A Devotional Study of the Living Word of God

Take Note #62

Psalm 119:42 Reading, writing and talking were always hard for me, especially when I was required to give account of some concern, but when I discovered that I could trust the Word of God, the blocks of stumbling went away and expression now has a comfortable place in my soul. Romans 5:1-5

Good Morning

Everyone likes to hear about submarine life, but I think that I have exhausted most of the experiences over the past year and five months, but maybe this is one I missed. We harbored in Lisbon, Portugal for a brief time for rest and recreation. I do not recall much about the port except that it was a part of the Portuguese Army base. Our bases and soldiers have it great compared to these men as I observed. Their uniforms were shoddy, their weapons were Russian made and they smelled of strong tobacco and they did not stand guard in any manor that would indicate pride or good military discipline. The men did not go to an evening meal at the base mess hall, but most of them took dough, vegetables and some kind of meat and placed them in an oven that was carved out of the rock face of a very large hill a few feet from the pier where we tied up. There were several of these make shift ovens all along the rock face. They also drank wine freely all day long, their rifle or sub-machine gun over their shoulder and a bottle of wine in their drinking hand, they were all set. Because of this condition we decided to arm our sentries with weapons too. I am glad that we spent only one full day there, things could have been very bad very quickly since they wanted to come on board in that condition. But thanks to our God our stay in Portugal was uneventful.

Acts 13

Acts 13:1-3 There should be little opposition when the Holy Spirit places His Hand on individuals for a specific ministry. In these verses we see that all is going well as it should be, but later in chapter we see that the Holy Spirit is not involved with the breakup of Paul and Barnabas. We would do well to learn of these two events.

Acts 13:4-7 So being led by the Holy Spirit – I like that phrase, when we allow God to lead there is no power that can divert our mission. It is very easy to fall into what I call, “Operation flesh” Here we can say and do all the things that sound right, but if we are not careful to include all that God has promised through His Word, opposition from men or women like Elymas will be effective

Acts 13:8-12 With the Holy Spirit we can be people of God with power, purpose and plan. Filled with the Holy Spirit we can look intently at the devil and defeat him. Fraud and deceit will melt when face to face with the power of God. Paul understood what it meant to feel the effects of blindness, he also understood that the proconsul would see and be astonished at the teaching of the LORD. This is something for all of us in ministry today to believe. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13), I know we know the verse, but I am not sure we participate in the action of the verse. Which would be (Philippians 4:8-11) We could do well reading the whole Philippians Epistle.

Now if you do not have your bible with you, the following is a link you can go to and find the verses of scripture I have referenced herein. Bible Gateway at: www.biblegateway.com/