What’s with the Church today? Why is there so much strife and envy between God’s people? Why is Satan so good at causing divisions and confusion? Oh, that’s right, he has had 6,000 years to practice and perfect the art of deception. The smaller and less noticeable the twist, the more who will stumble and fall.
Author Archives: Jen O'Sullivan
Daily Bible Reading ~ Jeremiah 11-13 and 1 Timothy 4
DAILY BIBLE READING LINK FOR OCTOBER 24, 2013 Pastor’s Note: Today’s Old Testament reading is prompted by Jeremiah’s reasonable question regarding what is happening to Judah. The Lord takes him to school on the divine covenants of the sacred nation. … Continue reading
Wednesday Worship ~ Attributes of God ~ Faithful
Your steadfast love is so odd to me. It is so counter intuitive. Everyone around me is so selfish and self serving yet You, who needs no man love us way more than we even love ourselves. Your mercies never end. Your love and mercy are new every morning. What does that mean, they are new every morning? You are the creator of creativity. Is it new in the way you show me your love? I think it means that you love me fresh. Your mercies are clean every morning. You give me a blank slate. Thank you!!!!!
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. – Lamentations 3:22-23
The Cross is an Abomination
I was thinking it would be a great fashion statement to wear a mini electric chair around my neck. I’m thinking of getting one with diamonds on it. Have you really ever thought this through? When did the cross become a symbol of fashion or a thing in-and-of-itself to be worshiped? They are everywhere and on everyone. Some people wear it as a symbol to show their affiliation but it has drastically lost it’s meaning. Some people place mini alters in their homes with a cross as the center piece. Who exactly are they praying too? Catholics want a dead Jesus hanging on it to remind they of what he endured and Protestants want it empty to represent his resurrection. Atheists want it extra large to represent their mockery of it while Agnostics wear in it’s latest sideways fashion just to fit in. Somewhere along the line in history, the cross became detestable to God. It has become a Baal, an idol that we worship more than the One who died on it. Let’s take a step back today and really consider what the cross represents and try to de-desensitise ourselves to it.
Jeremiah 10:2-5
“Learn not the way of the nations,
nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens
because the nations are dismayed at them,
for the customs of the peoples are vanity.
A tree from the forest is cut down
and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman.
They decorate it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so that it cannot move.
Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,
and they cannot speak;
they have to be carried,
for they cannot walk.
Daily Bible Reading ~ Jeremiah 9-10 and 1 Timothy 3
DAILY BIBLE READING LINK FOR OCTOBER 23, 2013 Pastor’s Note: In his admission of the pain he feels over the indictments he is commissioned to deliver, Jeremiah shows us why he is sometimes called the “weeping prophet.” Speaking the truth … Continue reading
DBR Thought ~ You Get What You Deserve
“My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick within me.” – Jeremiah 8:18
When is the last time you felt that way toward someone? When someone you love is going down the wrong path, or better still consider someone you dislike who is going down the wrong path. Do you stop and pray for them with true compassion or do you say “Well, they deserve what they get.” I look at how stiff necked these people have always been yet Jeremiah rightly reflects God’s heart. He is saddened to the point of a sick heart. I pray that the Holy Spirit would convict me every second of every day to have His compassion and patience for those I love and give me an extra heaping of that same compassion and patience for those I dislike.
~ Jen O’Sullivan
Quote of the Day ~ Giver of all Good by Pastor Mike Fabarez
No matter how profound or how seemingly mundane, the good we experience comes from the mind and intentionality of a good God.”
– Dr. Mike Fabarez
Daily Bible Reading ~ Jeremiah 7-8 and 1 Timothy 2
DAILY BIBLE READING LINK FOR OCTOBER 22, 2013
Pastor’s Note:
In Jeremiah’s preaching today we read about the frustrating reality of hardheartedness, which is such a common characteristic of humanity. Or to put it in the words of Hebrews 3:13, we need to see to it “that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” In the New Testament we begin our read of the “Pastoral Epistles” (i.e., 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus). God’s concern that Christ’s Church be all that it is meant to be will dominate our thoughts over the next couple of weeks.
– Pastor Mike Fabarez of Compass Bible Church and Focal Point Ministries
Jeremiah 7-8
Evil in the Land
7:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’
5 “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.
8 “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. 12 Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, 14 therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.
16 “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. 19 Is it I whom they provoke? declares the Lord. Is it not themselves, to their own shame? 20 Therefore thus says the Lord God: behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.”
21 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. 22 For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24 But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. 25 From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. 26 Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
27 “So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. 28 And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.
29 “‘Cut off your hair and cast it away;
raise a lamentation on the bare heights,
for the Lord has rejected and forsaken
the generation of his wrath.’
The Valley of Slaughter
30 “For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, to defile it. 31 And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. 32 Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. 33 And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away. 34 And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land shall become a waste.
8:1 “At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. 2 And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. And they shall not be gathered or buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. 3 Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts.
Sin and Treachery
4 “You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
When men fall, do they not rise again?
If one turns away, does he not return?
5 Why then has this people turned away
in perpetual backsliding?
They hold fast to deceit;
they refuse to return.
6 I have paid attention and listened,
but they have not spoken rightly;
no man relents of his evil,
saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turns to his own course,
like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
7 Even the stork in the heavens
knows her times,
and the turtledove, swallow, and crane [1]
keep the time of their coming,
but my people know not
the rules [2] of the Lord.
8 “How can you say, ‘We are wise,
and the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
has made it into a lie.
9 The wise men shall be put to shame;
they shall be dismayed and taken;
behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
so what wisdom is in them?
10 Therefore I will give their wives to others
and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.
11 They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.
12 Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
says the Lord.
13 When I would gather them, declares the Lord,
there are no grapes on the vine,
nor figs on the fig tree;
even the leaves are withered,
and what I gave them has passed away from them.” [3]
14 Why do we sit still?
Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish
and has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the Lord.
15 We looked for peace, but no good came;
for a time of healing, but behold, terror.
16 “The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan;
at the sound of the neighing of their stallions
the whole land quakes.
They come and devour the land and all that fills it,
the city and those who dwell in it.
17 For behold, I am sending among you serpents,
adders that cannot be charmed,
and they shall bite you,”
declares the Lord.
Jeremiah Grieves for His People
18 My joy is gone; grief is upon me; [4]
my heart is sick within me.
19 Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
from the length and breadth of the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King not in her?”
“Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
and with their foreign idols?”
20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.”
21 For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?
1 Timothy 2
Pray for All People
2:1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man [5] Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. 7 For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; 9 likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, 10 but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. 11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (ESV)
“Where Your Heart is Drawn” by Alyssa Cuccia
“for my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” – Jeremiah 2:13
This is such a great analogy when looking at the foolishness of idolatry! This is a constant theme throughout the Bible because God knows that our hearts are so easily drawn away from Him by the things of this world. What will we choose today? A “fountain of living waters” that never runs dry or “broken cisterns that can hold no water” but only deceive us into thinking that they will. The choice is obvious! We should consistently, without hesitation, choose the fountain! Every day we wake up with a choice: to serve and worship Jesus or something else. This verse declares the seriousness of idolatry by reminding us that idol worship is not ever just one evil, but “two evils” because in order to worship something else we must first forsake the Lord. When we look at idol worship in this way, it becomes so much more serious and heinous. How could we possibly forsake the one who has “brought [us] into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things” (Jeremiah 2:7)? The Lord has done so many good things for me. Not only did He look upon my broken, sinful life and CHOOSE me, but He continues to pour out grace upon grace each and every day. I have no choice but to serve Christ and Christ alone and to find my satisfaction in Him alone. What an amazing God we serve! Let us lay aside our broken cisterns and run to the FOUNTAIN today! Our God is an all satisfying, all sufficient fountain.
Monday Night Football from an Angel’s Perspective
Imagine angels looking down at 60,000 people who pay $900,000 to sit in a stadium that cost $45 million to watch 22 men being paid $7 million a year dispute the possession of a ball that costs $16.95.
~ Unknown Author
Holy. Just. Love. 