I am a Christian, a retired teacher, a mother and a grandmother. I love to read and I love the Lord Jesus Christ! Unless otherwise specified ,all visual illustrations are from the YOU VERSION APP of the Bible.
Every day should be a day to enter into the presence of God. But how do we go in? My devotional this morning gave me clear insight and instruction.
It’s very clear that the first thing we should do when entering God’s presence is to be thankful, truly and from the heart. We need to spend time in awareness of who God is, not just all that He has done for us, although that is important, too.
This is the same verse from “The Message” version of the Bible. I don’t usually use that version because it is such a loose translation, but I like this verse because it is so appropriate for the 21st Century. I don’t know about you but I have what seems like hundreds of passwords for different online sites, so many in fact that I have a locked password manager on my device so that if I forget a password, I can look it up again. Or, if I’m using my usual device, the computer itself completes the password for me so that I can enter the site. Isn’t it wonderful that the password for entering into God’s presence is always the same? “Thank you.” Just “thank you.”
May you have a blessed day, filled with thanks and standing firmly in the presence of the Lord.
I have hummingbird feeders just outside my window that I watch daily from my recliner as I read my Bible, pray and then spend time in meditation. They are fiercely devoted to filling themselves with that sweet nectar. May we be equally devoted to God’s Word.
We used to sing this song in one of the churches that we attended. The words have stayed with me through the years. Good to remember how sweet God’s Words should be to our ears, as we crave insight into His character by reading His Word.
I have heard all of my life that life is a mystery and we have to solve it. I’m not sure whether it was my mother or grandmother who put that idea into my head, but since mysteries are my favorite genre to read, I have been content with that analogy for years. Then this morning I read a devotional that compared life to a puzzle and I think it is a much more appropriate fit. When I think of a mystery, I think of a bad guy who is lurking in the shadows and the good guy who always wins in the end. Well, that fits if you cast Satan as the bad guy and Jesus as the victor. But in the puzzle analogy, we, God’s creation, seem to have a more active role, so that’s why I like it.
We make plans daily. For example, I knew that this week I volunteered to work at Vacation Bible School at our church. I was first assigned to work in crafts with the elementary children, but that didn’t pan out because it required that I descend steep steps to the classroom. So, the coordinator moved me to preparing snacks in the church kitchen. But when I went to pick up my shirt for the week, I was told that I would be working the check in table outside. I had planned on one thing, but I switched twice. Why? Because I was not in charge! I’m a volunteer.
That’s what we are in the Lord’s army. We are volunteers and sometimes we like to think that we are in charge and make plans accordingly. But God, who is in charge, may change our plans according to what He needs and the perspective that He has. He sees all things and all people and knows exactly what needs to happen and when. Life is like a puzzle that God is putting pieces together and we can only see one small part of it and sometimes that doesn’t make sense to us until we back away and look at it from a distance. We have to trust that God knows what He is doing and turn over our desires to Him so that He can mold us and them into something that makes sense for His big plan.
Personally, I am not a fan of puzzles. The intricate skill of choosing pieces and fitting them together so that one big beautiful picture is complete has generally escaped me. I was able to complete a puzzle with my grandchildren earlier this summer and was so pleased that I was able to enjoy my time with them working on it. I can just imagine God working out the puzzle of our lives, with the image in His mind of what He has planned for us and how everything will look in the end. The thing is we are not at the end yet. All of the pieces are still being placed and we need to wait patiently, without stamping our feet and demanding that God follow our plans. I don’t like puzzles, but I am willing to concede that since God is putting the pieces of my life together, fitting my pieces in with the pieces of others with whom I interact in this world, then I need to let God and just let Him complete it. I have input because He has given me the ability to make choices but I don’t have the final say, and I’m okay with that. I have discovered that God is not only assembling the puzzle of my life; He is also creating it. And one day I will understand because I will see it from God’s perspective of Heaven and it will all come together beautifully.
May your day be blessed with the wonder of how much God loves you and thanksgiving for the beautiful picture He is creating with your puzzling life.
Everyone who has ever been in a difficult or dangerous situation wants to be rescued from it, not left in it. But what does rescue look like?
The Bible promises that God will rescue His people from their troubles. Does that mean that our Sovereign Lord makes all of our troubles go away? I’m sorry to have to say that it does not. Sometimes rescue means that we plod through the troubles, but in my experience, it is me who changes, not the troubles. I see them in a different light, in the light of who God is and how He is with me and the troubles that are still there become smaller and almost non-existent. That is a kind of rescue that is not expected but for me it has always been welcome. It’s also impossible to say when and how God will show up to rescue us. He turns up in the most creative ways possible, sometimes in the form of a stranger who offers a helping hand and sometimes in the form of a Bible verse that the Holy Spirit brings to our minds to comfort us and to get us thinking on the right track. God promises to rescue, that is true. But our part is to be ready to be rescued in a way that may not be exactly what we thought it would be and to accept that rescue for what it is. The alternative is to wallow in our problems, throw a pity party and hope that someone will join us in that miry mess. I have found in my long life that many times the troubles I need to be rescued from are due to my own poor choices. Yet, in spite of me, God shows us and rescues me, sending help just when I’m ready to give up. God is always on time, just not always on our timetable that we like to set for Him.
God will always bear our burdens but we have to give them to Him. He doesn’t reach down and grab them from us. Sometimes, in my own stubbornness, I have been absolutely determined to bear my own burdens, thinking that my own ingenuity and cleverness will get me out of the mess that I created and too proud to ask God for help. However, once I have decided that I cannot do it on my own, that I need His help and turn the burden over to Him, then He can take it away, lighten the load and show me how to carry a much lighter burden instead. God is ready to daily take on whatever troubles us, but we need to ask Him to do so instead of being self-sufficient. After all, our Creator knows what is best for us, if we would just acknowledge His wisdom and move on in His way rather than following our own path.
I pray that everyone will have a wonderful day, blessed in the knowledge of how very much God loves each of us and wants to take our burdens away and rescue us from our troubles.
There are two verbs that mean to know in the Spanish language. One is “saber” which means to know facts. For example, I know my multiplication tables and I know the colors of the rainbow. The other verb is “conocer” which means to know a person. For example, I know some of the people at my church. It’s a large church, so I don’t know many of them well. However, I know my husband well, or at least as well as I think I can since we have been married for almost fifty years.
Now here is the Spanish version. Note the uses of “saber” and “conocer.”
The word for having knowledge of facts is used in the first part of the verse, having some knowledge but not all the factual knowledge that they should have. Then, the last part of this Scripture switches to use knowledge of people Those who love God are known by Him. He doesn’t have us memorized like facts, but He knows us, inside and out, the “good, bad and ugly” and He loves us anyway. When the Bible refers to knowing God, it uses the verb “conocer” because God is to be known as a person, not a fact that you claim to know a lot about.
“Saber” is used in this verse because knowing that you have eternal life is a fact that you can know, requiring certain actions on our part, including confession and repentance.
“Conocer” is used here because it is referring to knowing God as a person. If we truly know someone, we know what will disappoint them and what will make them happy with us.
Jesus knows His children as his friends. How well do we know Him? Do we just know the facts that we have been taught about His life, death and resurrection? Or are we striving to really know Him, to know His heart and what would make Him delight in us. Saber or conocer?
I have barely touched on this topic of the two differences in these verbs. If you use an online version of the Bible, it is a simple thing to change to a Spanish translation (American Latina is best) and see for yourself which verb is used when you see the word “know.” I’m amazed at all we can learn about God and truly know Him by reading and studying His word.
May your day be blessed with the knowledge of him who saved you and loves you.
Did you know that you were created by God with a specific purpose in His mind? And not only that, but He has work for you to do for Him while you are on the earth.
Whatever He tells us to do, we are to do wholeheartedly. I know that when I was a child and my mom gave me a list of chores for the day, I was generally not a happy camper. The same thing was true of my children as I divided up the home chores for all of us to pitch in and do. God’s giving us work to do is like His dividing up the chores between all the people He has created so not one person is expected to do it all. We do our share, others do theirs and the work of the Lord gets done.
Have a blessed day and enjoy doing the work that God has tasked you with, knowing that He trusts you to do it and do it well.
Many decades ago, my grandmother collected green stamps in a little booklet. I enjoyed helping her lick the stamps and place them in the booklet in the correct spots so that when she had enough booklets she could go to the green stamp store and use them to redeem something she was saving for. I don’t remember everything she got, but I do recall the ice cream maker, with the nice sturdy crank, that would make yummy goodness after a few hours of cranking, adding salt and ice. Those little booklets weren’t worth anything until Nanny took them to the store to exchange them for a prize.
Jesus is my redeemer. I didn’t have to save up stamps or go to a special place. He just gave His life for me because He knew I needed to be redeemed, to be exchanged for a better version of me, one that is all cleaned up and ready to stand before the Father in His righteousness. No stamps, nothing I had to do except confess, repent and live for Him. In exchange, I get to spend eternity with Him. It amazes me that Job, one of the men most likely to turn from God turned to Him and recognized this truth, long before Jesus came as a baby in Bethlehem. Job knew with whom his salvation lay, in spite of all he had to go through. I know with whom my salvation lies, and I am thankful for Jesus and His sacrifice every day.
The story of Hannah in I Samuel is one that has many lessons to teach, about perseverance, faith and keeping your word. Today, I want to focus on what happened to Hannah, the vow she made and the sacrifice she made to keep that vow to God.
Hannah was one of Elkanah’s wives but she was distraught because she was barren. On an annual trip to the temple, Hannah cried before the Lord, silently begging Him to open her womb. Eli, the priest there, thought she was drunk but she told him that she was not drunk but in despair. He blessed her with a prayer that God would answer her prayer.
This is the vow that Hannah made. If God would only give her a son, she would give him back to the Lord for his entire life. Sounds like a hard bargain to me, but she made it and kept it.
Hannah did indeed have a son, named him Samuel and did not go with Elkanah to the temple the next year because she told her husband that she was waiting until he was weaned so that she could give him to the Lord, just as she had promised. Now, think about it. She had no children, gives birth to her only son and promises to give him back to the Lord. That is dedication! That is keeping a promise!
Follow through is always important and Hannah is a model of following through. Once Samuel was weaned, she took him to the temple and gave him to Eli the priest to train him. Samuel worships the Lord at the temple after his mother leaves him there. I don’t know about you, but when one of my children was in a different aisle in the grocery store, I used to panic, looking everywhere him/her until they were safely next to me again. I cannot imagine leaving my child with another man, one who is a priest, but nevertheless not a relative or someone you know well and then walking away, knowing that the child will grow up there, not with me. Keep in mind that Hannah had been barren and Samuel was her only child. Yet she keeps her vow and walks away.
As a well-known commentator named Paul Harvey used to say, this is the “rest of the story.” God blessed Hannah with more children: three sons and two daughters. He saw her willing sacrifice and that she fulfilled it and blessed her above and beyond what she had given.
Hannah’s vow to God was a sacrifice that I am sure that I could not make, but she did and the nation of Israel was blessed because of her great dedication to the Lord. I am not saying that God will always do for each of us what He did for Hannah, but I am saying that when you pray to God, pray with purpose, with wholehearted determination to be heard and to hear from Him. He does always hear and always answers, just not always in the way we expect. Hannah had her prayers answered and her dreams fulfilled because she was a dedicated servant of the Lord, one who prayed instead of becoming bitter and blaming Him for her troubles. I want to be like Hannah, willing to listen to God and His answers and to receive the answer that He gives, in His time.
May you each have a blessed day and may you be fully aware of the sacrifice that God made of His Only Son so that we could become His children.
My whole thinking about this verse has changed, I think, because I have had a heart change. When I read this verse previously, I was exultant, much as one would be when a fierce enemy is defeated. Now, I read the verse and I am saddened to think that so many will perish in their sins, lost and without hope for all eternity. Instead of praying for Jesus to return quickly, I am praying for Him to tarry so that others may be saved.
Jesus did not want sinful men to perish. Instead, He desired that we become workers in the harvest fields, telling the lost about the way to be saved.
I like the way this verse is written in The Message because it is forthright and easy to understand. We don’t have to have a lot of knowledge in order to share about Jesus. We just need to keep what we say simple…who Jesus is (the only Son of God) and what He did (died for our sins). We can use various scriptures (like the “Roman Road”) or even our own testimony. The important thing is that we share. Refer back to the first Scripture. If we don’t share, then they die in their wickedness and are lost forever. Sobering thought, isn’t it? It is an awesome responsibility that the Lord left us, but He also gave us a Helper, His Holy Spirit, to guide our words and our steps towards the people who need Him in their hearts. We need to be obedient because I truly believe that the time is shorter than it has ever been before. I am no longer willing to sit back and gleefully look forward to God’s judgment on sinful men. I must, you must, we all must, hear the call of the Lord and rescue them, as much as it is in us to do so. We have to share the Gospel in the hope that some will repent and be saved.
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