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.

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Habakkuk 2:1-20 -
1I will climb up into my watchtower now and wait to see what the LORD will say to me and how he will answer my complaint.
The LORD's Second Reply
2Then the LORD said to me, "Write my answer in large, clear letters on a tablet, so that a runner can read it and tell everyone else. 3But these things I plan won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.
4"Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked; F2 but the righteous will live by their faith. F3 5Wealth F4 is treacherous, and the arrogant are never at rest. They range far and wide, with their mouths opened as wide as death, F5 but they are never satisfied. In their greed they have gathered up many nations and peoples. 6But the time is coming when all their captives will taunt them, saying, 'You thieves! At last justice has caught up with you! Now you will get what you deserve for your oppression and extortion!' 7Suddenly, your debtors will rise up in anger. They will turn on you and take all you have, while you stand trembling and helpless. 8You have plundered many nations; now they will plunder you. You murderers! You have filled the countryside with violence and all the cities, too.
9"How terrible it will be for you who get rich by unjust means! You believe your wealth will buy security, putting your families beyond the reach of danger. 10But by the murders you committed, you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives. 11The very stones in the walls of your houses cry out against you, and the beams in the ceilings echo the complaint.
12"How terrible it will be for you who build cities with money gained by murder and corruption! 13Has not the LORD Almighty promised that the wealth of nations will turn to ashes? They work so hard, but all in vain! 14For the time will come when all the earth will be filled, as the waters fill the sea, with an awareness of the glory of the LORD.
15"How terrible it will be for you who make your neighbors drunk! You force your cup on them so that you can gloat over their nakedness and shame. 16But soon it will be your turn! Come, drink and be exposed! Drink from the cup of the LORD's judgment, and all your glory will be turned to shame. 17You cut down the forests of Lebanon. Now you will be cut down! You terrified the wild animals you caught in your traps. Now terror will strike you because of your murder and violence in cities everywhere!
18"What have you gained by worshiping all your man-made idols? How foolish to trust in something made by your own hands! What fools you are to believe such lies! 19How terrible it will be for you who beg lifeless wooden idols to save you. You ask speechless stone images to tell you what to do. Can an idol speak for God? They may be overlaid with gold and silver, but they are lifeless inside. 20But the LORD is in his holy Temple. Let all the earth be silent before him."
FOOTNOTES:F2: Greek version reads I will have no pleasure in anyone who turns away. F3: Or the just will live by their faithfulness. F4: As in Dead Sea Scroll 1QpHab; other Hebrew manuscripts read Wine. F5: Hebrew as Sheol.
Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

~ Lena’s Journalin’
I wonder what Habakkuk’s complaint was. Maybe his finances were in poor shape, maybe he was not where he desired to be and wanted to be somewhere else. Maybe the people around him irritated him. Maybe the more he worked the less he got to keep a hold of, like he’d work for things and to pay debts, but it would all keep disappearing before his eyes.
Or maybe what he was sent for did not seem to be able to be accomplished by him alone, he needed a trusting army to accomplish the task. Maybe he’d make disciples and they would move on to other things that they felt were more important in life. I mean he was a prophet for God, right?
Maybe he had God’s message and no one would listen to it, no one would do it. They had other priorities in life and those took precedence over the words of the Lord he was sent to give. I mean not everyone probably received him as a prophet from God, they saw he was a man like they were. Ya know, that disregard even happened to Jesus.
The sad thing about that is that God appointed and anointed men in the earth to be His messengers, His voice, His heart in action. He chose imperfect men, men who make human mistakes, to manifest His presence in.
I’m coming to learn that the ultimate trust of God is demonstrated in trusting mere human men. If I can trust a man, enough to believe God has spoken to him and do those words as though they came from God – of course the word outlines our limits of strict obedience and it is more the heart or spirit than the letter principle here – if one can live this way, they are forced to trust in God more than ever before.
It is very easy to obey my own thoughts and opinions, to just go the path of least resistance, to stand alone before God, not a whole lot of trust involved in that, but when I put another person, who is a lot like me, in the picture. A man, whom in knowing myself I “know” their weaknesses, If I “obey” them, wow that is when I am really stretching my faith towards God “Lord, do you mean listen to THAT guy?” “Lord, You know them, they trip up sometimes…they’re just human like me, Lord.” Exactly.
I’m gonna shift a big gear here, as Hab did, when he heard God answer.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, and I find it very fitting with yesterday’s word.
I cannot tell you enough why you are alive in our time, why you were born, why you were born again. Why you have all of the gifts, talents, attractiveness or whatever expertise you possess. It is for purpose and for destiny, which is only found inside of Christ.
You are alive for God’s purposes, for the Destiny of God to be accomplished in the earth. That’s why we are alive.
Most people try to find out what they are good at and then they train to become a professional in that area to make money to spend to build themselves an earthly kingdom or to satisfy themselves and to accomplish some kind of success in human form. Most of the time success is measured by how much money and how many things we have, then there’s a larger measure of success when we can have others serve us in accomplishing the accumulating and storing of more things on earth.
Do you know that is NOT how God measures success?
Do you know each of us has something to accomplish for God’s kingdom here while we are here on earth? We are not even here to establish a kingdom of Lance and Lena Barnes with their 7 children or any other man’s kingdom power and glory.
We are alive because He made us, He sent us here in human form to accomplish His will, to assemble a force to be reckoned with where satan and his cohorts are concerned. We can’t do that alone, we must join with other humans to do this. In unity. There’s no unity possible alone, except I join another I’m only alone, but if I join another I can unify.
The point is we have an earthly responsibility before God, the reason we live. We will account to God, and are now accounting to God for the fulfillment of that will of His.
The responsibility is to become His, all His, and to tell others about How Great He is and to become as He is and show others the way to do the same, then those we have shown are also responsible to show and tell others how to do the same. That means life change is in order. If I’m not naturally like His character, I can be changed through His strength, and I have to change in order to reproduce the fruit of Him. If I don’t change I reproduce the fruit of me, that’s also building a kingdom unto me again.
I was imagining a person standing before God, saying well, Lord you know, so and so is good at that, I’m not. And Lord you know I had so many obstacles in life to overcome, like I was very sick, or I was hurt by people and that’s why I couldn’t do what You’d asked me to do. I love Jesus and I love that He did all He did for me, to show Your love for me, but I had bills to pay and I was very, very busy building my own kingdom and cleaning the things I’ve accumulated, I just didn’t have time to do what You asked of me. Also, Lord You know better than anyone how shy I am, and that I was born this way and it’s a real hindrance even to me getting a job and making the money we need as a family to live, so why would I be able to “minister” for You?”
I heard the voice of God, say “Ok? Now why did you not accomplish My will? What was the reason you withheld yourself from assembling with the army for training and to become a force to be reckoned with for Me? What was the reason you did not obey My commanders. Let me see if I heard you right, You were too busy, with what? And why would you not be healed so you could accomplish My will, when you knew this is the very reason you are alive? I made provision for you to be healed, I sent My Son, who gave you gifts to set you free. Now, tell Me why again.” “I don’t understand you, you must not be one of Mine, excuse Me I’m looking for those who are Mine. If you’d known Me you would have known what was important to Me, even to the point of selling all that does not matter to Me and you’d have given your whole life over to what I desired…I wish I knew you, but I don’t.”
The text speaks of how men build all for themselves, spend all on themselves (and their families and friends) of how they satisfy and comfort themselves, never turning to their true and eternal Source for supply. Their God is evidenced in whom they serve.
It is so the time to make that change over. Be all for Love, be all for One. Time for denying the satisfaction of self if needbe to accomplish His will and plan. In His Holy Presence, there will be no excuse, none at all, we won’t even want to give one, and we’ll find we are either found or could have been found in Him. Find yourself in Him today. Make the change today. There’s no reason great enough to warrant any other attention.

Daily Repetitive Verses:

Isaiah 58:12 You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again. THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language