#Psalm 25:15

[doulafaith]

Deliver Us from Evil

Context: 2 Thessalonians 3:1-18 Focus: 2 Thessalonians 3: 1-5 “Pray too, that we will be rescued from wicked and evil people, for not everyone is a believer, but the Lord is faithful.  He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one. “ The Lord promises that no weapon formed against the believer will prosper. Although we may fall into his traps, the Lord is there to remove us from the net…

[wiirocku]

Psalm 25:15 (NIV) - My eyes are ever on the LORD,    for only He will release my feet from the snare.

[aspirant1598]

[walkswithmyfather]

Psalm 25:4‭-‬15 (NASB1995). “Make me know Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day. Remember, O Lord, Your compassion and Your lovingkindnesses, For they have been from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; According to Your lovingkindness remember me, For Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.

Good and upright is the Lord; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way. All the paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth To those who keep His covenant and His testimonies. For Your name’s sake, O Lord, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.

Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. His soul will abide in prosperity, And his descendants will inherit the land. The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, And He will make them know His covenant. My eyes are continually toward the Lord, For He will pluck my feet out of the net.”

“God’s Pathway to Goodness” By In Touch Ministries:

“God rewards all who obey Him, but our blessings may be different.”

“The Lord showers His goodness on all, but our ability to perceive it is limited. To experience the fullness of His kindness, we must honor Him by choosing submission and obedience.

The Father has a plan for His children, but because no two people are alike, each path will look different. What may be best for one person may not be good for another. Comparison of God’s ways will lead only to discouragement and misjudgment. We have neither the wisdom nor the eternal perspective to understand why God leads some people down paths of pain and hardship, but we do know that He is always good.

Every step on God’s pathway represents a choice to follow Him. By looking around at others’ lives instead of fixing our eyes on Jesus, we may start thinking we’re missing out on something really good. Or if we leave the Lord’s course to follow a path that looks better, we forfeit His good blessings and discover, as Adam and Eve did, that any other way leads to loss.

Take time periodically to ask yourself, Am I on the path the Lord has chosen for me, or have I taken a detour to follow another direction that looks good? To build our own course and ignore the goodness and abundance of God’s pathway is foolishness. He alone knows the way we should take.”

[aressida]

Today's verses: "Discover and align with the Will Of God." - 25.6.24.

Psalm 25:4-5. Psalm 25:8-9. Ephesians 5:15-20. 1 Corinthians 12:11. Acts 1:8. Psalm 119:105. Start by praying: (learning to correct the way of the prayers) "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

God is with us always.

[touchofgoddotworld]

Be Led by His Cloud by Day, Fire by Night (255) - July 20 2024

Play on other Podcast Apps The Lord endeavors to lead His creation away from evil and captivity and into a better place in relationship with Him. Out of the Kingdom of Darkness and into the Kingdom of His Beloved Son, Jesus (Colossians 1:13). He led His chosen children of Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire day and night. His Spirit led His Only Begotten Son into the wilderness to be tried…

[bojackson54]

The Best News About the Past is That It's Really a Present

If there is anything to be learned from history, it’s that we should learn from the past. George Santayana famously said, “Men who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” So history can be educational, but there is another observation about the past that we should remember: we can’t live there… The Apostle Paul put it this way: “Brethren, I do not count myself yet to have…

[inbabylontheywept]

Would you mind sharing the psalm and why you felt that person was the most humanist Mormon? I'm not religious at all but I find these sort of things very interesting.

In exchange I could offer the reason for my url ?

I'm warning you, this is kind of a mega essay, and it's fucking unhinged. Click at your own risk.

(Alright. You clicked.)

Psalms 137

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept

when we remembered Zion.

There on the poplars

we hung our harps,

for there our captors asked us for songs,

our tormentors demanded songs of joy;

they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How can we sing the songs of the Lord

while in a foreign land?

If I forget you, Jerusalem,

may my right hand forget its skill.

May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth

if I do not remember you,

if I do not consider Jerusalem

my highest joy.

Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did

on the day Jerusalem fell.

“Tear it down,” they cried,

“tear it down to its foundations!”

Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,

happy is the one who repays you

according to what you have done to us.

Happy is the one who seizes your infants

and dashes them against the rocks.

———

Mormonism has layers. Different cores of believers, cultures within itself. The largest group of Mormons also dominate its image within the larger culture. You know them as the nerdy, cheerful, bubbly dorks on South Park, or the hopelessly naive childlike weirdos from the Book of Mormon musical. Strangely sanitized, "wholesome" people that are, clearly, unwhole. Missing some essential part of the human experience.

(Pain, maybe?)

I think that embracing this image is letting Mormonism view itself as what it wishes it was. A group with all its rough edges sanded off, all its raw and desperate humanity scrubbed away. A clean and godly and slightly unsettling image of joy.

That isn't how it started.

Now, most people know the story of Joseph Smith. Fourteen year old farm boy starts a cult because the whole world if full of idiots, I won't repeat it because you've probably already got it from South Park. But at some point that weirdo cult did become a religion, and I would point to that moment as the Mormon War of 1838.

I don't know how far after the founding that was. Enough that Joseph Smith was a grown man. Enough that the Mormons had around 15-25 thousand members. They'd moved to the Illinois-Missouri area and were establishing settlements.

(They creeped the locals out. Of course they creeped the locals out.)

Eventually, they got pushed out of the county they'd claimed. Jackson County, it was. The state couldn't actually take that county from the people that expelled them, so to try and make the Mormons "whole" for the land they'd bought (ignoring the houses and farms they'd already set up) it gave them a new county.

Next election that came around, that county was sieged. Voting was blocked. Now, the people of the state were terrified that this weirdo voting block was going to take them over. They probably weren't wrong. Some former Mormons had straggled in from the county revealing a frankly corrupt land dealthat the early church had used to transfer resources to itself, and that served as a tipping point. To prevent their state from becoming a religious basketcase, a mob sieged the Mormon county during the next election.

The state tried to return order by sending the militia in to break up the siege, but the militia mutinied. They joined the siegers. A ground of strange, extremist violent Mormons known as the Danites rode out and attacked local settlements that were known to house the families of the militia members.

The Governor at the time - Lilburn Boggs - sent out an executive decree. The Mormons were traitors, and were to be killed on sight. It is the only religion in the US to have ever had such an order made against it.

The Mormons surrendered their county and went to Nauvoo, Illinois. There were again expelled from that city in 1846, and traveled west.

They died in great numbers and they never forgot the homes they lost.

———

I tried to tell the story as sympathetically to the people of Missouri as I could. The Mormons made messes wherever they went, and they unsettled everyone they interacted with. But they were attacked as well, and had a history of violence against them. It should not be totally surprising that they became insular and strange.

Many (most?) Mormons that learn all of their history wind up leaving the religion. It has twists and turns and knots and it is incredibly, overwhelmingly human. I think that's where the facade of Mormon perfectionism comes from - the shame of that. The desire to be something else. But being human is all I've ever wanted. And occasionally, there are people faithful in the church - layers upon layers deep - that know their history.

And they are angry about it.

I think it's more common than people realize. Did you know that until 1930 Mormons swore literal religious oaths of vengeance against the US government for the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith?

I always felt like these were, in some way, the real Mormons. They knew their history, and they loved their church, and they hated what it had suffered all those years ago.

They scared me, those people. But they seemed complete. More complete than the people that had carved out everything that didn't make them smile. They'd walked into the mirror, and touched their shadow, and danced with. Melded with it.

And I knew a few like that. I was taught by one. And he didn't convince me, but he interested me. Gave me some respect for the people I left behind.

———

In the game Fallout: New Vegas, there is a character named Joshua Graham. He's a Mormon. Not like the silly children in adult bodies that they always use on TV. He has gravitas. He has put away his moral compass before, to pursue the dream of one powerful man. Poured his soul into it, helped that man conquer the whole west in piecemeal. He's a somewhat on the nose analogy of the Mormon people themselves, following Joseph Smith. And when he finally failed, when he fought a battle he could not win on the gates of the Old World Hoover Dam, he was lit on fire and thrown into the Grand Canyon to die.

But he did not die.

He says he survived because the fire in him burned brighter than the fire around him. And it seems that way when you speak with him in game. There is something compellingly bright to him. Not shiny like a new toy, or a Utah teenager that hasn't seem just how grim the world can be. He's something blinding, compelling.

But that brightness casts shadows.

He is vicious. He was saved in the canyon by the family he left, the old Mormons of a new world. And he's trying to find that part of him again, regain the soul he lost pursuing someone else's vision. But that old vicious animal part of the covenant is with him. I see Joshua Graham and I see the animal that the Mormons became to survive the West.

And in the game, there is eventually a choice given.

You can lead the tribe Joshua has joined up with out of their Zion. Their Jackson County Missouri. Peacefully and perfectly and inhumnanly transcendant, the way the Mormons wish they actually were about everything. You can give him the chance to be what Mormonism has always wished it could be. Or you can fight with them and help them reclaim their paradise, but get your hands stuck deep in the muck of this world.

Joshua Graham knows his history. He knows all the homes his people lost. And whatever brightness he's trying to regain, whatever soul he's trying to win back from the world that takes and takes and takes and takes - he wants to give it all up again to let these people keep their home.

He knows his past and he is angry.

And as the player, you help him make peace with one of two things: Being human by being fallen, or keeping his soul at the cost of reliving the ancestral trauma of losing Zion yet again.

Both were pretty visceral decisions for a Mormon teenage Babylon to make.

(Tagging @boonebignaturals in this because I need a witness to my madness.)

[aestariiwilderness]

Abortion is Murder & Unbiblical

The Bible does not use the word abortion. How could it? The term itself as a procedure wasn't invented yet! However, the Bible does cover: 

Humanity's inherent value and rights as (uniquely among creation) made in the image of God

Murder

Child/infant murder as something abhorrent to God

Life's beginnings, indirectly (although that also has biological support) 

Legal ramifications of killing a child in the womb 

How God sees and interacts with children in the womb 

How we as His followers are meant to treat children 

What He expects us to do for the defenseless and vulnerable (i.e., the most defenseless and vulnerable human imaginable is the one in the womb) 

And how the question of following Him and His Word is what makes or breaks the difference between a Christian and someone who claims the name but is tragically unsaved  Below are some verses and some additional explication (partial credit: @glowsticks-and-jesus)  

Proverbs 31:8 

Luke 1:44 

2nd Kings 17:17 

Jeremiah 19:5 

Genesis 9:6 

Exodus 21:22-25 

Matthew 7:20 - 23 

John 15:14 

1st John 1:5-10, 2:3-6 

Exodus 20:13 

Mark 10:13-15 Leviticus 20:3-5 (https://biblehub.com/hebrew/mizzaro_2233.htm) 

Matthew 18:10, 14

Psalm 22:10

Jacob & Esau, John the Baptist, Samson, etc. 

Judges 16:17  Glowsticks-and-Jesus Collection:

"Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.'"Jeremiah 1:4-5

"The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name."Isaiah 49:1

John the Baptist leaped in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary greeted her cousin (Luke 1:39-45), an example that babies in utero are responsive human beings already aware of the outside world.

The righteous Hebrew midwives at the time of Moses pleased God by saving babies deemed unworthy of life by the authorities of their day (Ex. 1:15-21).

 As an additional note -- these references are included above, but worth a second mention -- it's plain that child sacrifice - child murder - is something that God abhors and explicitly does not command. I'd look here (https://biblehub.com/jeremiah/19-5.htm) and here (https://biblehub.com/2_kings/17-17.htm) and check out the cross-references as well. Likewise, there is direct support for laws against murder and the protection of the unborn (up to capital punishment) in the Bible (Genesis 9:6; Exodus 21:22-25  -- an additional reference here included about the common misunderstanding of the latter verses: https://www.str.org/w/what-exodus-21-22-says-about-abortion).

In summary -- it's possible (although, I believe, it does deprive its proponents of a foundational basis for the value of life) to be both secular and anti-abortion. But it is not possible for a Christian who truly understands their faith, their God, and His Word to be pro-abortion.

[banana-with-a-bow-tie]

is being gay/trans REALLY a sin? Is being attracted to the same sex/wanting to dress as the gender you feel you should be really all that bad to christians? Why do christians care what people do with their own lives to the point that they tell them it’s “sin”

I'm seeing three questions here. 1. What is sin? 2. How do we know something is a sin? 3. Why do Christians care if people sin?

What is a sin?

In order to understand what sin is you need to understand who God is. God is good. He does not just possess good or desirable qualities. He is good. The word "good" comes directly from the word God because God is the very standard of what it means for something to be good. We can say things like flowers and sunsets and sharing are good because they are based on God who is the source of everything good (James 1:17).

God is also our Creator. He designed us according to His perfect goodness so that we could be like Him and walk in His good ways (Psalm 25:8; Hebrews 12:10). God would be unloving to create the world and not follow His goodness.

Sin, then, is our rebellion against God and His goodness. When Adam and Eve first sinned, they were tempted with the idea that they could be like God and decide what is good and evil for themselves. They wanted to be able to say, "God is not king, I am king. God's ways are not good, my desires are good."

This is a lie from the father of lies. Satan wants us to believe that if I just do whatever I think is best then I will find true goodness and satisfaction, but all it does is lead us further and further away from true goodness which comes from communion with God (Psalm 34:10).

2. How do we know something is a sin?

When Adam and Eve sinned, our communion with God died. We all like sheep went astray and turned aside to our own ways. (Isaiah 53:6). We stopped listening to God's loving care and instead started following our hearts, but our hearts are deceitful and wicked beyond understanding (Jeremiah 17:9).

We cannot listen to our attractions or our feelings because we are attracted to and find pleasure in things that God declares are evil, things that are contrary to His good design. If people did not find pleasure in things like cheating on your spouse or stealing, then they would never do it. They are drawn into wrongdoing by their own wicked desires (James 1:14).

But God is still good. He has not left us without a witness. He has given a conscience to people who are hostile to Him so that even they can recognize when their desires are not good. We all know inherently that lying is bad, that pride is bad, that fighting and anger are bad, because God has hidden His law in our hearts (Romans 2:15).

However, because we have deceitful rebellious hearts, we try to justify ourselves and explain it away and muffle the conscience so it can't bother us any more, like searing your hand with a hot iron so it can't feel anything (1 Timothy 4:2).

The only way we can know something is sinful is by God giving us new life and enabling us to trust in the goodness of His Word again. We can know with certainty that all sexual desire outside of marriage is sin because God told us it defies His character and people do it because they want to rebel against Him, so God gives them what they want (Romans 1:24-25).

3. Why do Christians care if people sin?

Ray Comfort tells a story about a man who hated homosexuals. There was a broken elevator in his building with a sign on it that said "DANGER! OUT OF ORDER!" The hateful man saw two lesbians approaching the elevator so he took the sign down so they would use it and fall to their deaths.

God has given us a clear warning in Scripture that following your heart is dangerous. It's like an addictive drug, numbing your mind with pleasure so you don't realize it's killing you. If someone you loved was overdosing in front of you, you wouldn't say "whatever man, live your truth." You would shake them awake so they could see what is happening to them and try to get them help. If I believe that God's warning is telling the truth, the most unloving and hateful thing I can do is not tell anyone about it. Woe to me if I see judgment coming and don't tell anyone how to be saved (Ezekiel 33:6)!

Christians aren't trying to control you or force you to follow their personal preferences. Some people who profess Christ do that, but mostly we have met a God who loves us, who saw us hurtling in a downward spiral of guilt and shame and earning eternal punishment for our crimes against Him, and choosing to show us forgiveness in an unfathomably kind way.

Every single one of us has disobeyed God and tried to take His place on the throne. We all stand guilty before God not just for things like murder or homosexuality, but for lying and envy and idolatry. We have broken God's laws and because He is good, He cannot leave evil unpunished. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Every single one of us dies because it is what we have earned for ourselves. We deserve for God to give us His wrath and anger for waging war against Him (Romans 1:18).

But God is rich in mercy and abounding in love even to those who hate Him. We owe God a righteous life, but none of us are righteous, so God decided to wipe away our debt by living the perfect life for us. God became a man, Jesus, lived a perfect life, then died on a cross, taking the wrath of God we deserved, then rose again on the third day, proving that the price had been paid, then He ascended to God's right hand to offer Himself as the reason people can stand before God as righteous.

God does not delight in the death of the wicked. He does not want you to keep trying to find your identity in yourself. He wants you to know Him and His love for you. He wants to wipe away your sin and make you white as snow. What you need to do is confess your sin to God, which means to agree that you are guilty of rebellion against Him and that He is truly Lord, and you must believe that He will forgive your sin and give you eternal life because of what Jesus did for you on the cross. God is faithful and just to forgive the sin of anyone who asks Him (1 John 1:9)

I care about what you do with your life because I love you and because God loves you, just like a Father loves His children and wants what is best for them. I don't want you to miss out on the amazing gift of grace God is offering to you. Don't let Satan keep deceiving you. He promises you peace but all he can give you is death. Every promise of God will always come true (Titus 1:2)

[thewordfortheday]

God heals - and He is the great physician and He can heal anyone of any affliction, whether it be physical, mental or emotional. Here's a list of healing scriptures:

And by His stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

I will take sickness away from your midst. Exodus 23:25

For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds, said the LORD. Jeremiah 30:17 

Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases. Psalms 103:3 

The Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will He inflict on you. Deuteronomy 7:15

He sent forth His word and healed them. Psalm 107:20 

With long life will I satisfy him and show him My salvation. Psalm 91:16

I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. Psalm 118:17

[hiseyeisonthesparrow]

I am feeling very hurt today.

For context, I went to high school in well-off, suburban Utah, although I didn't grow up there. My family still lives there. It's a VERY Mormon- and white-dominated location.

Last night, I was on the phone with my mom, just catching up, making plans for the weekend, the typical Phone Home Because Your Mom Misses You.

She told me that there were plans to build a warming shelter for the homeless in the town. I was excited -- I'd just been to a workshop about homelessness, and me and my friends had exchanged some heartfelt stories about our experiences with homeless friends, family, ward members, et cetera. But then she followed it up by telling me that many folks in the town were strongly against it -- mad that there would be a warming shelter in the town, yelling about it on Facebook groups, protesting at city council meetings. None of them wanted a warming shelter in their town. Hundreds of people, upset.

I've never felt more disheartened. Over half of the people in that town are members of the Church. The chances that there were Mormons at that city council meeting, yelling angrily about a warming shelter are astronomically high.

What God are they following?

What Christ did they get baptized to?

What scriptures do they read? Did they not get the chance to read Proverbs 19:17, Matthew 25:35-36, Luke 3:11, James 2:15-16, 1 John 3:17, Deuteronomy 15:11, Psalms 82:3-4, Proverbs 14:31, Isaiah 58:10, Mosiah 4:16-26, Alma 34:28-29, Mosiah 18:28-30, 3 Nephi 12:3, or Jacob 2:13-17?

What commandments are they following? What "love one another" do they ascribe to?

What has the name of Christ become in this day and age?

The devil turning evil into good and good into evil has never been so obvious. What perversion of gospel principles can possibly lead someone to riot against a warming shelter -- not even a homeless shelter? A place for people to stay alive in the blistering cold.

"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." The 'members' that have fought against this have, effectively, spit in the face of the Lord. Where has Christlike compassion gone?

[eamour]

1 ⋮ neville goddard booklist

hello, babes! for all the people that want to read the original source of the law of assumption, i have prepared two lists that, together, contain all 15 books of neville goddard from 1939 to 1966. this is list one, starting with 8 books from 1939 to 1949.

at your command ⋮ 1939

1 ⋮ chapter

2 ⋮ chapter

3 ⋮ chapter

4 ⋮ chapter

your faith is your fortune ⋮ 1941

1 ⋮ before abraham was

2 ⋮ you shall decree

3 ⋮ the principle of truth

4 ⋮ whom seek ye?

5 ⋮ who am i?

6 ⋮ i am he

7 ⋮ thy will be done

8 ⋮ no other god

9 ⋮ the foundation stone

10 ⋮ to him that hath

11 ⋮ christmas

12 ⋮ crucifixion and resurrection

13 ⋮ the i'm-pressions

14 ⋮ circumcision

15 ⋮ interval of time

16 ⋮ the triune god

17 ⋮ prayer

18 ⋮ the twelve principles

19 ⋮ liquid light

20 ⋮ the breath of life

21 ⋮ daniel in the lions' den

22 ⋮ fishing

23 ⋮ be ears that hear

24 ⋮ clairvoyance

25 ⋮ 23rd psalm

26 ⋮ gethsemane

27 ⋮ a formula for victory

freedom for all ⋮ 1942

1 ⋮ the oneness of god

2 ⋮ the name of god

3 ⋮ the law of creation

4 ⋮ the secret of feeling

5 ⋮ the sabbath

6 ⋮ healing

7 ⋮ desire, the word of god

8 ⋮ faith

9 ⋮ the annunciation

feeling is the secret ⋮ 1944

1 ⋮ the law and its operation

2 ⋮ sleep

3 ⋮ prayer

4 ⋮ feeling

prayer · the art of believing ⋮ 1945

1 ⋮ law of reversibility

2 ⋮ dual nature of consciousness

3 ⋮ imagination and faith

4 ⋮ controlled reverie

5 ⋮ law of thought transmission

6 ⋮ good tidings

7 ⋮ the greatest prayer

the search ⋮ 1946

1 ⋮ chapter

master class · five lessons ⋮ 1948

1 ⋮ consciousness is the only reality

2 ⋮ assumptions harden into fact

3 ⋮ thinking fourth-dimensionally

4 ⋮ no one to change but self

5 ⋮ remain faithful to your idea

out of this world ⋮ 1949

1 ⋮ thinking fourth-dimensionally

2 ⋮ assumptions become facts

3 ⋮ power of imagination

4 ⋮ no one to change but self

with love, ella.

[girlbloggercher]

how to read the Bible

this is in order!

1. John

2. Mark

3. Matthew

4. Luke

5. Genesis

6. Exodus

7. Leviticus

8. Numbers

9. Dueteronomy

10. Romans

11. Galatians

12. Colossians

13. Proverbs

14. Ecclesiastes

15. Job

16. 1 Peter

17. 1 Corinthians

18. 2 Corinthians

19. Ephesians

20. Philippians

21. 1 Thessalonians

22. 2 Thessalonians

23. 1 Timothy

24. 2 Timothy

25. James

26. 2 Peter

27. 1 John

28. 2 John

29. 3 John

30. Jude

31. Psalms

32. Joshua

33. Judges

34. 1 Samuel

35. 2 Samuel

36. 1 Kings

37. 2 Kings

38. 1 Chronicles

39. 2 Chronicles

40. Ezra

41. Nehemiah

42. Jeremiah

43. Lamentations

44. Ezekiel

45. Joel

46. Amos

47. Obadiah

48. Nahum

49. Habakkuk

50. Zephaniah

51. Haggai

52. Zechariah

53. Malachi

54. Micah

55. Hosea

56. Luke

57. Esther

58. Jonah

59. Song of Solomon

60. Acts

61. Titus

62. Philemon

63. Hebrew

64. Isaiah

65. Daniel

66. Revelation

[walkswithmyfather]

“Hidden but Not Hidden” By Bible Love Notes:

“Psalm 119:11 says: “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

In this verse, hidden doesn't mean concealing God's Word. It means storing it up and treasuring it in our hearts.

If you read all 176 verses of Psalm 119, you'll discover many ways that the psalmist hid God's Word in his heart. For example:

Psalm 119:9-16: “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. 10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. 11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. 12 Praise be to you, LORD; teach me your decrees. 13 With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. 14 I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. 15 I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. 16 I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.”

In these verses, the psalmist hides God's Word by:

1. Obeying it – verse 9. “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” —James 1:22‭-‬25 (NLT)

2. Seeking God in it – verse 10. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” —Matthew 6:33 (NKJV)

3. Studying it with the Spirit's help – verse 12. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” —John 14:26 (NKJV)

4. Reciting it – verse 13. “Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.” —Colossians 3:16 (NLT)

5. Enjoying it – verse 14. “The commandments of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are clear, giving insight for living.” —Psalm 19:8 (NLT)

6. Meditating on it – verse 15. “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” —Philippians 4:8 (NKJV)

7. Spending time regularly in it – verse 16. “—”Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth.” —2 Timothy 2:15 (AMP)

Are you “hiding” God's Word in your heart?”

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[estera-shirin]

Paper Amulet, India ca. 1980

From the curator: "Around the edges of the amulet are quotations from the following biblical passages: Numbers 17:11-15 and Samuel 24:25. These quotations have to do with the plague being averted from the land and would give protection against illness. The names of the four rivers of paradise are listed around the Magen David. Above and below these names is a quotation from Exodus 12:23, which deals with the lord protecting the Israelites in Egypt from the destroyer of the Egyptians. Below this is Psalms 22:10 (trusting in the lord). the center of the Magen David contains a large grid with letters.  the beginning letters are the abbreviations: for Psalms 32:7 (for general protection), Genesis 49:18 (for protection at night), and a large number of unidentified abbreviations.  what is clear is that this amulet is made for general protection for both a home and those living in it. This is a reprint of an amulet originally published in 1905 with an almost identical design and text" attached below.