Category: Whispers (Page 21 of 161)

Hope you had a good weekend. Susan will be having her mastectomy this morning so please pray for her and her doctor. After writing the following devotion on Saturday I also got sick like Al and started to do all the things I did for him. Sad game last night for the Chiefs!

Let us all ask ourselves if we do more than just say we love the Lord and others. Do we express His love and do His work and desire to bless those around us? As we daily read the Word, it should make a difference and motivate us to bear fruit in our lives and look for opportunities to serve others.

True love will express gratitude not only to the Lord but also to others. As we do this and share with others how we appreciate them or are grateful for something they have done, we will find we feel closer to them. We may do this verbally or in our actions and we will find we have a deeper connection and bond with them. Also, as we have an attitude of gratitude we will have a more positive attitude, better health, less stress, and a great sense of purpose.

The more we love the more we naturally want to give and serve others. Jesus loves us most of all and finds so many ways to bless us. The early church in Acts also knew what that was about for they had great joy in giving freely to all those among them that had needs. Like Colbert wrote, “To love is to give whenever and whatever the Lord leads us to give.” If you are aware of the 5 love languages, you can even express love in the way it means the most to those around you. Let us put others before ourselves and love with Jesus’ love.

Challenge for today: Commit each day to let God’s love flow through you in words and action.
Have a wonderful week and prayers and love, Judy

I am writing today to ask for prayer for our friend Susan, who many of you have prayed for in the past. She is legally blind and lives in Assisted Living and has no family around; only a son and grandson who live in the northwest and visit her once a year or so. She has so little in worldly goods, but she is grateful and content. She could use prayers as she is leaving Sunday at 6 a.m. to be taken to Duluth where she will have a mastectomy early Monday morning, on her birthday. I talked to her last week, and they had a flu bug at Assisted Living and no visitors allowed. I prayed that she would be able to celebrate her birthday in some way before her surgery. I had made her favorite chocolate cookies on a stick, since her hands are deformed with arthritis it is easier for her to hold. I also put a chocolate cake in the freezer that had lots of chocolate frosting and bought her chocolate candy, root beer and a couple new shirts. But how was I going to get them to her and so I prayed. I definitely know the Lord watches over Susan as I see the evidence so many times as He meets her needs.

The Lord answered my prayer as I woke from a nap and found out that our daughter Ann was stopping by in 5 minutes and would meet me downstairs since Al was sick. I asked her if she would leave off these gifts for Susan at the desk as she goes by her place going home. I had a feeling a call would come from Susan later and she was so happy she could hardly talk. She said even the aides that brought her the bags of gifts were almost as excited as she was. Susan loves to give to others, and I know she will share the cake and cookies, particularly with a special friend. God’s love beams in her life and her gratitude overflows. It isn’t that she has a lot, but what she has she is grateful for. I loved that the Lord wanted her to be able to celebrate her birthday for it will be a long time of recovery as she goes to a Nursing Home in Duluth following surgery. I promised her I would ask you all to pray for her!

We will also find that along with a changed heart, our mind gets renewed, and love is now the force that directs our actions, thoughts and words. We become joined with other believers and receive encouragement through fellowship together. Since we know we now belong to a family of believers, we no longer feel alone and depressed. We practice love and seek to find ways to encourage others. Paul said in Romans 5 that we have been justified by faith and have peace with God for God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. This love is not just a feeling, but it is a person, God is love! If you want to know more of what the love is like read I Cor. 13 for it is enduring, patient, kind, not self-seeking and bears up under anything.

Let us ask ourselves what is our greatest love? Is it for Jesus or is it for pleasures, wealth, fame? Hopefully it is for Jesus, and we are experiencing His selfless love that He has placed inside of us that enables us to reach out to others and to know them and love them. I am sure we will also find that in the process we are filled with indescribable joy and peace.

Challenge for today: Ask the Lord to be first place in your life and share His love however He leads you.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

1. Search me, O God, and know my heart today,
   Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray;
   See if there be some wicked way in me;
   Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.
2. I praise Thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin;
   Fulfill Thy word and make me pure within;
   Fill me with fire, where once I burned with shame;
   Grant my desire to magnify Thy name.
3. Lord, take my life, and make it wholly Thine;
   Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine;
   Take all my will, my passion, self and pride;
   I now surrender, Lord, in me abide.
4. O Holy Ghost, revival comes from Thee;
   Send a revival, start the work in me;
   Thy Word declares Thou wilt supply our need;
   For blessings now, O Lord, I humbly plead.

You have probably sung this song written by James Edwin Orr in 1936 after a revival took place when he preached in New Zealand. He was only 24 at the time and so many people came to know the Lord that he had to have midnight services to accommodate all of them. The key was the public confession of sins, and believers reconciling with one another. The revival spread across this whole nation as the Holy Spirit moved with great power. As James was leaving to go home, 4 Maori girls sang to him their native song of farewell. He was taken by the tune that he wrote the words of this song on an envelope and later it became the very song we sing today.

Perhaps these words can touch us deeply today as we ask the Lord to search our hearts and cleanse our very thoughts. He wants to set us free and fill us with His love, but we need to surrender each day our will, passion, self and pride. May revival start with us and spread far and wide.

I read about avarice which is called one of the deadly sins and defined as the insatiable desire for more than we need. Most Americans would say they are weighed down by all their many goods that leave them with bursting closets and drawers. We have so much more than we need. Scripture warns us about riches and the love of money, and wealthy King Solomon who had everything said, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, or he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.” (Eccl. 5:10} Scripture has over 2,000 verses on money, so we need to pay attention lest it rule us rather than be a tool to help us in giving to the needs of others.

We all have need of shelter, food and safety but when is enough, enough? There is a lot of greed as people desire more material possessions and money and what other people have.  Advertising on TV puts longing in our hearts that we never would have otherwise. So how do we guard against “Affluenza”?  What happens to just being satisfied with our needs being met? We need gratitude! Gratitude is realizing we have received help and gifts that God has given us and we are thankful. All that we have is a gift from God and if we have abundance, doesn’t it make sense that we share. The more we earn the more we can give. Let us be generous and we will experience that giving does actually make us happier than receiving.

  I think of our granddaughter, Paige who got married last summer. She knows Devin to a degree but when they live together all the years that Al and I have, when she says she knows him, it will be on a much deeper level. She would then know all his ups and downs, his good points but also areas he needs to grow in etc. Al says to me nearly every day, “Thank you that you have stayed with me all these years!” We aren’t perfect and therefore we need to let the life of Jesus within us cover those areas we yet need to change….and we will be doing that until the day we die.

 We all want to grow and live better lives, holy lives, and our efforts are fruitless when we do it in our own strength, plus it gets us discouraged; but we can ask by faith that the Lord to do His work in us. As it says in I Thess. 5:24, “The One who called you to this life will do it!” We have to give up struggling and trying to sanctify ourselves and trust the Lord to do it within us by His power. It is Christ within us that does the working out. (Col. 1:27) Life gets peace filled as we admit our weaknesses but see His strength and power at work in us and we are left with hearts overflowing with gratitude.