God's Gifts to Us

Digging into Psalm 34 this morning.

I'm not sure how many of you braved the stores and sales for Black Friday yesterday looking for those perfect (and cheap) gifts for your loved ones but I assure you that I was on the couch.

I thought it fitting that God lead me to Psalm 34 to get a reminder of the many gifts we get from the greatest gift giver of all time. 

Let's check our list starting in verse 4....

HE answers us,

HE delivers us,

HE hears us,

HE saves us,

we lack nothing,

we are blessed,

HE teaches us,

HIS eyes are on us,

HE is attentive to our cries,

HE is close to us,

HE rescues us,

HE does not condemn us.

WOW! No Black Friday gifts could ever compare!

As we head into the season of 

"making our lists and checking them twice"

let's all remember the list of gifts we have already received from the Gift Giver.

Nothing compares!

Blatant Rebellion, what?!

I LOVE "She Reads Truth."

If you haven't read it, go check it out.

I just started their study called "Psalms of Gratitude" and today it had me reading Psalm 19.

I was clicking along until I got to the words 

BLATANT REBELLION. 

What?!

You see, the study had us filling in blanks for the end of the psalm......

Cleanse me from _____________.

Moreover, keep me from ____________________.

So my thoughts were, 

cleanse me from SELFISHNESS, ALWAYS WANTING MY WAY, WANTING CONTROL and

keep me from WORRY, STRESS, CRYING BECAUSE I DON'T GET MY WAY.

I thought those were good answers until I got to the next part of the study.....

DO NOT LET THEM RULE OVER ME.

THEN I WILL BE INNOCENT AND CLEANSED FROM BLATANT REBELLION.

ARG!!!!!!

I don't like that part. 

I love calling a spade a spade until it applies to me being wrong.

Then I want to sugar-coat it or make excuses about why I should be allowed to whine and worry.

Whine and worry makes me feel like I'm really working on fixing my problems.

But the spade (ok God) calls it sin, more specifically it's called

BLATANT REBELLION.

Ouch!

So what do I do about it?

I do verse 14!

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart 

be acceptable to You, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer."

The answer is.....

It's a heart problem, so when I get that worked out (confessed)

my heart can change the voice in my head (that keeps listing all of my worries) 

and the words that I allow to come out of my mouth.

I encourage you to read Psalm 19 today,

go fill in those blanks and see what HE is saying to you today.