No hope for any man or any woman except in God!”
              –Zane Grey  (The Desert of Wheat)

    “Love is to be sincere and active [the real thing—without guile and hypocrisy]. Hate what is evil [detest all ungodliness, do not tolerate wickedness]; hold on tightly to what is good.”
              –Romans 12:9  (AMP)
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Last week, in looking at the first part of Psalm 7, David was groaning at being attacked without cause.  This enemies want to tear him apart.  He prays for the Lord to rise up and help him.  Now the second half of this Psalm shows the faithfulness and righteousness of God.  Ponder these words; seek to know the truth that is in them and the trust they give up to a holy, righteous God.
    To start out remember that Satan is the “father of lies.”  Everything he does is involved with lies and deceit.  Augustine said that, “Every sin is a lie.”
    I spent several years, twenty-eight to be exact, coaching.  Every sport has rules to guide the participants, yet often there are those who do not play according to the rules.  Players are expected to play fairly, but many people play to break the rules to their advantage and seem to get away with it.

         “My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. (10)
          God is a righteous judge, and a God who executes justice every day.  (11)

    In life, attitude is important.  Every issue we face is really about eternity.  We must face them with an eternal perspective and attitude.  Faith then, is vital.  Faith proceeds our actions.  When God judges He will go straight to the heart.  There are no excuses.

         “If anyone does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He has strung His bow and made it ready.  (12)
          He has prepared His deadly weapons; He tips His arrows with fire.” (13)

    It is hard to understand the anger of God.  He gets angry every day.  It is only His grace, mercy, and longsuffering that controls His anger and wrath.  Imagine God honing His blade.  I believe He becomes angry over those who purposely mock Him and His moral laws.  I believe He becomes angry when the innocent are hurt, maimed, and killed.  I believe He becomes angry when people scorn the sacrifice of His Son for their sins.  Think of that great Gift that was given and yet it is rejected, despised, mocked, and laughed at.  One thing for sure, the Word of God is sharp and it cuts.  It forces people to choose.

         “See, he is pregnant with evil, conceives troubles, and gives birth to deceit.  (14)
          He dug a pit and hollowed it out, but fell into the hole he had made.  (15)
          His trouble comes back on his own head, and his violence falls on the top of his head.”  (16)

    What people do often recoils on them, however many do not even realize it.  They continue on, often blaming others or simply “bad luck.”  David realizes in the second half of this Psalm that life is not fair and there will be many who transgress, so there should never be a surprise.

         “I will thank the LORD for His righteousness; I will sing about the name of the LORD, the Most High.”  (17)

    Interesting that David starts with woes and how people are against him.  Once he remembers God, His power, might, and righteousness he ends the psalm with praise!

                      “Fatherlike he tends and spares us;
                       Well our feeble frame he knows.
                       In his hands he gently bears us,
                       Rescues us from all our foes.”
                              –Carolina Sandell Berg

Every idea is a seed and, like a seed, it germinates.  Only you have to feed it to make it grow properly.”
              –Louis L’Amour  (Hanging Woman Creek)

    “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable–if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise–dwell on these things.”
              –Philippians 4:8 (HCSB)
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Easy question to answer:  What kind of ideas/thoughts are in your mind?  We need to feed our minds the Word of God and not the world.  The election is coming up.  How will you vote?  Do you have enough of God’s Word in you to vote according to it?  One more question:  How can a believer vote for someone who is in favor of abortion?  Hmmm, I wonder if they will somehow have a few drops of blood from the unborn on their hands.
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“Commit your way to the Lord: trust in him, and he will act.”
—that fool Noah did, and built a stupid boat on dry land for years and years, and man lived.
—that fool Job did, and the world kicked him, and his friends did too, and so did his old religion, and he showed us a new face of God.
—that fool John the Baptist did, and he ate crunchy insects and dressed like a jerk, and baptized Jesus.
—that fool woman did; squeezing and elbowing through the crowd, just so she could grab at Jesus with her hand, sick, sick from years of a woman’s sickness, and she was healed.
But now we have aptitude tests, and counselors, and advisors, and rest camps, and pyschiatrist, and lots of brains, an WE act.
“Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act.”
Lord have mercy on us.
Lord have mercy on us.
         (taken from Lois A. Cheney’s book, God Is No Fool)
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Have a good Friday and good weekend.  Don’t let the devil get the upper hand.

It might not be fair to try to shield him from peril.  A man must run his own risks in life.”
              –William MacLeod Raine  (Six-Gun Feud)

    “Hide me from the scheming of the wicked, from the mob of evildoers, who sharpen their tongues like swords and aim bitter words like arrows.”
              –Psalm 64:2-3 (HCSB)
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There is such a thing as over-protection and over-indulgence.  I used to say that the hardest job in life is to be a teenager’s parent.  You have to know when to aid when they take a fall; sometimes you have to let them take a fall.  The main thing is that when you do let them fall, you are there to help them back up.  If you never let them fall, then when they get to college and fall, who is there to pick them up?  
    The times are desperate so do not be deluded.  With postmodernism on the rise there is more and more risk of delusion.  In fact, they delight in chaos, confusion, and deconstruction.  Hmmm, who is the author of confusion?  Our youth today are finding themselves in a quandary.  When times get tough they don’t know what to do or where to turn.  When things don’t go their way they are quick to blame others or simply have a meltdown.
    However, as believers, even in the midst of hard, tough times we have a Savior.  We have a heavenly Father to whom we can turn.  He may not provide a miracle, or perhaps, the miracle is that He walks with us through the situation.

              “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!'”
                        –Galatians 4:6 (HCSB)

    There are several things we can gather from this verse.  First, we have a heavenly Father.  We are to know Him as our Father.  He is, in reality, more real than anything we see.  See, the Christian starts with the ultimate and eternal and then they work back to the present.  God is in charge, now look at the situation.  How is He working?  How is He working in you?  Lloyd-Jones stated, “Those who have not prepared for the ultimate before they face the present are living in a fool’s paradise.”  Jesus Christ must be central.  If He isn’t, the person is living a delusion.
    There was a teaching, not long ago, saying that this verse meant “Daddy, Daddy.”  Not so.  I heard that several times so I had to do some studying into it.  Certainly “Abba” is an endearing word, such as “daddy.”  There are times when we can rest in His arms, when He is certainly our “daddy.”  It is like a kid asking for the keys to the car, and while his “dad” throws him the keys, he gives him a twenty dollar bill as well and says to have fun.  Sometime during the night, he doesn’t see the stop sign, and runs into another car.  He is in a situation where he must call home.  Now he must face his “father.”  
    Even when facing the “Father” we should have no fear.  He is a loving Father.  At times He may have to chastize and discipline, but He always does it with love.  There are those times when He allows us to walk through the issues of life and He doesn’t catch us, but rest assured He is always there to pick you up.

It was] a place I could have stayed forever.  How many times I have found such campsites!  Place so beautiful it gave a man the wistfuls to see or to think back on.  So many times we said, ‘We’ve got to come back some time!’ an’ knowin’ all the while we never would.”
              –Louis L’Amour  (Lonely on the Mountain)

    “But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
              –Hebrews 11:16 (NLT)
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I have always liked to travel this land of ours.  No matter where you go there is something to be said about the type of land, whether it is the dry, crusty, rock-strewn deserts with their own peculiar type of beauty, or the grand peaks of the Rockies.  It may be the rolling hills or the open plains with the wind blowing across the grass or acres of wheat.
    Often I have thought of what it would be like to travel some of the old trails.  It would be grand to travel either on horseback or by shanks mare the trail of Lewis and Clark, or up the Natchez Trail, or along the Oregon Trail.  It would be impossible today thanks to modern technology and the encroachment of man.  Fences, roads, rivers, and other obstacles stand in the way.  But, that doesn’t mean in my travels I haven’t thought of doing it.
    There are many places in our travels that we have stopped to gaze on the wondrous beauty of God’s great cathedral.  Annie and I have often remarked that we must come to this place again, and yet, there are still some places in this great country that I still want to see.  I want to see the waves crash along the coast of Maine.  I want to visit the headwaters of the Mississippi.  I want to see the Columbia as it courses toward the sea.  Oh, I could go on and on.
    In my old age, I may not have much money, but I have memories.  I can clearly see Kimberly underneath a table playing in the dirt at Lake San Cristobal.  I can remember Shauna, as we walked through Yellowstone saying that it was “stinky water.”  It is etched of the fishing trip at Brainard Lake where I couldn’t even get a line in the water as the kids were catching fish so fast.  Ahhh, memories, they are precious.
    We have those spiritual memories as well in our journey toward the “Promised Land.”  Have you ever noticed that people, when they go to the altar (if they still have them in their church) tend to go to the same place and do the same “ritual.”  That’s because God blessed them on one occasion and they have to get just in the same position so He can bless them again.  The thing is, He has something else for them.  They just don’t want to accept that He might bless them in a different way.
    Enjoy the campsites of your life, whether they be physical or spiritual.  However, never lose site of the fact that there is a city and a home prepared for those who follow the Lord.  Don’t stray from that journey.