Daily Bible Study for Monday August
15, 2016
By: Hanny Lynn Stearns
Fish N Loaves
Ministries, Inc.
“Multiplying
God’s Word Around The Globe”
Chapter Reading
for Today: Please read in
your Bible before proceeding. Note that most translations are considered
paraphrases. The Young’s Literal Translation provides a more accurate
translation since he is the one who authored a concordance. Others are helpful
for seeing a different perspective, but we cannot always depend on their
wording. I hope this is helpful to you. If you are studying in another version,
that is fine. I am studying from the KJV, but for the purpose of this study, I
will keep it with the New King James Version.
One final note: I will put the scripture in italics to differentiate from my
own writing. I am adding red to the letters when
it is Jesus talking – just like the Bible. Thank you.
Bible
Gateway Verse of the Day
Romans 14:8
For if we live, we live to the
Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.
Therefore, whether we live or
die, we are the Lord’s.
Psalm
100:4
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
and into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless
His name.
Song: Everyday By: Hillsong
Psalm 34
Are You a Mustard Tree?
Today we see a lot about what God will do for those who fear
Him. And what does it really mean to fear Him? We really should understand what
this means before we read this chapter so we hold the true meanings in context with
what the Lord wants us to see. Let’s pray…
Heavenly Father:
Thank You for the many wonderful promises that You have laid
up for those who fear You! And Lord, the wonderful thing that we can stand on
by faith every day is that You are true to Your word every time when we do our
part. Father, I ask You to bring people to nestle under this teaching today to
receive encouragement and hope from Your anointed word. Lord, I ask You to give
me the utterance to speak what You want said. I ask You to use my mind, heart
and hands to reveal the meaning You have for every person who will ever study
this all around the world. May Your word spread and multiply in the hearts of
millions across the globe to bring them closer to You. Father, because of all
You have done for me I count it a great blessing, honor and privilege to be
used to translate Your message to Your people. Father, make this lesson to go
out unhindered and unchecked by any outside force or my flesh. We will make it
our goal to be doers of Your word and not hearers only. Thank You for always
watching over Your word to perform it in our lives when we place our trust in
You and we thank You in advance for the answers to this prayer in Jesus name.
Amen.
First, let’s look at what it
means to fear the Lord. People are not to be in fear of anything. Fear is evil –
it comes from the pit of hell. However, when the Lord uses the word fear in
respect to Himself, it means to have a holy, reverential awe and respect of
Him. It is to understand how big and powerful He is compared to us. It is to
honor Him above all else. Why is it so important to mention this? Because in
this study the word “those who fear the Lord” is mentioned three times. In
order to understand what it takes to receive the promises in this chapter, one
must fear the Lord. Other words that are used to correlate with that phrase would
be ‘trust’ Him or ‘seek’ Him.
All of those conditions are
basic requirements for seeing the promises contained in this chapter come to
pass in our lives. Many will look at these verses and say, “Ya, well I don’t
see Him doing any of this for me!” Well my friends, for the person who says
that, I can assure you that the problem is not with God! He never fails to fulfill
a promise. Like we have seen before, there are many “if’s” in the Bible. The
Lord is just and fair in every single thing He does. He promises to prosper us
and bless us, and heal us and so much more, “IF” we will do what He asks of us.
But if we do not, then we cannot possibly hold Him accountable for missing a promise
in our lives. The problem is always us – never God.
There are four key components to
this chapter. We will look at them as though I, Hanny were talking. Well,
actually I am, but you get my point. The idea is that after you study this, you
also can place your name in it as if you were the one talking, from experience,
about what the Lord had done for you. As we go, you will understand this more. There
is someone doing the talking to the Lord’s people, and in this case, it is me
telling you. Let’s consider the main points, and then the key points of the
verses together…
1.
What
happened to me?
2.
What
was my response to the Lord for all He has done for me?
3.
This
is what I encourage others to do where the Lord is concerned.
4.
This
is what God does for those who fear Him
When we study the Bible, we
need to read our chapter through out loud. Remember, faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. Then, we need to go back through it to see what
the main points of discussion are. We need to look at things like who is
speaking, what happened, how did it happen, what was the outcome, etc. When we
start to break it down like this, we can start to see the message that the Lord
wants to bring forth. As we sit quietly and meditate on it, Holy Spirit will
begin to speak to our hearts and make the message that we are to receive personally
very clear. No one who ever takes God’s word seriously will be disappointed.
They will get fed a rich meal that will satisfy their longing soul. God is our
Father, our Teacher, and our Bread from heaven to name just a few of the
purposes He serves in our lives.
When I read this chapter, I
could well identify with what it was saying in respect to all that the Lord has
done for me. When it talks about seeking God and being delivered, I could
immediately relate! Seeing His face shine on me was the greatest experience of
my life. When I went to Him in total surrender back in 2005, I was indeed a
poor girl. We are talking spiritually poor. I was under nourished and starving
spiritually. As a result, I was poor in every other area of my life. But I made
up my mind to seek Him with all I had. I didn’t have a clue of the blessings
that were waiting for me, but I went after the Lord with all my heart, and I
was determined to find Him. Hallelujah! I did. He said when we seek Him we will
find Him - it is true, and I did.
When I was in the worst mess
of my entire life, I cried out to Him, and He heard me. Oh glory to God, did He
hear me! He delivered me from all my fears. It has been an ongoing deliverance
process and it is glorious. The more I have learned about Him and His ways, the
more He has delivered me. He brought me out of troubles so great, that I would
never have been able to find my way out. It would take nothing short of a
miracle to pull me out the mess I was in, and He did it. Why? Because I came to
fear Him, or in other words, I made up my mind to honor and respect Him. He would
take it from there. So many do not do this part – fearing God, by honoring Him
above all else, and they are left wondering why their lives are a mess. Then
they blame the Lord for it, and it was never His failure or His fault to begin
with.
After all that God has done
for me, what was my response? As the Psalmist expressed, it is to bless the
Lord. It is to praise the Lord and it is to magnify, or enlarge Him in my heart
and life on a continual basis. Our response to God’s goodness should be one of
blessing Him back, praising Him and lifting Him high in our lives on an ongoing
basis. Does that describe you? Are you so grateful to Him that you make it your
aim and purpose in your life to bless Him constantly? Do you bless the Lord and
exalt Him in each thing you are doing? By doing this we are showing the Lord
that we love and value Him. We show Him that He means more to us than anyone.
God is a jealous God. He wants our number one affections above all else.
If any of you have ever been
pulled out of a terrible pit like I have, then you know very well what I am
talking about. I have given my testimony quite extensively during our recent
Job study. If you missed it, you can look at our Blog and just go back to those
studies. You will learn very quickly that I went through a storm of storms – at
least for me. I know many others have suffered so much worse than I ever have.
But it was pretty dark for me and quite overwhelming. To even be alive today is
nothing short of God’s hand on my life. When I had given up, He was just
getting started – praise His name forever.
My goal and heart’s desire is
to tell people all over the world about the exceeding greatness and goodness of
God. I want my life to be a testimony of His goodness so that others see it and
want what I have. I want them to see God’s love and prosperity in my life
shining so brightly that others just have to turn to Him and call upon His
wonderful name. That is my response to what He has done for me. I want to be
like the one leper who was so grateful for his healing that he came back and praised
and thanked God, while the others just continued on their way – even though
they had just experienced a miraculous healing from Jesus.
What this Psalm tells us is that
the humble will hear of what the Lord has done (for me) and be glad. It means
that folks with a soft heart toward God will rejoice and magnify the Lord with
me when they hear about what He has done for me. We will exalt His name
together. They will be so happy that they too will desire to surrender their
entire lives to God, and I will be praising Him all the way to heaven and
throughout eternity for all He has done for so many people – hallelujah! We
serve a really good God! A mighty good God!
The next thing I will do because of what the
Lord has done for me is to encourage others to go to Him. I will tell them to
taste of the Lord’s goodness and see that He is good. I will encourage them to
fear Him – be in awe of Him and seek Him with all their hearts. I will also
tell others that I know this to be true: If we really do want to have and enjoy
a long, prosperous life, that they will need to avoid all kinds of evil, do
good, seek peace and earnestly pursue it.
Yes, I will encourage them in
the ways of the Lord, because I have tasted and seen for myself that He is
really good! I know what it means to turn from the old evil ways of how I once
lived, and I will encourage others to do the same. Because the Lord has enlightened
my heart by His word and His Spirit, I know that to seek Him is to seek the
peaceful way. I know that pursuing the path of peace is the way to the heart of
the Prince of Peace.
I never imagined the kind of
peaceful life that I am living now. It was not even on my radar screen for the
first 50 years of my life. “Peace, what’s that’” I wondered. I never had peace
in my life until I really gave it over to the Lord. Even then it took me awhile
to let go of my old ways and grab onto His. But over time, with God’s precious
help, I have come to know what true peace, His peace, really is. And it is rich
my friends – so rich! I will encourage others to come and hear. I will teach
you the fear of the Lord. When we learn something, and start to really get it,
we can teach others…
Matthew 13:31-32
Another parable He
put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a
mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is
grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the
air come and nest in its branches.”
When we delight ourselves in
the Lord, we can be like this mustard seed. We may start out real small in the
kingdom of heaven as we begin to walk seriously with the Lord. But over time,
we can grow and grow and grow until finally, we stand as the tallest tree in
the garden. (See the picture at the end of this – it is huge!) With God
watering us day in and day out in His word, we can blossom and spout up to be
so big that others will come and nestle in our “branches”, or in other words,
under our teaching with Holy Spirit’s help, so they too can fear and love the
Lord with their hearts and lives – what a deal! What a blessing – hallelujah!
Praise the Lord. Can you tell I am excited?
In just a few short months the
Lord has taken me from sharing this daily Bible study with a few acquaintances
and friends to people all over the globe. I am thrilled to be counted worthy to
do this and I learn right along with everyone else as we go and grow together.
Let us exalt His name together! Isn’t He so good! Amen!
What are some of the things we
can tell others who come to listen about what the Lord will do for them? Our
Psalm gives us the answers quite plainly indeed! One of the very great comforts
I have found is to know that the Lord has assigned angels, or ministering
spirits to us, and all those who will inherit salvation…
Hebrews 1:14
Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who
will inherit salvation?
Another amazingly wonderful promise the Lord gives to those who fear and
trust Him is that those people will never be in want or left desolate. I know
many Christians today, who, for whatever reason, do not believe that God wants
to prosper them. They think they are supposed to be broke and give everything
they have away to the poor, thus making themselves another one of the poor.
Friends, this is contrary to scripture. I am not making this up. Study God’s
word for yourself. You will see that He blessed people like Abraham, David,
Solomon and others greatly. He did not desire for them to be in want for
anything. He never wanted His people to lack any good thing…
Psalm 84:11
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk
uprightly.
There is nothing in scripture that will back
up the poverty mindset. But the traditions of men and religion have taught
contrary to the scriptures for so long, that people have begun to adopt it as
truth without ever having studied the matter out in the Bible for themselves.
It is so SADD-U-CEE! It breaks the Lord’s heart to see His people suffer. But
He cannot break the rules and prosper them when they are not playing by the
rules, or else He would be unfair – and the Lord is always fair!
I fell for that poverty thinking
myself before I started to learn and study the truth about what Jesus and His
entire Bible teaches us about financial prosperity. How can I ever help others
if I am always in need? And why would I have such a good, rich and giving Daddy
in heaven who would want me to scrimp and scrape for every penny and look out
only for myself? It simply is not the Bible and it is not God’s heart. He
wouldn’t choose to leave anyone desolate – not anyone. But many are because
they get so comfortable in their own misery and would rather stay there than to
seek out God and His will and good plan for their lives. It just isn’t
PHAR-I-SEE!
God keeps the bodies of His
saints intact. He doesn’t allow them to be broken. We can be sure that when we
are in the center of the perfect will of God, we will be kept even from
physical harm. Read Psalm 91. It’s all in there. Jesus bones were not allowed
to be broken – He was in God’s perfect will by His obedience.
The Lord will deliver those
who seek Him, fear and trust Him from ALL their troubles and afflictions. Did
you catch that – “ALL?” God is able to keep us from every kind of trouble.
Again I refer you to Psalm 91. There are requirements that must be met in order
to have these things come to pass in our lives, but if we do our part – you will
hear me say this again and again – He will always do His! God’s people need to
wake up, pay attention and get with the real program! It is time to stop sleeping
in a fog of fleshy living and start waking up to the real truths of His word
and how it can be applied so live so we can live long, joyful, healthy and rich!
It is His will!
The wonderful truth about the Lord is that He
has His eyes on the righteous – those who live right. He hears them when they
call. He answers them.
Proverbs 15:29
The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.
God is near to those who are broken hearted. I have really learned this
through my experience with Him. I have cried and cried before the Lord and He
has supernaturally picked me up into His loving arms (in the spirit) and held
me through the pain until He dried all my tears. Now the things that once hurt
and bothered me are gone. The wounds are all healed and closed up. I am not saying
there are not more that He will uncover and heal. It gets to a point where we
don’t even know ourselves what is hurting us down deep – but He does. And He
will get it out like pulling out a nasty splinter! Been there – done that
friends! LOL!
People who have a contrite heart – well, these He will not despise. What
is a contrite heart? One that is truly sorrowful for doing anything that
offends God in any way. Look at this…
Isaiah 66:2
Has not my hand made all these
things, and so they came into being?” declares the Lord. “These are the ones I look on with favor: those
who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.
Isn’t this wonderful – praise His
name! God really does look at the heart. He knows if we are sincere. He knows
if it really does matter to us that we have sinned. He knows if we sincerely want
to get right and continue to live right. Conversely, He knows when it’s just a
few tears at the altar because our own hearts are condemning us, yet we have no
real intentions of making any change to the way we are living. Man looks at the
outside, but…
1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have
refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord
looks at the heart.”
Finally, I will tell people
that the Lord is the Redeemer! He saves the soul of those who serve Him. He
doesn’t do it because they serve Him, but He saves them because of the blood of
Jesus. And when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, then we want to serve
the Lord and do the work He has prepared in advance for us to do…
Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we
should walk in them.
Yes, my friends, I will open
my mouth and tell others about the goodness of God in the land of the living
because He has been so good to me. Does that describe you? If not, that’s OK.
Today is a new day. You can start all over with the Lord right now. If you have
backslidden, you can come back to Him. If you have never really accepted Him as
your Lord and Savior you can do it right now.
It is never too late as long as
you are alive on the planet. There is time to repent while you are still here.
But once we leave this earth and the body (suit) that we are currently residing
in, then time will have run out. Why not take the time right now to seek the
Lord while He may be found? Call on the name of Jesus and you will be saved…
Romans 8:13
But what does it say? “The
word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of
faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with
your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him
from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the
heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever
believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there
is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to
all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls
on the name of the Lord shall
be saved.”
Thank you for honoring God by spending time in
His word with me. Thank You for considering Him above all else. Like the
Psalmist said in our chapter today, because of what the Lord has done for me, I
am going to exalt, praise and magnify Him continually. Will you join me? Will
you put your name in this chapter and tell others about all that God has done
for you? Will you tell them about the wonderful promises that they can rely on
by surrendering their lives to Him? If you do, then you will have riches in
heaven, true riches that will never fade away! And that, my friends is worth
shoutin about! Glory to God!
Questions:
Make a brief list of some of the things that God has done to
you.
In what ways have you seen Him take you from spiritual
poverty to spiritual abundance?
What has been your response to the Lord for all that He has
done for you?
After reading and meditating on this lesson, what will you
encourage others to do as far as a relationship with the Lord is concerned?
Name some things God does for people who fear Him.
What do you believe God has called you to do as you do the
kingdom work on this earth?
Describe the purpose of the closing verse today in your
understanding.
There are three main points to
consider from today’s study…
The Lord deserves our highest praise
and honor for all He has done for us
It is a blessing to be used by the
Lord to teach others
God will always respond to those who
call on Him with a contrite heart
Heavenly Father,
Words cannot express my gratitude for all that You have
done for me. Thank You again for everything You have delivered me from, spared me
from and blessed me with. Father, I want to be used by You to tell and teach
others about Your goodness - to those who fear You. Help me to step into my
calling so I can do what You planned beforehand for me to do. Show me who I can
share this Bible study with so they too can learn and grow into a tall mustard
tree, whereby You can teach through them the wonderful kingdom principals that
bring the abundant life You want for everyone. Thank You in advance for the answer
to this prayer in Jesus name. Amen.
Will
you remain a seed, or will you grow up into the great tree that God designed
you to be??
And God Said… You fill in the blanks.
Acts
26:16-18
But rise
and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make
you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the
things which I will yet reveal to you. 17 I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send
you, 18 to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God,
that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who
are sanctified by faith in Me.’
No comments:
Post a Comment