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Today is Saturday June 26, 2010 and we are reading through the Bible in a year. Today's message comes from the reading of the Book of Psalm, chapters 1-9. If you would like to read the chapters along with us here online you can Click Here to read them or copy & paste this link onto your browser: http://www.readytofollow.com/bible-june-26

Today's Message: Only By Faith
As Christians we are to, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” - Colossians 3:16. The Book of Psalms is the nineteenth book of the Old Testament/Bible and contains one hundred-fifty chapters. The author of the book is predominately King David, but a few others wrote some of the Psalms as well. The book was first written to the Israelites and the purpose of it was to show them that prayer, praise, intercession, and confession are all a part of true worship to God. It is the prayer and praise book of the Bible. The Book of Psalms has been used for devotion, song, prayer, and praise by believers down throughout the centuries and is known as the hymn book of Israel. The word "Psalms" means "songs to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument.” “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” - Psalms 1:1-3.

Something amazing occurred to me this morning as I was reading the chapters for today, while I am aware that many contain prophecies regarding Jesus coming, I did not realize that they already knew of Him and had faith in Him. Even though David was on the earth well before Jesus was, and incidentally he was the lineage in which Jesus would be born from, he still knew Jesus existed. Of course, there was no sign as to when He was coming, but it was only by faith he knew that Jesus existed. “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.... Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.” - Psalms 2:6,7,12. We do not have to be Bible scholars or born with a special gift to know that Jesus existed even before the world began, we just have to put our trust in Him. Think about it, the people of the Old Testament did not have as much of the Bible as we have, they had to strictly live by faith. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made...And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” - John 1:1-3,14. It is only by trusting in Jesus that we can even get to God. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” - John 14:6.

I was reading an article about a teacher in a middle school who was teaching her students in an English class that religion is a disease. One quote given to the students was, "Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they will think," by Schopenhauer. Now, I will be the first to admit that religion is deceptive, because many people are trained or taught to think a certain way. When a person is around something long enough, even if it is not the truth, one can start to believe it as truth. What people do not understand is that God is not a religion. Religion is man made and made up of rules to satisfy man, people buy into man made religion because they are lost and looking for some kind of hope or attention from someone who understands them. Religion goes beyond believing in God, atheism, spiritualism, evolutionism, and agnosticism are all religions too. Many get caught up in these false religions and it is very hard to get out of it, but they are in fact, all religions and man made. “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ” - James 1:26,27. The word bridle means to hold back or refrain from speaking in his own tongue, in other words, if a man or woman is not speaking the truth out of God's Word then this is a vain or false religion. True or pure religion is living for God by faith and in all of His Word, there is only One Book that can teach God's Word and that is the Bible. The truth is we are all born with the knowledge of God, by faith we know that He exists as babies, you do not need a Bible to know that God exists. However, the more a person gets taught to believe God does not exist the more they believe it. So, while one may be trained to believe in God another may be trained to believe in no god, or several gods, or holy men. You see, we are all trained on some form of religion.

People who do not want to follow God's rules are the ones who discredit Him. The crazy thing is everyone has rules to follow, whether it is by someone of authority, a boss, or a customer, no one escapes subjection to some kind of rules. And you know what? I'd rather live by God's rules than by some man who is immoral. There is a big difference between someone who follows Christ and one that does not. We are not trained to follow Christ, we choose to follow Christ. Then, once we accept Him as our Savior we want to be trained through God's Word. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” - Romans 1:16,17. It is only by our faith in Christ that we even have our Salvation. There is going to come a time when, whether or not we want to admit God exists or not, we will all meet Jesus face to face for judgment. Once again, David even knew this, “But the LORD shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment. And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness. The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.” - Psalms 9:7-10. Everyone who puts their trust in Jesus is saved, He will not forsake them. Praise God!

Enjoy the rest of your day/night and weekend.
God Bless You, I am praying for you,
Christina

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