Dwelling place
Because you have made the Lord, my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place,
No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent. Psalm 91:9-10
WARNING: Do not use Scripture as a good luck charm, magic potion, or spell to “manifest” your secret wants. Scripture is God’s personal letter to His people for us to use in developing our relationship with Him in the vast spectrum of life’s matters. Psalm 91 is likely the clearest portion of His Word regarding His protective nature toward people; it reveals His rock-solid determination to stand with you, guard you, guide you, protect you, heal you, and help you through the ups and downs of your life. And, seeing as Psalm 91 is, like most of Scripture, a relational guide for us humans in our interactions with the Most High, it also discloses what our part of the deal is.
Because you have made the Lord, my refuge…
You have a choice in this matter. You can MAKE the Lord your refuge—your place of shelter, protection, or safety. You don’t have to. It is entirely up to you, and He will 100% allow you your choice. In fact, you can use Him as a “sometimes” refuge, the One you go to from time to time, and He will honor that. However, as with most relationships, this “on and off” mentality can wear thin, and true intimacy and connection will never fully materialize. You see, there is Someone else in this interplay besides you…
…even the Most High, your dwelling place…
The time came in my life when using the Lord as my “sometimes” refuge wasn’t cutting it. I clearly saw my need to give all of myself to Him—for all time. And something very amazing happened…He became my dwelling place. Jesus said, “I am now standing at the door and am knocking. If anyone listens to My voice and opens the door, I will go in to be with him and will feast with him, and he shall feast with Me” (Revelation 3:20, Weymouth NT). What a blessing to know that you are never alone, that Someone greater than you loves you, cares for you, and has promised to never leave you or forsake you! (See Hebrews 13:5b.)
Just one more verse about this concept of making the Lord your dwelling place—or in other words, your home. Jesus was talking to one of His disciples along this line and said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23). The fact that you are loved is clear. That the Creator of all things wants to live with you in an ever-deepening, give and take fellowship is mind-boggling!
No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent.
BECAUSE you’ve made the LORD, even the Most High, your dwelling place, these things are yours to BELIEVE and EMBRACE by faith:
No evil will befall you… Truth be told, I’ve had some scary things happen since I’ve made Jesus my Lord. I’ve also experienced broken relationships and friendships, have lost loved ones and dear friends to death, and have had to have various surgeries (including open heart). I’ve been sick more than once and have broken a few bones. I’ve suffered rejection, humiliation, and excruciating loneliness at times. I’ve cried more than a few times out of genuine hurt and then again, at times, from self-pity or rage. Nevertheless, through all of these difficulties, the Living God kept right on being my God, holding me, steadying me, and bringing me through to the end of each dark tunnel. Therefore, I can boldly say, No evil has befallen me.
Because of His amazing care, I am still alive. Once, probably in 2010, I heard the Lord say one Monday, “Don’t mow your lawn on Thursday.” (Thursday was my go-to day for mowing.) Wednesday came, and I had a hundred excuses why I didn’t want to mow that day, but I could sense His powerful nudge, “MOW! NOW!” I did and then came back inside, took a shower and made dinner. Thursday morning around 10:30, I was in the kitchen looking out the window into my backyard. My cats sat at the screen door, also looking out. Suddenly, a deafening CRACK! sounded. A large silver maple had just given up the ghost! TIMBER! It fell across the width of my backyard and clipped a large branch off of another tree on the opposite side. WHOOOOMFFF! Down it went! The cats looked at me, I looked at them; all of us looked back out at the splintered mass of trunk and branches in the yard under which I would’ve been squashed like a bug…and I started DANCING! I whooped and hollered and danced and praised God throughout the house, thankful for His simple instruction on Monday, “Don’t mow your lawn on Thursday,” and super thankful that I didn’t ignore His nagging, pushy prompting on Wednesday to “MOW! NOW!”
…nor will any plague come near your tent. We lived through a couple of years of plague-related panic not even five years ago. Although I didn’t lose any friends or loved ones to the virus we faced, I know many who did, and the fear and grief of that time is indelibly etched in our national and global consciousness. I remember in those early days of the shutdown how the lack of knowledge about this thing, its transmission, and how to treat it brought fear to many. And there I was, in early spring as trees and other plant life started pollinating, that I experienced serious shortness of breath. I was alarmed. Today, I realize I was suffering then from an allergy-induced asthmatic reaction, but back then, everything was suspect. I prayed and paced my house several hours a day, and slowly calm and peace regained control of my mind. I knew that the Greek word for “Spirit” (pneuma) was the same as the word for each of these: “breath,” “lungs,” and “air”. So, knowing that my Father would make a way for my health, I prayed, “Holy Pneuma, I ask You to breathe Your pneuma into my pneumas and bring forth fullness of life to my airways! In Jesus’ name, Amen!” Over time, my lungs started opening back up, and what a blessing it was to breathe WITH the Holy Spirit!
We all know that we live in an imperfect, messy, germy, dangerous world. But the Lord has chosen to take a special interest in each one of us…and to go the distance with YOU if you are willing to go the distance with HIM.
…I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. Revelation 3:20, NKJV
Dorothy
© 2024, Dorothy Frick
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123123
Evidently, this tidbit of information is out there. But a friend of mine brought this to my attention this morning: Today is 123123. That won’t happen again until 2123; and there’s a good chance none of us will see it after today.
But it reminded me of “On the Count of THREE!” or “READY, SET, GO!”
I became a Christian 49 years ago as of 12/29/23, and I have learned that God is all about preparation. He’s all about growing us up. He doesn’t desire us to remain babies or toddlers or even teens. He expects us, at every phase of our walk in Him to recognize His leading, His correction, and His redirections…and to yield to what He is saying. Part of growing up is learning His impressions and promptings in your spirit in the multi-assortment of ways He may bring them to you and then complying to what He directs.
The word disciple means “disciplined one”. Although no disciple (and that includes you and me!) has walked 100% perfectly, each of us are called to bring the good, the bad, and the ugly of our lives before God on an ongoing basis and receive from Him how to proceed from there. No matter HOW bad, HOW ugly…or HOW good…you may judge yourself to be, He wants to be in on all of your reasonings, assessments, and adjustments, and if you allow Him to do so, He will then empower you to grow and mature.
123123 is the day for positioning yourself to run the race before you with a simple focus on hearing from your Maker and yielding to His promptings. Are there adjustments or corrections to make? Join the club! Don’t beat yourself up for that; simply take the time to let Him reveal His best course for you and then follow that.
I believe that the preparation that the Lord has for each of us is not necessarily flashy or instantly spectacular; but when God has His say so in your life on the quiet and often hidden aspects, the results are absolutely life changing.
123123—READY, SET, GO!
Dorothy
“…let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith…” Heb. 12:1-2
“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
© 2023, Dorothy Frick
Read MoreThe government will rest on His shoulders
Should Christmas and government have anything to do with one another? Many say NO—the two are entirely separate concepts, and they must never occupy the same space.
And yet—surprise, surprise—government and the first Christmas are forever bound together in Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus.
Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth…And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David. Luke 2:1, 3-4
God’s big, sweeping plan to redeem mankind from the grip and tyranny of sin was ordained before the foundation of the world. As part of that plan, He used the government of the time in an important sub-plan, laced together with multiple other sub-plans of prophetic and intricate detail to bring clarity, precision, and confirmation to His greater plan. And as His plan unfolded, most of the individuals involved were utterly unaware that they personally played a specific role in its fulfillment.
Take Caesar Augustus, for instance. Caesar’s own records (“The Deeds of the Divine Augustus”, see http://classics.mit.edu/Augustus/deeds.html, #8) reveal that he conducted three censuses during his reign. They were held in roughly twenty-year cycles, and the census that summoned Joseph to Bethlehem when Mary was pregnant with Jesus was likely the second of the three. Caesar Augustus—the self-proclaimed “divine Augustus”—was merely a mortal chess-piece played by the wisdom and hand of the one true God to fulfill His predetermined purpose. Whereas Augustus took great pride in amassing boundless wealth for his administration through taxes collected in the census, God used this empire-building monarch’s hunger for ever-increasing power to get Mary and Joseph to the right place at the right time.
Know this: There is no power or throne established by the hand of man or devil that supersedes the power and authority of our God and His Christ. Neither Caesar, nor Pilate, nor Herod, nor Nero, nor Lenin, nor Hitler, nor governments present nor governments to come can override the rule and the plan of God.
Don’t be surprised if the heathen rage (Psalm 2:1). Don’t be shaken if you see the “nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing. The kings of the earth” may indeed “take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’” (Psalm 2:1-3). The fact is that God is aware of it all and He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them (Psalm 2:4).
The God who used the governmental drive of Caesar Augustus to get His handmaiden and her fiancé to Bethlehem for the birth of the Christ child is not moved by regulations, mandates, hearings, or lawless acts of leaders—whether elected or self-appointed, national or global. He sees the end from the beginning and His purpose will be established; He will accomplish all His good pleasure (see Isaiah 46:10).
Caesar Augustus was subject to the plan of God without knowing it. And despite all that we are witnessing now—those who assume superiority to the rest of us, calling good evil and evil good—no purpose of God can be thwarted. You, as one who has opened your heart to Jesus, can be confident in your God—the Highest Authority in the universe. According to the Bible, you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord (Ephesians 5:8). No one—neither man nor government nor devil—can stop you from walking as a child of the Light.
Be confident and be bold this Christmas season…and forever! It is your birthright in the Lord.
Dorothy
…and the government will rest on His shoulders… Isaiah 9:6b
© 2015, updated 2023, Dorothy Frick
Read MoreSuffering according to the power of God
“Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God” 2 Timothy 1:8
I don’t know how often I have read 2 Timothy, but this verse recently jumped out at me, as if for the first time. I come from a faith tradition that does not preach or teach much on suffering; I know some who do teach about this topic, but it makes sense to me why it’s not an extremely popular or sought after subject. Who wants to be reminded of suffering?
Here I go, anyway.
This phrase in 2 Timothy 1:8 kept rumbling around inside of me—suffering for the gospel according to the power of God—and then shortened to simply suffering…according to the power of God.
I thought of the apostle who wrote this letter to Timothy and how his entire life as a believer in Jesus was punctuated with suffering.
I love comfort. I told God that. But being a realist, I recognize that this life has its share of suffering, and no one is exempt. Whether the suffering comes in the form of rejection, mockery, lack, pain, illness, loneliness, or any number of other sources, it struck me that there is a way to suffer according to the power of God. Therefore, if I am to undergo suffering of any kind, I choose to do so according to the power of God.
Psalm 91:15 reveals an amazing statement from God. It declares, “I will be with you in trouble”. If you are IN trouble of any sort, know this for certain: That is exactly where the Living God is as well. He is WITH YOU. IN TROUBLE. He’s not like so many whose instinct is to ditch you at the first whiff of difficulty. NO. He’s right there with you in the middle of your trouble. Where you suffer. And if you dare to believe that, then you will be empowered to suffer according to the power of God, a suffering in which the Almighty bears the brunt of your pain and will turn it all around for your good. Why? Because HE’S good.
In August of 2003 I underwent bypass surgery to correct an anomalous right coronary artery. When I awoke in ICU, it felt like my chest had been crushed by an 18-wheeler. Immediately the Scripture came to me, “He was wounded for our transgressions. He was CRUSHED for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5a). And I experienced (as I was waking up from a 14 hour stretch of unconsciousness) the Lord’s crushing in place of mine. My pain was still there, but I was keenly aware of the intense pain He endured for all of us and mine became miniscule in comparison. Without being aware of 2 Timothy 1:8, I had entered into suffering according to the power of God.
And today I was reading Hebrews 2. In verse 17 I read that He was made to be like all of us in all things (the Greek meaning of “was made to be” is He “was obligated to be”. That means if He refused to be made like us in all things, then none of us would ever taste the freedom of being forgiven and cleansed or the joy of experiencing the love of God and eternal life with Him. For us to be fully accepted in Christ, He was obligated to become human…and hence, to suffer like we suffer—and beyond.
Hebrews 2:18 continues, “For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.”
There is something about suffering that is readily linked to being tempted. Resisting temptation carries a form of suffering—you refuse to pamper or give into whatever is luring you to disobey God. However, I saw something deeper here as well. Suffering of all varieties brings with it great temptation to be outraged at God and ditch HIM for all kinds of reasons. “Why did this happen? I PRAYED!” “Why won’t this go away? I don’t get it! I did everything the Bible says to do and I still hurt (lack, feel depressed, am lonely, etc.)”
Jesus was tempted in the very things He suffered. Don’t think He wasn’t tempted like we are when we suffer to scream, cry, yell, question God and tell Him off, slap faces, punch holes in the wall, kick the dog or cat, and throw an absolute hissy fit and a great big pity party! But He didn’t. Why not? Because He suffered according to the power of God. And in that, He conquered temptation and never gave in to a bit of it.
This verse goes on to say that as a result of His temptation in the things He suffered (and the inferred overcoming of it all), He is ABLE—He has the POWER—to come to the aid of all those who are tempted. That includes you.
Are you in the middle of some kind of suffering that is tempting you to question your faith and everything you know about God? Then you qualify to receive His ability and His power to aid, assist, and support you right where you are, in whatever condition you find yourself.
The victory is not in avoiding suffering altogether (although He so often is gracious to cause us to bypass it), nor is the victory in how short the suffering lasts (although He frequently brings about quick deliverances).
The victory IS found by fixing our eyes on Jesus despite whatever we may be suffering, and to know that the Greater One IS at work in our lives and that He will turn this whole situation around for good. Press on despite it all. Victory IS yours.
This is how you suffer according to the power of God.
Dorothy
© 2023, Dorothy Frick
Read MoreGod in the clouds VS the Cloud is god
I wrote this is in a comment on a secular news site and decided to share it here:
“The push to veer human thinking into the concept that there is no God in the clouds—that the Cloud is god—comes from anti-free will enthusiasts who want to circumvent human free will so that when we have nothing (by their oh so god-like design), we will be happy.
“Free will in humanity was definitely a risk for God—many choose not to follow Him, many mock those who do—but He is quite big enough to handle those slights. But those who are anti-free will and want to form Human 2.0 without a free will also want total control thinking that will make them god. Sorry Charlie, only the One big enough to handle rebellion and turn things around for good to those who love Him can wear the name God effectively.
“But the little gods will have their hour, and it won’t be pretty.”
Here’s to the God in the clouds!
Dorothy
© 2023, Dorothy Frick
Read MorePower, love, and self-control
For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7
Power is the Greek word “dynamis” here, which is basically God’s power and not our own.
Love is the Greek word “agape”, which is known as the God kind of love…something we receive from Him to be able to love with the love of Christ.
And self-control? (Other translations call it discipline or sound mind.)
Somehow we think WE are in charge of creating this in ourselves, but just like POWER and LOVE–both imparted to us from God–SELF-CONTROL is likewise just as divine–a virtue He pours into us and which we grow in as we step out in it by faith.
We sometimes stumble in the power arena; we sometimes stumble in the arena of love; but both are inexhaustible in Christ and can be accessed again and again, humbly, when we fail (and we will at times).
I believe self-control operates in the same way. It is from God to enable us to walk this natural life with Heaven’s ability. We will sometimes stumble, but HIS self-control poured out into us is inexhaustible and can be accessed again and again, humbly, when we do fail.
Dorothy
© 2023, Dorothy Frick.
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