Today's DBfrom TRC's reading list & Lena's Journain' too to Duet 30

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.

Deuteronomy 30: 1 - 20
1 "Suppose all these things happen to you – the blessings and the curses I have listed – and you meditate on them as you are living among the nations to which the LORD your God has exiled you.
2 If at that time you return to the LORD your God, and you and your children begin wholeheartedly to obey all the commands I have given you today, 3 then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes. He will have mercy on you and gather you back from all the nations where he has scattered you.
4 Though you are at the ends of the earth, the LORD your God will go and find you and bring you back again. 5 He will return you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will possess that land again. He will make you even more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors!
6 "The LORD your God will cleanse your heart and the hearts of all your descendants so that you will love him with all your heart and soul, and so you may live!
7 The LORD your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies and persecutors. 8 Then you will again obey the LORD and keep all the commands I am giving you today. 9 The LORD your God will make you successful in everything you do. He will give you many children and numerous livestock, and your fields will produce abundant harvests, for the LORD will delight in being good to you as he was to your ancestors. 10 The LORD your God will delight in you if you obey his voice and keep the commands and laws written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul.
11 "This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand or perform. 12 It is not up in heaven, so distant that you must ask, 'Who will go to heaven and bring it down so we can hear and obey it?' 13 It is not beyond the sea, so far away that you must ask, 'Who will cross the sea to bring it to us so we can hear and obey it?' 14 The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it.
15 "Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between prosperity and disaster, between life and death. 16 I have commanded you today to love the LORD your God and to keep his commands, laws, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and become a great nation, and the LORD your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.
17 But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18 then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy.
19 "Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, that you and your descendants might live! 20 Choose to love the LORD your God and to obey him and commit yourself to him, for he is your life. Then you will live long in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
The New Living Translation
Holy Bible, New Living Translation,copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.,Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.


Daily Repetitive Verses:

John 3:17
You know these things – now do them! That is the path of blessing.

~Lena’s Journalin’~
Selah & Amen
Selah, pause here for a bit and meditate on what was said.
Amen, so be it.
Wednesday night our pastor was speaking with us and said that our churches have become sissy churches, where Jesus is a sissy Savior, that we sissily serve.
He was saying that Jesus is not a sissy.
Yes He is kind and gentle, but His power is overwhelming and the fire of His passion burns with an all consuming fire for the salvation of His people.
There is an enemy out there and he is not gentle, he is out to take souls to hell.
I want to pray that you’ll get a revelation of hell, a place no one should ever go, a place no one would want to go to and no one should ever want anyone else to ever go to, not your worst flesh and blood enemy.
It was created for fallen rebellious angels, not people. Yet those fallen angels coerce people to go there with them daily, and people rise against God and say they want to go burn up in eternal fire!
The biggest thing about hell’s doom is there is no way out, no salvation, no God, no presence of grace and mercy, it is over, forever.
Pride and rebellion are being dealt with in our day, by the grace of God’s loving Spirit. Yet because a rebellious natured people have had their way for so long, the breaking of the chains of bondage is not the prettiest road to travel, but one must go there to be saved.
The way to fight rebellion is love. Love obeys, even when it does not feel to or want to automatically. It goes beyond feeling like it, to deciding for it. This is the kingdom of God. It is based on decisions of the heart, not feelings of the mind and body.
There is a scene in one of my favorite movies, ”First Knight” where the strong test of love was upon a very prominent couple, the temptation was strong the choice overpowering. The husband was asking the wife about her faithfulness of heart. He told her what he saw in her “heart” and asked her who she loved. He thought what he saw in her heart was possibly who she was and asked her about it. She replied that she chose Him, she chose them. He was confused at action verses decision. I felt she was in an excruciating battle of her will verses her heart even the enemy would try to tell her that the temptation of lust and feeling was what was in her heart. I felt her reply was saying, I may feel this way right now, and my feelings have confused me, and distracted me, but my will holds my heart and will steer it where it should go!
Does your will steer you or do your feelings?
Do you decide and then make the rest of our life follow your decisions?
Or does your body or soul steer you wherever it may go?
Better get a hold on that one, like a parent would get a hold of a child, because rebellion thrives on that.
Think of the spirit as the man in your life, in the dance, he leads. The soul is the woman, she follows, the body is the child, they copy and obey!
If a household lets the child or the woman lead it is out of order.
If Jesus is our Lord, then “He’s da man” and we let Him lead us.
Rebellion rises up and says I do not want it that way, I want it my way, why do I always have to be told what to do by everyone?
Start with yourself, are you even able to tell yourself what to do or where to go? If not, there can be big problems later on.
If you can’t tell yourself to get up and get ready for work each day, you may not have a job, whether you feel like it or not.
Love trusts, love obeys God.
God loves us and we love Him. It is a covenantal and reciprocal living relationship of giving, all of me for all of Him.
What an exchange, huh?
How do you feel when you read this passage and see words like, obey, command, thou shalt do, etc? Do you pass over them thinking the word is speaking to the Israelite church of the day, but obviously not you today? Do you skip to the blessings part and bypass the cursing parts? Or do you believe God’s word, receive it as instructions that will save your soul from suffering, and the pain of rebellion and ultimately from hell’s fire?
Do you tell your mind and body that as for me and my earthly house, we three will serve God? No matter how we feel about it?
Do you go to the hardest places on purpose? Like when you read in the word that God tells you to be kind and you do not want to, especially with so and so, do you rise up in your spirit natured man and go out of your way, commanding your body to obey you and your feelings to get in line, extending your soul to be kinder than anyone else towards this specific person? Do you press yourself to grow?
Make your body God’s slave and your soul (mind will emotions) God’s servant to obey.
It does not just happen for nice and good natured people, it is a decision of the heart. My heart chooses You!
My heart chooses life and length of eternal days.
My will- will follow my heart.
My body must come along for the ride.