Heart

Hey everyone! Sorry about the missed week last week... it was super duper busy around here as I'm sure it was for all of us. Along with that I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving! I have recently started up my daily devotional again and one of the verses I came across was Job 22:24-25. In these verses it talks about lust for money and how, "If you give up your lust for money and throw your precious gold into the river, the Almighty himself will be your treasure. He will be your precious silver." Yea, I think this verse has a lot to do with lust, however, I think this verse talks more about the change of heart after you are saved. See, when I read this passage one thing that really stuck out to me is the switch in verses from "precious gold" to "precious silver." Every time I can think of a reference to gold, it is a bad one. First, there was the golden calf that was made an idol while Moses was on the mountain recieveing the Ten Commandments, and the other is in Daniel when King Nebuchadnezzer made the golden idol for everyone to worship. Then there is silver. Silver is seen as a more pure metal. I think the switch in metals represents the change in our hearts after we become saved. I think this because it says "give up YOUR LUST for money," I highlight "your lust" because it talks about us and what we choose to do, then in verse 25 everything changes to "the Almighty himself will be your treasure." We should all see Jesus as our treasure and our precious silver. One more thing I find interesting is that it says "precious silver." If something is precious to you, you would not go around trashing it or doing things that would hurt its reputation. SO, as we go through our week this week lets just remember that the Lord is OUR precious silver.

Leadership

A very good friend gave me a card last year around this time and at the end of the note this person left inside the included the verse Mark 10:31 "the first shall be last and the last shall be first." Kind of confusing right? Well according to just about any leadership course unselfishness is the key to a good leader. See, we don't run our lives and I think most of us know that God is actually in control. When we give up our lives to the Lord, the Lord takes leadership in our lives. Through His leadership in our lives we can intern be a leader to groups of people. Because God is our leader, we have to give him complete control of our lives.We have all heard of giving God control, but what does that include? In Matthew 22:37 it says, "Jesus replied, ' `You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.'" These three things represent the three aspects of our body, our physical being, our mental being, and our soul, which is everything that we are, love, and do. So, in order to be a good and effective leader we have to give up everything and in turn God will lead us to where we are to be.

Unending Love

What do you think about when you heard about metals such as gold, silver or platinum? Do you think about how expensive they are? Do you ever think about the time it takes to make something that pure? In Malachi 3:3, it says, "He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they at once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord." When refining silver and gold it has to be heated over an open flame to remove all the blemishes. Well, if the silversmith doesn't keep a close eye on it, it will burn, thus ruining the metal. However, if he doesn't leave it in the fire long enough, all the blemishes are not removed, leaving the silver or gold dirty and not as pleasing to the eye. This is what God does with us he removes our sins, but one underlying principle that the reference to the refining of silver and gold shows, is that of his unending love. God cares for us enough to take time and pay attention to our needs. No matter what we do God still refines us like silver and gold, and without that refining we are very unpleasing to the eye. We need God in everything we do, and the cool thing is God is here for us spending lots of time trying to remove all the sins so that we can worship him with everything we have.

-Kevin Kassakatis