Day Four
December 30, 2018
“The goal of knowing Christ is to be like Him” My pastor said this today, i watched via video on Facebook since this morning I went to my brothers church. It hit me hard, it’s a truth I know but its seems that ever since reading the book, “One word that will change your life” and finding my One Word for 2019 I am seeing and comprehending the scriptures like new to me. He also said something that clicked my One Word and reason for choosing this program. My pastor Phil Ross said, “I’m going to finish 2019 more like Him (Christ) than when I start(2019).”
That is my goal for sure I haven’t said it but that is my deep, deep desire, to be so much like Him that if he calls me home or the rapture happens any moment that there won’t be a change. I will share the video by Wayne Watson song called, “One Day” that says the same thing.
I am so excited to be applying scripture daily. It already has helped me when temptation hit me this afternoon. It helped when tragedy happened today when we got word that my sons dog got hit by a car and was put down due to severe injuries. Normally this would cause great sadness that I would ruminate to the point of total shut down. But the peace of God that is on me now is helping me cope. Plus the temptation that occured today would be followed by a stream of other sin that would cause a switch in alters and i would be out of control of myself.
Just like God though, he gave me a way out of the temptation. I am glad that the bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
God is so good to me, when I have been so bad or a follower. I am also glad that he chose the nail, the cross and the resurrection for a way of salvation for me and for you.
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Day Three
Day Three
December 29, 2018
As part of all journeys, there are some good days and some not so good days. I’m not saying this was a bad day, it’s just been a day. With my mental health it’s a uphill climb everyday, anyone who has mental issues can confirm this, right?
Today I started as I did the last two days, I read my devotionals both on YouVersion and through emails, but today my focus was just nil to nothing. I could blame this or blame that but it would not do any justice to the fact that mentally i am just not here today.
So what do i do at the end of a day that was not very productive? I am looking at the good I did do today. For one we succeeded in getting out of bed, that’s a plus! Two, I managed to do house work. Three, i helped watching our granddaughters while My daughter-in-law was working and my Son was changing the wheels on his vehicle. Four, I hosted a semi party watching College Football Bowl games.
That last one seems small, but really it is huge, I always enjoy getting together with my brother and sister-in-law, always. It’s just that due to the way I started the day, it was difficult to be happy when P.T.S.D. symptoms were at a near maximum.
Anyway, I will end this day like all the rest, praising God and thank Him for life and ask for strength and application of the scriptures.
December 29, 2018
As part of all journeys, there are some good days and some not so good days. I’m not saying this was a bad day, it’s just been a day. With my mental health it’s a uphill climb everyday, anyone who has mental issues can confirm this, right?
Today I started as I did the last two days, I read my devotionals both on YouVersion and through emails, but today my focus was just nil to nothing. I could blame this or blame that but it would not do any justice to the fact that mentally i am just not here today.
So what do i do at the end of a day that was not very productive? I am looking at the good I did do today. For one we succeeded in getting out of bed, that’s a plus! Two, I managed to do house work. Three, i helped watching our granddaughters while My daughter-in-law was working and my Son was changing the wheels on his vehicle. Four, I hosted a semi party watching College Football Bowl games.
That last one seems small, but really it is huge, I always enjoy getting together with my brother and sister-in-law, always. It’s just that due to the way I started the day, it was difficult to be happy when P.T.S.D. symptoms were at a near maximum.
Anyway, I will end this day like all the rest, praising God and thank Him for life and ask for strength and application of the scriptures.
Friday, December 28, 2018
One Word: Day 2
Day Two
December 28, 2019
I love Chuck Swindoll’s Daily Devotional, I have been reading it for several years. Not until recently have I read it with the deep yearning for more than learning from scripture, i have been wanting more, more of what I didn’t know.
Yesterday I bought and read the Book, “One word that will change your life” by Jon Gordon, Dan Britton and Jimmy Page. it was so good that I read it in around an hour, it’s a small book but packed cram full with action that i was unable to put down. In fact, I went back to it several times again yesterday and plan to do the same today.
When I was reading chapter Four the authors were loosely teaching on The Parable of the soils. I then re-read the scripture as I wrote yesterday. Today i started thinking about my One Word as I awoke. I went to my computer to change my screen saver back to the word Application from the time clock, I use as a clock next to my bed so i can see the time, as i awake several time at night due to insomnia and neck and back pain, sigh, i’m seeing a sports medicine person, a guy from church.
Anyway, I was at my computer so i started my daily devotionals, first the One Word Devotional on Youversion, then my email. I got to Chuck Swindoll’s and guess what he was teaching on? Yup! Mark 4’s version of The Parable of the Sower. In the book “One Word…” they said that it would be like when you get a new car and then you start seeing that same model everywhere? I was wondering if they were exaggerating or if it were true, its true. Chuck of all devotionals was the first one today that was teaching on the same thing that i started to think about while reading Chapter 4 of “One Word…” And you know what? I assume it was the work of The Holy Spirit you know?
I mean what are the odds of it? I start praying this year almost the same prayer that i prayed several years ago about my mental health, “To get to the root of my mental illness” And God did that for me and it looks like God has answered my prayer this year as well.
I want to get to the root of my spiritual problem and that is what Pastor Steve as I wrote Yesterday said, “Application of the scriptures to my daily life.”
This is going to be a very interesting year. I know that it won’t happen all the time but I am looking forward to that ride as God leads me through it.
At the end of most sermons is a time to reflect on what’s been taught called
- Application-
This is where the hearer hears and lets his/her heart soak in the knowledge, hopefully re-reading scripture and notes from the teaching. This coming year, starting yesterday for me December 27th i intend on doing so.
The action plan is a download you can get on the website: http://getoneword.com/ there is a tab on the top of the page that leads you to the download. I suggest to read the book you can get it on Kindle through Amazon, that’s what I did i didn’t want to wait for the hard copy.
December 28, 2019
I love Chuck Swindoll’s Daily Devotional, I have been reading it for several years. Not until recently have I read it with the deep yearning for more than learning from scripture, i have been wanting more, more of what I didn’t know.
Yesterday I bought and read the Book, “One word that will change your life” by Jon Gordon, Dan Britton and Jimmy Page. it was so good that I read it in around an hour, it’s a small book but packed cram full with action that i was unable to put down. In fact, I went back to it several times again yesterday and plan to do the same today.
When I was reading chapter Four the authors were loosely teaching on The Parable of the soils. I then re-read the scripture as I wrote yesterday. Today i started thinking about my One Word as I awoke. I went to my computer to change my screen saver back to the word Application from the time clock, I use as a clock next to my bed so i can see the time, as i awake several time at night due to insomnia and neck and back pain, sigh, i’m seeing a sports medicine person, a guy from church.
Anyway, I was at my computer so i started my daily devotionals, first the One Word Devotional on Youversion, then my email. I got to Chuck Swindoll’s and guess what he was teaching on? Yup! Mark 4’s version of The Parable of the Sower. In the book “One Word…” they said that it would be like when you get a new car and then you start seeing that same model everywhere? I was wondering if they were exaggerating or if it were true, its true. Chuck of all devotionals was the first one today that was teaching on the same thing that i started to think about while reading Chapter 4 of “One Word…” And you know what? I assume it was the work of The Holy Spirit you know?
I mean what are the odds of it? I start praying this year almost the same prayer that i prayed several years ago about my mental health, “To get to the root of my mental illness” And God did that for me and it looks like God has answered my prayer this year as well.
I want to get to the root of my spiritual problem and that is what Pastor Steve as I wrote Yesterday said, “Application of the scriptures to my daily life.”
This is going to be a very interesting year. I know that it won’t happen all the time but I am looking forward to that ride as God leads me through it.
At the end of most sermons is a time to reflect on what’s been taught called
- Application-
This is where the hearer hears and lets his/her heart soak in the knowledge, hopefully re-reading scripture and notes from the teaching. This coming year, starting yesterday for me December 27th i intend on doing so.
The action plan is a download you can get on the website: http://getoneword.com/ there is a tab on the top of the page that leads you to the download. I suggest to read the book you can get it on Kindle through Amazon, that’s what I did i didn’t want to wait for the hard copy.
Thursday, December 27, 2018
One Word
Luke 8: 4-15
The Parable of the Sower
4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
The Purpose of the Parables
9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ 11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
I have read this parable a number of times. Each time I thought i knew where I stood, which area the seed was being cast by the sower. I thought that I was among those in the good soil, then I really started looking at my life and realized that that was not the truth; in fact I thought myself all the way down to the worst area to be sowing seed, among the path. Then i tell myself I know the Word, the Son and the Father and The Holy Spirit, I know God. So I cannot be in the path those are the ones who have heard about Jesus’ saving grace and still do not believe. SO that ones out! So that leaves the others, which one am i.
Yes, I have read this parable many times and each time it leaves me checking on myself over and over again. This time i am going to go through this with One word in mind, my One Word for 2019 is “Application”.
This morning I started a devotional on my Bible app “YouVersion” I started with one but I needed more so I looked a the available devotionals that I haven’t read as of yet and found one entitled, “One Word that will change your life.” I read it. It left me wanting to know more about this its so simple really, instead of facing the next year with New Year Resolutions that will never work out and be forgotten by mid spring, start the new year with One Word. I bought the book, which is an easy read around 100 pages, the extended edition.
I did the action plan, found my word pretty fast really it’s been a word that I have been told by several people in my life. One pastor, Pastor Steve Rhodes, some of you may know him, he told me a few years back, that I had the knowledge of the Bible but needed to apply it to my life.
I did the worse thing to him, i ignored his advise, that I am truly sorry, because my life was a mess and continued to be a mess, and still is as I right this. Then another pastor said the same thing a few years later, Pastor Phil Ross, my current pastor.
So here i am in December of 2018, reading this book, and the authors write in chapter four (ebook page 29):
“Sometimes, our hearts are similar to hard-packed soil, and the seed never takes root. Other times, it takes root and grows but the worries, desires, and distractions of life choke it out.”
I immediately saw that they were speaking of the Parable of the soils. I went to my bible to Luke 8 and read the story one more time in my life. This time It leaped out at me. I’m not the sower. I didn’t get this the first million times. I know it should have been plain as the nose on my face.
The Seed is the Word of God, I got that one. I just got the rest of the cast of characters wrong. The sower are all those writers and preachers i listened to and all the teachers I sat under all my life.
So, who am i in this story? Because we are all in this story, every person in the world is in this story, did you know that?
The four types of areas, that is us, ALL of us on Earth. We are one of the Four:
- On the Path
- On the Rock
- Among the Thorns
- On Good Soil
That’s us!
Like I said above at one time I had figured I was on the path, but got confused by my distractions and forgot about this story, which leans to those on the rock. So many times I place myself in between the rock and thorns, and stayed there for many years.
Since reading this book, “One Word that will Change your life” its been given to me the answer to this parable and so much more. By starting this new year, yeah I started early, i am focused on what the problem has been for most of my life.
Sure, someone told me a few times, but it wasn’t real to me until I learned it myself. I need to stop seeking knowledge and use the that which God has already given me, from the last few decades of learning from God’s Holy Word.
Application of the Scriptures to my life daily is my focus for 2019.
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