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Copy Paste Chew Again

Applause (again)

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IDOK Devotion for Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Applause
Now comes the hard part.  Deciding which Scripture to share and develop with you in the amount of time I have before taking inventory of the freezer, going to the store and ironing clothes, etc. etc.
More and more I am convinced this personalizing Scripture is the way to freedom in Christ.
Isaiah 53:(NKJV)
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
      He was bruised for our iniquities;
      The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
      And by His stripes we are healed.
We have read this Scripture so many times maybe we are too familiar with it – familiar but not intimate. It is intimacy we want.  I have not watched the movie, The Passion, in a way long time.  I need to do that again to bring fresh again in my soul His wounds, His bruises, His stripes for me.   And as important as they are and it is of upmost importance, something else has caught my attention this morning: And by His stripes I am healed.  I made this note to myself: He is my Healer.  That means every thing that is broken or sick about me, He is my Healer. He came to fix my brokenness.  He came to fix every sin sick thing about me.  That was/is my focus this morning as I read that verse.  Maybe you would like to focus on it too.  Maybe you could be encouraged too that whatever is broken about you; whatever is sick within you – He came to fix it!   Not maybe He did, but for sure He did!  You can depend on Him to heal You.  I am depending on Him to heal me – every broken part, every sin sick part!
Isaiah 54:10 (NKJV)
10 For the mountains shall depart
      And the hills be removed,
      But My kindness shall not depart from you,
      Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,”
      Says the LORD, who has mercy on you.
However shaken the terrain in my world gets, He will not depart from me.  He will continue to be KIND to me. He has made peace with me – put me at peace with Him and that is not going to change, not even if mountains and hills around me are blasted level.   Now! That will preach!
Let me give you one more verse.  I could spend so much time on this and would love to, but your time to read and my time to write is limited.
Isaiah 48:18 (NKJV)
18 Oh, that you had heeded My commandments!
      Then your peace would have been like a river,
      And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
I confess Beth (Moore) got me started on this (well, all of them this morning).  Peace like a river.  How is a river?  It promotes life around it, gives transportation, runs freely over and around boulders, rocks, and mud banks; has a source of beginning and has a destination. Oh, yes I was about to forget – it has boundaries!  Do you see it? The Peace we have from Christ Jesus promotes life in us and those around us.  His peace in us reaches out to give others ‘transportation’ to Him.  His peace in us gives us the power to go over or around obstacles in our path.  His peace within us gives us FREEDOM to flow from when He saved us all the way to Heaven, our destination.  And boundaries; the Peace of Christ active within us will keep us between the ‘banks’ of His Righteousness!  And that is the safest place for us to be from now all the way to Heaven!
Okay. Your turn.  Like the waves of the sea – His righteousness is like the waves of the sea. What are the waves of the sea like?  May I get you started?  Powerful! Beautiful!  Here’s an interesting link: http://www.virtualnjshore.com/tbwaves.html
If you will, spend a little time comparing righteousness like the waves of the sea – I’d be delighted for you to share your insights with me.  No obligation, of course.
            DADDY GOD, You’ve blessed me so today!  Thank You.  You are AWESOME!  Your Word is alive.  It’s full of Your Power.  You transform us with Your Word.  With all the reverence I have, I just want to clap my hands and say Good Job, LORD! Good Job!  You certainly deserve our applause!  Thank You that You are teaching us to applaud You.  And I pray that my applause won’t be confined to just sitting here before this screen with others who think pretty much the way I do but that I and them will get up from here and applaud You out there too where our rivers twist and turn and wind among people who need Your Life and need to know they can come to Peace with You; that they must come to Peace with You or they will never see Heaven.  Make us uncomfortably aware of hell and that people are going there — so uncomfortable that we will be instruments of Peace in Your Hand to them.   I am remembering that You are calling us to prayer; I don’t want to forget that, don’t let me.  Don’t let me slack up on praying, make it so that churches will be Houses of Prayer.  Make it so that our homes will be houses of prayer too.  Real, effective prayer that moves mountains of doubt and unbelief in us and our families and friends and acquaintances – make it so, LORD.
We bring too every name spoken here; all of them, LORD, heal what’s broken, heal what’s sick we pray.  Remember Israel, to keep Her safe.  Remember America to forgive and bring to repentance.  Expose lies all over this Nation and exalt Your Truth I pray.  And now as we prepare to move from this screen, keep us mindful of You.  Amen and Amen.
Kathie

 

Copy Paste Chew Again, Uncategorized

I Think (again)

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IDOK Devotion for Thursday, March 11, 2010
I Think
I am admitting to you that I am a poor speller.  Often words that I should know escape me.  Today was one of those days and sovereign was the word.  It won’t escape me any more though.  As I keyed into my browser window the beginning of the word, it gave me choices and reign was cast in bold type and a light bulb came on!  Sove reign.  Bear with me now.  I’ll admit my mental computing is often a stretch, and I am strangely wired, but it works for me – and quite honestly, I like it.  SO!  Sove for some reason reminded me of the word ‘solve’ and I said: ‘uh hu if I allow the Holy Spirit of God to REIGN in me, all my issues, problems, conflicts, all the bits I am dealing with will be SOLVED’.  And might I add, spelling the word sovereign is solved too!   Just a little trivia.  I’ll get back to my study now.  Catch ya’ll later.
Matthew 14has been a portion of my reading today. Please share it with me.
22 Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.
23 And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there.
24 But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.
25 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.
26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.
27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”
I am assuming Jesus sent the multitude away before dusk so they could make their way home and then He went to pray and His disciples as He instructed them got in a boat to make their way across the Sea of Galilee.  (Their next appointment with the people was in the Land of Gennesaret.  Here’s a link to a map if you liked to visualize this better. http://www.bible-history.com/geography/ancient-israel/lake-gennesaret.html )
If I understand this correctly, the ‘Boys’ had made it to the middle of the Sea by evening and they were getting tossed around pretty good by a severe storm and about 4 AM, I believe, Jesus decided to take a walk.  (He and ABBA must have been having a really good time there on the mountain since dusk.)
Let me tell you something else I really like about this Text. Jesus walked to them, not around the sea but across it and don’t forget – it was not a calm sea.  As the God-Man don’t you think He could have just popped in on them rather than walking?  But He didn’t.   But He did start walking toward them in plenty of time to reach them at just the right time.  I think He still does that.  I think He still takes the shortest distance to us (not going around the storm but through it).  I think He does not cause us to wait in our storms any longer than is absolutely necessary for us to KNOW Him best.  And I think that storm scared the daylights out of those Guys on that boat, but I think they would not have missed the Presence of Jesus in the storm for anything in the world.  I think Jesus wants us to love Him so much that His Manifested Presence with us in the storm makes the storm worth it to us.   What do you think?
 

           Holy Spirit, thank You that more and more You are making Your Word alive to us.   I am loving it!  And I pray our IDOKs and Readers are too.  I pray meeting You on the pages of Scripture will be so special to us that going a day without reading Your Word will be unthinkable and unbearable to us.  And for all names spoken here, we pray for Your will to be done for each of them.  We pray each one will sense You coming to them; we pray their faith will not fail.  We pray they will count their storms worth it just to see You present with them.  Please continue to protect our IDOK Troops, watch over them and keep them from harm spiritually, physically and emotionally.  Help their families be strong and trust You.  And we are still mindful of the political climate and still rejoicing that people are waking up and I ask that our awareness of what is right and wrong will continue to grow and that we will be determined to do what is right regardless who says its wrong or politically incorrect.   Please keep on raising up prayer warriors and evangelists until every one hears and has the opportunity to exchange their sins for Your righteousness, Jesus.  Amen and amen.

Kathie

 

Copy Paste Chew Again

My Obsession (again)

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IDOK Devotion for Friday, March 12, 2010
My Obsession
          Today I began to question something.  If you know me well you know I’ve got a thing about words.  At times to someone who loves me much I can be down right irritating when I analyze his usage of words; especially when I am not a professional myself.  Be that as it may, here are my wonderings today:  Should we be praying that God will increase our faith or strengthen our faith?  I am wondering if we do ourselves damage when we ask God to increase our faith?  Hear me out now. When we ask Him to increase our faith, are we not telling ourselves that we are lacking in faith?  How negative is that?! Does that not create doubt in us?   But if we ask Him to strengthen our faith can we not hear ourselves saying to Him – ‘Yes, LORD, I have faith.  I admit it is weak but I know You have placed faith in me.  I know I have the seed of faith and when You strengthen the faith I have it will be more than enough to believe You for this that I am asking of You.’  Irritating — isn’t it?  My obsession with semantics.  But somehow it helped me today.  It connected for me today. So I’ve been praying today for ABBA to strengthen my faith … and He is.   So I thought if I passed along to you the ‘fruit’ of my semantics obsession, perhaps it would help you too.   
          Colossians 2: (NIV)
6So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him,
7rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

            ABBA, I realize often times I am a bit over the top with this word usage thing but I liked it today.  Thank You for humoring me.  I pray it will help our IDOKs and Readers.  Thank You for strengthening the faith that You placed in me.  And I am confident You are going to keep on strengthening me and I am delighted about that.  Thank You.  Compared to carnal, worldly standards, I’d like to get just down right sickening with how wildly in love with You I am.  I’d like love for You and people to just exude from every pore of me. I figure that will take some time and some work but lets do it!  I am mindful that such conversation could be construed as silly, too familiar or some other negative connotation but I think I’m finally getting ready to run that risk – it’s easy here on the page of this screen – get me to the place that it is easy out there too in the midst of people that intimidate me.  In fact I’m asking You to grow and mature me to the stage that my love and reverence for You far exceeds my desire to please man, woman or child.  I am asking to come to the place that I just abandon myself to You; not that I would disregard the feelings of others but that I would be freed up to love and help them without being concerned about me.  Empty me of me and fill me up with You.  It’s time to move on, isn’t it?  Move on to others.  Others who will be spoken here with some serious needs.  Bless them, keep the safe from all harm, strengthen their faith, increase their knowledge of Your Word; help them more and more to know You and believe You.  In Jesus’ Name. Amen and amen.

Kathie