Sunday Morning Worship Time

Outside, it's raining. Inside, it's pouring. :)

I woke up this morning and determined to spend time worshiping God in my own private worship service while the Duecks went to church. After they left, I did my personal devotions in 1 Kings to prepare my heart for the sermon. Then I went onto Faith Baptist's website and listened to the sermon Pastor Osborne preached last Sunday morning on revenge. And wow. God started speaking to me.

The biggest impression He left was when Pastor Osborne was talking about David and Saul in 1 Samuel 24. In that chapter, Saul was in the process of chasing after David to kill him, because he was jealous and paranoid. He stopped in a cave to "relieve himself," and while he was in the process of doing so, David and his men were hiding in the back of the cave. David's men told him, "Hey, David, this is the day the Lord has told you about. He has delivered Saul into your hands to do whatever you desire with him." But David knew better! He knew God had made no such promise to David. So he spared his life. But he went up to Saul and cut off a corner of his robe. Right afterwards, the Holy Spirit had convicted David of his sin in cutting of the corner of Saul's robe. But noone else would have blamed David for doing this thing. Only the Holy Spirit, only God. David was SO SENSITIVE to the Holy Spirit, that he was convicted, even over a little sin that noone else would consider to be sin!

How many times have I done that? How many times have I committed so many "small" sins which are not considered sin by the rest of the world, so I didn't even think twice about it? During my last relationship, many of my "friends" put thoughts into my head of hurting my boyfriend as much as he would thoughtlessly hurt me. They said it was good to teach him a lesson. But it is never our place to teach anyone a lesson! Looking back, I can see the ways in which I sinned against God and my ex-boyfriend by being petty and vengeful.

I pray that God will continually show me my small sins and convict me of them. I want to have a heart like David's, that is extremely sensitive to the Lord's leading. I don't want to have a petty and vengeful attitude towards anyone. I also want to be able to speak God's truth in love and encourage others like Jonathan did with his father and David.

This is my prayer today: to surrender all to the Lord. To put on the mind of Christ. To have a heart like David. To live in the presence of the Lord daily.

"All to Thee, Lord, I surrender,
All to Thee I freely give;
I will ever love and trust You,
In Your presence daily live."