Friend, our hope is not dimmed. Nor is the flame of fire of our faith extinguished. For as long as our Lord remains on high (He always will) and remains on the throne of heaven (He always will), our reason for hope is always alive and fanning the flames of faith in our hearts. Today, don’t look around at what you may see but look up to Him who is the source of our true hope: “Therefore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me” (Micah 7:7).
Scabs were a fascination for me in my youth. I had a bad habit where right when the healing would be almost complete, I would pick at the scab and pick at it again until it reopened, prohibiting it from properly healing in a timely fashion.
In life, we can find ourselves doing the same thing with the hurts of all nature. And as easy as it is to pick, we can choose to leave it alone and let God do what He does best.
Allow for healing. What bitterness is so precious that we fight to hold on to it? What hurt must we keep rehearsing in our mind that we won’t let go of it? Allowing these to take up precious space in our hearts will not make room for His healing to take place when we can let it go and trust God with the outcome. Continually nursing all the wrongs prohibits the growth of all that is good.
We choose what we strengthen: bitterness and hurt or good and healing. We have the choice to bring into greater focus the things that will help us overcome those tumultuous thoughts or keep us bound in them. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).
Where your mind and your thinking lead, the heart will follow. Follow those beautiful things that lead to healing. Why let that which is corrupt ruin your day, your week, your life?
No one can understand like you what your heart is feeling (Proverbs 14:10). No one can discredit the hurt one has experienced. At the same time, no one but you can refuse to sit in the pity party, celebrating the misery.
Allow for healing. Bring all the heaviness of heart, all those things that speak against wholeness and recovery, all the hurt to Jesus, who promises that in Him, we will find rest for our souls (Matthew 11:29; read Matthew 11:28-30).
Why suffer as one who has no help? Jesus is your help for healing, and He is waiting to lead you into complete restoration. He is the cure for whatever you are holding onto, and He is the cure for whatever you are going through.
Focus your heart on what is good, and don’t leave Jesus out of the healing process. There is not an infirmity He hasn’t faced and experienced (Hebrews 4:15).
He knows how much it hurts, but He also knows how to bring about wholeness. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Come, that you may be healed.
Letting go of bitterness and hurt – sometimes it is easier said than done. But when we do, we allow for God’s healing to come and saturate our souls.
What are you holding? What do you possess? What is important to you? Where does your love rest?
There are many parts of us. And while many parts make us us, there is only one God, and He is to be over all. Not just over all in the sense of His complete Sovereignty – but over your all, personally.
So, I ask you again, what is near and dear to you? What do you treasure and hold in high regard? There are no areas to be withheld from Him. Wherever He wills, He can touch. But how do we respond when He touches it?
As I ponder those questions, I am reminded of the time when adverse circumstances struck Job’s life in many different ways, all at the same time (Job 1-2). Job’s response may seem mind-boggling to some for we are told in the midst of it all, he “worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:20-21).
Job may not have understood everything, and he may have felt sorrow and experienced grief, but even in this, he surrendered everything he held dear in his choice to worship. He held on to his integrity and “In all this did not Job sin with his lips” (Job 2:10).
How does our heart respond when that which is dear to us has faced times of crisis? Do we really surrender all to Him, trust, and move forward even if our steps seem heavier than before? Or do we shut down as we try to hold on to the very last thread of that beloved thing?
To “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” (Mark 12:30) means there is to be no part of me, or what I am, or what I have that comes before God. Everything else must be willingly surrendered so that my love for Him shines first.
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“So was ended all the work that king Solomon made for the house of the Lord. And Solomon brought in the things which David his father had dedicated; even the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, did he put among the treasures of the house of the Lord.” 1 Kings 7:51
As you read and study, you begin to realize the amount of lavished riches that went into constructing and furnishing the original temple that Solomon built for the house of the LORD (and, rightly so). Yet, as lavished and as wonderful a sight it must have been to behold and walk through, with silver and gold this and that everywhere, the grand temple in which God truly desires to live is in the simplicity of the human heart; a place where He can abide and guide by His Spirit.
It may not appear to the human eye to be as beautiful and as ornamentally decked out as that magnificent building, but to God, a heart that loves Him, and makes room for Him to dwell – there are no luxurious accommodations found on this earth that can compare.
Jesus taught, “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23), showing it is the temple of our hearts where He desires to reside.
Paul taught in Corinthians: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16), and “. . . for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Corinthians 6:16).
A lot of people are living for a showy outside life, but it’s the treasury of your heart God values the most because it is in this place He wants to reign, rule, and abide through His Spirit. The lavished, ornamental details of a physical building cannot compare to a heart that has been made a ready place for God to dwell.
While we are still called to gather together to worship God, learn of His Word, and edify one another (Hebrews 10:35), everyone has the individual responsibility to prepare their hearts to be a place where God wants to be.
“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:19-22 (I suggest reading Ephesians 2 in its entirety)
“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” 2 Corinthians 4:6-7
“To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27
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Some views will change your life forever. The scenic wonder as you look out over the mountaintops. The sun that sets below the horizon daily. The waves that crash on the ocean shores where land and sea collide. Seeing and feeling the peace of a forest walk as nature saturates your senses. When our eyes meet with places like these, there seems to be an extraordinary pull within us that longs for us to want to relive that experience day after day. What your eyes see and what you experience has a way of affecting you on the inside.
But what about what your heart sees? How do you respond to the vision of Jesus before you today? When you look at Him, who do you see?
One day Jesus had a private moment with His disciples. In that moment, He wanted to know what they saw, not with their eyes, but with their hearts. After asking about the opinions of others (Mt. 16:13), He wanted to know what those around Him thought for themselves: “But whom say ye that I am?” He asked (Mt. 16:15).
With that questioning digging into their personal understanding of Him, only one spoke in revealed truth that centered itself in his very being and wouldn’t let go. Only one man, by the name of Peter, saw Jesus for so much more. “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” (Mt. 16:16) he said without hesitation or flinching, being fully confident in his answer.
In Jesus, I believe he saw not just the miracles, and wonders, and powerful teaching. He saw Him for who He was: “The Son of the living God.”
When you see Jesus for who He really is, your life will be filled with wonder in a way you have never experienced before, and you will be changed forever. When the veil of truth is pulled back and revelation dawns upon your knowing heart, and heaven shows you the Son, things will never be the same.
As your eyes of faith look upon Him and your soul is drawn to Him, you find in Christ what you have been searching for all your life. Forward you walk. Closer to thee, O Lord, I must be, becomes the craving of your inner man, and it cannot be satisfied with another.
I know how the world views Him. They call Jesus many things and have many opinions. But as I rise this day and every day, I see your glory. I see Your hand in the very details of my life. I feel you in my heart, and as with Peter, I see the Son before me. That is a view that has changed my life forever.
Blessings ~
Father God, we are praying today for many souls to see You for who You are. We are praying for eyes and hearts to be opened to the eternal truth: salvation can be found in no other, but only in Jesus Christ can lives be truly changed forever (Jn. 14:6). May many grab hold of this truth today and believe and receive Him for themselves. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray, AMEN!
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“And one of the Pharisees desired him that he could eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.” Luke 7:36-38
Regardless of how they looked at her or what they thought of her, she came.
They scowled, they scorned, they didn’t like her – but she still came.
They counted her unworthy, undeserving, and disqualified. Even then, she came.
Her sin met her Savior. And though they said she shouldn’t be there, Jesus did not deny her access. So, she came.
The atmosphere hung heavy with her guilt and shame, but His forgiveness erased all that blame. She couldn’t help it. She had to come to Him without delay.
With weeping and washing, her gratitude and love, He did not turn away. She came with a gift so precious, more than what she poured that day.
A heart surrendered. A heart that had been freed. A heart delivered and determined to show how much He meant indeed.
A year’s wages was the cost, nothing compared to the weight of sin she gladly lost. She lovingly poured upon His feet, weeping and washing with her hair. Of their opinions, she did not care.
This repentant heart that was humbled and healed. She would not let the judgment of others, her joy to steal.
She came to Jesus, and poured out her best. With weeping and washing, she blessed, and was blessed.
Weeping and washing, humbled hearts so true. If you come, Jesus will welcome you too.
“I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” Luke 15:7
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Many of us are familiar with the sons of Jesse being ceremoniously paraded before the prophet Samuel to see who would be anointed as the next king of Israel (1 Samuel 16).
As with most people, Samuel viewed the potential candidates according to what he could see, judging by their physical appearance. But it was God who interrupted his erroneous train of thought and informed Samuel the criteria by which He judges is far from the world of human perspective, saying, “But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
Praise from God will never be about what everyone else sees. Praise from God will never be given based on what is done on the outside of an individual. Outward rituals and performances never impress our God so much as the inner moving of one’s heart.
God has always been in love with the inner man, for it is only in that place of hiddenness where one’s true character and motives reside. In this place, God’s eyes and knowing go beyond the scope of the visible. God’s view of a person is more thorough in reach and scope than any human eye can fathom in that secret place inside.
People work strenuously to put on a show for others. Do the right things, say the right words, and they will see that you are a good person. Performance in a certain way will gain you the right audience and praise from people, right?
How we behave on the outside can be an overflow of the true character on the inside, but this is not always so. While things may look good on the outside, the heart is what matters to God the most. And it is what’s in the heart that receives praise from God.
Paul wrote in Romans, “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Romans 2:28-29; emphasis mine), meaning it doesn’t matter the rituals and performances one does on the outside to make themselves to appear to be a child of God, rather it is “the circumcision is that of the heart” that matters most.
My friend, we are living for the praise of God, living to please Him with our lives. Outward rituals will never impress Him like a true heart that has been changed from the inside out instead of one trying to work righteousness from the outside in.
There are a lot of things that can touch your heart, but when living for God and loving Him touches it more, then something beautiful takes place there. Something that cannot be ignored by the Father.
Prayer: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” Psalm 139:23-24.
My words may not be many, but with my heart, my thank You says much.
When I look around and see the wondrous things done for me, and the many times You stood for me and helped me – my heart is overwhelmed with praise of thanks.
Thank You for touching my life.
Thank You for saving my soul.
Thank You for this new day I see.
Thank You for another chance given me.
Thank You for hearing my prayers.
Thank You for letting me know You care.
Thank You for being by my side.
Thank You, my Heavenly Guide.
Oh, Father God, I just want to thank You. The greatness of who You are in my life – it just cannot be compared. So, humbly before You, with love and gratefulness in my heart and soul, all I have is a thank You.
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