Word of Truth Family Church
Many, Louisiana  a  Hemphill, Texas
Celebrating 29 years of ministry
1982-2011
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Blog Archives:
December, 2004
By Suzanne Leitz 

December 31, 2004  BLAMELESS

Reading from Psalm 101 this morning, I see a word repeated. Repeated words within a set of scriptures gets my attention. The word: blameless.

Verse 2:
“I will be careful to lead a blameless life—when will you come to me? I will walk in my house with blameless heart.”

Verse 6:
“My eyes will be on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me; he whose walk is blameless will minister to me.”

Of course, you really must read the whole chapter in context, for the other verses support the premises in these two verses.

The Hebrew word used here is tamiym (Strong’s number 8549). The King James Version translates it “perfect.” Oftentimes, when we see the words “blameless” or “perfect” we think this is something unattainable. Nobody’s perfect, right? But actually, the word has several meanings: complete, whole, wholesome, having integrity. Also, “what is complete and entirely in accord with truth and fact.”

This is doable. To walk in integrity and truth is not only possible, but something we should continually be mindful to do.

Notice verse 1 says “I will sing of your love and justice…” Many times we are singing of His love and goodness and mercy and grace. But here the psalmist (David) is singing of His love and justice. And in recognizing God’s justice, he is then “careful to lead a blameless life” (verse 2). And to lead this life not only in the outside world (church, the grocery store, where we work, etc.), but also in our own homes.

The Message Bible says it like this:

²I'm finding my way down the road of right living, but how long before you show up?
    I'm doing the very best I can, and I'm doing it at home, where it counts.

Sometimes home is the most difficult place to live our faith, because there’s no one there we feel the need to impress. However—even if you life alone—home is the place where the rubber hits the road. If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere. Someone said integrity is who you are when no one is looking. The very next verse says,

“I will set before my eyes no vile thing.” (verse 3).

Well, this immediately makes me think of TV. You don’t even need to have HBO or other premium movie channels anymore to see rotten junk (sex, gratuitous killings, foul language).

I will be mindful as David was mindful, of God’s love and justice. And being mindful of it, I will then live accordingly. No matter who is or isn’t watching. Outside my home and inside my home, I will strive to live a life of integrity so that I may dwell in HIS house. (verse 7).

December 29, 2004  DON'T GIVE UP

Here’s another scripture about wisdom that I came across while reading from Proverbs 24 this morning:

“Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.”

“Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul; if you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.” (Proverbs 24:13-14)

I was listening to a Kenneth Copeland “Believers’ Voice of Victory” webcast a couple of weeks ago.  Copeland’s daughters, Kellie and Terri, were sharing from the book of James. Kellie said if you’re going through a trial, it’s good to read this whole book, because it’s full of practical wisdom.

So I went back to the book of James. I recorded an entry on December 17 about perseverance after reading the first couple of verses.  The New International Version (NIV) uses the word “perseverance.” The King James Version (KJV) uses “patience,” and Young’s Literal Translation says “endurance.”

The actual Greek word used here is hupomone, which means “cheerful (or hopeful) endurance, constancy; enduring, patience, patient continuance.” It comes from the word hupomeno meaning “to have fortitude, persevere, abide, endure.” Synonyms include: backbone, constancy, continuance, cool, dedication, determination, diligence, doggedness, drive, endurance, grit, guts, immovability, indefatigability, persistence, pluck, spunk, stamina, steadfastness,stick-to-itiveness, and tenacity.

I suppose the bottom line is, don’t give up. When you’re going through trials, don’t give up on doing what you should be doing according to God’s Word. Proverbs 24:10 says, “If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength!” Use your old-fashioned stubbornness (are you stubborn?) to stick to your spiritual guns during trials!

December 28, 2004  GET WISDOM THEN ACT ON IT

Proverbs is known as the book of wisdom. It’s hard to read a chapter in Proverbs without reading something about wisdom. Sure enough, as I read Proverbs 23 this morning, verse 12 tells me, “Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge.” And in verse 19: “Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path.” And again in verse 23:“Buy the truth and do not sell it; get wisdom, discipline and understanding.”

I was just thinking about old Solomon yesterday. I Kings 10:23-24 says that “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.” Yet with all this wisdom, at the end of his days, “his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been,” and he “did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.”

When we think of David, we inevitably think of his great sins: adultery and murder. He used his power as king to have a beautiful woman that he had seen brought to him, committed adultery with her and impregnated her, then had her husband, his loyal soldier, killed. Wow. We wonder how someone could recover from all that. How? He was truly repentant and was known as a man who praised and worshipped God, who feared the Lord and obeyed Him. In fact, God called David “a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do” (Acts 13:22).

And the Bible says that Solomon, with all his wisdom, did not follow the Lord completely as David his father had done.

Wisdom, wisdom, I need wisdom! “In all your getting, get wisdom,” says Proverbs 4:7. Yet in all our getting of wisdom, we must remember to marry the getting of wisdom with the USING of wisdom.

What was Solomon’s downfall? Well, the Lord had specifically told the Israelites not to intermarry with other cultures for the simple reason that this would cause their hearts to turn away from God and to the gods of the other cultures. This was not a matter of wisdom, but of simple obedience. Solomon ignored the wisdom of God and disobeyed His commands, and ate the fruit of disobedience.

Notice this passage from I Kings 11:

“King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women…They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, ‘You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.’ NEVERTHELESS, Solomon held fast to them in love…and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods….The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command. So the Lord said to Solomon, ‘Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates….” (emphases mine)

Yes, get wisdom! We need wisdom. I need wisdom! And God will give it to me when I ask him for it in faith (James 1:5-8).  But, when I receive His wisdom, I must ACT on it. USE it. NOT ignore it. THEN I will be blessed. Obedience was the secret to David’s success and the reason for Solomon’s downfall.

December 23, 2004  BE CONTINUALLY THANKFUL

Thanksgiving (the holiday) has past, but thanksgiving (the act) is still in season. In fact, it is in season all year long. This morning I read from Psalm 100:4-5: 

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” 

The issue of thankfulness brings to mind another scripture that has been on my heart a lot lately: 

1 Thessalonians 5:18 -- "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." 

It is truly His will for us to be continually thankful. For one thing, it should keep us from murmuring and complaining (one of the sins which kept the Israelites in the desert for 40 years). Thankfulness is a nice attitude to have, continually.

December 20, 2004  BE HOLY

As I read Psalm 99 this morning, I notice a repetition of an attribute of God in verses 3, 5, and 9: 

3 Let them praise your great and awesome name -- he is holy. 
5 Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy. 
9 Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy. (emphases mine) 

The holiness of God is a familiar concept. I suppose you could ask a six-year-old to describe God and one of the words would probably be “holy.” But I’m sure we will not fully understand what that means until we see him face to face. Meanwhile, we can grow in understanding of this concept as we worship Him. We praise and worship Him because He is holy, but we also gain another glimpse into His holiness as we praise and worship Him. 

In Revelation, as John beholds the awesomeness and majesty of the throne of God, he sees four living creatures around the throne. “Day and night they never stop saying: ‘Holy, holy holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” (Rev. 4:8) Day and night they NEVER stop saying this. They are ALWAYS saying this. They CONTINUALLY proclaim the holiness of God. Someone said the reason they can keep doing this without getting bored is because each time they say it and behold the Lord, they get another glimpse into yet another facet of His holiness. So they proclaim with renewed awe, “Holy! Holy! Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is and is to come!” 

Isaiah saw the Lord. He described it like this in Isaiah 6:1-7: 

I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." 

Interestingly, when Isaiah beheld the holiness of God, he was instantly struck with his own UNholiness. But then a seraf touched his lips with a coal from the altar and proclaimed that his guilt and sin were taken away. 

If you really want to see how important holiness is to God, go to BibleGateway.com and do a keyword search of the word “holy.” Read all those instances where the Lord is instructing Moses about the temple and the priests who are to minister there. You will see the word “holy” over and over again. Then he tells these unsaved Israelites to “be holy, for I am holy.” How can they do it? There are lots of rules they must follow. But he also says the He is the one who makes them holy. 

Leviticus 20:7 " 'Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the LORD your God. 

Leviticus 20:8 Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the LORD , who makes you holy. [ Or who sanctifies you ; or who sets you apart as holy ] 

Leviticus 20:26 You are to be holy to me [ Or be my holy ones ] because I, the LORD , am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own. 

Leviticus 22:32 Do not profane my holy name. I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites. I am the LORD , who makes [ Or made ] you holy [ Or who sanctifies you ; or who sets you apart as holy ] 

I could go on and on. You’re on the Internet. Go see for yourself. The people were to be holy, and the priests were to be holy. That hasn’t changed for us, the New Testament church. When we receive the sacrifice of God’s son, Jesus, His precious and powerful blood washes away our sin and makes us holy. However, we must also live holy. There’s like a maintenance factor here. We can do things that cause us to “get dirty” again (though not in the sense of having lost our salvation). We simply must live in a manner that is consistent with holiness, since He made us holy. 

Lest someone say that all those Old Testament scriptures don’t apply to us New Testament Christians, consider these scriptures: 

Romans 12:1 [ Living Sacrifices ] Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual [ Or reasonable] act of worship. 

Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. 

Ephesians 5:3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. 

Colossians 1:22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation– 

Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 

1 Thessalonians 3:13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. 

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 

We have been made kings and priests. We are ministers unto the Lord in this day just as the Levites were in the Old Testament. Paul tells the church of God in Corinth (and us) that we are “called to be holy.” (1 Corinthians 1:2) Jesus died to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 

I Thessalonians 4:7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 

2 Timothy 1:9 [God,] who has saved us and called us to a holy life 

2 Timothy 2:20-22 ²⁰In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. ²¹If a man cleanses himself from the latter [ignoble purposes], he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. [How do we cleanse ourselves of the ignoble purposes so that we will be made holy and useful to the Master? Read the very next verse:] ²²Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 

What exactly is “ignoble,” by the way? My guess is that it is the opposite of “noble.” According to www.yourdictionary.com, that’s exactly what it is, along with some synonyms: “Having or proceeding from low moral standards: base, low, low-down, mean, sordid, squalid, vile.” Well, I could go on and on (though it seems I already have; time flies when you’re having fun). I started out talking about the holiness of God and ended up talking about my own holiness. But that’s as it should be. As I mentioned earlier, beholding His holiness should cause us to behold our own, and to make adjustments as necessary. This is an ongoing process.

December 17, 2004  PERSEVERANCE

James 1:2-3 – “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”

December 13, 2004  GOD LOVES JESUS AND ME THE SAME

In John 17:22-23, Jesus prays aloud to the Father, in front of His disciples:

"And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: ²³I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me." (emphasis mine)

Jesus prayed this out loud, in front of the disciples.  John then recorded it in his book. This is my emphasis today: God loves us as much as He loves Jesus.

This is not blasphemy, though it almost seems to be, since most of us have such a lowly opinion of ourselves. The Bible does say for us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think (Romans 12:3), which implies we should think SOMETHING of ourselves. Jesus said the greatest commandment was that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. How can we love our neighbors if we don't love ourselves? I have come to a conclusion, and this statement is either totally false or brilliant: People who don't love themselves have very little capacity to love others.

God loves us. Sure, we can quote John 3:16..."For God so loved that world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish, but would have eternal life." God loved the world--us--so much, that He gave Jesus to get us back, to snatch us out of darkness into the light (if we believe in Jesus as The Way God has provided to Himself). God loved the world. God loved us. God loved me. God loves me.

Sure, sing the song: Jesus loves me, this I know...We know it, but is it really REAL in us? The fact that God values us so highly?

The reason I harp on this is because it is a foundation for a real, vital relationship with God. God loves ME, and desires to fellowship with me. He's literally done everything that needs to be done for me to come to Him. Now it's up to me.

I'm not talking about salvation. Sure, I'm saved. I'm filled with the Holy Spirit. But, to use an example, being married doesn't make a relationship automatic. We must communicate with each other ON PURPOSE. We must set aside time to be together. We must prioritize our relationship with each other.

Same with God, except our relationship with Him should be number one. We must communicate with Him on purpose. He WANTS, He REALLY wants to communicate with me. I should realize this. I should realize His great, awesome, mind-blowing, over-the-top, passionate, boundless LOVE for ME. And not take it for granted. Value Him as He values me.

God loves me as much as He loves Jesus. Saying it out loud puts some weight to it. "God, you love me just as much as you love Jesus, and you really love Him a LOT. After all, He is your only begotten son. You gave Him so I could be your daughter and we could all be one. So I could be included in the group. Thank you, Father. Help me to more fully realize this."

December 9, 2004  SATISFIES OUR DESIRES

Psalm 145:16 (NKJV)
You open Your hand And satisfy the desire of every living thing.

December 8, 2004  PROCLAIM THE DECREE OF THE LORD

Sing, sing, sing, praise, proclaim, declare, ascribe, ascribe, ascribe, bring, worship, tremble, say. These are the commands we are given in Psalm 96. How important are the words of our mouth! How important is audibly proclaiming His works and majesty!

Be vocal, be loud, be verbal, be bold. Proclaim the decree of the Lord!

December 7, 2004  HE HEARS ME

Psalm 4:3. David said this: “Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; he will hear when I call to him. He will hear, he will hear, he will hear.

December 3, 2004  WISDOM IS THE PRINCIPLE THING

I can’t seem to get out of the first three chapters of Proverbs. Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. That is the principle thing. Heeding wisdom brings victory (2:7), protection of your way (2:8), understanding of every good path (2:9), prolonged life and prosperity (3:2), favor and a good name in the sight of God and man (3:4), health to your body and nourishment to your bones (3:8), long life and riches (3:16), pleasant ways and peaceful paths (3:17), safety (3:23), and sweet sleep. I want it!

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