From what we know Saint Valentine was martyred by Claudius II. Most people go on and on about how st. Valentine was beaten and beheaded but most don’t go on about why? Valentine was killed -as far as We Know- for refusing to deny Christ though ordered to by the emperor. It has even been said that while imprisoned he healed the sight and the hearing of the daughter of his jailer. His life was love. We go on too much about how people died, we need to go on about how they lived. Yes he died horribly; but he lived as a true man of God, he lived to serve his Christ. Claudius could beat his body and imprison him and even kill him but he could never take away his Christianity! No one could touch that man’s soul. As someone who lived for Christ and died for Christ Valentine was truly embodying love. There have been lots of jokes today on how we celebrate love on the day of a man’s execution but we forget that that man died because he loved Jesus. And isn’t Jesus the greatest love story of all? So who else would be fitting to be the embodiment of this day but someone who gave up his life for the love he had for his savior. Happy Saint Valentine’s Day.
Category: Devotional
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Cling to it, don’t give up
Giving up is easier than trying in the beginning, but harder in the long run. If you give up you may never know what would have happened if you hadn’t given up, and keeping going may hurt in the beginning but will usually be worth it in the end. If you stop now and then later chose to start again all your previous hard work could be for nothing if you have to redo it. So in the end keeping going is the easier solution. Yes dreams, goals and ambitions can hurt; in fact they will hurt at times, but that only shows that they are something worth fighting for. Easy things are the things that fade, the hard things are the things that stick together. Fighting to keep your marriage together will be worth it in the end, fighting to drop your addiction, fighting to get the job you want, to finish school, to raise your kids right, to follow your dreams! If God is in them than they will be worth the struggle! His end is a perfect and happy ending.
Doing all I can
All I can do is what is in front of me, everything else is beyond my power.
We as people tend to work ourselves to distraction by constantly trying to accomplish more than we can even perceive. Planning for the future is good but when planning turns to working and the working is on something we don’t fully grasp than we can wear ourselves out. We feel lazy if we simply accomplish what needs doing today and then rest, we often instead accomplish our daily tasks plus others we need to do tomorrow. Sometimes that is good, but if we never rest we never recover or recharge. All we can do is what is before us, all else is out of our hands. It’s okay to stand still and trust God to take care of things. God determined each day what He was going to create and then at the end of that creation He stopped, then began creating again the next day. We assume that the only time God rested on the 7th day because that is the only time it was mentioned, but if God was creating all day and night then wouldn’t that be mentioned too? God set aside a day for each creation and did no more than He planned on for that day. We can do all we need to for the day and then rest, that is totally fine. We can’t control everything, God does that, all we can do is what is in front of us to do.
Deliver Us!
Deliver Us!
The Israelite people spent over 400 years in captivity, several of those years being worked literally to death as slaves. They prayed for deliverance constantly and for 400 years nothing happened, but they refused to give in and let their oppressors win because they knew what God had done for their people in the past and that the same God would save them.
Did they have days of doubt? Oh yes! Did they have days that they wanted to give up? Definitely! Did they have days when they wondered where God was? Of course. Did that stop God from saving them? No. It may have postponed their rescue, but their complaints and cries didn’t make God stop loving them, and because He is a loving God He saved them. He didn’t even save them in a typical ‘extract the prisoners’ fashion, He destroyed Egypt with His wonders. God Almighty sent His sword to make Pharaoh let His people go. He parted the sea! Not a river! A sea! He sent a pillar of fire and a cloud to guide them! He had birds bring them food! God Delivered His people in every possible way.
Whatever you are going through- No matter how hard or painful- God will deliver you! Keep your Faith and don’t give in. Some days it will be hard to be strong or brave but you still have to keep the Faith that God has a plan. Whatever, wherever, whoever your promised land is, God is taking you there, little by little, miracle by miracle. He will deliver you.
Credit to owner for cover image
We will be okay
I have doubts, I have fears, I have days I don’t want the sun to get me out of bed, I have times when there is no place on earth I feel would be safe, because I am just like everyone else, the difference is that I have Jesus. I have the Bible that speaks God’s truths to me. My family and friends have struggles. The world is obviously falling apart, but we have Jesus and we know who holds our future. I see people on the news who are scared and angry, I read comments on social media that show the level of hate that is rising around us, but my brothers and sisters in Christ have Jesus and the security He brings and we know He is coming back again. This world is a big, scary, damaged mess, but Jesus is holding on to us so we will be okay.
I didn’t get that God, what did you say?
We are all trying to hear God’s voice, to have His guidance, but as we wait and listen what happens? We get busy, we have things we gave to do and if God has not spoken yet then we feel forced to do without Him. We think, ‘I’ll go on ahead and God will catch up.’ Does that ever work? No! If going on ahead has taken you down the wrong path then you may end up with a very long trek back to the beginning where God is waiting for you to return. Or sometimes you go forward on the right path, but you go so far without taking God with you that you get used to doing things yourself. You stop asking God for His will and start doing your will and hoping God will guide you in that, not that you have asked Him to guide you in what you want to do, just that you expect Him to follow you around and go -(‘poof’) ‘what do you need’- whenever you pray. You say, ” but God has stopped talking to me.” Has He really? Or have you stopped listening? We want our way so we try to control God but that is not the answer. Unless we are guided by God we will end up where we don’t want to be. If God is sending you into a thorn infested jungle but your friends are going down a rainbow path, which guide are you going to follow? Hopefully God. Only He sees that the rainbow path has thieves and muggers and high taxed toll bridges, only He knows that the thorn path may be prickly but in the end will be safer. God knows all, so listen for the Spirit’s prompting. It may not be a voice, it may be a nagging thought, or an unignorable feeling. You don’t know how the spirit is going to communicate, that is why you need to pray about every decision and then go forward in faith.
I’m going to be okay
So many days I find myself saying “this is crazy! I shouldn’t be okay!”
Yet, I am. The world is literally falling apart, I can’t see past my own nose when it comes to the future and yet…I’m okay. Why?
Answer, Jesus. Jesus is the own reason I am okay, without Him I’m sure I would be depressed and imploding like so many around the world are somehow, I don’t know, but somehow Jesus makes it feel like things will be okay. Isn’t that what Paul said?
(For Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses for when I am weak I am strong) <paraphrased from 2 Corinthians 12:10
Even from prison Paul said that he was okay because of Jesus. Even when we aren’t okay, we are with Jesus.
Right from the fish’s mouth
Matthew 17:24-27
I have always found a profound sensation of peace and excitement when I read the story about Jesus and the coins in the fish’s mouth. God could have provided the money for them to enter the city in any sort of way. He could even have made the guards wave the fee, instead He put two coins in the mouth of a fish. A fish that just casually swam over to Jesus so He could retrieve the money. That’s amazing! Why would God do it this way? Perhaps to simply show us that He can provide in crazy ways that we would never have expected. I chose this image of a fish with three coins because it made me think of the way Jesus has paid for us. My family has three people in it and there are three coins, to me it reminds me that each of us has been paid for. (Yes. I know this is a Buddhist symbol. But I colored it and I choose what it means to me.) Why do we worry over finances, income, funding when God put money in a fish’s mouth? He can do anything. Just believe in Him.
Merry Christmas!
It’s Christmas time they said, but I shook my head. Sure enough there was our grand old tree and Christmas songs playing just for me. But where was the noise, the laughter, the toys? Where were the people that usually graced our floors? Christmas? It can’t be. Not yet. Not like this. Remember, Christmas has rushes to stores, it has relatives coming and going in hordes, it has too much food and so many gifts. This can’t be Christmas, this quiet hush. Then a voice spoke to me, “I was not amongst the rush. The people, the presents, the shopping and more. None of that was part of my story, on that old barn floor. The night air was cold, not a relative to be seen, and yet, we were happy. We had each other. That’s what Christmas means.”
Perhaps that is why Christmas is different this year. Because Jesus was getting lost and His voice hard to hear. So now we are far from what normal may seem, but let us have that draw us closer to the old manger scene.
Carried in the cross 