Meditation

07/14/2021

“The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you I power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person. Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you. ‘Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what yo are to do.’ As Saul tuned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day. When they arrived at Gibeah, a procession of prophets met; the Spirit of God came upon him in power, and he joined in their prophesying. When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked each other, ‘What is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?’ A man who lived there answered.’ And who is their father?’ So it became a saying: ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ After Saul stopped prophesying, he went to the high place.” (1^st Samuel 10:6-13)

God used prophetic messengers to reveal His word to His people. Some prophets worked together in groups and used music to create the mood in which they could receive and proclaim God’s word to the people (See 1^st Samuel 19:20; 2^nd Kings 2-4; 3:15-16; 6:1; 9:11). The Spirit of God was the source of prophetic inspiration. The text does not give us the substance or nature of the prophecy.

Note also, the attitude and very striking way Saul acts and carries himself, as opposed to the attitude and countenance he exhibited at the end of his time as king. This can happen to us, when we first become Christians, we seek Him in all we do and say, we study His Word, etc., but then if we are not careful, we tend to relax in our ways and try to rely on ourselves, instead of our God. We go to church, but many times just say what our service would normally call for, instead of truly worshiping, and our study of the Bible is much less that it had been. This is a very gentle reminder of what happens to any of us, if we lose our focus on our Creator.

PRAYER FOR THE DAY:

Precious Abba, You choose leaders for Your church, some respond, some act like they didn’t hear You, and some simply don’t want to be a leader, with the responsibility that comes with it. A church cannot function without leaders of all kinds, some ordained, some not. We know that what You look for is people that will be obedient to Your call of them, and not what we feel we are able to do. It is for this reason, that we pray Your will is done, Abba. Amen

THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

“Remember who is in charge of our lives, and it is not us!”

KNOWING GOD:

“This is what the Lord says—-your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense, who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’ of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be built,’ and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them,’ who says to the watery deep, ‘Be dry, and I will dry up your streams,’ who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, ‘Let it be rebuilt,’ and of the temple, ‘Let its foundations be laid.’” (Isaiah 44:28)

Beloved, God not only sends His message, He confuses he false messages, and is faithful to carry out His messenger’s revelation about His will. Israel often doubted God’s word and believed false prophets because of the fulfillment of the true prophecy was delayed. God has His own timing. We do not know when He will fulfill His prophetic revelations. We can be sure that He will fulfill them and exactly the right time and the right way, that best serves His will.

I AM:

“I have much to say to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink.” (3^rd John 1:13)

The instrument of God’s revelation was both a writer of Scripture and a proclaimer of God’s word. Both are inspired ways (God breathed) of communicating God’s truth to His people. John found face-to-face communication more effective than writing. God led Him to write, however, thus producing inspired letters the early church recognized as inspired Scripture.

SECOND THOUGHT of the DAY:

“But he said, ‘I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.’” (Luke 4:43)

Quite often when Jesus entered a town or community, He would begin by healing the sick, as it drew the people from the community to Him. At some point, He began to preach and teach to the people the good news of salvation, eternal salvation that would come when we entered the kingdom of God. When finished, He would either go off by Himself to rest and pray, to refresh Himself for the next place they would be going.

It was hard for Jesus, as the people would want Him to stay with them for awhile, but He knew His time was growing short. Therefore, when the disciples would search for Him, He would say it’s time to move on, because He was trying to reach as many people as He could. In addition, as they moved, He was also preparing His disciples to take over His work and continue it when it came time to leave and return to God. We are to do this as well. We are to prepare others to take over, when our time comes to go back to God, and they must be ready to take over where we have left off. Our time will one day come and we don’t know when, but we must take our responsibility seriously and prepare others to continue the ministry Jesus began, over 2,000 years ago. Are you doing this now? If not, why not? As Christians, we are to do this every with everyone we meet or see daily.