Today in the Word for August 24-September 1
Today in The Word
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
What is our risk when we are feeling ‘down’? Welcome to The Word with Pastor David. Cain has not offered an appropriate sacrifice to the Lord, and his offering was rejected. Genesis 4:6-7 reads:
“Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted: But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.””
Cain’s negative emotions were written all over his face. He was ‘down.’ The Lord does not call these negative emotions a sin, but he does deliver a warning. Due to those emotions, sin was crouching at the door. Satan thrives on leading us astray when we are on emotional overload. To Satan, Cain’s anger (and possibly self-pity) was an opportunity to tempt. And more than Cain’s face fell, his brother fell at Cain’s murderous hand.
Cain did not heed the Lord’s warning to recognize and manage his negative emotions. But we can heed the Lord. We must keep alert to the truth that when we are ‘down’, sin is crouching at our door. We feel bad, so we are tempted to lash out, self-medicate, or go back to bad habits.
We must stay alert to Satan’s temptation when our emotions are ‘down’.
And that’s The Word from Pastor David of Deer Lodge Assembly on the corner of 5th and Montana.
Today in the Word
Wednesday Aug 25, 2021
What is one ‘thinking’ temptation when we are feeling ‘down’? Welcome to The Word with Pastor David. Psalm 42:3-9 reads:
“My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”…
Why, my soul, are you downcast?...
I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning…as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?””
When we are feeling ‘down’, often due to difficult circumstances, we can start to believe the taunt, “Where is your God?” Satan has fed this line to God’s people for millennia. Its implication is that there is no God, or at the very least, if there is a God, he certainly does not care about you. We feel forgotten.
But we defeat this ‘thinking’ temptation by recalling the truths of His Word. God does exist, and he is good. He knows each of us all the way to the molecular level. And he cares about us so much, he sacrificed his life to rescue us from Satan’s grasp. And he has planned an eternity in heaven with him, together as one great family.
What is the answer to the taunt, “Where is your God?” Right here with me in the middle of my difficulty.
And that’s The Word from Pastor David of Deer Lodge Assembly on the corner of 5th and Montana.
Today in the Word
Thursday Aug 26, 2021
Are there steps we can take when we are ‘down’ to protect ourselves from Satan’s temptations? Welcome to The Word with Pastor David. Psalm 42:5,4 states:
“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him…
These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.”
The psalmist is ‘down’ but he intends to praise God again. He does so by first realizing that he really misses going to the House of the Lord. He remembers the joy in the midst of praise in the House. He has probably not been going to the House so much because he’s been feeling so ‘down.’
The truth is that Satan seeks to isolate us from each other. When we are feeling bad, we tend toward isolation. We need to do the exact opposite. We need to go to Church. We need to connect, and hear God’s Word, and lift up the Name of our Saviour.
The psalmist is saying, ‘I missed it.’ Don’t you miss the House of the Lord? The psalmist is saying to us, it is time to get back to Church. It is part of the answer to feeling ‘down.’ Don’t run away from Church. Run toward it.
And that’s The Word from Pastor David of Deer Lodge Assembly on the corner of 5th and Montana.
Today in the Word
Friday Aug 27, 2021
Are there steps we can take when we are ‘down’ to protect ourselves from Satan’s temptations? Welcome to The Word with Pastor David. Psalm 42:5, 1-2 states:
“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him…
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”
The psalmist recognizes that he has become dried out in his ‘down’ time. He thirsts and pants for God. The Enemy tempts us to run from God when we are confused and upset. We tell ourselves the lie that we are no good, and God no longer wants us. Or we tell ourselves the lie that we will get our act together, and then we will reconnect with God.
But we are to do the opposite. When we dry out as we get more and more distant from God, we need to recognize our condition and run toward him in the middle of our mess. We thirst for relationship with the Lord.
And that’s the Word. Tune in Sundays at 10:30 on the Deer Lodge Assembly Facebook page for our Livestreamed service or join us at the corner of 5th and Montana.
Today in The Word
Monday Aug 30, 2021
What happens in our ‘down’ times when we decide to move toward God instead of away from him? Welcome to The Word with Pastor David. Psalm 42:2-8 reads:
“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
…My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you…
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love…”
The psalmist recognizes that he is dried out, and moves toward God. God answers with a powerful experience of his love. The water image is almost overwhelming. His love is a pounding waterfall. His love is like being tumbled in an ocean breaker. I have been swept off my feet in an ocean breaker. I have been inundated in the power of the wave.
And I have been inundated in God’s love. It is what God does for his dried out children when they thirst for relationship with him. Their circumstance may not have changed that led to them feeling down, but now they are fully ‘hydrated’ in God’s love.
And that makes all the difference.
And that’s The Word from Pastor David of Deer Lodge Assembly on the corner of 5th and Montana.
Today in The Word
Tuesday Aug 31, 2021
What happens when we have been ‘down’ and God inundates us with his love? Welcome to The Word with Pastor David. Psalm 42:6-8 reads:
“My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you…
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life.”
Something happens to us when life knocks us for a loop, and we become downcast. We lose our song. And this psalmist had lost his song until he moved toward God and had an experience of his great love. He got his song back—even in the dark of night. Rather than feeling lost and alone and afraid in the dark, there was a song to the Lord coming out of him. Perhaps a little like Paul and Silas singing at midnight from their prison cell (Acts 16:25), the psalmist has recovered his heart of praise.
Don’t wait for God to give you his song before running to God, run to God, and in the middle of his love, it is very likely you will get your song back.
And that’s The Word from Pastor David of Deer Lodge Assembly on the corner of 5th and Montana.
Today in the Word
Wednesday Sept 1, 2021
How do we define God’s kind of hope? Welcome to The Word with Pastor David. Jeremiah is really ‘down’, yet he states in Lamentations 3:19-26:
“I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him…”
Genuine hope is more than simply wishing something is so. Jeremiah is really down, yet he remembers God’s great love and goodness, and he hopes.
To hope is to wait for God’s goodness. It is to know that God is good, not just in general, but to me specifically. It is to know that God loves me individually. And if these characteristics of God are true, I can wait in the midst of the storm. I can wait while in deep difficulty. I can wait with the patience of knowing that God is good.
I hope in God.
And that’s The Word from Pastor David of Deer Lodge Assembly on the corner of 5th and Montana.