Tonight is the night before the weekend and I am sure most of us have popcorn and movie plans. Tonight I leave you to begin the weekend with this thought, ‘who would I have been if I had never been saved by Jesus?’
Just take a few moments and ponder how Jesus has helped, guided, protected and saved you through the years, or maybe even only hours, since you accepted Him as your savior. Journal if you like, it may help outline the path that God has been guiding you on.
Have a nice Friday night!
Category: Blog
Lent devotional 2
White
The color white is a favorite of mine, probably because my first dog (whom I adore) was white. One thing about the color white that you learn quickly (especially if it’s on a pet) is that it stains really easily! My white little dog would sometime come back quite green or black from walks, sometimes both. As Christians we are washed white as wool from the scarlet stains of our sin, but can we become stained again? Of course. Sin never ceases, it’s part of life. We try hard not to get grass on our white robes but we trip and fall and then, oops, grass stains. Jesus forgives us daily so daily we must repent and turn back to Him. My mom once said, “it seems there is never a day without laundry,” I wonder if Jesus feels the same? Yet, like our loving parent, Jesus washes us clean again and then guards us as we venture back outside, knowing full well we will come back dirty again, but we have to keep growing and we can’t do that unless we go into the world and trust Jesus to love us enough to guide us and clean us up when we fall.
Lent devotional, day 1
“He put his heart into his smile.”
Do we as people put our hearts into doing things for others? In the quote above the boy saw his friend was sad so he put his heart into the smile he gave him as a signal that he understood how his friend felt. War was looming, the two boys were just kids thrust onto the battlefield, and the one chose to comfort the other with a whole hearted smile. When we make supper for a relative because they are bed ridden, do we put our hearts into it? When we play with a child who has no friends and lives with their grandparents who can’t do outdoor games with them, do we do it with a begrudge feeling, or do we try to make the best of it?
When it is late and we have had a long day, do we put joy into our worship of God?
Do we put our hearts into our smiles?
Happy Valentine’s Day
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.
Galaxies
‘God of wonders beyond our galaxy,’🌌
Think about that one. There are 100 billion galaxies in telescopic range. Some say that that number may more than double as technology increases.
To some that might not be considered awe inspiring, but I feel very privileged to live in one of the billions of galaxies that exist.
God took care to create a universe that can never be fully analyzed. No matter how much we discover we can never know everything that the creator knows. As an artist will always see something in their work that we as the viewer can never grasp.
God wants us to imagine and explore and wonder. He wants us to dream and love what we don’t understand.
Like His creation, God is also someone we will never understand.
No matter how much we study Him God (like the galaxies,) will never fit into our little box of understanding.
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.
Carried in the cross 