Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living accord to Your word.
I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
Since we just saw England celebrate the 70 years of the reign by Queen Elizabeth II, I thought I would share her comments for my Friday list of laughter and wisdom (even though i am a day late.)
Grief is the price we pay for love.
None of us can slow the passage of time; and while we often focus on all that has changed in the intervening years, much remains unchanged, including the Gospel of Christ and his teachings.
When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future.
If I wore beige, nobody would know who I am.
It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the harsh progress of mankind.
Children teach us all a lesson – just as the Christmas story does – that in the birth of a child, there is a new dawn with endless potential.
We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock.
Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us have a monopoly on wisdom.
Memories are our second chance at happiness.
The world is not the most pleasant place. Eventually your parents leave you and nobody is going to go out of their way to protect you unconditionally. You need to learn to stand up for yourself and what you believe and sometimes, pardon my language, kick some ass.
Well I appear to be on a row. Love sharing quotes I see and hear and Friday seems to be the day to do that. Hope you laugh or have a moment to reflect on a statement.
The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.
Swallowing of pride seldom leads to indigestion.
A pessimist is a person who is seasick during the entire voyage of life.
A person becomes wise by watching what happens to him when he is not.
You are only young once, but immaturity can last a lifetime.
Do not have your concert first and tune your instruments afterward. Begin the day with God.
Man sees your actions, God sees your motives.
Isn’t it interesting how people are not too busy to stop and tell you how busy they are?
Criticism from a wise person is more to be desired than the approval of a fool.
Love is the forgetting of one’s self in the service of others.
Heard a great sermon today on the principle of authority and respect. Pastor mentioned three sources of authority we can choose.
Our own authority. We can say “No one is going to tell me what to do. I am going to do what I want. I have my rights”
Other’s authority. We can decide to do what everyone else is doing, what is popular, what our crowd believes.
God’s authority. We can choose to follow the teachings of Jesus.
Hmm. You mean things like “pray for those who persecute you” or how about “But I say to you that everyone who continues to be angry with his brother or harbors malice against him shall be guilty before the court; and whoever speaks [contemptuously and insultingly] to his brother, ‘Raca (You empty-headed idiot)!’ shall be guilty before the supreme court (Sanhedrin); and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of the fiery hell.”
Or, how about “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Jesus spoke these words to His disciples as they had their last meal together just before He went to the cross. He said it was a new commandment. Yet He had told them before that they should love others. He had said that all the Law and the Prophets could be summed up in two commandments: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.
What was new about this commandment?
It appears to me that Jesus was giving us a standard by which we could judge how we love our neighbor. It was more than just how we love our self. It was as He has loved us.
As we listen to the social and political world right now, we see little of love and kindness. But what disturbs me is that many of our evangelical Christian leaders are as guilty as non-believers in this battle of words.
Following the authority of Jesus is not easy. I am afraid I have failed a lot on that one. My prayer today is that God will help me put a watch on my tongue.
And I pray that those who claim to speak for the church will also return to following Jesus rather than following the example of the rest of society.
This past year has been so full of noise. So many voices approving this point of view – attacking that point of view. If the voices had only been speaking of ideas, beliefs, policies, it might have been a good year of honest open debate. Sadly, I have found there was little true debate. It seems we all went into our own corners and listened only to those we agreed with.
The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply….Stephen R. Covey
Everyone has a right to be heard, but only if they are willing to listen to others in an attempt to understand….Eric Overby
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen….Winston Churchill
Know these my beloved brethren, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger….James 1:19
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion….Proverbs 18:2
To speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people….Titus 3:2
I have been guilty myself of giving my opinion whether wanted or not, adding my own thoughts to all the posts and articles out there. In my devotion today I really felt convicted in my spirit as the Lord reminded me that my primary focus should be on Him and not the craziness around me.
I know many Christians are afraid of the new administration and what that might mean to the Christian freedoms. But looking at the Early Church I want to follow their example.
In Acts 5 we see where the apostles were put in prison for sharing the gospel and then warned not to do it again. Their response:
The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.
Note that they did not argue with the Sanhedrin, they did not complain or start a political movement. They praised God they were worthy of suffering for the cause of Christ and kept on proclaiming the good news about Jesus.
Earlier in Acts 4 after being imprisoned and then released the apostles met with the church and told them of the threats they had received. If that happened today – if my pastor was arrested and told not to speak any more about the Gospel – I imagine the prayer meeting that would follow would be for a cry for protection – for justice – for our rights to speak. However that was not where their focus was. Rather they prayed:
Sovereign Lord, you made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them….Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. THEY DID WHAT YOUR POWER AND WILL HAD DECIDED BEFOREHAND SHOULD HAPPEN. Now Lord consider their threats and ENABLE YOUR SERVANTS TO SPEAK YOUR WORD WITH GREAT BOLDNESS. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I know there are times when injustice requires us to speak out. I could also post that famous quote “Bad things happen when good men do nothing.” But to me today I have decided to leave all the discussions and comments to others. Going forward in 2021, this song I have attached is my prayer.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight O Lord!
We have actually got out of bed at 3 am, played a game and then went back to bed!
We began keeping score in 2008. We have the score books from all these years. My husband keeps score and he keeps tab of the total of games we each win – by how many points and even the seven-letter words we play.
At the beginning of 2020 we realized we were close to playing 1000 games – so we set a goal of doing just that. And with the year it has been cooped up at home – it was a good thing to keep us from going crazy!
We have the official Scrabble dictionary and after several challenges by me, my husband uses it a lot to make sure he is spelling the word correctly so I don’t challenge him again.
Being totally crazy, we even have a list of all the three-letter words in the dictionary – and we allow ourselves to use the list to help us make more points.
As we began the last game of 2020 I was one game ahead of my husband and I wanted to win this game and end this 1000 game stretch ahead. However, it did not start out too good for me. These were the letters I had – no vowels.
My husband’s hand was not much better. He had no vowels also but he did have a “y” which he could use. After playing the word “sty” I had to take a “0” for my first turn because I could not do anything with these letters. So – the game did not start off in my favor.
I gained the lead quickly and when we were about two-thirds done, I was ahead 487 to 434. However, it game turned to his favor when he was able to spell a seven-letter word which gave him 50 extra points and he won the game with a score of 711 to my 692.
So – after 1000 games in 12 years we ended all tied.
We each have won 498 games and we have four tied games.
A friend told me she found it hard to believe we were tied after all these games. She said she thought one of us was letting the other one win. Clearly she is not a very close friend because if she were, she would know we are too competitive for that.
Since it took us 12 years to reach 1000 games, I seriously doubt we will ever see 2000, but we can have fun continuing to challenge each other – and keep our old brains active.
My husband fell earlier this year and was rushed to the hospital for surgery following a brain bleed. I worried if he would still be able to compete with me in Scrabble. The doctors told us that one of the possible side effects of this injury was damage to his ability to speak or read and communicate. It was such a blessing to see that he recovered quickly and could keep me on my toes. We both think getting right back to Scrabble was a big help in that recovery.
Reading with my husband in the book of James, I thought how much our country needs to heed the words found there. James admonishes us to:
You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires
Wow! Sadly it appears we are slow to listen and quick to speak.
James had much to say about the tongue.
People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring.
Thinking about controlling my tongue, I realized this would also apply to the social media we use. While we are not using our voice when we post on Facebook, Word Press, Twitter, we are “speaking.”
I have been saddened to see so many doing just what James said was wrong – praising God – then cursing those made in the image of God. My initial response when I listen to others arguing over the virus, the election and all the craziness we have experienced in 2020 is to be critical and wonder why they cannot be reasonable.
Reading in James, I had to take a good look at myself. How many times have I seen a post on Facebook that upset me and just responded without even thinking about how it might effect others?
It really hit me hard when I read:
and If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.
While I cannot control what others do, I realize that I must work on controlling that urge to speak so quickly, to give my opinion, to “prove my point.” Thinking more about how I need to control my quick responses, I was reminded that Jesus said
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
A more modern take on that might be:
Garbage in – garbage out.
This makes me realize I need to make sure I control what is in my heart – and listening to all the negative news and arguments is not the way to do that. So I aim to do less listening to news, less scrolling through Facebook and listen to great music, read great books. Fill my heart with good stuff.
My prayer now is:
May the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be pleasing to you oh LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Grandma's Ramblings 