Thursday, July 31, 2008

1st Samuel 1-2

The thing that struck me most in Chapters 1& 2 is Hannah and her prayers.

Hannah prayed, her lips moved but no words were heard.

Think about how many times we want others to know how bad we have it. She only wanted God's attention, not sympathy from others. She also didn't go to the priests to meet God asking them to "pray for me". Hannah sought God herself and found Him.

She prayed and "God began making the necessary arrangements in response to what she had asked." I'm still amazed that God responds to what I ask for. But she believed God's promises even when she hadn't received them yet.

And as she prayed directly from her heart, God gave her a glimpse of things to come (2:10). At the time Israel had no king, but her words point to the King of kings who will reign forever.

Hannah's prayers reveal her heart, her knowledge of God, her devotion to Him and her obedience in keeping the vows she had made to the Lord.

And finally Hannah releases her treasure to the Lord rather than clinging on to him.

What an incredible foundation for Samuel to start off with!


 

Obedience

Over the last couple of weeks in small group we have been looking at the 15th chapter of 1 Samuel. There is so much great stuff just in that one chapter!

In light of that and the fact that we are starting a new series this weekend called Obey, I thought I would start to share with you somethings God is pouring into me.

This morning I went back to the beginning of 1st Samuel and discovered a few things.

The aim for the author(s) was:

  • To use the past to teach the new generation the importance of obedience to God. Wow, don't we need that!
  • And then to answer the question of why God chose Saul and then rejected him because of his sin, while David also sinned but was not rejected.


 

Join me in reading 1st Samuel and let me know what God is revealing to you.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Unity

Okay, it's been awhile. I've been "chewing" on a few things. For me, God will usually give me a passage or a topic that He wants me meditate on for awhile and He keeps directing back to it. The subject He's had me on is unity.

This weekend we will be hosting an event called "United" (www.unitedtallahassee.com), we are trying to rally the youth ministries in Tallahassee to come together and stand for Christ. So I figured I share with you what He has had me "chewing" on. Below is a blog that I've previously posted, but I thought it be worth revisitng.

In my quiet time this morning I came across something really interesting. We teach all the time that disunity is a sin. I still believe that, but this passage struck me:

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, [a] they found a plain in Shinar [b] and settled there.

 3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel [c] —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Genesis 11

Wow, it was their pride that caused God to bring disunity.

I started thinking about the church and wondered if the reason we have so much disunity (in the local church and in the whole body of Christ) is because of the pride of the leaders. My thinking has now changed. Of couse it is.

We as shepherds must fall on our face and confess Psalm 51.
The world wil know when we have unity.
John 17:23

 

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Memory Verse

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Romans 8:18