Dear Ones,
Happy Weekend! Hope you are keeping warm! We had a full house at the Birthday party yesterday and every piece of cake went. Afterwards our grandson stopped by for supper on his way to the lake. Today I plan to bake and clean.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
How do we see ourselves and do we feel worthy of being loved? Maybe we aren’t important in the eyes of the world, but are we really what we do or what we have or what others think of us?  The enemy loves to deceive us and cause us to believe these lies, but the truth is we will never have enough or do enough or gain enough approval from others, for we always fall short. Satan tried to tempt Jesus in each of these three areas, but Jesus answered him with the Word of God.

I would surmise that each of us have been tempted to base our worth on these areas and have found we can’t measure up. I can never have enough, for someone else will have more. I can never do enough to feel worthy, and not everyone will speak well of me. Author John Ortberg deals with this dilemma in his book Steps, giving us words of hope as he writes from his own years of struggle.

Our identity is not something we earn or achieve, but it is something we receive from the Lord. We are called His children when we receive Him and He lavishes His love on us, not because we are so great or what we have done, but who we are in Him. John says in I John 3:1, “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” Nothing we do can separate us from that love He has for us. Our identity is found in the Lord, and I wish I could say we become new overnight without defects, but one thing I do know is that I need His grace every single day. I still make mistakes! I still have many faults and I need to humbly ask for His mercy. God wants to use the circumstances in our lives to change us. Our problems don’t go away all at once, but God uses them to form our character so we can become more like Him.

Challenge for today: Admit your sins and shortcomings to the Lord, and humbly receive His grace that transforms you, knowing you are His beloved.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy