JOHN 13:35 - KNOWN BY LOVE by Susie Hale

When we begin to show our love

the way that Jesus would,

to forget ourselves and focus in

on others as we should;

When we begin to love our brothers

and sisters in the Lord

and do for them what we’d like done for us

according to God’s word;

When we are truly more concerned

about our brother’s needs

and help him through agape love

and not for praise of deeds;

Then the world will see this love

that cannot come from man,

and we can bear witness love comes from God

and tell them of His plan.

1 TIMOTHY 1:17 - MY KING

MY KING (1 Timothy 1:17)

By Susie Hale

Precious Jewels Ministries

My King is eternal, without beginning or end.

Before time began, He was, before there were men.

My King is immortal, My God will never die.

He cannot decay. He forever reigns on high.

My King is invisible, a Spirit my eyes cannot see.

He can be everywhere at once and is always with me.

My King is the only God. There can be no other one.

He exists in three aspects, the Father, Spirit, and Son.

My King exudes wisdom for He created all things.

His glory fills His creation and makes my heart sing.

My King deserves honor, so before Him I kneel.

I will serve Him forever. His Holy Spirit is my seal.

My King has chosen me to be His own precious gem.

Forever and ever, I’ll sing praises to Him. 

1 TIMOTHY 1:16 - LONGSUFFERING LORD

LONSUFFERING LORD

by Susan Slade

          Jesus is our example, God in the flesh, exemplifying longsuffering (longanimity, patience). Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language defines longanimity as “forbearance; patience; disposition to endure long under offenses.”

          Paul’s life served as a lighted billboard, a neon sign, proclaiming the patience of the Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus. Paul (at that time called Saul) was the cloak watcher for those who hurled stones at Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and heartily approved of his death sentence (Acts 7:58-8:1). He continued to pursue the church in Jerusalem, arresting women as well as men. Saul was a one man wrecking crew, leaving destruction of Christians in his path. He requested of the High Priest to have travel letters to go to Damascus and do the same there (Acts 9).

          Jesus showed great longsuffering by not vaporizing Saul on the road to Damascus. Instead, Jesus appeared in a bright light and asked, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4). Saul was blinded and remained so for three days. Jesus sent a man named Ananias to intercede on Saul’s behalf, and his sight was restored (Acts 9). Despite Saul’s past, Jesus transformed him from a worthless chunk of coal into His brilliant, multi-faceted diamond to proclaim and teach the Gospel, and record thirteen of the 27 books of the New Testament.

          Paul is the ultimate illustration of the fact that no man or woman is beyond the reach of the strong arm of the Lord. God’s exponential longsuffering is demonstrated in His mercy and grace toward the man he would renovate from the sinner Saul to be His faithful servant, the Apostle Paul.

          Perhaps you are in need of a spiritual makeover, Jesus edition. If you feel you have tested God’s longsuffering beyond His limit, look at Saul who became, in the transforming hands of Jesus, Paul the Apostle. Place in your life on Jesus’ potter’s wheel, and submit to His design for your life.

      

1 TIMOTHY 1:5 - LOVE IS A CHOICE

LOVE IS A CHOICE

by Susan Slade

Paul had encouraged Timothy to admonish some false teachers and guide them back to toward the center of true faith.  The goal in mind is that they would pattern their walk after Jesus’ walk. Charity or love in this context is the kind of love demonstrated by Jesus – a choice to love a person regardless of how you feel toward him or her.

There is a person in my own life right now who has greatly wronged me. The actions of this person affect not only me, but my personal assistant as well.  My natural instinct would be to throttle the person, but Jesus said vengeance is His; and I must comply by trusting the situation to Him.  I must remember the Lord, in due time, can and will do a much better job at disciplining this person than I can. This does not mean we should let others steam-roll over us. However, we should follow the procedures outlined in Matthew 18 of going to the person first before involving others. The Lord has called me to be salt and light in a dark and tasteless world.  Choosing to love unconditionally like Jesus is many times a moment by moment choice. When I choose the path that Jesus requires, I am kept safe within the boundaries of His love for me.  Each time I choose to take matters into my own hands, I suffer unpleasant consequences.

Is there someone in your life who has wronged you or is in some other way difficult to love?  Make sure you are taking this person and the situation to the Lord in prayer with a pure heart.  The Lord will direct you and enable you to love.  Jesus is the only reason we have the capacity to love, especially when it comes to loving the unlovely. 

ROMANS 7:19 - MIDNIGHT MEDITATION

MIDNIGHT MEDITATION

Prayer one night when I couldn’t sleep – Susie Hale

Lord, You command me to be holy, set apart.

You say if I’ll confess that You will cleanse my heart.

You say there’s no temptation given me that I can’t bear.

“Show me Your alternative” must be my constant prayer.

        For the things that I would not,

                Those are the things I do

        Whenever I stop following

                And take my eyes off You.

“Be ye not conformed to this world,” is what Paul said.

The way to be transformed is putting God’s word in my head.

“Thy word have I hidden in my heart,” King David wrote.

“That I might not sin against Thee,” completes the quote.

        For the things that I would not,

                Those are the things I do

        Whenever I stop following

                And take my eyes off You.

PSALM 43:3-4 - GOD, THE PINNACLE OF JOY

Day 10 – GOD, THE PINNACLE OF JOY

taken from A Life's Symphony of Joy

by Susan Slade

Psalm 43:3–4

O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me;

let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles.

Then will I go unto the altar of God, 

unto God my exceeding joy:

yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God. . .

            The psalmist asked God to send out His beacon to light the way into His presence.  He asked the Lord to bring him “out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).  God was his overwhelming, glorious jubilation.  God is not only the source of joy, but He is the essence, the totality, and the fabric of joy.   The Lord inspired a spontaneous melody for the psalmist to play on the lyre.  He chose to demonstrate or share his reasons for joy even while still walking out of despair.

            Practically my whole last undergraduate semester, I had walking pneumonia, which doctors kept misdiagnosing.  That was really frustrating.  Finally, the doctor who normally saw me in the infirmary figured it out.   He sent me home to bed and said that I was not supposed to get out for anything.  My caveat to him was, “I am going to church because I need to be in an atmosphere of healing and praise.”   He reluctantly agreed.   I went back to class slightly too soon, and my caring professor sent me back home and told me in no uncertain terms not to come back to class or I was not going to graduate on time.  This caused me to have to write my undergraduate senior project within a six-weeks’ timeframe, rather than having the entire semester like everyone else had.  That was terribly challenging.  I thrived, despite the time limit, by the grace of God.  Even though I got a “C “on the format because I did not have the proper style manual, I got an “A” on the content.  It did not make the sting of the substandard grade any less for me because of the battles I had gone through in order to bring it to completion. God was my exceeding joy, for His extravagant grace enabled me to graduate on time.

         Are you rejoicing in a goal accomplished?  Praise God that He is the pinnacle of your joy!  

PSALM 42:8 POEM

Psalm 42:4-5 - WRAP YOURSELF IN PRAYER by Susan R. Slade

Day 9 – WRAP YOURSELF IN PRAYER

Excerpt from A Life's Symphony of Joy by Susan R. Slade

Psalm 42:4–5

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me:

for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God,

with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?

hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

HOPE (Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language): Confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well-founded expectation of good; as a hope founded on God's gracious promises; a scriptural sense. A well founded scriptural hope is, in our religion, the source of ineffable happiness.

INEFFABLE (Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language): adjective [Latin ineffabilis; in and effabilis, from effor, to speak.] Unspeakable; unutterable; that cannot be expressed in words; usually in a good sense; as the ineffable joys of heaven; the ineffable glories of the Deity.

In Psalm 42, The psalmist reminds himself that he once had been the pied piper of the worshippers.  However, at that time, his soul was parched, anguished for the quenching power of the Lord’s presence.  His enemies constantly badgered and harassed him concerning God’s seeming lack of faithfulness to him.  They were in essence saying, “This best Friend of yours has abandoned you.”  The psalmist started to believe the taunting of the haters, and asked the Lord, “Why have You forgotten me?”  Then he asked himself, “Why are you behaving this way? Why are you drowning in a self-made pity party?”   He turned his focus off of himself and off of the problems and onto his solution—the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God.

After graduation from ORU, I moved from the vibrancy of campus life into an apartment building designed for the elderly and physically or mentally challenged.  Many of my neighbors were severely mentally impaired and, if off their medications, could be frightening.  I was in self-imposed isolation due to fear.  I went through a really deep depression, to the point that I hardly spoke, except to talk to God in prayer, because I was so depressed and empty.   It lasted I don’t even know how many months.  I would pray, and I would cry.  Then I would pray and cry some more.  I would be frank with God in my heart because I reasoned that God knew anyway, so I might as well say what I was feeling and thinking because I couldn’t hide anything from a God who knows everything.  I was very forthcoming about my pain, emotional as well as physical.  The emotional even eclipsed the physical at that time.  I can’t even say when it began, because I was praying continuously and crying out to God, but gradually, in the fullness of God’s time, He was faithful to lift the cloud of depression.  I was able to experience the free exercise of joy once again.

When you are in a time of despair, don’t neglect to wrap yourself in prayer. At the appointed time, the Lord will lift your cares.

PSALM 141:2 - MY PRAYER

My Prayer

By Susie Hale, 7/5/2017

Lord, I lift up my prayer to You,

my thanksgiving, petitions, and praise.

May my pleas rise as fragrant incense

to begin and end each of my days.

May I come before You confessing

so that You can cleanse me from sin.

May I thank You in every difficulty

and trust You to heal me within.

May my worship rise up as a sacrifice

when I cannot understand Your ways.

You work all for my good and Your glory,

and I will lift up my hands in praise.

PSALM 32:7 - SONGS OF DELIVERANCE

Songs of Deliverance

By Susie Hale

For me, songs of deliverance, songs of comfort, songs of praise are all songs that are either word for word scripture or strongly based on a Bible verse. Therefore, I have made it a habit to memorize this type of song and have even set scripture to music myself. The psalms were originally songs that helped people remember God’s goodness, remind themselves of His protection, and praise Him for all He had done.

Let me share an example from my own life of how God can use scriptural songs to encourage us. My father suffered a major heart attack and had been told there was too much heart muscle damage for him to do well with bypass surgery. However, while he was still in ICU, his situation became critical. We were told if he did not have surgery that day, he would die but that he probably could not survive the surgery. He made the decision to go for surgery as he believed the Lord would have him live for his family. As he was being transferred by ambulance to another hospital, I was running errands he had asked me to do for him. I was so afraid. I prayed through tears. I had learned a chorus based on Psalm 32:7 at church which ended with “whenever I feel afraid, I will trust in You.” I sang that scriptural song through my tears as I drove to the hospital. The Lord used it to calm and strengthen me.

Shortly after having quadruple bypass surgery, my dad was walking around the cardiac intensive care unit. All three of his doctors proclaimed it a miracle. Not only did he survive the surgery, but he lived another joyful twelve years!  PRAISE THE LORD!

PSALM 51:17 - CONTRITE SPIRIT by Susie Hale

PSALM 51:17

CONTRITE SPIRIT

Giving thousands of dollars to my church or a ministry

Is not as satisfying to our Holy, Sovereign Lord

As coming before Him, broken, confessing my sin

When I know I’ve not been living according to His word.

The Holy Spirit within me convicts me of my wrongs,

But sometimes I choose to ignore His gentle voice.

I choose instead to listen to my own selfish desires

Or let Him be drowned out by this world’s noise.

When I turn to the Lord with a humble attitude,

When I am honest with the One who sees all and knows,

Then will I be completely made clean and refreshed

Because in His grace, the Lord’s forgiveness He’ll bestow.

PSALM 51:8, 12, 14 - INTIMATELY ENGAGED WITH GOD

Day 13 – INTIMATELY ENGAGED WITH GOD
(From A Life's Symphony of Joy by Susan Slade)

 Psalm 51:8, 12, 14

Make me to hear joy and gladness;

that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. . .

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation;

and uphold me with thy free spirit. . .

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation:

and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

            In Psalm 51, David puts all his cards on the table, lays his heart completely open, transparent to the Lord, within David’s own humanity.  Not only did David commit adultery with Bathsheba, but he conspired to have her husband, Uriah, murdered.  Even though he knew that the Lord was aware of his sin, he openly and humbly confessed it in agreement with God’s view of things.  David had eager anticipation that God would bring him back into His fellowship.  David needed to be restored in order to be fit for holy service and for habitation by the Spirit.  Then he would have the capacity to joyfully praise God because God and David would be intimately engaged once again.

            The Master Fisherman had His hook in my mouth for six years, but I would not obey my calling from Him.  I tenaciously refused to receive the fact that I could be the Lord’s minister, and failure to obey is disobedience. When I finally gave up the struggle and accepted my calling, the Lord reeled me into His arms of joy once more.

            Is there a sin or a failure to obey God that is hindering the joy of your journey?  Confess it and, by the power of His Spirit, turn back to the Lord.  He will forgive you and cleanse you.  (1 John 1:9)   He will restore your joy of being in right relationship with Him and bearing fruit for His glory.  

PSALM 33:12 - WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

What Should We Do?

By Susie Hale

Our pledge of allegiance to our nation’s flag proclaims us to be “one nation under God.” At some point in our history the majority of the people who recited that pledge of allegiance to the flag and the republic it represents also claimed allegiance to our Sovereign God. However, it seems that is less and less the case, at least if one gauges that allegiance by obedience to His will and His ways.

Our forefathers valued freedom to exercise religion without government restrictions or interference. However, over the years that has been interpreted as freedom FROM religion rather than freedom OF religion. At this point in time, Christians are still free to worship as we please. We are free to attend services at the church of our choice—to worship, study, and pray corporately—without fear of arrest or persecution. Some predict that freedom may be taken from us soon.

What should we do? This year, may we as Christians, those called by His name, take a moment from our picnics and fireworks to humble ourselves, turn from our wicked ways in repentance, earnestly pray, and seek God’s face. May we examine ourselves and confess our sins in order to receive forgiveness and cleansing individually. Then may we, alone or in our celebratory groups, take a moment to beseech God to heal our land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV) If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.