When the wise speak…we should listen. Nothing is so precious as talking to someone who has gone down the road before us. Their council is enlightening, encouraging, and refreshing…especially when we feel we can’t trudge another step down the path. The wisdom they give is invaluable… showing us balance and direction in our life.
Month: March 2014
I Peter 1:3 “…In His great mercy He has given us new birth…”
In early Spring, I love to go around poking under the dead leaves of my flower and herb beds …looking for new life. There hiding under the old vegetation are shoots of green chives and pink rhubarb, and lacy bleeding heart. It never fails to amaze and lift my spirits after a cold, hard Winter than to see life rising out of the ground. It’s as if the Lord is saying to me, “See, I’m doing a new thing… the old is gone…new life is springing up!”
Ephesians 4:32 “…forgiving each other…”
Someone has hurt you very badly…the question is not whether you should forgive them, but rather when. The funny thing about forgiveness is, the act is essentially for our well-being, not the perpetrator’s. In fact, sometimes the offender doesn’t even know that they’ve been forgiven…or care. Forgiveness is something kind and healing we do for ourselves. The sad alternative is carrying around pent-up bitterness and anger that will only poison mind, body, and spirit. The quicker you can say the words, “I forgive”…even if it’s between clenched teeth…the sooner you can start healing.
Mark 8:29 ” But what about you? He asked, Who do you say I am?”
If Jesus had asked you this question, how would you reply? Would you speak of your relationship with Him, or tell of how He impacted your life for the good? Or would you simply just say…You are my Lord and Savior, and by Your shed blood I have been saved.
Psalm 10:14 ” But You, O God, do see trouble and grief, You consider it to take in hand.”
The Lord not only understands the misery and great sorrow in our lives, but He is ever ready to receive it…if we’ll give it to Him. By turning our burdens over to God to carry, it allows us to clearly focus on our relationship with Him and not on ourselves.
John 6:63 ” The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life.”
The words that Jesus gave us are just that…only words, if we repeat them to others, but fail to demonstrate their power in our own life. If the Lord has taken up residency in your heart, how you conduct your life will speak volumes over what you try to preach to others.
II Kings 3:17 ” For this is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle, and your other animals will drink.”
When we’re in the middle of that dry, parched desert called life…when everything around seems so dead and lifeless. The Lord has a way of sending the most unexpected and unusual times of refreshing. No wind or rain, yet our cup is filled with living water! It may come by a chance meeting, an encouraging word, or an answer to prayer…but suddenly our dry place is filling to overflowing, and spilling out onto others.
Proverbs 14:10 ” Each heart knows its own bitterness…”
We humans are all the same…when something terrible happens, we feel compelled to blame someone, or something. We must accuse and hold responsible the person or thing that caused all our misery and suffering. But when there is no clear-cut culprit…we tend to blame God. When situations and circumstances are beyond our comprehension, we hold God liable for them. The insurance term for it is “Act of God” … and sometimes that’s what it is…an act of God we may never fully understand in this present life.
II Samuel 7:20 ” … For You know Your servant, O Sovereign Lord.”
You say, that people don’t understand you…but God does. You say, that they can’t comprehend what you’ve gone through…but God can. You say, that no one can imagine your pain…but God does. Only the Lord understands intimately what’s happened in your life…only He knows all things about you. Only the Lord has seen every sorrow and counted every tear.
Revelation 2:4 ” Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.”
After time, love can grow cold. We abandon the devotion of our youth, and the relationship between us and the Lord wanes. This is the luke warmness the Lord abhors…this is the apathy He’s against. The Lord is calling us back to that first love again.
Safetypinlove 