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We start on Monday morning, August 17.
CULTIVATE | Wednesday, October 7, 2015
-The Call into God's Presence-
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. Psalm 139.2
-The Psalm of Prayer for this Week-
The fall of man. Innocence lost. Paradise ruined. Exile from the garden. The pains of childbirth and the frustrations of toil in a fallen world. Lies, sin, guilt, shame, judgment, evil, suffering, corruption, fears, estrangement, destruction, futility, the curse of death, etc. All of these disasters (and more) come, not from God's good creation in Genesis 1 & 2, but from man's rebellion in Genesis 3. This is no longer the world for which we were made. Humanity said, "Not your way God, but my way!" And now, as Proverbs says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." How did this happen? Satan, "the father of lies" (see John 8.44), first persuaded humanity to question God's goodness—even in spite of the fact that they were standing in the paradise described in the previous two chapters—and then persuaded them to doubt God's Word. These are the twin roots of every sin since; indeed, he truly is "the father of lies." And yet, right in the midst of the sentences of judgement, God graciously speaks of a Savior who will come to crush Satan and all his work (v.15).
-Song for October-
This is my Father's world,
And to my list'ning ears,
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father's world,
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker's praise.
This is my Father's world:
He shines in all that's fair;
In the rustling grass I hear him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my Father's world,
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
The battle is not done;
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and heav'n be one.
Maltbie D. Babcock, 1858-1901
-CULTIVATE-For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. Hebrews 6.7
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