Fasting and Praying
My stomach just asked my brain if my throat got cut.
Symptoms:
Hungry.
Headache.
Alert.
Slept pretty good.
I’ve gotten down to praying for things that I’ve prayed for before, and NOT had anything change. That may be God bringing me to a place of trusting Him more and more, or it may be a place of finally I’m prepared to receive the answer. Or both.
I don’t despise my water bottle (yet) and I’m really very, very pleased with my children because on their own they are making deliberate decisions on moving closer to God and fasting and praying and what more could a daddy hope for?!
Sunday sundown, Monday sundown, and it’s just Tuesday morning. You can do it! God is waiting on the other side of your sacrifice! This is your year if you want it to be! I’m not a motivational speaker…I’m a Bible guy. And I’m telling you, this could be your year if you really want it to be!
Promise Church Bible Reading Day 4
A couple events really stand out in these few chapters.
Number one. God told Abram He was going to bless him beyond measure, so leave all your family and household and go travel until I show you your new home. What is the first thing Abram does? Disobey God. Kinda. He does leave his homeland walking out in faith. It’s one of the greatest steps of faith in all the Bible. But he takes Lot, Lot’s family, and all the household he had gained in that land. Why do I care about that? Because it shows me that God can keep His promises in my life even when I mess up. Doesn’t that comfort you? It should!
Number Two. When they go to Egypt during the famine, Abram knew, and the Egyptians in fact did think this way, that his seventy-year old wife was pretty and they would kill him in order to take her. I guess they had a code there that said adultery is not okay, but murder is. Anyway, they really must have had Oil of Oley in their blood.
Three. After Lot chose to live by Sodom, the evil kings came to fight the other evil kings. No problem. Wars break out all the time. But as soon as they messed with Abram’s family, (Lot,) algtherets are off! You don’t mess with God’s family or you lose your rights. Abram gets his trained household servants and goes and kicks the life out of the kings who raised their hands against Lot.
Four. Melchizedek served communion thousands of years before Christ. There is something to that…
God cares for His children. I’m one! How about you?
Promise Church Bible Reading
Last night we read Genesis 8-11 before we went to sleep. Christopher sat on the edge of the bed, Karen laid on her pillow, and I read out loud. Typically when I am reading the Bible I read silently, as I read much more quickly than I can speak, but for this we are reading out loud. It is a nice family thing to share the Bible together. Kind of an intimate family thing. It wouldn’t matter if the cell phone rang while we were reading…it would just go to voice mail.
The flood finished, and I love that flat-out God proclaims that ALL the inhabitants of the earth descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. No question. The Creator of all began again from those three brothers and their wives. So if anyone wondered, “Did Adam and Eve have kids in the Garden of Eden?” or maybe, “Where did Cain or Seth’s wife come from?” It barely matters after the flood. Those had to marry their cousins to replenish the earth.
I’m no genetecist but as close relatives produce offspring, doesn’t that weaken the genetic code? In one single chapt we get a clear look at the decreasing lifespans of these ammi lies. From Noah’s 950 year life down to 200 for his great grand children. Wow!
We also get some other answers like how did people get all around the world if they were ALL in that one area. Well, one clan ended up traveling east, over into Asia (only it wasn’t called Asia yet,) and the land bridge from the easternmost tip or what would become Russia over to the future Alaska, and down onto the Americas. Another huge clan became seafaring people, so that opens up the eastern parts of the Americas and Australia too, huh?
I think the point is, when God scattered the people around the world when He confused their languages, it’s not just possible, but reasonable how He did it!
I was on my computer at lunch one time in my office and my assistant came in to have me sign some paperwork. I didn’t notice her at first, and she cme around my desk and saw what I was looking at on the Internet. “Is this leisure reading for you, Boss?”
She caught me red handed. My secretary discovered me looking at something she never would have suspected of here boss. What was it?
I was reading about the DNA progression link from the North African seat through the north, and down through the Americas. The article showed the unbroken link of relationship, and scientifically tracked how people likely ended up over here. I was fascinated that it agreed with what Genesis tells us.
Every time genuine science discovers something, it tends to show that the Bible is true. That’s just one more reason I trust the Bible when it isn’t “proven.”. Sooner or later, it is!
Promise Church Bible Reading
Day 2 of our Bible reading could open a TON of questions. So let me post some yes’s and no’s for you.
No. I don’t know who Cain’s wife was.
Yes. God insists we live, sacrifice, and come to him on His terms and not our own. Think about it: who is right? You or God?
No. I don’t know if the “sons of God” we’re angels.
Yes. There were people of great physical stature and accomplishment.
No. I don’t know how (or why) they lived so long before they had kids.
Yes. They lived that long in real physical years. Don’t try to read straight fact as allegory; it will mess up your ability to understand what God’s Word actually says. And it would train you not to trust the Bible.
No. I don’t know if dinosaurs were on the ark.
Yes. The flood covered the entire planet just like it says. Seriously. A local flood doesn’t even make sense anyway! Can you picture it? God says, “I am going to wipe out mankind and start again. Hey! I didn’t know there were more places to flood!”
No. I don’t know if the animals hibernated during the flood.
Yes. God’s plan worked.
Today when we baptize people, it’s a physical and spiritual manifestation of the flood. Death to the old, and salvation washing clean.
This is great reading! I can’t wait ’til tomorrow!
Happy New Year Promise Church
It’s about Two in the morning. The fireworks are done. The dogs have gone back to sleep. Karen and I laid down to sleep. And now I’m back up since sleep is eluding me for right now.
So I got up to read the Bible. Promise Church is reading the Bible cover to cover this year; we’re following the reading plan found at Jentezen Franklin’s site. Here is a copy. There are One Year Bible’s, and a zillion through-the-bible-in-a-year reading plans. We’re doing this one because we’re joining Free Chapel on the 21-day fast again this January. I recommend you download the reading plan and use it as a checklist over the next 365 days. (Yes, I know this is a Leap Year, so February 29th you can use as a catch-up day if you miss a day in the next 6 or 8 weeks, okay?)
Today’s reading is Genesis chapters 1,2 and 3. At Christmas last week we were at family’s house for dinner and I was asked how chapter 2 comes before chapter 3 since it looks like chapter 2 says God created man, but then chapter 3 says God created man and woman, and it sort of contradicts itself in the way it’s laid out.
That’s an honest and healthy question. And very appropriate to ask at the beginning of the Book, since the answer will help set the stage for the rest of our Bible reading through the whole year.
Have you ever watched a movie that starts in the middle of the story, then goes back to the beginning to say *how* the story got up to that point? I think that’s what God does here. He starts by saying what He did, and then He goes back and reviews some specifics.
There are going to be plenty of times in our Bible reading when we have to step back a bit and look closely at what God is saying and how He’s saying it. Just like life. Sometimes we have to step back and take a big-picture look at things because let’s admit: individual things that happen can be pretty demotivating.
But seeing things from a higher place, we can look at one apparently bad situation in our life and remember that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are the called according to His purpose. Whew! Does that mean the fight that you had, the lay-off you went through, the repo, the foreclosure, the divorce, the substance abuse and recovery….God can use ALL of that to work together for good of YOU?
Yes.
So take Genesis 1,2 &3, read and then re-read it. Chew on it. Pray about it. Set yourself a pacing practice that allows the Lord to speak to your spirit as you spend time every single day in His Word! He will use it to edify, exhort, comfort, correct, guide, and equip you for successful life. I promise. Better yet: He promises!
The 2nd Adams Family
Last Sunday at Promise we talked about the First Adam, and the Second Adam. Adam and Eve were the progenitors of the human race, placed as perfectly formed people in a perfect garden by a perfect Creator. Then comes that serpent and does a whopper of a job on messing things up! Do sin, and subsequently death, entered into the life of Mankind. Adam was the first Adam.
The Second Adam is Jesus. He is the only other man in history who didn’t have an earthly father, but was formed by the Creator inside Mary’s womb. And all you bible scholars who are mentally shouting, “What about Joshua? He was the son of Nun!” I get the joke, but Nun was his dad’s name, not None. Where was I?
Oh! Jesus is the Last Adam. Second Adam. Same thing! So Jesus enters the picture and fulfills the whole Law that was laid down on the First Adam’s lineage. What does that mean? PAID IN FULL my friends!! Paid in full! And then He set in motion a better covenant. His new covenant says a couple things:
1. You no longer have to pay the price for the curse of Man that was laid on mankind through the First Adam.
2. You still have all the rights and authority of Man that was laid on mankind in the first place!
3. Sin and Death entered into the life of Mankind through one man, Adam. So eternal life is now available through Jesus, the Second Adam.
I used the Addam’s Family as a general pattern. Talk about disfunctional! Reminds me of another family I know, but nevermind about that right now. 
The devil really did a number to convince a perfect family in a perfect place that there was an imperfection in their life. What a liar. What a pervert. What a snake.
He still says the same things he always said. He’s got a whole new generation who will listen to his lying tongue if we don’t tell them the truth.
Jesus is the 2nd Adam. He is now the One we connect with in a familial sense. I’ll always be a Son of Adam, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities thereof, but now I’m a son of God, a joint heir with Jesus, and yes — I have all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities attached thereto too.
I pressed POST, and then thought of something I wanted to append here. Being in the Family of God doesn’t exclude me from experiencing all the things life throws in my way. It doesn’t make me suddenly immune to the events that can hit us. What it does is this: it gives me the authority to claim my Family Name when those things come my way. I can stand in front of them and say, “My heavenly Father bankrupted heaven to send His Son to pay for all and all. How dare you come and try to collect on a bill that’s been paid in full! Now Get Off My Property!!”
Hope that helps.
