Your heavenly Father has been waiting for you to come home to Him, waiting for you to confess your sin of resentment and rebellion, waiting to celebrate the joy and love and pleasure He wants you to have in relationship with Him. Don’t make excuses; don’t rationalize your bitterness. Go to God; ask Him to cleanse you of your sin. Ask Him to uproot your bitterness. Invite Him into your life to take control of everything, including past memories of abandonment or abuse or adultery, present circumstances of injury or injustice, and future dreams and disappointments.
Follow the example of the psalmist, who wrote, “I will confess my transgression to the Lord” (Ps. 32:5, NIV).
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
Wouldn’t you rather be blessed than bitter?
Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.
He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. § It has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. § I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. § We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. § How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand. § Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?” … For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
Ps. 119:18; Luke 24:45; Matt. 13:11; 11:25–26;
1 Cor. 2:12; Ps. 139:17–18; Rom. 11:33–34, 36
He called its name En Hakkore [Spring of the Caller].
If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give Me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. § “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” … This He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive.
“Try Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.” § If you … being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! § Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find.
Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” § You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
Judg. 15:19; John 4:10; 7:37, 39; Mal. 3:10;
Luke 11:13; 11:9; Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15
When you and I received the Holy Spirit into our lives, we became members of the larger body of Christ that includes other believers. Perhaps without realizing it, at the moment of conversion, we became part of the family of God; Jesus is the Head, and other believers are our brothers and sisters. Paul describes this new identity as being “baptized by one Spirit into one body.” But the new privilege of belonging to God’s family brings with it new responsibilities to care for and build up the other family members. For that purpose, the Holy Spirit gives us each gifts that enable us to be contributing family members. These gifts are not natural talents although they can enhance what we have developed ourselves. These gifts are supernatural and only come from the Spirit at His discretion. (1 Cor. 12:11)
What is your spiritual gift? Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what it is so you can use it to enrich the family!
A bruised reed He will not break.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart— these, O God, You will not despise. § He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. § Thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made.”
I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick. § Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. § Behold, your God … will come and save you.
Matt. 12:20; Ps. 51:17; 147:3; Isa. 57:15–16;
Ezek. 34:16; Heb. 12:12–13; Isa. 35:4
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from … he said … , “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”
The ear tests words as the palate tastes food. § I believed and therefore I spoke. § I know whom I have believed. § I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
The goodness of God. § He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
Let all those rejoice who put their trust in You; let them ever shout for joy.
Ps. 34:8; John 2:9–10; Job 34:3; 2 Cor. 4:13;
2 Tim. 1:12; Song 2:3; Rom. 2:4; 8:32; 1 Peter 2:2–3; Ps. 5:11
Someone has said that if God were small enough for us to understand, He would not be big enough to save us. Yet the Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to us. And the revelation is true . . .
At the birth of time and space and human history, against the inky blackness of the universe and the shadowy mysteriousness of eternity, the character of God shone forth with the radiant beauty of a full moon in a cloudless night sky. Even the casual reader of the creation account in Genesis can easily identify . . .
His unequaled power as He called into existence that which had no existence,
His unlimited sovereignty as He took counsel with Himself and decided to create man in His own image,
and His unsearchable goodness that was revealed when He created Adam, the first man.
In what way have you glimpsed the character of God today? Would you praise Him for it?
