Psalm 116 ~ I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because He inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on Him as long as I live.

Psalm 116

1 I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my pleas for mercy.
2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”

5 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
6 The Lord preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
7 Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

8 For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;
9 I will walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.

10 I believed, even whena I spoke:
“I am greatly afflicted”;
11 I said in my alarm,
“All mankind are liars.”

12 What shall I render to the Lord
for all his benefits to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord,
14 I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

15 Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his saints.
16 O Lord, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your maidservant.
You have loosed my bonds.
17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the Lord.
18 I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,
19 in the courts of the house of the Lord,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!

We live on the Gulf Coast. The weather reports are always inaccurate, because the wind of the vast ocean is unpredictable. So unpredictable the weather might say 100% chance of rain and we might not see rain for 3 weeks. The cities further inland do not have this struggle with weather forecasts.

We cannot say do not take your umbrella. However, we can say with gratitude, Lord God Almighty, Father, if You never do another thing for me, I thank You for Your Salvation provided to me in Jesus Christ the LORD.

Life does give us storms. Anger. Pondering in long nights of sleeplessness. Times when it seems the silence of God is unrelenting.

Yet we have a complete guarantee. God our Father hears us, and in this life, we will see prayers answered. Daily.

In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Psalm 116
I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.

Psalm 65:4
Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple

Micah 7:7
But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.

Psalm 4:3
Know that the LORD has set apart his faithful servant for himself; the LORD hears when I call to him.


Thank You, Father God, for all of the prayers You have heard of mine. For the Yes, the no, the wait, and the no way. 

Father God, Thank You so much for the disappearance of the tornado Sunday night just vanished during prayer in the Houston suburbs. So many people are saying they are having flooding. Alex is moping out his very elderly parent's house where he diligently cars for his brother in a wheelchair. Roofs have leaks. People are concerned for their businesses. The Tomball Schools are closed. Please help the people who pray to be more diligent in asking God for the impossible with confidence and answer the call to pray with Verve and Belief.

Thank you that the lump in my arm is leaving and my BP will lower. I will diligently do the work of getting rid of problem areas of  weight, caffeine and junky sugar foods.  We pray for Edward to walk into Heaven boldly on the day You have set for us all in Your Book of Life. For His brain to be fed by his soul through You. For his muscle pull to be healed. For good communication.

Thank You for Your Help and Mercy, in Jesus.    Your way for us all. In Jesus. Amen.

♔ Lord Jesus Saves!  †

Ezra 7:27-28, Ezra 8:21-36 ~ Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers

Ezra 7:27-28



27 Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, 28 and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.

Ezra 8:21-36


21 Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. 22 For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” 23 So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.

24 Then I set apart twelve of the leading priests: Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their kinsmen with them. 25 And I weighed out to them the silver and the gold and the vessels, the offering for the house of our God that the king and his counselors and his lords and all Israel there present had offered. 26 I weighed out into their hand 650 talents [75 pounds or 34 kilograms] of silver, and silver vessels worth 200 talents, and 100 talents of gold, 27 20 bowls of gold worth 1,000 darics, [coin weighing about 1/4 ounce or 8.5 grams] and two vessels of fine bright bronze as precious as gold. 28 And I said to them, “You are holy to the Lord, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord, the God of your fathers. 29 Guard them and keep them until you weigh them before the chief priests and the Levites and the heads of fathers' houses in Israel at Jerusalem, within the chambers of the house of the Lord.” 30 So the priests and the Levites took over the weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels, to bring them to Jerusalem, to the house of our God.

31 Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way. 32 We came to Jerusalem, and there we remained three days. 33 On the fourth day, within the house of our God, the silver and the gold and the vessels were weighed into the hands of Meremoth the priest, son of Uriah, and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas, and with them were the Levites, Jozabad the son of Jeshua and Noadiah the son of Binnui. 34 The whole was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded.

35 At that time those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and as a sin offering twelve male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord. 36 They also delivered the king's commissions to the king's satraps [Persian official] and to the governors of the province Beyond the River, and they aided the people and the house of God.


You have to applaud the truth in the Scriptures. Not a golden fable where everything is always clear to people trying to live God's will. God's favored people have been freed from slavery, an amazing, rare thing. Not easy grace; God's children have experienced slavery first hand. Like Egypt, the children of Israel are leaving not just with the clothes on their backs, but laden with all types of riches. An amazing king, giving treasure and working God's plan. For the King, which came first? God's blessings to him, or his willingness to bless God?

This band of newly freed men don't rush to ask for Darius' willing protection, but immediately wonder, worry, if God will protect them. They worry for themselves, they worry for God's honor in their words, they worry about their witness. This anxiety is far from displeasing God.

In this glorious time, is it any wonder the Temple of the Living God would be built?

God says:

“The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.”


Isaiah 49:23b
you will know that I am the Lord;
those who wait for me shall not be put to shame

John 5:24
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

John 2:19
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."


John 14:13-18
Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

2 Corinthians 4:6-7

Because the God who said, Out of darkness light shall shine, is the One who shined in our hearts to illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us.



Father God,
In Joy and Expectation of Your Blessings:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.

In faith we say, Thank You Jesus. Amen.

♔ Lord Jesus Saves!  †

Psalm 101 ~ ponder the way that is blameless

Psalm 101

Of David. A psalm.

1 I will sing of steadfast love and justice;
to you, O Lord, I will make music.

2 I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;
3 I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.

I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.

4 A perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.

5 Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly
I will destroy.
Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart
I will not endure.

6 I will look with favor on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me;
he who walks in the way that is blameless
shall minister to me.

7 No one who practices deceit
shall dwell in my house;
no one who utters lies
shall continue before my eyes.

8 Morning by morning I will destroy
all the wicked in the land,
cutting off all the evildoers
from the city of the Lord.

This beautiful Psalm is a person who loves the Lord wants to serve Him. In the morning, He is their first thought. This is a happy person who enjoys making a beautiful song - making a beautiful noise before the Lord. Someone who seeks others who love the Lord. No double standards and no spiteful speech. The blessings of life do not cause this person to love life more than the Lord - the glories of life do not cause arrogance or haughtiness.

Anointed of God - these are the attitudes.

Come Lord Jesus.




This is a Psalm of David. Who lived in the real world, with real life, fighting enemies without and within. Flawed and still trusting God to be his righteousness.

St. Thomas Aquinas said of the seven levels of Heaven, the first is highest to the Lord God and probably holds the infants and the martyrs. I'm not sure all the people who have placed Father God first, like the Disciple John, have died for the faith. And Revelation writes of Father God listening the cries of the martyrs awake during the fifteen hundred year sleep to ask for justice and vengeance. Father God comforts them and gives comforting and beautiful white robes to slumber on until the fifteen hundred years have occurred.

A far different thing than Stephen, the radiance of God's Love and Eternity sees Heaven open for Stephen welcoming him.

Not only this - Ephesians 3 says:

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.


Abundantly. Where His Storehouses are never depleted and All Blessings Flow with His Good Word.

Ephesians 3 tells us Families live. A family is together to be a family. These are people living together, so Father God is doing something where "His Ways are not our ways" with those 7 levels of Heaven. And infants in the first level would be depleted of many kith and kin. Not all people had beautiful childhoods, I was fortunate, and they wouldn't want to repeat the years of such struggles.

The Prophet Zechariah had something to say about this, the mothers whose hope is reconnecting lost children in a comprehensible, emotional bond. Not the years missed skipped over.

4"Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Old men and old women will
again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of age.

5'And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets.' 6"Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'If it is too difficult in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be too difficult in My sight?' declares the LORD of hosts.


Ponder the way that is blameless... The Way, the Truth and the Life of Jesus Christ.

Our prayer today is one of a mercenary,
a poor father at times,
The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people ~ 1 Samuel 13,14


Let's Pray with David for the people we love and pray for: 2 Samuel 7:18-29



Father we sit with You, praying for the people we love, Jesus pray with us, please,

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?

19 And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God!

20 And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God! 21 Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it.

22 Therefore you are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. 23 And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods?

24 And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O Lord, became their God.

25 And now, O Lord God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, and do as you have spoken. 26 And your name will be magnified forever, saying, ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel,’ and the house of your servant David will be established before you. 27 For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house.’ Therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.

28 And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. 29 Now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever.”


We ask for Your Gracious favor, Father God, to be covered in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

♔ Lord Jesus Saves †

Cast Your Nets Ministry

Psalm 100 ~ Know that the Lord, he is God!

 Psalm 100

1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!


Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.


Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!


For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

Luke 12

6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?
And not one of them is forgotten before God.
7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.

8“And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God

Mark 10:16
Then Jesus held the children in his arms. He laid his hands on them and blessed them.

Isaiah 63:9
And the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.


Father God,

Because of Your Son, Jesus, we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

We give Thanks You know our prayers. Amen in Jesus for His Joy.

♔ Lord Jesus Saves †

Hebrews 3 ~ Share in a Heavenly Calling +

Artist Wolk Kahn

Hebrews 3

1 Therefore, holy brothers,a you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.

3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. 4(For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. 

And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,

8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.

10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known my ways.’
11 As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? 
Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 
17And with whom was he provoked for forty years? 
Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 
18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 
19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

We are all building. Something.

And. We all tend to get stuck in a rut.
Stuck in a rut.
Stuck in a rut.


Ok, then we will think outside the box. Our self talk is building what?
When we think of Heaven and the walls.

And don't we tend to see Heaven as if it is a Disney copy?

This Heaven is the Kingdom of God!
This Heaven was given in Goodness to Father God Almighty by His Only Son, Jesus the Christ.
A gift of Righteousness and Salvation. A Gift of Grace and of Justification in the Name of Jesus.

Where the Throne of God is Heralded by Shining Water leading to His Throne.



Revelation 21
19 The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; 20the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst.


A lot of these stones have vast variations in color.

You could see this:

Or This!:

Jackson Pollock might have been a visionary. This is the Eternal Dwelling of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
Why wouldn't the wall look like this???

Now with Heavens roads of real gold, the shining water leading to the Throne of God Father Almighty,

Why would this be so unusual?


Father God is the author of Life.

The Creator pleased with His Creation.

The Great Almighty, Ancient of Days, created Time.


The God of all the earth and Heaven, knowing all the Heavenly Host
is not stuck in
The Bronze Age.
Romanesque: Like the Paradise Gates in Florence

Renaissance.
Empire.
Gothic.
Colonial.









Heaven pictures are sometimes a little scary:

 Like Bad Mushrooms!






And why would Heaven use walls?


I think we are placing and resorting our lives with God's Help. Coming to an understanding of our life as part of the Body of Christ and caught up in tender, loving care to Father God and His Plan. Part of His Book of Life.

 The stones in the walls represent seeing our lives in His Plan.

Looking from a different more eternal perspective.

 Maybe areas we were red, ashamed, or just blue.

All this will be part of resorting our lives and placing this as part of the Plan of God.
God making order and beauty of something more complex than we could fully understand on earth.


At this point we truly learn and all of our being, our soul grasps this great truth:

Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.


Revelation 7

He who sits on the throne
will shelter them with his presence.

16‘Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat down on them,
nor any scorching heat.

17For the Lamb at the center of the throne
will be their shepherd;
‘he will lead them to springs of living water.
‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.




And really if we consider our lives in new directions - we find out, how God has helped us.

How the darkness would want to push us and Father God helped us. We find out how we grew up in times of trouble and stress. Where God placed growth points. And we see a picture forming of Father God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit never leaving us, never forsaking us.


Today is the day, reassess at least one time in your life and see God is truly watching over you.

Take courage, take comfort, take joy in His Guidance. And in doing so, be renewed Today.

WK

And if I am challenged to remember. I remember the day that I rode my bicycle (tricycle) in France upon a narrow place in our yard and I dreamed that God said, "Yes you can handle the highs and I will keep you safe." My mother and I had begun to debate that. And my mother said she had the same dream. This gives me courage to go on in life. And I remember the night I returned a video and found that I had prayed for a safe place and had gone home, when a young woman in the parking lot had disappeared. I've had 4 benign tumors removed since I was 17. One Disappeared.


And dramatically we visited Niagara Falls in about 1977 and the platform we had viewed Niagara fell that night and we remained. I remember being lonely in my second High School and when I went to college, we had the nicest people on our dorm floor. My difficulties in 5th grade math gave me a tutor and I made "A"s in college math. Sometimes I have seen 4 decades before I saw the good in what God had done, but I see He has a Plan and His Working, On Going, Certain Plan is for His Glory and this is where I will stand.

 Artist again Wolf Kahn

Father God,
In Jesus the Lord. His Plan for His Beloved is Good

Because of the Goodness of Jesus and His Grace, His Salvation, His Gift, we will strive each and every day to remember God's Love and for the people we love and pray for. 

Amen.

♔ Lord Jesus Saves †