Tag: psalm-113

Transformed by this Truth? “every person is as Close to God as they all think they want to be.” James 4:8

James 4:7-10 New American Standard Bible 1995

7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Word of God for the Children of God

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

Today, we explore a profound, yet too often untouched truth:

“Every person is as close to God as they think they want to be.”

This statement challenges us to reflect on our personal relationship with God.

Our main text today is James 4:8 (NLT):

“Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.”

James addresses believers, urging them to draw near to God.

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The Greek word for “come close” is “engizo”, which means to approach or draw near. This is a call to intimate fellowship with God.

James emphasizes the reciprocal nature of our relationship with God.

When we take steps towards Him, He responds by drawing closer to us.

This verse also highlights the need for repentance and purity, symbolized by washing hands and purifying hearts.

Evaluate your daily walk with God.

Are you taking intentional steps to draw nearer to Him?

This may involve prayer, reading the Bible, or worship.

As you do, you will experience His presence more profoundly.

Psalm 145:18 (NLT): “The Lord is close to all who call on him, yes, to all who call on him in truth.”

This verse reassures us God is near to those who earnestly seek Him in truth.

Commit to seeking God sincerely and truthfully.

Make calling upon Him a daily practice.

How to Get Close to God: Come

Dr. A.W. Tozer said, “The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One.”

It sounds so good on paper: all of God is exactly where all of who we are – are!

But what do you do when you can’t find God?

What if God doesn’t seem to be there for you?

Some Christians struggle with that question.

“What do you do when God seems far very away, and you’re praying to an empty chair, and you’re reading the Bible for your devotions, but you do it only because you know dad said you should, and it does not mean anything to you?”

What do you do if you feel like?

Here’s one idea: read and reread Psalm 139, and let it sink in.

Then come near to the God who loves you and knows everything about you.

That’s what James says: “Come near to God and he will come near to you.”

Throughout the Bible God invites us to come.

The Lord invites us to come and reason together (Isaiah 1:18).

Isaiah 55:1-3 New American Standard Bible 1995

The Free Offer of Mercy

55 “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no [a]money come, buy and eat.
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost.
2 “Why do you [b]spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And delight yourself in abundance.
3 “Incline your ear and come to Me.
Listen, that [c]you may live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
According to the faithful mercies [d]shown to David.

Jesus invites the weary to come to him and find rest (Matthew 11:28-29), and he promises that he will never drive us away (John 6:37).

The only caveat is first, we have to come just exactly as we are–empty-handed.

Come and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died to save us from our sins.

Before you go to sleep tonight, pray, plead, for Jesus to draw near to your heart.

If you really want him to, he will respond.

The Turn of the Heart

James 4:1-4 New American Standard Bible 1995

Things to Avoid

4 [a]What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? [b]Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask [c]with wrong motives, so that you may spend it [d]on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Prayer connects our heart with God’s heart. For many people, the word heart represents only their emotions, especially feelings like love, sadness, and hope.

It’s in the mind that logic resides, many will say.

The heart is for feeling and the brain is for thinking, and the two are often too pitted against each other.

The Bible teaches, however, that the heart is the center of every aspect of being human: our reason, our emotions, and our will. The heart directs our affections, molds, shapes our decision making, and determines our ultimate allegiances.

This is why Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Today’s Bible reading contains a harsh rebuke of people whose hearts have turned away from God.

It affects all their thinking, decision making, motives, emotions, and behaviors.

The spiritual fallout of a broken relationship with God is that prayer is rendered ineffective.

But nestled in this passage are words of hope.

No matter how far our hearts may wander from God, he promises to be near when we turn to him.

That’s because he is always near and caring for us (see Matthew 28:20;  Philippians 4:4-6).

One renewing encounter with God can change everything.

And it’s always just one prayer away.

The One who died for you will never drive you away.

In the name of God, the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Praying …

Psalm 113 New American Standard Bible 1995

The Lord Exalts the Humble.

113 [a]Praise [b]the Lord!
Praise, O servants of the Lord,
Praise the name of the Lord.
2 Blessed be the name of the Lord
From this time forth and forever.
3 From the rising of the sun to its setting
The name of the Lord is to be praised.
4 The Lord is high above all nations;
His glory is above the heavens.

5 Who is like the Lord our God,
Who is enthroned on high,
6 Who [c]humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in heaven and in the earth?
7 He raises the poor from the dust
And lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 To make them sit with [d]princes,
With the [e]princes of His people.
9 He makes the barren woman abide in the house
As a joyful mother of children.
[f]Praise [g]the Lord!

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

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There is always time for everything, a time and season for endless vanities, chasing the wind with a net, a season for every activity under the heavens. Is there any time being left for God? Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 Revised Standard Version

Everything Has Its Time

3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

The God-Given Task

9 What gain has the worker from his toil?

10 I have seen the business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 also that it is God’s gift to man that every one should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has made it so, in order that men should fear before him.

The Word of God for the Children of God.

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

God, the Eternity Setter

I can still remember the sound of the little tiny bird that popped out of the old cuckoo clock on the back wall at the now gone clock store. Every hour, on the hour, a red faded bird would announce the time. I also recall that when the bird was quiet, I could yet hear the second hand ticking away the seconds of the day.

It’s often said that you can’t get time back, you cannot reset time to the better life you had however many years ago you had them, you can’t return to the days when you first saw your spouse, so it’s best to make use of the time you have.

And you certainly cannot go back to the first days of creation when God spoke and there was light, there was dark, there were the first stars, first life on earth.

You cannot return to the days of David and Goliath and witness that victory.

You cannot interview any of the ancient heroes of the faith, Moses, Abraham, Joshua, Gideon or Samuel or Elijah or Elisha, the psalmists or all the prophets for your school essays, master’s thesis, college dissertations, next sermons.

There will be no eye witness accounts of Mary’s encounter with Angel or the virgin birth, the shepherds being shocked in the middle of the night by angels.

As much as we would certainly welcome the opportunity, we will never hear our names really being spoken out loud by an itinerant Master Rabbi named Jesus.

There is no chance we will witness the miraculous healings, stilling of the great storm from the Gospel of Mark chapter 4:35-41, nor encounter the one named legion before and after his encounter with Jesus. We will not observe their faces.

There is no way we will see Lazarus walk out of his tomb or hear those words which were spoken by Jesus which called Lazarus back to the land of living.

Who would not want to be in that Upper Room when Jesus celebrated that last Passover, to see him wash all those feet, break his body the bread, pour out his blood from the central cup? Walk with him to the Garden of Gethsemane to be witnesses to his tears of blood shed as he prayed to his Father for his release?

His betrayal? Everyone running away naked into the night to avoid arrest? If we were on the scene with all those disciples, would our devotion to Jesus’ own life be enough for us to stay and get between him, the mob of Temple authorities?

Would we have done anything to intervene, intercede, to start a great riot to somehow stop the life threatening injustices being perpetrated upon Jesus?

What about stopping the meeting with Pilate – would we step forward to be Jesus’ advocate, speak for him who did not speak one word to defend himself?

Would we have willingly helped Jesus carry his cross as Simon of Cyrene did?

Would we have done anything at Golgotha to save Jesus’ broken body, would we have rushed forward, whatever weapon was available, overpower the guards?

All of these biblical moments which we can only interpret with our 21st century eyes, act for benefit of all – take Jesus away, heal him, so he keeps ministering?

The bible is so very full of exciting and miraculous moments and words which seek to draw us into those excited moments penned by the original narrators who had their own on the scene at the exact moment of its first occurrences.

No, there is no time for anyone in the present to do anything fantastic to go back into time and bring back to us all today, an actual eye witness account.

I am writing this devotion today. though the author of Ecclesiastes didn’t write those words , they sound like something he might have said. In Ecclesiastes we hear the words of a person who has had the opportunity to look back on his life and recall the joys, concerns, victories, and defeats he has experienced. We hear someone who reflects how important each season was to our 21st century time.

Notably, wise King Solomon, who penned Ecclesiastes, ends his short detailed reflection by commenting that God makes all things beautiful in their time and sets eternity in the human heart (v. 11). That brings me back to those days in an old clock makers store with the cuckoo clocks, and I remember stories that they shared around the jewelers cabinets with clocks ticking and birds singing away.

I can’t get that precious time back, can almost remember the clock makers face but the beauty of those memories lives on, and thoughts of reuniting with those moments in God’s presence in eternity brings me 1000% joy, now and forever!

Take some special time today and through Thanksgiving and Christmas, and New Years to dig deep into the stories of the Bible, mine them for truths they reveal, to get rich on the presence of God, the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit.

Precious Memories … How they Linger … How they ever Flood my Soul … In the stillness, of the midnight … Precious Sacred Scenes unfold … Alleluia! Amen!

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Let us Pray,

Psalm 113 Complete Jewish Bible

113 Halleluyah!

Servants of Adonai, give praise!
Give praise to the name of Adonai!
2 Blessed be the name of Adonai
from this moment on and forever!
3 From sunrise until sunset
Adonai’s name is to be praised.
4 Adonai is high above all nations,
his glory above the heavens.
5 Who is like Adonai our God,
seated in the heights,
6 humbling himself to look
on heaven and on earth.

7 He raises the poor from the dust,
lifts the needy from the rubbish heap,
8 in order to give him a place among princes,
among the princes of his people.

9 He causes the childless woman
to live at home happily as a mother of children.

Halleluyah!

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

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