Monday, July 29, 2013

Psalm 51:7

Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

        Psalm 51:7

That's today devotional verse. And the devotion is about a friend that was abused and didn't know if she could come back to God after all that's happened.

As I know, you can always come back to God. He welcomed me home, and I'm sure he welcomed this friend home. You can always be purified and cleansed of your sins.

I really love Psalm 51, so go give it a read. If I remember correctly, it was our focus on Ash Wednesday. 

Depending on God

In my email this morning, was a message from my dear friend Anne (the leader of my Bible study group). She pointed me towards Proverbs 31 Ministries devotional from July 26th. I'm assuming because she knows that I was having a bad week last week (a fact which looks to be continuing this week so far). 

The verse that day was:

And He said, “Come!” And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
 But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

                                Matthew 14:29-30 (NASB)

and the devotional was about not losing our focus on God and leaning on Jesus instead of worrying about everything. Something that I try to do, but looking back on last week and its troubles, I don't think I was doing that. So this morning, I'm taking a deep breath and putting all my troubles (work computer is still broken and our mail delivery is screwy) on God.

And here's the devotional post if you'd like to read it for yourself. It was also amusing to me that if you follow the link to the writer's personal blog, she has a post about how to take God on vacation with you, and I have vacation coming up next week. The Lord certainly knows how to get us to listen sometimes, doesn't He? 

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

What I'm Reading - Quick and Dirty Update

We finished the New Testament!

And working on the Gnostic Gospels, we're maybe about halfway through.

I'm still not done with Let the Nations Be Glad, but only 20 pages or so are left.

I started reading Mosaic last night, just for a change from what I have been reading.

And a friend is letting me borrow a book called Love Wins, so that just got added to the reading list.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Daily Devotional

I'm linking my daily devotional again, because it talks about the importance of touch and physical affection. I'm very affectionate with my nuclear family and with several of my extended family members, as well as a lot of my friends. I honestly think that people who don't like to be touched much are weird.

Monday, July 1, 2013

What I'm Reading Now --

A little update on what I'm reading:

  1. We are almost DONE with the New Testament. Two little chapters of Revelation remain!
  2. Next up is the Gnostic Gospels and then the Gospel of Judas. Mom needs to acquire a copy of the version I already own. And I need to make a reading schedule for us.
  3. In bible study, we are doing a study of Nehemiah right now by Kelly Minter. It's a lot more work than our usual reading, but I'm loving that its an actual bible study and not just a Christian living book.
  4. My personal God reading right now is a book on missions, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions by John Piper. Its really good, its just rather heavy. And so a little hard to get through. After that, I have two more mission books lined up: The Missionary Call: Find Your Place in God's Plan for the World by M David Sills and Mosaic by Patrick Nachtigall who is the regional coordinator of the CHOG missions in Europe / Middle East. I think Mosaic is going to be next, I'm hoping it may be a little easier of a read than my current choice.
  5. And I have a new devotional that I'm working through, Voices of the Faithful: Inspiring Stories of Courage from Christians Serving Around the World by Beth Moore.
  6. Almost forgot - I also have a printed out PDF copy of Tullian Tchividjian's new book Glorious Ruin that I downloaded when someone was offering it for free.

Daily Bible Verses

From my daily devotional emails (through Proverbs 31 Ministries) -

First of all, I just really love this verse:

 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

        2 Corinthians 12:9 (NASB)

And this one, because last weekend at Global Gathering, there was a lot of talk about the Holy Spirit

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

          John 14:26 (NASB)