MORNING MANNA             8-5-23

CALL UPON HIM

“The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth..“- Psa.145:18

Real prayer is calling upon God. He is our Father: we are His children. We have nothing; He has all things to bestow, and is willing to give them. From a sense of need, we call on the Lord for a supply; from a sense of weakness, we call on Him for strength; from a sense of guilt, we call on Him for pardon. Being diseased, we cry for health; being troubled, for comfort and peace; being in distress, for relief and deliverance. We go out of self to Jesus, accepting His invitation, to plead His promise, and find Him faithful. Our God is always near the praying soul, not merely as the omnipresent Jehovah, but as our faithful Friend. He is near us, lovingly to listen to what we have to lay before Him; mercifully to relieve our miseries, be they what they may; graciously to help in every difficulty or danger. Beloved, our God is near us. He is attentive to us this morning; let us lay all our concerns before Him: He loves to listen to the often-told tale; He has patience with us, blessings for us, and will do us good.

O Lord, each day renew my strength,
And let me see Thy face at length,
With all Thy people yonder;
With them in heaven Thy love declare,
And sing Thy praise for ever there,
With gratitude and wonder.      By James Smith

David Stone

Lakeway Baptist Church 

Humble, Tx 

MORNING MANNA            8-4-23

ADMIRATION WITHOUT APPLICATION 

“And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.” ( Ezekiel 33:32)

Israel, as oft was the case, was in a very pitiful condition, as out text shows. But there is no doubt that many today have the same problem. 

William MacDonald described it well when he said. “One of the ironies of declaring the word of the Lord is that people are often intrigued with the speaker but not with the message that requires action on their part.

This is true with public preaching. The people admire the preacher. They remember his jokes and his illustrations. They hang on his enunciation. Like the woman who said, “I could almost weep every time my minister says that blessed word ‘Mesopotamia.’” But they are paralyzed as far as obedience is concerned. They are immunized against action. They are anesthetized by the pleasant voice.

This is a familiar syndrome to those who carry on a counseling ministry. There are some people who get a secret satisfaction out of being counseled. They thrive on being the center of attention for that brief hour or so. They enjoy the fellowship of the counselor so much that they become chronic counselees.

Presumably they have come to get advice. But they don’t really want advice. Their minds are already made up. They know what they want to do. If the counselor’s advice agrees with their own desire, then they are fortified. If not, they will reject his advice and continue on in their stubborn way.

King Herod belonged to this class of dilettantes. He used to enjoy listening to John the Baptist ( Mark 6:20) but he was a superficial dabbler. He had no intention of letting the message change his life.

Erwin Lutzer writes, “I’ve discovered that the most frustrating problem in helping those who come for counsel is simply that most people do not want to change. Of course, they are prepared to make minor adjustments – particularly if their behavior is getting them into trouble. But most of them are comfortable with their sin as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. And often they’d prefer to have God keep His activity in their lives to a minimum.”

Some counselors have developed a stratagem to bridge the gap between hearing and doing. They give the counselee a specific assignment – something that he must do before he appears for another session. This tends to eliminate those who are not serious. It prevents wasting time for them both.

It is a serious thing to reach the stage in life where we can hear God’s Word and not be moved by it. We must pray for continued sensitivity to the voice of the Lord and a readiness to perform whatever He says.”

David Stone

Lakeway Baptist Church 

Humble, Tx 

MORNING MANNA             8-3-23

DON’T WORRY

“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God.”–Philippians 4:6 

The Bible is very clear and blunt about our obligations. God expects us to know what He expects. But, have you noticed, not everyone appreciates that fact. Most people feel their worries are justified. Tell them,”Don’t worry” and they feel like punching you in the nose. Yet, that’s exactly what God does—He forbids us to fret! So, when we worry we violate God’s command, we make ourselves miserable and we lose our ability to make wise decisions.

 Over a century ago, a preacher by the name of Darlow Sargeant put it like this: “Not a few Christians live in a state of unbroken anxiety, and others fret and fume terribly. To be perfectly at peace amid the hurly-burly of daily life is a secret worth knowing. What is the use of worrying? It never made anybody strong; never helped anybody to do God’s will; never made a way of escape for anyone out of perplexity. Worry spoils lives which would otherwise be useful and beautiful. Restlessness, anxiety, and care are absolutely forbidden by our Lord, who said: “Take no thought,” that is, no anxious thought, “saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?” He does not mean that we are not to take forethought and that our life is to be without plan or method; but that we are not to worry about these things. People know you live in the realm of anxious care by the lines on your face, the tones of your voice, the minor key in your life, and the lack of joy in your spirit. Scale the heights of a life abandoned to God, then you will look down on the clouds beneath your feet.”

All that is true, but when your feet is in the fire, or you feel that the whole world is caving in around you, it is easier said than done. Sometimes we that we are in an impossible situation and we see no hope on the horizon. It is then that we must remember the grace of God which is “sufficient for thee” (2 Cor.12:9). With God all things are possible!- HDS 

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E.
Humble, Tx. 77346

MORNING MANNA                8-2-23

OUT LIVING YOURSELF

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation,your mighty acts to all who are to come.”- Psalm 71:18

Next time you see a picture or hear something about Mount Rushmore I hope it will remind you of this message.

“American history shall march along that skyline,” announced Gutzon Borglum in 1924 as he gazed at the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was three years later that he began sculpting the images of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt on the face of Mount Rushmore.

Working with jackhammers and dynamite, Borglum’s team removed around 400,000 tons of outer rock, working to within three inches of the final surface. Sadly, Borglum died in March of 1941. His masterpiece was finally finished years later.

It’s been said, “The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” Some of the greatest visionaries who have ever lived never got to see their visions take shape. Instead, they had a vision so big that just achieving it took longer than the remainder of their lives.

If you want to leave an impact on this world, do something that will outlive you. That doesn’t mean you have to carve a mountain. But you can invest in others’ lives and lead them in truth. When you start living beyond yourself, there’s no limit to what God can accomplish through you!

Pray and ask God to show you where you can make an investment today that will outlive your years on this earth.

David Stone

Lakeway Baptist Church 

Humble, Tx 

MORNING MANNA              8-1-23

THE NEED FOR LOVEThe first thing I read this morning was the following article by Paul Chappell:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”– 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

It’s easy to look around and see that churches today are not making the same kind of impact on society that the early churches did in the first century. We have tools and techniques they could not even have imagined. We have programs and plans that have been market tested and promoted. We have buildings with comfortable chairs and air conditioning and state-of-the-art sound and light systems. But first-century churches shook the world without any of those things. What they had was an overwhelming love. They loved God wholeheartedly. They loved each other sacrificially. They loved the lost with a passion that made them brave every danger and overcome every obstacle to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

More than anything else, we need a revival and renewal of that kind of love if we want to have an impact on the world. The English Puritan Nathaniel Vincent wrote, “O love! How much want is there of you in the Church of Christ! And how much does the Church feel for this want! It groans, it languishes, it dies daily because of your absence. Return, O love, return! Repair breaches, restore paths to dwell in, edify the old ways and places, and raise up the foundations of many generations.”

Nothing done without love as its foundation and motivation will create lasting positive results. As the old hymn put it:

Let us love our God supremely,
Let us love each other too.
Let us love and pray for sinners
‘Til our God makes all things new.

More than anything else, we need a revival of love to set the church on fire.

David Stone

Lakeway Baptist Church

Humble, Tx.