IDOK DEVOTION FOR TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010
FOR PRAYER AND PRAISE
To review the list of names for prayer, please click here.
My prescribed reading for this fine (Monday) morning was Romans 13:8-14 which means I did not plan it; yet the topic from yesterday’ s Sunday School lesson is continuing. And as is my custom, I read all the chapter. It is good to keep things in context. Click here to read Romans 13.
Romans 13:8 . . . for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
Really? How so? Loving my neighbor amounts to me fulfilling the law? Again, how so?
9For this, “YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”
For this? Yes, for this — for the love of my neighbor, I WILL NOT commit adultery with my neighbor. For the love of my neighbor, I WILL NOT murder my neighbor. For the love of my neighbor, I WILL NOT steal from my neighbor. For the love of my neighbor, I WILL NOT covet what belongs to my neighbor.
So if I commit adultery, I do not love my neighbor – not the one with whom I am committing this sin, nor the one to whom my neighbor is married; who, by the way, is also my neighbor.
LOVE comes from God and God NEVER violates His Word. LUST comes from Satan and he ALWAYS violates God’s Word.
Adultery is ALWAYS LUST.
That does not mean God does not forgive us when real repentance is made, BUT the price to our soul’s and to the souls’ of our families is higher than anyone should EVER set themselves up to pay or force others to pay.
Said another way: Adultery is the epitome of selfishness!
And said another way in the words of JESUS Himself:
Matthew 5: (The Message) 27-28“You know the next commandment pretty well, too: ‘Don’t go to bed with another’s spouse.’ But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.
So just on the unlikely chance that a soul reading this post is in the throes of adultery.
STOP IT – RIGHT NOW!
No matter how many times you tell yourself that God brought this person to you; you are lying to yourself!
GOD NEVER VIOLATES HIS WORD!
As to murder, stealing and coveting . . . well, for the love of our neighbor . . . we just don’t do it! (And like it or not the word murder here is NOT akin to acts of war or self and family defense – that’s a whole other word.)
And all this said, I’m gonna let this rest awhile and get ready to visit with my Grands. We’ll meet back here a little later for prayer.
The message is settled, ABBA, and I am here to pray. This seems an unlikely message for this ministry and yet I do not know the extent of this ministry. I do not know all the places these IDOK Devotions go. I am not privy to all the screens this message will show up on, but You are and I am trusting Your direction and Your providence to get it where You intend. To whom it will minister and help with more than the throes of adultery but other shackling sins too. Adultery, murder, stealing, or coveting seem to be not real prevalent sins among this group of sisters and brothers, I think. But only YOU, LORD, know our hearts. And we know from Your Word that the heart becomes guilty before the body ever commits the act so I pray for all of us to have pure hearts toward our neighbors. Amen and amen.
And we join together now to pray for our IDOK Troops; for their safety and protection; for pure hearts for them too, especially in hostile lands and the throes of war. We pray they will hid Your Word in their hearts so their hearts will be protected from harm. And we join together to pray for all on our List for Prayer too. Some names we know and we have faces for those names, some we don’t, but that matters not with us; we are just grateful for the privilege to pray for them. To enter into the fields of harvest on their behalf, asking You to move among them, healing and encouraging, instructing and convicting and converting all in the Name and the Merits of JESUS our Savior.
ABBA, thank You for this ministry. I pray I will be faithful to You in it and for it. Keep them all safe and protected and even providentially from grievous sins. Me too, LORD, me too. Amen and amen.
