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 6:1-25
A Call for Wholehearted Commitment
1"These are all the commands, laws, and regulations that the LORD your God told me to teach you so you may obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy, 2and so you and your children and grandchildren might fear the LORD your God as long as you live. If you obey all his laws and commands, you will enjoy a long life. 3Listen closely, Israel, to everything I say. Be careful to obey. Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
4"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. F18 5And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. 7Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. 8Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. 9Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
10"The LORD your God will soon bring you into the land he swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is a land filled with large, prosperous cities that you did not build. 11The houses will be richly stocked with goods you did not produce. You will draw water from cisterns you did not dig, and you will eat from vineyards and olive trees you did not plant. When you have eaten your fill in this land, 12be careful not to forget the LORD, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. 13You must fear the LORD your God and serve him. When you take an oath, you must use only his name.
14"You must not worship any of the gods of neighboring nations, 15for the LORD your God, who lives among you, is a jealous God. His anger will flare up against you and wipe you from the face of the earth. 16Do not test the LORD your God as you did when you complained at Massah. 17You must diligently obey the commands of the LORD your God—all the stipulations and laws he has given you. 18Do what is right and good in the LORD's sight, so all will go well with you. Then you will enter and occupy the good land that the LORD solemnly promised to give your ancestors. 19You will drive out all the enemies living in your land, just as the LORD said you would.
20"In the future your children will ask you, 'What is the meaning of these stipulations, laws, and regulations that the LORD our God has given us?' 21Then you must tell them, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with amazing power. 22Before our eyes the LORD did miraculous signs and wonders, dealing terrifying blows against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his people. 23He brought us out of Egypt so he could give us this land he had solemnly promised to give our ancestors. 24And the LORD our God commanded us to obey all these laws and to fear him for our own prosperity and well-being, as is now the case. 25For we are righteous when we obey all the commands the LORD our God has given us.'
FOOTNOTES:F18: Or The LORD our God is one LORD, or The LORD our God, the LORD is one, or The LORD is our God, the LORD is one.
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’ Today~
If, If, IF, that’s an awful lot of “if’s”, huh?
Is God conditional? In many ways, He is. Why? That was the way to bring salvation to a free willed being.
Free willed beings have and make choices, if there’s nothing to choose there’s no way to be saved. God made THE WAY and then explained the way in great detail, He showed the way, leads us in and to the way, gives us all of the correct answer to all of the tests.
So if our lives are some sort of God test (really, love of God test) and He gives us all of the answers, why is there hardship involved in doing His will?
Ahhh, there we are, right in that question lies the very answer, It is another’s will, not mine, not my original idea, not my way! Anything that is not my way becomes a contest, of wills. Pride rises up to say what Lucifer said to God in heaven-“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High!” Ya know that Proverb, “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall”? Who or what is that originally speaking of? THE original sin, bred into the atmosphere of heaven and earth. The destruction was rebellion against God and all of the chaos that came from its division. The fall was the manifestation of its division. Pride was/is the root of every sin. Haughtiness comes from ever thinking we know something on God.
When you REALLY think of that it is absurd, we know we don’t know as much as God, right? So why do we struggle at all with His will above our own? Pride tells us we want to be god. “We don’t want no body tellin’ us what to do!” That’s like your 2 year old telling you no, and he knows better than you do.
When one become somewhat God-wise, he will go wayyyy back and see what the root of that rebellion in one’s spirit stems from and he’ll see his need to be saved, and he’ll have oh such a desire to be a peacemaker for who God is, and a rebel against all that is against God.
Psalm 45:7 says 7 You love what is right and hate what is wrong. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you, pouring out the oil of joy on you more than on anyone else.
Of course we know this speaks of Jesus, and if we are Christians, we have received the answer we’ve waited for, to be like God, Christ-likeness is ours for the taking, for the being, so if we are like Christ, we think and act as He does without a whole lot of resistance to His spirit. If we are not resisting God, who and what are we resisting? I love this one, I’ve gotten it recently….we resist sin, we resist evil works inside of us. Not in what we see in others, because that is lording over and it is legalism. If we love what is right in us, and hate what is wrong in us, we are humbling ourselves before God, and the man who humbles himself before God has his enemies fought with and defeated for him.
James 4:7 says, “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.” So we wonder why we struggle with sin, with the desires of our flesh, why are we warring against God, just as satan does, and why we resist God, rather than evil? We’ve not humbled ourselves before God and His word, to obey Him in His word.
Rather than taking on the nature of God in a submissive spirit, we’ve taken on the nature of sin and satan. Jesus told a whole lot of religious folks, who were not listening to His words, He was telling them of their need for personal change, John 8:44 “For you are the children of your father the Devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning and has always hated the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Jesus was talking to guys who studied the word of God their whole lives and were very very religious. Their religion had become very self righteously based, they made up the rules as they saw them and there was a hierarchy of sorts and God couldn’t get into it! It was all man based , they felt they could work it out with God their way, they were trying to be saved another way, this is why in John 10:10 Jesus said, the thief comes up another way, he is a thief and a robber- a robber of what? Our true salvation, our true righteousness with God.
Man, when I see that, find that out, I rise up in holy anger, holy rebellion and I tell God’s and my enemy to get out of my face! The thing I’ve found out recently is the rebellion that tries to rise in me, almost everyday, against something someone is telling me to do, whether at work, or my kids school, or my church, or my friends, or the big one, my husband, or even bigger- God, was meant for the resisting of evil. The energy I exert, the adrenaline released as resistance tries to arise in me over some obedience thing, where my flesh nature wants to have its way or wants to explain God’s words to me away and excuse myself from it’s obedience, is meant to war against the entry of any and every evil that comes knocking at my door. I rise up with it and instead of saying no to God and a principle of God’s word, I say no to satan’s nature and yes to God’s. I use my flesh, in a way, to serve the purpose of God.
You’re blessed if you…., you’re cursed if you don’t…..Is that really true? YES, IT IS. Do we want to find out firsthand? Most of the time, but do we need to find out firsthand? No, it is up to us. God has given us His word on it, He’s offered us wisdom, He’s given us the strength of His Spirit, the power of His great love.
The real test is obedience, do we love God? Yes or no, there’s no half way or maybe. It does not mean if you’re not perfect you don’t love, it means if your heart is towards obedience, and you’re not trying to explain your requirement of obedience away, but rather you are seeking more and more to further obey, and give me the strength to obey, and show me how and I’ll do it, then you are being perfected and you are covered with the grace of salvation, by honoring the shedding of the blood of the Holy Lamb of God.
Love what’s right- God is right. Hate what’s wrong, evil is wrong. Obedience is right, Disobedience is wrong. Love obedience (to God), hate disobedience (to God).
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Monday, February 06, 2006
Our Daily Bread Today Deuteronomy 4 ++
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 4:1-49
Moses Urges Israel to Obey
1"And now, Israel, listen carefully to these laws and regulations that I am about to teach you. Obey them so that you may live, so you may enter and occupy the land the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2Do not add to or subtract from these commands I am giving you from the LORD your God. Just obey them. 3You saw what the LORD did to you at Baal-peor, where the LORD your God destroyed everyone who had worshiped the god Baal of Peor. 4But all of you who were faithful to the LORD your God are still alive today.
5"You must obey these laws and regulations when you arrive in the land you are about to enter and occupy. The LORD my God gave them to me and commanded me to pass them on to you. 6If you obey them carefully, you will display your wisdom and intelligence to the surrounding nations. When they hear about these laws, they will exclaim, 'What other nation is as wise and prudent as this!' 7For what great nation has a god as near to them as the LORD our God is near to us whenever we call on him? 8And what great nation has laws and regulations as fair as this body of laws that I am giving you today?
9"But watch out! Be very careful never to forget what you have seen the LORD do for you. Do not let these things escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren. 10Tell them especially about the day when you stood before the LORD your God at Mount Sinai, F13 where he told me, 'Summon the people before me, and I will instruct them. That way, they will learn to fear me as long as they live, and they will be able to teach my laws to their children.' 11You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain was burning with fire. Flames shot into the sky, shrouded in black clouds and deep darkness. 12And the LORD spoke to you from the fire. You heard his words but didn't see his form; there was only a voice. 13He proclaimed his covenant, which he commanded you to keep—the Ten Commandments—and wrote them on two stone tablets. 14It was at that time that the LORD commanded me to issue the laws and regulations you must obey in the land you are about to enter and occupy.
A Warning against Idolatry
15"But be careful! You did not see the LORD's form on the day he spoke to you from the fire at Mount Sinai. 16So do not corrupt yourselves by making a physical image in any form—whether of a man or a woman, 17an animal or a bird, 18a creeping creature or a fish. 19And when you look up into the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars—all the forces of heaven—don't be seduced by them and worship them. The LORD your God designated these heavenly bodies for all the peoples of the earth. 20Remember that the LORD rescued you from the burning furnace of Egypt to become his own people and special possession; that is what you are today.
21"But the LORD was very angry with me because of you. He vowed that I would never cross the Jordan River into the good land the LORD your God is giving you as your special possession. 22Though you will cross the Jordan to occupy the land, I will die here on this side of the river. 23So be careful not to break the covenant the LORD your God has made with you. You will break it if you make idols of any shape or form, for the LORD your God has absolutely forbidden this. 24The LORD your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
25"In the future, when you have children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time, do not corrupt yourselves by making idols of any kind. This is evil in the sight of the LORD your God and will arouse his anger.
26"Today I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you. If you disobey me, you will quickly disappear from the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy. You will live there only a short time; then you will be utterly destroyed. 27For the LORD will scatter you among the nations, where only a few of you will survive. 28There, in a foreign land, you will worship idols made from wood and stone, gods that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29From there you will search again for the LORD your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.
30"When those bitter days have come upon you far in the future, you will finally return to the LORD your God and listen to what he tells you. 31For the LORD your God is merciful—he will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the solemn covenant he made with your ancestors.
There Is Only One God
32"Search all of history, from the time God created people on the earth until now. Then search from one end of the heavens to the other. See if anything as great as this has ever happened before. 33Has any nation ever heard the voice of God F14 speaking from fire—as you did—and survived? 34Has any other god taken one nation for himself by rescuing it from another by means of trials, miraculous signs, wonders, war, awesome power, and terrifying acts? Yet that is what the LORD your God did for you in Egypt, right before your very eyes.
35"He showed you these things so you would realize that the LORD is God and that there is no other god. 36He let you hear his voice from heaven so he could instruct you. He let you see his great fire here on earth so he could speak to you from it. 37Because he loved your ancestors, he chose to bless their descendants and personally brought you out of Egypt with a great display of power. 38He drove out nations far greater than you, so he could bring you in and give you their land as a special possession, as it is today. 39So remember this and keep it firmly in mind: The LORD is God both in heaven and on earth, and there is no other god! 40If you obey all the laws and commands that I will give you today, all will be well with you and your children. Then you will enjoy a long life in the land the LORD your God is giving you for all time."
Eastern Cities of Refuge
41Then Moses set apart three cities of refuge east of the Jordan River, 42where anyone who had accidentally killed someone without having any previous hostility could flee for safety. 43These were the cities: Bezer on the wilderness plateau for the tribe of Reuben; Ramoth in Gilead for the tribe of Gad; Golan in Bashan for the tribe of Manasseh.
Introduction to the Law
44This is the law that Moses handed down to the Israelites. 45These are the stipulations, laws, and regulations that Moses gave to the people of Israel when they left Egypt, 46and as they camped in the valley near Beth-peor east of the Jordan River. (This land was formerly occupied by the Amorites under King Sihon of Heshbon. He and his people had been destroyed by Moses and the Israelites as they came up from Egypt. 47Israel conquered his land and that of King Og of Bashan—the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan. 48So Israel conquered all the area from Aroer at the edge of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Sirion, F15 also called Mount Hermon. 49And they took the eastern bank of the Jordan Valley as far south as the Dead Sea, F16 below the slopes of Pisgah.)
FOOTNOTES:F13: Hebrew Horeb, another name for Sinai; also in 4:15. F14: Or voice of a god. F15: As in Syriac version (see also 3:9); Hebrew reads Mount Sion. F16: Hebrew took the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far as the sea of the Arabah.
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’ Today~
The only way to not turn any other way than the word, is to know the word. AND remember, Jesus IS the word, we are coming to know Him more and more through the word of God. If we do not know the word how can we follow it? Do not be deceived into thinking that maybe what someone told you from years ago when you were taken to church and dropped off , or you heard some scripture read on the radio or you watch a bit of Christian TV or have gone to a few Christian funeral services, that you have a basis of the word of God!
The way our world is now, we cannot afford days going by without knowing Jesus in the personage of the word of God! If we don’t have a daily fresh word from the pages of the Bible each day, we are weak and sick and dying spiritually.
Remember Jesus said, man does not live (any kind of quality life on earth) by natural bread alone, food that is eaten to keep the body alive, but man lives (as he was sent here to live, a spiritually alive life) by every word from God!
I’ve heard lately how legalistic the church body is, I’m very sad that people are thinking of God’s representatives on earth this way. Really what they are speaking of is rules, lines being drawn around lives. Have you ever heard the phrase, “the lines are my friends”? Did you know that comes from a scripture, that says, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places”? That does not mean my flesh nature will like the lines that have fallen around my life, because our unsaved flesh likes to have things just the way we like them and a rebellious nature does not like to ever be told what to do.
Do you realize that obedience to lines is THE test of our love for God? Why would this be? Because satan, God’s enemy, rose up in pride in the face of God Most High and said, that favorite flesh word- “NO!” What would one word be that would combat that word forever? Can you guess it? “YES”!
The king of disobedience and outright spiritual rebellion stood up and tried to rise above God, in dis-unity, he brought division (that means where there was one vision, he brought two). Why do you think we struggle with lines, with rules, with lordship, with obedience? I’ll give you some hints- Light vs. darkness, pride vs. humility, blindness vs vision, etc, etc.
It is God’s war of love. Love conquers, love wins, love obeys. Another place in Deuteronomy will say something like- choose you this day who you will serve….that is a daily choice. We have to choose life. We have to defy the evil sway of rebellion against God. If we ever (like minute by minute) feel a rebellion rising in us against anything, I mean anything God has said, we should recognize what side we are of, if we do not rise up in holy rebellion to the rebellion and love. Love gives, love does not divorce itself from the body of Christ and any of its “rules of legalism”, if love prevails. The Divine nature of love is submission to God’s Spirit in love. Love gives, it lays down its rights, it does not argue its way.
Read 1 Cor 13:4-8. Live these words today. They will only know we are Christians because we do these things, we love God and one another. Love obeys. Even what may seem at times like legalistic God-rules to be on His side.
Let me go through some of these legalistic “rules” that if we really think about them and live them in the giving to God kind of love, we’ll really be benefited in our spiritual growth and the winning of other’s hearts, because of our own changed lives, lives that now resemble Christ more and more.
“You should go to church, every time the door is open” – If we love God and we love His house and we want to learn to love His people and even those who are not yet His people, how would this “rule” help us do that?
“You shouldn’t listen to music or see movies that put before your eyes and ears deceptive and evil appetites” – If we love God and people and we’re trying to root worldliness out of our thought, replacing it with Godly thoughts, why would this be a terrible legalistic “rule”? Would it help to give more room for the thoughts of God to be developed in us? There’s only so much room in each day, there’s only so much our brains can take in and process etc. Junk in junk out, Nourishment in nourishment throughout, right?
“You shouldn’t drink or smoke or curse”- Should you? If you’ve given your life, not just a part, but the whole thing, not withholding yourself from the use of God at His will, beck and call, why would you want to keep all of that? If we choose Him, then why would we choose also what he does not give us, he gives us gifts from the Spirit to pacify us and satisfy us. If it was a trade off, which it is, we just don’t see it that way, which do we choose? Life?
One more here, “You should give tithes and offerings”- Man, you ARE getting a bit controlling there! Don’t touch MY money! Wow, it is Your money? Do you want God involved in YOUR money? A little or a lot? The Bible says, towards the same measure you give it will also be given you, it also states a principle so you don’t really HAVE to give it all, but in giving at least 10%, it is as though you gave it all. Cool, huh? Depends on who our god is. The LOVE of money is the root of ALL evil. We cannot serve God and money, or do we deceptively think we can when God’s words says we cannot. Would we stand before God with and excuse that the church told us to and we needed to rebel against the church because they were too legalistic and this is the way we rebel, by withholding our money from God and the work he has chosen for us to support, His local churches?
Who are we?
Ever hear of Jews prospering? I wonder why, maybe it is their legalistic view of God. Maybe.
Do we receive instruction from God, and from God’s people sent by God into our lives to show and tell us a few things we may not have known or needed explained to us? Can we be corrected? “Hey Mack, the car is on the right, not the left side!” If Mack were rebellious, unteachable, uncorrectable, he’d not listen to George and he’d say something like, don’t tell me what to do! Meanwhile he’d not find the car right away, he’d go round and round the block, counting cars, till maybe by process of elimination or guesses and trial and error, he’d find the car! By then whatever opportunity may have been lost and he is now probably late, due to his independent rebellious, don’t tell me what to do nature.
Those of you who feel the church you’ve gone to is legalistic, or hypocritical, tell me which one of these verses you live on a daily unwavering basis. What have all of us said and not done, both in and out of the world? Are we all people of our words? Always? I know only one person like that- His name is YHWH. Forgiveness and grace cover the rest and all of the accusations that come with it. Don’t be deceived into thinking you can’t be around imperfect people who are hypocritical. If you are perfected and are not a hypocrite yourself, you can help them and love them and show them the way of truth, stick around and show us the way.
Just start with the first 10 Commandments. No one alive, except Jesus has not broken even a minute part of one of these commandments.
Have you ever, I mean ever lied about anything ever? Even a fib? Ever?
What about loving God all the way, not loving anything else above Him , above going to His house and being with His people in daily fellowship (Acts 2:42). There’s nothing else ever you’d rather do, right? He’s your everything, every thought etc? Is that hypocrisy, that you got saved, said you loved God, and then you don’t really?
These are examples of why we need Jesus’ blood, His grace, His power the fellowship of others etc. We cannot obey Him ourselves on our own strength. We can’t even do all has God asked of us, it is impossible. We have to daily rely on His strength an live by His word.
Lots to chew on and be brutally and personally honest about today.
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored.
19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
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 4:1-49
Moses Urges Israel to Obey
1"And now, Israel, listen carefully to these laws and regulations that I am about to teach you. Obey them so that you may live, so you may enter and occupy the land the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2Do not add to or subtract from these commands I am giving you from the LORD your God. Just obey them. 3You saw what the LORD did to you at Baal-peor, where the LORD your God destroyed everyone who had worshiped the god Baal of Peor. 4But all of you who were faithful to the LORD your God are still alive today.
5"You must obey these laws and regulations when you arrive in the land you are about to enter and occupy. The LORD my God gave them to me and commanded me to pass them on to you. 6If you obey them carefully, you will display your wisdom and intelligence to the surrounding nations. When they hear about these laws, they will exclaim, 'What other nation is as wise and prudent as this!' 7For what great nation has a god as near to them as the LORD our God is near to us whenever we call on him? 8And what great nation has laws and regulations as fair as this body of laws that I am giving you today?
9"But watch out! Be very careful never to forget what you have seen the LORD do for you. Do not let these things escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren. 10Tell them especially about the day when you stood before the LORD your God at Mount Sinai, F13 where he told me, 'Summon the people before me, and I will instruct them. That way, they will learn to fear me as long as they live, and they will be able to teach my laws to their children.' 11You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain was burning with fire. Flames shot into the sky, shrouded in black clouds and deep darkness. 12And the LORD spoke to you from the fire. You heard his words but didn't see his form; there was only a voice. 13He proclaimed his covenant, which he commanded you to keep—the Ten Commandments—and wrote them on two stone tablets. 14It was at that time that the LORD commanded me to issue the laws and regulations you must obey in the land you are about to enter and occupy.
A Warning against Idolatry
15"But be careful! You did not see the LORD's form on the day he spoke to you from the fire at Mount Sinai. 16So do not corrupt yourselves by making a physical image in any form—whether of a man or a woman, 17an animal or a bird, 18a creeping creature or a fish. 19And when you look up into the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars—all the forces of heaven—don't be seduced by them and worship them. The LORD your God designated these heavenly bodies for all the peoples of the earth. 20Remember that the LORD rescued you from the burning furnace of Egypt to become his own people and special possession; that is what you are today.
21"But the LORD was very angry with me because of you. He vowed that I would never cross the Jordan River into the good land the LORD your God is giving you as your special possession. 22Though you will cross the Jordan to occupy the land, I will die here on this side of the river. 23So be careful not to break the covenant the LORD your God has made with you. You will break it if you make idols of any shape or form, for the LORD your God has absolutely forbidden this. 24The LORD your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
25"In the future, when you have children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time, do not corrupt yourselves by making idols of any kind. This is evil in the sight of the LORD your God and will arouse his anger.
26"Today I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you. If you disobey me, you will quickly disappear from the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy. You will live there only a short time; then you will be utterly destroyed. 27For the LORD will scatter you among the nations, where only a few of you will survive. 28There, in a foreign land, you will worship idols made from wood and stone, gods that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29From there you will search again for the LORD your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.
30"When those bitter days have come upon you far in the future, you will finally return to the LORD your God and listen to what he tells you. 31For the LORD your God is merciful—he will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the solemn covenant he made with your ancestors.
There Is Only One God
32"Search all of history, from the time God created people on the earth until now. Then search from one end of the heavens to the other. See if anything as great as this has ever happened before. 33Has any nation ever heard the voice of God F14 speaking from fire—as you did—and survived? 34Has any other god taken one nation for himself by rescuing it from another by means of trials, miraculous signs, wonders, war, awesome power, and terrifying acts? Yet that is what the LORD your God did for you in Egypt, right before your very eyes.
35"He showed you these things so you would realize that the LORD is God and that there is no other god. 36He let you hear his voice from heaven so he could instruct you. He let you see his great fire here on earth so he could speak to you from it. 37Because he loved your ancestors, he chose to bless their descendants and personally brought you out of Egypt with a great display of power. 38He drove out nations far greater than you, so he could bring you in and give you their land as a special possession, as it is today. 39So remember this and keep it firmly in mind: The LORD is God both in heaven and on earth, and there is no other god! 40If you obey all the laws and commands that I will give you today, all will be well with you and your children. Then you will enjoy a long life in the land the LORD your God is giving you for all time."
Eastern Cities of Refuge
41Then Moses set apart three cities of refuge east of the Jordan River, 42where anyone who had accidentally killed someone without having any previous hostility could flee for safety. 43These were the cities: Bezer on the wilderness plateau for the tribe of Reuben; Ramoth in Gilead for the tribe of Gad; Golan in Bashan for the tribe of Manasseh.
Introduction to the Law
44This is the law that Moses handed down to the Israelites. 45These are the stipulations, laws, and regulations that Moses gave to the people of Israel when they left Egypt, 46and as they camped in the valley near Beth-peor east of the Jordan River. (This land was formerly occupied by the Amorites under King Sihon of Heshbon. He and his people had been destroyed by Moses and the Israelites as they came up from Egypt. 47Israel conquered his land and that of King Og of Bashan—the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan. 48So Israel conquered all the area from Aroer at the edge of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Sirion, F15 also called Mount Hermon. 49And they took the eastern bank of the Jordan Valley as far south as the Dead Sea, F16 below the slopes of Pisgah.)
FOOTNOTES:F13: Hebrew Horeb, another name for Sinai; also in 4:15. F14: Or voice of a god. F15: As in Syriac version (see also 3:9); Hebrew reads Mount Sion. F16: Hebrew took the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far as the sea of the Arabah.
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’ Today~
The only way to not turn any other way than the word, is to know the word. AND remember, Jesus IS the word, we are coming to know Him more and more through the word of God. If we do not know the word how can we follow it? Do not be deceived into thinking that maybe what someone told you from years ago when you were taken to church and dropped off , or you heard some scripture read on the radio or you watch a bit of Christian TV or have gone to a few Christian funeral services, that you have a basis of the word of God!
The way our world is now, we cannot afford days going by without knowing Jesus in the personage of the word of God! If we don’t have a daily fresh word from the pages of the Bible each day, we are weak and sick and dying spiritually.
Remember Jesus said, man does not live (any kind of quality life on earth) by natural bread alone, food that is eaten to keep the body alive, but man lives (as he was sent here to live, a spiritually alive life) by every word from God!
I’ve heard lately how legalistic the church body is, I’m very sad that people are thinking of God’s representatives on earth this way. Really what they are speaking of is rules, lines being drawn around lives. Have you ever heard the phrase, “the lines are my friends”? Did you know that comes from a scripture, that says, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places”? That does not mean my flesh nature will like the lines that have fallen around my life, because our unsaved flesh likes to have things just the way we like them and a rebellious nature does not like to ever be told what to do.
Do you realize that obedience to lines is THE test of our love for God? Why would this be? Because satan, God’s enemy, rose up in pride in the face of God Most High and said, that favorite flesh word- “NO!” What would one word be that would combat that word forever? Can you guess it? “YES”!
The king of disobedience and outright spiritual rebellion stood up and tried to rise above God, in dis-unity, he brought division (that means where there was one vision, he brought two). Why do you think we struggle with lines, with rules, with lordship, with obedience? I’ll give you some hints- Light vs. darkness, pride vs. humility, blindness vs vision, etc, etc.
It is God’s war of love. Love conquers, love wins, love obeys. Another place in Deuteronomy will say something like- choose you this day who you will serve….that is a daily choice. We have to choose life. We have to defy the evil sway of rebellion against God. If we ever (like minute by minute) feel a rebellion rising in us against anything, I mean anything God has said, we should recognize what side we are of, if we do not rise up in holy rebellion to the rebellion and love. Love gives, love does not divorce itself from the body of Christ and any of its “rules of legalism”, if love prevails. The Divine nature of love is submission to God’s Spirit in love. Love gives, it lays down its rights, it does not argue its way.
Read 1 Cor 13:4-8. Live these words today. They will only know we are Christians because we do these things, we love God and one another. Love obeys. Even what may seem at times like legalistic God-rules to be on His side.
Let me go through some of these legalistic “rules” that if we really think about them and live them in the giving to God kind of love, we’ll really be benefited in our spiritual growth and the winning of other’s hearts, because of our own changed lives, lives that now resemble Christ more and more.
“You should go to church, every time the door is open” – If we love God and we love His house and we want to learn to love His people and even those who are not yet His people, how would this “rule” help us do that?
“You shouldn’t listen to music or see movies that put before your eyes and ears deceptive and evil appetites” – If we love God and people and we’re trying to root worldliness out of our thought, replacing it with Godly thoughts, why would this be a terrible legalistic “rule”? Would it help to give more room for the thoughts of God to be developed in us? There’s only so much room in each day, there’s only so much our brains can take in and process etc. Junk in junk out, Nourishment in nourishment throughout, right?
“You shouldn’t drink or smoke or curse”- Should you? If you’ve given your life, not just a part, but the whole thing, not withholding yourself from the use of God at His will, beck and call, why would you want to keep all of that? If we choose Him, then why would we choose also what he does not give us, he gives us gifts from the Spirit to pacify us and satisfy us. If it was a trade off, which it is, we just don’t see it that way, which do we choose? Life?
One more here, “You should give tithes and offerings”- Man, you ARE getting a bit controlling there! Don’t touch MY money! Wow, it is Your money? Do you want God involved in YOUR money? A little or a lot? The Bible says, towards the same measure you give it will also be given you, it also states a principle so you don’t really HAVE to give it all, but in giving at least 10%, it is as though you gave it all. Cool, huh? Depends on who our god is. The LOVE of money is the root of ALL evil. We cannot serve God and money, or do we deceptively think we can when God’s words says we cannot. Would we stand before God with and excuse that the church told us to and we needed to rebel against the church because they were too legalistic and this is the way we rebel, by withholding our money from God and the work he has chosen for us to support, His local churches?
Who are we?
Ever hear of Jews prospering? I wonder why, maybe it is their legalistic view of God. Maybe.
Do we receive instruction from God, and from God’s people sent by God into our lives to show and tell us a few things we may not have known or needed explained to us? Can we be corrected? “Hey Mack, the car is on the right, not the left side!” If Mack were rebellious, unteachable, uncorrectable, he’d not listen to George and he’d say something like, don’t tell me what to do! Meanwhile he’d not find the car right away, he’d go round and round the block, counting cars, till maybe by process of elimination or guesses and trial and error, he’d find the car! By then whatever opportunity may have been lost and he is now probably late, due to his independent rebellious, don’t tell me what to do nature.
Those of you who feel the church you’ve gone to is legalistic, or hypocritical, tell me which one of these verses you live on a daily unwavering basis. What have all of us said and not done, both in and out of the world? Are we all people of our words? Always? I know only one person like that- His name is YHWH. Forgiveness and grace cover the rest and all of the accusations that come with it. Don’t be deceived into thinking you can’t be around imperfect people who are hypocritical. If you are perfected and are not a hypocrite yourself, you can help them and love them and show them the way of truth, stick around and show us the way.
Just start with the first 10 Commandments. No one alive, except Jesus has not broken even a minute part of one of these commandments.
Have you ever, I mean ever lied about anything ever? Even a fib? Ever?
What about loving God all the way, not loving anything else above Him , above going to His house and being with His people in daily fellowship (Acts 2:42). There’s nothing else ever you’d rather do, right? He’s your everything, every thought etc? Is that hypocrisy, that you got saved, said you loved God, and then you don’t really?
These are examples of why we need Jesus’ blood, His grace, His power the fellowship of others etc. We cannot obey Him ourselves on our own strength. We can’t even do all has God asked of us, it is impossible. We have to daily rely on His strength an live by His word.
Lots to chew on and be brutally and personally honest about today.
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored.
19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Our Daily Bread Today Psalm 133 ++
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.
Since our passage for today is so short, 3 verses worth, I thought we’d take a look at how reading in a few different versions and translations can help us see differently. When I do this I get outside of the way I’ve always known it and I begin to really think about it.
Psalm 133:1-3
A song for the ascent to Jerusalem. A psalm of David.
1 How wonderful it is, how pleasant, when brothers live together in harmony!
2 For harmony is as precious as the fragrant anointing oil that was poured over Aaron's head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe.
3 Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion. And the LORD has pronounced his blessing, even life forevermore. (NLT- New Living Translation)
Psalm 133
A pilgrim song of David
1How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along!
2It's like costly anointing oilflowing down head and beard,Flowing down Aaron's beard,flowing down the collar of his priestly robes.
3It's like the dew on Mount Hermonflowing down the slopes of Zion.Yes, that's where GOD commands the blessing,ordains eternal life. (MESSAGE BIBLE)
Psalm 133
The Excellency of Brotherly Unity.
A Song of Ascents, of David.
1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers R4226 to dwell together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil R4227 upon the head, Coming down upon the beard, Even Aaron's beard, Coming down upon the edge R4228 of his robes. 3 It is like the dew R4229 of Hermon R4230
Coming down upon the mountains R4231 of Zion;
For there the LORD commanded R4232 the blessing--life R4233 forever. (New American Standard Version)
CROSS REFERENCES:R4226: Genesis 13:8; Hebrews 13:1 R4227: Exodus 29:7; 30:25,30; Leviticus 8:12 R4228: Exodus 28:33; 39:24 R4229: Proverbs 19:12; Hosea 14:5; Micah 5:7 R4230: Deuteronomy 3:9; 4:48 R4231: Psalms 48:2; 74:2; 78:68 R4232: Leviticus 25:21; Deuteronomy 28:8; Psalms 42:8 R4233: Psalms 21:4
Pslam 133
Blessed Unity of the People of God A Song of Ascents. Of David.
1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity! 2It is like the precious oil upon the head, Running down on the beard, The beard of Aaron, Running down on the edge of his garments. 3It is like the dew of Hermon, Descending upon the mountains of Zion; For there the LORD commanded the blessing-- Life forevermore. (NKJV - New King James Version)
~ Lena’s Journalin’ Today ~
One of these versions says, “It’s like costly oil….” That stood out to me. I’ve always known it and have read it as saying, “It’s like the precious oil…” ya know in America, what oil to us is precious and costly, except maybe the oil we use for gasoline for our cars, right? So when I read precious oil. I don’t really get the meaning the word that God is trying to give me, for it is based on a culture that lived like 4,000 years ago, when there were no cars or gasoline discovered!
If I read, “costly oil”, I get a sense that there’s something there that is not cheap, that is worth something and to just pour it out could either be wasteful or it could be very much worth the efforts and cost.
Precious to whom? Costly to whom? What was the price? Let’s think of olive oil, and we are the olive. Our beginning was in a seed, the tree was grown from that seed and after a time of growth and strengthening, which took a lot of time, fruit came on the tree, the fruit grew and matured, oh how proud that olive must have felt to have grown to such size and have taken that long to get where it is. Now someone from the outside comes and wants to make something of it for their own use! So what do they do? Pluck the fruit off of the tree! Then they take and throw it in a basket with a bunch of others just like me (Oliver or Olivia :-)), I wonder if we’re being sent into the world now for people to see our growth and maturity and to see how plump our tree made us and how much our grower took time for us? How precious we are in His eyes?
No, baby Olivia, you are going to the press just like the others! What’s that? That’s the place where you give all of who you’ve come to be, to be completely mixed up with others like you, and squished together till you don’t look like anything at all, except olive meat and some oil! Then your meat, what you thought you were, gets thrown away or chopped up and put in a can with others who’ve been chopped up too.
This is a place where all of your identity is lost, it could be being distributed in several places with all different olives from all different locations. Then what you thought was a part of you,rather than the most of who you are, is now what they are selling for big bucks! It seems to have no substance at all, it’s liquid! You gave your life for this! This is what your life was all about? You had NO idea, but now it’s gone, all gone, and for what use?
Unity, Unity is the use, and the beauty is in the pressed together poured out life of one into the vats of others for the use of others.
What cost? The gift of a life given to others, for others, to give Him more than just an Oliver or an Olivia, but to give Him a many membered BODY in the earth, full of power, more power than one Oliver or Olivia could ever muster up. It is the expression of God, of His image in the earth. The anointing, His power on persons like you and like me, THAT is very precious! Some have had NO idea and won’t see something like that out of three verses if they don’t dig in to see.
Dig in today. The words is rich, precious, a treasure to all who desire, to dig in and chew on it and eat it’s priceless fruits!
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
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.
Since our passage for today is so short, 3 verses worth, I thought we’d take a look at how reading in a few different versions and translations can help us see differently. When I do this I get outside of the way I’ve always known it and I begin to really think about it.
Psalm 133:1-3
A song for the ascent to Jerusalem. A psalm of David.
1 How wonderful it is, how pleasant, when brothers live together in harmony!
2 For harmony is as precious as the fragrant anointing oil that was poured over Aaron's head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe.
3 Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion. And the LORD has pronounced his blessing, even life forevermore. (NLT- New Living Translation)
Psalm 133
A pilgrim song of David
1How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along!
2It's like costly anointing oilflowing down head and beard,Flowing down Aaron's beard,flowing down the collar of his priestly robes.
3It's like the dew on Mount Hermonflowing down the slopes of Zion.Yes, that's where GOD commands the blessing,ordains eternal life. (MESSAGE BIBLE)
Psalm 133
The Excellency of Brotherly Unity.
A Song of Ascents, of David.
1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers R4226 to dwell together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil R4227 upon the head, Coming down upon the beard, Even Aaron's beard, Coming down upon the edge R4228 of his robes. 3 It is like the dew R4229 of Hermon R4230
Coming down upon the mountains R4231 of Zion;
For there the LORD commanded R4232 the blessing--life R4233 forever. (New American Standard Version)
CROSS REFERENCES:R4226: Genesis 13:8; Hebrews 13:1 R4227: Exodus 29:7; 30:25,30; Leviticus 8:12 R4228: Exodus 28:33; 39:24 R4229: Proverbs 19:12; Hosea 14:5; Micah 5:7 R4230: Deuteronomy 3:9; 4:48 R4231: Psalms 48:2; 74:2; 78:68 R4232: Leviticus 25:21; Deuteronomy 28:8; Psalms 42:8 R4233: Psalms 21:4
Pslam 133
Blessed Unity of the People of God A Song of Ascents. Of David.
1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity! 2It is like the precious oil upon the head, Running down on the beard, The beard of Aaron, Running down on the edge of his garments. 3It is like the dew of Hermon, Descending upon the mountains of Zion; For there the LORD commanded the blessing-- Life forevermore. (NKJV - New King James Version)
~ Lena’s Journalin’ Today ~
One of these versions says, “It’s like costly oil….” That stood out to me. I’ve always known it and have read it as saying, “It’s like the precious oil…” ya know in America, what oil to us is precious and costly, except maybe the oil we use for gasoline for our cars, right? So when I read precious oil. I don’t really get the meaning the word that God is trying to give me, for it is based on a culture that lived like 4,000 years ago, when there were no cars or gasoline discovered!
If I read, “costly oil”, I get a sense that there’s something there that is not cheap, that is worth something and to just pour it out could either be wasteful or it could be very much worth the efforts and cost.
Precious to whom? Costly to whom? What was the price? Let’s think of olive oil, and we are the olive. Our beginning was in a seed, the tree was grown from that seed and after a time of growth and strengthening, which took a lot of time, fruit came on the tree, the fruit grew and matured, oh how proud that olive must have felt to have grown to such size and have taken that long to get where it is. Now someone from the outside comes and wants to make something of it for their own use! So what do they do? Pluck the fruit off of the tree! Then they take and throw it in a basket with a bunch of others just like me (Oliver or Olivia :-)), I wonder if we’re being sent into the world now for people to see our growth and maturity and to see how plump our tree made us and how much our grower took time for us? How precious we are in His eyes?
No, baby Olivia, you are going to the press just like the others! What’s that? That’s the place where you give all of who you’ve come to be, to be completely mixed up with others like you, and squished together till you don’t look like anything at all, except olive meat and some oil! Then your meat, what you thought you were, gets thrown away or chopped up and put in a can with others who’ve been chopped up too.
This is a place where all of your identity is lost, it could be being distributed in several places with all different olives from all different locations. Then what you thought was a part of you,rather than the most of who you are, is now what they are selling for big bucks! It seems to have no substance at all, it’s liquid! You gave your life for this! This is what your life was all about? You had NO idea, but now it’s gone, all gone, and for what use?
Unity, Unity is the use, and the beauty is in the pressed together poured out life of one into the vats of others for the use of others.
What cost? The gift of a life given to others, for others, to give Him more than just an Oliver or an Olivia, but to give Him a many membered BODY in the earth, full of power, more power than one Oliver or Olivia could ever muster up. It is the expression of God, of His image in the earth. The anointing, His power on persons like you and like me, THAT is very precious! Some have had NO idea and won’t see something like that out of three verses if they don’t dig in to see.
Dig in today. The words is rich, precious, a treasure to all who desire, to dig in and chew on it and eat it’s priceless fruits!
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
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.
2 Kings 19:1-37
Hezekiah Seeks the LORD's Help
1When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the Temple of the LORD to pray. 2And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, all dressed in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3They told him, "This is what King Hezekiah says: This is a day of trouble, insult, and disgrace. It is like when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver it. 4But perhaps the LORD your God has heard the Assyrian representative defying the living God and will punish him for his words. Oh, pray for those of us who are left!"
5After King Hezekiah's officials delivered the king's message to Isaiah, 6the prophet replied, "Say to your master, 'This is what the LORD says: Do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me from the Assyrian king's messengers. 7Listen! I myself will move against him, and the king will receive a report from Assyria telling him that he is needed at home. Then I will make him want to return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.'"
8Meanwhile, the Assyrian representative left Jerusalem and went to consult his king, who had left Lachish and was attacking Libnah. 9Soon afterward King Sennacherib received word that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia F58 was leading an army to fight against him. Before leaving to meet the attack, he sent this message back to Hezekiah in Jerusalem:
10"This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don't let this God you trust deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria. 11You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They have crushed everyone who stood in their way! Why should you be any different? 12Have the gods of other nations rescued them—such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar? The former kings of Assyria destroyed them all! 13What happened to the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
14After Hezekiah received the letter and read it, he went up to the LORD's Temple and spread it out before the LORD. 15And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the LORD: "O LORD, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. 16Listen to me, O LORD, and hear! Open your eyes, O LORD, and see! Listen to Sennacherib's words of defiance against the living God.
17"It is true, LORD, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations, just as the message says. 18And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. 19Now, O LORD our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O LORD, are God."
Isaiah Predicts Judah's Deliverance
20Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer about King Sennacherib of Assyria. 21This is the message that the LORD has spoken against him:
'The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and laughs at you. The daughter of Jerusalem scoffs and shakes her head as you flee.
22 'Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? Against whom did you raise your voice? At whom did you look in such proud condescension? It was the Holy One of Israel!
23 By your messengers you have mocked the Lord. You have said, "With my many chariots I have conquered the highest mountains— yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars and its choicest cypress trees. I have reached its farthest corners and explored its deepest forests.
24 I have dug wells in many a foreign land and refreshed myself with their water. I even stopped up the rivers of Egypt so that my armies could go across!"
25 'But have you not heard? It was I, the LORD, who decided this long ago. Long ago I planned what I am now causing to happen, that you should crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble.
26 That is why their people have so little power and are such easy prey for you. They are as helpless as the grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, easily scorched by the sun.
27 'But I know you well— your comings and goings and all you do. I know the way you have raged against me.
28 And because of your arrogance against me, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your mouth. I will make you return by the road on which you came.'"
29Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Here is the proof that the LORD will protect this city from Assyria's king. This year you will eat only what grows up by itself, and next year you will eat what springs up from that. But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them; you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit. 30And you who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will take root again in your own soil, and you will flourish and multiply. 31For a remnant of my people will spread out from Jerusalem, a group of survivors from Mount Zion. The passion of the LORD Almighty will make this happen!
32"And this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: His armies will not enter Jerusalem to shoot their arrows. They will not march outside its gates with their shields and build banks of earth against its walls. 33The king will return to his own country by the road on which he came. He will not enter this city, says the LORD. 34For my own honor and for the sake of my servant David, I will defend it."
35That night the angel of the LORD went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian troops. When the surviving Assyrians F59 woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. 36Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there. 37One day while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords. They then escaped to the land of Ararat, and another son, Esarhaddon, became the next king of Assyria.
FOOTNOTES:F58: Hebrew of Cush. F59: Hebrew When they.
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~
God is so good!
Today I woke up thinking, wow there are so many that seem to rise against us! Then as I read this I remember, there are more with us than are against us, in fact who do we have that has fought with His life and defeated all of our enemies for us, but Jesus!
Jesus’ blood has spoken for us and still speaks for us against-
Divisions
Angry mobs
Accusations all around
Continual blasphemy
Bombardments of the mind
Thievery
Sickness
Fear
Hatred
& whatever other enemy is trying to defeat you, especially in the area of walking out your personal growth of faith. Look at the things God’s has recently showed and told you that were like life to you, and now how the enemy tries to make those thoughts and ideas seem like mere wishes of something good. If that’s happened to you, recently, it’s time to go to God and back to His dreams he gave you and rasie them up to God, They weren’t good wishes, they were words from God!
Jesus rose up on a cross for all of this, all of it, not one thing left uncovered by His poured out blood.
Nothing that His blood does not speak for, even for us today!
His blood is of the eternal nature. Its power doesn’t last for only a time and then fade away.
I’m so thankful. I sometimes forget inside of the scuffle, but when I remember, I enter into the vastness of His love and into the value of the covenant and I press through. The words of enemies are very temporary and want to change us and our minds a lot, but God’s words stand eternally.
Be blessed in God’s words over you today!
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
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.
2 Kings 19:1-37
Hezekiah Seeks the LORD's Help
1When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the Temple of the LORD to pray. 2And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, all dressed in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3They told him, "This is what King Hezekiah says: This is a day of trouble, insult, and disgrace. It is like when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver it. 4But perhaps the LORD your God has heard the Assyrian representative defying the living God and will punish him for his words. Oh, pray for those of us who are left!"
5After King Hezekiah's officials delivered the king's message to Isaiah, 6the prophet replied, "Say to your master, 'This is what the LORD says: Do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me from the Assyrian king's messengers. 7Listen! I myself will move against him, and the king will receive a report from Assyria telling him that he is needed at home. Then I will make him want to return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.'"
8Meanwhile, the Assyrian representative left Jerusalem and went to consult his king, who had left Lachish and was attacking Libnah. 9Soon afterward King Sennacherib received word that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia F58 was leading an army to fight against him. Before leaving to meet the attack, he sent this message back to Hezekiah in Jerusalem:
10"This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don't let this God you trust deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria. 11You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They have crushed everyone who stood in their way! Why should you be any different? 12Have the gods of other nations rescued them—such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar? The former kings of Assyria destroyed them all! 13What happened to the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
14After Hezekiah received the letter and read it, he went up to the LORD's Temple and spread it out before the LORD. 15And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the LORD: "O LORD, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. 16Listen to me, O LORD, and hear! Open your eyes, O LORD, and see! Listen to Sennacherib's words of defiance against the living God.
17"It is true, LORD, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations, just as the message says. 18And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. 19Now, O LORD our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O LORD, are God."
Isaiah Predicts Judah's Deliverance
20Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer about King Sennacherib of Assyria. 21This is the message that the LORD has spoken against him:
'The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and laughs at you. The daughter of Jerusalem scoffs and shakes her head as you flee.
22 'Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? Against whom did you raise your voice? At whom did you look in such proud condescension? It was the Holy One of Israel!
23 By your messengers you have mocked the Lord. You have said, "With my many chariots I have conquered the highest mountains— yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars and its choicest cypress trees. I have reached its farthest corners and explored its deepest forests.
24 I have dug wells in many a foreign land and refreshed myself with their water. I even stopped up the rivers of Egypt so that my armies could go across!"
25 'But have you not heard? It was I, the LORD, who decided this long ago. Long ago I planned what I am now causing to happen, that you should crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble.
26 That is why their people have so little power and are such easy prey for you. They are as helpless as the grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, easily scorched by the sun.
27 'But I know you well— your comings and goings and all you do. I know the way you have raged against me.
28 And because of your arrogance against me, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your mouth. I will make you return by the road on which you came.'"
29Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Here is the proof that the LORD will protect this city from Assyria's king. This year you will eat only what grows up by itself, and next year you will eat what springs up from that. But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them; you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit. 30And you who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will take root again in your own soil, and you will flourish and multiply. 31For a remnant of my people will spread out from Jerusalem, a group of survivors from Mount Zion. The passion of the LORD Almighty will make this happen!
32"And this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: His armies will not enter Jerusalem to shoot their arrows. They will not march outside its gates with their shields and build banks of earth against its walls. 33The king will return to his own country by the road on which he came. He will not enter this city, says the LORD. 34For my own honor and for the sake of my servant David, I will defend it."
35That night the angel of the LORD went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian troops. When the surviving Assyrians F59 woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. 36Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there. 37One day while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords. They then escaped to the land of Ararat, and another son, Esarhaddon, became the next king of Assyria.
FOOTNOTES:F58: Hebrew of Cush. F59: Hebrew When they.
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~
God is so good!
Today I woke up thinking, wow there are so many that seem to rise against us! Then as I read this I remember, there are more with us than are against us, in fact who do we have that has fought with His life and defeated all of our enemies for us, but Jesus!
Jesus’ blood has spoken for us and still speaks for us against-
Divisions
Angry mobs
Accusations all around
Continual blasphemy
Bombardments of the mind
Thievery
Sickness
Fear
Hatred
& whatever other enemy is trying to defeat you, especially in the area of walking out your personal growth of faith. Look at the things God’s has recently showed and told you that were like life to you, and now how the enemy tries to make those thoughts and ideas seem like mere wishes of something good. If that’s happened to you, recently, it’s time to go to God and back to His dreams he gave you and rasie them up to God, They weren’t good wishes, they were words from God!
Jesus rose up on a cross for all of this, all of it, not one thing left uncovered by His poured out blood.
Nothing that His blood does not speak for, even for us today!
His blood is of the eternal nature. Its power doesn’t last for only a time and then fade away.
I’m so thankful. I sometimes forget inside of the scuffle, but when I remember, I enter into the vastness of His love and into the value of the covenant and I press through. The words of enemies are very temporary and want to change us and our minds a lot, but God’s words stand eternally.
Be blessed in God’s words over you today!
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Our Daily Bread for Today 2 Kings 18 ++
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.
2 Kings 18:1-37
Hezekiah Rules in Judah
1Hezekiah son of Ahaz began to rule over Judah in the third year of King Hoshea's reign in Israel. 2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah, F54 the daughter of Zechariah. 3He did what was pleasing in the LORD's sight, just as his ancestor David had done. 4He removed the pagan shrines, smashed the sacred pillars, and knocked down the Asherah poles. He broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had begun to worship it by burning incense to it. The bronze serpent was called Nehushtan. F55
5Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was never another king like him in the land of Judah, either before or after his time. 6He remained faithful to the LORD in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the LORD had given Moses. 7So the LORD was with him, and Hezekiah was successful in everything he did. He revolted against the king of Assyria and refused to pay him tribute. 8He also conquered the Philistines as far distant as Gaza and its territory, from their smallest outpost to their largest walled city.
9During the fourth year of Hezekiah's reign, which was the seventh year of King Hoshea's reign in Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked Israel and began a siege on the city of Samaria. 10Three years later, during the sixth year of King Hezekiah's reign and the ninth year of King Hoshea's reign in Israel, Samaria fell. 11At that time the king of Assyria deported the Israelites to Assyria and put them in colonies in Halah, along the banks of the Habor River in Gozan, and among the cities of the Medes. 12For they had refused to listen to the LORD their God. Instead, they had violated his covenant—all the laws the LORD had given through his servant Moses.
Assyria Invades Judah
13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, King Sennacherib of Assyria came to attack the fortified cities of Judah and conquered them. 14King Hezekiah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. I will pay whatever tribute money you demand if you will only go away." The king of Assyria then demanded a settlement of more than eleven tons of silver and about one ton of gold. F56 15To gather this amount, King Hezekiah used all the silver stored in the Temple of the LORD and in the palace treasury. 16Hezekiah even stripped the gold from the doors of the LORD's Temple and from the doorposts he had overlaid with gold, and he gave it all to the Assyrian king.
17Nevertheless the king of Assyria sent his commander in chief, his field commander, and his personal representative from Lachish with a huge army to confront King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. The Assyrians stopped beside the aqueduct that feeds water into the upper pool, near the road leading to the field where cloth is bleached. 18They summoned King Hezekiah, but the king sent these officials to meet with them: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the royal historian.
Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem
19Then the Assyrian king's personal representative sent this message to King Hezekiah:
"This is what the great king of Assyria says: What are you trusting in that makes you so confident? 20Do you think that mere words can substitute for military skill and strength? Which of your allies will give you any military backing against Assyria? 21Will Egypt? If you lean on Egypt, you will find it to be a stick that breaks beneath your weight and pierces your hand. The pharaoh of Egypt is completely unreliable!
22"But perhaps you will say, 'We are trusting in the LORD our God!' But isn't he the one who was insulted by King Hezekiah? Didn't Hezekiah tear down his shrines and altars and make everyone in Judah worship only at the altar here in Jerusalem?
23"I'll tell you what! My master, the king of Assyria, will strike a bargain with you. If you can find two thousand horsemen in your entire army, he will give you two thousand horses for them to ride on! 24With your tiny army, how can you think of challenging even the weakest contingent of my master's troops, even with the help of Egypt's chariots and horsemen F57 ? 25What's more, do you think we have invaded your land without the LORD's direction? The LORD himself told us, 'Go and destroy it!'"
26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the king's representative, "Please speak to us in Aramaic, for we understand it well. Don't speak in Hebrew, for the people on the wall will hear."
27But Sennacherib's representative replied, "My master wants everyone in Jerusalem to hear this, not just you. He wants them to know that if you do not surrender, this city will be put under siege. The people will become so hungry and thirsty that they will eat their own dung and drink their own urine."
28Then he stood and shouted in Hebrew to the people on the wall, "Listen to this message from the great king of Assyria! 29This is what the king says: Don't let King Hezekiah deceive you. He will never be able to rescue you from my power. 30Don't let him fool you into trusting in the LORD by saying, 'The LORD will rescue us! This city will never be handed over to the Assyrian king.'
31"Don't listen to Hezekiah! These are the terms the king of Assyria is offering: Make peace with me—open the gates and come out. Then I will allow each of you to continue eating from your own garden and drinking from your own well. 32Then I will arrange to take you to another land like this one—a country with bountiful harvests of grain and wine, bread and vineyards, olive trees and honey—a land of plenty. Choose life instead of death! "Don't listen to Hezekiah when he tries to mislead you by saying, 'The LORD will rescue us!' 33Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria? 34What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they rescue Samaria from my power? 35What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? Name just one! So what makes you think that the LORD can rescue Jerusalem?"
36But the people were silent and did not answer because Hezekiah had told them not to speak. 37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the royal historian, went back to Hezekiah. They tore their clothes in despair, and they went in to see the king and told him what the Assyrian representative had said.
FOOTNOTES:F54: As in parallel text at 2 Chr 29:1; Hebrew reads Abi, a variant name for Abijah. F55: Nehushtan sounds like the Hebrew terms that mean "snake," "bronze," and "unclean thing." F56: Hebrew 300 talents [10 metric tons] of silver and 30 talents [1 metric ton] of gold. F57: Or and charioteers.
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’~
When we read God’s word we should not try to figure out what is being said by natural words puzzles that somehow connect in our brains. They won’t connect. The word of God has to be searched out, unlocked and unveiled from the natural eye. Jesus had told His disciples that disciples are ones who dig deeper, seek Him diligently, search for the treasure in the words. He also noted that there would be casual hearers who would not go deeper, they’d come listen to Him and their hearts would feel good to listen to Him, but they’d go home later on , while the disciples would sit with Jesus, till they got it!
Why did Hezekiah’s life shine as one which pleased God? God loves everyone, both good and bad, but why would it be pointed out that one here and one there are pleasing God? I’d say a quick answer would be that they do His will. In doing His will one would be desirous of finding out His will, and then seeing what it would take to accomplish it. Jesus did that, found out what the father’s will was and then set out purposely to do that will. It was not an easy task to accomplish, even for Jesus. One thing we all battle and Jesus Himself as a man battled, was the comfort of the soul. The soul wants a whole lot of temporary comfort. It likes to be at peace, but be careful there is deception in “a feeling of peace” sometime, we should see that word as “relief”, and not “peace”. True peace is eternal and even if it is not comfortable it can be at peace. It would be a grave mistake to trade temporary comfort for eternal peace. Temporary could be one’s whole lifetime while on earth, in comparison to eternal life the trade of is a blink!
The word tells us why Hezekiah’s life was one of pleasure for God. He was not only willing, but he acted on the words of God he had heard. 1-He reigned, 2- He did what was pleasing in the LORD's sight, 3- He removed the pagan shrines, 4 -smashed the sacred pillars, 5- knocked down the Asherah poles. 6- He broke up the bronze serpent (that Moses had made!)
I’m going to stay on these few verses today-they are enough to chew on for the week.
Are we willing to do as Hezekiah did before the Lord? Remember Hezekiah means Jehovah is my strength! How would he stay strong in the Lord? By obeying God. Jesus said, IF you love Me obey Me.
Let’s look at #1 He reigned. What does that mean to you? It means to be the king over something and someone, really people and things. Who did he rule for ? God, right? Right. Do we take leadership and ruler ship over ourselves and then others, plural? A king is not a king of one and only one. Jesus made us all to be kings and priests unto God. The Genesis command was to rule over all the earth and everything in the earth. That means rule, take the lead. That leads to the hard question to our circumstantial living. Are we ruling things and peoples (with the love of God of course, towards the advancement of the assembly of the army of God! Encouraging others in the growth of their faith walk) or are they ruling us? Then do we rule over things or do they dictate the actions of our life actually taking us far away from the created purposes of God and of our part we play in the increase of God’s eternal kingdom?
#2 Did what was pleasing to the Lord. That seems easy enough, right? It says in the Lord’s sight. How would we know what He sees? That will be found in the unveiling of the word of God. It is NOT on the surface and cannot be seen by just anyone. A huge contradiction is when we do what is right to us, when we decide for ourselves what we will and will not do, when we exercise our free wills to pretty much tell God what we’ll do or not do, when we tell God our limits, rather than seeking His strength.
#3 one right things in God’s eyes was to take down pagan shrines. Pagan is a word that shows that a lot of attention has been paid to something that has no eternal value, the value of whatever we are involved with is nice for now, or will get us by here, but it is being done of our own effort, and not for God. It’s behaviors that we’ve lived before the world, it’s the thinking of, I’ve always done it this way and so have my parents and their parents before them and even my kids were raised to live this way”. Well if we ever find out that someone did something that was ok for then, but isn’t working so well now, wouldn’t it be good to change it? God is saying here- please do.
I am thinking of the driving of the first cars, they were good, but wow aren’t we glad they have changed and improved? Then the first car seats, some of those old ways or old things actually endangered people’s lives and without change they were in danger of losing theirs! BING! Just hit the nail on the head. IF God says change and we don’t or won’t and we tell Him we are fine like we are and He and everyone else should just love us this way etc. we are in disobedience and we are endangering our own souls. If an enemy is coming and we don’t see it, but God does and says MOVE- why would we not move? Stuborness, rebellion, religion, etc. Those will kill us! The truth is He does love us however we are, but He’s good enough to us to not leave us in that state of being. Even life on earth shows us that there is to be a progression of growth and change, look at the cycles and seasons.
KJV says about this passage, he removed the High places. 1 Cor 10:5-6 speaks of these very same places- read it (later on). These high places are where thoughts fly by us for us to consider and ponder, we can accept or reject the thoughts. If they are not God and kingdom thoughts, they need to be rejected, boldly.
#4 He smashed the sacred pillars. Sacred pillars are a lot the same as what we see in #3, but they are set in stone, they are ideas and thought patterns passed down to us through generations. They are what we weigh every decision by, past experiences, etc. They are why we do what we do and think how we thing. One deception is people just need to understand how I think! No, we need to get the understanding of how God thinks and change! Proverbs says, with all that is in you with all the strength you have to search it out go get understanding of God and His will, not have Him understand ours. He knows us in and out, do we know Him like that? Pillars need to be hewn out and taken down. They hold up the roofs of our past, they bring our buildings together, top to bottom, If we allow God to mess that up we’ll be well on our way to knowing Him. Notice God did not come with a breath of wind and take the pillars down, who did he use and require to take them down? People, One’s who say their strength is in God! Those who please Him will do this very, very hard thing, will press through the pain and labor of love to break through min sets of old. Men and women of God.
#5 he broke up the Asherah poles. Asherah means goddesses. Pretty, ok, fine, not bad “gods”. They may look ok, they may not seem too bad to your natural comfortable eyes, but they need to be brought down! You shall have no other god before ME. Not even one. Not even the one your great grandfather has passed down to your mother as a momento of his life on earth! None! What has been erected in front of the place of worship? What has kept us from diving into worship of the Most High true and living God? What stands between us and whole hearted giving over of our lives to His will? Is it a trust issue? Is it a love issue, is it a grudge about disappointments? What is it? It does not matter, take it down!
#6 This one is huge, HUGE! Take down the bronze serpant on the pole! It is about everything we’ve ever learned in our faith walk. It’s about spiritual experiences and teachings we’ve had, in the church! It’s about our ideas about religion. Good things that were done for us before in God. God told Hezekiah, in order to please Him, today, take that down, the people have stayed there too long, long enough to make it another god! WOW, huh? Even the “good things” can become gods to us. The key is movement and obedience to move from place to place in God, if he says move, move, If He says go Go, If he says take it down, than do. If He says grow, then grow, anything else is as idol worship, because it is not a living relational faith with a living master, it is as though we do a rote worship duty before a statue who doesn’t really care anyway, and what has he done for me anyway, I’ll pay my dues, feel great that I did my Christian duty and go on and live like I feel (before God) that I’m to live, anyway, I stand before God, and no one else can tell me what to do except God Himself.
I wonder how they felt that day when God has told Hezekiah FOR them to take down their comfy cozy places of idol worship, which they thought were ok, I wonder how that felt that day to be told what to do before God? I bet he had a mighty following of friendsJ. God didn’t say make comfy cozy friends, He said stand before me and obey Me. He said to rule. Hezekiah did love these people or he would not have done this. He would have let them live in their won ways and do things the way they wanted to and leave them alone to their comfort zones and be killed by enemies and the curse of God upon their disobedience, they would have gotten sicker and sicker and never fulfilled their commission as kings and priest unto God Himself. He had to go there.
It says further down that there were camps of peoples who were under siege (sickness, strife, poverty, etc) because they REFUSED to listen to the voice of the Lord. They may have said something like, No one can tell me what to do, I can ably hear God’s voice for myself. Now they are under siege and do not know why. Oh my God!
The sower principle is found throughout the entire Bible. One such principle is when there’s victory the enemy comes immediately to take the victory away. Hezekiah pressed through the hardships and tore down all of these things and guess who was waiting at his back door? The enemy, the accuser, the taunter. When you decide to rule, when you decide to obey god, when you decide to do what your leaders say, you can be sure it will all, every bit be challenged to see if you mean it, and how much do you mean it? Enough to give everything up for it’s words of truth? So you’ve gone on a Rock Church Encounter weekend, you’ve heard the voice of God, you’ve taken down a few idols, the enemy is waiting, to taunt you, to challenge you, to steal all God did for you!
DO NOT allow Him to!
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
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.
2 Kings 18:1-37
Hezekiah Rules in Judah
1Hezekiah son of Ahaz began to rule over Judah in the third year of King Hoshea's reign in Israel. 2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah, F54 the daughter of Zechariah. 3He did what was pleasing in the LORD's sight, just as his ancestor David had done. 4He removed the pagan shrines, smashed the sacred pillars, and knocked down the Asherah poles. He broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had begun to worship it by burning incense to it. The bronze serpent was called Nehushtan. F55
5Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was never another king like him in the land of Judah, either before or after his time. 6He remained faithful to the LORD in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the LORD had given Moses. 7So the LORD was with him, and Hezekiah was successful in everything he did. He revolted against the king of Assyria and refused to pay him tribute. 8He also conquered the Philistines as far distant as Gaza and its territory, from their smallest outpost to their largest walled city.
9During the fourth year of Hezekiah's reign, which was the seventh year of King Hoshea's reign in Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked Israel and began a siege on the city of Samaria. 10Three years later, during the sixth year of King Hezekiah's reign and the ninth year of King Hoshea's reign in Israel, Samaria fell. 11At that time the king of Assyria deported the Israelites to Assyria and put them in colonies in Halah, along the banks of the Habor River in Gozan, and among the cities of the Medes. 12For they had refused to listen to the LORD their God. Instead, they had violated his covenant—all the laws the LORD had given through his servant Moses.
Assyria Invades Judah
13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, King Sennacherib of Assyria came to attack the fortified cities of Judah and conquered them. 14King Hezekiah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. I will pay whatever tribute money you demand if you will only go away." The king of Assyria then demanded a settlement of more than eleven tons of silver and about one ton of gold. F56 15To gather this amount, King Hezekiah used all the silver stored in the Temple of the LORD and in the palace treasury. 16Hezekiah even stripped the gold from the doors of the LORD's Temple and from the doorposts he had overlaid with gold, and he gave it all to the Assyrian king.
17Nevertheless the king of Assyria sent his commander in chief, his field commander, and his personal representative from Lachish with a huge army to confront King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. The Assyrians stopped beside the aqueduct that feeds water into the upper pool, near the road leading to the field where cloth is bleached. 18They summoned King Hezekiah, but the king sent these officials to meet with them: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the royal historian.
Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem
19Then the Assyrian king's personal representative sent this message to King Hezekiah:
"This is what the great king of Assyria says: What are you trusting in that makes you so confident? 20Do you think that mere words can substitute for military skill and strength? Which of your allies will give you any military backing against Assyria? 21Will Egypt? If you lean on Egypt, you will find it to be a stick that breaks beneath your weight and pierces your hand. The pharaoh of Egypt is completely unreliable!
22"But perhaps you will say, 'We are trusting in the LORD our God!' But isn't he the one who was insulted by King Hezekiah? Didn't Hezekiah tear down his shrines and altars and make everyone in Judah worship only at the altar here in Jerusalem?
23"I'll tell you what! My master, the king of Assyria, will strike a bargain with you. If you can find two thousand horsemen in your entire army, he will give you two thousand horses for them to ride on! 24With your tiny army, how can you think of challenging even the weakest contingent of my master's troops, even with the help of Egypt's chariots and horsemen F57 ? 25What's more, do you think we have invaded your land without the LORD's direction? The LORD himself told us, 'Go and destroy it!'"
26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the king's representative, "Please speak to us in Aramaic, for we understand it well. Don't speak in Hebrew, for the people on the wall will hear."
27But Sennacherib's representative replied, "My master wants everyone in Jerusalem to hear this, not just you. He wants them to know that if you do not surrender, this city will be put under siege. The people will become so hungry and thirsty that they will eat their own dung and drink their own urine."
28Then he stood and shouted in Hebrew to the people on the wall, "Listen to this message from the great king of Assyria! 29This is what the king says: Don't let King Hezekiah deceive you. He will never be able to rescue you from my power. 30Don't let him fool you into trusting in the LORD by saying, 'The LORD will rescue us! This city will never be handed over to the Assyrian king.'
31"Don't listen to Hezekiah! These are the terms the king of Assyria is offering: Make peace with me—open the gates and come out. Then I will allow each of you to continue eating from your own garden and drinking from your own well. 32Then I will arrange to take you to another land like this one—a country with bountiful harvests of grain and wine, bread and vineyards, olive trees and honey—a land of plenty. Choose life instead of death! "Don't listen to Hezekiah when he tries to mislead you by saying, 'The LORD will rescue us!' 33Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria? 34What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they rescue Samaria from my power? 35What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? Name just one! So what makes you think that the LORD can rescue Jerusalem?"
36But the people were silent and did not answer because Hezekiah had told them not to speak. 37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the royal historian, went back to Hezekiah. They tore their clothes in despair, and they went in to see the king and told him what the Assyrian representative had said.
FOOTNOTES:F54: As in parallel text at 2 Chr 29:1; Hebrew reads Abi, a variant name for Abijah. F55: Nehushtan sounds like the Hebrew terms that mean "snake," "bronze," and "unclean thing." F56: Hebrew 300 talents [10 metric tons] of silver and 30 talents [1 metric ton] of gold. F57: Or and charioteers.
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’~
When we read God’s word we should not try to figure out what is being said by natural words puzzles that somehow connect in our brains. They won’t connect. The word of God has to be searched out, unlocked and unveiled from the natural eye. Jesus had told His disciples that disciples are ones who dig deeper, seek Him diligently, search for the treasure in the words. He also noted that there would be casual hearers who would not go deeper, they’d come listen to Him and their hearts would feel good to listen to Him, but they’d go home later on , while the disciples would sit with Jesus, till they got it!
Why did Hezekiah’s life shine as one which pleased God? God loves everyone, both good and bad, but why would it be pointed out that one here and one there are pleasing God? I’d say a quick answer would be that they do His will. In doing His will one would be desirous of finding out His will, and then seeing what it would take to accomplish it. Jesus did that, found out what the father’s will was and then set out purposely to do that will. It was not an easy task to accomplish, even for Jesus. One thing we all battle and Jesus Himself as a man battled, was the comfort of the soul. The soul wants a whole lot of temporary comfort. It likes to be at peace, but be careful there is deception in “a feeling of peace” sometime, we should see that word as “relief”, and not “peace”. True peace is eternal and even if it is not comfortable it can be at peace. It would be a grave mistake to trade temporary comfort for eternal peace. Temporary could be one’s whole lifetime while on earth, in comparison to eternal life the trade of is a blink!
The word tells us why Hezekiah’s life was one of pleasure for God. He was not only willing, but he acted on the words of God he had heard. 1-He reigned, 2- He did what was pleasing in the LORD's sight, 3- He removed the pagan shrines, 4 -smashed the sacred pillars, 5- knocked down the Asherah poles. 6- He broke up the bronze serpent (that Moses had made!)
I’m going to stay on these few verses today-they are enough to chew on for the week.
Are we willing to do as Hezekiah did before the Lord? Remember Hezekiah means Jehovah is my strength! How would he stay strong in the Lord? By obeying God. Jesus said, IF you love Me obey Me.
Let’s look at #1 He reigned. What does that mean to you? It means to be the king over something and someone, really people and things. Who did he rule for ? God, right? Right. Do we take leadership and ruler ship over ourselves and then others, plural? A king is not a king of one and only one. Jesus made us all to be kings and priests unto God. The Genesis command was to rule over all the earth and everything in the earth. That means rule, take the lead. That leads to the hard question to our circumstantial living. Are we ruling things and peoples (with the love of God of course, towards the advancement of the assembly of the army of God! Encouraging others in the growth of their faith walk) or are they ruling us? Then do we rule over things or do they dictate the actions of our life actually taking us far away from the created purposes of God and of our part we play in the increase of God’s eternal kingdom?
#2 Did what was pleasing to the Lord. That seems easy enough, right? It says in the Lord’s sight. How would we know what He sees? That will be found in the unveiling of the word of God. It is NOT on the surface and cannot be seen by just anyone. A huge contradiction is when we do what is right to us, when we decide for ourselves what we will and will not do, when we exercise our free wills to pretty much tell God what we’ll do or not do, when we tell God our limits, rather than seeking His strength.
#3 one right things in God’s eyes was to take down pagan shrines. Pagan is a word that shows that a lot of attention has been paid to something that has no eternal value, the value of whatever we are involved with is nice for now, or will get us by here, but it is being done of our own effort, and not for God. It’s behaviors that we’ve lived before the world, it’s the thinking of, I’ve always done it this way and so have my parents and their parents before them and even my kids were raised to live this way”. Well if we ever find out that someone did something that was ok for then, but isn’t working so well now, wouldn’t it be good to change it? God is saying here- please do.
I am thinking of the driving of the first cars, they were good, but wow aren’t we glad they have changed and improved? Then the first car seats, some of those old ways or old things actually endangered people’s lives and without change they were in danger of losing theirs! BING! Just hit the nail on the head. IF God says change and we don’t or won’t and we tell Him we are fine like we are and He and everyone else should just love us this way etc. we are in disobedience and we are endangering our own souls. If an enemy is coming and we don’t see it, but God does and says MOVE- why would we not move? Stuborness, rebellion, religion, etc. Those will kill us! The truth is He does love us however we are, but He’s good enough to us to not leave us in that state of being. Even life on earth shows us that there is to be a progression of growth and change, look at the cycles and seasons.
KJV says about this passage, he removed the High places. 1 Cor 10:5-6 speaks of these very same places- read it (later on). These high places are where thoughts fly by us for us to consider and ponder, we can accept or reject the thoughts. If they are not God and kingdom thoughts, they need to be rejected, boldly.
#4 He smashed the sacred pillars. Sacred pillars are a lot the same as what we see in #3, but they are set in stone, they are ideas and thought patterns passed down to us through generations. They are what we weigh every decision by, past experiences, etc. They are why we do what we do and think how we thing. One deception is people just need to understand how I think! No, we need to get the understanding of how God thinks and change! Proverbs says, with all that is in you with all the strength you have to search it out go get understanding of God and His will, not have Him understand ours. He knows us in and out, do we know Him like that? Pillars need to be hewn out and taken down. They hold up the roofs of our past, they bring our buildings together, top to bottom, If we allow God to mess that up we’ll be well on our way to knowing Him. Notice God did not come with a breath of wind and take the pillars down, who did he use and require to take them down? People, One’s who say their strength is in God! Those who please Him will do this very, very hard thing, will press through the pain and labor of love to break through min sets of old. Men and women of God.
#5 he broke up the Asherah poles. Asherah means goddesses. Pretty, ok, fine, not bad “gods”. They may look ok, they may not seem too bad to your natural comfortable eyes, but they need to be brought down! You shall have no other god before ME. Not even one. Not even the one your great grandfather has passed down to your mother as a momento of his life on earth! None! What has been erected in front of the place of worship? What has kept us from diving into worship of the Most High true and living God? What stands between us and whole hearted giving over of our lives to His will? Is it a trust issue? Is it a love issue, is it a grudge about disappointments? What is it? It does not matter, take it down!
#6 This one is huge, HUGE! Take down the bronze serpant on the pole! It is about everything we’ve ever learned in our faith walk. It’s about spiritual experiences and teachings we’ve had, in the church! It’s about our ideas about religion. Good things that were done for us before in God. God told Hezekiah, in order to please Him, today, take that down, the people have stayed there too long, long enough to make it another god! WOW, huh? Even the “good things” can become gods to us. The key is movement and obedience to move from place to place in God, if he says move, move, If He says go Go, If he says take it down, than do. If He says grow, then grow, anything else is as idol worship, because it is not a living relational faith with a living master, it is as though we do a rote worship duty before a statue who doesn’t really care anyway, and what has he done for me anyway, I’ll pay my dues, feel great that I did my Christian duty and go on and live like I feel (before God) that I’m to live, anyway, I stand before God, and no one else can tell me what to do except God Himself.
I wonder how they felt that day when God has told Hezekiah FOR them to take down their comfy cozy places of idol worship, which they thought were ok, I wonder how that felt that day to be told what to do before God? I bet he had a mighty following of friendsJ. God didn’t say make comfy cozy friends, He said stand before me and obey Me. He said to rule. Hezekiah did love these people or he would not have done this. He would have let them live in their won ways and do things the way they wanted to and leave them alone to their comfort zones and be killed by enemies and the curse of God upon their disobedience, they would have gotten sicker and sicker and never fulfilled their commission as kings and priest unto God Himself. He had to go there.
It says further down that there were camps of peoples who were under siege (sickness, strife, poverty, etc) because they REFUSED to listen to the voice of the Lord. They may have said something like, No one can tell me what to do, I can ably hear God’s voice for myself. Now they are under siege and do not know why. Oh my God!
The sower principle is found throughout the entire Bible. One such principle is when there’s victory the enemy comes immediately to take the victory away. Hezekiah pressed through the hardships and tore down all of these things and guess who was waiting at his back door? The enemy, the accuser, the taunter. When you decide to rule, when you decide to obey god, when you decide to do what your leaders say, you can be sure it will all, every bit be challenged to see if you mean it, and how much do you mean it? Enough to give everything up for it’s words of truth? So you’ve gone on a Rock Church Encounter weekend, you’ve heard the voice of God, you’ve taken down a few idols, the enemy is waiting, to taunt you, to challenge you, to steal all God did for you!
DO NOT allow Him to!
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Our Daily Bread Today Isaiah 37 ++
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.
Isaiah 37:1-38
Hezekiah Seeks the LORD's Help
1When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the Temple of the LORD to pray. 2And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, all dressed in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3They told him, "This is what King Hezekiah says: This is a day of trouble, insult, and disgrace. It is like when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver it. 4But perhaps the LORD your God has heard the Assyrian representative defying the living God and will punish him for his words. Oh, pray for those of us who are left!"
5After King Hezekiah's officials delivered the king's message to Isaiah, 6the prophet replied, "Say to your master, 'This is what the LORD says: Do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me from the Assyrian king's messengers. 7Listen! I myself will make sure that the king will receive a report from Assyria telling him that he is needed at home. Then I will make him want to return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.'"
8Meanwhile, the Assyrian representative left Jerusalem and went to consult his king, who had left Lachish and was attacking Libnah. 9Soon afterward King Sennacherib received word that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia F90 was leading an army to fight against him. Before leaving to meet the attack, he sent this message back to Hezekiah in Jerusalem:
10"This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don't let this God you trust deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria. 11You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They have crushed everyone who stood in their way! Why should you be any different? 12Have the gods of other nations rescued them—such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar? The former kings of Assyria destroyed them all! 13What happened to the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
14After Hezekiah received the letter and read it, he went up to the LORD's Temple and spread it out before the LORD. 15And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the LORD: 16"O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. 17Listen to me, O LORD, and hear! Open your eyes, O LORD, and see! Listen to Sennacherib's words of defiance against the living God.
18"It is true, LORD, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations, just as the message says. 19And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. 20Now, O LORD our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O LORD, are God."
Isaiah Predicts Judah's Deliverance
21Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: This is my answer to your prayer concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria. 22This is the message that the LORD has spoken against him:
'The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and laughs at you. The daughter of Jerusalem scoffs and shakes her head as you flee.
23 'Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? Against whom did you raise your voice? At whom did you look in such proud condescension? It was the Holy One of Israel!
24 By your messengers you have mocked the Lord. You have said, "With my many chariots I have conquered the highest mountains— yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars and its choicest cypress trees. I have reached its farthest corners and explored its deepest forests.
25 I have dug wells in many a foreign land and refreshed myself with their water. I even stopped up the rivers of Egypt so that my armies could go across!"
26 'But have you not heard? It was I, the LORD, who decided this long ago. Long ago I planned what I am now causing to happen, that you should crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble.
27 That is why their people have so little power and are such easy prey for you. They are as helpless as the grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, easily scorched by the sun.
28 'But I know you well— your comings and goings and all you do. I know the way you have raged against me.
29 And because of your arrogance against me, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your mouth. I will make you return by the road on which you came.'"
30Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Here is the proof that the LORD will protect this city from Assyria's king. This year you will eat only what grows up by itself, and next year you will eat what springs up from that. But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them; you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit. 31And you who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will take root again in your own soil, and you will flourish and multiply. 32For a remnant of my people will spread out from Jerusalem, a group of survivors from Mount Zion. The passion of the LORD Almighty will make this happen!
33"And this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: His armies will not enter Jerusalem to shoot their arrows. They will not march outside its gates with their shields and build banks of earth against its walls. 34The king will return to his own country by the road on which he came. He will not enter this city, says the LORD. 35For my own honor and for the sake of my servant David, I will defend it."
36That night the angel of the LORD went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian troops. When the surviving Assyrians F91 woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. 37Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there. 38One day while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords. They then escaped to the land of Ararat, and another son, Esarhaddon, became the next king of Assyria.
FOOTNOTES:F90: Hebrew of Cush. F91: Hebrew When they.
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’ Today~
Hezekiah= “Jehovah is my strength”.
So the enemy comes forward with all kinds of accusations against you, against what you heard from God, against the people you’ve told God’s words to….against the people you were sent by God and set in by God to lead (could be your family, both natural and spiritually speaking), You get reports contrary from all you are being asked by God to say in faith, reports of the dis-unified nature. It tells you that what you’re believing is no where near what is, what will be or what ever will be; that there’s no resemblance of truth in where you are going at all…
What do you do, about that?
Who’s report do you believe?
To whom has the arm of the Lord been extended?
For whom was our Lord Jesus Christ wounded anyway? (Isa 53 again)
Do you continue to listen to wrong voices? Allowing them to continue to taunt?
Hezekiah went to the very place all of his strength came from, He went back to his original source, which was God. He ran to God, not away from Him. The guys who came to bring the alert for the need to go to God were “God will raise up” and “Vigorously”, promises confirmed in living messengers. The Lord may alert us to an evil plan, it will always come with and answer, a promise!
He said, it seems like we don’t have what it will take to bring this thing to pass, to make what we believed God said to do, to happen. It looks like it is impossible, like there’s no unity, no strength to deliver. BUT…
A message WAS delivered to you- REMEMBER? The promise? The dream? The word? The goal or strategy? Remember? Why would He who is higher than any other also not deliver you?
THE Lord says- DO NOT be disturbed! It is only words that come against God’s words! LIES. I have a strategy for our enemy. Do you?
Even after receiving a strategy from the Lord and a confirming word from God, des not the enemy come again, with what? Words and lies. He presses us, he won’t let go, are we that determined to keep God’s words to us, or do we easily give them up and let them go? Sometimes it is about who holds on the longest, even God wants to know how much His words mean to us. Are we basing our faith in God on past experiences? On how it worked out for others? Or how it didn’t?
PUT the words of the accuser before the Lord, take them into God’s presence and drop them off there and leave them there! Hezekiah, did not “ignore” the threat, but he took the threat before God and re-iterated to his soul, there is only One God and only One voice that I trust and rely on for anything, and to Him alone all glory and honor should be given for victory always. What did God do with the accusations? He took them personal (God sent His own Son, that’s pretty personal!). He took it so personal, that He fought and won the battle for His people.
Did you notice when God defeated the enemies of His people, the motivation He voiced concerning it? He said, the passion of the Almighty did this! What is passion, where does it come from? It is the action taken by love, love is the motivator. The people of God had proven they loved God immensely, they showed it by refusing any other gods. They solidified it by not moving off of that love relationship faith for any reason. That passion moved God’s heart to do it all for them and not hold any of Himself back either.
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
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.
Isaiah 37:1-38
Hezekiah Seeks the LORD's Help
1When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the Temple of the LORD to pray. 2And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, all dressed in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3They told him, "This is what King Hezekiah says: This is a day of trouble, insult, and disgrace. It is like when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver it. 4But perhaps the LORD your God has heard the Assyrian representative defying the living God and will punish him for his words. Oh, pray for those of us who are left!"
5After King Hezekiah's officials delivered the king's message to Isaiah, 6the prophet replied, "Say to your master, 'This is what the LORD says: Do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me from the Assyrian king's messengers. 7Listen! I myself will make sure that the king will receive a report from Assyria telling him that he is needed at home. Then I will make him want to return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.'"
8Meanwhile, the Assyrian representative left Jerusalem and went to consult his king, who had left Lachish and was attacking Libnah. 9Soon afterward King Sennacherib received word that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia F90 was leading an army to fight against him. Before leaving to meet the attack, he sent this message back to Hezekiah in Jerusalem:
10"This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don't let this God you trust deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria. 11You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They have crushed everyone who stood in their way! Why should you be any different? 12Have the gods of other nations rescued them—such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar? The former kings of Assyria destroyed them all! 13What happened to the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
14After Hezekiah received the letter and read it, he went up to the LORD's Temple and spread it out before the LORD. 15And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the LORD: 16"O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. 17Listen to me, O LORD, and hear! Open your eyes, O LORD, and see! Listen to Sennacherib's words of defiance against the living God.
18"It is true, LORD, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations, just as the message says. 19And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. 20Now, O LORD our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O LORD, are God."
Isaiah Predicts Judah's Deliverance
21Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: This is my answer to your prayer concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria. 22This is the message that the LORD has spoken against him:
'The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and laughs at you. The daughter of Jerusalem scoffs and shakes her head as you flee.
23 'Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? Against whom did you raise your voice? At whom did you look in such proud condescension? It was the Holy One of Israel!
24 By your messengers you have mocked the Lord. You have said, "With my many chariots I have conquered the highest mountains— yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars and its choicest cypress trees. I have reached its farthest corners and explored its deepest forests.
25 I have dug wells in many a foreign land and refreshed myself with their water. I even stopped up the rivers of Egypt so that my armies could go across!"
26 'But have you not heard? It was I, the LORD, who decided this long ago. Long ago I planned what I am now causing to happen, that you should crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble.
27 That is why their people have so little power and are such easy prey for you. They are as helpless as the grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, easily scorched by the sun.
28 'But I know you well— your comings and goings and all you do. I know the way you have raged against me.
29 And because of your arrogance against me, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your mouth. I will make you return by the road on which you came.'"
30Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Here is the proof that the LORD will protect this city from Assyria's king. This year you will eat only what grows up by itself, and next year you will eat what springs up from that. But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them; you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit. 31And you who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will take root again in your own soil, and you will flourish and multiply. 32For a remnant of my people will spread out from Jerusalem, a group of survivors from Mount Zion. The passion of the LORD Almighty will make this happen!
33"And this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: His armies will not enter Jerusalem to shoot their arrows. They will not march outside its gates with their shields and build banks of earth against its walls. 34The king will return to his own country by the road on which he came. He will not enter this city, says the LORD. 35For my own honor and for the sake of my servant David, I will defend it."
36That night the angel of the LORD went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian troops. When the surviving Assyrians F91 woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. 37Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there. 38One day while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords. They then escaped to the land of Ararat, and another son, Esarhaddon, became the next king of Assyria.
FOOTNOTES:F90: Hebrew of Cush. F91: Hebrew When they.
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’ Today~
Hezekiah= “Jehovah is my strength”.
So the enemy comes forward with all kinds of accusations against you, against what you heard from God, against the people you’ve told God’s words to….against the people you were sent by God and set in by God to lead (could be your family, both natural and spiritually speaking), You get reports contrary from all you are being asked by God to say in faith, reports of the dis-unified nature. It tells you that what you’re believing is no where near what is, what will be or what ever will be; that there’s no resemblance of truth in where you are going at all…
What do you do, about that?
Who’s report do you believe?
To whom has the arm of the Lord been extended?
For whom was our Lord Jesus Christ wounded anyway? (Isa 53 again)
Do you continue to listen to wrong voices? Allowing them to continue to taunt?
Hezekiah went to the very place all of his strength came from, He went back to his original source, which was God. He ran to God, not away from Him. The guys who came to bring the alert for the need to go to God were “God will raise up” and “Vigorously”, promises confirmed in living messengers. The Lord may alert us to an evil plan, it will always come with and answer, a promise!
He said, it seems like we don’t have what it will take to bring this thing to pass, to make what we believed God said to do, to happen. It looks like it is impossible, like there’s no unity, no strength to deliver. BUT…
A message WAS delivered to you- REMEMBER? The promise? The dream? The word? The goal or strategy? Remember? Why would He who is higher than any other also not deliver you?
THE Lord says- DO NOT be disturbed! It is only words that come against God’s words! LIES. I have a strategy for our enemy. Do you?
Even after receiving a strategy from the Lord and a confirming word from God, des not the enemy come again, with what? Words and lies. He presses us, he won’t let go, are we that determined to keep God’s words to us, or do we easily give them up and let them go? Sometimes it is about who holds on the longest, even God wants to know how much His words mean to us. Are we basing our faith in God on past experiences? On how it worked out for others? Or how it didn’t?
PUT the words of the accuser before the Lord, take them into God’s presence and drop them off there and leave them there! Hezekiah, did not “ignore” the threat, but he took the threat before God and re-iterated to his soul, there is only One God and only One voice that I trust and rely on for anything, and to Him alone all glory and honor should be given for victory always. What did God do with the accusations? He took them personal (God sent His own Son, that’s pretty personal!). He took it so personal, that He fought and won the battle for His people.
Did you notice when God defeated the enemies of His people, the motivation He voiced concerning it? He said, the passion of the Almighty did this! What is passion, where does it come from? It is the action taken by love, love is the motivator. The people of God had proven they loved God immensely, they showed it by refusing any other gods. They solidified it by not moving off of that love relationship faith for any reason. That passion moved God’s heart to do it all for them and not hold any of Himself back either.
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Our Daily Bread Today- Isaiah 36 ++
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.
Isaiah 36:1-22
1In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria made war on all the fortress cities of Judah and took them. 2Then the king of Assyria sent his general, the "Rabshekah," accompanied by a huge army, from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah. The general stopped at the aqueduct where it empties into the upper pool on the road to the public laundry. 3Three men went out to meet him: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, in charge of the palace; Shebna the secretary; and Joah son of Asaph, the official historian.
4The Rabshekah said to them, "Tell Hezekiah that the Great King, the king of Assyria, says this: "What kind of backing do you think you have against me? 5You're bluffing and I'm calling your bluff. Your words are no match for my weapons. What kind of backup do you have now that you've rebelled against me? 6Egypt? Don't make me laugh. Egypt is a rubber crutch. Lean on Egypt and you'll end up flat on your face. That's all Pharaoh king of Egypt is to anyone who leans on him. 7And if you try to tell me, "We're leaning on our GOD," isn't it a bit late? Hasn't Hezekiah just gotten rid of all the places of worship, telling you, "You've got to worship at this altar"?
8""Be reasonable. Face the facts: My master the king of Assyria will give you two thousand horses if you can put riders on them. 9You can't do it, can you? So how do you think, depending on flimsy Egypt's chariots and riders, you can stand up against even the lowest-ranking captain in my master's army?
10""And besides, do you think I came all this way to destroy this land without first getting GOD's blessing? It was your GOD who told me, Make war on this land. Destroy it.'"
11Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah answered the Rabshekah, "Please talk to us in Aramaic. We understand Aramaic. Don't talk to us in Hebrew within earshot of all the people gathered around."
12But the Rabshekah replied, "Do you think my master has sent me to give this message to your master and you but not also to the people clustered here? It's their fate that's at stake. They're the ones who are going to end up eating their own excrement and drinking their own urine."
13Then the Rabshekah stood up and called out loudly in Hebrew, the common language, "Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14Don't listen to Hezekiah's lies. He can't save you. 15And don't pay any attention to Hezekiah's pious sermons telling you to lean on GOD, telling you "GOD will save us, depend on it. GOD won't let this city fall to the king of Assyria.'
16"Don't listen to Hezekiah. Listen to the king of Assyria's offer: "Make peace with me. Come and join me. Everyone will end up with a good life, with plenty of land and water, 17and eventually something far better. I'll turn you loose in wide open spaces, with more than enough fertile and productive land for everyone.' 18Don't let Hezekiah mislead you with his lies, "GOD will save us.' Has that ever happened? Has any god in history ever gotten the best of the king of Assyria? 19Look around you. Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? The gods of Sepharvaim? Did the gods do anything for Samaria? 20Name one god that has ever saved its countries from me. So what makes you think that GOD could save Jerusalem from me?'"
21The three men were silent. They said nothing, for the king had already commanded, "Don't answer him."
22Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the court historian, tearing their clothes in defeat and despair, went back and reported what the Rabshekah had said to Hezekiah.
Copyright Statement: THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary LanguageThis edition issued by contractual arrangement with NavPress, a division of The Navigators, U.S.A.Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language Copyright © 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.
~ Lena’s Journalin’ - Today~
To me today, this scripture is ALL about the voices we listen to, believe in and act on.
The king of Assyria is a representative of any enemy we have, and his mocking is representative of any voice we hear that is contrary to God’s voice, the voice of God’s Word.
God’s Words are true, absolutely, positively true. The only way His words can be changed in my life, or rather ineffective in my life, is through unbelief. If I apply the truth of His words to my life, my life will change. I didn’t say there wouldn’t be any resistance to the change, I said If I apply it, it will change. As we see here there was great resistance to the “word of the Lord” and as you read through this you actually at times wonder who’s who, who’s winning, what god is being referred to etc. in the threatening of the stealing of the one word from God you have, the enemy tries to confuse you. This passage is full to overflowing with accusations, it is mostly about the words of the threat, but if you look very closely, even the enemy is reminding the people of the voice of God, the word they were given by God. He keeps taunting their God-given words, but exalting himself higher and higher, telling you of his mighty power, his authority, his outcomes, his promises. Tomorrow we’ll be reading the response, but I wonder today what our gut response would be? Discouragement or shrinking back, fear, doubt? Or will faith arise and conquer the enemy of our souls? Will we stand on the promises of God no matter what? No matter what we hear or what it looks like right now? The word of God stands true forever, it’s when we agree with it and stand firm on its promises, when we exalt it above the circumstance, when we refuse to believe any other reports, and when we look to and expect it’s mighty power to be unleashed in us that it becomes life to us each personally.
The word of God is like a treasure given us, we’ve spent some time digging for it, we found some and we’re all excited, not maybe realizing it can be taken away, we might be surprised to find out an enemy has been watching us get the treasure with determination that we will not keep it, if he has any say in it, so he tries to have a say, with his mass production of lies! It is a test of our faith in the words we have heard God say, the treasures we’ve been given. Do we really love God’s words, treasure them enough to keep them, forever? Or would we give them up to any stranger that asks of them? Would we relinquish them to the plans of another? One more things I’ve seen today in all of this is the enemy kept saying , who do you lean on? Man doesn’t that just hit the heart’s target? Them he keeps telling us who we should lean on, money, worldly goods, worldly ways, old thought patterns, god of the world, everything EXCEPT God’s original words to us! He mocked and said, don’t lean on God, He’ll fail you. There is a scripture that says He WILL NEVER leave or forsake us, yet the enemy lies to us in the same old way over and over again, telling us God has turned His back on us.
I beg you, get a word from God, any word, and stand on it!
“He will NEVER leave me or forsake me!”
Laurie H & Maria- “He was wounded for my transgression (rebellious against God - willful sins), He was bruised for my iniquity (every wrong I ever did, what was my fault, what I should have taken the guilt for, so now I surely know that there’s no taking of my promise, and my promise is-) by His stripes I AM healed!”
Maria, you’ve got to read all of Isaiah 53! It starts out, “Who’s report do we believe?”
Do we believe the threats (and that is all they are) of the king of Assyria?
“To whom is the arm of the Lord extended?”
He took all of my guilt, from the things I did that could have opened doors to sickness. He took that away.
So is there now any problem with receiving my healing, that He provided for me? Is there anything that stands in the way? Is there anything the enemy has in me to taunt me righteously? NO I stand before one judge and that judge is GOD, who has pardoned me from any and all sins, past present and future!
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
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.
Isaiah 36:1-22
1In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria made war on all the fortress cities of Judah and took them. 2Then the king of Assyria sent his general, the "Rabshekah," accompanied by a huge army, from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah. The general stopped at the aqueduct where it empties into the upper pool on the road to the public laundry. 3Three men went out to meet him: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, in charge of the palace; Shebna the secretary; and Joah son of Asaph, the official historian.
4The Rabshekah said to them, "Tell Hezekiah that the Great King, the king of Assyria, says this: "What kind of backing do you think you have against me? 5You're bluffing and I'm calling your bluff. Your words are no match for my weapons. What kind of backup do you have now that you've rebelled against me? 6Egypt? Don't make me laugh. Egypt is a rubber crutch. Lean on Egypt and you'll end up flat on your face. That's all Pharaoh king of Egypt is to anyone who leans on him. 7And if you try to tell me, "We're leaning on our GOD," isn't it a bit late? Hasn't Hezekiah just gotten rid of all the places of worship, telling you, "You've got to worship at this altar"?
8""Be reasonable. Face the facts: My master the king of Assyria will give you two thousand horses if you can put riders on them. 9You can't do it, can you? So how do you think, depending on flimsy Egypt's chariots and riders, you can stand up against even the lowest-ranking captain in my master's army?
10""And besides, do you think I came all this way to destroy this land without first getting GOD's blessing? It was your GOD who told me, Make war on this land. Destroy it.'"
11Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah answered the Rabshekah, "Please talk to us in Aramaic. We understand Aramaic. Don't talk to us in Hebrew within earshot of all the people gathered around."
12But the Rabshekah replied, "Do you think my master has sent me to give this message to your master and you but not also to the people clustered here? It's their fate that's at stake. They're the ones who are going to end up eating their own excrement and drinking their own urine."
13Then the Rabshekah stood up and called out loudly in Hebrew, the common language, "Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14Don't listen to Hezekiah's lies. He can't save you. 15And don't pay any attention to Hezekiah's pious sermons telling you to lean on GOD, telling you "GOD will save us, depend on it. GOD won't let this city fall to the king of Assyria.'
16"Don't listen to Hezekiah. Listen to the king of Assyria's offer: "Make peace with me. Come and join me. Everyone will end up with a good life, with plenty of land and water, 17and eventually something far better. I'll turn you loose in wide open spaces, with more than enough fertile and productive land for everyone.' 18Don't let Hezekiah mislead you with his lies, "GOD will save us.' Has that ever happened? Has any god in history ever gotten the best of the king of Assyria? 19Look around you. Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? The gods of Sepharvaim? Did the gods do anything for Samaria? 20Name one god that has ever saved its countries from me. So what makes you think that GOD could save Jerusalem from me?'"
21The three men were silent. They said nothing, for the king had already commanded, "Don't answer him."
22Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the court historian, tearing their clothes in defeat and despair, went back and reported what the Rabshekah had said to Hezekiah.
Copyright Statement: THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary LanguageThis edition issued by contractual arrangement with NavPress, a division of The Navigators, U.S.A.Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language Copyright © 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.
~ Lena’s Journalin’ - Today~
To me today, this scripture is ALL about the voices we listen to, believe in and act on.
The king of Assyria is a representative of any enemy we have, and his mocking is representative of any voice we hear that is contrary to God’s voice, the voice of God’s Word.
God’s Words are true, absolutely, positively true. The only way His words can be changed in my life, or rather ineffective in my life, is through unbelief. If I apply the truth of His words to my life, my life will change. I didn’t say there wouldn’t be any resistance to the change, I said If I apply it, it will change. As we see here there was great resistance to the “word of the Lord” and as you read through this you actually at times wonder who’s who, who’s winning, what god is being referred to etc. in the threatening of the stealing of the one word from God you have, the enemy tries to confuse you. This passage is full to overflowing with accusations, it is mostly about the words of the threat, but if you look very closely, even the enemy is reminding the people of the voice of God, the word they were given by God. He keeps taunting their God-given words, but exalting himself higher and higher, telling you of his mighty power, his authority, his outcomes, his promises. Tomorrow we’ll be reading the response, but I wonder today what our gut response would be? Discouragement or shrinking back, fear, doubt? Or will faith arise and conquer the enemy of our souls? Will we stand on the promises of God no matter what? No matter what we hear or what it looks like right now? The word of God stands true forever, it’s when we agree with it and stand firm on its promises, when we exalt it above the circumstance, when we refuse to believe any other reports, and when we look to and expect it’s mighty power to be unleashed in us that it becomes life to us each personally.
The word of God is like a treasure given us, we’ve spent some time digging for it, we found some and we’re all excited, not maybe realizing it can be taken away, we might be surprised to find out an enemy has been watching us get the treasure with determination that we will not keep it, if he has any say in it, so he tries to have a say, with his mass production of lies! It is a test of our faith in the words we have heard God say, the treasures we’ve been given. Do we really love God’s words, treasure them enough to keep them, forever? Or would we give them up to any stranger that asks of them? Would we relinquish them to the plans of another? One more things I’ve seen today in all of this is the enemy kept saying , who do you lean on? Man doesn’t that just hit the heart’s target? Them he keeps telling us who we should lean on, money, worldly goods, worldly ways, old thought patterns, god of the world, everything EXCEPT God’s original words to us! He mocked and said, don’t lean on God, He’ll fail you. There is a scripture that says He WILL NEVER leave or forsake us, yet the enemy lies to us in the same old way over and over again, telling us God has turned His back on us.
I beg you, get a word from God, any word, and stand on it!
“He will NEVER leave me or forsake me!”
Laurie H & Maria- “He was wounded for my transgression (rebellious against God - willful sins), He was bruised for my iniquity (every wrong I ever did, what was my fault, what I should have taken the guilt for, so now I surely know that there’s no taking of my promise, and my promise is-) by His stripes I AM healed!”
Maria, you’ve got to read all of Isaiah 53! It starts out, “Who’s report do we believe?”
Do we believe the threats (and that is all they are) of the king of Assyria?
“To whom is the arm of the Lord extended?”
He took all of my guilt, from the things I did that could have opened doors to sickness. He took that away.
So is there now any problem with receiving my healing, that He provided for me? Is there anything that stands in the way? Is there anything the enemy has in me to taunt me righteously? NO I stand before one judge and that judge is GOD, who has pardoned me from any and all sins, past present and future!
Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.
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