Thursday, November 23, 2006

Psalm 105 Happy Thanksgiving!

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.

If the e-mail text you receive is encrypted at all, just scroll down to the end of all of the text and click on Lena’s Journalin’ , which will take you directly to the web-page where you will be able to read the text quite clearly in it’s purposed form.


Psalm 105
1 Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. 2 Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds. 3 Exult in his holy name; rejoice, you who worship the Lord. 4 Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him. 5 Remember the wonders he has performed, his miracles, and the rulings he has given, 6 you children of his servant Abraham, you descendants of Jacob, his chosen ones.

7 He is the Lord our God. His justice is seen throughout the land. 8 He always stands by his covenant— the commitment he made to a thousand generations. 9 This is the covenant he made with Abraham and the oath he swore to Isaac. 10 He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, and to the people of Israel as a never-ending covenant: 11 “I will give you the land of Canaan as your special possession.”
12 He said this when they were few in number, a tiny group of strangers in Canaan. 13 They wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. 14 Yet he did not let anyone oppress them. He warned kings on their behalf: 15 “Do not touch my chosen people, and do not hurt my prophets.”
16 He called for a famine on the land of Canaan, cutting off its food supply. 17 Then he sent someone to Egypt ahead of them— Joseph, who was sold as a slave. 18 They bruised his feet with fetters and placed his neck in an iron collar. 19 Until the time came to fulfill his dreams,[a] the Lord tested Joseph’s character. 20 Then Pharaoh sent for him and set him free; the ruler of the nation opened his prison door. 21 Joseph was put in charge of all the king’s household; he became ruler over all the king’s possessions. 22 He could instruct the king’s aides as he pleased and teach the king’s advisers.
23 Then Israel arrived in Egypt; Jacob lived as a foreigner in the land of Ham. 24 And the Lord multiplied the people of Israel until they became too mighty for their enemies. 25 Then he turned the Egyptians against the Israelites, and they plotted against the Lord’s servants.
26 But the Lord sent his servant Moses, along with Aaron, whom he had chosen. 27 They performed miraculous signs among the Egyptians, and wonders in the land of Ham. 28 The Lord blanketed Egypt in darkness, for they had defied his commands to let his people go. 29 He turned their water into blood, poisoning all the fish. 30 Then frogs overran the land and even invaded the king’s bedrooms. 31 When the Lord spoke, flies descended on the Egyptians, and gnats swarmed across Egypt. 32 He sent them hail instead of rain, and lightning flashed over the land. 33 He ruined their grapevines and fig trees and shattered all the trees. 34 He spoke, and hordes of locusts came— young locusts beyond number. 35 They ate up everything green in the land, destroying all the crops in their fields. 36 Then he killed the oldest son in each Egyptian home, the pride and joy of each family.
37 The Lord brought his people out of Egypt, loaded with silver and gold; and not one among the tribes of Israel even stumbled. 38 Egypt was glad when they were gone, for they feared them greatly. 39 The Lord spread a cloud above them as a covering and gave them a great fire to light the darkness. 40 They asked for meat, and he sent them quail; he satisfied their hunger with manna—bread from heaven. 41 He split open a rock, and water gushed out to form a river through the dry wasteland. 42 For he remembered his sacred promise to his servant Abraham. 43 So he brought his people out of Egypt with joy, his chosen ones with rejoicing. 44 He gave his people the lands of pagan nations, and they harvested crops that others had planted. 45 All this happened so they would follow his decrees and obey his instructions.
Praise the Lord!
Footnotes:
a.
Psalm 105:19 Hebrew his word.

~ Lena’s Journalin’~
Do you know the children of Jacob and of Abraham are different representative of races? Remember there are two races? As we read the word we need to catch these subtle hints within its descriptions.
He’s chosen both those who choose Him and those who have not yet responded to their invitation to choose Him. He created us, formed us, made plans for us, and chose us to be vital part of His Divine plan in the earth.
Is He the Lord? Ultimately yes, personally, it will be tested as so. Remember “Lord” means He rules, has the say so, is Master, and commander. If He can’t tell you what to do, He’s not Lord of your life, yet.
Do you know that He will not back off of His promises? True, yet His promises do have conditions. In order for me to see their fulfillment, there must be found in me a willingness to fulfill the stipulations He’s laid out for me to obtain those promises. It’s like a road map of sorts. If I follow it, I’ll find what I’m after, if I don’t, the promise is still waiting for me whenever I decide to go after it. If I don’t go after it, it was still given, just not obtained by me.
The enemy likes to wear us down where the promises of God are concerned. He knows we live in a fast food generation. We give up if we don’t see what we want immediately. God is not “fast food” oriented, He’s eternally minded.
We are eternal beings also, we just need to remember it, step outside of the vision of the temporary and see beyond into the eternal realm, where the true promises of God lay. Those things which are truly worth obtaining are eternal in nature. They can’t rust, burn up, or corrode, they are worth going after and holding onto no matter what. Those who see this way do not get wearied in pursuit, for they know what God wants us to have is worth waiting forever for, even if we don’t see it, or touch it now.
This is why it says He keeps His promises to a thousand generations. Abraham saw us before we ever were. He offered His son willingly because of what he saw. His promise was never really seen by his own eyes, but He did not give up on it, it was more for us than for him personally, who He saw a far off. Ever heard, “It’s not about me”? Abraham saw Jesus, the One we’d all need. He wouldn’t give the pursuit of that up for anything, prolonging our promise through disobedience on His portion or part would prolong its coming to us sooner. Once you see, obedience is your proper response.
Jacob represents the unsaved, in our sin nature. He confirmed an oath with even the unsaved, who are Destined by the heart of God to be saved! What awesome love!
God showed Abraham numbers, large numbers, yet Abraham acted out his obedience when the numbers were small.
“I will give you Canaan as your special possession”. Canaan means “lowland, place of merchandising, trafficking, humble place”. To hear one must listen, to see into the spirit realm. What is He saying to us? “Canaan as your possession”, would say “The earth, the earth for a possession”. God set man over earth to rule it. Satan took the rule of it out of man’s hands in the Garden of Eden and so God stepped in and gave man a promise to take it back, and to be able to rule over all that was stolen. The hard part is getting man to want that as badly as God does.
The Lord will always test a person’s character. What is truly important to us is what we’ll live and die for. If it’s not important, it will show up in the testing time. He that finds important what God deems as such, will rule in God’s natural and eternal kingdom. If the world comes against you, how do you feel? This is a big part of the test of loyalty.
Plagues can be likened to problems that come our way. We encounter these same types of things everyday. They are also opportunities to choose righteously. It’s an “O.J.T.” of sorts. Do you know the Egyptians did not have to lose their firstborn sons? If their leader had taken the opportunities presented him before that day, a day such as that would not have come. The more we refuse to heed God’s offers to turn problems into opportunities for obedience, the harder it gets, for our hearts get harder. The plagues were actually grace to say, “this could be so much worse, choose now, so it won’t be”.
They were alarm systems, just as our problems are. They are like being burned by a hot oven, you feel pain, and you pull back and don’t repeat the same action again. You learn and go on to a different place safely. You did feel pain, you did get hurt, but the pain caused you to make a better decision and change so you’d be saved from the imminent danger.
Moses & Aaron and any and every preacher in your life, are alarms, trumpets, hot ovens, to save you from what could be ahead. If the enemy can get you to not hear their messages or if he can cause you to disregard their words, he’ll steal, kill and destroy form you. If he can make them stumble and you be offended, he has a stronghold.
The blessings of God are also grace, to give us a way to gird up our strength and go forward in obedient action towards God’s desired goal. Blessing is found in obedience, and also leads to further obedience.
Just because one obeys God does not mean another test of faith won’t be hanging around. Just as God needs us to prove our love for Him and to ourselves, so the enemy of God wants to take our faith away once proven. We are engaged in warfare in the spirit. The goal is faith, on one side to build it, on the other to steal it.
Let’s awaken and become aware of our Lord’s proving and of the enemy’s tactics to steal, kill and destroy our faith.
Happy Thanksgiving


Daily Thought to Ponder -
“Oh Give Thanks to the Lord for He is Good!”