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Showing posts with label choices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choices. Show all posts

Thursday, October 30, 2008

All Things For God's Glory

Today's Daily Soap {Scripture | Observation | Application | Prayer} FOR TODAY'S FULL READING, CLICK THE TITLE LINK ABOVE.
SCRIPTURE:
"Don't you even know the basics, how things have been since the earliest days, when Adam and Eve were first placed on earth? The good times of the wicked are short-lived; godless joy is only momentary. The evil might become world famous, strutting at the head of the celebrity parade, But still end up in a pile of dung. Acquaintances look at them with disgust and say, 'What's that?' They fly off like a dream that can't be remembered, like a shadowy illusion that vanishes in the light. Though once notorious public figures, now they're nobodies, unnoticed, whether they come or go. Their children will go begging on skid row, and they'll have to give back their ill-gotten gain. Right in the prime of life, and youthful and vigorous, they'll die." Job 20:4-11 [MSG]
OBSERVATION: That which we gain through dishonest means does not last.
APPLICATION:
In Indianapolis Wednesday, three men robbed a bank. The IMPD was on the ball and picked up on the trio's trail before they could make a clean getaway. After a brief high speed chase, the crooks were involved in an accident that disabled their getaway vehicle. Before Police could move in to take the trio into custody, one of them shot himself in the head. The other two are now in Police custody.
What could the three have been thinking when they made their plans to rob a bank? Did they really expect to get away with it? Did they really expect to be livin' large on loot taken by force from a bank? Did they forget that, after the recent shooting of a pregnant teller during another Indianapolis bank robbery, that the IMPD has been on a constant state of alert for such behavior?
This trio could only have been thinking of one thing: the easy money. They could not have considered the long term effects of their actions, could they? Of course not, and as is so often the case when we fail to consider the long term effects of our actions, sacrificing what we really want for what we want right now, they paid a terrible price.
The good times of the wicked are short-lived. The love of God transcends all time.
PRAYER:
Father, comfort the families of this misguided trio. Use this terrible event as a deterrent for some future soul that might otherwise head down the same path. Let some good come of this, Lord.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Prodigal Son

Today's Daily Soap {Scripture | Observation | Application | Prayer} FOR TODAY'S FULL READING, CLICK THE TITLE LINK ABOVE.
  • S: Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.' "So the father divided the property between them. It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any. "That brought him to his senses. He said, 'All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.' He got right up and went home to his father. "When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.' But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time. "All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day's work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, 'Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.' "The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen. The son said, 'Look how many years I've stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!' "His father said, 'Son, you don't understand. You're with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he's alive! He was lost, and he's found!'" Luke 15:11-32 [MSG]
  • O: No matter how we wander or where we roam, the Father always welcomes us home with open arms.
  • A: I was saved at the age of twelve. Just a young boy who felt the Spirit move in me during a youth retreat with the Baptist Church my family attended at the time. I had grown up going to church, and it was just a matter of time before I would accept Christ as my Savior, be Baptized, and start my walk with Christ. But as so often happens, I soon found myself headed down a path that surely Christ wasn't leading me down. I experimented in some things that no one should be messing with at that age, especially not someone so new in his faith. Minor things by today's standards, but things I would be embarrassed to have my children learn about. Things I surely don't want them experimenting in. I became very selfish, thinking always of me and my own desires, and rarely of what God wanted from me. As always, my selfish pursuits paid the rewards I was due -- embarrassment, inconvenience, struggle. Well into adulthood, I lived selfishly, pursuing my own desires, wondering why life was so unfair. Until one day, when airplanes struck down America's symbols of success, and I felt the call to return to my roots and visit a church. That was the start of my return to the fold. The Father greeted me warmly, held me, comforted me. He welcomed me home. I'm far from perfect, but have learned to put my God and my family before myself, and life has never been better.
  • P: Thank You, Father, for welcoming me home and showing me what really matters most. Thank You for family.
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Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Choices

Today's Daily Soap {Scripture | Observation | Application | Prayer} FOR TODAY'S FULL READING, CLICK THE TITLE LINK ABOVE.
  • Scripture: Revelation 21; Genesis 2; Jonah 4
  • Following are notes from the sermon during my recent visit to Common Ground Christian Church in Indianapolis.
  • Do we allow the choices we make to be consistent with the Creator, or with humanity?
  • Creation is moving in one direction, and humanity is moving in the opposite direction. Chaos and frustration is the result.
  • We were not created to live outside of Eden.
  • We can choose to live in Eden, or east of Eden. What will we choose?
  • When we interact with others, do we choose to present them with Heaven or Hell? We are showing them an example of one or the other in our actions.
  • Our choices: are they consistent with God, or consistent with "the pattern of me?"
  • Do we put more stock in the temporary, or in the eternal?
  • Ask yourself: What prevents me from moving back toward Eden? What do I believe in so strongly that it prevents me from moving toward Eden? What compels me to more toward Eden?
  • What we are is the result of a series of choices that we make that have formed us into what we've become. We don't just wake up one day and say, "I think I'll....." Every decision we make is just one more decision built upon and affected by a series of past decisions.
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