Tag: Jesus

Love

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.”
1 John 3:11.

You’ve heard the old song, ‘Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage? ” I’m sure we all have. It’s an old one, but a fun, little song, that my grandparents sang for light-hearted fare. Love makes the world go round.

Love? It’s a classic! It’s a relevant theme that has flourished through the ages and never goes out of style. God designed it for good and blesses His people with it, but sadly the world cheapens it, flaunts it, and uses it in the wrong way.

God is the author and creator of it because He is love and His Word is a love letter to His people, whom He loves with an unconditional love. A love that transcends far beyond the ecstasy of the physical love and marriage the world knows! His love letter is our guidebook for this journey of life and our defense against the enemy. Hebrew 4: 12 says,

“It’s alive and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

His love letter is a message of hope to the hopelessly alone and lost and dead in trespasses and sin. His is a message of Truth for those deceived by the enemy and victory for the down and out.

Our verse is an awesome word from John, who reminds us of the underlying love theme in God’s word from the very beginning and the very foundation of our salvation. It’s so easy to lose sight of it because life happens, people hurt people and love becomes difficult if we take our focus off of Christ. John knew it well and goes on to warn his hearers not to be like Cain, whose jealousy led him to murder Abel, his brother. Let’s take care not to crush the spirit of another because of envy or jealousy in our ministries, families and places of work or school.

Love and forgiveness go together somewhat like love and marriage. One will follow the other in this Christian walk. At least it should if we live to bring glory to God, the author of love. To love and forgive is a difficult action when someone has taken from us and left us wounded, yet it’s a command and true evidence of Christ indwelling us! It’s not about sending our forgiveness recklessly out into oblivion but, rather, we place it in God’s hands. We turn it over to the all-knowing, righteous judge! The one who says,

“I’ll take care of that for you, just leave it with me!

It’s a comforting thought to think about our forgiveness being placed in God’s hands. Remind yourself of that the next time there is a need to forgive and love another. His message is clear and we can be victorious over the pain, hurt, and rejection. Let’s forgive to free ourselves and give it to God to deal with because it’s the age-old message and the one we’ve heard from the beginning of time….
“We should love one another.”

The Age Old Message

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Today

For all your Anxieties, there is a

Peace, Wrapped in Trust

Ahh, so, as we move into the second week of our Advent season and continue on in our preparation with Hope in our soul, we light the candle of ‘peace’ in our anticipated waiting. With so much going on in this world of ours, it’s hard to fathom any kind of peace anywhere, isn’t it? For sure not in this wide world is there any kind of peace and certainly not in ours!

Today, there’s most likely a whole bunch of us just aching for some kind of peace of mind that everything is ok and will be ok. Luke 2:14 tells us of a host of heavenly angels singing their song to shepherds, to announce His birth and share a glorious message of calm assurance! It was a powerful yet tender message of a Savior’s birth and about His sweet peace resting on His people in this unsettled earth of ours.

Glory to God in the Highest, because on that holy night a Savior came to gift us not only with Hope but with a divine PEACE and bring it close to our hearts, our minds, and into the very depths of our needy souls and selves.

So, in a day where so much unrest defies our normal life and wraps its icy fingers around our comfort zones, and at a time when world peace is at an all-time low, there is still the option of a sweet peace that passes all understanding!

Peace, ahh, don’t we need it in these days of so much uncertainty? It’s ours to step into and claim even when so many voices protest loudly and when so much is reeling out of control.

I’m so thankful it’s really there all around us all wrapped up in our Trust in the one Savior of the world. We need to step into it and just believe! It’s in our complete trust and obedience that our peace takes root. Pure, simple TRUST in Him shuts out the fear of the unknown! It cancels out the worry of what’s next and quiets the noise of chaos, because, as His child, we can know He holds us and our stuff, close to Himself as He whispers sweet peace to our soul, and it’s so lovely 

❤

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Peace Candle

Shalom

Shalom and PEACE to you today!

Not only does our Saviour’s birth bring Hope, but His birth and very presence usher in a peace that passes all understanding! Let’s light that peace candle today.

The peace he gives is a peace that transcends the dreadful fear of “What’s next?” or ‘What’s going on?” It’s a perfect peace that the world can’t give or take away, no matter what this crazy world brings to our table. So yeah, really, as serious as this old world stands in its political balance and as controversial as issues may seem and as frightening as the world news is, it all pales in comparison to the sweet, gentle Peace that our Saviour offers to the very soul of us in our deepest distress. Because it’s all ok anyway, isn’t it? If we know this one born to deliver the world from its sin, we know we’re in good hands in His safekeeping, and as His divine prophetic plan unfolds before our eyes, it surpasses any crazy plan the world and its top leaders have in store for us.

It’s a generous gift from our Lord to us. Yea, Jesus, Our Prince of Peace, came to share Peace with us, and His sweet peace is not as the world gives but rather a sense of well-being welling up within ourselves. A peace that comes from our willingness to change and repent and do a turnabout of direction. A peace that accompanies our choice to walk with Him in His way of salvation and in His ways of abundance. It comes from simple trust in our Prince of Peace, the sweet Saviour of the broken and hurting and those beaten and scarred and torn up by sin’s choices.

So today, “Shalom”, my friends, and may His favor rest on you today as you seek Him during your Christmas festivities and find healing in Him for such a time as this.

“The LORD bless you, and keep you; The LORD make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace ”

Numbers 6:23-26

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An Eye for an Eye

Yeah, I know, so often don’t we just want to rip through those who have shoved us under the bus for no reason? Ahh, Just to settle the score would make us feel so much better wouldn’t it? It would just make everything so right in our own eyes to give back what we were given? Just do what they did, only maybe find a bigger bus to shove them under. Sadly, that’s the way of the world and the thinking behind so much violence that happens around us today.

Jesus condemned that practice of personal retaliation when He stood on the Mount of Beatitudes, a hill in Northern Israel on the Korazim Plateau, and preached to the twelve apostles, and as Matthew 4 states, ‘A great multitude of people’. He preached to a large crowd of listeners to guide them in a life of discipline based on a new law; a law of love, even to our enemies, rather a law of retribution.
He spoke to them and to us today when he preached the words in Matthew 5: 38 -42,

“You have heard that it was said, ” An Eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.”

Now, Jesus wasn’t talking about harsh, evil, and abusive behavior here. The ‘slap on the cheek’ is a figure of speech, to simply portray letting the offense go! However, harsh, evil, and abusive behaviour is the work of darkness and Jesus condemns it in Ephesians 5: 11-13. Emotional and physically abusive treatment calls for clear thinking and immediate action. Make sure to seek help if you find yourself in such a dark place. You are not to blame for the treatment you receive. Rather, you are so very valuable in God’s eyes and He places you above that kind of wicked and disorderly conduct.

Ahh yes, and back to the simple offense, as much as we feel the need to lash out, being obsessed with retaliation will only make us bitter! It will eat away all the good, hiding deep within our soul and eventually, it will destroy us.

Perhaps, as the season of Advent approaches an appropriate preparation for our own hearts, would be to simply forgive the hurt, let it go, and let the healing begin, so that the Love that was born that night long ago, can rise up within our soul and bring us the peace that our Saviour brings. What a transforming Advent prep for us to consider before the fun, family festivities begin.

by Categories: Advent Season, Bible, Food for Thought, peace, Soul note to self, Soul Nuggets, ThinkersTags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment