Thursday Thoughts

Lately, I've been feeling like my spiritual well has been dry. I know this is my own fault. I haven't been filling it regularly with the Living Water. I can make all kinds of excuses about being busy, etc. but they are just excuses. I do what I desire to do. But, this has been a new week and I've been working on filling my well back up. I want to share with you some of the things that have been pouring into my well. I do this mostly for my benefit, so it might seem random to you, I apologize for that.
Tonight, at Flock Group, Ryan shared with us his definition of love. It is a great definition, "Biblical love is unmerited, self sacrifice that is purposed on another's benefit for God's glory." God is glorified when we truly love another person, this needs to be our ultimate goal when we are loving someone else. We need to love sacrificially, the greatest example of this, of course, was Christ's willingness to become the object of God's wrath for us!
In Women's Bible Study we've been studying 1 Chronicles. Today we wrapped this book up. I realized that I learned a lot about the character of David. David was very human and yet God loved him very much. At first, I struggled with how he could have such a high standing with God, when he committed some pretty big sins (adultery, murder, etc.). It was neat to see though, how he always repented and God restored his relationship with Himself. God forgives us and He wants to have a close relationship with us. It was inspiring to study his life in a whole and observe his ups and downs and how he always came back into a right relationship with the Lord. I loved reading the Psalms in light of this and in light of the historical facts that were happening during the time the Psalm was written. It brings color to the chronicles. We started looking at 2 Chronicles today also. This focuses on the life of Solomon, David's son. From the very first verse of the book, we are reminded that it is God who makes us great! It is apart from our own foolish tendencies. I know I will have many more lessons that I will learn from Solomon's life, but one I learned today was that God blessed him with so much, but he took his focus off of God as the source of all blessings (David knew this to be true-1 Chron. 29), and just focused on the blessings themselves. It's a good reminder. I have so many blessings from the Lord. I need to focus on Him and how grateful I am to Him, not focus on the blessings and loose sight of God.
I have been reading Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow. She has a quote in there that spoke to me about contentment and perspective. "Two women looked through prison bars, one saw mud, one saw stars." The right perspective is vital to contentment!
If you have read any of my other Thursday Thoughts, you know that I love my book of Puritan prayers, The Valley of Vision. This weeks prayer is entitled, "The Mover" and I want to share a few sections from it. "Thou dost not move men like stones, but dost endue them with life, not to enable them to move without thee, but in submission to thee, the first mover. . . Who made me to differ, but thee? for I was no more ready to receive Christ than were others; I could not have begun to love thee hadst thou not first loved me, or been willing unless thou hadst first made me so. . . Let wrath deserved be written on the door of hell, but the free gift of grace on the gate of heaven. I know that my sufferings are the result of my sinning, but in heaven both shall cease." Ryan and I have been discussing the juxtaposition (seemingly?) of election for salvation and/or free will and the sovereignty of God. I thought this prayer spoke to some of that. And, what a praise to know that in Heaven, we will no longer sin, nor suffer as a result of our (or others) sin!Can't wait!
Psalm 19 is such a rich Psalm! I wanted to share some thoughts from it with you all, but there is quite a bit in that Psalm (plus I had thoughts from Ps. 20-21 too). Also, this post is very long as it is, so I recommend that you read Psalm 19 yourself!
Thanks for listening to my random thoughts of the week!