Psalm 9:10

Psalm 9:10
Those who know Your name will trust in You, for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You.

Name, in this context, means so much more than just something we call another person. I make a motion to state that the words "Your name" can be substituted with "who You are." So then, the verse reads as follows.

Psalm 9:10
Those who know who You are will trust in You, for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You.

Hallelu Yeshua.

2 Peter 1: 1-11

2 Peter 1

¹ Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:

² Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Making One’s Calling and Election Sure

³ His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

⁵ For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶ and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷ and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. ⁸ For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

¹⁰ Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, ¹¹ and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

__________________________________________________

Wow. This absolutely is the living Word of God. I needed to hear that. Thank You Lord. God, by his glory and goodness, has given me His promises so that I can partake of the divine nature (look into what "the divine nature" really means) and "escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires" (verse 4). Evil desires, in my situation, include a desire for the self to be the center of worship; a desire to usurp the position that belongs to God. Also, it includes the desire to make God fit into our lifestyle and what we think is a better version of who He is. How dare I. This evil desire leads to corruption in the world, evident through many world views and religions. In Hinduism, we can choose the gods that we want to worship, in Buddhism, there is no God. How dare we!

I love this passage, because through it, God has told me to do something that I have not been doing; I have not been seeking to know Him. I have been ineffective and unproductive in my knowledge of Jesus the Christ and I am nearsighted and blind and have forgotten that God has cleaned me of my sins (I have forgotten what He is has done for me, how He has healed me). No wonder why my doubt is so great! How can you trust somebody you don't know? And I'd like to say that I know Jesus because of the experiences I have with Him, but I don't really. I don't read His Word!!

Lightbulb. I have been praying for deeper faith and trust in God this year. And as I just wrote the sentence about trusting somebody you don't know, the Lord showed me that in order to trust Him, I have to know Him. And the way that I will know Him, is by reading His word. And if I pursue the qualities in verses 5-7, qualities of goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love, they will keep me from being ineffective in my knowledge of Jesus. I love how the New American Standard Version puts it: "For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (verse 8). Hallelu Yah. Thank You Jesus for meeting me. PLEASE, Holy Spirit help me to abound in these qualities that I may honor and glorify You! I want to make my calling and election sure and not take Your grace and mercy for granted. Please help me Lord. For Your glory may my life be lived. Help me to engage with You meaningfully DAILY in Your Word and through prayer. Make me far-sighted and give me great insight and may I not forget what You have done for me. Hallelu Yah Jesus! Please help me grow and get through.

In the Name of Christ Jesus I pray,

Amen.

Sitting in Intro to Asian Philosophy...

Lord, have Your way in my heart and have Your way in this class. Thy will be done, Amen.

The Joy of the Lord is our Strength

We stand and lift up our hands,
For the joy of the Lord is out strength.

Nehemiah 8:10b (NIV)
Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

What does this mean? I mean, I figure that what this verse is saying is that the joy that we have in God is what will give us strength. But is not the Lord Himself our strength? I think I am definitely reading too much into this. And it is not so black and white. God is my strength; how I become strong in Him, though, is by keeping my joy.

Psalm 16:5-11 says:

⁵ LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.

⁷ I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
⁸ I have set the LORD always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
¹⁰ because you will not abandon me to the grave,^a]">[a]
nor will you let your Holy One^b]">[b] see decay.
¹¹ You have made^c]">[c] known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Footnotes:

1. Psalm 16:10 Hebrew Sheol
2. Psalm 16:10 Or your faithful one
3. Psalm 16:11 Or You will make

I will have joy in the Lord because I know that He counsels me, is at my right hand, will not abandon me to the grave, nor let me decay. Why not have joy in the Lord?!

Here is a story taken from the Campus Crusade for Christ International (CCCI) website.

Your Source of Strength

"......the joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10b, KJV).

At a London train station one day, a woman was stopped by an elderly man.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said, "but I want to thank you for something."

"Thank me!" the woman exclaimed.

"Yes'm, I used to be the ticket collector, and whenever you went by you always gave me a cheerful smile and a 'good mornin'." You don't know what a difference it made to me.

"Wet weather or dry, it was always the same, and I thought to myself, "Wonder where she gets her smile from; one can't always be happy, yet she seems to.' I knew that smile must come from inside somehow."

"Then one morning you came by and you had a little Bible in your hand. I said to myself, 'Perhaps that's where she gets her smile from.' So on my way home that night I bought a Bible, and I've been reading it, and I've found Christ. Now I can smile, too, and I want to thank you."

As you and I seek to be God's witnesses today, in dependence on the supernatural power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we should be mindful constantly of the fact that the joy of the Lord can indeed be our strength. That joy inevitably will shine on our faces, regardless of circumstances.

In the words of an anonymous poem:

If you live close to God
And His infinite grace, You don't have to tell; It shows on your face.

TODAY'S ACTION POINT: I will make a conscious effort to reflect the joy of my indwelling Lord in such a way that it will glow on my very countenance. While it is true that joy is a fruit of the Spirit, it is also true that the reflection of that joy is my responsibility. But I will go a step further. I will tell everyone who will listen about the one who is the source of my joy.

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Lord Jesus, praise be to Your Name. You are worthy and deserving of praise. I thank You that You even care about me and that You are so good that You will not let my foot slip nor will let me be shaken. Hallelu Yah. Lord, as I take away from this lesson, help me to be joyous in You and to let that joy shine in my life and on my FACE. Praise the Name of the Lord! Hallelu Yah! Hallelu Yah! Thank You Jesus. Please keep me in my stage/phase of doubt. May I be more powerful and ever stronger when I come out of it. This I boldly pray in the name of Jesus the Christ, Amen.