Category: Sister Judy (Page 53 of 267)

Many in our culture work so many hours to the neglect of their families and forgo vacations to get ahead with no time to enjoy life. They may not even enjoy their job and yet most of their hours are consumed at work building their careers. We also see the opposite side of those who feel they don’t have to work and become lazy and live off of others. The apostle Paul speaks to that in II Thess. 3 when he says he labored night and day, so he wouldn’t be a burden to them. He warns the church to stay away from those who are idle and refuse to work; in verse 10 says, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” Let us be careful not to a workaholic or a dropout.

Work is good and we know God worked on 6 days in creating everything but then rested on the 7^th day. Work is an activity of God and He wants to also guide us to work with a purpose and with balance. Hopefully we love what we do and we work hard and play hard. Sometimes we need to unplug for we can feel like we are on a treadmill and can’t get off. But our body, soul, and spirit need renewing. Life is not about the amount of money we earn, but lives we touch and the accomplishment of God’s will in our lives. Our success is not a title we earn rather that God is at the center of our work and our very lives. Let us not be compulsive about our work or neglectful by constant play or we will miss what is most important. Live life for Him!

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy

  I am not saying that if we are not filled with laughter and joy, we are not a Christian, but we need to be centered in the Lord and let His love flow through us and joy will be the overflow. I have been with Christians when we have laughed til our sides ache, and we went home feeling so much lighter in our spirit. It’s like the breath of the Holy Spirit blowing the cobwebs out of us.

  We see only too well, how our culture is bored and looking for entertainment in many places. We pay to have others tell jokes and do dramatic things but when we go home our hearts may feel empty as before. Jesus’ joy doesn’t ever run out and we can experience it deep down in the center of our being. Even when our circumstances are not what we would like, there is still a depth of joy and strength that keeps bubbling up. We have confidence that God can weave even those things into something good. Joy builds from what we know of what God has done in our past, and borrows from what we anticipate in the future, as we live in His presence now.

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Happy weekend! May you have some restful reflective moments. This morning Al and I are going to another funeral for a friend who lived down the hall from us. He is missed, especially on Bible study days, as he faithfully came and often had questions he would ask.

Devotions from Judy’s heart

  How good are we are guarding our hearts? In Proverbs 4:23 we are told, “Guard the affection of your heart, for they affect all that you are.” We need to give attention to the welfare of our innermost being, for everything flows out of our hearts.                                                                                            One day when I was at the dentist, I brought some reading material along and it just happened that the book I was reading was on the page that was sharing about Psalm 121. It’s a Psalm that has spoken to me when I went through hard times in the past and brought comfort. That day the dental work was on my implants and more difficult than I anticipated, but I could just close my eyes and think on the words of the Psalm as I was getting worked on. ”I lift my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep…”

  Some people have the wrongful impression that when we come to know the Lord, we no longer have any problems or pain. Life is like rose garden without any thorns and if we do have problems something is wrong with our relationship with Lord. Not true! Jesus never said that and but rather told us we can even expect trials of various kinds because we know Him. If we look to the mountains for help, we will be disappointed, but we need to rather look to Him who created the mountains and all creation including us. There is where our help comes from and He never slumbers so He guards us from evil and is with us no matter what we go through. That doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen to us but rather that whatever does won’t get between us and the Lord. Like Eugene Peterson wrote, “All the water in all the oceans cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us.” Yes, we will through the same things as others in our world, but God goes with us and we can experience His love and grace as we walk through hard challenging times. In faith we believe that He won’t give us more than we can handle, and He will keep the evil that is going on around us from getting inside of us.

  May we entrust our hearts to the Lord and not fear, knowing that He is watchful and will guard us from all evil.

  Challenge for today: Thank the Lord that He is with you in every moment of your day, no matter what may happen.

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

May you have a joy-filled day and live in the present moment. I have banana bread in the oven and Al will be able to sample it after he gets home from the Men’s group. Today is also Donut Day here and Bible study.

Devotions from Judy’s heart

  When we come to know the Lord and experience His peace and joy in our souls, it is not something to keep to ourselves but to share with others. So many around us may not know the Lord personally, even though at times have been to church, and know a few verses of scripture. But until they open their heart to the Lord and receive Him, there is a big vacancy in their soul that will never be satisfied apart from the Lord.

  Challenge for today: Ask for holy boldness to share Jesus with your friends and those you may meet who have not yet placed their faith in the Lord.

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

Some don’t forgive themselves because they are afraid, afraid they will only do it again, but Smith says this is really a fear of freedom. To say we are forgiven means to be set free from our past and we suspect we may repeat our past behavior. But the truth is what we have done in the past does not determine what we will do again when we forgive ourselves.

How do we forgive ourselves? First to believe that God has forgiven us. He sees it all and He declares us forgiven if we confess what we have done. David said in Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our sins from us.” God forgives all our sins and he doesn’t measure sins as some being greater and others lesser as we often do. The truth is we are all sinful beings, broken and should not be shocked when we fail because we are fallen. God knows who we are, but we need to forgive and be reconciled with ourselves.

Smith says the first stage is to be honest and tell the truth to ourselves of what we have done and then humbly acknowledge we are not perfect. We need to go in faith to rely on what Jesus has done for us and then rest in the promise of His forgiveness. Then we have the opportunity to reconcile with the person we may be angry with, which is ourselves. We can say, “I forgive you. I am sorry I have spent all of this time trying to hurt you. All of that is over now. I forgive you.” Then celebrate our freedom. God will never bring up our past sins, so if memories of our sin come up, view them through His forgiveness, define ourselves by who we are in Him, and rewrite our script. Who we are is not tied with what we have done in the past. We are now free to be who God created us to be.  We will know we have forgiven ourselves when we can love freely and be able to forgive others as we have been forgiven.

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Hope you have a day of joy and listening! I have Al’s favorite cookies ready to go in the oven and soon the house will be filled with aroma. This afternoon we are invited to friends for coffee and fellowship. 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

  How well to we hear the voice of the Lord? Do we anticipate that He will speak to us each day or do we go about our day without expectation that He may have something specific for us to hear? We might say, of course I want to hear Him, but do we?

  May we ask the Holy Spirit to speak into our lives and cause us to hear clearly and be changed by His love.

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

  I was reading from Pursuit of God, “Do little things as if they were great because of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ, who dwells in you; and do great things as if there were little and easy because of His omnipotence.” (Blaise Pascal) We have Jesus’ example of doing whatever pleased His Father. Some things were small like helping in the carpenter shop to huge things like willingness to die for us. He was only about doing what His Father said.

  Paul also tells us “Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever we do, do all to the glory of God.” I Cor. 10:31. That means all that we do each day can be for His glory, whether it is doing dishes or preaching a sermon. Each act can be an act of worship when done for Him. An unknown author said, “Lord, turn the routines of work into celebrations of love. “

Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

  I read James Smith’s book, Embracing the Love of God, and he shows how we love others is a reflection of how we love ourselves. If we truly have come to know God’s acceptance of us, then we will be able to deal with others. We love others as we are loved!  As a child I remember memorizing John 13:35, “By this will everyone know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” When we do not accept others, perhaps it is because there are parts of ourselves that we also don’t accept. God never gives up on us and we should not give up on ourselves or on others either, no matter what.

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy