Today, you may admit that you have no idea who God is… or you may confess that you’ve never heard the name of Jesus and the Gospel Message proclaimed…but the good news is God already knows you! For as He told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5) So while you may not recognize Him as Lord or concede your need for a Savior…yet… that doesn’t stop God from still working in your life. Why you ask? It’s simple, “The Lord declared you are My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He.” (Isaiah 43:10)
Author: kezha1
A Christian mother, grandmother, and retired nurse living in Illinois. Called into a ministry of encouraging others to find their ultimate plan and purpose in life through Christ.
Psalm 112:4 ” Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.”
There is much hope in this Scripture for us today. For even in the darkness of loss, and suffering the light of a new day comes…and with it comes hope. That even when shadows shroud and obscure our view…dawn will break, and with it the Lord’s new mercies. Psalm 18:28 promises that “My God turns my darkness into light”. But where does this light come from? “For God made His (Jesus’) light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (II Corinthians 4:6) We need to look to Jesus for the light… for unfortunately, we know that darkness will come into all our lives, but our hope, joy, and peace will only be found in the light.
John 6:33-35 ” For the bread of God is He Who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘from now on give us this bread.’ Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty.’ “
Many of the crowd around Jesus here had been with Him earlier when He had fed 5,000 with a few barley loaves and fish. Having followed Jesus to Capernaum, they were looking forward to more miracles and food…in other words, they had come for Dinner and a Show. But instead, Jesus offered them something life changing…He offered them eternal life. Just as He offered living water to the Samaritan woman at the well…Jesus offered the bread of life to the crowd. And He offers it to all of us today! Think about it, the world-view philosophy is empty and will never quench our thirst or fill our soul like Jesus can…and our man-centered spirit is continually searching for fulfillment, but will never find it outside of accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
Proverbs 31: 26-27 ” She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. “
The other day I was practicing a lost art…I was ironing! You know, that activity that uses a iron and a ironing board and you press wrinkles out of clothing. I imagine for many of you, this is quite a foreign concept, but before the advent of permanent-press clothing people ironed everything. And as a young lady, I was taught how to iron…starting out with flat pieces such as handkerchiefs, tea-towels, and pillowcases. My Mother would stand along side giving me instructions and encouragement as I learned how not to burn myself on the hot iron. Soon I would have a perfectly pressed item with her mark of approval for doing a good job. So the other day as I pressed her fancy, only for special occasions, ivory damask tablecloth, all those memories came crowding back…and when I was finally done, it too was perfectly pressed, just as she would of wanted it to look…and this afternoon, it will cover the display table at her funeral.
James 5:1 ” Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.”
In this letter, James isn’t writing to the general public…he’s addressing the early Church and Believers. He’s warning the rich Christians that they will be judged for hoarding their wealth, withholding pay to the workers of their fields, and living a self-indulgence life-style without regard for the welfare of others. Worldliness had crept into the early Church then…and it creeps into the Church today. For anytime more importance is placed on the elaborateness of the carpet in the sanctuary over helping the poor and oppressed among us…worldliness has found its way in.
Luke 9:49 ” ‘Master,’ said John, ‘we saw a man driving out demons in Your Name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.’ ‘Don’t stop him,’ Jesus said, ‘for whoever is not against you is for you.’ “
The “inner circle” of the disciples were having a melt down. “How dare a stranger use Your Name to pray for people. He hasn’t been given authority like we have. We’re the ones who have the close association and relationship with You…he’s not one of us!” But they were really shocked when Jesus reacted to their biased thinking and elitist attitude by saying, “Don’t stop him!” Christianity has a way, if we’re not careful, of developing into a “club” mentality…a them against us posture with a superior prejudice towards anyone outside our inner circle. But we’re not part of an elite group…we are an elected group, chosen and saved through grace… not by anything we’ve done or are part of.
Mark 8:34 ” If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his Cross and follow Me.”
What’s the cost of following Jesus? It’s mostly things we don’t want to do, and our flesh rebels at the notion. For it involves intentionally making choices of self-denial…of giving up oneself and our interests to serve others. It also means sacrificially suffering in order to acquire a more deep abiding relationship with our Savior. But within the cost of following Jesus are also many precious workings of the Holy Spirit. There’s the sweet fellowship of faith with the Lord…the honor found in sharing in His suffering…and the humbling action of exemplifying His life in ours.
Acts 16:25-26 ” About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.”
This wasn’t the only time that prison doors shut by men had been flung open by God. In Acts 5:19 an angel of the Lord opened the jail doors for the apostles when the Sadducees had them thrown into prison for healing many people. In Acts 12:7 Peter was jailed by King Herod only to have an angel of the Lord escort him out past all the sleeping guards. Over the ages mankind has foolishly thought they could shut doors, stopping God’s work… only to see Him fling those doors wide open. Or they’ve unsuccessfully tried to pry open doors that God had firmly nailed shut. The truth is – you can’t shut a door God has opened, neither can you open a door He’s shut.
Hosea 6:6 ” For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Even today God takes no pleasure in the rituals, ceremonies, and religious acts we perform simply for the sake of doing them. They are like the constant, reoccurring daily sacrifices done by the Priests in the Temple for the people…and in Isaiah 1:13, God told them to, “Stop bringing meaningless offerings.” That’s because God is wanting a relationship, not our religious works…He’s desiring a deep connection, not just us sitting in a Church building…He longs to be in a partnership with us, not watching our put on piety.
Ephesians 6:7 ” Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men…”
Last week as I was paging through a very old cookbook of my Mother’s I found this at the bottom of one of the pages: “There are three types of people: The few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the majority who have no idea that anything has happened.” Anonymous And if we look up the Greek words in the Scripture above, it will help us see how true this statement is! Basically, this verse in Ephesians tells us to serve the interest of others, before ourselves, with a helpful and cheerful attitude. Well, no wonder it’s only a few that make things happen! We’re all too selfish. That’s why the many of us would rather watch others do the serving than do it ourselves. But it says the majority of us don’t even realize that there’s a need…and that’s sadly true. The majority of us have our faces planted so far into our phones we miss everything that’s going on around us…countless needs and ways we could serve others go unnoticed and ignored.
Safetypinlove 