did “more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him,” Ahab will reign 22 years. We want there to be “reward” and “punishment” in this life, but there isn’t. Which is why Asaph, in the psalms, will be tempted to do evil, because at times evil seems to prosper. Now, things are about to get exciting. Ahab and Elijah are some of the best confrontations of the Old Testament. Elijah will spend some time with the widow of Zarephath. Luke 4:25-26 will put this in context for us. Check it out. Elijah is a prophet of great renown. The thing to remember about prophets, is who do they speak for? Where does their “power” come from? Acts 17:1-21 Paul continues to travel from city to city. Where does he go first, when he arrives in a city? (1, 10, 17) What does he do here? (2-3, 11) Why is it important to know the scriptures, as we see in verse 11? Psalm 78:9-16 Asaph wants to recount the “deeds” of the Lord. Why? (Re-read the psalm from verse 1 through verse 16) In knowing scripture, two things are happening. First we remember who God is, through what he has done. And second we are able to test what is true. This is why we study. To know God and to know what comes from Him.