Tag: Jesus is Love

Are You Humble?

Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

Are you humble?  That is honestly a trait that I have had to work on this past year. On a regular basis I ask God to give me humility.  It is an intentional prayer that I pray.  It is not that I go around bragging about what I have or what I have accomplished in life.  But sometimes I find myself thinking that I am better than someone else.  

I am sure you have done it before. Maybe you were at the gas station and a car pulled up at the pump behind you and it backfired before the driver turned it off.  Just for a brief second you thought to yourself, “Wow, I’m glad that is not my car.  Of course, my car would never do that because I take better care of my car than that.”  Or perhaps on your way in to work and saw someone sitting on the ground against a building and thought to yourself, “So glad that is not me. But if it were me, I surely wouldn’t sit here in front of everyone looking so sad.”

The fact of the matter is that God sees value in everyone He made, and he wants us to do the same.  I know that God made me in His image, so therefore I know that I am A-W-E-S-O-M-E. But He made others in His image too, so I need to see the worth of those around me. I need to honor and serve them as Jesus did.  The Holy Spirit gives us the power to overcome our flesh.  He also gives us the power to choose. So, like Colossians 3:17 says, “Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus.”  When you find yourself thinking something negative, stop and remember that they are a child of God too.  God loves them just as much as He loves you.

Dear Jesus, please send the Holy Spirit to show us the worth of those around us and give us the humility to honor and serve them as Jesus did.

Jesus Loves Our Children

Matthew 18:10 “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”

Being a mother is the most important job you will ever have. You need to raise your children to be loving and happy, kind and respectful, strong and brave and most importantly you need to foster their relationship with Christ.

You can do this even if you are not a mother. Children mirror the attitudes and behaviors they see around them every day.  If you talk negatively about other people, they will learn to talk negatively about other people. If you blow up at them for every mistake they make, they will learn to blow up at their friends for making a mistake. If you think everyone is “out to get you” that attitude will pass down to the children around you.

But if you do unexpected acts of kindness for other people, children will pick up on that too.  If you model happiness even when things are difficult or show appreciation and respect to teachers and police officers, children will learn to react the same way. If you make a point of telling them they are making you proud when they do something good, then you are filling them up with confidence and they learn to encourage others around them.

Fostering a relationship with Jesus works the same way.  It starts with things like commenting on what a beautiful flower or sunset God made for us.  You can buy a devotional book that is age appropriate and sit down together at night or after dinner and read it together.  You can watch shows together, like The Chosen, that teach you about Jesus in a way that is interesting to kids.  You can pray at meals or when there is something bothering them.  Just this week one of my sons was struggling with online school and friends.  After we talked about what was going on, I asked him to sit down so I could pray for him.  This is modeling what you should do when you have problems, go to God in prayer.  There are great Christian messages on YouTube too that are current and relatable to youth.  Spend some time listening to them and then share the link of the ones you want them to listen to via text. 

Jesus loved the little children and talked about them often as an example of what our faith should be like. Jesus also warns us in Matthew 18 that we should not cause the littles ones or young believers to sin by tempting them or by neglecting or demeaning them. We should help young people to avoid anything that could cause them to stumble in their faith and we should steer them toward Christ by our example, our words and our acts of kindness.

Dear Jesus, please bless all the mothers today and all women that have influence over our children. Fill them with your Holy Spirit so that they can be examples of Jesus’s kindness and love.  Amen.

I am the WAY

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

When I asked God what he wanted me to tell his people today, He laid this verse on my heart. Many of my devotions talk about my relationship with God but only a few talk about my relationship with Jesus. For some reason it makes me uncomfortable to talk about Jesus. I think it is because most people believe in God. I mean look around you. How can you not believe in God? There is no way this earth could come to exist any other way than by the hands of my amazing God. But Jesus. Jesus is another story. Jesus was a man. Just like you and me. But he was God at the same time. That is hard to believe.  So until now I’ve shared what is easy to share and I’ve left the hard theology for the scholars. Well that stops today. I am going to do my best to share what I believe.

Matthew 7:13-14 says “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Jesus is that narrow road. It is not hard to find the road but only a few decided to walk that road. It is narrow because there is only one way to the Father and that is Jesus.    The wide gate and the broad road is the road of popular opinion. The wide gate has many different worldly lifestyles and it leads to eternal ruin.

Jesus is the only way to God the Father. Some people may argue that this is way too narrow. But in reality, it is wide enough for the whole world, if the world chooses to accept it. I chose to accept Jesus when I was a child but I didn’t really have a relationship with Jesus until about 6 years ago. Now I walk the narrow road.  I am happy on the narrow road. I know that Jesus is with me every step of the way. Jesus makes his presence known to me every day in little ways and it lights up my day when I realize that He has had a hand in making my plans come together.  If you have not given your life to the Lord, you can do so today.  

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. Amen

Be Still and Linger with Him

Psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.

Have you heard the saying by Ralph Waldo Emerson that says, “Life is about the journey, not the destination”?  To me, that means that we should search for joy in the preparation of the journey and savor every event along the way.  We have been on a journey over the past 5 weeks of social distancing and working from home and we have been preparing to return to normal (whatever that may look like).  For me, the preparation and journey has included lots of quiet time, quiet time to be still and to linger with God. 

One of the words God gave me in my heart this year is LINGER. The definition of linger is to stay in a place longer than necessary because of a reluctance to leave.  Up until now, it has been hard to be still and linger with God because of the demands of my career and being a mom of 3 teenage boys.  But now I can.  I have found time during this journey to linger with God and to hear from God.  In Job 33:5 it says, “For God does speak – now one way, now another – though man may not perceive it.”

In order for me to hear from the Lord, I need to be still.  I need to tune my ears to Him.  Jesus says in John 10:27, “My sheep listen to my voice, I know them, and they follow me.”   What a sweet time it is to hear His voice over all the other noise that is normally around us.  If we use this time to be still, hear his voice and become familiar with it, then when things go back to “normal”, we will still be able to hear Him.

I do not know where this journey is taking us, but I am making it a point to enjoy the quiet time with my Lord.  I am savoring these moments with Jesus, and I will continue to be still and make time to linger with Him.

Lord, thank you for wanting to spend time with me. Fill me with peace and hope and love so that I may be a blessing to others. Amen.