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Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Baby Leaves to the Rescue
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Bring Me a Minstrel
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Tested and Approved
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
It Really Is!
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
A Successful Life!
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Let's Hear It!
A couple of months ago a couple visited are church and we were in for a pleasant surprise. He "amened ... that's right ... preach ..." us through the sermon. Pastor Larry and his wife, Felecia, joined with our fellowship a few weeks ago and my heart has been lifted with his boisterous agreement during the sermon.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Rest Easy
"God gives this gift freely because He loves us. Not because
we’re entitled to it. Not because we are good. Not because we won it. He freely
gives it. We just have to accept it.
"The gift of grace is a deep well. We know the simple
definition: “God gives us what we don’t deserve.” In reality He gives us so much more. Grace affects everything we do as we live our
life for Him.
"We’re saved because of His Grace. We’re
justified because of His Grace. We can approach God’s Throne because of
Grace. His Grace is all we need to live
a complete life in Christ.
"We are gifted to serve because of His
Grace. We can be confident in our calling because He has given us everything we
need to serve Him through His Grace."
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Busted
"In a world of famine, floods, and fire; a world of disease, death, and the disruption of our everyday activities, I choose to look up from my knees. I see You seated on the throne of glory, in control of all things. All things. I know that You are a God of mercy, grace, faithfulness, and loving-kindness. So I reject fear and its impact on my life, and I place my faith in You. You have said that Your ears are open to the cry of Your people, that Your eyes are upon us, and that Your arms are long enough to reach us and strong enough to hold us. Hold me now. Quiet my racing heart. Breathe Your Spirit of peace into me to calm the fear and turmoil.
"Even as I pray for Your peace, I wonder if the disasters erupting in our nation could be the spark that ignites a spiritual awakening. Are You trying to get our attention. I know that, when it comes to our relationship with You, we desperately need to wake up.
"We have legalized defiance against Your institution of marriage; we celebrate relationships that contradict Your instructions; we exterminate life that You created and that bears Your image--for our own convenience, we have become so secularized we don't even acknowledge that You exist, much less reverence or obey You.
"You have my attention. Therefore, like the prophet Daniel of old, I turn to You in humility and shame as I confess on behalf of America some of the national sins that come to mind . . .
"I confess national addiction to sex. To money. To pleasure. To entertainment. To pornography. To technology. To popularity. To ourselves.
"I confess our foolishness in denying You as the one true, living God, our Creator to whom we are accountable, living as though our lives are a cosmic accident with no eternal significance, purpose, or meaning.
"I confess our greed that has run up trillions of dollars of national debt.
"I confess our arrogance and pride that has led us to think we are sufficient in ourselves.
"I confess to believing that our nation's prosperity comes from our own greatness, while refusing to acknowledge that all blessings come from Your hand.
"I confess that we depend on our military might and our weapons systems to protect us from harm and danger while we deny, defy, and ignore You.
"I confess that we have succumbed to the pressure of pluralism in our desire to be inclusive, honoring other gods as though You are just one of many.
"I confess that we have allowed the material blessings You have given us to deceive us into thinking we don't need You.
I confess that we have valued our foolish pursuit of happiness through wealth and prosperity rather than treasuring our relationship with You. I confess that we have marginalized truth and main-streamed lies.
"I confess that we have become one nation under many gods, divided and polarized, with license to sin and justice that no longer follows the rule of law.
"Holy Spirit of the living God, convict us of the need to turn from our sin and get right with You.
"Lord God, have mercy on us. As we repent of our sin and return to You, return to us. There is no one like You to help the powerless against our mighty enemies, be they visible or invisible. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on You.
"I hold You to the promise you gave to King Solomon. You said, "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land, or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers."
"I hold You to Your word as I plead with You. Hear my prayer. Forgive our sin. Heal our land. I am standing in the gap for our nation.
"I pray in the name of the One who is our Deliverer. Our beautiful and only Savior. Lord of the nations. Son of God and Son of man. The living, reigning, soon-to-return Lord of lords and King of kings, Jesus Christ.
"In His Name and for His glory, I pray. Amen."
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
The Barnyard
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Dew Drops
By His Grace . . .
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Nature Is The Answer
Just like words, titles can spur us to ponder and take action after reading them. I thought, “What does he mean is my imagination of God starved?” I liked the answer: nature. In my words, do I see God in all of nature?
“Nature to a child of God is sacramental. In every wind that blows, in every night and every day, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us, if we will only use our starved imagination to realize it. If we learn to associate ideas worthy of God with all that happens in nature—with the sunrises and the sunsets, with the moon and the stars, with the changing seasons—our imaginations will never be at the mercy of our impulses but will always be at His service” (Chambers)
We complain so much about every kind of weather, and yet God
is the maker of all weather. If we look close enough . . . if we listen . . . if we consider the spring morning, the summer
heat, the fall wind and the winter chill as gifts from a loving God, might we
sit back and admire His creation?
The weather might postpone an outing, disappoint an
expectation and cancel plans. Yet, in later years, sitting back and watching
all kinds of weather becomes simpler and is an enjoyable activity.
On Enduringword.com, David Guzik said this about Isaiah 40:26: “Isaiah can’t believe that anyone could doubt the greatness of God when they see the glory of God’s creation. First, He sits above all creation. (It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.) Second, He created it all. (Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain.)
“Isaiah’s amazement is well placed. How can anyone look
at the glory and design evident in creation, and fail to understand that there
must be a Glorious Designer behind it all . . . Isaiah uses an interesting
phrase when he describes God as the One who sits above the circle of the
earth. How could Isaiah possibly know that the earth’s shape was a circle? He
probably didn’t know, but the LORD who spoke through Isaiah did know. . . God’s
mastery over all creation is shown by the fact that He can bring out all the
stars by number, and then He calls them all by name. With the
billions and billions of stars in the universe, it is staggering to know that
God can number and name them all.” (Chambers)
Is your imagination of God starved? The remedy is simple. Take a walk outside and remember who made everything, even you.
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
A Special Love for Valentine's Day
God’s Glory means all of the above and so much
more. Scripture is full of verses that
speak of God’s Glory. See 2 Corinthians 4:6, Ephesians 1:24, Hebrews 1:3.
No dictionary definition could do justice in trying to
describe the word glory, when we refer to God’s Glory. No understanding
that we may have could ever describe God’s Glory. It’s beyond our
comprehension. It will take all eternity to fully understand and experience the
wonder of God’s Glory.
We’re told Jesus is the radiance of God’s Glory and
the exact representation of His Being. Everything we’ve learned and know about
Jesus is exactly who our God is. Hebrews 1:3
God’s Glory has multiple meanings in Scripture. The
display of His magnificence, the praise and honor showered upon His great Name,
and awesome splendor.
God’s Glory is important because we see His power and
majestic beauty. When we praise God it reminds us of how good He is.
One of the major displays
of God’s Glory today is one not often discussed, or thought about. It is
the work He does in ordinary people like you and me. When we remember the
person we were before we were saved and recognize all God has done in us since
that time, we can only shake our heads in wonderment. I sometimes say to
myself, “Who am I?” when I think of all God has done in my life.
How do you take the One who
is omnipotent, omniscient,
omnipresent, eternal, holy, glorious, and try to wrap all that glory into an answer?
It is hard to do.
Why is His Glory so important? Seeing God’s Glory in
the heavens and the earth points to how amazing and wonderful He is. We see His
power and majestic beauty.
Moses wanted to see His Glory, but God put him in the cleft
of the rock and covered him until He passed by. Today God’s presence dwells
within us. As we surrender to the Holy Spirit, God’s Glory within will
radiate to those around us.
“And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His Glory.’” Isaiah 6:3
By His Grace . . .
Baby Leaves to the Rescue
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These big guys had just finished eating at our back gate. With the buck I've been seeing the last few weeks it got me thinking about my...