Acts 27:31 (KJV)

Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.

That Paul was a prisoner there is no doubt. When the soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners so none could escape, the centurion kept them from it for the very purpose of saving Paul. Still, even as a prisoner, Paul found favor with the centurion. A Christian's circumstances may not be grand but they can be better if we maintain a proper testimony. 

Interestingly, however, when the storm hit, Paul could almost be considered the leader. He is "barking" orders that even the captain and the centurion obeyed.

Here's the thing, no matter what a person's position in life is, when death seems imminent the one who has peace with God, the one who has a connection to him; that is the one everyone will look to. Christianity is a help in a world of peace but it is essential in a world of death. If your relationship with God gives you rest in those times, you will make a difference when making a difference is the most vital.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Acts 27:31 (KJV) Making a Difference When It Counts Most

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Acts 26:2 (KJV)
I think myself happy, king Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee touching all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews:


”I think myself happy”

Happiness is an attitude more than an emotion. It is a state of mind that can be created by choice. (Or else by choices.)

There was no reason for Paul to be happy. He had been:

• Falsely accused, 
• Dragged into jail
• Threatened a beating
• Attempted to be assassinated and
• Drug to Caesarea where he would be held for years

Yet, when given opportunity to present his case before Agrippa he thought himself happy.

There is no doubt circumstances can tend to

• Unhappiness, 
• Depression and 
• Heartbreak

Life presents ample difficult situations and trials of soul that, if one would allow them to, could overwhelm the heart. We need not allow them to. We have tools to overcome them.

We can trust God
Faith in and of itself tends to joy and happiness. We know God is good and in control and this knowledge can relieve a troubled heart.

We can choose good friends
There are people whose own attitude and success in overcoming can lift our spirits. We should choose their company over those who rather choose to succumb to their troubles.

We can hear good music
Some music commiserates on trouble. Some rejoices in the victories God gives. The right music, with the right message can lift the soul.

We can reflect on positive things
This is what Paul did. In the midst of maybe dozens of reasons to be unhappy, he chose instead to think of that one thing he could think was happy.

Happiness is a choice. Choose it.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Acts 26:2 (KJV) Happiness Is A Choice. Choose It.

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Psalms 7:1 (KJV)
Shiggaion of David, which he sang unto the LORD, concerning the words of Cush the Benjamite.O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:

The reference to Cush the Benjamite is intriguing because, though it is not in the inspired and preserved text of Scripture, the reference is accepted by the scholarly authorities as legitimate. And yet no passage of Scripture speaks of him.

Being a Benjamite, Cush must have been an aggressive supporter of King Saul. He, like so many others, took up Saul’s offense against David without cause. David’s only crime was that of being anointed by God. But Saul was jealous and others took up his cause.

How often people become offended only because another is! God had anointed David. Of that he was sure. He therefore could trust God to deliver him from his enemies and those who stood with them. 

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Psalms 7:1 (KJV) Taking Another’s Offense

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Psalms 5:1-2 (KJV)
Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.

David describes his prayer has containing three parts:

His words
Prayer is obviously an expression communicated through words. Though sometimes those words cannot be uttered they are nevertheless spoken in the heart and through the Spirit of God.

His meditation
Effectual prayer would imply and necessitate thought. Prayer is much more than babbling whatever comes to mind. It has forethought, planning and meditation attached. The word Meditation reminds us that this thought will be upon the Word of God. Prayer is born from, guided by and supported upon the Bible.

His cry
This implies the fervency of prayer. It is delivered from a broken heart. It is spilled out in desperate need. It is based upon the humble realization of our own inability.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Psalms 5:1-2 (KJV) David Describing Prayer

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Psalms 3:2-3 (KJV)
Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah.But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.

Never mind what the “many” say.

This Psalm, the superscript says, was penned when David fled from his own son, Absalom. Whether David could have prevented Absalom’s sudden rise to power against him is a worthless speculation. Absalom did gain that power and it did result in David’s flight. 

It also resulted in many claiming David’s soul would find no help in God. Not that David’s circumstances would find no help from God, but his soul. Circumstances are fluid enough that they can be quickly changed. Whether those changes are attributed to God or some other power is a matter of individual perspective.

The soul is entirely different. Those who are without God cannot see how God can make any difference there. The one whose fellowship with God is real knows better.

The place where God works most powerfully is in the heart and in the soul. David cited his sleep as evidence of God’s help. He cited his awaking as evidence of God’s strength. His was not the sleep of depression but of peace. He slept with confidence and then he awoke with vision for his day.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Psalms 3:2-3 (KJV) Never Mind What the “Many” Say

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Job 41:34 (KJV)
He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.

Is this not a powerful phrase, “king over all the children of pride”?

Its first interpretation has to do with the power of leviathan, who is of such proportions that he possesses no enemy and fears none. He cannot be, as some have supposed, the crocodile. Even if they were to have been much larger at one time in history they could not match the whole of God’s description of this animal. This creature must be prehistoric and nonexistent in our current experience.

The point that God makes is this, the one that made such a creature must be so much greater than the creature that all who are humbled at him are the more humbled at his Maker.

“King over all the children of pride”

Not just some of the proud but all of them. Those who are proud by reason of: strength, wealth, fame, authority, or beauty bow in humility before Him. Those whose pride results in: rebellion, riotousness, wrathfulness and wantonness bow too in His presence.

Philippians 2:10 -11
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Job 41:34 (KJV) King Over All the Children of Pride

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Job 40:15 (KJV)
Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.

Behold now behemoth.

Some believe him to be the elephant or perhaps the hippopotamus. I doubt that because the next animal God brings up is leviathan who is unlike any of this time. Behemoth and leviathan must both surely be those dinosaurs of which we have no personal knowledge.

God declared to Job that He made them with him, behemoth was not before him nor was Job evolved from him. Creation is the subject. We learn that it happened in a short amount of time and each animal individually.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Job 40:15 (KJV) Behold Now Behemoth

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Acts 23:27 (KJV)
This man was taken of the Jews, and should have been killed of them: then came I with an army, and rescued him, having understood that he was a Roman.

Paul was a Jew by birth, blood, education and conviction; but he was Roman by law. His heart belonged to the Lord, which placed it in immediate conflict with the Caesar, who styled himself a god. Paul’s relationship to Rome was of little concern to him except that it provided him certain liberties that would not have existed for everyone.

The Christian finds himself in a similar situation. He is legally attached to the nation of his birth and finds he has certain rights and responsibilities inherent to those attachments. He may, in good conscience, enjoy and employ those rights and responsibilities. Indeed he may be able to use them to aide his service to the Lord. He is not required to renounce these attachments. Paul never did.

But his allegiance is to another land. He is legally in this earth but he is spiritually of heaven.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Acts 23:27 (KJV) In But Not Of This World

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Job 38:8 (KJV)
Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?

When the Lord speaks the book of Job changes. Previous we have the discourses of Job’s friends and we struggle because they seem so correct but we know them to be so wrong, at least in the spirit of their words. Then we have the answers of Job that so frequently seem off but we know that he did not sin with his words.

But now we hear from the Lord. We take assurance in every word.

• He laid the foundations of the earth
• He shut up the sea and decreed its place 
• He causes it to rain where no man is
• He hunts for the lion and provides for the raven

The smallness of man and the greatness of God are clearly seen.

The fresh breath I take this morning is that of the knowledge I do not have to second-guess any of this. It is as true as God is.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Job 38:8 (KJV) A Breath of Fresh Air

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Acts 22:21-22 (KJV)

And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.

And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.

Albert Barnes writes concerning this passage, 

“The reasons of their induction were, not that they supposed that the Gentiles could not be brought into covenant with God, for they would themselves compass sea and land to make one proselyte, but:

(1) That they believed that Paul taught that they might be saved without conforming to the Law of Moses; and,

(2) His speech implied that the Jews were more hardened than the Gentiles, and that he had a greater prospect of success in bringing them to God than he had in regard to the Jews.”

This is a growing problem in Christianity today as believers seem to be swept into a Judaistic mentality, embracing Old Testament Law as essential for salvation. 

The hardened heart today is the one that refuses simple grace through faith. 

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Acts 22:21-22 (KJV) A Growing Problem

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Acts 21:8 (KJV)

And the next day we that were of Paul's company departed, and came unto Caesarea: and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven; and abode with him.

The first portion of this chapter is written in the first person plural. Paul traveled with a company, Luke being the spokesman and journalist. There are 18 verses of “we” and “us”. Paul’s company: 

• Identifies with Paul most of these verses but 

• Departs briefly to identify with those desiring Paul to protect himself from bonds in Jerusalem. They even 
• Appear to take the lead, claiming that Paul went in “with us” rather than they with him unto James.

Then the narrative changes. Luke transitions to second person verbiage as the account focuses, not on Paul and his company, but on Paul. Paul’s company: 

• Traveled with him, 
• Served with him, 
• Enjoyed the fruits of their labor with him and sometimes 
• Suffered with him 

But when real trouble hit, it was always on Paul and not them. 

There were a number of great servants in Paul’s company. Some of them went on to greatness in their own right. But Paul is the one we know best not because Paul served by himself but because the weight of the burden rested upon him. 

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Acts 21:8 (KJV) It's On Him

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Acts 20:9-10 (KJV)

And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.

And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him.

Years ago I heard a preacher quip, “You can preach them to death once you can also raise them back to life.” The point was that preachers should not be long winded unless they can prove some supernatural (or at least, uncommon) power in ministry. The average preacher ought not, so goes this argument, preach long messages. 

What struck my mind today was how much influence the words of one man may have on a group of people. Whole movements of Christians (and of others by the way) are built upon the particular ideas of one man or another. 

There was a well respected preacher in the Baptist Bible Fellowship who held a particular opinion about Peter walking on water. It’s easy to tell which preachers of succeeding generations, even those who may have never met the man himself, his ministry has influenced because they hold that same peculiar view. Another preacher was well known for his twenty minute on the mark messages. Those who were drawn to him hold it as almost a law to preach short messages as he did. 

My point is to: 

• Contemplate the influence we might have on others, 
• Take care that influence is Christ-like and 
• Be aware of those influences that have shaped our own lives

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To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4200 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
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My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

Acts 20:9-10 (KJV) Those Who Influence Us

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