IDOK DEVOTION FOR MONDAY, MAY 24, 2010

Praise Reports, Prayer Requests and Updates:

I am here way early to start writing for Monday, but what’s that old saying, ‘strike while the iron is hot’.   I have only read Scripture so far this morning as my bases to begin and that Scriptural address is Philippians 2:14 and 15.   I am warning you now it a firm word, unyielding to our flesh and I’d be surprised if we liked it — some of us might even search for an argument.  Here’s verse 14 first — Do all things without grumbling or disputing;

Firm, unyielding, leaving no room for buts.   Not some things but ALL things.  So I looked up the word ALL and sure enough it means  ALL –  leaving nothing out. Being or representing the entire or total number, amount, or quantity is how my on-line dictionary reads.  And the definition continues with this: Each; apiece. So we can look at the word ALL and view it as  all things we do collectively must be done without grumbling or disputing OR we can envision ourselves in each individual duty, act, activity we doing absent our grumbling or disputing.  OUCH! And DOUBLE OUCH!   With an order that big I’m thinking if I can’t do certain things without grumbling and disputing, perhaps I just should not do it at all! Wonder how inactive that would make me?  Hmmm.

Lets move on here and go back to verse 12.

¹²So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;

Have you heard part of this verse interpreted that salvation is by works?  Don’t be deceived here.  Salvation comes ONLY by faith and faith alone in JESUS CHRIST.  The work comes in the walking out our salvation in the here and now.  JESUS did the work of saving us from the penalty of sin – that’s a done deal at our re-birth.  Presently we are in the process of being saved from the practice of sin — that’s where the WORK comes in and you know as well as I do — IT IS WORK!  I heard someone say once, don’t recall who, that ‘it took only a moment to get me out of hell but it ‘s taking a lifetime to get the hell out of me’.  And it is that getting the hell out of us that we best be cooperating with JESUS in doing with ‘fear and trembling’.  We ought to have so much reverential awe (fear) for Him that the thought of not doing what He asks would cause us to shake (tremble) in our sandals.  And I dare say if we had such reverential awe of Him we would not find verse 14 so much a hurtle.   Verse 13.

¹³for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Look at that!  God in us!  Why is that so hard for us to get our minds and wills wrapped around?  Must be that hell in us that has to be worked out!  And He is here.  He is willing.  It is HIS good pleasure to be here within us to WORK in us.  Don’t you just want to worship Him right now, reading this verse?  Oh I wish I had words to describe this!  Oh how Awesome and Good You are LORD GOD and Father!  It is worship.  It is reverential awe and love — worship —  that will empower and enable us to embrace verse 14.

¹⁴Do all things without grumbling or disputing;

And secondary to worship,  verse 15 gives us added support to walk out, work out verse 14.

¹⁵so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,

¹⁶holding fast the word of life, . . .

Think about it! What aids the crooked and perverse so mightily to remain in their crookedness and perverseness?  You got it! Our grumbling and disputing in the church and our individual lives.

Momma must have got this saying from DADDY: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at ALL.

To review the list of names for prayer, please click here.

DADDY, I love You.  I really, really do.  Thank You.  Thank You for teaching me that I really, really DO love You.  This message is stern, it’s hard but I am so grateful for it.  I feel so loved by You in it. Thank You.  LORD, thoughts and longings to see You, Face to face are becoming sweeter and sweeter to me.  Thank You. Thank You.  And because the calendar tells me I am much closer to that day than I used to be, in the time I have left I want to stop grumbling and disputing and I want to help others stop it too.  DADDY, forgive me and Holy Spirit, help me  — just slap me in the mouth PLEASE when I even start to form the complaints in my head so they won’t come out of my mouth.  I know it is possible.  You would not tell me I must if it were not possible to do, at least to get really good at practicing it here and now.  Holy Spirit, please make this message as sweet on the other side of the screen as it is on this side.

You know the names and faces and hearts of every soul on our list and I am bringing them to You right now.  I want them to love You with all their hearts.  I want them to KNOW You are trustworthy.  I want them to trust You to take care of them, to give them what they need.  I want them to rest in You and work in You in the capacity that You have called each of them in this day, in this very season of their journeys.   And I am asking you to again protect and keep safe our IDOK Troops.  I have not heard from LeGrand lately but he’s doing great, isn’t he?  Thank You, ABBA.   As I am about to put this away to be posted on Monday, the weekend has hardly even begun.  I pray for safety for our beloved IDOKs and Readers.  I pray You will speak to them even before this writing reaches their screens.  I pray they will gather in their respective places to corporately worship You on Sunday and I pray individually they will worship You in their homes and vehicles and wherever they go and do.  Thank You, DADDY, for this ministry; still don’t know why You let me do it but Thank You.  Thank You in JESUS mighty and holy blessed perfect name.  Amen and amen.