Category: Sister Judy (Page 66 of 268)

Dear Ones,

Hope you had a great weekend. We had a good Rally Sunday with a banquet of food and then seeing our pastor and others getting dunked in the dunk tank. His own father got to dunk him! 

I am making smothered pork chops and soon we are going to a Dr. appointment to meet our new doctor as our other one moved. 
Devotions from Judy’s heart

  Do we seek man’s favor or do we desire God’s favor more? It makes a big difference for if we put man’s favor over God’s we are in for a lot of work as it never quits needing to be earned. Maybe doing certain things will give us acceptance for a while, but there is not an end to it as we have to keep doing them to maintain it. How much better to seek God’s favor which is supernatural and a gift of grace.

  I was reading today what Moses said about God”s favor, for it is nothing we have to expend  much energy to earn but is rather a wonderful gift that the Lord wants us to trust Him for. It is all about grace! When we open ourselves to receive from Him what we cannot earn, He pours out blessings on us and doors of opportunity open up. As Moses wrote in Psalm 90:17, “And let the beauty and delightfulness and favor of the Lord our God be upon us; confirm and establish the work of our hands yes, the work of our hands confirm and establish it.” But we can’t just receive His favor and then go live anyway we please. He wants us to listen to Him, to be watchful to obey Him, and He wants our love.

  I hope we have all experienced being loved for who we are and not for doing everything to please someone so that they would think well of us. When we are with family or friends who accept us as we are, it is an awesome feeling and we can just rest in the comfort of their love. Of course, God’s love is perfect and His favor is the most wonderful gift.

   I don’t know about you, but I am left with an awesome sense of His grace and we can enjoy His gifts to us, not being afraid we will lose them for we never earned them in the first place. Since we are His children, we are heirs to all that He has, which is limitless. In fact, we are very rich!

Challenge for today: Receive and thank God for how His favor has touched your life.

Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Hope you are having a relaxing weekend. It has cooled off now and nice to have our door to the balcony open again. Today I am cleaning and doing food prep and Ann may come later. Tomorrow is Rally Sunday, so we are all eating dinner at church and having games and a dunk tank in which Pastor is the lucky one! 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

  We are to be reflectors of the glory of God and letting His light shine through us. While at the lake a one Sunday morning I was sitting on the bed meditating and looking out the French doors on the lake. I saw the shimmering waves that were reflecting the boat resting on the lift that was held just a bit above the water. I thought of how the image in the water was the exact replica of reflection to what was above it. In this case it was the boat.

   But what about our lives? Is it not what is in our hearts what gets reflected to others? It says in Proverbs 27:19, “As in water face reflects face; so the heart of man reflects man.” We may try to put on a good outward front but what shows up in the reflection of the water is what is real and in our hearts. A loon may be swimming out from the dock but only the boats imagine will be reflected as it is right beneath the lift. Likewise, we can be reflectors of His glory in our lives the more we let Him transform us. We have been given the Holy Spirit to help us change and it is an ongoing experience of daily saying yes to the Spirit and no to our own selfish ways. As it says in the Message translation in II Cor. 3:18, “Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of His face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.”

  It is most beautiful to see others who are not giving in to the culture, but want to seek to know the Lord in deeper ways. Rather than settling for shallowness they go on to know the depths of God. Let us lay aside all those things that hinder our relationship with Him, and like the song that Albert Osborn wrote be true of our desire. “Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me/ All His wondrous compassion and purity;/ O thou Spirit Divine, All my nature refine/ ‘Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.”

 

Challenge for today: Ask the Lord to make you a beautiful reflector of His glory by your very life.

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Happy weekend to you! Hope you can have time to get refreshed. I just finished making cookies on a stick, and Al is the bowl-licker and the cookie taster! Although you will read I look terrible I feel fine! 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

  Are we people of the heart? Do we look past the outward to sense what is going on within? We must be more than people of head knowledge and seek also to have heart knowledge, not only concerning the Lord, but others and ourselves.                                                                            Right now, if you looked only at my outward, it is not a pretty sight. I have scabs on my lips and some of my face from an ointment I had to put on for a month for precancer as I spent much of my life in the sun. Then there are my teeth; I have two empty spaces where my future implants will be going but are not in yet. To add to it, I suddenly have a stye in my eye which I have not had since a child. So, I am counting on people to look past my outward and see my heart instead! 

 We should not judge others by their outward looks and even behavior because there is often a reason behind how they look and act. One man who is severely deformed is that way from saving someone from a burning car. Those scars are beauty scars in the Lord’s eyes and should be in our eyes too. Or the screaming child who refuses to go in the shallow end of the pool. He is not being obstinate but fearful because he nearly drowned while at the lake. He needs the reassuring voice of love to take away his fear. Or the weeping woman whose cries we want to have silence, but she weeps because the child within her is no more.                                                                                                 Let us not be surface people who only deal with the superficial, but heart people that see in depth and sense the hurts of others. When we learn to see as Jesus sees, our hearts will be broken for others also, and they will sense it.                                                                                                  Most important we need to open our hearts wide to the Lord and let Him show us what we may be trying to hide. Only then can we sincerely pray as David in Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.”  If we dare pray this daily and mean it, our lives will be changed from the inside out, for He will take away that things in our lives that cause distance from the Lord and help us to also open wide our hearts to others.

Challenge for today: Make Psalm 139:23-24 your prayer today!

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Hope you have a wonderful day full of His surprises. Al is off to men’s group and before long I will go downstairs to get donuts for us to have with coffee when he returns. I am making his favorite cookies and a zucchini dish and  this afternoon we have Bible Study.

Devotions from Judy’s heart

   The Lord loves us and has so much to teach us, and often in unexpected ways. We need to be alert and receptive to learn from what He is showing us, for He may surprise us and use those we come in contact with throughout our day. I get excited when He uses people we least expect or places us in unusual circumstances and we just know it is Him… He has a message for us we need to be open to learn and be blessed.

  In response to what I wrote some days ago about our friend Vickie who has Alzheimer’s and yet she blesses others by her smile and hugs as God’s love flows through her, I got a response from someone who knows God speaks as she reaches out to others around her.

  Our friend Carol had a chance meeting with Jamie and her 25 year-old daughter, Tanner, while out for a walk one day. Tanner has some form of brain cancer and was in a wheelchair when Carol’s cat jumped into her lap’ That began a friendship for the three of them and they began visiting on Carol’s patio and also went occasionally to her church. Carol always wanted to go to the Steam Threshers in Rollag so on Sunday the three of them got there around 6:30 am. They were able to see things and get breakfast, take the train around the grounds and go to the church service which was very good. By noon they had seen lots and watched the tractor parade and went on the carousel, which Jamie wanted to do with Tanner before they headed home. While Carol was getting them ice cream, Jamie came across a worker who knew how to get a “people mover”, which was basically a tractor with a hay wagon on the back that had a wheelchair ramp, to come and pick them up so they didn’t have to walk back through the entire place to get to the front gate where they were parked. Jamie had been pushing the wheelchair plus had a heavy “medical bag” that that she and Carol were taking turns toting around in the 90 degree weather. They were all tired but had a fun morning time. Carol shared how blessed Tanner was to have such a great mom who gets her out and about and loves her the ways she does, rather than putting her away. Later Jamie shared how she appreciated the fact that she lives where people are so close and welcoming, and she can feel comfortable taking Tanner to events.

   I suspect Jamie doesn’t realize what a beautiful message she is giving to others by her loving servant heart. Let us remember every person we meet has a gift for us from above, because they are made in the image of God. We may have to look harder to find it at times, but it is there.

  Now our friend Carol could have gone to the Steam Threshers alone or with others who wouldn’t take up so much time and care, but she came home blessed, seeing firsthand, the example of unconditional love of a selfless mom to her daughter.

  Some lessons God teaches us are not easy to learn but let us open our hearts with the faith that He knows when we are ready for whatever it is we are to learn and then grow and become more like Him.

Challenge for today: Ask the Lord for a teachable heart to receive and learn the lessons He has for you.   

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy 

   I was reading today about Moses who was about ready to die and gave some encouraging words to Joshua who was to take his place and lead the Israelites into the Promised land. He said in Deut. 31:7-8 (Amplified), “Be strong, courageous, and firm, for you shall go with this people into the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to possess it. It is the Lord Who goes before you; He will not fail you or let you go or forsake you. ( let there be no more cowardice or flinching, but) fear not, neither become broken (in spirit-depressed, dismayed, and unnerved with alarm).”

  I find it reassuring to know that the Lord sees the whole situation and He goes before us and prepares the way, so that we don’t have to fear. Sometimes I give a knowing smile as it is obvious to me that God has been there ahead of time… like when I went somewhere to speak and I note He already had everything arranged perfectly.
  I am reminded of a song by a Jesuit priest in1975 who was a composer of liturgical music. A few of his words are:

  

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Happy Labor Day! Hope you take time to celebrate. We are home now after a fun time at the lake. We enjoyed a wiener roast with about 20 relatives one evening, went to our former church and dinner at Ann’s afterwards, and then headed home when the thermometer reached 100 degrees!
I am making egg dishes and cookies and then we are going for our walk on the trail early before it heats up again. 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

Happy Labor Day to you! Perhaps today each of us will give some thought to the work we do and also rest on this national Holiday from our work. This morning I read about what Mark Roberts of Fuller Seminary writes about work beginning with how God was the first worker in creating the heavens and the earth and all that is in it, including us…and it was all good! God worked 6 days but then on the seventh day He rested from His work. He left us a great rhythm for us to follow also.

Blessings on your long weekend and prayers and love, Judy

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

God’s ways are so different from the worlds, and He often uses weak and humble people that have no extraordinary abilities nor are esteemed by the world. In fact, others may view the persons as unqualified and looks at them as being weak. But God views them far differently and sees what He can do through them since they are humble and open. I still remember a sermon back when I was a young adult given by a lay person who would not be viewed by the eyes of the world as important or eloquent. Yet he spoke deep truths with conviction and authority of the Lord. I knew that night that God will use who He wants to accomplish what He purposes.         

Recently we were at a friend’s home for coffee and were served fresh apple pie ala mode. I smiled as that very morning I thought how soon it will be the season for apples and I would be able to taste delicious apple desserts. But during our conversation, it became known that the apples for dessert came from the little apple tree in their yard. Now it is not a big tree at all and looks much like Charlie Brown’s tree with hardly any leaves. They had had it for 4 years and at one point Bruce was going to cut it down, but he saw some blossoms coming forth. He dug around the tree and put in some black dirt and continues to water it faithfully every day. But it is still so small, and it’s hard to believe that it produced the big apples for the pie. When first told, I thought he was kidding as it seemed impossible since it was even anchored by a small rope to hold it up.  On the way home my thoughts were reflecting on how God uses the weak and foolish to produce fruit and confound the wise. There is no mistake it is not them, but it is the Lord in them, that His power is demonstrated for all to see. Let none of us think that we are not valuable and able to be used by the Lord for His kingdom, but may we be like the little tree that produced big fruit.

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy