Jesus Is Lord!

Special Video

I would like to begin this week by sharing this video with all of you. I am also dedicating this video to our evangelism class at church. Amanda, Maria, Jessica, Barbara, Isabel and I encourage all of you to tell the world that Jesus lives! Remember, if they breathe, they need Jesus! God bless you all!!!

"Tell the World" - Hillsong United




*************************************************************
Devotional of the Week: Romans 8:31

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?"

Often in our Christian lives we reach a point where we are persecuted or set upon by outside forces. We have a tendency to want to buckle at the knees and in some cases maybe even feel the need to surrender. Feeling the need to surrender and actually doing so are two very different things.

We have the power to persevere and overcome. Today's devotional verse tells us this. What Paul is telling is is that if God is for us, in the sense that He has marked us out for Himself, then no one or nothing can be successful against us. If Omnipotence is working on our behalf, no lesser power can defeat His plan.

Our challenge is to believe this very simple but rich verse. Our Protector is Almighty God. Our strength is His strength and thus we are able to resist the wiles of the devil. This verse is one that we should pray to God that he inscribe it into our hearts and seal it into our minds. This way we have it as our reminder that we are under the protection of a holy, powerful and living God!

Prayer: Father God, thank you for your protective covering. We pray that when the world besets us on all sides, that we take heart and remember that You fight for us. Steel our backs Lord and help us to stand firmly and courageously. Help us to set our eyes on You Lord and to walk in your will for the rest of our earthly lives. We pray all this in Jesus' might name, Amen.

*************************************************************
Mini-Study of the Week: Read 1 Samuel Chapter 6

As we look at chapter 6 we see that the Philistines have had enough of the ark in their lands. They did keep it for 7 months though and one would wonder why they kept it so long. Understandably they were reluctant to give up such a wonderful “trophy” of what they at first felt was such a victory over the God of Israel. It can take a long time before we realize the futility of resisting God!

More than any other thing on earth, the Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of the Lord God of Israel. The Philistines (like the Israelites who carried the ark into battle) therefore thought that when they had the ark, they “had” the Lord. But they did not “have” the Lord at all. He had them, He was in control, and now they are on the defensive. God doesn’t have a problem, they do.

The Philistine priests knew enough to know they have offended the Lord God. Therefore, they know they should do something to expresses their sorrow and repentance before the Lord. The specific offering recognizes that it was the Lord who brought the plague upon the Philistines. They were saying, “We know these plagues were not accidents. We know the Lord God of Israel has caused them. We are apologizing to the Lord God and asking Him to turn away His anger.” Acknowledging God’s judgment one way to give glory to the God of Israel. We often fail to give God this glory because we ignore His judgment or write it off as fate or bad luck.

The Philistines decide how to return the ark, including a test to see if the judgment was from God or by chance. The test was simple, and stacked against God. By nature, two milk cows which have never been yoked should not pull a cart at all, but they should have resisted their yokes. Additionally, they decided to take their calves home, away from them. The “maternal instinct” of the cows would have drawn them not towards the land of Israel, but back home to their own calves. The Philistines devised a test that “forced” the God of Israel to do something miraculous to demonstrate He had really been the cause of the plagues upon them.

The cows headed straight for the road to Beth Shemesh! What a miracle! Two cows who had never pulled a cart before, either alone or together. No driver leads them, yet they leave home, and march the ten miles or so to a city they had never been to. They leave their own calves behind, and go straight on a certain road, with never a wrong turn, never a stop, never turning aside into the fields to feed themselves, never turning back to feed their own calves.

As the cows are on the road back to Israel, can you see the Israelites mourning over the loss of the ark? Perhaps at that very moment they were crying out to God, grieving because they thought the glory had departed. Eventually the people see the ark arriving! What joy! They would have felt something like the disciples felt on the day they saw the resurrected Jesus, because they would have felt they had received God back to them from the dead. On this day as they were reaping their wheat harvest (between May and June), they knew the God of Israel was alive.

Of course, God had never been dead, and God never left them. But the Israelites felt as though God was dead, and they were as desperate, discouraged, and hopeless as if He really were dead. They split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering: They knew this was the right thing to do in honor to God, yet it really cost them something. Cows and carts were expensive property.

The Israelites were careful to let the Levites handle the ark, as was commanded by the law (Numbers 4:1-6, 15). Beth Shemesh was a priestly city (Joshua 21:16), so there were priests on hand. But some of the men sinned gravely by not only touching the ark, but also looking into it inappropriately. There are things, because of the honor and glory of God, which He has chosen to keep hidden, and it is wrong for men to pry into these secrets of God.

In their disrespect for God, the men of Beth Shemesh had offended the holiness of the Lord. Now, they know the Lord is holy, but it doesn’t make them want to be closer to God; it makes them want to distance themselves from God. They choose to send the ark to Kirjath Jearim. We don’t know why they picked this village. Perhaps they had good relations with these men and thought they would take good care of the ark. Perhaps they had bad relations with them and wanted the Lord to curse them. Whatever the reason, the men of Kirath Jearim will indeed receive the ark, and the ark will stay there some seventy years until David brings it to Jerusalem.


*************************************************************
Video of the Week:

"Free" - Hillsong

Because of the blood He shed, because of the price He paid, because He rose from the dead and reigns on high... We are FREE!




Love each other, share His love and share His gospel...
See you next week!

In His Service,
Sergio