Category Archives: Gospel of John

Wear No More

The speaker talked about baggage; baggage is easy to collect in this hostile world, and when it’s packed and stuffed for years – it gets heavy. Really heavy. 
I can attest to this truth. Perhaps you can too. 

And the speaker shared Matthew 11:28

28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. source

The Speaker reminded me of the many pieces of baggage that we may be picking up each morning and carrying around until sleep comes in the night. 
Words, actions, losses, griefs, etc., etc. that we have yet to properly process – emotions we stuffed, packed down, and now we carry each one daily on our shoulders, our necks, our backs – all the places that HURT. 

And yes Matthew 11:28 is sweet, burden lifting relief  – when we believe and apply its message. 
But I must tell you I don’t think the primary message of Matthew 11:28 is our emotional hurts and losses. 

The largest, heaviest, most unbearable burden is the weight and penalty of SIN. 

And JESUS offers us to COME, for us to come to HIM and bring that weight, burden, the baggage of sin that we can NEVER, NEVER, NEVER unload.
BUT we can humble ourselves and allow HIM to lift it from us.
And as HE does we can gratefully receive HIS Forgiveness and HIS Very Own Righteousness in exchange for our sin burden. 

So this verse becomes all the more special. It speaks to us in Salvation, our Deliverance from the penalty of sin AND it continues to speak and comfort and encourage us all the way from our Damascus Road to Heaven.
It reassures us that we have a BURDEN BEARING SAVIOR who is ALWAYS with us to lift the paralyzing weight of any hurt, wound, or loss that we will bring to Him

The question now is — will we?
Will we bring all our baggage (sin, hurts, griefs, bring it all) to JESUS?
Will we let HIM wash it, dry it, fold it, and put it away, for us to wear no more? 

Broken Record

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am here. 

Here again to encourage you, to ask you to please READ Scripture daily. 
To read not just a verse or two out of context but instead to read at least a chapter a day. Please. 
I mean pick a book of the Bible – a book of your choosing- perhaps not Revelation if you are not well acquainted with Scripture. 
Any one of the Gospels perhaps and daily read a chapter. Daily ask Father GOD to reveal what He has said and what He is saying to you. 

As the days we are living grow darker and sin increases and love grows colder (Matthew 24:12), Scripture is our lifeline.
Scripture will encourage us, enlighten, strengthen, embolden, and preserve us — pray to love the Word as your bread because if you are a child of GOD, it is your bread!
It is your food to nurture and sustain you.
Let us dare not ignore the Holy Scriptures that are able to deliver us! 

 

Tomatoes

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Popping in just for a Saturday early evening hello.

We have internet again!!

Counting things out before the time.
I do that sometimes — do you?

We were weeks late setting out some tomato seedlings. So late that I planted one with no hope that it would survive. 
Poor thing it was genuinely pitiful looking — bent over, yellowed leaves. Like I said it was pitiful! But, I planted it anyway. 

Today.
Today it’s taller, green, standing, reaching for the sun and deepening its roots for nourishment. 

Perhaps you are smiling by now — I am. 

When we are bent over, tired, zapped — you know what I mean, don’t you?
The Son and the Water of His Word will surely perk us up — more than perk us up.

We will thrive and produce fruit! 

I better go stir the sloppy joes –  my Boys are hungry. 
Okay. So it’s not the healthiest meal but it is homemade and I used pasture-raised beef. :)

Rejoice and enjoy the rest of your weekend my friends. 

Firsts

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We are now about 2,000 years since that First Resurrection Sunday.

That Resurrection Sunday was vastly different from what any of us will experience here in 2022.
We read in
John 20  some of the happenings of that day. 

May I say, I am confident Mary Magdalene and all of the Apostles, if they were with us today, would decline to participate in the many planned festivities for April 17, 2022?
By and large, Resurrection Sunday celebrations are so far from Scripture, that it behooves us to repent and return to our First Love.

Easter eggs, easter baskets, easter rabbits, egg hunts,– shall I go on? 
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, JESUS would say. He has said

I have a question.

Why is JESUS, and JESUS alone, not enough to celebrate this Resurrection Sunday 2022?