scripture highlights

i think i will have a blog post a day of my Scriptural highlights. the purpose is twofold. one, to encourage anyone who reads. the second, to help keep me accountable. so, do that. if i don't post ask me why.

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1 samuel 3:7 "Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him."
What a statement. How true of this in our own lives, that before we really knew God, He called us out of the darkness and we put our faith in Him. This happens before we officially believe, the call to believe is issued to us all.
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psalm 25:11 "For your name's sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great."
i rarely think of my forgiveness in light of this. i know it in my head, but my heart doesn't want to say it.
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jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
this hit me today because on two or three separate blogs the authors quotes other pastors and they themselves said that preaching cannot be taught. all those books that have the '5 great step to being a preacher' are of hardly any worth. God makes the preacher. hopefully i am a preacher by birth, because i think that i am a preacher by calling.
this is true of any other profession, whether secular or not. God has ordained where and when you work. where you are called. where you fit in His amazing plan. take courage and strength that if you are working out your salvation with fear and trembling that it is God who works in you, both to will and to act according to His purpose.

-joe