Joshua 5

"Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the place has been called Gilgal to this day."

{Joshua 5:9} (NIV 1984) 

Faith and miracles! God’s people obeying God and God miraculously helping them. He tells them to step into the Jordan, and the Jordan stops flowing so they can cross. He tells them to circumcise all the males, which leaves them helpless to fight (Genesis 34:25), then God puts fear in their enemies and keeps them from attacking. These people are willing to believe God and obey anything He says. 

In Egypt, the people were in slavery, unable to live as the people of God were meant to live - in freedom and victory. It didn’t seem to matter if they believed or not, they stayed in slavery until God’s mighty hand brought them out. Now on this day, the LORD tells Joshua that this is a new day for His people; the reproach is rolled away. Here in the land of promise, here in this place of rest, when they trust Him and obey Him, miracles will happen, and victory is guaranteed. Defeat will only happen if they want it to. 

Friend, this is the day that we live in. We can do all things through Christ…! This age of grace is the age of faith and miracles, the age of resting in the Lord. What sin has caught us? What trap are we in? Who or what are we afraid of? Rest in our Lord, in the power of His strength, call on His Name, believe and obey, and God will give us the victory! (Hebrews 4)

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Deuteronomy 30

"The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live."

{Deuteronomy 30:6} (NIV 1984) 

Oh the grace of YHWH! In the midst of the promises and warnings of temporal blessing or curses, here we have a promise of spiritual grace. Our Lord taught us that the most important of all the commandments, is this one: to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul...

Here we have the promise of the Spirit given to us by Moses. God is the One who will cause us to love Him. How? By circumcising our hearts. How can a man or a woman circumcise their hearts? The Lord is the heart surgeon! It is He who reaches into our innermost being and by the power of the Holy Spirit cuts away the sin nature and brings forth pure and righteous love for our Creator and our God. The end result of this surgery is life for us! It is what we need. We need to love God, for loving Him brings life! We need to obey God, for obedience to Him brings life! We need to worship God, for worship of Him brings life! Friend, is the love of God in our heart this day? 

Renew our love for You, O Lord. O Holy Spirit, bring forth pure love for the Father, from the depths of my being. May we be people who love you will all of our hearts, all of our souls, all of our lives. 

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Exodus 12

"An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the LORD's Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat of it." 

{Exodus 12:48} (NIV 1984) 

A person living among the people of Israel, enjoying their life among God's people, might want to join with them in the Feast that celebrates God passing over them as He struck down the firstborn of the Eygptians. If they want to, then they must receive the seal/sign of joining into the pormise of God before they will be allowed to celebrate by eating. 

So it is in churches of The Lord Jesus Christ. He invites us to eat a meal together in His Presence, celebrating His death and atonement for us. We participate in many different traditions, but we recognize that participation in the Lord's communion requires a person to have first received the Holy Spirit; the seal/sighn that we have joined into the promise of God. 

And so it is also with the wedding feast of the Lamb. If you want, only if you want, to join in the wedding supper of the Lamb in the life to come, then you must receive the Holy Spirit; the seal/sign that you have joined into the promise of God. Eating a cracker/bread and drinking juice/wine in this life, despite the vain blessing of men, will not give you entrance into the wedding supper of the Lamb. 

O friend, do you have the Holy Spirit within you? Look for Him this day. Ask Him to show Himself to you, and He will testify to your spirit if you are a child of God (Romans 8:16). 

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Genesis 17

"I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”

{Genesis 17:2} (NIV 1984) 

God Almighty was and is determined to make Abraham’s descendants numerous! He stated it as an irrevocable promise to Abram (Genesis 15) and here He appears to Abram again to speak of the large numbers of descendants that God will cause to come from Abram’s body. 

God makes the promise, but Abraham must do something to his body and to the body of every male as a sign/seal that he and his people have joined into the promise of God. It isn’t a coincidence that the part of his body that he has to cut away is the part of the male’s body that is the descendant maker. This takes faith on the part of Abraham. He believed God and he obeyed Him. He took something really sharp and cut away a piece of skin from the part of the body each man treats with special care, and keeps private. 

Paul tells us to remember this; he makes the point that Abram received the seal of righteousness before he was circumcised (Rom 4:9-12). So it is with us, we by faith believe the gospel and then after we believe we are circumcised by the Spirit, our sin nature is cut away by the hand of God (Col 2:11,12). 

Friend, is there anything missing in our lives? Is our sin nature gone? Can we look back over our lives and see that something is missing? Is there any sign that we joined into the promise of God? Thank Him for sealing us with the promised Holy Spirit, who cuts away our sin nature.

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Isaiah 46

"I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please."

{Isaiah 46:10} (NIV 1984) 

Idols are a burden on the people who carry them; they stoop down together, but the LORD carries His people, sustains and rescues them. As Isaiah compares God to humans and to other gods, this verse sets the LORD above all humans and all other gods. It seems that some can perhaps speak of the future before it comes about, perhaps. But no one can claim to make known the end from the beginning! 

All of the people, the rulers, the nations, the armies and the schemes and cunning of the forces of evil, do not affect God in any way. He has declared the end from the beginning. We can read this declaration for ourselves. If we would read the Bible from start to finish, it tells the whole story. We could know this declaration in our lives, if we would surrender and seek His will each day. Who can say something like this? The LORD (I AM) who is truly God, not something created by the imagination of people, but the One who created all people. Not a natural phenomenon that has been misunderstood, but the One who created nature. 

Friend, we can trust Him. Trust Him with our eternity, trust Him with our life and trust Him with this day.

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Isaiah 45

"For this is what the LORD says— he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it;

he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited— he says: “I am the LORD, and there is no other”.

{Isaiah 45:18} (NIV 1984) 

The so called “experts” of the world tell us that humans are a scourge on the face of the earth. They would like to limit the number of people on the earth. They would like to set up places on earth where humans aren’t allowed to go. These “experts” are completely opposed to God’s Word and the LORD Himself. 

The LORD who made everything, made everything so that it would be inhabited. Inhabited by whom? By people, for the LORD loves people. He created a place for us to live; He spoke to us in Words we can understand, and He performed great and mighty deeds so that we would know His character. He did all of what He has done so that people would seek His face and turn to Him and be saved. There will be a Day when every knee will bow before Him; those who raged against Him will come before Him and be put to shame, but those who sought His face, and turned and called on Him to save them, they will be found righteous and exalted in His Presence. 

The LORD loves people, all people! His love reaches to the heavens, His faithfulness stretches to the skies. Praise His glorious Name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWJWKadxYME

{Your Love Oh Lord, Third Day, via YouTube}

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Isaiah 44

“This is what the LORD says—

    your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself..."

{Isaiah 44:24} (NIV 1984)

We call gravity a law of nature. We observe how our bodies operate within this world that we exist in and we call these observations laws. We cannot escape these laws; they hold us captive, and they protect us and keep us alive, but we make a big mistake when we start to think that God must operate under those laws. It is true that He does His work on earth through people who are subject to these laws. But it is a greater truth that He operates in this world outside of those laws. 

The Bible is full of what we call miracles, which are simply instances when the LORD operates outside of the laws of nature. Every time that I see a newborn, I think, 'what a miracle!' The LORD reminds us in this verse and in this chapter that He alone makes each person in the womb, and that He alone made all of creation. He alone is God and there is no other beside Him, and that He alone bought us at a price. 

What does this truth mean to you this morning friend? Is there anything that you are asking of God that He can’t do? Not a chance! Our God is able and our God loves us so much that He paid a price for us. May we draw near to Him this day.

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