Dear Ones,
Hope you had a beautiful Easter! We enjoyed going to hear Leif preach and to the lake to have a ham dinner with the whole family. All three grandsons were there and we had games and laughter and prizes! A beautiful sunny day. Today I am soon off to Aldi’s and my exercise class and hope to get the Easter decorations put away too. 
Devotions from Judy’s heart
    We have just experienced another Easter and focused on Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross and His glorious resurrection. He paid the most astounding price ever! It’s hard to comprehend that anyone would willingly suffer and die for another as Jesus did for each one of us. I was reading today from Gal. 5:1(God’s Word), “Christ has freed us so that we may enjoy the benefits of freedom. Therefore, be firm in this freedom, and don’t become slaves again.”
   When we receive Jesus, we are set free from our past, and free from the bondage that the enemy has held us in! We taste freedom in a new way as never before, for we experience His presence and power drawing us close to Him. Our part is to let go of all those things that hold us back from completely giving ourselves to the Lord. The enemy uses all his tactics to bring us back into bondage again and we must not let him or anyone else put a harness of slavery on us, like the Message translation says. Christ has set us free to live a free life!
  Let us be done with enslavement to what others think. Let us be done with putting our desires ahead of the good plans God has for us. If we use our freedom to just do whatever we selfishly want we will only become enslaved again. And truth be told, it isn’t very pleasant to be around people that are self-centered and want the world to revolve around them. We were made for the Lord and for His kingdom.
  A song comes to mind by Judson Van De Venter who gives the answer of what we need to do, “All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all; All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”  Let us freely give ourselves to the Lord that He may fill us with His love and power and joy.
   Even when we fail, and we will at times, we don’t need to stay down for there is no end to His love and grace. Each time we acknowledge our sin and ask for forgiveness, there will only be more space for Him and more freedom.
Challenge for today: Freely give yourself to the Lord!
Blessings on  your week and prayers and love, Judy