You are the God of my heart, my life, my soul. I long to be with you someday. I have praised you in the past, I praise you now, I will praise you in the future and as long as forever lasts. You are the originator of all things and all movement. You set the stars in motion and they have never stopped their movement for all these thousands of years. You are the First Cause of all that is good and right. You have made me in your image so I can have a sense of goodness and right ~ a sense of conscience ~ in my thinking and behavior. I stand in awe of you.
Thank you, Lord, for interruptions in my life. Sometimes people have to get loud and make me stop what I am doing so I will pay attention to them. I get so absorbed in what I am doing day to day, I forget the rest of the world other than a casual hello or goodbye. Keep doing it, Lord. Keep sending people to my door to my phone to my email intent on interrupting me. Thank you for sudden changes. They certainly do make life interesting, and you, God, are always interesting. Thank you.
The scripture for today, November 13 (11/13), is Zechariah 11:13 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:
“And the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’ ~ the handsome price at which they paid me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord to the potter.”
The book of Zechariah is full of prophecies about Jesus, especially circumstances surrounding his death. Compare the above scripture with this written five centuries later when Jesus was betrayed and crucified:
“Then one of the Twelve ~ the one called Judas Iscariot ~ went to the chief priests and asked, ‘What are you willing to give me if I hand him [Jesus] over to you?’ So they counted out for him thirty silver coins” (Matthew 26:15).
and….
“When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests….So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself….So they [chief priests] decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners” (Matthew 27:3, 6-7).
The prophet Zechariah wrote this prophecy some five centuries before Jesus. The prophet had been long dead before it was fulfilled. This could not possibly have been contrived to fit such a distant future ~ the exact sum Judas was paid, the money being thrown into the temple and then given to the potters.
This is only one of many proofs. The Bible is the only religious book in the world with built-in undeniable and amazing proofs it is of divine origin.
Why not keep a collection of these prophecies so you will be prepared when a friend says “The Bible is full of myths”?
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Biblical historical novel 7, “SHADOW OF DEATH” is about the last hours of Jesus. All my novels are commentaries in narrative form. Life-application questions at the end of each chapter. To BUY NOW, click a picture or paste this: https://amzn.to/2qLqUPU
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I praise and magnify you in my heart until it swells with awe and deep veneration. Ah, my Lord, to be able to comprehend you. You must smile when you see me try. I am like an ant trying to understand the mind of a human. You are so large, I only have a fleeting glimpse of you. It is like a mite sitting on my arm trying to see all of me. The mite can only see what its tiny eye can see up close, and that is me. You are larger than the unmeasurable universe, for you are its Maker. The very thought of you is breathtaking.
Jesus, I try to thank you every way I can think of and know how. It’s never enough, for I could never show gratitude even close to the sacrifice you made in my place. You did not have to die. You weren’t the one sinning. But, we had been kidnapped by Satan and you were the only one strong enough to pay the ransom he wanted ~ the death of God. Thank you for tricking him! Oh, how I smile when I think about how you fooled him and came back to life. The ransom had been paid and he could do nothing about it. You had set us free. How amazing you are. I fall at your feet and worship.
The scripture for today, November 12 (11/12), is Leviticus 11:12 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:
“Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you.”
Is the Law of Moses still in effect, including its requirement for tithing? The scripture above is just one of the over 600 laws in the Law of Moses. They were intricate laws governing both their worship and their everyday life. This one chapter in Leviticus says in part they could not eat camels or coneys or rabbits or pigs. They could not eat eagles, vultures, kites, ravens, owls, gulls, hawks, osprey, storks, herons, hoopoes or bats. But they could eat locusts, katydids, crickets and grasshoppers. And this is just part of Leviticus 11!
Why did God give so many intricate laws to the Jews? To give them a chance to keep them all perfectly so they could be perfect. In the meantime, God did not give any laws to the Gentiles; He let them try whatever means they could on their own to become perfect. But during the same time period, both the Jews and Gentiles proved to themselves that it was impossible to keep their religions perfectly and thus be perfect themselves.
Now Jesus was ready to come. He lived the Jewish law perfectly, then nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:14) and established a new last will and Testament (Hebrews 8-9). Now you live under a law of grace, and his commandments revolve around loving God and loving each other.
God cannot co-exist with imperfection. But he loves you and wants you to be his child. Through Jesus he accomplished it; he set you free. He has released you from having to be perfect under the Law, and sees you now through the blood of Jesus and his holy eyes as perfect.
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In biblical novel 5, Jesus opens the “FLOOD GATES” by accusing Jewish leaders of not living the Law of Moses perfectly, so they begin their campaign to kill him. To BUY NOW, click a picture or paste this: https://amzn.to/2Fj9xjL
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I adore you, Lord God, and worship you. I laugh with you, cry with you. I am unworthy of all the attention you give me, especially among the millions of others who long for you. You know my name and follow me around. My thoughts, attitudes, and activities are readily open to you. My sins are among them. How unworthy I am. You love me still. How marvelous and magnificent you are in love and mercy. I worship you.
Thank you for my being able to live in a country that gives me as much freedom as I need to worship you. Even if I must worship you in hiding, I still will have the freedom to find a hiding place. Every place has valleys and galleys to hide in, and basements, and abandoned buildings and mountain tops. Thank you for the hiding places. And thank you for the heroes who long to worship you so much, they will do anything to do so. Thank you for worship ~ a way to connect believers together for strength and connect with you for holiness. Our prayers are diamonds, our songs are silver, our Lord’s Supper rememberings are rubies, and our reading your love letters are gold.
The scripture for today, November 11 (11/11), is Romans 11:11a as found in the New Testament of the Bible:
“Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all!”
Though everyone is a weak human, you may decide to live for God. But you are still a weak human. Satan has lost you and wants you back. He will try hard to make that happen. Often, the new Christian is the one he attacks the hardest.
Satan never lets up and periodically causes bad things to happen to you so you’ll blame God, just as he tried to do with Job. He will tempt you with more things than before you became a Christian in his attempts to get you back. So sometimes you may stumble and fall.
God knows what is happening. He stands with you. He is so proud of you when you stand up to Satan and say, “Never! I will not blame or forsake my Lord!” He sees how your spiritual muscles are growing when you do.
But, if you sometimes fall, you are not beyond hope. Never, never believe you are beyond hope. That is a lie! God never leaves you. He continues to stand next to you, holding out his hands and saying, “Take them. I will lift you back up. You will be okay again.”
So, you do. And so, he does.
He is amazingly patient with us. He loves you so very much.
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Revelation: A Love Letter From God is a simple explanation of the symbolism and history in Revelation and brings to life God’s love for you. To BUY NOW, click a picture or paste this: https://amzn.to/2FfVISZ
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