Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 2, Deuteronomy 31
First Moses told all Israel, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6 ESV
Next, Moses immediately summoned Joshua to tell him personally, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” (Deuteronomy 31:7-8)
Over two years ago, I logged out of my Facebook account. I don’t miss it much. I’ve gained more than I’ve lost. But one thing I do miss is reading Sunshine Meister’s beautifully written testimonies of God’s daily sustaining grace in her life after her son Nahum’s traumatic brain injury in 2021. One morning I woke up thinking about her and tried to find a way to follow her somewhere other than Facebook, and I stumbled on this testimony on YouTube.
Her words will encourage you more than mine. To God be the glory. Do not fear or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you.
Sunshine Meister – Finding Comfort in God’s Presence
Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Proverbs 30, Deuteronomy 26
The Lord has brought the people out of their slavery in Egypt, and now He is bringing them into this blessed land flowing with milk and honey. The commanded response, as well as the logical response of gratitude, is to offer back to God some of the fruit of this land – and not just any of the fruit, but the first fruits. Giving first fruits demonstrates faith and dependence on the Lord.
But, if I’m honest with myself (and with you), I must confess how stingy I am with the gifts that the Lord has given me, whether my time, my talents, my treasures, or my testimony. I treat these things as though I have earned them, not recognizing that they are gifts from God, given to me to give back to Him and to share with others. The Lord has blessed me that I might be a blessing to others.
How about you? Is gratitude your normal response to life? Are you living in a place of surrender to the Lord? Will you pray with me?
Heavenly Father, I pray that I would have a heart overflowing with gratitude for all that You have given me. Truly, what do I have that I haven’t been given? Where would I be today if You hadn’t led me by the hand every step of the way? Now, today, I offer back to You the first fruits of my labor. My children, my home, my work, my mind and mouth and money, are Yours. I give them back to You as an offering of praise. They are Yours. They were given to me by You, and now I again give them back to You, laying them down, prying my fingers off of them, leaving them on the altar of Your Holy presence. In the Name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Proverbs 29, Deuteronomy 24-25
Again and again the Lord makes special provision for the sojourner , the fatherless, and the widow. Reading through my Bible today, and not getting much out of these chapters of “various laws,” my eyes fell upon a note in my Bible’s margin from the last time I read it cover to cover.
Sojourner – God is my resting place.
Fatherless – God is my father.
Widow – I am His bride.
Sisters, write notes in your Bible that you can find next year. Leave reminders to yourself of how the Lord turns your heart while you read His Word. Let these remind you – and those who come after you.
As members of God’s kingdom, we’re all sojourners, wanderers, aliens in this world. Our true citizenship is in heaven. God has called us to be His ambassadors.
As members of God’s family, we’re His children and He is our Father. We can come to Him with confidence, knowing that He loves us dearly and cares for us tenderly, as a Father loves and cares for his children.
As the bride of Christ, we are called to be shining lights for Him, His hands and feet on earth, humbly depending on Him for strength, comfort, and guidance.
I’m blessed. God is good.
Heavenly Father, You are my king, my Father, and the lover of my soul. You are worth every pain and every joy. Give me strength through the truth of Your Word. Remind me that this world is not my home, and help me to fix my eyes on the eternal hope I have in heaven. Use me as Your ambassador here on earth, faithfully declaring the praises of Him who called me out of darkness. (1 Peter 2:9) Remind me that I am Your child, and You are my Father. Help me to obey You promptly, cheerfully, and completely, and to faithfully come to You for forgiveness when I sin. Remind me that I am Your bride, and help me to depend on You for my every need. Send me out into this world as an instrument of peace and proclaimer of truth. In the Name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and my Savior, I pray. Amen.
Jesus, Strong and Kind – City Alight
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Proverbs 28, Deuteronomy 22-23
I’m prone to losing stuff. At least once a week, I can’t seem to find my keys, my purse, my sunglasses, or whatever. Usually the items are lost in my home, but sometimes I lose something when I’m out somewhere, most often my purse.
When I was younger (like, less than 40 ☺️), I forgot my purse in the grocery cart with remarkable regularity. I’d like to say I’m more careful than I once was, but I’m afraid that the real reason is that I rarely go shopping anymore, preferring the convenience of grocery pickup or delivery.
Well, anyway, it seems I’ve passed on my forgetful genes to my youngest son (and at least one of his siblings). For example, I remember one summer when said youngest son was playing basketball with a friend in our church parking lot. He took his wallet out of his pocket and carefully set it on the cement light pole for safe-keeping, fully intending to replace it in his pocket when the game was done.
You know how the story ends, don’t you? Several hours later, when he was getting ready to head to work, he discovered his wallet was missing, and, in fact, he couldn’t even remember where it was. Thankfully, after making some phone calls and driving around town a while, I recovered his wallet from the church parking lot without a hitch, and not even a dollar missing. 🎉🎉🎉
Which brings us to today’s passage, Deuteronomy 22:1-4,
“You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother. And if he does not live near you and you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall stay with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. And you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment, or with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he loses and you find; you may not ignore it. You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again.”
Deuteronomy 22:1-4 ESV
Join me in praying, “Heavenly Father, if I find someone’s lost wallet or purse or dog, please help me to go the extra mile to restore it to him, even if it’s inconvenient.”
And suddenly I remembered the parables that Jesus told as recorded in Luke 15, the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.
“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Luke 15:8-10 ESV
Friends, as much as we should seek to restore our neighbor’s lost wallet, how much more should we seek to restore a lost soul. A lost human is of infinitely greater worth than a thousand lost sheep or a million lost wallets.
What is more valuable to you, your neighbor’s stuff or your neighbor’s soul?
Heavenly Father, You are my greatest treasure. You are worth more to me than all the money in the world. Help me to love my neighbor as myself. Help me to love my neighbor’s children as I love my own. Help me to be faithful to love what You love, to be about my Father’s business of seeking and saving the lost. Please forgive me, Lord, for not making the most of every opportunity because of my own selfishness. Lord, break my heart for what breaks Yours. I love You, Lord. Thank You for Your love for me, for chasing me down and running to me with open arms. In the name of Jesus Christ, my Savior and Redeemer I pray. Amen.
In the Valley (Bless the Lord) – City Alight, featuring Sandra McCracken
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Proverbs 27, Deuteronomy 20-21
And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.
Deuteronomy 21:22-23 ESV
The Hebrews understand thisnot of putting to death by hanging, but of hanging a man up after he was stoned to death; which was done more ignominiously of some heinous malefactors.
We have the examples of Rechab and Baanah, who, for murdering Ish-bosheth, were slain by David’s commandment, their hand and feet cut off, and then hanged up. 2Sa 4:12; See also Jos 8:29; Jos 10:26.
So Num 25:4; we read, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads (chief men) of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel.”
Among the Romans, in after ages, they hanged, or rather fastened to the tree ALIVE; and such was the cruel death of our blessed LORD and Saviour Jesus Christ.
“Treasury of Scripture Knowledge” — accessed via Blue Letter Bible
And in reference to the phrase, “a hanged man is cursed by God,” the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge has this to say,
That is, it is the highest degree of reproach that can attach to a man, and proclaims him under the curse of God as much as any external punishment can. They that see him thus hanging between heaven and earth, will conclude him abandoned of both, and unworthy of either.
Bp. Patrick observes, that this passage is applied to the death of Christ; not onlybecause he bare our sins and was exposed to shame, as these malefactors were that were accursed of God, but because he was in the evening taken down from the cursed tree and buried, (and that by the particular care of the Jews, with an eye to this law, Jhn 19:31,) in token, that now the guilt being removed, the law was satisfied, as it was when the malefactors had hanged till sun-set: it demanded no more. Then he, and those that are his, ceased to be a curse.
And as the land of Israel was pure and clean when the body was buried, so the church is washed and cleansed by the complete satisfaction which Christ thus made.
“Treasury of Scripture Knowledge” — accessed via Blue Letter Bible
Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your mercy. Thank You for Your Son’s sacrifice on my behalf, for taking on the death that I deserved, for becoming a curse for me. Thank You that You are just, and that my account has been marked “paid in full,” that it is indeed finished, that Jesus has already satisfied the penalty for my sin. And now all I can say is Thank You. Father, help me to live a grateful life, a redeemed life, the life of a death-row criminal who has been set free and given a second chance at life. I want to walk in JOY and FREEDOM. Give me the strength, please, by Your Holy Spirit at work in me. I pray in the name of Jesus who took my place. Amen.
O Praise the Name – Shane & Shane
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Proverbs 26, Deuteronomy 18-19
“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’
And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.'”
Deuteronomy 18:15-19 ESV
These words spoken by Moses as recorded in Deuteronomy 18 have been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. As Peter said to the people in Jerusalem after they were eyewitnesses to him healing a crippled man,
“Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?
The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him.
But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.
To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.
And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.
Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.
Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’
Acts 3:12-23 ESV
Dear friends, for so long I, too, was ignorant. I didn’t know the Word, and I didn’t know that Jesus was God’s only Begotten Son, fully God and fully man, whom God the Father had sent to pay the price for man’s sins by His death on the cross. I didn’t know that I could be saved by trusting in Him, turning away from my sin and turning to Him. I didn’t know.
But now I do. I’m no longer ignorant.
And just like God has different punishments for an accidental killing versus an intentional, willful murder, God’s justice will be more severe toward those who have willfully rejected His offer of salvation.
If you have read even this one blog post, you can no longer claim ignorance when you stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Like Paul said to the religious men in the Areopagus in Athens, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31 ESV)
This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. Andthere is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Acts 4:11-12 ESV
Reject Him no longer. I pray that today will be the day of salvation for you and your household. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
Want more? Click here for an article on the topic of more severe punishment in hell for those who reject Christ.
Heavenly Father, Thank You for opening my eyes, for bringing me out of the darkness and into the light. Thank You for setting my feet on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, hiding me in the Rock that was cleft for me, passing over my sins because the blood of Jesus Christ has been applied to the door of my heart. This is all from You and for You. All praise and honor and thanks to You. I pray for those reading this today who are still wandering lost in the dark, who need their eyes to be opened. Please, Father, please. Show them Christ. In the Name of Jesus, my Savior and Redeemer and Lord. Amen.
Rock of Ages – Augustus Toplady – sung by Chris Rice
Show us Christ – Sovereign Grace Music
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Proverbs 25; Deuteronomy 17
The Lord knows man’s heart, and the Lord knows the future. He knows that we are prone to be partial and selfish and unjust. He knows how easy it is for us to go astray, whether we are a common laborer or housewife or the highest leader in the land. So, in His mercy, He gave us the Law, His Word to memorize and to meditate on. Though the Israelites had never had a king, God knew that someday they would, so He made provision especially for him, saying, “Don’t get a bunch of horses and wives and stuff because then your heart will turn away from Me.” But He didn’t stop there. God didn’t only have a ‘don’t do’ list. He went on to say,
“And when [a Hebrew king] sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests.
And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn asidefrom the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
Deuteronomy 17:18-20 ESV
This is a good word for us, too. There is great value in not only reading the Word, but also in writing it. Take the time to write down the actual words of the Bible, along with your own personal thoughts.
Read the Word daily. Meditate on what it says. And obey its commands. Remember that the Lord your God is in your midst and fear Him, that you will be humble and it will go well with you.
This spring I wrote out all six chapters of Ephesians by hand. It was truly hand-breaking, heart-blessing work. Have you ever written out a whole chapter, or book, of scripture? Have you ever kept a journal or taken notes on what you read? How did it impact you?
Heavenly Father, Thank You for giving us Your Word. We want to know it, that we may know You. We want to walk in Your ways. We want to be more like You. Help us to read, write, and meditate on Your Word that we might be merciful, humble, and just as You are. We lift our nation’s leaders before Your throne of grace. Guide and direct their steps. Open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in You. (Acts 26:18) Bless us, Lord, that we might be a blessing to other. In the Name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
God, the Uncreated One (King Forevermore) – Keith and Kristyn Getty
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Proverbs 24, Deuteronomy 16
As I wrote about yesterday, I grew up the younger of two daughters to a hard-working mother and father. My mom went back to college to finish her degree when I started kindergarten, and then she started working full time. In spite of her long hours at work, she was still determined to serve a home-cooked meal for dinner every night. No McDonald’s drive thru or frozen pizza for us. Mom served us pork chops and potatoes or chicken breasts and stir fried vegetables, even after a long day’s work.
Likewise, my sister and I were expected to work hard, too. We had our own responsibilities around the home: washing our laundry, setting the table for dinner, unloading the dishwasher, taking care of our pets, and doing our schoolwork to the best of our ability. My parents didn’t tolerate laziness. We were capable of getting A’s at school, so A’s we should get. The thought of skipping an assignment or not studying for a test never even entered my mind.
Fast forward forty years to my life today.
There are so many conveniences – and so many entertainments – available, it’s become increasingly hard for me to really work hard.
Who needs to clean house and cook dinner? There are housekeepers and restaurants for that.
Who needs to plant and tend a garden? I can buy whatever I need at the store.
Who needs to go to the library or the grocery store? I’ve got the world wide web and grocery delivery at my fingertips.
Hence, I no longer feel the need for a time of rest, like the Lord gave to His people. The Lord knew how strenuous their days were, and He commanded them to set aside days for feasting and resting.
But, wait, I can just hear you saying, “Don’t you look forward to your annual vacation at the beach?”
Why, Yes. Yes, in fact, I do! I treasure those holidays spent watching the sun rise with my Bible open on my lap, meditating on the Lord’s words and listening to the waves’ quiet melody. But, to be honest with you, I don’t need a holiday like the Israelites did, and I’m afraid some of that is because almost every day for me is a holiday of sorts.
Ice cream and brownies aren’t only for birthdays.
Watching a movie isn’t only for that one special Saturday night in the summer when everyone piled into the station wagon and went to the drive-in.
Going out to dinner with my husband is a regular occurrence, not just a twice a year event reserved for Valentine’s Day and our anniversary.
In light of all this, I’m trying to be more conscious to fill my days with work. My work might be writing this blog or creating a YouTube video. My work might be studying and teaching a Bible study. My work might be embroidering a gift for my daughter or being a listening ear for a hurting friend, but I need to work. I need to make the most of the time God has given me.
I want to number my days that I may have a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)
Maybe you can’t relate to this post at all. Maybe your days are “filled to the gills” with work – in the home and outside the home. Then, my words to you are these: Great! Good for you! God designed His people to work hard! God gave us the sun to light our days, and He gave us the soil to grow our food. God wants us to be diligent like the ant. But don’t forget to rest and feast. God also gave His people a weekly sabbath rest and annual times for dedicated resting and feasting. He designed us to need them, that we would have time to renew our minds and bodies, and that we would remember Him and be grateful for all we have.
Proverbs 6:6-11 ESV — Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.
Ephesians 5:15-16 ESV — Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
Psalm 39:4 ESV — O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!
Heavenly Father, I’m your child, and I want to be about Your business. I’m thankful for all that You have given to me, and for all that You have given me to do. You have created me for a good purpose, and You have good works that You want me to accomplish. Help me to be faithful and diligent with the time that You have given to me. Help me to work hard and to rest well with a grateful heart. Make me a good steward of my time, talents, treasures, and testimony. For the glory of Your Name I pray. Amen.
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Proverbs 23; Deuteronomy 14-15
I grew up in a poor neighborhood on the east side of Des Moines, Iowa, walking distance from the state capitol building, but I was blessed to be accepted into the open enrollment program for the wealthy school on the other side of town. Surrounded by Guess jeans, Izod shirts, and BMWs, I felt poor in my sister’s hand-me-downs, white K-mart tennis shoes, and beat-up station wagon.
But, here’s the truth: I wasn’t poor. I had everything that I needed. In fact, I had much, much more than I needed.
Both of my parents worked hard to provide a comfortable, stable life for us, a life full of delicious homemade dinners together at home, as well as occasional fancy meals out. When I was little, and my parents couldn’t afford lavish vacations, they took us camping, loading up that old blue station wagon with two little girls, a dog, a tent, four sleeping bags, and plenty of food and fishing gear. As my parents made more money, they chose to spend it exposing us to the adventures of traveling to the Bahamas, the ancient Giant Redwoods of California, and the historic cities of the East Coast.
I’ve recently retired from being a homeschool-mom for twenty-three years. To make a little extra money, my family started a portable laser tag business on the weekends. After almost ten years in business, we sold it, and I started teaching English online in the early morning hours while my kids sleep. Sure, we could’ve given our kids more stuff and a fancier house if I had chosen to work full-time, but we decided that me being home to disciple my kids is immeasurably more valuable than expensive clothes, vacations, and all the various trappings of the world.
Americans today have a hard time grasping what it means to be poor. We think we’re poor if we can’t afford cable TV and Six Flags season passes. We think we’re poor if we can’t afford to vacation in Florida every summer or buy Starbucks every morning. We think we’re poor if we don’t have a closet full of name-brand clothes and sneakers. So, I admit it’s hard for me to know how exactly to help the “needy and poor” in my community, like I read in Deuteronomy 15:11.
For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’
Deuteronomy 15:11 ESV
When I originally wrote this post two years ago, I’d just gotten home from my local Aldi, trying to save a little money on my groceries. Walking in, I noticed an older man sitting outside by himself on a concrete bench in front of the store. A half-hour later I came out with a half-full grocery cart, hurrying home to make a salad to take to the dinner we were sharing that night at a friend’s house with some other couples from church. And there he was, still sitting alone on the bench.
I stopped next to him, asking if he was waiting for a ride – the only logical reason a person would sit on a bench in front of Aldi for a half hour in the hundred-degree Memphis heat. As it turns out, he wasn’t waiting for a ride. He was just sitting on the bench trying to escape the heat because it was in the shade.
I asked him if I could get him anything. He asked for a soda. I apologized, telling him that I hadn’t bought any soda. Next, I asked if I could get him some water, and he said he’d already gotten some water next door at the fast food restaurant. Finally, I apologized to him again and made my way back to my car where I unloaded my groceries into my trunk, got in the front seat of my car … and cried.
I couldn’t just leave that man there and go home to my air conditioning and fridge full of food.
So, I grabbed a five-dollar bill out of my glove box and went back into Aldi where I waited in line for five minutes to buy him an ice-cold bottle of Coke and a Snickers bar. What else could I do?
And I went back to that bench and sat down with that poor old man and asked him his name.
Truly, sisters, the love of Christ compels me. That man has a name. It’s John. And he’s been made in the image of God. God created John on purpose. I don’t know anything about John’s life or how he ended up sitting on a steaming hot, concrete bench in front of a grocery store trying to grab any forgotten quarters from the grocery carts’ locks. But I do know that if that was my son or my dad or my brother, I’d want someone to sit with him, to notice him, to ask if he needed anything. I’d want someone to talk to him and pray for him. I’d want someone to buy him a Coke and let him use their phone to make a phone call.
So, I laid my hand on John’s knee, prayed for him, and gave him one of the pocket-sized books of John from the Pocket Testament League that I always carry with me.
I wish I could say that I did more to help John, but I didn’t. It’s the struggle I face living in a finite, fallen world with limited time and dangerous men, but I sincerely hope that John will believe that God sees him and wants good for his life.
This past week, on Friday night, my husband, youngest son, and I got back home from Reynosa, Mexico, where we were blessed to serve with Rio Bravo Ministries. This was my husband’s fourth time and my third. All three of my older children have gone, too. My husband and oldest two children went for the first time in 2013. In fact, we got to see some of the very same children this week who they first met twelve years ago. Rio Bravo Ministries, founded in 1993, houses approximately sixty children in four children’s homes, runs a school for over 400 children, and serves the community of Reynosa in a myriad of other ways. It’s an oasis in the midst of a desert, and I was reminded again that God has blessed me that I might be a blessing, that apart from the grace and mercy of God, we are all dead in our sins, hopeless and drowning, poor and blind and lost in darkness, and we have been commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves. Would you please partner with them by giving your time or money and especially your prayers? Click here for more information.
By this we know love, that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:16-18 ESV
Heavenly Father, We pray that You will send us where You want us. Give us beautiful feet that bring good news to those in need. Give us open hands and open mouths that serve generously in both word and deed. Use us in the cities where we live and use us to glorify Your name to the ends of the earth, that heaven will be filled with people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. We lift Rio Bravo Ministries up to You. We pray for every man, woman, and child who walk through their gates. We pray for the house parents. We pray for the teachers and administrators. Give these servants Your strength, peace, and wisdom. We pray for the children to know how deep and wide and long and high is the love of Christ. Open their eyes to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and open their minds to know, trust, and love Your Word. We pray for their biological parents and for the city of Reynosa, Mexico. Bring revival to that city, Lord. Show them how great is Your saving grace. In the Name of Jesus Christ, who came to seek and save the lost, we pray. Amen.
The Love of God – Selah
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Proverbs 22, Deuteronomy 12-13
“Have it your way”
“Do what you want to do”
“Be yourself”
“Follow your heart”
Our modern American culture is screaming at us from every side to do whatever seems right to us, that everyone is different and should be free to express themselves however they want. Yet, Proverbs 14:12 says otherwise, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
Here in Deuteronomy we read that God has a specific place for the Israelites to worship Him and a specific way that He wants to be worshipped. He says “destroy … tear down … dash in pieces … burn … chop down” the places where false gods have been worshipped. God says, “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way.” (Deuteronomy 12:2-4) God says, “Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? – that I also may do the same.'” (Deuteronomy 12:30)
Let’s not look to Eastern religions or rock concerts for direction on how to worship God; let’s look to the Word.
The Word tells us to worship the Lord in Spirit and Truth (John 4:24), and “with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28b-29). We are to “ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.” (1 Chronicles 16:29) Let us, present our bodies “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2)
A Psalm for giving thanks.
Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!
Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
Psalm 100:1-5 ESV
Psalm 100 Psalter
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Teach What is Good 
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