My Journey 9/5 - 9/6/2010

God's insight for me:

As I read Phil Ware's devotional it brought back the lyrics to a song the Lord blessed me with several years ago. I felt at that point in my life Christ was looking into my heart and was pleased. Indeed His presence was growing stronger because my need for Him was increasing. I think my friends and family can contest to how He has changed my life. What is it that He sees when He looks into your heart?

As He Looks Into My Heart
BY Ed Shagott

As He looked into my heart
Jesus smiled at what He saw
All the dark had turned to light
all the bitterness now gone

As He looks into my heart
He now understands
I believe in His love
and the wonders of His hands

The selfishness that was there
now replaced with His love
All the anger and despair
now erased by Calvary's blood

As He looks into my heart
He now understands
I believe in His love
and the wonders of His hands

For nothing was there for me
like His love from the start
and this my Savior sees
As He looks into my heart

As He looks into my heart
He now understands
I believe in His love
and the wonders of His hands

As He looks into my heart

Now the next devotional by J. C. Philpot to me is awesome! The more I read his devotionals the more the Lord is speaking to me through them, and of course wants me to share with all that would take time and read. After reading this devotional, the Lord blessed me with this poem.

My Life Is Being Tried

My life is always being tried,
by my Savior, who is my God!
As each day passes I find some trials,
wherever my feet may begin to trod.

These trials may come as health problems,
or sometimes breakage of my heart.
But I know as a Child of His,
where I go we are never apart.

What these trials are doing,
is testing my resolve in Him.
They’re bringing my soul closer to Godliness
without them where do I begin?

These trials are meant to exercise my faith,
in my Lord that my eyes cannot see.
My life is always being tried,
all because of His love for me.

E. P. Shagott
9/6/2010

From God's heart, to mine, to yours,
Ed Shagott

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9/5

Hear my Heart
by Phil Ware

“When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.” Psalm 94:18-19

While we are amazed at the vastness of God’s reach and the awesome breadth of his power and the glorious sweep of his majesty, the incredible truth is his personal nearness to us. He chooses to know us and be actively involved in the trials and triumphs of each day with us. How will today, or tomorrow, be different because you are aware of his presence and companionship?

Prayer: God who is near, please hear my heart. I am overwhelmed at your presence near me and within me. The comfort you bring when I am under siege, the strength you offer when I am weak, the courage you give when I am under attack, and the hope you instill when all seems hopeless — these gifts of your presence are precious to me. Without your presence I would not know where to go or why I am here. Thank you for knowing me. I look forward to knowing you one day as you know me today. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

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9/6

A devotional from Daily Portions
by J. C. Philpot

"Exercise thyself unto godliness." 1 Timothy 4:7

"The Lord trieth the righteous" (Ps. 11:5). In fact, a righteous life is for the most part a tried life. There is not a child of God, whose graces are lively and active, that is not tried in his soul. I have no more belief that the soul can live without exercise than that the body can. The more the soul is exercised, the healthier it will be. Trial is one main source of exercise. If you are tried as to your standing; tried as to your state; tried as to the reality of the work of grace upon your soul; tried as to your experience; tried as to your manifestations, deliverances, and evidences; tried by your sins; tried by Satan; tried by professors; tried by profane; and above all tried by your own heart, and that continually--it will keep your soul in exercise. And this is "exercise unto godliness." If these exercises are unto godliness, they lead to godliness, they take you on your way to godliness, they bring you near to godliness, they bring you into godliness; and, above all things, they bring godliness into your soul. And thus, there is an exercise of the soul unto godliness. Does not your heart at times seem without a grain of it? You see what godliness is in its nature, in its branches, in its fruits, in its graces, in what a Christian should be, practically, experimentally, and really--outwardly and inwardly--in the church, and in the world. You say, "I a Christian! I a godly man or woman! Let me compare myself with godliness. Am I godly? Is there grace in my heart? Do I live? do I speak? do I think? do I act? do I walk? do I suffer as becomes a Christian? Is my life, my profession, my conduct--in the family, in the world--in the business, in the church--at home, abroad--openly, secretly--privately, publicly--is it such that I can take it and lay it down, step by step, with vital, real, experimental, scriptural godliness? "O," say you, "I shrink back from the test. There are many things in me, inwardly and outwardly, which will not bear to be weighed up with godliness as revealed in the Scriptures of truth." Well, your mind is exercised, I suppose, when you have these workings. Now, what is the result? It is an "exercise unto godliness." You want it; you strive for it; you cry for it; you press after it; you know that none but the Lord can work it in your soul; you feel needy, naked, and destitute; you know that without it you can neither happily live nor die; yet have it you must, or perish body and soul for ever.