Tag Archives: JESUS

Assurance - Promise, Guests

Borrowing

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I am borrowing from YouVersion.com, a reading plan that I am following.  It’s Draw Near – 365 Guides to Greater Intimacy with God. Yesterday’s was so good I want to share it with you for our Wednesday time together.

LIBERATED

Michelangelo saw the task of the sculptor as that of freeing figures from their marble prisons. In each block of stone, he saw some “person” then chipped away until that form emerged. Sometimes he failed, as with St. Matthew. This famous statue is only half-finished because Michelangelo could not get the stone to release the figure of the brilliant apostle.

Paul saw God as the Sculptor Who frees men from the prison of their carnal nature. He wrote to the Philippians that God was doing a great work in and on their lives and encouraged them to have confidence in His work. He assured the new believers that God is perfectly capable of “finishing” us as He desires, for His (and our) greatest good. This Master Sculptor never gives up, and no prison is too strong for His skilled eye and learned hand.

In yielding ourselves to the direction of the Master, we are being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:11). All believers should remember that today’s bumps and bruises may merely be the Master chiseling, working away at our lives until we are conformed to the image of His Son. Thus we relax, even though the chisel may bite, for we know His work is sure and the result well worth the moment’s inconvenience.

Hebrews 12:2 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.

Please keep praying for Kathy and her family (Jack Bell Family)

Prayer is breathing for the Christian.  Please continue to check the Praying For These Page for updates.

JESUS LOVES YOU,
Kathie +++

Christian Living

What’s Within?

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Psalm 103

1. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

I read it and rested on — and all that is within me.

What’s in me, I asked me. The answer was not coming quickly. Other than the answer one would expect a Christian to answer – The HOLY SPIRIT.

It was my beloved who astounded me with the answer. He began with attitudes. He says we all have them within us. He so totally bowled me over with the sobering truth of what is in me. He enumerated emotions that he has seen in me. Some I’m humbled to hear he sees; some I am ashamed to admit.

Attitudes.
Like
eagerness for some things and apathy toward other things (perhaps people too, and not just things)
willingness for  and stubbornness against
love and hate
tenderness and callousness
procrastinating vs impetuous
generous and selfish

Perhaps you could name others.

Now back to  — and all that is within me.
With all that is within me, all my attitudes, wounds, hurts, strengths, weaknesses, prejudices, fears, doubts, knowledge, wisdom, experiences, victories, defeats; with all that is within me I am to bless the LORD.
Let me say it again. Let it sink in. I am to bless the LORD with all those things jumbled, tangled, running, still within me! So are you.

How can that be? How can we bless Him with bad attitudes, wounds, hurts, weaknesses, prejudices, fears, doubts, defeats?
Surrender I think.
Surrender the good. Surrender the bad to the LORDSHIP of JESUS CHRIST.

He can use it all, you know. Really.
The good, ministering to others. And the bad? Well, once we are healed, even the bad will minister in His name.
And what would bless Him more than for us to help others and be made whole ourselves?

And all that is within me, bless His holy name!

And all that is within you too, bless His holy name!

Prayer for the Christian is breathing.

JESUS LOVES YOU +++
Kathie

Assurance - Promise, Celebrations, Christian Living, Salvation

A Movie

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A, I suppose best described as a secular movie with GOD tones made me cry and say thank You to Father this afternoon.

Neither of the Names by which we know our Triune GOD were spoken; He was only referred to as ‘They’. Not a  theologically sound movie but certainly a feel-good movie. Not a movie to teach us the doctrine of salvation by grace; not a movie to teach us that without the saving work of Jesus Christ perfected in each of us individually the soul collector who comes when we die will not be benevolent. Truth is not every soul leaving planet earth will be escorted by a Collector who is filled with love and kindness.  But I’m off my point.

My tears came and I thanked Father for making me human. I have been known to lament that I am human.  To lament my flaws and frailties; to lament that I am not perfect; lament that I have feet of clay.  However, from the perspective of the movie, I could praise and thank God for loving me so much that He would create me human.

Oh, how He loves us! Flawed, frail, rebellious, proud, arrogant, foolish, on and on goes the list. BUT God loves humans! We are His most treasured, most beloved, most valued creation of all. I think I shall cease to lament that I  am human and rather praise that I am a beloved human, saved by the grace of Almighty God; saved to have fellowship with Him forever.  Ahh! how blessed to be human!

Hebrews 2:15-17 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
15 and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
16 For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham.
17 Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

via Hebrews 2:15-17 NASB – and might free those who through fear – Bible Gateway.

Do you know for sure when your Soul Collector comes to escort you to your eternal place that Collector will be one of the 2/3s and not the 1/3?  (Hebrews 1:13-14) (Revelation 12:4)

The movie? Want the name? :) Soul Collector. I might watch it again. I like happy tears!!

Prayer is breathing to a Christian.

JESUS LOVES YOU!  Kathie

Forgiveness, Repentance, Salvation

Haughty Eyes

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Perhaps before we get too far into this new year of 2012 we would remind ourselves that we are loved by the Holy God of the Universe.  And that He is in truth holy and in His holiness there are things that He abhors.  Things of which we do not want to partake; things with which we do not want to corrupt and pollute this new year stretching long before us.

Go with me to Proverbs 6:16-19

Proverbs 6:16-19 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
16 There are six things which the LORD hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil,
19 A false witness who utters lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers.
via Proverbs 6:16-19 NASB – There are six things which the LORD – Bible Gateway.

Today, haughty eyes. That’s what caught my ‘eye’ first. :) We can count them down, seven things our God hates. Yea, these seven things are even an abomination to Him.

An abomination. It is what it is. Virtually our English language, even in the Hebrew and Greek languages, we are hard pressed to come up with an understanding of the awfulness of this word abomination.  Let the Greek speak:
Definition (as found at click here)

  1. to render foul, to cause to be abhorred
  2. abominable
  3. to turn one’s self away from on account of the stench
  4. metaph. to abhor, detest

To turn one’s self away from on account of the stench. Do we kind of get the idea here what it means for our Gracious and Loving God to say a thing is an abomination to Him?

Turns Himself away from because the stench of it so repulses Him.
That my, Friend, is what we do not want!
To be sure JESUS knows what that means! Since HE experienced it in our place IF we have chosen to accept His Sacrifice on our behalf. (Matthew 27:46) And souls who have refused His Sacrifice and who continue in that refusal then someday shall experience being an abomination to the God of this Universe. But back to today’s point.

Haughty eyes.

So what are haughty eyes anyway?  The best in research that I could glean is this:

‘Eyes that look and say I have made a good life for myself and I have done it without You, God.’

That’s clear to me. I see it. I understand that it would be better for me to have no eyes than have haughty eyes.
Can a Christian even have haughty eyes anyway? What do you think?

Prayer is breathing to a Christian.

JESUS LOVES YOU,
Kathie