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The LORD Fights…
…for you and me. I was reading Deut. 1:1-3:22 this morning and verse 3:22 stood out to me. Maybe only because it is highlighted in my Bible, but I don’t think so. What came to me is the following prayer:
Father, may I never forget Your promise through Moses that You, the LORD our God fights for us! I know this was said to the Israelites as they prepared to enter the Promised Land, but it applies to all of your followers because You never change. May all of Your followers, brothers & sisters of Yeshua, rely on You as our defender and protector, and not our own understanding. This doesn’t mean that we can sit idly by and wait for You to do it all, not lifting a finger ourselves. It does mean that we take action, put forth effort on Your guidance, in Your name, according to Your ways, and demonstrating Your love!!
Until next time…”May the LORD bless and protect you…May He give you Shalom.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
Bill
It’s Time to Decide
The following Lighthouse Network Devotion from April 24, 2021 is shared with permission.
On What Do You Rely?
Accomplishments and Failures … or Jesus?
Transformational Thought
Wouldn’t you love to have a rewind button for your life? Think about it. What if you had the power to go back and change a few events in your life? The chance to correct a decision that moved your life down a wrong or painful path. The chance to achieve the peace and fulfillment that is just out of your grasp.
We’ve all done things we wish we could take back. Maybe we’ve lived a sinful lifestyle, been selfish and unkind, made parenting mistakes, said hurtful things to a loved one, or just experienced a lot of failure in life. Maybe we still struggle with relationships, anxieties, guilt, shame, and “what ifs.” On the other hand, maybe we’ve lived a pretty good life and achieved a high level of success. In fact, we really like defining ourselves by our victories. We like feeling satisfied about what we’ve done. The praise and admiration of others energizes us. Maybe we really love helping others.
But you know what? Our accomplishments aren’t really that impressive to God. He sees our hearts. He knows that they are not always pure. Praise God that He doesn’t define us by what we’ve done … regardless of how good or bad it’s been. He judges us by whether we accept what Christ did for us. He knows we need Jesus. But we need to know that, too.
I don’t know why Jesus gets such a bad rap or is so hated, but that’s another Devo. Jesus died on the cross so that the penalty for sin could be paid and our sins could be forgiven. And when we believe and accept the sacrifice he made for us, we are cleansed. Then God sees us as though we had never sinned! Our record is clean. We inherit Christ’s account. And that’s our new identity … a follower of Christ, clothed in His righteousness.
You see, we know we’ve made mistakes. But, since we’ve done some good things, and we can do even more, we underestimate the big gap between ourselves and HOLINESS. No matter how hard and long we try, we can never, absolutely never, make up the gap between ourselves and God. One zillion (an indescribably large number) good deeds will not fill that gap.
We can’t do enough to earn our way. That’s why we need Jesus. We are defined not by our accomplishments or failures, but by who we are in Christ. All the accomplishments in the world mean nothing when it comes to getting right with God and spending eternity with Him.
Today, if you are not a fully committed follower of Christ, you can make that decision right now. No matter what your past … no matter how good or bad your behavior … you need Jesus. He loves you and is reaching out to you right now. Do you want to meet Him? Just tell Him that you know you need Him … and that you want to follow Him. Why wouldn’t you want Jesus in your life? He is ready … are you? Whether you turn your life around now, or you are willing to settle for less is your decision, so choose well.
If you are a Christian, rejoice as you did the day you accepted Jesus in your life as your personal Savior. Send this to someone you love who needs Jesus and follow it with a phone call to discuss this blessing. Whether you make Him the Lord of your life, or you continue to exalt yourself as lord is your decision, so choose well.
Prayer
My Father and my Lord, I believe that Your Son died for my sins. Please forgive me for all my past. I’m ready for a change. I want to follow You … and do life Your way. I know that I cannot undo my past through my own accomplishments. Thanks for sending Your Son to pay the ultimate price, to pay my penalty for me. I pray this and all prayers in the name of Jesus Christ, who died so that I may have eternity with the only God; and all God’s children say – AMEN!
The Truth
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. Romans 3:23-24
The post On What Do You Rely? Accomplishments and Failures … or Jesus? appeared first on Lighthouse Network.
If you prayed to accept Yeshua as your Savior and made Him the Lord of your life or rededicated your life to Him, please contact me by replying to or commenting on this post.
Until next time…“May the LORD bless and protect you…May He give you Shalom.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
Bill
A Cool Video for Easter
I saw this video this morning and had to share it. The video was created by the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and tells the Passover story in a unique way. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Passover Pesach Technion 2016 Breakdance High Tech Haggadah.
As you celebrate Yeshua’s Sacrifice and Resurrection this weekend, remember the Passover story. It belongs to all of us who follow Yeshua (Jesus), not just Jewish people. Without it, we might not have had Yeshua, the Lamb of God, whose ultimate sacrifice and resurrection, enabled us all to become part of God’s family.
Refer to my posts Passover and Easter, What Do Easter and Passover Mean?, and An Appointment with God–Passover.
Have a joyous weekend and
Until next time…“May the LORD bless and protect you…May He give you Shalom.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
Bill
Tempted and Tried
Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder
SOUTHERN FOLK HYMN
Why it should be thus all the day long,
While there are others living about us,
Never molested, though in the wrong.
Farther along we’ll know all about it,
Farther along we’ll understand why;
Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,
We’ll understand it all by and by.
Yeshua is always by your side if you will just look to Him! Have a good day!
Until next time…“May the LORD bless and protect you…May He give you Shalom.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
Bill
What Do Passover and Easter Mean?
Hope
I am the Lord. I will bring you out… (Deut 6:6-8)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah! According to his great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Messiah Yeshua from the dead. (1 Pet 1:3)
Deliverance
…from your enslavement to the Egyptians, I will rescue you from the hard labor they impose…
(Deut 6:6-8)
The Father has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Col 1:13-14)
Redemption
…and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God and you shall know that… (Deut 6:6-8)
He gave Himself for us to set us free (to redeem us, purchase our freedom) from every kind of lawlessness [from all violation of Torah] and to purify for Himself a people who are truly His, who are eager and enthusiastic about living a life that is good and filled with beneficial deeds. (Titus 2:14; Deut. 14:2; Ps 130:8; Ezek. 37:23)
Sanctification
…I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from your enslavement to the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord! (Deut 6:6-8)
Praised be Adonai, Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, who in the Messiah has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heaven. In the Messiah He chose us in love before the creation of the universe to be holy and without defect in His presence. (Eph 1:3-4)
Remembrance
Remember for the rest of your life the day you came out of the land of Egypt. (Deut 16:3)
So you shall remember and do all My commandments, and be holy to your God. (Num 15:40)
You should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of your Master and Savior. (2 Pet 3:2)
Love
The Lord! The Lord! A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth, Keeping mercy and loving-kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. (Ex. 20:6, 34:6-7; Num. 14:18; Deut. 7:9)
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good and His loyal love endures forever. (1 Chron. 16:34)
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. (John 3:16)
Until next time…“May the LORD bless and protect you…May He give you Shalom.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
Bill
An Appointment with God—Passover
This year (2021) Passover is March 28, but it starts at sundown on March 27 because the Hebrew or Biblical day runs from sundown to sundown. Passover is then followed by a 7-day feast called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Over time, the two feasts have been grouped together and simply called Passover.
But, what is Passover, or Pesach (PAY-sach)? You may know it as something that the Jewish faith celebrates every year, but what and why are they celebrating?
Passover is one of the seven appointed times (meeting appointments with God) that He scheduled with the Israelites (Jewish people) in Lev. 23:1-2. Through each of these meetings, He reveals more of Himself and calls His followers into a deeper relationship with Him. All seven yearly Feasts or festivals commemorate His faithfulness and the many miracles of deliverance that He performed as He set Israel apart as His own special people. They serve to remind us of His holiness, our impurity, and that, despite the disparity between God and man, He wants us to be in fellowship with Him.
But, you ask, “I am a Gentile, why should I care, even if I follow Yeshua as my Savior?” Well, I’m a Gentile as well, so I’ll try to provide a brief answer to your question.
The fact that these festivals are part of the Old Testament, or better yet Bible Part 1, they are often considered as being irrelevant for New Testament, or Bible Part 2, believers. However, they open up a complete understanding of the continuity of the Scriptures and just how central Yeshua is to all the festivals. And, Yeshua faithfully observed each of these seven festivals. If we are a follower or disciple of Yeshua shouldn’t we follow His example? After all, a disciple emulates his leader.
So, without digging deeper into that question (we’ll cover that in a future post), let’s move on to the subject of this article, the Feast of Passover. God introduced Passover and the Feast of Unleavened bread in Ex. 12:1-20 and Lev 23:5-8. As you probably recall from Sunday school, the first Passover occurred, on the night of the last plague when God was releasing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. Now, He could have easily accomplished this very quickly without doing the “plague thing.” However, He wanted the Egyptians to know without a doubt that He was greater than every god they worshipped. Each of the plagues was a direct assault on one of those gods. I encourage you to read the story of the plagues and the first Passover for yourself. It is found in Exodus 6:28-12:32.
The Passover was the defining moment in Jewish history. God called them out of slavery and delivered them from 400 years of bondage in Egypt to give them a land of their own and make them not only a people but a nation. Now, that is something to celebrate! It even surpasses our Fourth of July. 🙂
Even better, though, is that the Passover is prophetic of the coming of Yeshua. It presents a scene or a shadow of something yet to come. The Feast of Passover looks back to the liberation of Israel from the land of Egypt, and it looks forward to the saving work of the Messiah, Yeshua, our Passover Lamb. Because Yeshua came 2000 years ago, we, Jew and Gentile who follow Him, can celebrate Passover as a celebration of His death as our Passover Lamb and Resurrection as our Savior. There is nothing more worth celebrating than the sacrifice of Yeshua. It completed His purpose of proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is at hand and His call for all mankind to repent of our sins and turn to Him, our once-and-for-all sacrificial Lamb.
The celebration of Passover is centered around a meal. What’s a “feast” without food? The story of the first Passover is retold with various food items as symbols of the suffering and sacrifice associated with the first Passover. Leaven is not permitted at the Passover meal and during the following 7-day Feast of Unleavened bread. Leaven, or yeast, symbolizes impurity, sin. The Passover feast includes a specific remembrance service called a Seder (SEY-der). The order of the service is outlined in a booklet called a Haggadah (HAH-gah-dah), which means “telling”. It guides the service and prayers using the symbolic food items while it explains the significance of the event. A full-blown Passover Seder can last for hours, though most are only an hour or two.
In future posts, I plan to cover the meaning of the symbolic items in a modern-day Seder, Yeshua’s last Seder before His crucifixion, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Until next time…“May the LORD bless and protect you…May He give you Shalom.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
Bill
Scriptures related to Passover:
Exodus 12:1-20, 39; Leviticus 23:4-8; Deuteronomy 16:1-8; Luke 22:1, 7; Acts 20:6; 1 Cor 5:7-8; Hebrews 11:28
For further study:
Arlene Bridges Samuels, “Passover and Easter”, The Christian Broadcasting Network
Barney Kasdan, “God’s Appointed Times”, Lederer Books
Jewish Voice Ministries, International, “The Spring Feasts and Purim”, JVI Publications
Kevin Howard, Marin Rosenthal, “The Feasts of the Lord”, Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Can You Hear Me?
In the world in which we live, many voices are vying for our attention. There is the voice of our flesh, the voice of our enemy, the devil, and the voice of the media—many voices speaking seemingly at the same time.
Amidst the clamor for our attention, are we missing the most important Voice of all-our Daddy God? I believe that sometimes He is so desperate for us to hear His Voice that He has to “yell” by bringing undesirable circumstances into our lives! I believe that this grieves His Heart. However, His love for us is so great that He wants to share the secrets of His Heart if we will only listen to His Voice!
Have you ever just sat quietly with the Father and asked Him what He has to say to you? I believe His Word for today is “Be still and know that I AM God.”
Quiet all the other voices and let your Daddy share His Heart and secrets with you. Another benefit will be that His Presence will bring the fullness of His Joy to your heart!
This post was written by my wife, Sue.
Until next time…“May the LORD bless and protect you…May He give you Shalom.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
Bill
What are You Made For?
“We are wired to shape the world around us.” (Rabbi S. Klayman)
Yes, you and I were created by God to shape and mold, to influence our family, our friends, our neighbors, and even our government. I ask myself, “Self, what are you molding through your life?” I ask you the same question. Are you making a place for God to dwell through the way you live for God? Are you influencing your world for Him? Or, are you exalting thoughts, activities, and actions that are contrary to God?
Everything you do, and I mean everything, can make a place for God’s Presence, thus making His Presence available to others. Commit today, this very moment, to live your life in such a way that He shines through you.
If He isn’t the focus of your life, if you have never acknowledged Yeshua as your Savior and the Lord of your life, do so now. It will be the best decision you ever make in your life.
Whatever you are doing, work at it with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not for people, because you know that you will receive your inheritance from the Lord as the reward. Serve the Lord Christ. For the one who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there are no exceptions. Col 3:23-25 NET
But be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves. James 1:22 NET
Therefore be very careful how you live—not as unwise but as wise, taking advantage of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Eph. 5:15-16 NET
…And each one must be careful how he builds. 1 Cor 3:10b NET
Until next time…“May the LORD bless and protect you…May He give you Shalom.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
Bill
Without a Doubt!
From my journal, March 6, 2021
Oh Lord may we know without a doubt that You are God! (Ezek. 36:35). We, Your followers, call You God, but how many of us really take that as fact? How many, myself included, really know beyond any shadow of a doubt that You are God, the living God? We may proclaim it, but do we really live it?
Beyond Your followers, the rest of mankind must see and know that You are God—the only God! As I originally wrote that last sentence, I sensed Him saying “It isn’t quite time, but it will be soon.” Lord, let it be so. May all Your followers not only proclaim that You are God in word but in deed as well. May You also reveal Yourself to all mankind in no uncertain terms!
Until next time…“May the LORD bless and protect you…May He give you Shalom.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
Bill
Staying on Course
Are you staying on course, as you travel through 2021? Are you following your own way, determining your own path? Are you making the right decisions? Do you wish you had a map and a guide? One is available to you..read on…
The following Stepping Stones devotional is shared with permission.
Map to the Promised Land
March 1, 2021
Transformational Thought
Hopefully, as you have been with us, you have recognized an area we emphasize consistently: decision-making. All of life comes down to choices and decisions. Every day, we come to many forks in the roads of our daily walk that call for decisions. Amazing as it seems, we make more than 80,000 decisions each day. And that is actually a conservative estimate according to most scientists.
Thankfully, we aren’t puppets with someone else controlling the strings. Fortunately, and unfortunately, God gave us free will to make our own decisions. Being loving and desiring that we not be overwhelmed at each fork, God also gave us the Best Instruction Book for Living Everyday, the BIBLE. You see, God is all about helping us make great choices so we can enjoy maximum growth and fulfillment. The biggest decisions we have to make is whether we will: 1) trust Him to guide us, and 2) trust the guidance He gives us.
The Bible promises us that if we follow God, all things will work together for our and His good. I have found this to be so true. As I trust Jesus to help me make the right choices, I know without a doubt, that no matter how things may look right now, in the end they will work out for the best. His way is always the best way, and His timing is the best timing.
So why should you trust God? First of all, He loves you more than you love yourself. He sacrificed more for you than you ever have or ever will sacrifice for yourself. In fact, He loves you so much that He gave up heaven. He then painfully died on the cross—for you. His love is perfect, and nothing can ever separate you from that love. You are that important to Him.
“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death
nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
Second, He knows what is best. He knows what is best for you in the here and now. And more importantly, He knows what is best for you for your future. He sees the whole picture—a perspective none of us can ever have. Today’s scripture beautifully expresses the blessing of trusting Him in all your plans and decisions.
And lastly, God is able. He has the power over all things to work out circumstances for your growth. “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28
Today, you will be on the verge of making some knee-jerk decisions that won’t be good ones. Instead, try this. Stop for five seconds and choose to trust His way when you get to that fork in your road. “Why?” you may ask. Well, we laid out our case above. But if that didn’t convince you, look at your own track record. Really, what else are you going to trust? Yourself, other people, material things, your looks, your sparkling wit, your health, your job, the economy, our world leaders, your bank account? Has that strategy really delivered the abundant life and Promised Land Living you’ve been yearning for? Trust Him. You will never regret it. Whether you trust God at today’s forks in-your-road of life or you trust your me-centered gut for guidance, it’s your decision, so choose well.
Prayer
Dear Father God, forgive me for the times I thought I knew more than You. I know that You love me and want only what is best for me. I have finally realized that I make many mistakes and You don’t. And I know that no matter how things may look, Your way is always the best way. Help me to trust You more and choose to do things Your way. Even when I feel pressure to follow my own will, strengthen me to follow Your will instead. I pray this and all prayers in the name of the one I trust completely, Jesus Christ. And all God’s children say AMEN!
The Truth
“You’re blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by GOD. You’re blessed when you follow his directions, doing your best to find him. That’s right—you don’t go off on your own; you walk straight along the road he set.” Psalm 119:1-3
“The Lord your God will then make you successful in everything you do. The Lord your God will delight in you if you obey his voice and keep the commands and decrees written in this Book of Instruction, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand, and it is WITHIN REACH. The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it.
Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.” Deuteronomy 30:9a, 10-11,14-16
The post Map to the Promised Land appeared first on Lighthouse Network.
WJB's Turn 