Good morning. I think we
will have a very interesting combination this morning. We're going to start
with Psalm 46. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change ... It then goes on
to talk about all kinds of bad things happening to the world. But we're looking
at the word change. We all hate change when it looks like there may be
something bad coming. We have a fear of the unknown. Better the devil you know
than the one that you don't know. I especially do not like change. However I
usually adapt to it fairly quickly. There is a comfort in the same routine day
after day. But of course that can be called being in a rut. If you keep digging
the rut deeper and deeper, at some point you then cannot see over the edge and
then you call it a ditch. Keep digging and it's a canyon. Change can be good or
bad. It's what we allow God to do with it that makes a difference. As the Psalm
says when it is God doing the changing there is nothing to fear. Verse 10:
cease striving and know that I am God. When we fight against His changing, then
we're fighting against God Himself. So we need to determine is it God that's
doing the changing, or is it something else? And then an unusual verse to go
along with this from second Peter. But the present heavens and earth by His
word are being reserved for fire, kept for the Day of Judgment and destruction
of ungodly men. Revelation 21: and I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the
first heaven and the first earth passed away. How does this relate? God does
not take away the old (change something) without providing something new and
even better. If God is doing the changing there is nothing to fear – it will be
even better than ever. Father help the reader to know when change is from You
and when it's not. Help him/her to be confident that if it is You, then it will
be even better than ever.
Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God
Good morning. While Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. Jesus was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men. Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. It doesn’t say, but I assume it is still during this time of the Passover. This man came to Jesus by night. Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do the signs that You do unless God is with him. It just said that the people believed in His name because of the signs He was doing; yet it does not say what those signs were. Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. That is why unbelievers cannot tell what is of the kingdom of God and what is not – they’re not born again. Nicodemus doesn’t have a clue. How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he? Unless one is born of water and the Spirit ...
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