Category: Whispers (Page 3 of 161)

With our imaginations, we see reality and what we will yet experience one day. When we give the Lord our all, that includes our sanctified imagination along with the rest of us. It’s good to gain Bible knowledge and memorize scripture, etc., but there is more to experience in our relationship to the Lord. We come to know Him beyond our intellect, rational minds and what we can see; we are to also embrace faith and what is yet unseen. We are more than left-brained dealing with certainty, for we need the right-brain intuition and spirituality. When we open ourselves to God, we use our imagination to experience grace, His love and power.

Our imaginations are stimulated when we see things of beauty like the Grand Canyon, a sunset over a stilled lake, or a field of flowers blowing in the breeze. It helps us get see what is real, become attuned to the Lord and experience His love. May we develop the joy of a child through the power of our imagination to see the invisible reality of love.

Challenge for today: The next time you are alone in the car visualize the Lord sitting beside you and enjoy His closeness.
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

There are only two roads or kingdoms, and it is often hard to leave the wide road when our friends and family choose not to walk with us. But they are two different worlds. One is our own little kingdom under our control but with eternal consequences, and the other kingdom is under the Lord’s control and has everlasting blessings. We choose!

I wonder if we really know how poor and blind we are without Christ. The enemy lies to us and does not speak truth about our pitiful condition. We all need rescuing and a safe place of love. It is good to learn some scripture verses to refute the accusations of the enemy’s lies and stand firm in the Lord. I daily also pray to put on the Armor of God (Ephesians 6) to stand against Satan’s attacks. Let us make a decisive choice to go down the narrow road to life with Jesus and invite others to walk with us.

Maybe we all have wondered if what we do each day matters and has purpose and makes a difference. Why work? God was the first worker, creating the world in six days, including us, then resting on the seventh day. When He created us, He told us to have dominion over every living thing. Gen 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” When Adam and Eve sinned, God said it would be by the sweat of their brow that they would do this.

No question that we are to work and our work belongs to God. We are to use the resources He gives us and know that no job is too small or too big if we are doing what He calls us to do. He puts within us the gifts needed to accomplish whatever work He gives us. Some jobs we may feel are more significant than others, but the most important job is the one God has planned for us. I read recently what St. Theresa said to the sisters: “If your task is in the kitchen, the Lord walks among the pots and pans, helping you in all things spiritual and temporal.”

Let us remember to do our work for His glory, whether it is acknowledged by others or not. God sees not only what we are doing, but the attitude of our hearts in our work. May we do our work heartily as unto Him.

Challenge for today: Thank the Lord for the work He has given you to do and reflect Jesus in your all of it.

I often pray, “Lord, you are the potter, I am the clay, mold me and make me after Thy will, while I am waiting yielded and still.” No we won’t always get our own way, and it is a good thing we don’t, for we how would we grow? He wants to shape us into the most beautiful vessels for His glory. When we are centered on self, our world is very small. Paul says in Phil. 2:3, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility value others above yourself.” If we are honest, we may admit we feel light and joy-filled when we are helping others and giving of ourselves, for there is less of us and more of Him.

Let us not be like spoiled children who demand all the attention, wanting their own way, but rather ones who express gratitude and value others as highly as themselves.

I don’t know about you, but I would like to be fruitful and flourish just like a cedar tree that grows about a foot each year. If we are planted in the house of the Lord, we will be rubbing shoulders with other like-minded believers who also want to grow. We can connect and stimulate faith in one another and share together. We were never meant to go it alone but together we become knit with the Body of Christ.

Today we hear people say they don’t need to go to church and can catch a service when they want online. That is saying they don’t need fellowship and their spiritual gifts that I also read about in Romans 12 today will not get used. (prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving leading, and showing mercy)

Spiritual gifts are meant for the Body of Christ and when we are not gathered with others, those gifts get neglected and unused. We might say it is robbery. But I like how the Psalmist closes Psalm 92 by saying that the those who are planted in the Lord’s house will blossom, “grow tall in the presence of God, lithe and green, virile still in old age.”