“The LORD Is My Shepherd”

People in biblical times understood well the role of a shepherd. 

Before he became Israel’s king, David was a shepherd boy who knew what the task involved – daily sacrifice and a special kind of love. When He opened Psalm 23 with “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” people understood the illustration – that David’s LORD could be counted on 24/7 to care for and protect him at any cost.

Here David was also describing our Lord Jesus Christ who said of Himself, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (John 10:11). 

As our “good shepherd,” Jesus rescued us when we were lost with a tender love and no regret, as Isaiah 40:11 prophesied: “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”  This is exactly what Jesus does for the children of God every day.

Let us give thanks!

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father and God, may your Name be exalted and worshipped in all the earth. You are worthy of honor, glory, and praise. Thank you for our good shepherd, Jesus Christ; you did not spare your own Son, but you gave him up for our sin to save us. We are grateful to be among your chosen who can rest in your green pastures and beside quiet waters. Thank you that you restored our souls this day to see your goodness once more in the land of the living, and for keeping us on paths of righteousness for your NAME’s. Because your Holy Spirit lives in us, we can walk through difficulties without fear because we know that you fight for us; no weapon formed against us will ever prosper. To you, Father, be dominion and power for ever and ever. We pray and ask all things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Always by God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile

True Thanksgiving

In the United States more people celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday than Christmas, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Families everywhere come together on Thanksgiving Day to enjoy a traditional turkey dinner with all the usual trimmings and probably watch a football game on TV. Thanksgiving also kicks of the Holiday season with bargain shopping.

As children of God and believers in His Son, thanksgiving ought to be more. It is a lifestyle we dedicate to our Father and our sacrificial worship to Him for all eternity. “But we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation….” Psalm 79:13.

If a child of God doesn’t know what thanksgiving is, our Father offers hundreds of examples in our Bible, from Genesis to Revelation including the Prophets, the Psalms of David, and the New Testament. In the New Testament gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John) we have Jesus’ own words and actions from which to learn.

In our prayer time, we might focus our thanksgiving on our creature comforts only (clothing, food, shelter, our new car, children’s health, careers, etc.). But our Father is more than His provisions; it is by His attributes that He gives to us and we should learn to acknowledge these as well:

1. His LOVE and GOODNESS, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” 1 Chronicles 16:34, 41. God alone is good whose love is perfect.
2. His CREATIVE ATTRIBUTES, “with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. Psalm 9:1; “…proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds.” Psalm 26:27. God created the entire universe, the heavens and the earth, and He keeps it all in perfect order. 
3. His POWER and TRUSTWORTHINESS, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.” Psalm 28:7; The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does. Psalm 145:13. God has power to exalt and to destroy but even so we can trust Him to act justly and have no fear
4. His NAME, “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name” Psalm 96:8; “…praise his holy name.” Psalm 97:12; “he saved them for his name’s sake” Psalm 106:8; “Let every creature praise his holy name for ever and ever.” Psalm 145:21. God’s Name is Holy, and His holiness contain all His other attributes. He saves us to protect His Name (reputation)
5. His WISDOM, To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might.. Daniel 2:23; “To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.” Job 12:13. God is wisdom – the Bible describes Him as the only wise God and says also that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom. By His wisdom alone He created all things according to His will and purpose.

These are but a few of God’s character traits that make Him the one true living and eternal God who also provides our “needs”. We learn about Him so we can give Him all that He is due as God and not just as the source of our happiness.

God wants us to be sacrificial in our thanksgiving (Psalm 50:14) – giving thanks when times are hard, “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me.” Psalm 50:23. Even then, our offering must be exuberant and joyful (Psalm 95:2)

The Father says about those who do not honor Him with thanksgiving are “futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:21

Because we love our Father we obey Him, not just for our good, but for His Glory!

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father, your Word says “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High.” (Psalm 92:1). We acknowledge you are God Most High, Creator of Heaven and earth and everything on it. We thank you because you are most of all holy. We thank you that you are all wise and all good; all the fruit of the Holy Spirit dwell richly in You, love, joy, peace, kindness, patience. You are perfect and you do all things well; we thank you that every good and perfect gift come from you. We thank you for the perfect gift of Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. We thank you for your perfect plan that you ordained before the beginning of time and we thank you that in your holy might, we have victory through eternity with you. Teach us to love You and obey Your word. To you, Father, be dominion and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Always by God’s Word and prayer, 

Cecile

God Acts on Our Honest Confession

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me… Restore to me the joy of your salvation…” Psalm 51:10-12 (NIV)

For a true child of God sin is a heavy burden that robs us of our special intimacy with our Father, but the relationship can be restored easily.

In Psalm 51 King David threw himself on the mercy of God with a genuine confession and appeals for forgiveness, a clean heart, and renewed joy in the Lord.  We can do likewise when we sin. God will forgive us also and restore our freedom to enjoy Him again.

We have a heavenly Father who is both merciful and faithful; to remain distant from Him is to suffer needlessly.

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father, we thank you for being a faithful and merciful God; we thank you that your love for us is steadfast and your compassion is without measure. We confess our sins of commission and omission that grieve your Holy Spirit and we ask you to forgive us and cleanse us; to restore us and make us to know your joy again. Father, increase our desire to love you more so that we sin less. You are our rock and our salvation. To you, Father, be dominion and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Always by God’s Word and prayer,   

Cecile

A Prayer of Faith Pleases God

Children of God should pray believing that their prayers will be answered. To do otherwise is to doubt God’s Word, and this displeases Him.

In the Devotional Faith Checkbook Charles H. Spurgeon  writes, “We do not pray because we doubt but because we believe. To pray unbelievingly is unbecoming in the LORD's children.”

In Matthew 7:7-8 Jesus tells us to “Ask!” because “everyone who asks receives.” He says also in John 14:13-14 that anything we ask in His name He will do. Many other places in God’s Word confirms that He answers our prayers and that we should pray with faith.

 “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” 1 John 5:14-5

“...the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.” James 5:15

 “Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.” James 5:17-18

God’s promises and commands are written for our well-being. We must meditate on them often to have a prayer life that pleases God – one of faith. If we have weak faith our first and most fervent prayer should be for God to help us to increase our faith.

We can also keep a prayer journal. Having a record in our own words of specific prayers being answered would increase our faith, embolden our “asks” and teach us to recognize and be grateful to God for His faithfulness. This will please God.

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father and God, you are a comfort to your people – body, spirit and soul. According to your Word we ask first that you help us in our unbelief. Give us mercy as we pray and heal our diseases; save our unsaved loved ones; return our prodigals to the fold; provide jobs so we can care for our families and help others in need; prosper our ministries for your Name’s sake; open new opportunities for us to take the gospel to the lost; and help us to live in peace with others. Father, we ask these and all things by your Word that was with you in the beginning; your Word that is God; your Word that became flesh and dwelt among us; His name is Jesus.  We love you. To you, Father, be dominion and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Always by God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile

“Nothing Will Be Impossible with God”

This is the response from the angel who delivered the message of Christ’s birth to His mother Mary when she questioned how as a virgin she will bear a child. We know it happened!

Are you dealing with an “impossible” situation? Take it to the eternal and living God. He is the same God today as He was over 2,000 years ago. What He did nine months following the angel’s visit to Mary changed the world forever and impacts your life today.

You can still TRUST HIM!

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father, you are the one eternal and wise God. The same yesterday, today and forever. NOTHING is impossible with YOU!  We thank you for miraculous answers that only you can provide for what seems impossible to the human mind. We wait for you with confidence and faith. Thank you for being Jehovah-jireh, the God who will provides. We love you. To you, Father, be dominion and power for ever and ever. We pray and ask all things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Always by God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile

Ask God to Help You

Are you feeling tentative about a decision you have to make? Not sure how to proceed and fearful you’ll do the wrong thing?

Here’s a suggestion from the Word of God…ask God! Ask with confidence! Ask in faith! Ask anything! Nothing is too small or too big for God to care about, if it concerns one of His children.

He wants us to come to Him; He delights in being generous to us and will never make us feel foolish…that’s man’s way, not our Heavenly Father’s. He has no hidden agenda.

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father, you are God over all the earth. You created the entire universe by your own sovereign wisdom; everything in it is under your control. Thank you for being our refuge and our help in time of need. Thank you for being a constant source of comfort and confidence in the face of challenges. Thank you for being the God who is always there, never too busy to listen to our prayers and to answer our petitions. We can depend on you. We love you. To you, Father, be dominion and power for ever and ever. We pray and ask all in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Always by God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile

When We Don’t Understand

The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way? Proverbs 20:24 (NLT)

We are sometimes faced with unpleasant circumstances that have no reasonable explanation and no satisfactory answer to the question “why” – nothing makes sense or brings comfort. All we know is that we are hurting and confused.

The NLT commentary on Proverb 20-24 states “We are often confused by the events around us. Some things we will never understand until years later when we look back and see how God was working… We shouldn’t worry if we do not understand everything as it happens.” 

To summarize, God is not surprised by our struggles; He has a plan; in good times and bad we can trust Him.

English theologian Arthur W. Pink (1886 – 1952) on the Supremacy of God says “Our lives are neither the product of blind fate nor the result of capricious chance, but every detail of them was ordained from all eternity, and is now ordered by the living and reigning God. Not a hair of our heads can be touched without His permission.” In other words, with wisdom and love, God cares for and directs all things in the universe, including those that concerns you.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 we are told to “Rejoice always,  pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Child of God, our Father in Heaven does not want us to worry about things we do not understand, even when they hurt. He wants us to remember that He loves us (John 3:16) and that He is working out all of our experiences for our goodwill and not for harm (Romans 8:28).

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father, you are great and mighty, deserving of all praise honor and glory. May your Kingdom come and your will be done in and through our lives. Forgive us for the times we let doubt and fear into our space to blind us to the fact that you never stop loving us. Thank you Father for being better to us than we deserve and our finite minds can ever know. Thank you for saying no to things we pray for when you know they will bring more pain than joy. Thank you for increasing our faith and teaching us to wait patiently for answers to our prayers and to not cease to pray while we wait. Thank you for your Holy Spirit who prays for us when we are too burdened to pray or just don’t know how to pray. Thank you for being a good and loving Father, and we love you. To you, Father, be dominion and power for ever and ever. We pray all in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Always by God’s Word and prayer,  

Cecile

Hope in the Lord

I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. Jeremiah 29:11 (MSG).

Election 2016 is over. Whatever our feelings about the outcome, child of God, the certain truths and promises in God’s Word remain forever firmly fixed, and will not disillusion.

·         This is our Father’s world. He has not abdicated His rule over His creation nor will He abandon those who are true to Him. The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.

·         We are God’s creation and owe our lives to Him alone. He takes away our breath, we die and return to the dust; He breathes His Spirit into us, we have life.

·         God created us all in His image so He can favor none over the other – more so those who are His in Christ. He shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor, for they are all the work of his hands.

·         God appoints the Nation’s leaders. He does this according to His own will and for His purpose. Believe that His plan is perfect and be respectful of the authority over us. Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established…whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted.

·         Children of God will lack nothing, in the natural or the spiritual. The LORD IS our shepherd…His goodness and mercy SHALL follow us all the days of our life…and (ultimately,) we will be with our LORD forever. This is not our home.

·         God wants us to love Him with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength and with all our mind …and love our neighbor as ourselves.

·         God wants us to be peacemakers, for these He has named children of God.

Child of God, these are but a few of your Fther's truths to meditate on, find hope and be free from worry.

Psalm 24:1; Psalm 104:29; Job 34:19; Psalm 75:7; Romans 13:1-6; Psalm 23; Luke 10: 27; Matthew 5:9; 2 Chronicles 7:14

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father, you are the eternal God and one true King. We put our hope and trust in you alone. You know all of our concerns and fears; you know our every need before we ask. We believe you will care for us and not abandon us so we walk this journey by faith. We thank you that you have not judged us with the harshness we deserve but you continue to cover us with your grace and abundant mercy and keep us close to you. Thank you that you’ve made us your people and that you are our God who delights in us. By your Holy Spirit help us to remain faithful in prayer, to continually seek your face, to turn from evil so you could hear us from heaven, and heal our land. To you, Father, be dominion and power for ever and ever. We pray all in Jesus’ name. Amen.

My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. Psalm 131:1

Always by God’s Word and prayer,     

Cecile

With Prayer and Thanksgiving

Not Good Enough

For weeks I agonized about how to launch this blog. I wrote dozens of draft articles, but couldn’t choose a single one for a “take-off” post…none seemed good enough. I revised topics and formats, researched and wrote some more with the same result. Doubt and anxiety was taking over my mind when God gave me an answer in someone else’s prayer.

Changing Direction

For my morning worship I use a devotional titled The Valley of Vision – A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotion. I read a prayer there recently titled *Choices* that totally changed my direction. The author (all are anonymous) starts the prayer with praise and confession and then he asks God to help him to choose to do five specific things, including:

• place myself under thy guiding and guardian care;

• deem it an honor to be employed by thee as an instrument in thy hands, ready to seize every opportunity of usefulness and willing to offer all my talents to thy service.

God showed me clearly in these why I was failing with this project.

Jesus, the Answer

This blog is God’s plan for me to do at this time in my life and I should have placed myself and this work under His “guiding and guardian care,” but I didn’t. I forgot all about John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” I didn’t abide quietly in the Vine (Jesus) and allow His Holy Spirit to teach and feed me (the branch) what I needed to bear “much fruit.” My own frantic efforts bore results that were tasteless and without substance.

Wrong & Right Prayer

I had prayed about this, but the wrong way. I laid out my plans and asked God to bless them when I should have asked Him to reveal to me His plan for His work. How arrogant and prideful of me? Even so, God, in His infinite mercy, came to my rescue. He will not forsake the work of His hands.

For His Service

The highest honor God bestows on a person is to have them lead others to Him who can experience His goodness, mercy, peace, grace, love, faithfulness, compassion, and so much more that is perfect in God alone. With humility, I must acknowledge that I am just an instrument for the Mater’s use to do any work He chooses for me (2 Tim 2:21). All that I have and am I must offer for His service with neither reservation nor selfish motive. I am but “a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1) doing His good, pleasing and perfect will, and never my own.

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father, I cast myself at the feet of the Lord Jesus and yield, trust and wait there in confidence that He will work out Your good pleasure in and through me. Thank you for reminding me that I can do nothing on my own, but everything in your will is possible through Christ whose power is made perfect in our weakness. Thank you for faith to trust your Word. Father, I offer thanks also for every person who will visit this page. I pray that all will know the love of Christ that is wide and long and high and deep enough to meet every need and restore every soul; let all be comforted by the Holy Spirit and the knowledge that your plans for your people are perfect and lead to good success.  To you, Father, be dominion and power for ever and ever, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

By God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile

*If you own a copy of The Valley of Vision devotional, see page 105.