You can’t run away from a difficulty.  You have to face it…  With the help of your friends.”
                –William MacLeod Raine  (Challenge to Danger)

       “The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.”
                –Proverbs 29:25  (NKJV)
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I’m not one to believe in luck, but have you ever thought the thoughts of that infamous song that go, “If I had no bad luck, I’d have no luck at all”?  Sometimes we are our worst enemy, but at other times the devil comes roaring at us, and then there are people–people who seem to want to see you go down.  That must have been the thoughts of David as he penned these verses of the 31st Psalm.

    6 – I hate those who are devoted to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.
    7 – I will rejoice and be glad in Your faithful love because You have seen my affliction.  You have known the troubles of my life
    8 – and have not handed me over to the enemy.  You have set my feet in a spacious place.
    9 – Be gracious to me, Lord, because I am in distress; my eyes are worn out from angry sorrow—my whole being as well.
   10 – Indeed, my life is consumed with grief and my years with groaning; my strength has failed because of my sinfulness, and my bones waste away.
   11 – I am ridiculed by all my adversaries and even by my neighbors.  I am dreaded by my acquaintances; those who see me in the street run from me.
   12 – I am forgotten: gone from memory like a dead person—like broken pottery.
   13 – I have heard the gossip of many; terror is on every side.  When they conspired against me, they plotted to take my life. (HCSB)

    When you read these verses, you might say, “What’s the use?”  They sound like the words of a country song, I’m just like a piece of broken pottery.  Everywhere I turn there is trouble.
    However, right at the beginning he presents the answer to anything or person that he might face.  In spite of it all “I trust in the Lord.”  God knows all about the issues of our life; He cares about every aspect of our life.  Do not despair.  The enemy of our soul wants us down and out, in the pit, but the Lord Jesus will not allow this to happen.  He will not turn us over to the devil.  Nothing can pluck us our of His hand and the good work He had begun in us will be completed.  Take that to the bank of eternity.
    Perhaps, one of the most terrible feelings in the world is the feeling of uselessness.  We have to realize that until the day of our departure from this earth there is something for us to be doing.  Sure, because of age, infirmities, situations of life, things must change we must adapt to those changes.  However, even the man on his death bed can still pray.  Ministry/service to the Lord changes as life changes.
    This is a good Psalm in this day of terror; this day of confusion.  We will not be forsaken.  When we have a “down day” and we need encouragement remember this Psalm.  When we need encouragement the most often we may have been forgotten, but…the Lord is there, trust Him.

         “Whate’er your sacred will ordains
          Oh, give me strength to bear.
          Let me but know my Father reigns
          And trust his tender care.”
                 –Anne Steele

Remember to give thanks for something today.

Where there’s people there’s a need for somebody to teach the ways of the Lord, lest they go heathen.”
              –Elmer Kelton  (The Buckskin Line)

    “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.  They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in Him!’”
              –Lamentations 3:22-24 (NKJV)
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November, the month where the holidays begin.  What a wonderful time of the year!  Whenever I think of November my mind always turns to Thanksgiving and thus, being thankful.  I wrote a few weeks back that I didn’t think that we are every thankful enough to the Lord.  We tend to get off on our own tangents, not paying much mind to what the Lord has done unless it is called to our attention.  Then we quickly murmur a few “thank you’s” and go on our way.
    Stop sometime and take time to think, to contemplate, to meditate on what the Lord has done, how He has blessed you, what He has given you.  More than anything else we need to be thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ.

         “Give thanks with a grateful heart
          Give thanks to the Holy One
          Give thanks because He’s given Jesus Christ, His Son.”
                    –Don Moen

    Try this for a little exercise during the month of November.  Get yourself a notepad, calendar, or maybe in one of the blank pages in your Bible (they are for notes, you know).  Each day, write down something that you are thankful for.  You can elaborate, or just simply write it down.  However, don’t stop there.  Take some time to contemplate on what you are thankful for.  Try to find a Scripture that will aid you.  I’m using Lamentations to start us off.
    I’m so thankful that the Lord’s mercies are new every morning.  His mercies are grand and glorious and they don’t fail.  We can have hope and be confident in that.  Without His mercies where would we be?  We would be doomed to perdition, to the flames of Hades.  But because of Jesus Christ, the faithfulness of God to us in giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins we can rest, have hope in Him, and be thankful.
    Today, on this first day of November, desire for God to be your portion, and never, ever forget that “Great is His faithfulness”!

The things that go on in the dark prove that people believe in You.  They are afraid to do those same things in blaze of daylight.  Afraid You will see them.  Ashamed.  But at night, well, they think Your vision or concern is somehow limited.  May I only do those things at night that I would do in the light of day.”
              –Stephen Bly  (Throw the Devil Off the Train)

    “What harmony can there be between Christ and Belial [the devil]? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?”
              –2 Corinthians 6:15 (AMPC)
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I don’t care to say much about Halloween.  Stay away from it; it is the devil’s playground and holiday.  Remember, the enemy of your soul is subtle and deceptive, and takes seemingly innocent things and turns them into a nightmare.  Why do you think there is so much horror associated with Halloween?
    Many Christians, or so-called Christians, entertain Halloween.  They may try to disguise it, but they still are still fooled by the evil one.  Paul writes that we are to “abhor evil…” (Romans 12:9) and to the Thessalonians he writes, to “abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22).  Are we mocking God then when we fool around with Halloween?
    We live in a complacent and compromising age.  People want to water on the truth of God’s Word.  That is where the warning in Revelation comes form when the Lord says that He despises the lukewarm (the complacent and compromising).
    Be aware!
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    Here is a good word from one of my favorite Christian writers.  It is hard to go wrong when reading Tozer.  God is a God of light and goodness, then why turn to darkness, even for one night?  The devil is there to steal, kill, and destroy; he wants to bring havoc among those who serve Christ.

         “There have always been professing Christians who argue and insist: ‘I am all right-I worship in the name of Jesus.’ They seem to believe that worship of God is based on a formula. They seem to think there is a kind of magic in saying the name of Jesus! Study the Bible carefully with the help of the Holy Spirit and you will find that the name and the nature of Jesus are one. It is not enough to know how to spell Jesus’ name! If we have come to be like Him in nature, if we have come to the place of being able to ask in accordance with His will, He will give us the good things we desire and need. We worship God as the result of a new birth from above in which God has been pleased to give us more than a name. He has given us a nature transformed, and Peter expresses that truth in this way: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Peter 1:4)”
                  –A. W. Tozer