Beware of teachings beyond the Bible.

Read this scripture slowly.  If you go too fast you will miss what GOD is trying to say.  I almost did.  I have always said the only book worth reading is the Bible and this verse confirms that.  You can also take this chapter to mean the natural progression of a persons life to old age and death OR the end of civilization in general OR a society.  

GOD is good all the time and everything He says is ageless!

Ecclesiastes 12  (ESV)

Remember Your Creator in Your Youth

1.  Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them";
2.  before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, 
3.  in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, 
4.  and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low— 
5.  they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets— 
6.  before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, 
7.  and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
8.  Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.

Fear God and Keep His Commandments

9.  Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. 
10.  The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.
11.  The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd.
12.  My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13.  The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
14.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Never Forget the Holy Spirit's Influence in Your Life

Morning and Evening
Charles H. Spurgeon

February 16th, Evening

"Thy good Spirit."
Nehemiah 9:20

COMMON, too common is the sin of forgetting the Holy Spirit. This is folly and ingratitude. He deserves well at our hands, for He is good, supremely good. As God, He is good essentially. He shares in the threefold ascription of Holy, holy, holy, which ascends to the Triune Jehovah. Unmixed purity, and truth, and grace is He. He is good benevolently, tenderly bearing with our waywardness, striving with our rebellious wills; quickening us from our death in sin, and then training us for the skies as a loving nurse fosters her child. How generous, forgiving, and tender is this patient Spirit of God. He is good operatively. All His works are good in the most eminent degree: He suggests good thoughts, prompts good actions, reveals good truths, applies good promises, assists in good attainments, and leads to good results. There is no spiritual good in all the world of which He is not the author and sustainer, and heaven itself will owe the perfect character of its redeemed inhabitants to His work. He is good officially; whether as Comforter, Instructor, Guide, Sanctifier, Quickener, or Intercessor, He fulfils His office well, and each work is fraught with the highest good to the church of God. They who yield to His influences become good, they who obey his impulses do good, they who live under His power receive good. Let us then act towards so good a person according to the dictates of gratitude. Let us revere His person, and adore Him as God over all, blessed forever; let us own His power, and our need of Him by waiting upon Him in all our holy enterprises; let us hourly seek His aid, and never grieve Him; and let us speak to His praise whenever occasion occurs. The church will never prosper until more reverently it believes in the Holy Ghost. He is so good and kind, that it is sad indeed that He should be grieved by slights and negligences.

I love Charles Spurgeon's writings. They are so relevant!

A Closer Walk With GOD

GOD is good, all the time!  May His name be praised forever!

This morning I woke up with a song on my heart.  It was "My Redeemer Lives" by Nicole Mullen.  I must have been singing it in my sleep for it to just continue to flow out like that in my thoughts.  It brought so much joy to me for GOD to remind me that He lives and He loves me.  It's the kind of thing that stays with you and gives you strength for the day.

People say they can't hear GOD.  I say they just aren't listening or they don't realize that thought they just had was from Him.  Because GOD is always talking.  There is so much clutter in our minds though.  There are so many thoughts screaming for our attention.  The morning news and weather, our spouse or family trying to talk to us, our own thoughts on what we have to get done in the next 10 minutes much less all day!

As soon as I woke up and realized I had a song in my heart, He had my attention.  That is so atypical for me.  And then He quietly started reminding me of several things I had read this week.  (Now, if I hadn't been studying and reading in the first place He couldn't have brought them to mind.  That's why it's so important to keep it up!) 

He reminded me of David Wilkerson's devotional about how Moses had asked GOD to show him His glory so he would have the strength to take the Hebrews across the desert.  And instead of some grandiose display of universal proportions, GOD passed in front of Moses and quietly said, "The LORD, the LORD, a GOD merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation."  Note: His love for us is part of HIS NAME!  Moses immediately fell prostrate and worshipped.

David Wilkerson said, "Worship is a response of gratitude. It recognizes how we should have been destroyed by our sin long ago, incurring the full wrath of God for all our failures and faults but, instead, God came to us with the powerful revelation, "I still love you!"

And He reminded me of what I read C.S. Lewis say, "Everyone who believes in GOD at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow.  But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise?  Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot.  Well, if that were true, if GOD foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose GOD is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call 'today'.  All the days are 'Now' for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not.  He does not 'foresee' you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him.  You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because GOD knows what you are doing.  Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way—because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already 'Now' for Him."   (From 'Mere Christianity', Compiled in 'A Year with C.S. Lewis')

He reminded me of the scriptures that I have a hard time with, the ones that tell me I am the Righteousness of GOD in Christ.  That I am a fellow-heir with Christ.  And HUNDREDS of others from both the Old and New Testaments.  I love to read them, I memorize them, I quote them, but because satan torments me because I trip up so often that I know I hadn't ABSORBED THEM. 

And here is where you come to the realization that head knowledge is different from heart knowledge.  And my constant prayer has been a closer walk with GOD.  Today, we got closer.

You see, our perfection is not some deathbed miracle.  From GOD's point of view I already am!  As soon as I accepted Christ Jesus as the only Son of GOD and asked Him into my heart, I became joint heirs with Him.  Not only did He forgive all my sins, He forgave ALL my sins!  Past, Present, and Future!  Because they are all present tense to Him! 

If you struggle like I have with low spiritual self-esteem, let this sink in.  Let the Holy Spirit birth in you this knowledge of just HOW much GOD loves you.  I'll tell you, it's hard for me to walk on the ground right now!

Now I'm starting to understand even more about my relationship with GOD.  Thank you, Jesus.  I love you, too.