Category: Sister Judy (Page 8 of 276)

I also just read that parsley is much like clover and called the trinity plant, for the stem divides into three parts, just like the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit also bring cleansing to us from the dirt and grime of the world, preparing us for what is ahead. The Lord removes even the memories of the pain we have been through and gives us hope for the future. We don’t have to keep grieving over our past, but instead thank the Lord for forgiving our past and freeing us for the future.

Sometimes the enemy brings up our past to cause us to focus on our failures to discourage us and leave us hopeless. But the Lord has washed us clean if we have repented and turned from our sin, so we can thank Him instead. Think of what the apostle Paul had to let go when He came to believe, for he shares in his letter to I Timothy 1:12-14, “I thank King Jesus our Lord, who gave me strength. He regarded me as trustworthy by appointing me to His service—even though I used to say blasphemous things against Him, and persecuted his people violently! But I received mercy, because in my unbelief I didn’t know what I was doing. And the grace of our Lord was more than enough for me, with the faith and love that are in King Jesus.” That is like the parsley: he forgot what he once did and went on to become used of God.

A simple song came to my mind that I have quoted before; “Change my heart, O Lord, make it ever true; change my heart O Lord, may I be like you. You are the potter, I am the clay; mold me and make me, this is what I pray.” I agreed with the Lord that there are deep things buried in my life that I might not even be consciously aware of, but that need to go. Just like those things in the drawers that were no longer useful and need to be discarded. I asked Him to reveal those things. God is using a book I am presently reading to reveal to me deep things from my childhood that I believed about myself but were not true. Those thoughts need to be let go, discarded and replaced by words of truth.

Some things might take some deep-down scrubbing like those pews that have been used for years. They required a scrubby and lots of elbow grease! There were times I almost gave up on dark marks that were resistant, but I came back to them after dealing with lesser ones. God knows what we are ready for and will bring to light what has been hidden from us when we are ripe and ready. Some things are painful at the time, but then also exciting as we deal with them and have new eyes to see the truth that sets free. God often puts people in our lives to help us see and process what He is doing, and that is also a gift from Him. He is making us into new creations, and I want to keep changing and growing until my last breath.

Hope you had a great weekend! Tonight is another party and this time it is a supper party for Halloween. Al and I are dressing up like Kansas State fans with KS shirts, (I have earrings to match) and we have a pumpkin lei to wear around our necks. I will need my exercise class this morning so I can eat more tonight.

But the Lord is awakening the young men today to their need for Jesus. They no longer want to be caught in the web of toxic masculinity, but want to know what it means to be a man and to be competitive, to date and marry, to protect and have a family, to work hard and to contribute. God used Charlie Kirk’s life and death to inspire young men to find meaning in life, to receive the Lord, and to become mighty warriors for His kingdom.

May our churches be ready for the young men that are coming, searching and want to know the way. J.T. Reeves writes that they need to be introduced to Jesus, not for being a political activist, a culture warrior, or a self-improvement guru, but one who died for them, wants to give them life abundant, meaning and empowerment as men. Welcome those who come, and older men: be mentors to the younger ones and an example of what it means to be a man of God. “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’ ” (Isaiah 57:15)

When we come to accept the Lord into our lives we begin a spiritual walk, hopefully one that is a progressive and transformational, becoming like Jesus. Burrow writes of the three stages of the spiritual journey we go through, and the first one is about preparation to be drawn into the life of Jesus. It has to do with grace to break the stronghold of our ego. The second stage is the inflowing of God’s grace as we see our neediness before Him. The third stage is being freed from our ego-centricity and being receptive to the living knowledge of God as we are united with Jesus in establishing His kingdom on earth.

We all need to recognize our innate poverty, for it opens us up to have capacity for God and His love. Burrow struggled with doubts even after becoming a nun and fought depression. She tried hard to put others first, and gradually she trusted God to do within her what seemed impossible. She desired to know the truth of her being and gain self-knowledge, which helped her to trust God’s mercy. Just like her we need to surrender to God our poverty, helplessness, anxieties and fears. We are to come as we are and trust in HIs grace and mercy. Let us come near to God and He will come near to us. (James 4:8)

Each of us has to come to the place where we are willing to break the ties to our past, especially if we have made vows of saying we will never forgive someone. We can’t move forward until we choose to forgive them and break the chains. It’s sad to hang on and replay the past rather than forgiving and being set free. Rosangela reminds us of Isaiah 58:6, “Is not this kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” When we keep rehearsing our blunders and mourn our past, we are held captive and tethered. Instead we are to forget what lies behind and press forward to what God has ahead for us. (Phil. 3:13-14)

Let us be done with rehearsing what caused us pain and regret, and move on to growing in the Lord. That means we let go and forgive others and ourselves, and welcome the new and exciting things the Lord will lead us into.  May each of us ask the Lord to cut the cords that have us bound in any way and experience the freedom that He has waiting for us.

Hope you have day of experiencing God’s love in a special way. We are having our friend Corbin for Finnish Pasty today. It has been a little over 3 weeks since his wife’s funeral and life has been radically changed for him. We pray for God’s comfort to heal his .

Recently, I was amazed at Connie’s faith as she battles cancer again and has such a vivid sense of God’s love for her. She mentions that she was longing for a retreat, and God who loves her so much provided it, but not as she had been anticipating. She has to stay at the hospital, but they allowed her to go outside, walk down by Lake Superior and view the beauty of fall colors. She said she got three meals a day, a place to sleep and time to just be in nature with the Lord. Yes, it was a retreat! She expresses a wonderful assurance of God’s love for her. I read in the Message translation from Luke 10:20, “Not what you do for God but what God does for you-that’s the agenda for rejoicing.”

God’s ways are not always what we have in mind or desire, but He knows the very things that will help us, guide us, bless us and cause us to grow. That’s where trust comes in. It may be in those hard times that we called on to live in faith and know He is our source, our everything. He alone is our provider, our joy. I read in Luke about the disciples when they feared and thought their boat was going to capsize. They awakened Jesus and he quickly calmed the storm and said to them, “Why can’t you trust me?”  We must remember that the Lord is in the driver’s seat and He is totally trustworthy. Let us trust Him with our lives and experience His amazing love for us.

Challenge for today: Pray the words of the song:

“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.

I was reading recently about what Professor Matthew Dickerson of Fuller Seminary had to say about compassion. He first describes sympathy as trying to understand the difficult experience someone else is going through, and it is the first step in caring for another. He goes on to say empathy is working to feel what they are feeling, and it is a step towards love. But compassion is deeper and touches our innermost self, moving us to action. The Lord is compassionate with us and we are called to be compassionate with others. David says in Psalm 145:9, “The Lord is good to everyone and has compassion for everything that He has made.” That includes us! Every day we experience His compassion and He wants us to be like Him in showing compassion to others.

How do we do that? We seek to understand what someone is going through and feel what they are feeling, which often leads us in doing something for them. It may mean self-sacrifice of time and energy, but we are entering into what they are going through. This is such a wee example, but it gets to the point. A friend who had knee surgery is gluten-free and has to be careful of what she eats. I sent her a card and we had been praying for her, but it was like a word to me from the Holy Spirit…make her G.F. cookies. She can have that, and I found joy in making them for her and she was overjoyed to receive them. Other times the Lord may ask us to sit with someone who has experienced loss, or to help someone who is overwhelmed, etc. We can be His hands and feet if we do it with compassion and love. Paul goes on to say in Col.3:14, “And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.”

Porter makes it clear that when we know the Lord and have asked forgiveness, we are made righteous and not condemned. Our past is forgiven and we are not going to being judged as sinners before the great white throne, but we do face a time when we will be judged to receive eternal rewards. Paul says in II Cor. 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment set of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” That is a time when our true motives will be revealed, for all that is not of Him will be burned away by fire. If it is of Him, we will receive rewards. (I Cor. 3:14-15).

Let us take care how we speak and guard our lips. May we not judge others and speak against what we may not understand, for perhaps it is new move of God and He is blessing it. God is the judge and we are not. How hurtful it is for a Christian to be attacked by a fellow Christian who speaks disparagingly of his ministry bringing discouragement. We need to ask the Lord for clean lips and a pure heart, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34).