It's a new day - Let us rejoice!

Associating God with observable, awe-inspiring natural phenomena People in ancient times attempted to identify their gods with impressive, natural forces such as storms, lightning or quakes. They saw their gods as has having more than super-human power therefore witnessed them as all powerful, natural phenomena or threatening animals of prey. Canaan was a land of tempests, so their gods were represented by storm gods. Storm gods were portrayed in religious iconography as riding on the backs of beasts with spears or other weapons of war in their hands. The god of Israel also appears in storms. In fact, the Old Testament fleshes out the concept of God controlling the storms! Yahweh , who is omnipresent filling the earth, appears in the world as a physical, divine presence who presents Himself at different times in different locations. An appearance of God is what is referred to as a “theophany.” Seeing God in a storm is thought to either suggest Him coming to sav...

  The apostle Paul addresses early day Christians Most scholars date Paul’s writing to the believers in Corinth to 54-55 AD. He wrote this letter from Ephesus. He addressed his letter to the believers in Christ who were living in Corinth. Corinth was a thriving, cosmopolitan city of the province then known as; Achaia which was part of the Roman Empire. Corinth was not far from Athens, Greece. Ephesus was just across the Aegean Sea, also not far from Athens and Corinth. I am giving these facts as a way of giving us a present day perspective of the place and time of the apostle’s authorship of this interesting book of the New Testament. The Corinthians were living in a culture not unlike that of our modern day cities. It was a place of much diversity, culture, commerce, paganism, immorality and great wealth. The apostle Paul was very concerned with the spiritual health of the people of Corinth. Today, aren’t we concerned about the same virtue of our nation, our citie...

When drugs or alcohol become a regular part of our daily routine, or we require them to cope with life, we likely have a chemical dependency (addiction.) No matter what the cause of our addiction, as Christians we can call on God to forgive us and help us heal. Our healing, and forgiveness comes from God when we ask for his forgiveness; we just confess our weakness to that which stands between us and Him. We repent from using drugs or alcohol confessing the use of them as our denial of God’s mercy and grace in our lives. We confess we need God’s help because we cannot refrain from using them on our own. God will then forgive us. Our confession will not necessarily eliminate our desire for these chemicals. We will need to work daily on our temptation and learn how to resist how the flesh cries out for drugs and alcohol. Our deeper emotions must be healed. What drugs and alcohol have supplied as coping resources will have to be unlearned. With God’s help you can do it! Su...

Each day is your new opportunity offered by God Good morning! “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it!” These are cheerful, uplifting words that help us begin each of our new days with sweet tasting hope and fragrant anticipation of all the what wonderful things our Lord has in store for us today! God does have wonderful things in store for you today. He always does. We are the ones who turn sweet wine into bitter vinegar with our sorry attitudes and our negative habits! We have a choice as to how we will start this day, wouldn’t you agree? We can begin this day in darkness, or we can open our sleepy eyes to the glory of Jesus; who is the light of our world ! Here God’s Word provides our encouragement to help us begin this new day: “Then your light shall break forth like the morning, / Your healing shall spring forth speedily, / And your righteousness shall go before you; / The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. / Then you shall call, ...

Only God knows the day and the hour Considering all the wars and talks of war, the earthquakes and storms, many people talk of the end times and the second coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It’s true He is coming, but the very day and hour only God, the Father knows the exact time. In the early church unbelievers were taught Jesus would be coming as a “thief in the night.” However, the apostle Paul told believers: “But you brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.” We are to “watch and be sober.” Refer to Scripture; (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6.)   We have been taught by Jesus to be prepared, be ready because no one except God knows the day or the hour when He will return (Matthew 24:42). Most of us would like to know exactly when Jesus is coming back, but we are confident God knows and we trust Him. We know God knows what is best for us. Until that glorious day, we can learn more of what Jesus taught, and increase our faith in all...

Through His strength we will be renewed There will be those days when you are going to feel less than efficient; even your physical energy will feel drained. All that wonderful motivation you had before will seem to have just deserted you. What do you do? Do you think to yourself; “I’ve got to make things in my life happen”, and so you press on with only your own strength? You could, but don’t be surprised if you run out of steam. In (Jeremiah 29:11) God talks about the plans He has for us. Just as He has a plan for us He also has a timeframe in which He will accomplish His plan. When we attempt to get ahead of His plan by pushing ahead without Him we can lose our enthusiasm in our effort, become confused, maybe even give up trying to finish what we started. When we try to accomplish what God has planned for us in our own strength; or worst yet, we come up with our own plan, the results are likely to be discouraging. It’s really best if we wait for Him! (Isaiah 40:30...