Clay Smith

1 Kings 6:11-13

1 Kings 6:11-13 (MSG)
The word of god came to Solomon saying, "About this Temple you are building—what's important is that you live the way I've set out for you and do what I tell you, following my instructions carefully and obediently. Then I'll complete in you the promise I made to David your father. I'll personally take up my residence among the Israelites—I won't desert my people Israel."

Loving God

Psalm 69:9 (MSG)
I love you more than I can say. Because I'm madly in love with you, They blame me for everything they dislike about you.

Hope in the darkness

Psalm 139:11-12 (NIV)
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"

God enters the mess through Jesus

Romans 8:3 (MSG)
God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Psalm 51:10

Psalm 51:10 (MSG)
God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.

Deuteronomy 29:29

Deuteronomy 29:29 (MSG)
god, our God, will take care of the hidden things but the revealed things are our business. It's up to us and our children to attend to all the terms in this Revelation.

Open doors

Revelation 3:8 (NIV)
I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

Mission

Jeremiah 29:7 (NIV)
Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."

Giving

Mark 4:24 (MSG)
"Listen carefully to what I am saying—and be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes."

Hold Gods word on your heart

Deuteronomy 11:18 (MSG)
Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder. Teach them to your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night. Inscribe them on the doorposts and gates of your cities so that you'll live a long time, and your children with you, on the soil that god promised to give your ancestors for as long as there is a sky over the Earth.

Deuteronomy 5:32

Deuteronomy 5:32 (MSG)
So be very careful to act exactly as god commands you. Don't veer off to the right or the left. Walk straight down the road god commands so that you'll have a good life and live a long time in the land that you're about to possess.

Deuteronomy 4:29

Deuteronomy 4:29 (MSG)
But even there, if you seek god, your God, you'll be able to find him if you're serious, looking for him with your whole heart and soul. When troubles come and all these awful things happen to you, in future days you will come back to god, your God, and listen obediently to what he says. god, your God, is above all a compassionate God. In the end he will not abandon you, he won't bring you to ruin, he won't forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.

Numbers 27:15-17

Numbers 27:15-17 (MSG)
Moses responded to god: "Let god, the God of the spirits of everyone living, set a man over this community to lead them, to show the way ahead and bring them back home so god's community will not be like sheep without a shepherd."

Psalm 40:4

Psalm 40:4 (MSG)
Blessed are you who give yourselves over to god, turn your backs on the world's "sure thing," ignore what the world worships; The world's a huge stockpile of god-wonders and God-thoughts. Nothing and no one comes close to you! I start talking about you, telling what I know, and quickly run out of words. Neither numbers nor words account for you.

Acts 20:24

Acts 20:24 (MSG)
But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.

Proverbs 5:17-20

Proverbs 5:17-20 (MSG)
Your spring water is for you and you only, not to be passed around among strangers. Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man! Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose— don't ever quit taking delight in her body. Never take her love for granted! Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a whore? for dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?

Proverbs 5:17

Proverbs 5:17 (MSG)
Your spring water is for you and you only, not to be passed around among strangers. Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man! Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose— don't ever quit taking delight in her body. Never take her love for granted! Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a whore? for dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?

Proverbs 4:23

Proverbs 4:23 (MSG)
Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts. Don't talk out of both sides of your mouth; avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip. Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions. Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you. Look neither right nor left; leave evil in the dust.

Psalm 25:12

Psalm 25:12 (MSG)
My question: What are God-worshipers like? Your answer: Arrows aimed at God's bull's-eye.

Matthew 24:13, Matthew 24:27

Matthew 24:13 (MSG)
"Staying with it—that's what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry, and you'll be saved. All during this time, the good news—the Message of the kingdom—will be preached all over the world, a witness staked out in every country. And then the end will come.

Matthew 24:27 (MSG)
The Arrival of the Son of Man isn't something you go to see. He comes like swift lightning to you!

Matthew 24:13

Matthew 24:13 (MSG)
"Staying with it—that's what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry, and you'll be saved. All during this time, the good news—the Message of the kingdom—will be preached all over the world, a witness staked out in every country. And then the end will come.

Matthew 23:24

Matthew 23:24 (MSG)
Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?

Matthew 23:9-10

Matthew 23:9-10 (MSG)
Don't set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of 'Father'; you have only one Father, and he's in heaven.

Ministry

Matthew 10:9-10 (MSG)
"Don't think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don't need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.

2 Timothy 2:4

2 Timothy 2:4 (MSG)
A soldier on duty doesn't get caught up in making deals at the marketplace. He concentrates on carrying out orders.