TODAY Our Daily Bread Psalms 105 & 2 Cor 2:14

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her daily journal.

Psalms 105:1-45
The Eternal Faithfulness of the LORD R11 1 Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples! 2Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; Talk of all His wondrous works! 3Glory in His holy name; Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the LORD! 4Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face evermore! 5Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth, 6O seed of Abraham His servant, You children of Jacob, His chosen ones!
7He is the LORD our God; His judgments are in all the earth. 8He remembers His covenant forever, The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, 9The covenant which He made with Abraham, And His oath to Isaac, 10And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel as an everlasting covenant, 11Saying, "To you I will give the land of Canaan As the allotment of your inheritance," 12When they were few in number, Indeed very few, and strangers in it. 13When they went from one nation to another, From one kingdom to another people,
14He permitted no one to do them wrong; Yes, He rebuked kings for their sakes, 15Saying, "Do not touch My anointed ones, And do My prophets no harm." 16Moreover He called for a famine in the land; He destroyed all the provision of bread. 17He sent a man before them-- Joseph--who was sold as a slave. 18They hurt his feet with fetters, He was laid in irons. 19Until the time that his word came to pass, The word of the LORD tested him. 20The king sent and released him, The ruler of the people let him go free. 21He made him lord of his house, And ruler of all his possessions, 22To bind his princes at his pleasure, And teach his elders wisdom.
23Israel also came into Egypt, And Jacob dwelt in the land of Ham. 24He increased His people greatly, And made them stronger than their enemies. 25He turned their heart to hate His people, To deal craftily with His servants.
26He sent Moses His servant, And Aaron whom He had chosen. 27They performed His signs among them, And wonders in the land of Ham. 28He sent darkness, and made it dark; And they did not rebel against His word. 29He turned their waters into blood, And killed their fish. 30Their land abounded with frogs, Even in the chambers of their kings. 31He spoke, and there came swarms of flies, And lice in all their territory. 32He gave them hail for rain, And flaming fire in their land. 33He struck their vines also, and their fig trees, And splintered the trees of their territory.34He spoke, and locusts came, Young locusts without number, 35And ate up all the vegetation in their land, And devoured the fruit of their ground. 36He also destroyed all the firstborn in their land, The first of all their strength.
37He also brought them out with silver and gold, And there was none feeble among His tribes. 38Egypt was glad when they departed, For the fear of them had fallen upon them. 39He spread a cloud for a covering, And fire to give light in the night. 40The people asked, and He brought quail, And satisfied them with the bread of heaven. 41He opened the rock, and water gushed out; It ran in the dry places like a river.
42For He remembered His holy promise, And Abraham His servant. 43He brought out His people with joy, His chosen ones with gladness. 44He gave them the lands of the Gentiles, And they inherited the labor of the nations, 45That they might observe His statutes And keep His laws. Praise the LORD!
Show cross-references R11: Ex. 7:8!md11:10; 1 Chr. 16:8-22
~Lena’s Journalin’~
How are we reminded of the greatness of God? Of course there are many ways to remember, the point is to find one and make it a rehearsal of praise. I guess I’m still on that, “what are we magnifying” thing. Our society has a lot of criticism in it and unthankfulness, because of that and being surrounded by that practice, we have to do an offensive maneuver towards combating those continual thoughts in our lives. So what opposes criticism? Praise. What opposes lack of appreciation? Thankfulness. Being on the offensive, means we advance in our on purpose and planned out effort to go forward and move towards areas that our enemy has possessed before now. Ok, we’ve been unthankful, we recognize that and we decide to be thankful, no matter what presents itself to us. Why would we do something as silly as that? Because the enemy of God wants to take a hold of our souls and ster them into thinking his thoughts and desires by practicing them. We must go against that flow and sway recognizing his tactics against God and against us and be thankful.
Anyway, in the world there are so many tools out there, ways to “remember” things and start to form new habits and ways to practice what one has learned. Ya know, post it here, and there, write it 100 times, say it over and over again, do it in practice by an act of association, etc. Why not remember the word of God this way, using some of these tools to remember to praise, or to remember to speak God words, or remember to love, etc.?
I sometimes have to laugh at the way we’ve been trained and how much the world’s thinking has been ingrained in us. We expect God to remember everything, we expect others to remember everything, but do we require our own rehearsal of what’s important to god, of His words/ how important are His words to us? If you give any value to what someone has said, you show it by what you do. Do we do this for God?
Let’s remember today what He’s saying and find someway to do at least one things He’s said to us in a personal way. When we do this our memory of His word will become activated as never before.
So what if through this word today God says to me, “Ya know you have really been complaining a lot lately, about every little and big thing, you make mountains out of mole hills, you’re even reckless enough with your words to care more about a task than the people involved in the task, I’d like to point this out today to help lead you to change.” I realize He’s correct as usual and I acknowledge His correctness and my lack of fruit in this area. I ask Him to help me with this today and help me see it today, recognize when either I do it or get ready to do it, by the thoughts that rise in me before I lay out critical words. I know I’ve practiced hurting others a lot and that that is what seems to come out of my “fountain”, I know I’ve not been too great at seeing it or doing anything about it on my own. I cry out for His help. He shows me the thoughts of my heart as so and so makes a foolish move (at least in my opinion, I would have done it differently, so in my heart I’ve said- that was a dumb move….) Now is my Divine opportunity, He prompts me to oppose the enemy’s former works in my life, to combat his former patterns and responses. Rather than saying, “ That was really stupid, I can’t believe you thought to see it that way, Oh brother, what a mess you’ve made, here let me show you how it’s done…” I stop and listen to the Holy Spirit prompting me, that this is THAT instance where He could either be magnified or ignored, it’s my choice. I say, “Wow, I never thought to do it that way, that was creative, let’s see how that works. You’re nice to have around, you help me see differently.” Or- “Oh, wow, I’m sorry that didn’t turn out like we would have liked, here let me help you clean up the mess and let’s try it another way!” Now I faint!, I magnify the Lord. He is so good to me, good enough to help change me, step by step day by day.
Opportunities are all around us – Blessing or curse, death or Life- every, every day. We have the choice and the evidence of our choices are usually made and manifested by our mouths.
Because the greatest commands involve loving god and people, we will definitely give account for doing this or not. Whenever I need to, I think of standing before God. I think of what I’m doing, trying to accomplish. I allow the task to become the means of the goal of loving God and loving people. I really believe most tasks mean absolutely nothing and that how I behave and what residue I leave behind when the task is accomplished is what means everything. This is what I will stand before god and account for- souls, how I invited them into my tasks and life or how I disregarded them, degraded them and misused their god given images of themselves. This is big in parenting, being a co-worker, friend etc. The enemy knows our end better than we do and knows what we’ll account to God for.
Let God arise and all of His enemies be scattered. What enemies does God have? Whatever enemies that keep us from Him and looking more and more like Him in the earth. If He arises in us and His image arises in us, those enemies scatter and flee away. We are in covenant with God, In covenant my enemies become yours and yours mine. That’s how God sees everything- through the eyes of covenant.
(daily repetitive verse)
2 Corinthians 2:14
Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.