Washing Machines

While passing the laundry room, I looked in and remembered a load of clothing that needed to be washed. And I thought about the cabbage in the bowl in the kitchen waiting for salt, pepper, mayo and etc. I thought I could start the washer. It would take only seconds. Yes. Only seconds and then I thought of other time-saving, labor-saving devices I have in this sweet house of ours – you do too, don’t you?

What if our Great GOD and Father allowed all these conveniences for the purpose of freeing us up so we could spend even more time in His Word than could our pioneer ancestors? The day-to-day was hard for them in an all together different way than it is for us. 

Trinkets, schemes and tactics have been stepped up against this world since his time is growing short. Do you believe this? 

Revelation 12:12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great rage, knowing that his time is short.  source

Dismissed

 

Right off the cuff from Matthew 1.

19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, made up his mind to dismiss her secretly. source

Dismiss her secretly. What a word! To dismiss someone.

20 But while he considered these things, behold, an angel of Adonai appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Miriam as your wife, for the Child conceived in her is from the Ruach ha-Kodesh. 21 She will give birth to a son; and you shall call His name Yeshua, for He will save His people from their sins.” source

Do not be afraid.
He, Joseph, was afraid to NOT dismiss Mary. He had lost confidence in her but not his love for her. And even though he loved her still he was afraid to complete the marriage covenant.  Why? He deemed her to be untrustworthy. He thought she had given herself to another in intimacy that even he had not experienced with her.

Joseph was a right choice.
Joseph. A righteous man; otherwise, he would not have determined to put her away secretly. He was wounded, he was hurt, he was dismayed, but he did not want her dead! He just didn’t want her to hurt him further with what he assumed was her stony heart. What else would explain her behavior?

What else indeed?!

Sometimes obeying GOD looks evil to others – but follow HIM anyway. Those who are right with GOD will come around when their souls have been enlightened and comforted.

Selah ~  ~ ~

Day 4 for Someone

John 2:14-25  (CSB)

14 In the temple he found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and he also found the money changers sitting there.
15 After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables.
16 He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”
17 And his disciples remembered that it is written: Zeal for your house will consume me.
18 So the Jews replied to him, “What sign will you show us for doing these things?”
19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.”
20 Therefore the Jews said, “This temple took forty-six years to build, and will you raise it up in three days?”
21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
22 So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the statement Jesus had made.
23 While he was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in his name when they saw the signs he was doing.
24 Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them, since he knew them all 25 and because he did not need anyone to testify about man; for he himself knew what was in man.

John 3:1-9  (CSB)

1 There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”
Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
“How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”
Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again.
The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.
  source

Please take it from here, Dear Someone – A taste of Heaven on Earth awaits you.

Day 3 for Someone

John 1:44-51  (CSB)

44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law (and so did the prophets): Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”
46 “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael asked him.“Come and see,” Philip answered.
47 Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you,” Jesus answered.
49 “Rabbi,” Nathanael replied, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!”
50 Jesus responded to him, “Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.”
51 Then he said, “Truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

John 2:1-13 (CSB)

1 On the third day a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’s mother was there, and
Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding as well.
When the wine ran out, Jesus’s mother told him, “They don’t have any wine.”
“What does that have to do with you and me, woman?” Jesus asked. “My hour has not yet come.”
“Do whatever he tells you,” his mother told the servants.
Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification. Each contained twenty or thirty gallons.
“Fill the jars with water,” Jesus told them. So they filled them to the brim. Then he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the headwaiter.” And they did.
When the headwaiter tasted the water (after it had become wine), he did not know where it came from—though the servants who had drawn the water knew. He called the groom
10 and told him, “Everyone sets out the fine wine first, then, after people are drunk, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now.”
11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this, he went down to Capernaum, together with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they stayed there only a few days.
13 The Jewish Passover was near, and so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. source

Day 2 for Someone

John 1:22-43  (TLV) 

22 So they said to him, “Who are you? Give us an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23 He said, “I am ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of Adonai,”’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
24 Now those sent were from the Pharisees.
25 They asked him, “If you’re not the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet, why then are you immersing?”
26 “I immerse in water,” John answered. “Among you stands One you do not know,
27 coming after me, whose sandals I’m not worthy to untie.”
28 These things happened in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was immersing.
29 The next day, John sees Yeshua coming to him and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
30 This is the One about whom I told you, ‘He who comes after me is above me, because He was before me.’
31 I didn’t know Him, but I came immersing with water so that He might be revealed to Israel.”
32 Then John testified, “I have seen the Ruach coming down like a dove out of heaven, and it remained on Him.

33 I did not know Him; but the One who sent me to immerse in water said to me, ‘The One on whom you see the Ruach coming down and remaining, this is the One who immerses in the Ruach ha-Kodesh.’
34 And I have seen and testified that this is Ben-Elohim.”
35 Again the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples

36 and watched Yeshua walking by. He said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Yeshua.
38 Yeshua turned around and saw them following. He said to them, “What are you looking for?”They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is translated Teacher), “where are you staying?”
39 “Come and see,” Yeshua tells them. So they came and saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about the tenth hour.
40 Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John speak and followed Yeshua.
41 First he finds his own brother Simon and tells him, “We’ve found the Messiah!” (which is translated Anointed One).
42 Andrew brought Simon to Yeshua. Yeshua looked at him and said, “You are Simon, son of John. You shall be called Kefa (which is translated Peter).”
43 The next day, Yeshua decided to go to the Galilee. He finds Philip and says to him, “Follow Me!” source