Verse of the Day 4/26

1 Kings 8:57-58  (ESV) The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us, ⁵⁸ that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers.

 

This was Solomon's blessing upon the people after the dedication of the temple.  In the preceding chapter, Solomon's prayer to God, he repeatedly asked that God would hear their prayers, forgive their sins and teach them to walk in His ways.

 

There are plenty of people today willing to reference Abraham Lincoln in speeches but I haven't heard many of his words being repeated.  Like Solomon, if you read his words you would see that he didn't call for big government but for a "big" God to provide for and guide his people in the way they should go, following the faith of their fathers and forefathers.

 

Oh that the next time we hear reference to Abraham Lincoln, we would hear some of his words like the following from his Thanksgiving proclamation:

 

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens."

 

It wouldn't be viewed as politically correct in today's environment, but it is what we need to hear.  

 

In Christ,
Mike

 

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Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace  NIV

1 Kings 8:54-61 English Standard Version (ESV)

Solomon's Benediction

⁵⁴  Now as Solomon finished offering all this prayer and plea to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven. ⁵⁵ And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, ⁵⁶ "Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant. ⁵⁷ The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us, ⁵⁸ that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers.⁵⁹ Let these words of mine, with which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires, ⁶⁰ that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. ⁶¹  Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day."