Sum-Er-Time!

Hot!
Humid!
Sweltering!
Welcome to Alabama in July. This month will be followed by August which brings more of the same (heat, hot, heat).
The only redeeming thing is that with each passing day Fall draws nearer and nearer.
I do exaggerate though, don't I? Living here all my life, you tend to be use to the heat and humidity.
Lot's of ice tea is consumed. I believe the average Southerner drinks somewhere in the neighborhood of a Trazillion gallons of ice tea each year. Let's hear it for Red Diamond, Milo's, and Lipton.
I bless the man who invented A/C. He truly must have been a Southerner.
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Verse Of The Day:
Lamentations 3:40
Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.

What an incredible verse! The idea of taking a moral inventory in order to make sure we are in right standing and walking in a way worthy of the call God has given us.
How do we examine our ways?
The 12 steps say we are to take a "fearless and searching" moral inventory of our behavior.
To list our fears and resentments and people we have harmed.

It is so easy to appear to be religious. It requires nothing and yet when we refuse to deal with our past and the motives behind our behavior, we do not grow spiritually. We remain in a state of bondage to our sin and our past. We remain a prisoner to our secrets. As long as we carry secrets around about our past, we will continue to struggle. Freedom comes when we truly do examine our ways. It is the last part of the verse where the healing comes. After taking an inventory and coming face to face with our character defects, Jeremiah says, "Let us return to the Lord." For in returning to Him, we come to the only real source of healing. God is the only one who can wash away our sins, remover the stain in our heart that is a constant reminder of who we truly are.

I love what King David wrote in Psalm 51, the Psalm concerning the uncovering for his adultery with Bathsheba.
Cleanse me........Wash me.....Create in me...Renew me....Restore unto me....and Grant me.
David understood that it would take a Power greater than himself to change his heart. Even as King, David knew that he stood before God, soiled and in bondage because of his heart.
A heart that had succumbed to sin and sought to feed it's own appetite. David knew that only God could forgive,redeem and restore. David did not let his pride get in the way of doing what he knew to be right.
Too many people today think such a thing as confession and repentance is below them. They care more about what others think than they do having a right standing before God. Don't be caught in that trap.
Today, take the steps that Jeremiah wrote about in Lamentations 3.....
"Let us return unto the Lord."
God on you...
mb