silver

September 9, 2021

“For Your Name’s Sake…”

11  Revive me, O Lord, for Your name’s sake! For Your righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of trouble. — Psalm 143:11 NKJV

Psalm 143:7-12 NKJV

Post There are times in our lives when everything around us seems to be going in the wrong direction.  There are situations that we have prayed about on a daily basis, we have checked the Scriptures to be sure that our request does not violate them in any way and we have agreed with others in our request.  Yet, we still don’t see any positive results.  It is then that we, as the Psalmist does here, must fall on our faces and ask God to fulfill our request, not for our sake, but for the glory of His name.  The end of our rope is the beginning of our hope.  The surety that God cannot be defeated and that He will not give His glory to anyone else is our hope and our reason for being confident that He will act.  Yes, it will be in His time and in His way, but He will act. So, when satan seems to be winning the battle, we appeal to God to act speedily for His name’s sake.  And He will do it.

10  Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;  I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.  11  For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it;  For how should My name be profaned?  And I will not give My glory to another. — Isaiah 48:10-11 NKJV

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous

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September 7, 2021

“But I Will Give You What I Have…”

6 But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” — Acts 3:6 NLT

Acts 3:1-11 NLT

God has a plan for each of us and following that plan, we will intersect with the plans He has for others.  Every minute detail of every plan is laid out and weaved into the patterns of our lives.  The lame man was laid by the Temple gate every day.  No doubt, Peter, John and even Jesus had passed him before on their way to worship in the Temple.  Why did God choose this particular day to demonstrate His power?   We could say that we don’t know the specific reason and that would be true.  But we can assume without doing any injury to the Scriptures here that there was at least one person present in the crowd that day that needed to see this miracle occur.  Probably more, but at least one, needed to see a lame man made whole.  God doesn’t waste miracles.  He has His reasons for when, where, and why.  We have no idea of how big the impact of this particular miracle became as time passed.  When reading the Bible, it is important to remember that the acts we read about are only a small sampling of what was going on at the time.  One of the people in the crowd may very well have become a church founder or maybe just a missionary to his own family.  Either way, it was necessary for this miracle to happen at this exact moment on this day in front of this crowd. God excels in doing the extraordinary in ordinary places and times.  Listen for the small, still voice.  He is asking some of us to allow Him to take our ordinary lives and do something extraordinary with them today. At least one of us, could that one be you?

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. – Romans 12:1 NLT

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous

August 15, 2021

“You Have Purified Us Like Silver”

10  You have tested us, O God;    you have purified us like silver.  — Psalm 66:10 NLT

Psalm 66:8-12 NLT

There are two things in life that we use on just about a daily basis and both of those things can be good or evil depending on our attitude toward them and our use of them.   One is fire, though we don’t actually build fires every day, we use things that are formed and molded as a result of heat and fire.  Fire is necessary in refining processes that allow us to have jewelry, coins and other valuable items.   But that fire, uncontrolled, can be very destructive.  Each year thousands of lives and homes and acres of forest are lost to fires.  The trials we go through are compared to fires that refine us.  We can use those times of refining to draw closer to God or we can use them as a reason to rebel against God.   The other, of course, is money. Money can become our idol, our master, when we spend too much time focused on earning it and using it for the wrong reasons.   Or it can serve us well when we have the proper balance of work versus worship.   We can use it to spread the KIngdom of God here on earth in multiple ways or we can use it to purchase useless items. Both fire and money can be great servants or destructive masters.  The choice is ours.

24 “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. — Matt. 6:24 NLT

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous

July 25, 2021

“Silver Was Considered Worthless”

even-smaller-bug-light1

21 All of King Solomon’s drinking cups were solid gold, as were all the utensils in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. They were not made of silver, for silver was considered worthless in Solomon’s day! — 1 Kings 10:21 NLT

1 Kings 10:21-29

Can you imagine being blessed so abundantly that you would consider silver as being worthless?  I don’t think my imagination works that well.  And we must remember that Solomon did not ask for wealth, he asked for wisdom. Since he received all the worldly goods he did not ask for, the wisdom that Solomon did ask for and receive would have been out of this world because it was divine wisdom from heaven.  The point is this;  God wants to bless us with super-abundance, but God is not a wasteful God.  He blesses each of us with what we need and as much more as we can handle.  Each of us is blessed with a gift that is to be used for the growth of His Kingdom.  There is one job that God has designed each of us to do and  we can do that job better than anyon else can do it.  Why?  Because God provides us with the wisdom and the resources to do that job.  Not all of us can be great leaders worthy of worldly fame, but each of us has a tremendous job to do in the work of the Kingdom.  Not all of us can handle great wealth, we can see the proof of that when we read the sad stories of the people who win millions in the lotteries and a few years later they are broke.  We see proof of it when great sports figures who received millions of dollars while playing have to file bankruptcy a few years after retirement.  God has a plan and a purpose for each of us.  When we discover that plan and we are content to fulfill His purpose, then we can truly see that “all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to HIS PURPOSE”. (Romans 8:28)

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous

January 3, 2020

“Your Gold and Silver Are Corroded”

3 Your gold and silver are corroded. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. ​– James 5:3 NLT

​James 5:1-6 NLT

God does not have a problem with us having money. He realized how important it is but He also realized, that as humans, we could become too attached to money and the material things that we could purchase with it.  Jesus talked about money more than He did Heaven and Hell combined. Jesus talked about money more than anything else except the Kingdom of God.

11 of 39 parables talk about money.
1 of every 7 verses in the Gospel of Luke talk about money.–Answers.com

Jesus wants us to understand that money, in and of itself, is neither good nor evil. Whether it is good or evil in our lives depends on how we acquire it, what we do with it, and whether or not money becomes our “god” .  This passage is a warning to those who would get their riches using the wrong methods and use it to purchase the wrong things for the wrong reasons. God will not take second place to anything or anyone.

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.–Matt. 6:24 (NKJV)

Mammon means more than just money. In earlier times, mammon was the god of wealth and riches, so it refers to money, material things and false gods. It can also refer to a wicked spirit that causes people to do sinful acts to accumulate wealth of any sort. Jesus knew that we needed money to buy what we need to sustain life, but He also knew it could be a huge problem. Now we can see why Jesus talked about money so often and why He warned us about getting attached to it.  Having no money or very little money can be a problem as well as having too much. Having too much seems to be the bigger problem. There are more Christians who fail the “prosperity” test there are who fail the “poverty” test.​​

Proverbs 30;7-9 NLT

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” -Anonymous

Post 01-03-2020

February 10, 2019

Do Good Because Someone Is Watching

6 But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” — Acts 3:6 NLT

Acts 3:1-11 NLT

God has a plan for each of us and following that plan, we will intersect with the plans He has for others.  Every minute detail of every plan is laid out and weaved into the patterns of our lives.  The lame man was laid by the Temple gate every day.  No doubt, Peter, John and even Jesus had passed him before on their way to worship in the Temple.  Why did God choose this particular day to demonstrate His power?   We could say that we don’t know the specific reason and that would be true.  But we can assume without doing any injury to the Scriptures here that there was at least one person present in the crowd that day that needed to see this miracle occur.  Probably more, but at least one, needed to see a lame man made whole.  God doesn’t waste miracles.  He has His reasons for when, where, and why.  We have no idea of how big the impact of this particular miracle became as time passed.  When reading the Bible, it is important to remember that the acts we read about are only a small sampling of what was going on at the time.  One of the people in the crowd may very well have become a church founder or maybe just a missionary to his own family.  Either way, it was necessary for this miracle to happen at this exact moment on this day in front of this crowd.  God excels in doing the extraordinary in ordinary places and times.  Listen for the small, still voice.  He is asking some of us to allow Him to take our ordinary lives and do something extraordinary with them today. At least one of us, maybe more.And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. – Romans 12:1 NLT

“The closer I get to the end of my life, it seems the only question that matters, Is the life I am living pleasing to God?” – Ken Gire In “Sacred”

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous

Post 02-10-2019

August 30, 2018

Repent, Relax, Remember, Repeat

even-smaller-bug-light1

29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. — Acts 17:29​, 30​ NIV

When we read scriptures about idol worship, we tend to think of those that worship statues or symbols of dead men or useless religions.  While we may not have an image of the dollar setting on the mantle of the fireplace, we can still be worshiping all the things that money can buy.  While we may not have statues of anyone in our homes or churches, we can still hold others in higher esteem than we hold Jesus. If someone asks you to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable or violates your beliefs and you go ahead and do it, you have placed that person above Jesus. Our work here is to do the will of the Father, not the will of those around us.

 

38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.– John 6:38 NIV

We are not in a popularity contest.  Our goal should be to please our Father.  If we do that, He will take care of us.  If we are obedient and seek Jesus and His righteousness, He will handle all of the issues that satan puts in our way.

 

33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. — Matt. 6:33 NIV

“All these things” is everything that we need to live a Godly lifestyle. Everything means every thing.  Don’t stress out. Repent, Relax, Remember, Repeat.

 

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous
Post 08-30-2018
February 22, 2017

Imitate God

even-smaller-bug-light1

15 So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. — Ephesians 5:15 NLT
Ephesians 5:1-10 NLT

To make the most of our opportunities from a Biblical viewpoint means more than working hard or trying to make a profit on everything we do. It means, at least in part, to take the time to pray for and show love for those God puts in our paths. It means being a good steward over all the resources God has allowed us to use. Understanding what the Lord wants us to do means focusing our every thought and action bringing the lost to Christ. We should avoid excesses of every kind except the fruits of the Spirit against which there is no law. Our rewards for good works here on earth are laid up for us in heaven and will last for an eternity making them much more valuable than gold or sliver. We should always have joy in our hearts and a thankful attitude in our minds and words of praise on our lips.

Colossians 3:16-17 NLT


“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” -Anonymous

Post 02-22-2017

May 1, 2016

Worthless Silver

even-smaller-bug-light1

21 All of King Solomon’s drinking cups were solid gold, as were all the utensils in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. They were not made of silver, for silver was considered worthless in Solomon’s day! — 1Kings 10:21 NLT
1 Kings 10:21-29
Can you imagine being blessed so abundantly that you would consider silver as being worthless?  I don’t think my “imaginer” works that well.  And we must remember that Solomon did not ask for wealth, he asked for wisdom. Since he recieved all the worldly goods he did not ask for, the wisdom that Solomon did ask for and receive would have been out of this world.  Since it was divine wisdom from heaven, it certainly would have been from somewhere out of this world.  The point is this;  God wants to bless us with super-abundance, but God is not a wasteful God.  He blesses each of us with what we need and as much more as we can handle.  Each of us is blessed with a gift that is to be used for the growth of His Kingdom.  There is one job that God has designed each of us to do and  we can do that job better than anyon else can do it.  Why?  Because God provides us with the wisdom and the resources to do that job.  Not all of us can be great leaders worthy of worldly fame, but each of us has a tremendous job to do in the work of the Kingdom.  Not all of us can handle great wealth, we can see the proof of that when we read the sad stories of the people who win millions in the lotteries and a few years later they are broke.  We see proof of it when great sports figures who received millions of dollars while playing have to file bankruptcy a few years after retirement.  God has a plan and a purpose for each of us.  When we discover that plan and we are content to fulfill His purpose, then we can truly see that “all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to HIS PURPOSE”.  
Post 05-01-2016
May 4, 2015

One and Only One

God is waiting to show you the Way.

God is waiting to show you the Way.

​10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day​ ​will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.—1 Cor. 3:10-15 NIV
​In our​ witnessing, there is only one message and that message is the foundation of Christianity. The message is this; Jesus died on the cross at Calvary to redeem us from our sinful nature. He was buried and three days later, He arose. That is the foundation upon which the church of Jesus Christ is built. We can build on that foundation by teaching others that the Bible is completely true. If we do this with understanding and wisdom from heaven, then we will be building with gold, silver and costly stones. This builder will receive his crowns and rewards in heaven. If we do it with only human understanding without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, we will be building with wood, hay or straw. This builder will narrowly make it to heaven, but suffer the loss of any rewards he thought he had earned.
22 Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh–Jude 22, 23 NIV


Post 05-05-2015