Psalm 20:7

Psalm 20 was on my reading plan for today and I really needed to hear Psalm 20:7. So, I made this facebook cover to remind me of God's truth. Feel free to download!

Hawaii Prayer Guide

This weekend, I will be part of a team travelling to Ewa Beach, Hawaii to serve a church plant there. We will be hosting block parties and a VBS on the beach, as well as prayer walking and learning how we can further support the church planters there. Even though living in Hawaii sounds glamorous, it is a spiritually dark place, and there is deep rooted prejudice by some toward the West. Below is a daily prayer guide if you would like to participate in praying for us.

June 21

Team drives to St. Louis.

• Pray for the team to continue to join in a spirit of unity as they set out fly the next day.

• Rom. 12:12 “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor."

• 1 Peter 3:8 “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”

June 22

Team flies to Hawaii

(STL → MIN → LAX → HNL)

• Pray for safety as team flies, trust in the Lord for those who are anxious about flying, and continued team strengthening.

• Isaiah 41:13 "For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I am the one who helps you.'"

• 1 Peter 5:6-7 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 

• Col. 1:11-12 “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”  

June 23

Team worships at Mililani Baptist Church,

dinner with the Davis’s and last minute prep.

• Pray for understanding and discernment of the culture and spiritual climate. Pray for a deepened burden for the lost there and that God open doors to share the Gospel.

• Phil. 1:9-11 “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

• Col. 4:2-4 “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.”

June 24-27

Son and Surf Bible Club

Tuesday Night Outreach

• Team will share Bible stories of Creation, Jesus’ birth, death & resurrection and the Gospel. They will lead kids in a craft and games each day.

• Pray for God to move in the hearts of those who attend, that God would reveal His awesome works, goodness and glory.

• Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

• Psalm 86:8-10 “There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.”

• Pray for those attending to see and understand their sin and need of Christ as Savior.

• Romans 3:23-24 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ”

• Pray that God would speak through the team each day and they would display the love of Christ as they proclaim the Gospel.

• Romans 10:15 “And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

• 1 John 4:9-11  “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

• Pray, if it’s God’s will, to add to the number of Aloha Community Church through the outreach.

• Acts 2:37, 41 “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart...So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

June 28-29

Debrief with team and off-time

• Pray for the team to draw near to the Lord, glorify God with their time and for continued strengthening of relationships.

• Psalm 73:28 “But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.”

• 1 Cor. 10:31 “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

• Romans 13:14 “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

• Prov. 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

June 30-July 1

Team worships at monthly service for Aloha Community Church. 
Team flies back to St. Louis and drives to Springfield on the 1st.

(HNL → SLC → STL)

• Pray for ACC’s monthly services and home Bible studies. Pray for the Davis’s as they lead the church plant.

• Col. 1:11-12 “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”

• Pray for safety as team flies, trust in the Lord for those who are anxious about flying, and continued team strengthening.

• Isaiah 41:13 "For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I am the one who helps you.'"

• 1 Peter 5:6-7 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 

Yet the Lord...

I needed to read Deut. 9 and 10 today, but I didn't know it until I basically forced myself (by God's grace) to open my Bible and digest His word. 

I arrived at this point frustrated and angry mostly because I was frustrated and angry, but at nothing in particular. I was frustrated with my sin, not knowing it's source. I was trying to logically explain to myself why I was muttering under my breath at the person crossing the street too slowly, among other things. But I do know the source: Adam, original sin. Sure, it's great to be introspective to find the reasons why we do things in hope of improving, but that is futile if it's not found in the Gospel. And here I arrived at Deut. 9 and 10. 

Deuteronomy is a retelling of the Law to Hebrew children whose parents passed away after their sin and were driven back into the desert. In Deut. 9, Moses is telling them the sin of making the golden calf while Moses is up on the mountain communing with God. When Moses gets down from the mountain, he finds the Hebrews, God's chosen people, worshiping this calf they made. Moses was mad, to say the least. Moses goes on to describe more of their wickedness, but...

in Deuteronomy 10:12-13, God shows his faithfulness in not giving up on them:

12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?

He hasn't given up on them despite their sin and failure. He calls them again to himself.

And in verse 15:

 Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.

And so God calls me and all believers to himself time after time of failure. He has called me to walk in his ways and fear him because of his faithfulness. 

Totality of Devotion

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 says, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your hear and with all your soul and with all your might." (ESV)

Today's reading was from Deuteronomy 5-7, and by "today's" I mean the left over readings from last year's Bible reading plan. To help my understanding of the Old Testament, I recently purchased "The Message of the Old Testament" by Mark Dever (which is only $6 for the ebook). As I read the introduction in Dever's book, he pointed out that Deuteronomy contains some well-known verses, including a verse in today's passage. Verses 6:4-5 is known in Hebrew as the shema, a famous passage, that is used as a part of Jewish prayer and confession (New Oxford American Dictionary). 

I've heard this verse probably all my life, but what God brought to my attention today is the footnote in my Bible, that the Hebrew in verse 4 may be translated different ways:

"The Lord our God is one Lord" or "The Lord is our God, the Lord is one" or "The Lord is our God, the Lord alone" 

Reading all three of these translations really helped me understand the meaning of this verse more completely. The last translation helped me the most, probably because it is more applicable to my life: there is no room for idols in devotion to the Lord.  

Then, as I went on to read verse 5, I almost glazed over this powerful verse simply because I've heard it so much (Lord, forgive me). But by God's grace, He showed me the weight of this verse through the note in the Reformation Study Bible:

"The Hebrew expresses totality...This is the language of devotion. God does not demand mere outward obedience to a law, but the heartfelt love and commitment of the whole person."

I'm my mind, I thought, "love God with heart (I think I can do that), soul (not sure what that means), and might (um...)," but tonight God showed me He wants my TOTAL devotion. Love Him with everything, in every way, all the time...God give me the grace to follow Your commands, for Your commands are not burdensome.