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.
The title of this blog is not my creation, but I saw it online and thought it applied to me and my thoughts today. Of course, you know that every day is a new day with God, a chance to start over with a clean slate, forgiven and experiencing His compassion and love. There are even Scripture verses about this very thing, which naturally were in my devotional this morning.
Note that it is all on God that we are not totally destroyed by our own sinfulness. His compassion is new every single day, and I don’t know about you, but I need it daily!
Now about that title word. It could certainly apply to my house. I am the world’s worst housekeeper, especially since the children moved away and no one really comes to visit us out here in the boondocks. My husband is a hoarder, making the task more challenging, so mostly, I just look at the dust and clutter and think that I will get to it tomorrow. That’s procrasti-cleaning of my house.
More importantly, it also applies to the spiritual home of the Holy Spirit, the part deep inside me that I have to keep clean so that He feels welcome and respected. I cannot procrasti-clean my heart because the scum and filth build up and make it almost impossible to get the stains out. I have to clean daily, daily going before the throne of God and asking Him for His grace, mercy and forgiveness. More than daily actually. I find myself speaking to God constantly each time I fail Him, in the little things and in big ways, too. Once, as a new Christian, I thought it was a case of not being struck by lightning or keeling over dead instantly due to my overwhelming sins. Then, I realized that God is patient with me and will lovingly wait until I am truly repentant and will come to Him with a deep longing to restore the break in our relationship. I may still be struck with lightning or suddenly die, but my aim is to always be in a right relationship with my Heavenly Father so that whatever happens, I’m ready for Him and He’s ready and eager to welcome me home. Thus, no procrasti-cleaning of this temple that belongs to the Lord. My earthly home may be a wreck, but my temple that the Lord is building within me is as clean as a prayer and the sacrifice of Jesus can make it. White as snow and washed in His blood! I’m so grateful for God’s attitude towards me of pure love, compassion and faithfulness. Aren’t you?
May you go forth today with a clean temple and a right relationship with God and man. God bless you today and every day with new fervor for Him and His mission that He left us to do.
Have you ever wondered who you really are, beneath the makeup, clothes and all the external trappings? There was a time in my life, two actually, that stand out in my memory as periods of time when I wondered who I really was. One was when all of my children had left the nest and I wondered if I was still a mother, just without children to care for, guide and admonish. Of course, I was and I am still a mom but my loneliness without my children there was tangible. I had to convince myself that I would always be a mom, just from a distance. The second time was when I retired from teaching. My identity was wrapped around my ability to teach, a career that I pursued for almost four decades before retiring. Then, it was time to retire and I questioned myself about what I am without teaching. This question, God has answered lovingly over the last six years since retirement. I am His child and I still have the gift of teaching, but I use it in different ways now.
This morning in my devotional, I read this Scripture about Jesus.
Jesus was in the temple and reading from the book of Isaiah. It boggles my mind that Jesus was born knowing exactly who He was and the destiny that He would fulfill. He accepted Himself just as He was and went about doing what He was called to do. Wouldn’t our lives be simpler if we did likewise? Just ask God what He wants us to do with our lives that He has gifted us and then fulfill His will for us here on earth? Jesus knew His Father intimately and knew exactly what He was going to do to complete His work on earth. He had no identity crisis and no one, not even the scoffers, could move Him from His path or convince Him that He wasn’t exactly who He said He was.
Jesus’s confidence in God inspires me to seek God more and to find out the next step for my life. My identity has not changed but my role that I play in life has, due to circumstances like aging. But that does not limit God from using me, so my new identity may be as a grandmother who lovingly tells her grandchildren about the Lord and all of His marvelous works. It may also be as a Sunday school helper, again working with children. My identity, and yours, is only limited by our own vision of how we see ourselves fulfilling God’s purpose. I’m still the same person I was fifty years ago when I started teaching. I’m also the same person I was forty plus years ago when I gave birth for the first time. There is no book I can pick up and read what the next step in my life is, but all of the wisdom of God is available to me through His word and through my prayer life, talking to God and waiting for Him to tell me the next step.
God wants to take us from where we are to where He wants us to be, no matter what stage of life we are in. There is no such thing as an identity crisis for those who are children of the living God. He has a plan and He will carry it out. We just have to listen instead of being captured by the latest psychobabble of the current generation.
May each of you have a blessed and wonderful day, filled with the knowledge that your identity is in the Father and He loves you with an everlasting love.
I recommend that you read the entire chapter in order to get the background for this verse, but I will briefly summarize it for you. The Israelites were in the wilderness moaning about the fact that all they had to eat was manna and they wanted some meat. So, God told Moses He would provide meat for everyone to have daily. Moses pointed out to God that he had over 600,000 people there in the wilderness for him and even if they killed off all the livestock and caught all the fish available, there would not be enough to satisfy the people. The verse above is God’s reply.
Moses seemed to expect less of God because humanly what God had said would take place is impossible. After all, they were in a wilderness, far from civilization. With this one verse, God shows His power once again. To me, it sounds like he is schooling a child who just refuses to learn. But Moses has walked with God for decades by this time. He met with Him in the burning bush, went before Pharoah on God’s behalf and saw all of the miraculous signs God performed and even saw God roll back the Red Sea so they could cross over safely. So, why would he doubt God’s abilities?
I think it’s a little thing called giving human attributes to God. Many men say many things and they cannot actually fulfill what they are saying. We want to believe them, and we may even do so for a while, but then reality hits us. We hear lies every day from politicians, on both sides of the aisle. They promise to represent the people and then get to D.C. and only have their own interests at heart. Our parents promise us a vacation that never happens because money troubles come along. Our friend promises to call, but forgets once she is home again. You get the idea, right? We have been jaded by the people that we are around not to believe what we are told.
However, when God says He can do it, He really can and He really will. He fulfills all of His promises. I think sometimes we put God in a little box on the shelf, take Him down when we need something, tell Him our expectations and then when they don’t occur just as we hoped, we say to ourselves, “Well, of course, He didn’t answer.” That is what’s wrong with our faith. We aren’t letting God be God because we are busy trying to make Him into a man who will disappoint us. But when I let God be God and the prayer is not answered according to my own expectations, I know that God has a better plan for me and trust Him to roll it out for me in His timing.
My prayer for each of you today is that you will let God be God, not giving the Almighty the characteristics of fallen man but realizing that He is a perfect and loving God who desires to bless and have a relationship with us.
Have a blessed and wonderful day, remembering that each day is a gift from your Father in Heaven who wants what is best for you.
In my devotional this morning, there were two scripture verses that spoke to me clearly.
When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they obviously did not have GPS or even a map. They depended completely on God to lead them to where He wanted them to settle. His presence was in the form of a cloud that settled over the newly constructed tabernacle. When the cloud moved, the people got up and followed. Would that I could be so patient and not try to get ahead of God but wait for Him to tell me it’s time to move. I don’t mean physically moving, although that might be part of His instructions to me, but I mean to be so in tune with God that when He tells me to do something, I sense His presence moving before me to help me accomplish His will. I’m not there yet, but it is a goal that I strive for.
It got very warm outside the last couple of days and our home is not well insulated, so it got rather warm inside, too. Thus I found myself complaining about the condition of our house: cold in the winter and hot when it warms up, blazing hot in the summer months. Oops! Last night as I was preparing for bed, God chastised me for not being grateful for having a shelter, no matter its condition. Then this morning this was a Scripture verse in my devotional. God definitely takes complaining seriously, so I need to be careful about complaining. When I think that I am vocalizing my complaints to my husband about the state of our finances and our living conditions, I am really complaining about God’s provision. I ask for forgiveness from my Heavenly Father who knows what He is doing and has provided for me all of these years. Bless His Name for His provision! I may not have all I want, but I have always had all that I needed.
May God bless and keep you on this day, helping you to move when He moves and to remember to bless His name and not complain. Have a great Sunday! I hope you are getting ready for church so you can worship with like-minded believers.
Since I start every day with devotionals and Bible reading, praise and prayer, I generally have God speak to me through His word. But I know for a fact that His word doesn’t only speak to my heart. It is for all of his children. So, I pray that these verses will speak to you as well.
No matter what I go through, God is always my refuge and strength. Sometimes I selfishly believe that I’m the only one going through such hard times, but God reassures me that everyone passes through the waters and he is with all of us. My current battle is with macular degeneration, the dry kind. I have a referral for a retina eye specialist in May, so I will know more then. For now, I’m content that my regular ophthalmologist says my numbers are “very good” and to continue to use eye drops regularly. What he doesn’t know is that I also pray regularly and know that will benefit me more than the eye drops.
God keeps telling me that the way of life is to give up this life and all its pleasures and to just focus on Him. I’m trying and some days are better than others. I desire to go to be with the Lord, but I also don’t want to leave loved ones behind. Nevertheless, God has clearly spoken to me that one day I will leave the earth behind and I will have no regrets when that time comes. I don’t want to be double-minded, so I’m praying to be more focused on Him and less on myself and my own selfish desires. When I woke up yesterday, one of my first thoughts was how grateful I am to have seen all of my grandchildren born and some of them becoming adults now. God is good, all the time!
May you be blessed as you read His Word today and focus on Him and His love for you. Have a great day with the Lord as your focus!
I confess that this morning my faith is being tested. You see, our daughter, our little girl who is no longer little or a girl, has a surgical biopsy this morning and I’m not with her. She says it’s no big deal, that the surgeon is removing the entire growth and then they will biopsy it. It may be skin cancer, maybe not. But this mama’s heart is beating fast in spite of the fact that I awakened with a prayer on my lips and praise playing now in the background. So, I am asking for all of you believers out there to join me in prayer for Hope (her name), that the surgeon can remove the tissue he needs to remove and that healing will be complete in Jesus’s Name.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. The surgery starts at 10:30 this morning (DST).
My verse to encourage me for the day. It’s hard to put into practice, but God calls us to practice what we tell others that they should be doing.
Will you join me in prayer today, specifically at the time of her surgery? Thank you in advance and God bless you for your faithful friendship.
No matter what has happened in my life, I have counted on God to be there for me and He has never failed me. He is my refuge and fortress, and I hope that he is yours, too.
May you be blessed as you go through your daily routine, always mindful that God is only a prayer away.
Every Monday evening my husband and I attend a small group Bible study that is associated with our new church. We love the group, the camaraderie, the different topics and just being around like-minded people. But last night, I was disturbed by something and I would like some input from my faithful readers (emphasis on FAITH-ful). I know what I think, but I seemed to be in the minority.
Part of the discussion was how to treat people who are blatant sinners, lost in sin and who don’t seem to want to find their way out of it. Our video presentation last week had an insightful message about the topic. The speaker said that the sinners are not our enemies, although we often treat them like they are. They are victims of the enemy who is trying to destroy all of us and take as many as he can with him to hell.
During the discussion last evening, we also talked about how Jesus would respond to the LGBTQ+ advocates who are sometimes aggressive. My opinion was and is that he would love them. He always loves the sinner! But what disturbed me was when one member of the group spoke up, kind of off topic, and said that one church pastor from a local church (not the one I attend) had said from the pulpit that anyone living in sin with a partner outside of marriage needed to leave the church because they weren’t welcome there. The consensus of the group last night, at least among the vocal ones who spoke out, was that was the correct thing to do. Kick the sinners out! My heart plummeted but I did not enter the discussion. I just pondered it and awakened this morning with the issue in my mind and heart. Is that truly what Jesus would do? They justified it with a few references to Scriptures, but I looked the verses up.
This verse specifically says if someone sins against you, not the church, not God’s law and moral code, you, then you go to him/her privately. The second step is to take witnesses and confront the person and the final step is to go to the whole church. I’m not sure that the issue we were discussing last night falls into this category. Rather, I think it’s more of confronting the log in your eye instead of the speck in another person’s eye since God is the final Judge of all. I hope it is obvious to you that I think it is totally uncalled for and wrong to publicly humiliate sinners and tell them that you expect them to leave the church. Where out in the world will they hear the Gospel if the church people, those supposed to be filled with the love of Christ have rejected them? Furthermore, will these sinners be even willing to listen to a Christian again? All of this disturbs me greatly.
This was another reference that I looked up and now I see clearly that it is the leadership of the church being held to a higher standard. They are reproved before all so that others are warned. But I still did not see anything in the Scripture about asking them to leave the church. I think in the Catholic Church, that is known as excommunication and is an extreme consequence rarely used. Not wanting to focus on differences in beliefs here or one particular church, I want to draw your attention back to the matter at hand and my question on which I sincerely desire your input.
Is it ever right for the leadership of the church to call out sin before the congregation and ask those sinners to leave the church? To tell them that they don’t belong there, so they just need to leave?
My mind is going in circles at the repercussions of such abuse of power (that’s what I think it is) as well as a judgmental spirit that is not working towards restoration but all reproof and rebuke. Jesus was our example and he hung out around sinners all the time, to the point that the “religious leaders” called the Pharisees judged Jesus for being around those who sinned so much.
I don’t know about you guys but I don’t want to go to a church in which the sinners are not welcome. I am a sinner saved by God’s grace and I want everyone to understand God’s love and mercy. Yes, He is filled with righteous anger at sin and will one day judge all of us. But is it right to not offer the bread of life to the hungry? Of course, I agree that living with someone to whom you are not married is a sin. But I don’t think this sin is any worse than others and Jesus would have rebuked the sin and loved the sinner.
Now that I’ve rambled on for a while about my own frustration, please feel free to leave me a comment about your thoughts. I would greatly appreciate Scripture verses to defend your own thoughts. I’m not confused but I am astonished that any church could do this to a non-believer and think it’s okay. What happened to forgiveness and restoration?
Have a blessed day, remembering that you are a sinner saved by God’s grace and left here on earth to tell others about His mercy and forgiveness.
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