MY FAVORITE PSALMS
PART 99
How blessed is he whose sins are forgiven,
whose sin is covered!
How blessed is the man to whom the Lord
does not impute iniquity.
And in whose spirit is no deceit.
When I kept silent about my sin, my
body wasted away
Through my groaning all day long
For day and night, Thy hand was heavy
upon me.
My vitality was drained as with the fever-
heat of summer
I acknowledged my sin to Thee
And my iniquity I did not hide;
I said, "I will confess my transgression to
the Lord," and Thou didst forgive the guilt
of my sin. Selah.
Therefore let everyone who is godly pray
to Thee, in a time when Thou mayest be
found.
Surely, in a flood of great waters, they shall
not reach him.
Thou art my hiding place; Thou dost
preserve me from trouble.
Thou dost surround me with songs of
deliverance.
I will instruct you and
guide you in the way which
you should go.
I will council you with My
eye upon you.
Do not be as the horse or
as the mule which have no
understanding.
Whose trappings include bit
and bridle to hold them in check.
Otherwise they will not come near to you.
Many are the sorrows of the wicked
But he who trusts the Lord, lovingkindness
shall surround him.
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
you righteous ones.
And shout for joy all you who are upright
in heart.
next post 20th April
ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY
PART 111
(copied from Mark Cahill's Book)
Chapter 10
Who am I ?
Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old
things have passed away; behold all things have become new.
- Apostle Paul : 2nd Corinthians 5:17.
An amazing thing happens when you become a
Christian. The things you once loved you now hate, and the things you once hated you now love.
Think about it, as the journey to serve the King
continues.
If you have not made the decision to follow Jesus, read on to see what you will experience when you finally surrender your life to Him.
If you have made your decision for Jesus Christ you are going to be amazed at what you read now.
You are now officially a totally different person in God's eyes - a new creature in the eyes of God. You have been justified. The ransom has been paid in full. No debt remains to be paid for your sin.
It is forgiven! You are a different person!
One guy put it this way :
"If you played football, you are as good as your talent and work level. But if, one day, Michael Vick came to live inside of you, look at the changes: you could run a 4.2 40 yard dash,
you would have lightning quick moves and an arm that could throw a football the field with a flick of the wrist. You are now a totally different player. Why? Something changed on the inside."
This leaves out one thing: Having Michael
Vick inside you would not give your Michael Vick's body. So the desire to be great might be there, but would you have the ability to be great?
But when the Son of God is living inside of you, and has changed your life by what He did for you,
life is truly worth living! Although Michael Vick living inside of you might change your life, you better believe that the Son of God WILL change your life in unimaginable ways, now that you
believe in Him.
God tells us that :
"even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints.
To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of the mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. "
(Colossians 1:26-27)
You now have the Son of God living inside of you. You are going to be humbled by the changes that will be occurring in your life! Look at who you become as a follower of Jesus Christ:
"I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me."
(Galatians 2:20)
Jesus now lives in you and through you. As Spurgeon said: "The more you reaffirm who you are in Christ, the more your behavior will begin to reflect you true identity!"
next post 15th april
ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY
PART 110
(copied from Mark Cahill's Book)
Dear God,
I have sinned against Your
commandments, despite the conscience You gave me. I have looked with lust and therefore committed adultery in my heart, I have lied, stolen, failed to love You, failed to love my neighbor as myself and failed to keep the Sabbath holy.
I have been covetous, and I have harbored hatred in my heart, making me guilty of murder in Your sight. I have used Your Holy Name in vain, have made a god to suit myself and because of the nature of my sin, I have dishonored my parents.
If I stood before You in Your burning holiness on judgment day, if every secret sin I have committed and every idle word I have spoken, came out as evidence of my crimes against You, I would be
utterly guilty, and justly deserve hell.
I am unspeakably thankful that Jesus took my place by suffering and dying on the cross. He
was bruised for my iniquities, He paid my fine so
that I could leave the courtroom. He revealed how much you love me. I believe that He then rose from the dead , according to the Scriptures.
I now confess and forsake my sin, and yield myself to Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. I will no longer live for myself. I present my body, my soul and my spirit to you as a living sacrifice, to serve You in the furtherance of Your Kingdom. I will read Your Word daily, and obey what I read. It is solely because of Calvary's cross that I will live forever.
I am, eternally Yours, In Jesus' Name I pray.
Amen.
Jesus tells us:
"No man can serve
two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or
otherwise he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon." (Matthew 6:24)
None of us can serve two masters. Whom will you
choose to serve for the rest of this life and all of eternity? If you answer "Myself," you have given the same answer to that question as Satan did, so you will really be aligned with him, in this life and the next.
"And if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,
choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods whom your fathers served, that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
(Joshua 24:15)
Whom will you serve? In reality you are serving someone right now. The ice is very thick and now you must make a decision. You are sitting on that snowmobile with the ramp ahead. Are you ready to turn on the ignition, take that ride, and make that jump into eternal salvation? If so, then from the deepest part of your soul, pray one of those two preceding prayers right now, depending on which of the two commitments you want to make.
Charles Spurgeon said:
"Will you do me a favor? ...... Will you take a little time alone this evening, and after you have weighed you own condition before the Lord, write down one of two words? If you feel that you are not a believer, write down Condemned. And if you are a believer in Jesus and put your trust in Him alone, write down Forgiven.
Do it even if you have to write down the word
Condemned. We received into Church fellowship, a young man who said, "Sir, I wrote down the word Condemned, and I looked at it. There it was, I had written it myself, Condemned." As he looked the tears began to flow and the heart began to break. And before long he fled to Christ, put the paper in the fire and wrote down Forgiven.
This young man was about the sixth who had been brought to the Lord in the same way. So I ask you to try it. Remember, you are either one or the other - condemned or forgiven. Do not stand between the two. Let it be decided. And remember, if you are condemned today but are not in hell, there is still hope."
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Please let me know what decision you made.
You can e-mail me at : Mydecision@markcahill.org
My hope and prayer is that you will choose to serve the God of this universe with every fiber of your being . I earnestly hope to see you in heaven one day.
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next post 16th April
WAS THERE A DA VINCI CONSPIRACY
PART 4
(copied from
Y-Jesus.com)
Deifying Jesus
To answer Brown's accusation, we must first determine what Christians in general believed, before Constantine ever convened the Council of
Nicaea.
Christians had been worshiping Jesus as God since the first century. But in the fourth century, a church leader from the East, Arius, launched a
campaign to defend God's oneness. He taught
that Jesus was a specially created being, higher
than the angels, but not God. Athanasius and
most church leaders, on the the other hand, were convinced that Jesus was God in the flesh.
Constantine wanted to settle the dispute, hoping
to bring peace to his Empire, uniting the East
and West divisions. Thus in 325 A.D. he
convened more than 300 bishops at Nicaea (now part of Turkey) from throughout the Christian world. The crucial question is, did the early church think that Jesus was the creator or merely a creation - Son of God or son of a carpenter?
So, what did the apostles teach about Jesus? From their very first recorded statements they regarded Him as God. About 30 years after
Jesus' death and resurrection Paul wrote the 1Philippians that Jesus was God in human form.(Philippians 2:6-7 NLT) and John a close eye-witness confirms Jesus' divinity in the following passage:
"In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God and He was God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that He didn't make. Life itself was in Him ..So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us." (John 1: 1-4,14, NLT))
This passage from John 1 has been discovered in an ancient document and it is carbon dated at 175-225 A.D. Thus Jesus was clearly spoken of as God over a hundred years before Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea. We now see that
forensic manuscript evidence contradicts The Da Vinci Code's claim that Jesus' divinity was a fourth century invention. But what does history tell us about the Council of Nicaea? Brown asserts in his book, through Teabing, that the majority of bishops at Nicaea overruled Arius' belief that Jesus was a "mortal prophet," and adopted the doctrine of Jesus' divinity by a very close vote." True or false ?
In reality, the vote was a landslide : only two of the318 bishops dissented. Whereas Arius believed that the Father alone was God, and that Jesus was His supreme creation, the Council concluded that
Jesus and the Father were of the same divine essence.
The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit, were deemed to be distinct, coexistent, coeternal Persons, but One God. This doctrine of One God in three Persons became known as the Nicene Creed, and is the central core of the Christian Faith. Now, it is true that Arius was persuasive and had considerable influence. The landslide vote came after considerable debate. But in the end the Council overwhelmingly declared Arius
to be a heretic, since his teaching contradicted what the apostles taught about Jesus' divinity.
History also confirms that Jesus had publicly condoned the worship He received from His disciples. And, as we have seen, Paul and other disciples clearly taught that Jesus is God and worthy of worship.
From the first days of the Christian church, Jesus was regarded as far more than a mere man, and most of His followers worshiped Him as Lord - The Creator of the universe. So, how could Constantine have invented the doctrine of Jesus' divinity if the church had regarded Jesus as God for more than 200 years ? The Da Vinci Code does not address this question.
next post 18th April
ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY
PART 109
(copied from Mark Cahill's Book)
Read the following two prayers and decide
which one best describes you. Even if you don't consciously pray either one of them, you really
are praying the first one by default, because
when you put this book down, you will be
serving someone. The only question is, whom will you be serving?
Dear Satan
The Bible tells me that you are the god of this
world and the father of lies. You deceive the
nations and blind the minds of those who do not
believe.
God warns that I cannot enter the kingdom of heaven because I have sinned. I have lied and stolen, looked with lust, thereby committing
adultery in my heart, I have harbored hatred,
which the Bible says is the same as murder, I
have blasphemed, refused to put God first,
violated the Sabbath, coveted other people's
goods, dishonored my parents, and I am guilty
of the sin of idolatry - I have made a god to
suit myself.
I did all this despite the presence of my conscience. I know that it was God Who gave
me life. I have seen a sunrise. I have heard the
sounds of nature. I have enjoyed an incredible
array of pleasures, all of which came from His
generous hand. I realize that if I die in my sins,
I will never know pleasure again.
I know that Jesus Christ shed His life's blood
for my sins and rose again to destroy the power
of death, but today I refuse to confess and
forsake my sins.
On the Day of Judgment
when I am cast into
the lake of fire, I will
have no one to blame
but myself. It is not God's will that I perish, He showed His love for me in the death of His Son,
Who came to give me life. It was you, Satan, who
came to steal, kill and destroy. You are my spiritual father. I choose to continue to serve you and do your will. This is because I love the darkness and hate the light.
If I do not come to my senses, I will be eternally yours. Amen.
next post 10th April
PRAISING GOD
PART 17
Praise God in His sanctuary
Praise Him in His mighty expanse
Praise Him for His mighty deeds
Praise Him according to His
exceeding greatness.
Praise Him with the trumpet sound
Praise Him with the harp and lyre
Praise Him with timbrel and dancing
Praise Him with stringed instruments
and pipe.
Praise Him with loud cymbals
Praise Him with resounding cymbals
Let everything that has breath
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord!
Blessed be the Lord
my Rock
Sing to the Lord a
new song
And His praise be in
the congregation of
His holy ones.
Let Israel be glad in his
Maker.
Let the sons of Zion rejoice in
their King.
Let them praise His name with
dancing
Let them sing praises to Him with
timbrel and lyre
He will beautify the afflicted ones
with salvation.
next post 14th April
MY FAVORITE PSALMS
PART 98
In Thee O Lord, I have taken refuge
Let me never be ashamed
In Thy righteousness deliver me
Incline Thine ear to me rescue
me quickly
Be Thou to me a Rock of Strength
A Stronghold to save me
For Thou art my Rock and my Fortress
For Thy Name's sake
Thou wilt lead me and guide me
Thou wilt pull me out of the net
which they have secretly laid for me.
For Thou art my strength
Into Thy hand I commit my spirit
Thou hast ransomed me, O Lord,
God of truth.
I hate those who regard vain idols
but I trust in the Lord
I will rejoice and be glad in Thy
lovingkindness
Because Thou hast seen my
affliction
Thou hast known the trouble
of my soul
And Thou hast not given me
over to the hand of the enemy
Thou hast set my feet in a
large place.
Be gracious to me, O Lord
for I am in distress
My eye is wasted away
from grief
my soul and my body also,
For my life is spent with
sorrow
and my years with sighing
My strength has failed me
because of my iniquity
And my body has wasted away.
Because of all my adversaries
I have become a reproach
Especially to my neighbors
And an object of dread to my
acquaintances
Those who see me in the street
flee from me.
I am forgotten as a dead man
out of mind.
I am like a broken vessel
For I have heard the slander
of many
Terror is on every side
While they took council
against me
They schemed to take away
my life
But as for me, I trust in Thee
O, Lord
I say, "Thou art my God,"
My times are in Thy hand
Deliver me from the hand of
my enemies and from those
who persecute me.
next post 13th April
I will instruct you and 
