Sunday 3/10 ~ A part of you

The scripture for today, March 10 (3/10), is Colossians 3:10 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

Pearls Cover-Palms-300dpi-Thumbnail“And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

Did you ever make something with your hands and it was your pride and joy?  Were you so proud of it that you would stop at nothing to take care of it and make sure it lasted forever? Yes, you had a few rules about its care. You had a few rules about who could touch it and who couldn’t. You had a few rules about whether it should be kept at high or low temperature and should or shouldn’t be exposed to water. You were its creator and it was, in a sense, a part of you.

Do you resist knowing the Bible because you think of it as being full of rules from a God who doesn’t really like you and is just giving you a hard time so you can’t have any fun?

Think again. He made you. You are his pride and joy. He will stop at nothing to make sure you will last forever. He made a few rules for your daily maintenance.

He is your Creator. He loved you enough to make you, and you are a part of him. Now he wants to take care of you so you can last forever. Can you love him back ~ your Maker and the Lover of your soul?

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Sunday 3/3 ~ What are you missing?

The scripture for today, March 3 (3/3), is Genesis 3:3 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

00-Hero Alone-COVER-KINDLE-Thumbnail” ‘But God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden and you must not touch it or you will die.’

This is a conversation Eve is having with Satan in the Garden of Eden. She was a little put out by God that he would withhold even one item from her. So, she misrepresented God. What God actually said was….

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Eve had added to what God had said: “You must not touch it.”

Do you do that? When you get put out by someone, do you embellish a little and add a few little things to an event in order to make the other person look worse than they really are? Are you in the habit of making yourself a victim so you can get other people’s sympathy and maybe get other people to act on your behalf? Or perhaps you do it to “brag” how much worse your problem is far above all others’ problems, thus making yourself king or queen of all burden bearers?

1st Corinthians 13:5 says love does not keep a record of wrongs. If you have a feud going with someone, try breaking the cycle. 1st Corinthians 13:7 says love protects, always trusts, always hopes. Had Satan convinced Eve to stop loving God? 

It’s easy to do when God is made “the bad guy”.  It’s easy to stop loving others if they are always the “bad guy”.  What are you missing by not extending love even to those who are not nice to you? Who knows? Are you giving up paradise?

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Monday 2/25 ~ Almost Home

The scripture for today, February 25 (2/25), is Revelation 2:25 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

000-COVER-KINDLE-Thumbnail“Only hold on to what you have until I come.”

Several years ago, my 91-year-old mother left this life. Some say that, at the moment of death, one’s life flashes before their eyes. In the case of my mother, at the moment of her death, her life flashed before my eyes.

I suddenly imagined her as a baby in her mother’s (my grandmother’s) lap. Then she was a toddler playing in their yard. Then I saw her in school, then as a young bride to my father, then at home with her husband and children gathered around her. Then I saw her as launching a career after we were grown, then retiring, then eventually going into the nursing home.

And when that brief moment of envisioning her whole life was gone, I whispered, “You made it, Mother! You made it! You never faltered. Through all those years of ups and downs, you never wavered in your faith that Jesus Christ was real and would accept you into heaven. You stuck it out. And now you’re home!”

May you live your life in such a way that, despite your ups and downs, you never wander from Jesus. Stick with him through every storm, every flood, every blast of tragedy, every tumbling of dreams. Hold on to what you have until the day you leave this temporary life and enter your true eternal life.

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Monday 2/4 ~ Choices

The scripture for today, February 4 (2/4), is 1st Timothy 2:4 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

00-1st Century Worship KINDLE-COVER-Thumbnail“[God]…wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

Some people say, “You don’t choose God; God chooses only certain ones to be saved and keeps out all the other people of the world.” But God wants to choose us all. He wants everyone to be saved. So, in what sense does he choose us?

He is like an employer who is looking for people to fill certain positions. He chooses those who qualify. He doesn’t have to choose anyone. By the employer’s grace, he chooses to hire help and give them part of his money. But we must qualify to be chosen.

I Timothy 6:11 says we were called to eternal life but have to take hold of it.  II Peter 1:10 says we are to make sure his calling and choosing us.  Hebrews 6:4-6 says those who fall away crucify Jesus anew.

So how do we qualify for God’s grace? Certainly, atheists do not qualify, for they would not love God. People who worship another so-called god or nature do not qualify, for they would not love God. People who do not want to be looked upon as a goody-goody would not qualify, for they would not love God.

So, again, the question: How do we qualify? First, we never deserve it. We can never do enough good works to qualify because we still sin. We can qualify to be selected for heaven only if we are sinless. Impossible! Yes, for us it is. But, because God loves us, he has given us a few things to do to qualify and be sinless in his eyes.

Believing is just the first step to qualifying. Admitting we sin and repenting is another step to qualifying. Read Romans 6 and Acts 2. Explaining what baptism is for. Not many things, but they are necessary. Look them up. Check them out.

And remember 2nd Peter 3:9 ~ “He [God] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but EVERYONE to come to repentance.”

When we make ourselves God and say the Bible doesn’t mean what it says so we can sneak into heaven our own way, how our Lord’s heart must ache.

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Friday 2/1 ~ When he is in your heart, is he home?

The scripture for today, February 1 (2/1), is Mark 2:1 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

0-BK 4-FolkHero-Cover-Kindle-thumbnail-new“A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.”

Just think of it. Jesus coming home. The place where his family lives. The familiar places he’d seen walking around town in earlier years. The familiar faces. Hearing a voice in a crowd and recognizing it and automatically knowing s/he is a neighbor. Being able to walk through a market almost blindfolded because the same shops are in their same places selling their same goods.

Has Jesus come home to your heart? Is it familiar to him? Does he recognize you? When he hears your prayers, does he automatically know who you are? Can he walk beside you as you walk through life, knowing the places you will be visiting? Does he live with you?

When he is in your heart, is he home?

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Monday 1/28 ~ Keep Hope Alive

The scripture for today, January 28 (1/28), is 1st Chronicles 1:28  s found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

04-Isaac&Jacob-KindleThumbnail“The sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael.”

Are you a parent with a grown or nearly-grown child who is going in the wrong direction? Have you tried everything you can think of, and nothing is working? Do you know in your heart that you have been a good example and things shouldn’t have turned out like they have?

Abraham has been called the Father of the Faithful. Yet he had one son who followed Jehovah ~ Isaac ~ and one son who followed idols ~ Ishmael. Certainly, Abraham tried everything he could to “talk some sense” into Ishmael. Certainly, he prayed earnestly for Ishmael. So, what went wrong?

Just as God has given each of us free will, our children also have free will. Just as God will never force us to follow him, we cannot force our children to follow God. You did not refrain from having your children because they may have difficulties in their life, and neither did God. And when our children rebel and break our hearts, imagine what God goes through when we rebel and break his heart.

Who knows? Perhaps your child will return to God someday in your old age, or even after you have died. If your child deep down has a good heart, that is enough for God to work with.

Keep hope alive.

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Saturday 1/26 ~ Notice them. Claim them.

The scripture for today, January 26 (1/26), is 1st Samuel 1:26f as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

02-samuel-thumbnailcover“And she said to him, ‘As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.’ “

Wow!  Hannah prayed for a baby and God gave her a son!  Then she told everyone. How often do you tell someone God has answered your prayer, big or little?

Or do you wander aimlessly from prayer request to prayer request, and let the answers drift away from you unnoticed? Or worse, do you ask others to pray for something, but after once or twice you stop praying for that thing yourself? A year later, someone tells you they are still praying for your something and you have completely forgotten it.

Begin today to keep a list of your prayer requests. Write down the date you first began to pray for each. If your requests are all about yourself, expand. Begin including your neighbors, your co-workers, people you attend church with, your relatives, schools, people in the newspaper.

Then begin a second list of your answers and the dates. You will be amazed how fast your Prayers Answered list grows. Do not let the answers drift away from you unnoticed.

Notice them.

          Claim them.

                    Tell others.

And spend the rest of your life telling others and thanking God over and over and…

 

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Wednesday 1/23 ~ Why can’t I see God?

The scripture for today, January 23 (1/23), is Romans 1:23 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

00-LUKE-KINDLE Cover-Thumbnail“….and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

Well, the opposite has happened in our millennium.  Instead of worshipping many gods, people are worshiping nothing.  They declare God does not exist. They declare the existence of the universe just happened for no reason and that their minds have reason for no reason. One of their arguments is that they cannot see God.

Do you ever wish you could see God, touch God, look God in the eye? Everyone has. And we may wonder why we can’t.

If this were the case, then God wouldn’t be God. He wouldn’t be omnipresent (present everywhere). He would only be able to listen to one prayer at a time, and the rest of the world’s prayers would go unheard.

Besides, God is too big to see.  It is like facing a building half an inch away.  We have no way to know what the building looks like because it is so big. There are over two trillion galaxies out there, and God is larger than them all because he made them all. It is impossible to see God he fills the universe and beyond.

Let us be grateful our God is so great He cannot be limited. He is so great, he cannot be pictured or imagined.  He is so great He fills our hearts and our souls.

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Tuesday 1/15 ~ Never underestimate what God can do through you

The scripture for today, January 15 (1/15), is Galatians 1:15f as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

03-Naaman'sMaid-ThumbnailCover“But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles….”

Isn’t this amazing? God knew before you are born what you can be doing for him later in life. He sets aside work for you to do, but he does not force you to do it. You may set aside a certain amount of money to spend on food but you end up spending it on clothing.  Being set aside does not mean something will end up doing what it was set aside for.

God has given you certain talents and set you aside to use them for Him.  Do you? Is your thinking even oriented on things that can endure through eternity? Or do you think only of the next day, or the next year?

You do not have to guess what God has set you aside to do.  Read the scriptures. He has messages for you all through them.  Find someone in the Bible with your personality and use that person as an example.  Find advice in the proverbs. Find advice in Jesus’ teachings, and in his apostles’ teachings.  It’s all there.  Pick one and do it.

If you are willing to follow God’s advice and not man’s, then decide today to accept the work God has set aside for you to do. Or maybe you’re already doing it and don’t realize it.

You may not think your life has been very exciting. You may be waiting for God to give you a big important job to do for him. But the truth is, you ~ in your seemingly mundane life ~ may already be doing what God set aside for you to do.

Never under-estimate yourself and what God can accomplish through you.

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Monday 1/14 ~ Guardian Angels

The scripture for today, January 14 (1/14), is Hebrews 1:14 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

07-SHADOW-ChildsCartoonSmall“Are not all angels ministering spirits, sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”

Have you ever wondered if the Bible really mentions guardian angels? Well, here it is. How wonderful! How reassuring! But the angels do not minister to everyone ~ just to the saved who will inherit salvation.

As much as they minister to us, however, we are not to worship them and we are not to pray to them. For a while ~ and still some today ~ it was popular to collect pictures and statues of angels. Some people were saying there is no God, but there are guardian angels. Some people who do believe in God bypass Him and ask angels to help them, kind of like going to the peasant instead of the king. 

Where do they think angels come from? God created them to be the servant class.  We are not to adore, worship or pray to angels (Revelation 19:10; 22:9).

So, yes, we do have guardian angels. Let us be grateful God loves us enough to send the angels to minister to us until we reach his home, heaven. Then, we and the angels will bow down together to the God of the universe and Him will we worship.

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