The Ark of the LORD represented God’s presence. When God’s presence was in the house of Obed-edom, he was greatly blessed. Not even his household, but everything that was in it!

The verse really speaks for itself. When God is with you, you and your household will prosper. It is a given. Note the last part of verse 12, “because of the Ark of God”.

Spend time with God everyday. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. When He draws near to you, you will experience His presence and you will prosper!

In order to have power in your prayer life, your prayers must be saturated with the Word of God.

One of the best ways to saturate your prayers with the Word of God is to pray prayers that the Holy Spirit inspires you to pray as you meditate upon His Word. This not only causes your prayers to be Spirit-led and Spirit-empowered, but it also causes your spirit to grow strong as you meditate upon God’s Word!

About 150 years ago, there lived in England a great man of God by the name of George Mueller, who employed this method of prayer with outstanding results. By faith in God alone, Mueller received sufficient funds to support thousands of orphans and many missionaries in his lifetime.

- Taken from Joe Purcell Daily Devotions-

The reason why there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus is because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made you free from the law of sin and death!

There is no condemnation to us because we have been made the righteousness of God in Christ. That righteousness is the very life of God in our spirit. That righteousness is as constant as Christ Himself is constant, because He is our righteousness.

Even if we stumble and fall, we do not lose our righteousness. The knowledge that our spirit remains the righteousness of God in Christ, even when we sin or fall short, breaks sin’s grip upon our life. It breaks the power of condemnation.

Once we understand that our righteousness neither fades nor fails, it empowers us to overcome the law of sin and death in our lives.

Is this a license to sin? No! Of course not. No one wants to sin! No one wants to fall short.

Grace is not a license to sin. Grace gives us dominion over sin. (Rom 6:14). If we serve sin, we become the slave of sin. (Rom 6:16), and if we sow to the flesh, we will, of the flesh reap corruption (Gal 6:8).

The cost of sin is very high, more than we want to pay. When a believer actively chooses to abide in sin, he puts himself on the devil’s territory, where the devil can attack him and where his heart can be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Therefore, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus gives us dominion over sin; not sin dominion over us! It sets us free to live in victory over sin, and not to be defeated by the deceitfulness of sin. We have victory in Christ and we are more than conquerers!

Before Jesus said this, he was telling the parable about the woman who lost 1 silver coin out of the 10. And the woman lights a lamp and searches and sweeps her house diligently until she finds it.

Jesus was talking about the work of the Holy Spirit here. The Holy Spirit searches and works in the hearts of everyone. It is the Holy Spirit who will convict a sinner of his unrighteousness.

And, when the sinner repents of his sin and turns to the righteous Saviour Jesus Christ, the angels in heaven rejoice! There is great joy, the Bible says.

It is only the Holy Spirit who can convict a person and cause him to turn to the Father. Our job is only to spread the good news to the unsaved. Whether we sow the seed, water the seed, or reap the harvest, we are all still doing God’s will.

Bring your friends to church. Talk to them about the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ. And if God permit be, you’ll reap the harvest together with Him.

Jesus was teaching in the synagogues and the people were astonished. It was as thought all the others who taught in the synagogues before Him (Jesus) were nothing in comparison to Him. Obviously.  It was as though the Word of God had always been taught to them in a very weak manner.

But Jesus was different. He spoke the Word of God confidently, with authority. Why? Well, you could say that He was the Son of God. Yes, but there’s more. In another portion of Scripture, Jesus says that He only says what the Father says. Also, the Bible says that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

Jesus must have spent so much time in His Father’s Word (which in present day is the Bible), that He taught the Word of God with much faith and conviction. He spent so much time with His Father, that He knew what God wanted Him to say. God even told Him what to say.

And when you speak what God speaks, there is power and authority in those words. The Bible is what God has spoken. Speak the Word of God over your lives, your situations, your problems, etc. Speak God-words and take control of the mountain that you face!

Most of us have heard about grace; the grace of God, the mercy of Him. The Bible has also mentioned that God remembers our sins no more. Grace, is it only for our salvation? Is it only for getting us in heaven?

Grace, brings us into and gives us a kingdom which cannot be shaken. For it is by God’s grace through your faith in Jesus that you have been saved, not by works lest anyone should boast. If not for God’s grace, you wouldn’t be inheriting this unshakable kingdom from God.

So what should our response to our salvation be?

The second part of the verse tells us. We have to offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.  wow. Haven’t heard this for a long time have we? And this is found not in the Old Testament, but in the New. Talk about new covenant.

When we go to church with a wrong attitude, when we do not show God any reverence for His glory and presence, we say, “Never mind la. God sees the heart, God gives grace.” True, but inadequate.

Worship, is our entire being. We are to offer our lives as an acceptable act of worship to God, as living sacrifices. EVERYTHING we do has to be and should be an act of worship to Him. It is not only that half an hour which we stand in church worshiping (maybe?).

We receive God’s grace as we receive our salvation. In addition, the evidence that a person has received God’s grace is a life of obedience to the Lord. This grace imparts not only a desire for reverent obedience, but also the ability to follow through. A person who consistently disobeys God’s Word is one in whom faith has failed or in whom faith never truly existed (James 2:17-18).

Grace causes us to revere God. Grace causes us to want to obey Him. Grace causes us to want to respect God, to honour Him. Grace helps us to live a life of obedience. Grace helps us to be a living sacrifice to God.

The truth about God’s moral perfection is His perfection in judgement.

Would a God who did not care about the difference between right and wrong be a good and admirable Being? Would a God who put no distinction between the beasts of history, the Hitlers and Stalins (if we dare use names), and His own saints, be morally praiseworthy and perfect? Moral indifference would be an imperfection in God, not a perfection. But not to judge the world would be moral indifference. The final proof that God is a perfect moral Being, not indifferent to questions of right and wrong, is the fact that He has committed Himself to judge the world.

-  J.I. Packer

People, do we reverence God? I know we have been stressing on the fact that God is a God who loves us and all. But part of His love for us is through His righteous judgement. God is a righteous God and He cannot stand sin. If you look through the Old Testament, sin and God just cannot mix. It’s like oil and water.

BUT!, God has already sent Jesus down to be judged on our behalf. However, that does not give us the warrant to sin, to do things that are not pleasing in the sight of God. Positionally, you are already standing right with God.

But what about your deeds, your actions, your decisions, etc…?

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. God is a Judge. That is one of His characteristics. We cannot run away from this fact. It’s time for us to start fearing Him and reverencing Him.

Not forgiving is like… being stabbed by someone… and then keeping the knife or whatever tool that was used to stab, kept in the open wound in the back, refusing to remove it. It seems to be a possible intentional decision to keep the hurt, keep the wound open and to feed the pain, to let it fester.

If only, the route of forgiveness was chosen. It is letting God remove that knife (probably rusty by now), to cleanse and heal that open wound (probably pus filled and decomposing by now). The removal is definitely a painful process, in fact, more so than the pain experienced by leaving the knife in the wound. But it’s good for the soul.

Why not finish the race of life healed of every hurt, every wound, with scars to remind of God’s grace and mercy and love, instead of finishing it with a whole lot of knives, screwdrivers, chainsaws, etc, sticking out of one’s back?

Will we, even myself, choose to forgive? =)

Exodus 19:4 – You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.

Many times we sing of the song, “and I will rise… on eagles’ wings…” and many times we quote this verse in Isaiah when we feel tired and weary. Have we ever wondered, how do we soar on wings like eagles? How to we fly? Have we ever felt it before?

I believe that the verse in Exodus brings the whole concept of eagles’ wings to a whole new level. See, in the context, Moses had already brought the Israelites out of Egypt, through the Red Sea; God had provided them manna, quail and water from the rock. They had won the battle against Amalek, etc.

And you notice what God said. “how I bore you on eagles’ wings”… and what? “and how I brought you to myself.” This is the key to the verse. Soaring on eagles wings is clearly God bringing us out of tough situations. It is never about us being strong enough to survive tough situations. It is God, who brings us out of there, in fact, high and far above the situation. It links to the verse in Isaiah also, because in tough times, when we wait on God, we will get strength from Him and He will help us rise above our circumstances.

But the next part of the verse holds and even greater promise and shows a deeper nature of God. First He brings us out of tough times… BUT He does not take us out and leave us there. He brings us to Himself. The “eagle” does not take us out, drop us there and fly away. In fact, through the storms of life, God is only pulling us and drawing us closer and closer to Him, so that we can experience His love, care and compassion for us.

Our primary goal each day is to have fellowship with the Lord and to abide in communion with Him. Our aim is not to accomplish what’s on our to-do list. In fact, those are second to our main ministry which is to abide in communion with the Holy Spirit!

On the other hand, we don’t want to get into the position of spending time with the Lord simply out of a sense of duty or obligation. Notice something about Martha (remember Mary and Martha?). She said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?” (Luke 10:40). The harder she worked to serve the Lord, the less she thought He truly cared about her! That’s what serving the Lord out of a sense of guilt or obligation produces. But what did Jesus say to her? Luke 10:42 says, “but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

1 John 4:19 says, “We love, because He first loved us.” When we serve the Lord out of a sense of guilt and obligation, it only produces more guilt and a feeling that God does not really care for you. Cast that aside, and instead, dwell upon His love for you as revealed in His written word.

Come before Him just as you are, and begin to receive His love for you as you spend time in His presence. As you do, your devotional and prayer life will become a joy and something that you eagerly desire to do from your heart, rather than an obligation to be performed.