Worthy Devotions – Daily Christian Devotion » Attitude

Psalms 112:1 Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s love, however if we want to experience His blessings we need to observe the qualifications that He’s given us in His Word. Psalm 112 details a whole list of blessings, but the key to receiving them is verse 1.

“Blessed is the man that fears (puts his trust, honors, in awe of His majesty) the Lord, and delights greatly in His commandments. (Takes pleasure in what God says and obeys Him).”

Adopt that attitude toward Him and be assured, blessings are on the way! Your offspring will be mighty on the earth (vs 2), wealth and riches shall be in your house (vs 3), even in darkness the light shall shine on you (vs 4), you shall not be shaken (vs 6) in the midst of evil you will have no fear of bad news because your heart is set upon Him (vs 7).

Now I don’t know about you, but I want to live in the blessings of God!

Let’s live a life that God will bless, honor the Lord with our whole heart, and delight in obeying Him!

1 Tim 6:11-12 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

For the past few days our family has been fighting off various viruses, and I’m hoping we’re finally coming to the end of this bout of sickness. But it’s causing me to reflect on the amazing way God has designed our bodies to combat these germs, with an immune system that can eliminate any intruder as soon as it penetrates.

While germs and physical illness are our battle in the flesh, our spiritual enemy is warring in the Spirit — relentlessly seeking to penetrate our spiritual defense system! He is seeking a place in us to encourage sin so he can entrench himself there and begin to spread spiritual disease and death into our lives.

Seeing how effectively God has designed our physical immune system, what can we learn in our spiritual battle to fight the good fight? The first lesson I see is “response time”. As soon as that thought of jealousy, coveting, rebellion, lust, impurity, etc. enters our mind — we need to take notice! — and immediately take the thought captive, before it has an opportunity to grow and develop into spiritual illness.

We can all see the spiritual warfare really intensifying lately. More and more the Lord is calling for us to stand up and fight the good fight of faith in these last days. We must be mentally and spiritually awake, rise up at the first attack, take the battle to the enemy… and give him no place to reside! Amen.

1 John 3:16-18 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

Here in Israel we have an interesting geographical phenomenon – there are two landlocked seas. One is alive and one is dead. The sea full of life is the Kinneret, better known as the Sea of Galilee. The dead sea is…….you guessed it, the Dead Sea. Now the Kinneret is constantly emptying as it flows through the Jordan River valley…. into the Dead Sea. But the Dead Sea does not empty its water at all. Instead, the Dead Sea is continually shrinking, because the intense heat at this lowest place on Earth actually evaporates more water than is flowing in. Do you see a parable here?

The Sea that is alive is the one that gives. The more of your self, of your life, of your love, that you pour out, the more alive, filled up, and refreshed you will become. The Lord Yeshua (Jesus) exemplified this to the greatest extent ever, by giving all He was and all He had, even to those who hated Him and were His bitter enemies. And the love that He gave was returned to Him by His Father in the resurrection, and by all the multitude of His redeemed people throughout all ages and into eternity. Could it possibly be any different for those of us who live lives of giving and loving? No. We will continue to be filled by the Lord’s infinite abundance no matter how much we pour ourselves out. Of course, if we hold back, keeping all we have to ourselves, we will begin to evaporate and die…

Give and you will live. Love, and you will be filled with God’s love. Hold back, and even that which you have will vanish away. A friend of mine shares this limerick:
There once was a sea that was dead
It was, ’cause it only got fed
And never gave up
Not one single cup
Now that’s something to keep in your head

Let’s be givers. Let’s be lovers. Empty ourselves into His Kingdom, into His work, and be constantly refilled with His love, power and peace. With so much work to be done, I’m choosing the Sea of Life!

1 John 5:4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

As we are entering some of the most turbulent times in history, we’ve been receiving an unbelievable amount of email expressing concern about the future. But I want to tell you a little something – the future is VICTORY!

It’s not defeat, or loss. If you think about it, all the great leaders of the Bible shone in the hardest of times. When the giant Goliath stood against the army of Israel, David didn’t sit around with his brothers complaining about how big Goliath was. Though David was a dwarf next to this evil giant, he was still convinced he was going to be victorious because God was on his side!

When the apostles saw Yeshua die, they must have felt utterly defeated – then, suddenly, there he was, out from the grave, gloriously alive before them – and from then on they walked in His victory! They didn’t sit around complaining about Roman persecution, the Sanhedrin, or the Pharisees. They didn’t get wrapped up in how evil the world was becoming; instead they pressed forward in the worst of times and in those dark days they shone like the stars in the midnight sky.

Despite everything that’s happening around us, let’s be sure we’re not developing a defeatist attitude. We are called children of the King, a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Despite how bad things may be getting – don’t forget we’re on the winning team! We can stand against this evil and overcome it… with good!

Isaiah 66:1-2 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

In our house we have an old lounge chair that has a built-in foot rest operated by a lever on the side. It’s my captain chair. It’s so comfortable that oftentimes our guests plop in the chair, kick up the foot-rest, and within minutes, fall asleep. As a matter of fact it happened last night!

The scripture says God’s captain chair, His throne, is in heaven… and his footstool is right here on earth! This planet is God’s footstool. That means everything – the mountains, the rivers, oceans, your home, under His feet…but, more than that, your problems, your worries, your fears – they are all under His feet as well!

So stop worrying and relax – give those problems over to God, kick up your feet, and rest in Him, realizing that every issue you’re dealing with is also truly under His feet, and that He never slumbers or sleeps!

Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

One of the most fascinating sites to visit in Washington D.C. is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. For 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, a platoon of 30 honor guards protects the tomb through rain, snow and even hurricanes! It’s been guarded every minute of every day since 1937.

A single sentinel takes his post guarding carefully, walking exactly 21 steps then pausing for 21 seconds before turning around and continuing his duty. The number 21 is in reference to the 21 gun salute which is the military’s highest honor given to a soldier. When the changing of the guard takes place, the orders are passed from one soldier to the next – “Orders Remain Unchanged.”

As we enter into a New Year, the world is rapidly changing before our eyes! As the war unfolds in Israel, a new President takes the helm in the U.S., the world economy is on the brink of complete collapse – one thing hasn’t changed — our orders from Yeshua to preach this gospel of the Kingdom to every one!

Continue to stand guard, watching and being ever alert of the times in which we live; and never forget that our “Orders Remain Unchanged!” With so much work to be done, let’s be sure we enter 2009 with our priorities intact –

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you…”

Revelation 22:12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

We’re preparing to celebrate our 5th Thanksgiving here in Israel, and as you may or may not know, the majority of Israelis have never heard of this holiday. So it’s always an adventure on the day we go out hunting for a turkey and all the other Thanksgiving foods which Americans are normally accustomed to. You see, most Israelis have never contemplated the idea of cooking a turkey whole, (not that the little Israeli ovens could even fit one if they had).

Facing this Thanksgiving challenge year after year has improved our hunting skills, but nothing in past years compares to the first year we celebrated Thanksgiving — it was a total fiasco! We pre-ordered a turkey several days in advance from the local butcher, and when we went to pick it up, he informed us that they had to cut it up for parts, because they ran out of meat. By that time it was Wednesday evening, we were looking forward to a slew of guests arriving the next day for Thanksgiving dinner…TURKEYLESS!!! We ended up having to pay a whole LOT of money for this ugly, frozen, lopsided, skinny, feathery, turkey (with the neck still attached) the afternoon of Thanksgiving, with barely enough time to cook it (thank God it was skinny!). We actually had to saw off the neck and pluck the ugly thing with tweezers! Then, when we went to the grocery store, we asked for canned cranberry sauce and they pointed us to the beverage aisle, having no earthly idea what we were talking about. Even with all the chaos however, we stayed hopeful and determined to get the job done. We ended up having a wonderful time and got to share the Good news of Messiah with a number of searching Israelis.

So every year since then, we have praised and thanked God that it’s nothing like our first Thanksgiving in the land. But the moral of the story really is, that sometimes things don’t go exactly the way we’d expected or hoped — yet we still need to hang in there for the sake of the final outcome, because our God has a way of making us thankful, even when we are turkeyless, or even when we feel like turkeys.

If things aren’t going your way today, don’t get all flustered and featherless, feeling like you’ve been gobbled up. Keep your eyes on the prize! The Lord never promised it would be easy, but he did promise us great rewards for enduring till the end! And that’s something to be really thankful for. Have a grateful and joyful Thanksgiving!

Luke 19:12-13 He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.

During the American Civil War in the 1860’s, a fierce battle took place at Altoona Pass. It was a key supply point for the Union Army, so the Confederate Army led by General Hood sought to take Altoona Pass which held over a million and a half rations. When Union General Sherman realized Hood’s plans, he dispatched General Corse along with 1,500 men to hold the city.

As the battle ensued, General Corse and his forces were forced into a small fort on a crest of a hill. The Northern army was being overwhelmed, with nearly half the men either killed or wounded in the battle. Things were looking extremely bleak, when in the distance from a mountain top twenty miles away a while flag was being waved, and those in the fort knew the message being sent, “Hold the fort; I am coming. W.T. Sherman.”

This sign gave the beleaguered army renewed strength to continue fighting the battle for another three hours until reinforcements finally arrived.

From this battle, a famous Christian song was written and its chorus is so eloquent for us today, “Hold the fort, for I am coming, Jesus signals still; Wave the answer back to heaven, By thy grace we will!”

In the midst of spiritual battles we can often feel besieged on every side – but HOLD THE FORT! Get some rest this weekend and renew your strength in the Lord for the victory is already won – we just need to continue fighting because He is coming!

Psalms 97:10-12 Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the LORD, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

Driving through Jerusalem two days ago on our way to Ariel, we saw the most incredible sight – a double rainbow over Jerusalem! It was interesting that we saw the rainbows on our way to see the Ortiz family. For those of you who are not familiar with the Ortiz family, earlier this year this family was the victim of a horrific bombing. Their 15 year old son Ami opened a Purim basket rigged with such explosive power that it totally destroyed their apartment– and nearly killed the boy!

Looking at the close-up photos of that day, I realized that it’s not just amazing – it is absolutely miraculous that Ami survived an explosion which occurred in his own hands, at point-blank range, and devastated the apartment in which he stood! We had never actually seen Ami in person. So after he came into the room and sat down next to me, my wife, Rivka, was still waiting for him to arrive – not realizing that it was Ami that was sitting next to me! She couldn’t believe this was the young man that survived the bombing! That’s how astounding his recovery has been thus far. Although he still lives with continual pain, his family is believing for a complete recovery – and we believe right along with them! At one point I turned to ask him, “Do you feel any bitterness from what happened?” His response showed no trace of the anger or bitterness that one would expect. So Ami is also a living portrait of the miraculous power of the grace and forgiveness of our Lord!

Death was seeking this family in Israel – yet God completely protected them. They have become a sign of His powerful deliverance! The rainbows we saw on the way were a picture of God’s covenant faithfulness, which has been bountifully poured out on this faithful family in Ariel.

We have a choice each and every day how we will live! It’s been said of our life that its significance is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to those events. Our attitude is the one thing we can have full control over – whatever situations are thrown our way! It may not be a bombing, as happened to Ami, but perhaps we can learn a lesson from this young man – there is NO trial or temptation that necessarily forces us into a sinful attitude of bitterness and hatred; with Yeshua as our perfect example and His Spirit as our power source we can always overcome.

2 Thes. 1:11-12 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Almost every Jewish holiday season, we go door to door, predominantly in poor neighborhoods throughout Israel, delivering baskets full of food, toiletries and other gifts. This year, we’ve included a copy of my wife’s first cd, hot off the presses***!

For those who don’t know, my wife Rivka has a phenomenal voice. The cd, called “Lazman Hazeh” (For Such a Time as This) contains twelve songs, all sung in Hebrew. And most of the lyrics are scriptures of God’s love, grace and encouragement for His people; they are crucial to the difficult times Israel is enduring right now. Also included on the album, is the song “Mercy Seat”, if you’ve heard of it, a very powerful song about God’s great mercy toward us when we run to Him.

We’ll spare you the details of the battle we’ve had with this cd but I’ll just say this: you could not imagine to what great lengths the enemy went to try to terminate this project from coming to fruition this past year. Time and time again, right as we were nearing the finish, we hit another brick wall — so many tears, frustrations and wanting to just “throw in the towel” — we thought it would never get done!

Then, yesterday, at our very first attempt to deliver baskets with the cd’s inside, our ministry van dies (“dies”, like our mechanic said that the value of the vehicle is not worth putting the money into fixing it). And if that wasn’t tough enough, today as we were delivering a second batch of baskets with our own little car, it too died — in fact, we barely made it home as we were driving through the dark highways of the Negev with two sleeping little one’s in the back seat!

Okaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…. I think it might be safe to say that our enemy is just a little upset about this album! But here’s the thing. We will continue to press forward to do the work of the Kingdom and we will prevail!

If you’re going through some tough stuff today, we are so there with you, friend! But let’s get tougher — and get ourselves going! Let’s stand strong together for the Lord’s purposes, no matter the cost, no matter the obstacles! Because, you know it — there’s soooooo much work to be done!

*** If you’d like to have a listen and/or purchase a cd, go to www.lazmanhazeh.com Each cd you buy will enable us to give away five in Israel. 100% the proceeds will be used to encourage and bless Israel.