Author: Nick

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Deliver Me, O God!

Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” and the reading.

To view a video on this Psalm created three years ago, tap here.

This small psalm of five verses has strong similarity with the first Beatitude in Matthew 5:1. “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” The New English Bible translates it this way: “Blessed are those who know their need of God.” To be poor in spirit means awareness of a total need for God. Absolute need becomes absolute blessing. The only other alternative to choosing God is despair. The Hebrew word ‘ebyon in verse 5 carries this same concept of “poor in spirit.” A group of Jewish disciples of Jesus gave themselves the name “Ebionites.” They found joy in their needy state, for then they knew that the riches of the resurrected life would be theirs.

When you have given up on everything and everyone as being the source of your happiness, then you are in the place where only the Lord alone can meet your soul’s deepest need.

Psalm 70

This is the second of thirteen weeks in the season of Pentecost, Year B
Wednesdays are dedicated to the Psalms,
One each week over the three-year cycle.

Example of a Bible Breath: O Lord, make haste to help me! v. 1

 

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A River in God’s Hands

Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” and Proverbs 21:1-10.

Rafts roll over rocks in mild white water rafting as though one were riding gently on horseback. This is the image of the first proverb. As your read, gently let your spirit dip and rise as you flow over the waters of life in God’s Word.

How are you with the Lord? Do you resist and push the gentle holding of the Lord, or are you as waters that take their shape and movement from the contours of God’s hand? Sense in your spirit this image in the rest of the Proverbs for today. The positive halves flow with abandon; the negative sides are resistive, self-willed, and unresponsive to the call to justice intended to flow into the seas of God’s peace. Pray until you are one with the wisdom of the proverbs.

Proverbs 21

All about Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: No friendship with the angry v. 2

Tuesdays are dedicated to the Old Testament books of history
and the Hebrew “Writings.”
In this season, Proverbs 20-11; 1 Kings

 

For the next several weeks, the Firestarters will be from the original version of this program. For these Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

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Comfort in the Wilderness

Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” Hosea 2:1-8; 14-15.

A spiritual wilderness of emptiness and loneliness is the perfect place for the Lord to comfort you with the Word. Note the shift that takes place half way through this chapter, moving from the pain and grief of God as of a husband of an outrageously unfaithful wife, to the luring, seductive words of the husband calling the wife to true love and fidelity.

If you have been seeking other “spouses” for your soul, there will come a time when nothing will satisfy you and you will know it. This is wilderness. Only here can you come to know the joy of the oasis of God’s presence. You will experience for yourself the words of Augustine: “You have made us for Yourself, O God: and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

Hosea 2

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…

Example” Lured by You to wilderness v. 14

Mondays are dedicated to the reading of the Hebrew Prophets.
In this season we read Hosea; in the 9th week, we read Lamentations 3.

For the next several weeks, the Firestarters will be from the original version of this program. For these Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.