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Harold's Lessons
Di Harold Davis
Azioni libro
Inizia a leggereLunghezza: 139 pagine1 ora
- Editore:
- Page Publishing, Inc.
- Pubblicato:
- Jul 21, 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781684564729
- Formato:
- Libro
Descrizione
It is my hope that these lessons will help people to know God better. It is for his glory and honor. Without his help, we cannot make it in this world.
Informazioni sul libro
Harold's Lessons
Di Harold Davis
Lunghezza: 139 pagine1 ora
Descrizione
It is my hope that these lessons will help people to know God better. It is for his glory and honor. Without his help, we cannot make it in this world.
- Editore:
- Page Publishing, Inc.
- Pubblicato:
- Jul 21, 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781684564729
- Formato:
- Libro
Informazioni sull'autore
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Correlati a Harold's Lessons
Anteprima del libro
Harold's Lessons - Harold Davis
Harold's Lessons
Harold Davis
Copyright © 2019 Harold Davis
All rights reserved
First Edition
PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.
New York, NY
First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2019
ISBN 978-1-68456-471-2 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-68456-472-9 (Digital)
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Lesson 1
Lesson 2
Lesson 3
Lesson 4
Lesson 5
Lesson 6
Lesson 7
Lesson 8
Lesson 9
Lesson 10
Lesson 11
Lesson 12
Lesson 13
Lesson 14
Lesson 15
Lesson 16
Lesson 17
Ro. Harold Davis is a minister of the gospel according to Acts 2:38
His lessons are written to the saving of souls.
By the grace of God, many more of his lessons will be published.
Read the lessons and let them speak to your souls.
Blank sheets are left after each chapter so you may be able to make your own study notes.
Lesson 1
The Fragrance of Obedience
Malachi 3:8 and 1:9
Ephesians 5:1–2; Samuel 15:22
When you read the book of Malachi, you began to feel that God is saying, You smell terrible.
God didn’t use those exact words, but that is what he seems to have implied when he spoke to his people through his prophet Malachi.
(Their response? Well, they probably responded the same way you would, if I stood here and said, You all smell bad.
First, you would be offended by such a statement, and next, some of you might smell of yourselves. Some of you might ask, What’s so bad about the way we smell?
)
God was referring to a condition that his people were blind to; the condition of their offerings. Offerings are to be a sweet-smelling fragrance to the Lord. Their offerings stank.
Although the Israelites had promised God their best, they had actually given him much less. And they had offered it with a careless pride that had offended God.
Their offerings were blemished, and their hearts weren’t right toward God, yet they were oblivious to their condition.
How could they have remained so ignorant of their plight?
I think I know the answer based on my own experience. I never consciously decided to stop having my quiet time, to let the Bible study time dwindle or to cease praying. Yet I have found myself in each of these conditions at one time or another. I didn’t get these by decision; I got these by slippage.
Slippage happens slowly and is easily ignored. Slippage comes mostly because of default. Good habits wear away; exceptions build up. So I slipped into a condition of which I was only vaguely aware of.
I lacked the motivation to stop and evaluate my life.
The Israelites had probably arrived at their condition largely by slippage and had not stopped to evaluate themselves.
God’s gentler means must have failed to get their attention. So through the prophet Malachi, God spoke harsh words of assessment and the coming of judgment.
How recently have you or I taken stock of our offering to the Lord? According to Romans 12:1, our offering is ourselves.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Gone are the dead sacrifices of the Old Testament; God wants a sacrifice that is alive. We are to be a pleasing and fragrant offering to our God, as was Jesus, who gave himself up for us, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
What makes the offering of us a fragrant to the Lord? I believe there are at least five things to consider.
1. Obedience Not Sacrifice
When Saul allowed slippage to ruin his relationship with God, Samuel rebuked him by saying, To obey is better than sacrifice.
Without a commitment to personal ongoing obedience, our sacrifices are useless before the Lord.
We may be tempted to use sacrifice as a substitute for daily obedience. Serving on one or more committee, giving extra donations, and setting aside vacation time to help build the church are all good activities, but they can numb us to our need to apply God’s Word to the routines and relationships of everyday life.
We can live a sacrificial yet disobedient life.
The Israelites of Malachi’s time did just that. Religion had replaced relationship and intimacy with God was lost.
We can learn from them and humbly try to live by God’s Word in our homes, our workplaces, and our relationships. The fragrance of obedience pleases our Lord.
2. A Right Heart
Martha Thatcher wrote of her own experiences saying, "When I was bedridden for months after an attack of spinal meningitis, I discovered that I was quite replaceable.
"Other arms held my children, other hands cooked for my family, other voices encouraged my husband in his work, in the ministry that God had given us.
"Having always defined myself by what I did and by who I was to others, I now faced a blank space where once there had been a rich definition. I realized that I am indispensable to nothing and to no one. It is God who is indispensable to me. Somehow my heart attitude, toward God, had gotten turned around.
God met me in my brokenness and gave me a new understanding of him and my dependence of him. The fragrance of my broken spirit was sweet to him, not because it had come painfully, but because it reflected truth: it is he, not I who holds everything together. It is a right heart, not success in our roles that laces our offering with sweetness.
3. A Walk of Justice and Mercy
Matthew 15:8
In Malachi’s time, religion was a mask for tyranny. Somehow, in the misguided minds of the spiritual leaders, it must have been assumed that if God got his quota of offerings, he would ignore their merciless and unfair treatment of the people.
Malachi 3:5: But God, through Malachi, said, I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjures, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me.
The priests were pleasing only themselves while maintaining a form of religion that used offerings in the half-conscious hope that God would be pacified.
That had to change. If they were to please God, they needed to turn from sin and to walk in justice, mercy, and truth. The offering of us should bear the aroma of these fruits in our lifestyle: giving a fair hearing in a conflict, extending mercy when offended, operating fairly in business and in our treatment of others.
The fragrance is released in our daily choices. We can be assured that God is pleased with our efforts to honor him.
4. Thankfulness
The prophet Jonah affirmed that he presented his offerings with a song of thanksgiving, but the priests of Malachi’s time considered offering a burden, the enticing requirement of a distant God.
The priests had forgotten that it was a great honor to serve the King of kings.
God’s people had forgotten that they were chosen of God, handpicked to be his. They had become accustomed to their position, and in their perspective, that position had lost its splendor.
We are handpicked by God, honored to be servants of the King, yet we too can become so used to our position that we lose the edge of thankfulness.
We can ensure that we offer ourselves with thanksgiving when we remember scriptures like 2 Samuel 7:18, where David asked, Who am I, a Sovereign Lord, and what is my household, that you have brought me this far?
This and other verses affirm God’s loving choice. When we remember his undeserved favor toward us, it should stir up the fragrances of thanksgiving in our daily lives.
5. Undivided Loyalty
The men and women of Malachi’s time added to their list of gods. They spread their worship among their selfish gods (or desires), one of which was personal gain. It caused them to rob God of the tithes and offerings due him.
When God accused them of robbing him, they pleaded ignorance. They had so justified their misallocation of God’s provision that they didn’t see their own sin.
When we shift our loyalty away from God, certain indicators should alert us to this condition, such as discouragement, if we are not given proper credit, or anger when our plans are taken out of our control. What we worship controls us. If we learn to recognize the indicators, confess our sins and turn the full measure of our allegiance back to God, we can avoid the self-deception that the Israelites experienced.
Undivided loyalty is a source of an unpleasant fragrance to God.
When
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