SHINE Magazine 8th Edition Release

Good afternoon everyone! The 8th Edition of SHINE Magazine was released last night at a beautiful, powerful release party. Your's truly has a piece inside. The magazine is a publication of the women's ministry of Word of Life Christian Center. If you would like to get a copy of the magazine, you can find it at the SHINE Blog and click on the magazine.

Below is the piece as it appears in SHINE :) God Bless and enjoy. 

Feasting On God's Word

The Word of God is a precious gift to believers. It is a love letter from the Father to His children; it is His story of redemption for a people enslaved to sin; it is our hope in dark times and our compass to keep us on His path. 

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD And whose trust is the LORD. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8 NASB).

Reading the Word is vital to thriving—it is our life line. Jesus relied on the Word of God in the desert when tempted and proves our ultimate pattern for living an overcoming life. When we hold the Word in our hands we hold a treasure. Eugene Peterson, the translator of The Message Bible,expresses the beauty that lays in the written Word of God:

“These scriptural words reveal the Word that created heaven and earth; they reveal the Word that became human flesh in Jesus for our salvation. God’s Word is written, handed down, and translated for us so that we can enter the plot. We hold these Bibles in our hands and read them so that we can listen and respond to these creating and saving words and get in, firsthand, on the creating and saving” (Eat This Book, p. 21). 

I want to enter the plot; I want to respond to God’s Word and live the abundant life He came to give (see John 10). I love the New Living Translation rendering of Jesus’ promise in John 10:10, “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” 

Psalm 119 is poetic praise of God and His Word. One need only to read through this psalm one time to feel the psalmist’s desire to know God and to know Him through His Word. He knew if he had God’s Word hidden in his heart, he would thrive; he would live. It did not matter what came his way, he would keep God’s Word with all his heart (see Psalms 119: 34).  

We live in a time where many things are vying for our attention. The culture demands that each can do what is right in his/her own eyes, which is contrary to God’s Word. Thus, the Bible is viewed as intolerant and irrelevant, making it not easy to thrive in such a culture. But eating God’s Word—devouring it—makes it possible to bloom where you are. The Old Testament prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and John the Revelator also lived in trying times, pressured to live by a different standard than the Lord of Glory’s. All three were instructed to eat the scroll containing God’s Word. 

“You who know, O Lord, Remember me, take notice of me, and take vengeance for me on my persecutors. Do not, in view of Your patience, take me away; know that for Your sake I endure reproach. Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:15-16 NASB).

Jeremiah relied on God’s precious, Holy Writ to endure hard times and to thrive in the midst of tough situations and in an ungodly culture. Eating God’s Word brought him joy. He ate God’s Word and relayed it to the people so that they could thrive too, in the midst of Babylonian exile. If the people would heed God’s Word, He promised to prosper them. 

John the Revelator ate the scroll of God’s Words too. The words tasted like honey in his mouth only his stomach grew bitter (see Revelation 10). When we have God’s Word in us it is not just for us. We need to encourage and exhort each other with God’s Word, so that others may live an abundant life as well. 

The only way we are going to survive the hard times, the trials and pitfalls of life, is to eat God’s Word and have it inside of us. Jesus directed John to eat the book so that His Word would be heard, and give hearers vibrant, abundant life. Jesus desires for His Word to resound through the earth.

“I want those Words out there, creating sound waves, entering ears, entering lives. I want those words preached, sung, taught, prayed—lived…Eat this book: Get this book into your gut; get the words of this book moving through your blood-stream; chew on these words and swallow them so they can be turned into muscle and gristle and bone. And he did it; he ate the book” (Peterson, p. 38). 

Do you want abundant life? Eat this book. Do you want joy and peace? Eat this book. Live, breath, eat, sleep, God’s Word. It is your oxygen. Eat this book and it will cause flesh to grow on your dry bones. You will bloom and thrive through any situation. You will be filled to overflowing. You will have life and have it more abundantly. Yes, eat this book!

In His Grace,

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Taste And See That The Lord Is Good

God is good. His goodness is all around us and woven through every part of our life. The first time we see the goodness of God is in His good creation;

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.Genesis 1: 3-4 NASB

 

God is summum bonum, the highest good.

“All that emanates from God—His decrees, His creation, His laws, His providences—cannot be otherwise than good: as it is written, ‘And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold it was very good.’ (Gen. 1:31). Thus, the ‘goodness’ of God is seen first in creation. The more closely the creature is studied, the more the beneficence of its Creator becomes apparent” (Arthur Pink, 1975, 58.)

We must begin with this understanding, that God is good, in this dark world, with its evil, poverty, disease, rumors of war…He is the Light of the World, and He causes darkness to flee. 

It is hard for us to understand this from our perspective, because we seem to have darkness before us whichever way we turn. There are few constants in this life, one of them is evil. Jesus promised that we would suffer trials, and they will remain in the earth until Christ once again kisses the earth with His glorious coming. In the Old Testament, specifically in the prophetic books, the prophets bring warning of coming destruction and punishment for Israel, should they not turn from their idolatrous ways and run back into the arms of their loving Father. But always riding the coat-tails of impending doom, comes the promise of redemption—another constant. Always. The trouble may not go away, but God promises to be with us through it, and when we come out the other side. The goodness of God brings hope and healing in the midst of our circumstances, and keeps us from falling into despair, if we but dare to trust Him:

I would have fainted, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Psalm 27:13 NASB

 

“The goodness of God appeared most illustriously when he sent forth His Son ‘made of woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons’ (Gal. 4:4-5).” (Pink, 59).

The goodness of God desires your healing. The goodness of God desires to deliver you.

Prophecy: 

Good and upright is the Lord: therefore will he teach sinners in the way (Ps. 25:8)

For thou Lord, art good, and ready to forgive (Ps. 86:5)

The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works (Ps. 145:9)

For the Lord is good;His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations (Ps. 100:5)

Fulfillment:

I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.Jn. 10:11 NASB

Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me? Jn. 10:32 NASB

You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Acts 10:38 NASB

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? Rom. 2:4 KJV

For the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Eph. 5:9 NASB

To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power. 2 Thess. 1:11 NASB

If you are hurting, suffering a trial, or just feel hopeless or despair, look for the goodness of God in the land of living…even if the land you’re in feels desolate—God is there too, He is the God who sees you, just as He saw Hagar wandering, running away from an abusive situation:

Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees”; for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?”Gen. 16:13 NASB

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Ps. 34:8 NASB

The Lord is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble, And He knows those who take refuge in Him. Nah. 1:7 NASB

In His Grace,

Enjoy this beautiful prayer that I cannot stop listening to...

 

The Blood of Jesus Cries Out

 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

Isaiah 64:6 NASB

I am unclean. It doesn’t matter how many good works I perform; how many times I go to church in a given week; how big my offering is. I am unclean. The only way that God can look at me and not see unrighteousness, is through His Son Jesus Christ, and the Blood that He shed. For that to be possible, Jesus had to be a sacrifice that was without sin—without spot or blemish. 

But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption. 1 Cor. 1:30 NASB.

Righteousness comes from a root word that represents “rightness” or being right in all things. The Ancient of Days spoke of the righteousness of His Son, and Jesus fulfilled all that was spoken of Him. 

Prophecy:

As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.

Is. 53:11 NASB

Fulfillment:

But of the Son He says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
And the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness above Your companions.

 Hebrews 1:8-9 NASB

Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:25-26 NASB

If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him. 1 John 2:29 NASB

It is through faith in Jesus Christ that we are made righteous. It has nothing to with us or anything we have done. It is all about the person of Christ and the rightness of His life, that we can stand righteous before God. 

Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. I John 3:7 NASB

When we sin we need to repent and go and sin no more. Then we can apply the Blood of Christ and are righteous in His eyes. Do you know that just as Abel’s blood cried out to God for justice, Christ’s blood also cries out to the Father for you? 

And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12:24 NASB

Though the blood of Abel cried out for justice, Christ’s blood proclaims justice, that the wrath of God has been satisfied by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 

And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.Rev. 12:11

In His Grace,

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