This particular daily session focussed on the hymn, “Oh For A Thousand Tongues to Sing”, written by Charles Wesley as a tribute to his one year anniversary of coming to Salvation in Christ. David suggests to the reader that they should take stock of when they got saved. Do they have a date? Or a time frame? Then not merely to note that date or time frame, but to take a moment in prayer or in writing, to write a poem or in some way bring praise to God for having saved them.
It just so happens that I got saved the first week of July at Kids Camp at Nanoose Bay Pentecostal Camp when I was 7 years old. I don’t remember the exact date now, but do remember it was around the middle of the week roughly. I’m thinking perhaps a Wednesday when I got saved.
Indeed I am thankful for God getting my attention back then, and for the courage to ignore my cabinmates and going up to the front of the tabernacle anyway to accept Christ into my heart and cleanse me from my sin. My testimony is not one of having been saved from a list of terrible lifestyle choices at the moment of Salvation. No. . . my testimony is of the keeping power of God through various storms instead, and through the consequences of various life decisions that could have been made differently. God has been there through it all, and I am incredibly grateful!
Nicole asked if I’d review her devotional, “Devotions From Genesis” back in January 2013. I was looking for devotional avenues at the time and agreed, choosing to do it Monday to Friday every week. At 50 chapters in Genesis, I thought at first I’d be done by mid-March, but discovered that Nicole had other plans.
Nicole draws parallels from the characters in Genesis to God’s desire to interact with mankind throughout the Bible and how we might apply that to ourselves today. She divides Genesis into three parts: Discovering God’s character through the fall of man, learning obedience to God and the consequences of disobedience, and the final section, learning about the parallels between Joseph and Christ.
This is a fresh look at the Book of Beginnings. I very much enjoyed all the Scripture she used throughout the study. Not once did she take any Scripture reference out of context, which is a big thing for me. Her use of Scripture even in her closing prayer of each session is sure to help the reader who might not be familiar with the thoughts she expresses to God.
This study is not a workbook. There are no places to answer questions or to write things down. To that end, the devotional reader will want to keep their journal nearby to jot down thoughts, Scriptures, and answers to questions that the text might raise for them. Many find it a healthy practice to keep a prayer journal or a study journal nearby anyway, so going through this particular study will continue that habit.
This study is also not a historical expose’ of the times in which the events occurred. Nicole’s primary focus is on the spiritual applications of the events and people in Genesis moreso than matching up those events to verifiable records. That would require a much more indepth look at the book of Genesis and has been covered by other authors. As a devotional, there isn’t room for this kind of discussion.
So if the reader is interested in how the lessons found in Genesis apply to their lives today, this is the devotional to pick up. Read each chapter in Genesis before you carry on in the text. This gives a great background for the day’s session. If you are not pressed for time, taking time to open your Bible to each of the remaining Scripture references for that day will help to internalize that day’s thoughts as well. Then, if you are like me, you will be tempted to write out your own commentary on what God is teaching you as you travel with Nicole through the pages of Genesis. It was all I could do at times not to begin writing my own commentary of what God was teaching me. But to keep from potentially overshadowing Nicole’s efforts for the purposes of this review, I refrained except for a couple times.
Great read, great devotional, nothing out of context, even the prayers have Scripture in them. . . I give this devotional a five out of five.
Multi-passioned. . . what does that mean?
For this author, it means being driven by a wide variety of passions. I am passionate about my faith. I am a passionate vocal worshipper. Bring up the subject of the Internet and personal security and you’ll discover another passion there. Mention affordable living, affordable housing, the homeless, or the working poor and yet another passion rises to the surface.
The passions related to my faith and life as a worshipper have, over the years, led to impassioned pleas with anyone who will listen, to examine their hearts and ask if Jesus Christ is truly Lord of their lives. This particular passion was born on that fateful day in 2001 when the Twin Towers fell and over 3,000 lost their lives. It was a 911 call to the
Church, but sadly, twas only heeded for maybe up to 6 months after the incident.
The need to ensure who sits on the throne of one’s heart has never been greater than it is today! Christ often referred to Lordship when He told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give to the poor, when He told others to take up their cross and follow Him, when He stated that anyone who comes to Him and then looks back at the life they once had, is not worthy of Him. The reader can search these subjects at blueletterbible.com or Biblegateway.com or studylight.org.
Suffice to say that if a person prays the Sinner’s Prayer, but never makes Christ Lord of their lives, Christ says He never knew them! Pretty strong stuff as we approach the midnight hour when the Age of Grace comes to a close. The lateness of history is driving many to realize that time is short and they should be about the business of harvesting souls for the Kingdom. But while that’s important, it is only the first part of the Great Commission given in Matthew. The second part is making disciples – teaching new Christians how to rightly divide the Word of God, encourage them to put Christ in the control seat of their lives, teaching them how to live every day life in a manner holy and pleasing to the One Who died for them.
This second part is almost of higher importance for me than the first, due to the apparent lack of discipleship going on after that moment of Salvation. So much so, that I am seriously starting to question how many conversions really are heart-felt and Holy Spirit-led. It’s been my experience that anyone who has come to Christ under a powerful revelation of Who He is and what Christ has done for them, that generally, they are quicker to give the Holy Spirit reign and their interest in the former things of the world drops off quickly. They truly are a new creation and have no desire for the things they left behind. But it’s also been my experience, that anyone who claimed to accept Christ but continued in the ways of the world, have a hard time with the concept of giving God control in their lives and are far more easily disillusioned in their faith and more prone to falling away.
Lordship at the moment of salvation then, is an absolute MUST in the life of the believer! Lordship in the lives of those who have lived as “Christians” is an issue that must be settled if they have never been faced with it before. The me-first gospel that I am finding more and more of out there, is not the Gospel Christ preached! The gospel Christ preached is selfless, putting others first, sacrificial, and in the eyes of a so-called tolerant society, downright offensive in it’s exclusivity. There is only ONE way to Heaven and that is through Christ!
Having said all that, I do believe in actively supporting those who are preaching the true sacrificial Gospel, and my heart easily lends itself to prayer for a number of nations around the world where the Gospel is being thwarted, pushed down, suppressed, and where Christians are being imprisoned, tortured, and killed for their faith. I tell you that those Christians know what it is like to make Christ Lord, and they would rather die than renounce their faith! Sadly, I am unable to say that about much of the Christian church in North America. The cushy gospel preached here will collapse if the pressures our overseas siblings undergo ever come to our shores.
So where do you sit in this story? Are you a believer? Have you made Christ Lord of your life? Are you trying to live your own way while showing up in Church on Sundays? There are so many questions I could ask. So many facets of this passion that I could write about, and I just may. God is calling to His people! Are you hearing it?
My new boss is not a Christian. He handed me a book that he urged me to read this weekend and return to him eventually, as it really belongs to his wife, a birthday gift a few years ago. The book is entitled, “The Secret” and is copyrighted 2006.
I have only gotten a few pages into the first chapter, but already it is abundantly clear what this secret is and verses from Scripture began flying through my mind. Verses from Proverbs, the Gospels, Genesis, etc.
Interestingly enough, the author of this book, “The Secret”, claims you will find it in every known and ancient religion and civilization including both Judaism and Christianity. The author and those they interview, refer to The Secret as none other than the Law of Attraction. Even more interesting is where these voices claim this law has particular power, and that is in the mind, in the thoughts.
God’s Word has amazing things to say about the human heart and mind. The first is found in the book of Genesis where we learn that whatever man puts his mind to do, he will accomplish!
Genesis 11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
From then on however, every search in my King James Version Bible for the word “imaginations” links the term to the evils found in the heart of unregenerate man. Same with the thoughts of mankind.
We are told continually to place our thoughts on God and not on ourselves, yet this book, “The Secret” claims this universal Law of Attraction for entirely selfish purposes. It places the focus squarely on ourselves.
1 Chronicles 28:9 And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.
Psalms 94:11 The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.
1 Corinthians 3:20 And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Ephesians 6:10-12 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. 11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
However we know from Scripture, that the mind is the battle ground of the enemy! We are told in Proverbs to guard our hearts for out of it are the issues of life! We are told to take every thought captive to the things of God, not so that we can have everything our hearts desire, but so that we may escape the wiles of the enemy and avoid damning our souls to hell.
Hardly a few pages into this book, the author claims people have been healed, fortunes have been changed, loved ones brought back from the brink of death, risen out of wheel chairs, etc. All due to this Law of Attraction.
Now this is how this law works: According to this author, what you think will attract more thoughts just like it. If they are negative, negative thoughts will join them, if they are positive, positive thoughts will join them. The author encourages the reader then, to avoid the thoughts that drag them down and focus on the thoughts that will build them up.
On the surface this sounds like a very truthful observation, and similar thoughts are indeed found in the pages of the sacred writings of Judaism and Christianity. However, without Christ, these are incredibly vain and self-serving, and in Christ, they are misdirected and can cost a person their faith if mishandled.
God does not deny that the heart and mind is a powerful thing. Our emotions have much to do with how we see the world and respond to it, both in our thoughts and in the actions those thoughts produce. It is 100% true that everything anyone has ever said or done, has been based on a thought first and foremost! Every single thing! This is where satan wants to trip us up if he can. Take our minds off Christ and onto ourselves, get us thinking that we are our own savior and can call our own destiny.
This message comes out in these first few pages loud and clear! Through our thoughts, this author preaches, we can decide our destiny and we can bring it about our way in our time!
God’s Word says there is a way that seems right to a man, but the Lord decides the outcome! The mantra that man is the chief conductor of his soul, that man is king of his own heart, that man charts his own waters has indeed been trumpeted down through the centuries from the Garden of Eden through to this book now sitting on my desk!
The enemy of our souls knows how to package his lies so that we take the throne of our lives and not God!
I am quite frankly amazed at how the lie is spelled out in these first few pages of this book.
For the Christian, we must be aware of these kinds of teachings and ensure that we do not propogate them in our own hearts and lives or those of others. Scripture tells us to place our thoughts on things above, not on earth beneath, to seek first the Kingdom of God and not our own ambitions, to lean on God’s understandings and not our own, to place the paths of our lives in God’s hands and not seek to direct it ourselves, to place Christ on the throne and not sit there instead. Any thought that becomes self-serving is to be thrown under the Cross and every thought that serves God is to be exalted and acted on.
In this way we see what God means when He says that man’s ways are so much lower than His. Yes if we dwell on the negative too often, we will engage in what is known as self-fulfilling prophecy and make our lives worse instead of better merely by how we look at the world. I’m not disputing that. The positive thinker always does better in life than the negative thinker. The twist is where those positive thoughts are focussed and the type of thoughts focussed on most.
A person can think themselves ill and many times can think themselves better, no argument. There is a certain level of truth to the concept of mind over matter. However the most positive thinker still needs medication and doctor attention every now and then. We are not the master of our ship as the world would like to teach us. God is! We must learn to see ourselves as God sees us, learn to dwell on the precepts, promises and teachings of God’s Word and allow them to shape how we think and feel about the world around us. We must make the Kingdom of God our focus and dwell on the things above instead of on the things beneath if we ever hope to be of use to God among the lost we run into every day!
The law of attraction. . . The best Biblical example of this is the various times God says to draw near to Him and He will draw near to us!
James 4:7-8 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
We can attract the enemy by the thoughts we allow into our minds, or we can attract the God of the Universe by the thoughts we choose to put into our minds. If our thoughts are always about ourselves and our selfish ambition, guess who’s going to come along and encourage those thoughts? If our thoughts are toward God and the things of God, guess who’s going to come along to encourage those thoughts? Who do we want to attract? Yes thoughts beget like thoughts, but thoughts go further than the author of “The Secret” understands, and attract spiritual forces for good or evil, for eternity separated from or drawn near to Christ Himself.
We can attract the wrong people into our lives, as Proverbs says, encouraging us to be careful the company we keep as bad company corruptes good character. We can attract our own downfall by hanging out with the wrong crowd and hording riches for ourselves. Proverbs is a great book for how we as Christians should think and feel and as a result behave toward life around us!
The secret is not in the Law of Attraction, it is in where we choose to put our focus. That is the battle ground! God gave us a free will to choose the influences we allow into our lives for good or evil.
I’m not sure I want to continue reading this book now that I have had just a small taste of the lie it is perpetrating. I’m not sure I want to let it’s words influence how I think and who gets to sit on the throne of my heart and mind. Discernment should be the greater part of valor, I feel. I will not allow the enemy a potential foothold to influence the thoughts and imaginations of my heart.
Scripture is the only psychology textbook I need, and contains too many examples of the heart and mind found without God, contrasted to many examples of the heart and mind found IN God. The Holy Spirit knows the heart of man better than any human author ever will! God’s Word cuts right to the chase of every heart and mind that picks it up, acting as mirror, discerner, teacher, rebuker, encourager, exhorter, comforter, and more!
No, I know The Secret to living an abundant life here on earth, and that secret is to put God first in all I do, all I think, all I say, etc. Do I live it out all the time? No, unfortunately I am not always found living these out, but I know them and endeavor to live them out as best I am able, continually asking the Holy Spirit’s help in the process.
It is my prayer that this author and those quoted, will learn this greater secret and that God will get the glory in their lives.
This book places man at the center of the universe, but God says He is the center of the universe and we are to be drawn to Him! No. . . The last couple pages of the book are worse than the first few. . . Man is NOT King of the Universe! Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God is KING!!! I read the last few pages of HIS book too, and I know who wins! . . . and it isn’t man!
So I’ve begun reviewing Nicole Vaughn’s book “Devotions from Genesis”. It has proved to be a timely arrival on my desk as I was looking for something to focus on for personal devotions this winter. My official written review will come when I’ve completed her devotional, but in the meantime, just a few days into it, God has already shown that He’s choosing to join the conversation.
I felt as if I could have written a week-long study just on the first half of her Chapter One devotional alone! Then a client of mine starts getting all excited about things he’s learning in science and how science points to God. I told him about Loui Giglio and he’s already watched half of the first video.
It’s so awesome when confirmation comes through otherwise unaware sources. I look forward to the rest of her devotional in the days ahead.
So it helps when this geek of an author wakes up and realizes that the system she put in place for this year’s http://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/ Daily Sessions from “Becoming the Bride of Christ: A Personal Journey”, can allow me to have a separate blog as well for things like personal musings, book reviews, and joining other author’s book tours!
So here I am, in my own space, on my own server, using my own copy of wordpress code. . . Welcome to my thoughts as we go into the coming year.
[GARD]