The Good Life

THE GOOD LIFE

 

Today is the start of the New Year 2013, and I had not received a scripture portion for the New Year "until" I read the devotional from the ODB for today. It was written by David Roper based on a portion of Psalm 73, and he quoted a verse from "Blessed Assurance" by Fanny Crosby, and finished with this closing word "The wonder of it all---just to think that Jesus loves me", which of course is also part of another old hymn. So as a result of this prompting I read the entire Psalm 73 and have chosen a certain verse for this year 2013. I have named this article "The Good Life" based on this scripture. This Psalm was written by Asaph who was troubled by the wicked men who seemed be much better off than the righteous "until" he went into the sanctuary to worship God. When he did this he declared "Then I understood their end". Then he could write verse 38 "It is good for me to draw close to God", and I think I will take that verse to be my motto for 2013. The fact is that God is never far away from us, unless we are running away from Him for some reason, and even then His Holy Spirit abides with us "forever", so trying to run away from Him is impossible! So why not draw near to Him on purpose every day instead?

 

This seems like a logical question to ask yourself, but your "flesh" will give you a lot of reasons why you can't do that. We all have a "flesh nature" even after we are "born again" by receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior, and being adopted by Father into His Forever Family. A lot of followers of Jesus don't seem to understand this fact. The original sin we inherited from our original parents Adam and Eve died with Jesus on the cross and we are free from that sin. But this Flesh nature that fights against the Spirit who indwells us will be with us until we die, as far as I know. See (Rom 8:1-2), and also

(Gal 5:16:23) to learn how to have victory over this sinful flesh. The answer would seem to be to simply "walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh". The "Fruit of the Spirit" is contrasted against the "works of the flesh" in this passage from Galatians 5, so we need to read this carefully and fully understand this provision our faithful Father has made for us! So as I understand scripture we have absolutely no excuse for continuing to be involved in continuously committing certain sinful activities that have hindered us in our walk with the Lord. So I suggest that we all adopt this motto for 2013, and "Draw Near To God"!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                              01/01/13

New Year 2013

NEW YEAR'S DAY 2013

 

Today is Jan 1, 2013 at 6.00 AM in Saint John NB, and the thermometer is reading -17C, and we have received 2 major snow storms since Christmas with at least 24 inches of snow on the ground, more than at anytime last year. We celebrated last night with a family gathering at Jerry and Carol's home with everyone there except David and Rhonda who were with Ben and Jo in Joliet Quebec celebrating with Jo's French Canadian family, and Shiloh was in Saint Louise MO with 20,500-30,000 students at the Urbana ISCF missions gathering. So I expect the sun to put in an appearance at about 8.30 AM and we will have a cool crisp New Year's Day.

 

The day of thinking we had to stay awake to welcome the new year in have long gone, and we are content to let the younger crowd do that for us, knowing that at the right time it will happen all around the world. We recorded in our article "A Review of 2012" how God had given us a particular scripture verse for 2012, but so far that hasn't happened for 2013. But we will keep listening, and perhaps He will yet do that. We still have 365 days in this New Year to sense His still small voice advising us of just what we should do.--- Since starting this article I took a break for breakfast and read "Our Daily Bread" for today and got my answer already for a motto for 2013. It will be "Draw near to God", and I explain more about it in my first article in 2013 called "The Good Life". It certainly does not take God long to answer, and this wasn't really a prayer; and these little books of daily devotionals are prepared a year in advance, so this is just a further example of the "foreknowledge" of our God. Why would we not want to draw near to Him? It would appear as though most people might have some little "secret sins" that they don't want others to know about, and they assume that God does not know about them either. Which is ridicules because He sees everything that we all do, so it is impossible to hide things from Him. He even knows what we keep in what Baxter Kruger calls the "garbage can" with a lid on it, that he claims we all have that we stuff all the hurts and emotional wounds we have ever received into, and we keep the lid on tight. I never heard it identified as that but I do know from experience when dealing with certain people in the past, that when they allow the Holy Spirit to really bring to the surface things they have kept secret, they can be healed instantly of things that have kept them in bondage for years. They have probably taken the lid off their "garbage can"!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                              01/01/13