From What Source Do You Receive Most of Your Advice?

"Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors."  (Psalm 119:24)

Someone kept coming to me for advice when I was a young pastor.  Finally I asked them how much of the Bible they read.  "Very little," was the reply.  I said, "I want you to read three chapters a day in the Bible for two weeks, then we will talk again."  At the end of two weeks, I contacted her and said, "Well, how was it?"  She replied, "Great.  I think I know what I must do."  How novel it was to her.  If you are giving counsel or advice to a person and that person is not reading, "the words of God," it is fruitless.  It is just prolonging an inevitable, self-reliant destruction.

The word, "counselors," is translated in a number of ways in various passages, "counsel, advice, consultation, counselors, plans, purpose, strategy."  What a plethora of security we have in Jesus Christ and His "Law/Word."  Think of the "places" and persons to whom most of humanity turns for all this, e.g, pastors, counselors, therapists, books after books, talk shows after talk shows, when all along, right there in the room where you are probably reading this, or at least not very far away are, "Your testimonies."  The aforementioned "advisors" can be good addendums, but they were never intended by our Lord Jesus to replace Him or be our fundamental, main source of, "consultation."  Yet this is exactly what has happened in modern Christendom----------- all over the world!  

"Your (Jesus') testimonies...are my delight and my counselors," because when I was at the lowest point in my life, "Your testimonies (became) my delight and my counselors."  No one could say anything or do anything to help me.  I have said before that I have never and will never minimize the love, prayers, words of encouragement of others in those days.  They were of comfort.  But it was only when, "I waited patiently for the Lord," in, "[His] testimonies," that I found, "my counselors," a counsel which went and goes beyond anything anyone can say or do.  This is not the proverbial "either/or."  This is the establishment of what is described in the Hebrews 11 description of Abraham, who, "went out, not knowing where he was going."  Anyone who goes, "through the valley of the shadow of death," knows how dark and, "not knowing," can be the experience.  It is said of Abraham that, "by faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country."  Everything I was experiencing in those dark days was, "a foreign country."   Yet I discovered a, "land of promise," in the the Bible, the very, "words of God."  It was and is in His Word, I, "waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God."  This goes beyond a "land flowing with milk and honey," etc.  This is the very Heart and Mind of God Himself.

Father, in Jesus' Name, I agree with the psalmist, "Your testimonies...are my delight and my counselors."  Amen.

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* If you wish to contribute to my involvement in the "David's Tent" 40 day, 24/7 worship and intercession event in Washington, DC, September 24 to October 1, you may send contributions to:

FHMP

505 Liberty Ave.

Johnstown

PA

15905

* Read of Egypt Slipping More and More into a total Islamic State---- With American Approval! www.jerusalemberlinwashington.blogspot.com

When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"

"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2