Trivia:
Which band was banned from playing on the 4th of July celebration in 1983? The Beach Boys; The Police; Dire Straits; The Cure? Make your guess.
On the lighter side:
What do you call a lazy kangaroo? Yep you got it, A pouch potato.
Challenge:
Psalm 15:1-5 "Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts. Those who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends. Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts. Those who lend money without charging interest, and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever."
Psalm 14 focused our thoughts on the way that wicked people live, now Psalm 15 concentrates on the way that those who are righteous should strive to live. In a nut shell, the righteous person exhibits a lifestyle of integrity, while the deeds they accomplish, or exhibit demonstrate just dealings, as well as, cause them to consistently performing their duties with reliability. Next they refuse to speak in a way that would verbally bring harm to others, or bring reproach on their family members or friends.
On the positive side they refuse to bring harm to even those who are consistently living in sin, but instead bring honor to those who consistently follow their Lord, and faithfully fulfill their promises even when that brings difficulty on himself. Finally, the righteous person does not display a fickleness, or greed or willingness to be bought off.
David spoke often of living life in such a way that his ways were blameless: in 2 Samuel 22:24 he spoke of his purposeful pattern to "keep myself from sin". In these verses in 2 Samuel 22 he sang a song to God upholding his desires to live in obedience to Him. He spoke of steps he was taking to remain faithfully living a righteous life in order to spare his nation from falling into the evil ways that trapped Saul, his family and ultimately brought great loss and harm to Israel.
After consistently avoiding conflict and dishonor to Saul even though while king Saul consistently sought to bring harm to David and any who refused to do or speak harm on David or his reputation. These hardships caused him to carefully weigh out his conduct and the potential harm he may bring on others.
Our challenge sometimes is to fight daily to bring balance to our lives and to encourage that same balance into the lives of others. We can so easily ignore the harm that indulgence can bring to the lives of those that we strive to tutor, and challenge in others lives.
David cautiously walked in surrender to God and those in his life, but sometimes failed to bring that same spiritual discipline to the lives of those closest to him. He in many ways failed to discipline his sons. Unfortunately this tendency brought great heartache to him his family ans sometimes his nation.
SO GO WITH GOD for as we are guided by His Spirit, He will bring to our lives the much needed balance. We can so easily bring words of comfort when we should administer correction, or visa versa.
Unfortunately our existence in this fallen world can easily bring our vision to blurring out sin and result in failing to keep on course in this life of obedience.
This time of recovery for Becky has caused us both been made keenly aware of the importance of cleansing, moistening, guarding, on a consistent basis. We can become so comfortable with our bodies past healthy balance that when a more intense care is necessary, we can forget to follow these corrective measures to protect these weakened and needy members. Then when we fall into these mis-steps we can limit or slow the recovery process in our lives.
The same is true of our spiritual challenges. This ignoring of the Spirits woeing in our lives can so easily bring an incorrect care of our soul, and result in failure. We must be vigilant to the Spirit's urgings in our lives. If we fail in this diligence we can set back His working in our lives and bring failure and harm to ourselves and others.
The Police