Coffee With The Lord

WARNING: Today’s “Coffee with the Lord” is a repost (but believe me, I believe a worthy one!)

Proverbs 3:1-12, for me, expresses several core values and key life-principles that have guided my life over the years! I read them again this morning with relish. I would have to say these are core concepts that I have personally embraced – they have made all the difference in the quality of my daily life. Each comes with a wonderful promise or assurance. I highly recommend them! Here is a fresh personal statement and paraphrase of those principles…

1. Don’t forget the reliable life-lessons you been taught by the key influencers in your life! What they have invested in you will adorn and distinguish your life.

2. Embrace and live out your key covenant relationships! God will honor you… and so with others.

3. Trust in the Lord completely – don’t try to run your own life! The Lord will smooth out your path and work out all of the details.

4. Reverence the Lord and live out that reverence humbly! It is the healthy way to live and you discover fresh vitality in your life.

5. Honor the Lord with your possessions! He promises to prosper you!

6. Accept and submit to your Heavenly Father’s discipline! It is a sign that He cares about you – that He deeply loves you and you’re His child.

Check ‘em out in your Bible! Take it from me… this passage is worth committing to memory!

I’m one of those students of Scripture who takes the language of Scripture very seriously (especially the “original language” in which it was inspired and written) – the “verbal inspiration” of Scripture! But I gotta tell you, sometimes it helps to paraphrase the message of Scripture (and I mean by that, with devotional integrity seek to put it in your “own words!”

I did that today with one of the “Hymns of Praise” (Psalms 146-150) – they all begin and end with “Praise the Lord!” So here goes – my paraphrase of Psalm 150, the last of the “Hymns of Praise” and the last of the entire “Psalter!”

“Com’on Praise the Lord! – Ya’all praise Him! It doesn’t matter where – do it in church or anywhere else in His glorious creation! Think about all the awesome things He has done and praise Him! How great He is will blow your mind! Grab an instrument and praise Him! Pound a drum! blow a whistle! Make some noise! He gave you the breath you’re breathing – use it to praise Him! That’s right – just do it! He deserves it! I’m gonna praise the Lord! Will you join me?” Bartel’s feeble attempt at a “personal paraphrase”

Over the years I’ve heard a lot of “GRACE STORIES” – wonderful testimonies about how God transformed a life through faith in Jesus Christ! They run the gambit too… all the way from the guy who was a murderer, thief, and mobster who encountered God and experienced forgiveness and became a Gospel preacher… All they way to the “good Sunday school kid, raised in a Christian family, who one day in Church became aware of His sin, asked the Lord forgive him and now fifty years later is still faithfully serving the Lord (a person kept from a life of sin)… and everything in between! Both extremes – and everything in between – are miraculous and wonderful!!

All of those wonderful “GRACE STORIES” came to mind as I read Apostle Paul’s testimony this today… (In fact, if the truth were told, His story is all of our stories who know the Lord – a testimony in microcosm… Here it is…

“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life!.

“Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.!” (1 Timothy 1:12–17 NIV)

Hey, you can have a “GRACE STORY!” … You got one? Thank God for it! Share it! And end up making verse 17 your personal expression of praise!