Although I have not been posting, God is still very much at work in my life. I have still been reading my bible, and if I have not been enjoying the sense of revelation that I did before, I can still thank Him for the many other gifts He has been giving me. For one thing, rest. God used to wake me up between 5 and 5:30 and we’d spend some time alone together. There have been times when I rebelliously chose not to get up – it’s so easy to roll over and go back to sleep! But somehow this is different. Last week I was exhausted and discouraged. Since then, God has given me rest, the best sleep I have had in such a long time. It may not seem remarkable to have 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep to some people, but to me, it’s amazing. Followed by another 4 hours, it is practically miraculous. For the first time in years, I can get into bed and fall asleep within 15 minutes. I am feeling and thinking better than I have in a long time. This is a gift from God. He is blessing me with new clients for Three Cords, bailing us out of our personal financial morass, improving what was already a great marriage, and bringing the Man Of The House (MOTH) and I both closer to the Daughter Of The House (DOTH). Pretty remarkable all around. So where does cat worship fit into all this?

While it’s true that ancient Egyptians worshipped cats, and I know some cat owners who are walking a very fine line, I am not engaging in cat worship. I’m observing some behavior in my cats that is inspiring me to do a more in-depth study on worship which I will be posting on soon. My cats’ fur will be petted and rubbed. That fact is never in doubt. They come to me and rub their heads on my ankles, purring appreciatively in advance, with the full expectation that I will stop what I’m doing and pet them. If I fail to do this, they give me an indignant look, and then proceed to rub their heads on any and everything, including my smelly shoes if they are nearby. They just don’t care. Fickle creatures. But I have concluded some things… worship, like being petted, feels good. It’s what we were created for, and one way or another, we are going to do it. While the analogy fails in one sense because God would not refuse to let us worship Him – ah, but wait! What about this?

Mat 15:7-9 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, “This people draws near to Me with their mouth, and honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. But in vain they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

One example out of several I found where God decries what men call worship. True worship, worship without an agenda and with a clean heart, God will not refuse.

Joh 4:23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him.

Worshipping in spirit and in truth… I can’t do this without the Holy Spirit. I already have the Holy Spirit or I wouldn’t want to worship God. But to be filled with the Holy Spirit, a whole new level of worship and communion with God that I have not yet experienced, is what I’m looking for. Not worshipping God because it feels good to me like a cat being petted, but worshipping Him because I love, fear and reverence Him. Worshipping like a dog who bounds expectantly up to its owner, tail wagging. If the owner declines to pet him, the dog will lay down and maybe rest his head on the owner’s foot, expressing, “It’s okay if you don’t want to pet me right now – I’ll just wait here nearby.” The dog doesn’t go around and satisfy the urge to be petted by rubbing his head all over the furniture. He’s loyal – it’s the Master or nothing at all. That’s what I want. No more cat worship.

Rom 14:8-9 For both if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore both if we live, and if we die, we are the Lord’s. For this Christ both died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living.

Matthew Henry says: The business of our lives is not to please ourselves, but to please God. That is true Christianity, which makes Christ all in all.

Heb 13:20-21 Now may the God of peace (who brought again our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant) make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Make
kat-ar-tid’-zo
From G2596 and a derivative of G739; to complete thoroughly, that is, repair (literally or figuratively) or adjust: – fit, frame, mend, (make) perfect (-ly join together), prepare, restore.

Not make as in force me to do something I don’t wish to do – “the government makes me pay taxes” but the activity is all on His end and I am the object. He is preparing and restoring me so that I may serve Him.

Spurgeon - It is true that our sanctification is a long and continued process, and we shall not be perfected till we lay aside our bodies and enter within the veil; but nevertheless, had the Lord so willed it, he might have changed us from imperfection to perfection, and have taken us to heaven at once. Why then are we here? Would God keep his children out of paradise a single moment longer than was necessary? The answer is-they are here that they may “live unto the Lord,” and may bring others to know his love. We remain on earth as sowers to scatter good seed; as ploughmen to break up the fallow ground; as heralds publishing salvation. We are here as the “salt of the earth,” to be a blessing to the world. We are here to glorify Christ in our daily life. We are here as workers for him, and as “workers together with him.” Let us see that our life answereth its end. Let us live earnest, useful, holy lives, to “the praise of the glory of his grace.” Meanwhile we long to be with him, and daily sing-
“My heart is with him on his throne,
And ill can brook delay;
Each moment listening for the voice,
‘Rise up, and come away.’”

Psa 2:10 And now be wise, O kings; be instructed, O judges of the earth.
Psa 2:11 Serve Jehovah with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Kind of a “flat” morning – maybe I’m just too tired to get it. Maybe God is telling me that it would be wise to stop working so much and only do that which is pleasing in his sight.

June 9 Day by Day Grace – Bob Hoekstra

God Working in Us What Pleases Him
Now may the God of peace . . . make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Heb_13:20-21)
Once again, our attention is focused upon Hebrews 13:20-21. In the two previous devotionals, we saw that the God of peace makes obedience available to us through the blood of Christ and then equips us to do His will. Now we will see that this involves God working in us what pleases Him.
Obedience is about pleasing God, doing “what is well pleasing in His sight.” This is why Christ died for us. “He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2Co_5:15). Living to please self is the ultimate disobedience to God. As God’s children, we want to live for His approval. “Walk as children of light . . . proving what is acceptable to the Lord” (Eph_5:8-10).
The means ordained for us to actually live pleasing in His sight is God at work in us: “the God of peace . . . working in you what is well pleasing in His sight.” We cannot properly live obedient, pleasing lives for God, unless we look to the Lord to be working within us. If we are to be faithful representatives of the Lord here on earth, we need Him working through us. “Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2Co_5:20). This is how the early church effectively pleased the Lord in their service. “For He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles” (Gal_2:8).
Ultimately, pleasing God by doing His will is an internal matter of the heart. “That He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints” (1Th_3:13). When our Lord returns, He wants to find obedient children. He wants His followers to be “blameless in holiness before our God and Father.” This is only possible as we allow our God to do a spiritually stabilizing work deep within us: “That He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness.”
Not surprisingly, all of this working of God within us is done “through Jesus Christ.” It is all based upon who Jesus is, all that He has done for us, and all that He alone can accomplish as He lives in us!
Lord God of peace, I long to live pleasing in Your sight, holy and true. Please do Your effective work deep within my heart, through Jesus Christ, my Lord, Amen.

Note to me: What happens when I skip a day? It becomes two or three. Saturday morning I started working, and by the time I got to my bible study it was just too late. My mind wasn’t really on it, I was going through the motions. Literally nothing to write home about… Sunday was church, so I didn’t do a bible study. Then yesterday it was very cursory, again nothing worth writing about. Way to pursue holiness, Laura!! Well, today I’m getting back to what is good, what is eternal. I had set up an e-Sword bible study plan to read a Psalm a day, starting today.

Psalm 1
Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and has not stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is only in the Law of Jehovah; and in His Law he meditates day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivulets of water that brings forth its fruit in its seasons, and its leaf shall not wither, and all which he does shall be blessed. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For Jehovah knows the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

God’s timing, as always, is perfect. Certainly nothing I touched yesterday was blessed… I don’t want to engage in magical thinking here – I didn’t do a bible study and so lost one client and one good prospect – but if I had honored God, would that have happened? I’m not sure… but I do know for sure that if I HAD honored God first yesterday morning by really giving Him my time and attention, I would have taken those losses in stride, because I would have had a fresh reminder that I am blessed no matter WHAT happens with Three Cords.

Psa 138:8 Jehovah will perfect His work in me; Your mercy, O Jehovah, endures forever; do not forsake the work of Your own hands.

HIS work in me, having nothing to do with web development. By putting work first, and relegating God to a mere item on my to-do list, I resisted the very Holy Spirit that I had just finished asking God for! What did Paul say, I do that which I hate? Yeah. Preach it, brother…

Eph 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed until the day of redemption.

Grieve
lupeō
loo-peh’-o
From G3077; to distress; reflexively or passively to be sad: – cause grief, grieve, be in heaviness, (be) sorrow (-ful), be (make) sorry.

Albert Barnes Notes on the Bible:

Do not act toward the Holy Spirit in a manner which would produce pain in the bosom of a friend who loves you.