When it doesn’t fall into place as you imagined… be patient.
When it doesn’t seem fair… be patient.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
Everything that is not like God will fade away, but you who endure to the end and remain patiently in hope, will see the reward of your perseverance. “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” James 5:7
The cares of this life can be overpowering, but Jesus says, “Come.”
Through weariness and toil, Jesus says, “Come.”
The help you seek cannot be found in another, so, “Come.”
The tears you are crying are recorded in His holy register and ready to be bottled according to His blessed promise, so, “Come.”
The weightiness of the heart finds the consolation to be lifted and revived – “Come.”
The rest your soul desperately needs will encounter the Savior when you “Come.”
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
“Come” is your invitation from the heart and mouth of the Savior to get near to Him.
For the sinner, come and find the source of your salvation.
For the saint, come and find your rest and strength.
None is exempt from the need to come and be where Jesus is. None is excluded from the need for this heavenly supply. As the fervent crowds pushed through the doorway, or as Mary planted herself at the Savior’s feet refusing to be moved for the mundane, “come” is your welcoming address to enjoy and draw strength from the Savior, He who was pushed away and rejected that you would not be an outcast, but welcomed to come near. So, “Come.”
Thank You, Father God, for You rent the veil and tore forever this blockade. You provided the way, and it has been opened wide so we can “Come.” Amen.
One day we shall rise and meet Jesus in the sky, put away this humanity as we step into eternity.
Heaven, at last, will be our home, forever in Your presence we will evermore roam.
No more clouds, sin, or earthly dismay, we will be caught up, raptured away.
The days draw near, with my heart, I look up, anticipating fellowship at the Lord’s dinner to sup.
Eternity is forever, today is temporary, through trials and toils, look up, blessed honorary.
The King will come to take us home, His people, beloved, as His very own.
If you’re not sure of your future bright, let not this day pass without making it right.
Tomorrow’s not promised. Today is at hand. Repent and turn while you still can.
“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” ~ Revelation 1:7
“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” ~ 1 Corinthians 15:52
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” ~ Titus 2:13
“And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.” ~ Mark 13:26, 27
“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” ~ Acts 2:38
“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” ~ Acts 3:19
As I write these articles and begin the editing process, it will sometimes require me to go through old photos to post with the article. Often, I come across times of family events, vacations, and the like and in my mind, I am allowed to momentarily relive and remember those precious moments.
Today is a good day for reflection. It may be Monday and the beginning of the week, or it may be a Wednesday, a Friday, or a Sunday, but if we just take a moment to think about God’s goodness and where He has brought us from, oh, the impact that would have for this day! The remembrance of His holy protection and love that has carried us this far could ignite a fire of passion inside us to do more, to be more, and to come up to where He wants us more.
The status quo goes into these given days’ business as usual. We can enter with a refreshed spirit and a new mindset because we remember, and our past has already testified that God has been there for us. So far, we have survived everything we have been through, and it is because of His power, His grace, and His mercy that has been directing and covering us. No, the path hasn’t always been easy. But we are here today because of the love of God at work in our lives and the belief that He has so much more in store for us.
Remembering and reflecting on the old days would reassure our hearts and souls that no matter what I am facing today, God is still faithful. Looking back reminds us, that He didn’t bring us this far to leave us. Recalling His goodness tells us, that if He did it once, He’ll do it again. The mindset is our God is able, He has before, and He will again be there for us through it all.
Today has just started, but because of the God in our lives, we can already see a victorious end. This day might be brand new, but it’s not new to Him. He has our days numbered. We are in His thoughts. He knows all about us, and it is in Him we rest and believe for so much more. The journey of our soul will keep pushing ahead because we believe God has held us thus far, and He will hold us through today as well.
“But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.” 2 Thessalonians 3:3
Have you ever witnessed the taffy-making process? It is a very interesting process to watch for sure. After mixing sugar and other ingredients together, you are left with this massive blob of sweet goodness lying on the work table.
What can one possibly do with such a non-conformative mess? You can stretch it and pull it until it becomes a pliable consistency to be used for the sweet creation you had in mind. Whether by hand or through the use of a machine, eventually the blob will yield to the purpose and intended design, becoming something very useful and delicious to the one who created it.
My friend, you and I are the sweetness of God’s Creation. So much so, in the beginning, He said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” Genesis 1:26. There is something genuinely sweet and uniquely beautiful in the reality that the God of all creation wanted a special creature in His “likeness.”
Sadly, this beautiful, sweet creation has been tainted, corrupted, and susceptible to the dregs of sin this world produces. But that doesn’t stop the story. Thank God!
There is something more in the eyes and in the heart of the Father for this lowly being. He still sees the possibility of all they can become and with His holy hands, He begins His own process of pulling and stretching. And like the taffy maker, He’s watching, and working, and drawing hearts near for the end result – a sweetness we can never feel, experience, or imagine on this side of glory.
But as with the blob of candy turned treat, there must be a willingness to yield to the pulling and stretching work God wants to perform in you and through you.
The question is, will you truly let God have His way in your life. Oh, I know the sentiments we say, the songs we sing, and the prayers we pray – but when it’s all said and done, as uncomfortable and sometimes painful, will we yield our all I holy surrender to become those sweet creations?
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” James 1:22
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Romans 12:1
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah 29:11
“There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.” Proverbs 19:21
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” 1 Peter 2:9
“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well” Psalm 139:14, and it istruly a sweet thing.
“The works of the LORD are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them,” Psalm 111:2, NKJV
Why such doubt? Why such confusion? Have you studied Him? Have you studied the works of our God?
Open your understanding to the truth of who He is. Open, and expand your knowledge of our Heavenly Father. Seek Him, and search Him out. As the greatest treasure that is to be found, don’t stop digging till you have unearthed His glorious truths.
“His work is honorable and glorious, and His righteousness endures forever,” (Psalm 111:3, NKJV). So, dig deep, my friends, and find Him for yourself.
Look through His holy pages and see Him. See what He has done. See the testimonies of the lives that have walked in those written lines. See the things He performed in them and through them. See what He continues to do even in this day. See, and believe.
For where the truth of this treasure is, it leaves no room for doubt and confusion. Truth eats up the empty spaces that make room for lies.
Therefore, study Him. Let not your appetite be quenched by the false junk and ideologies of this age. Take your fill of God, our Father. Learn of Him. Explore Him, and you will not only be satisfied with that which nourishes for all eternity, but you will enter an abundant adventure of a lifetime today (John 10:10).
It’s there, in those pages of the Bible. Seek Him. He’s not hiding from you. Study Him, and enrich your own life further and deeper than you could have ever imagined.
“He has made His wonderful works to be remembered . . .” Psalm 111:4, NKJV
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My friend, if you are willing, that means you have a heart prepared to go and do what others may not be willing to do. You see the possibilities and enthusiastically embrace and receive what may be ahead simply because the Master wants to use you.
Willingness for what? Ah, my friend, only you can answer that question because only you can know the call you have been hearing or the pull in a certain direction that you have been feeling. But it is not until the feet of faith have moved to the fulfillment of those things does your willingness shine through.
And shine you will. For those who respond to God’s drawing in to follow and fulfill – that one, moving in obedience, shines, for “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” Matthew 5:14, 16.
That three-letter word “let” is asking for your permission to be allowed to be used by Him. It’s asking are you willing? Are you ready to respond in the affirmative with a steadfast “Yes”?
Second Corinthians 9:7 reminds us that God loves a cheerful giver. Stretch that possibility beyond the gathering of an offering to be worked out in our everyday lives. Are we cheerfully giving of ourselves? Are we allowing the Master to use us as vessels fit for the job, “prepared unto every good work” 2 Timothy 2:21?
Many are agreeable in tongue, but has our willingness reached the point of being ready, pliable, and active in services to our King? Paul implored the Roman church, and us, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” Romans 12:1.
He carried so much. More than “our sins and griefs to bear,”1 He carried the weight, the pain, the inner turmoil, and mental anguish the results of all the by-products of those sins and griefs, upon a heavy-laden heart and mind. Tears welled inside to the bursting, refusing to fall from the eyes that were singularly focused upon a greater joy.
It was the psalmist who wrote, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” Psalm 30:5, recognizing the temporary hold tears and sorrow have, especially when one’s heart is fixated upon a greater joy to be found in the morning.
For Christ, the illness of sin had made its mark on His body and throughout His person. Yet, in the heaviness of the load He carried, and the pain His holy vessel endured, we are told, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” Hebrews 12:2.
Although the joy was there for what it would accomplish, let us not approach the pain He endured physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in a lackadaisical fashion. Let us not brush aside what strength of heart and mind this endurance called for. Let’s not subtract what the man, the person of Jesus felt and suffered at the hands of all these afflictions.
So heavy it was, and so hard it was, we couldn’t do it for ourselves: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God” 2 Corinthians 3:5.
The tarnished state of man could never find in himself the satisfaction this heaviness of sin required, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23. But in Christ, “ God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” Romans 3:25.
Sin was paid in full. Joy came at the thought and complete process and plan of the redeemed being ransomed from the clutches of darkness. But let us not be unmindful or take lightly the night afflictions He suffered through before the day dawned. In it, there was real pain and real sacrifice beyond the scope of what we can imagine. All for the joy that we might experience a glory unimaginable, where “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” 1 Corinthians 2:9.
The weight of what Jesus endured could not dim the glory of the greater joy in the morning. Aren’t we glad about it!
He suffered, To save, His greater joy Came to our aid, And satisfied the debt, We could not pay.
His joy is complete, In the sky We shall meet, The blessed Savior Our sins impaled Hands and feet.
Absent are tears Or turning away, Forever with Him We shall surely stay. Accepting His sacrifice Paved the way.
“Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me;” Job 29:2
Have you ever experienced these same thoughts that Job expressed? Have difficult times ever made you look back to times when you felt everything in your world was right? When adversity strikes and we deal with things we do not understand, I am sure many of us like Job take our mind’s eye to those past days when trouble wasn’t knocking on our door.
The difficulty of the days he was presently in caused Job to look at those previous times as times of favor, saying, that’s when “God preserved me”. But now, his expressions tell a different story of what his feelings are feeling. His troubles caused him to think that just because he was going through adversity, God was not as presently with him as before.
Little did Job know, and many times we need to be reminded, that just as God was with us in the good times, so too is He with us in the troubling times. It may look different than we are used to seeing it, and it may feel different, but just because we don’t understand and may question it, it doesn’t negate the fact that God is presently near, watching, and keeping His people.
Jesus taught, “Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7).
A bird sold is not forgotten before God, and neither was Job, and neither are you. Our value before God is so precious and more than we could ever imagine. The clouds that come during those dark days may try to hide that fact, but the truth of God’s Word is a fact, that no matter how we feel or how hard it may seem, God is still there for us. Even if you are dealing with hurtful situations and even if you feel like you have been wronged, God’s loving eyes see and His precious hands are working behind the scenes, holding you, loving on you, and valuing you when others may not.
Difficult times are difficult because they are not easy. During these times, see Him with eyes of faith. See that He is still with you and that you have not been left in this alone (Hebrews 13:5). Take your cares, your disappointments, your hurts, and your discouragements to God in prayer. He is there listening. And trust me, He does care.
Just because it hurts it does not mean He’s not feeling what you are feeling (Hebrews 4:15). And just because we can’t figure out all this stuff, God knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), and we must trust Him with it, and with all the times in between.
God is here for you today, God is here. Regardless of what you feel or are going through, you are not forgotten.
“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” Isaiah 49:15
As I sit here working on another writing project I glance out my window to ponder a thought. Upon doing so, a squirrel captures my attention and I am altogether fascinated by what I see. He is hopping in mid-air from branch to branch without what seems to be care or thought in the world.
What I mean is he doesn’t stop to measure the distance to see if he can make it, nor does he seem to contemplate the physics involved that would put a web-using superhero to shame as he sails through the air, grabbing hold of the next limb, and going again with ease of effort.
Instinctively he knows and is wired to map out the trees and venture through them without slip or fail in a matter of seconds.
Every creature of God has ingrained instincts. We are all born with a sense of knowing. For some those senses are geared toward survival and protection. Some naturally know how to camouflage in order to ward off predators or to find food. Others are excellent skill-building machines that know how to make stable houses for their families in the harshest climates.
Back to our friend the squirrel. As he bounces through the trees with his ingrained knowing, not worrying or stressing over life, I must ask, dear child of God, are we navigating life with the same confidence? He, the squirrel, is wired to know what to do and how to live by what’s inside of him. What of us?
The Bible tells us, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world,” (1 John 4:4). As we are going about life we are to know in whom we belong. “You are of God!” the Word tells us. Therefore, because of our holy lineage, because of how we are wired through the blood of Jesus Christ, you and me are to instinctively operate like the “greater” is in you.
When faced with the adversities of life our holy intuitiveness should kick in; faith should carry us into our spiritual survival mode and say, “Hey, wait a minute! I am more than this! I won’t give in! I won’t quit! I KNOW to whom I belong! I KNOW He that is on the inside of me, and He is greater than anything and everything I am facing!”
Our friend the squirrel went from branch to branch without worrying because he knew what was inside of him. Do you know Who is in you today? If you are a child of God you have the greatest living inside of you and you have to instinctively know within yourself that you are His. Let that knowing empower you as you swing through the trees of life today.
Word For Life Says... 