MY ENEMIES

Psalm 27:12 – Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.

My reading this morning is very interesting. This verse caught my eye. As I watch the swearing in of the new president, I contemplate who are my enemies? Will my country become my enemy? We find a new mind set that some in this new administration have a tremendous animosity towards Christians. There is a call, rather a written petition which has a thrust of re-educating Christians and denying them a voice. There is a call to roll back the pro-christian legislation. The executive orders that has allowed more freedom for Christians is under attack. The assault against Christians has begun.

I have no fear because God is with me. Psa 27:13I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.  Though this nation moves farther away from God, I have his presence. If you know the Lord as Savior, he continually walks beside you. He is our fortress and our shield. He is our defense. My faith is built on nothing less than Jesus and His righteousness. I stand upon the Rock. This is the Rock that followed Israel from the Egyptian bondage and through the wilderness. He will be my guide, my light and my strength through these difficult days. I praise Him for His love. I pray to him for my help. I rest in His mighty arms of comfort. God Bless.

Praise

Praise infuses

the energy of God

and confuses

the enemies of God.

Adrian Rogers

FEBRUARY 20 – Redeemed

FEBRUARY 20 – Redeemed

Psalm 31:5  Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth. 

We like to speak of being redeemed in the area of being saved. Truly redemption of a lost person has everything to do with being saved. I am so pleased to have been redeemed from the penalty of sin. I have been set on a new path. My inheritance is heaven where Jesus has gone before me to prepare a place, a mansion for me. A place where the paving material is not asphalt but is pure gold. In this case David had already been saved and therefore this usage of redemption does not fit this passage.

Jesus uttered these words as He hung on the cross in Luke 23:46. “… Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit …” David uses this term as expressing his unshaken confidence in God. He rests on God’s faithfulness to His promises to His people. This is not the time of his departure from this earthly abode. What was David’s meaning when he uttered these words?

David was speaking of where he puts his trust and his deliverance. He was speaking of his life as he lived it at that time. His interest was deliverance from his enemies. He is calling to God to deliver him from his enemies. You and I face many enemies in this present world. Some present themselves as friends yet try to undo what we try to do for the Lord. We must labor for the Master. We will find enemies that hate us yet we must serve and that is why our prayer should be, “Into thine hand I commit my spirit…” We should acknowledge that our life has been redeemed from our enemy.

Have you been redeemed by the blood of the lamb? As you live this life of service to the Lord, do you see His work redeeming you from the enemy?

25 – Jan. 25 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

She was found guilty and sentenced to death by drowning. 
The unnamed daughter of Hans Hut, the outstanding Anabaptist leader in Germany died the martyrs death for her faith, by drowning, on Jan. 25, 1527 in the city of Bamburg.  Hut was a convert of Hans Denck, and on May 26, 1526, followed His Lord in believers baptism.  His daughter was one of his first converts who followed him in his new found faith.  Women among the Anabaptists held a superior position above other groups.  They referred to them as “sisters” and the ladies had a ministry of personal witnessing.   Their enemies accused them of practicing “free-love.”  There was no basis to the lie.  In fact, the high basis of morality of the Anabaptists was often mentioned by sincere historians of that era.  Hans daughter lived but a few months following her conversion to Christ.  Hans was accompanied by his family when he went to Bamberg in evangelistic work where he met with considerable success and then left them there when he departed for Augsburg.  While he was gone, his daughter was arrested.  She had participated in many Anabaptist meetings and had a firm grasp on the New Testament.  When arrested by State Church authorities (Lutheran) she gave clear answers as to her faith in Christ and refused to disavow her Lord.  She was found guilty and sentenced to death by drowning.  On this date, she was led to the river where she was placed in a bag with heavy weights and thrown to her death by drowning.  How blessed it must have been, as Stephen of old to have been greeted by our Lord Himself, who no doubt stepped off his throne to greet such a precious prize jewel, and no doubt gave her a name that her Lord has reserved just for her.  Revelation 2:17 “To him that overcometh will I give…a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.”
Dr. Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. IIII: Cummins, pp. 51-52.