The Word

Meditations: I Kings 18:21

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Copyright Clarissa Pardue 2014
Copyright Clarissa Pardue 2014

I Kings 18:21 NKJV

And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word.

 

Elijah is speaking to Israel here and theologians say Israel is a type and shadow of the church. It is not hard for me to see the modern day church in this chapter…and the seeing makes me tremble.

When God called Abram He did a new thing. Man loved to worship his gods – plural – and God was calling on this man to commit himself and his children to worship one God and only one God – Himself. Obviously, Abraham’s children failed to continue as they had been taught; it didn’t take long for them to do exactly as God had predicted (when He spoke with them before sending them on into Canaan), to turn after other gods and worship them.

Of course, Israel wanted to have it both ways. They wanted to have all of the benefits of serving God, but they also wanted freedom to serve the other gods they’d taken a liking to…even one called Molech, to whom they sacrificed their  children. God, obviously, was not pleased.

Nor is God pleased today when we choose to serve other gods. They may not go by the names Baal and Molech, but they are here and we serve them. Yes, it’s been said time and again, perhaps so often that the hearers now roll their eyes and refuse to listen, but it is true – anything that has a higher priority in our lives than God does is a god. Be it money, work, children, baseball…whatever…if it draws me away from God (big G), then it has become my god (little g) and He says, “I will have no other gods before me.” In this chapter of I Kings it is only the prophets of Baal that pay the penalty, but the whole nation eventually paid by being cast out of their own country, taken into Babylon in captivity and scattered all over the world. How much more accountable are we, who have the potential for a relationship with God that they could only dream of?

Study to Show

Tammy M Cardwell4 Comments

2 Tim 2 15

I shared, last night, about the cashier who clearly didn’t understand the basics of percentage discounts. Had her math teacher witnessed the incident, he or she would surely have been appalled, and if her employer had seen? Hopefully someone can help her understand before it happens again.

As is common, God used this practical experience to remind me of a great truth. We must prepare for life ahead of time. The math lessons should have been fully learned before the customer stood in front of her with a 50% off item. Likewise, God tells us in II Tim 2:15 to study ahead of time: This is how we are prepared to face life events before we reach them. Whether it’s a sudden battle with cancer or an ongoing conversation about salvation, a question about which action would best please God or how to fight a battle, all of the information we need is right there, in His Word.

Yes, as some would say, His Word is at our fingertips and we can look it up, but a Bible won’t always be immediately at hand (as the cashier’s calculator must not have been) and the Bible you don’t know will be of limited help to you.

It is the math student’s responsibility to learn the difference between 40% and 50%, and know how to calculate both, however…it is not always the student alone who pays the price when she fails. (I paid an extra .25 because I wasn’t willing to give a math lesson.) When we fail to study God’s Word, to make it part of our lives, we pay…  whether or not we notice the price being paid; and we are not the only ones affected. Those who surround us, those who come in contact with and are not helped by us… they pay a price too.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Revelation

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The Holy Spirit, and the way He reveals things in the Word when we ask Him to teach us, is AWESOME! I love it when God tweaks my view of Scripture, making me see the familiar in a totally new light.

For instance, here are some pieces that came together for me at some point last year.

1.    We know the Israelites were to use no leaven at Passover. This was part of them being
prepared and ready to leave as soon as God (through Pharaoh) gave the Word.
2.    We know leaven represents sin throughout Scripture.
3.    We know that many things in the Old Testament are types and shadows (AKA prophecies)
of what later happens in the New Testament.
4.    The Exodus, itself, is prophecy! It foreshadows our exodus from this earth at the Rapture.
We must remove sin (leaven) from our lives (houses) and be spiritually ready to leave at a
moment’s notice. Even the end times transfer of wealth that we hear so much about is
foreshadowed by the Jews requesting and receiving all sorts of valuable things from their
Egyptian neighbors.

The Word of God is SO COOL.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Shut Up, Devil!

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

Have you ever heard someone argue with their electronic navigator, be it Siri, Tom Tom, or something else, talking back to it as if it’s a reasonable being and they can somehow change its mind? For the onlooker, it can be funny or frustrating, but one thing is sure – it’s pointless. Siri may be giving you completely wrong information, but simply talking to it… or yelling at it… won’t accomplish anything; you have to shut it up.

The same is true in our dealings with the devil. Arguing with him is every bit as productive. It accomplishes nothing but raising your fear level and blood pressure. We have to shut him up too. How do we do that? The same way Jesus did.

Jesus spent forty days fasting in the desert. Fasting is interesting in that it does tremendous things for your faith while challenging your body. The devil knows this, so he comes in right away to try to steal what God is giving you. So here he is, challenging Jesus at the end of this fast, and what does Jesus do? Argue? Not even!

“It is written,” He says, then He hits the devil with God’s Word. The third time He says, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written…” In other words, “Shut up, Devil. God says…”

Here, then, is our example. We don’t argue with the devil, we remind him of what God says. God’s Word is a mighty weapon, and proper use of it by us can shut him up as completely as it did on that day. Of course, this means we must know it, must have the Word hidden in our hearts so we can pull it out as soon as the devil speaks.

If he’s been speaking to you lately, and you don’t quite know how to fight back, get into the Bible. You can even go to sites like www.blueletterbible.org and search by keywords to find what you need.

Here’s one verse for starters. Is the devil telling you that you can’t do something God wants you to do? Tell him that, according to Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”

Yes, you can. You can shut the devil up!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C