Month: October 2024

“But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me.” Psalm 22:19 NIV

My husband and I were fortunate to be at a Zach Williams concert the other week and the hymn “I need Thee” was played. It was wonderful to hear that many people singing this hymn all at the same time. It touched me very deeply and my husband suggested that I speak about it in my blog. So I researched the history of this beautiful hymn and this is what I found.

In June 1872, Anne Hawks was doing her usual housework when she felt the strong presence of God. His presence gave her such warmth, with the words “I need Thee, Lord” filling her mind she was inspired to write this hymn. Dr. Robert Lowry, Mr and Mrs. Hawks’ pastor, wrote the music for the lyrics that Anne Hawks had compiled. In November of 1872, the hymn was first performed in the National Baptist Sunday School Association Convention in Cincinnati Ohio. In 1873 it was published in Royal Diadem for the Sunday School and John 15:5 “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” KJV, was given as a reference of the hymn. Anne Hawks wrote over 400 hymns in her lifetime and said that this hymn was prophetic in nature, speaking to her need to feel God’s presence in times of distress.

This hymn echoes what the psalmist wrote in Psalm 22:19, when he asks the Lord to not be far from him. Although I do not automatically remember this hymn in times of grief or distress, as I sit here writing about it, it has brought me comfort. When I awoke this morning and prayed with God about what I should write about today, this hymn is what entered my mind. As I said, my husband had suggested I write about it but I had not gotten any further in doing that, than writing the title on a post draft and saving it.

This morning, God brought it to my mind and as I thought about the lyrics, I found comfort in knowing that my Lord is near me at every moment. I need Him and He responses by never leaving me or any other believer. As much as I need my Lord, my uncle who buried his wife, my aunt, of 66 years, yesterday needs the Lord as well and I find comfort in knowing that the Lord is as near to him as He is to me. I pray that my uncle, a believer of many years, feels the Lord holding him in His arms during this time of deep grief.

I stand in awe of individuals who are so touched by God that they are able to create beautiful music, poems or literature that praises and honors our wonderful God. Thank You, Lord for those people and Thank You for always being there for each and everyone of us.

“Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.'” Luke 23:43 NIV

This verse is a testament that as we have sinned, have asked for forgiveness and have been given forgiveness by Jesus that when we die we are in paradise with Him. The person Jesus is talking to in this verse is the thief on the cross next to His. This man had not lived life the way that he should have, he didn’t follow the teaching of Jesus. Yet, when he realized who Jesus was and is, the Messiah, he asked for forgiveness. Jesus not only forgave him but also assured him that he would be in paradise with Jesus when he died.

As much as I love the fact that Jesus is willing to forgive us of our sin and save us from eternal damnation, the part of this verse that I cling to this past week is the part where Jesus tells the man he will be in paradise that day. When I heard that my aunt had passed from this temporal life to her eternal life, it gave me comfort to know that she was in paradise that day. My aunt lived her life in the exact opposite manner than the thief on the cross, she followed the teachings of Jesus and what I remember the most about her was her commitment to Jesus.

The first memories I have of my aunt and uncle are of them taking my mother, brother and myself to church. My aunt was a no-nonsense kind of woman, who believed what she believed and wasn’t ashamed to let everyone know that she was a Christian. She was a second mother to me and was as responsible for me coming to know Jesus as my own mother was. My aunt was a strong woman of faith and I hope that I am half as bold in my walk with God as she was.

Today we will pay tribute to her, celebrate her life and then place her body at rest. Today will be hard, but I am finding comfort in knowing that I will see her again someday when I arrive in heaven. So I am not saying ‘goodbye’ to this wonderful woman, I am saying ‘see you later.’

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:17 NIV

Today is my mother’s birthday and she would have been 82 years old. So Happy Birthday Ma. To honor her memory, I want to look at John 3:17. Her favorite verse was John 3:16 which I have already wrote about. I feel like the 17th verse is meant to be read along with the 16th even though it is usually forgotten about when John 3:16 is recited.

My mom would talk about John 3:17 when she was witnessing to others and I was privileged to see this during her last 6 weeks of life. She would discuss Jesus with each nurse, nurse’s aide and visitor that she could and if she found out that they were not saved, she would try to persuade them to consider following Jesus. When she was talking with anyone about Jesus, especially non-believers, she would tell them that Jesus gave up His life for them to save them, that He loves them that much.

Many non-believers hold a view of God as an angry punishing God, but John 3:17 tells us why He sent His Son to earth to live, die, and rise. God sent Jesus to save each and every one of us, NOT to condemn us. God loves us that much, Jesus loves us that much. We do enough condemning of each other on our own, God isn’t joining in, He is trying to save us.

So in honor and memory of my mother, I want to shout out to anyone who is listening that God Loves You and He sent Jesus to Save You!!!!!!! I pray that if you are reading this and do not know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, that you take time right now to stop reading this and talk to God. Ask Him to come into your life, and save you from eternal damnation. Then pick up a Bible or put a Bible app on your phone and begin reading. I suggest John 3:16 and 3:17 as a great place to begin.

Have a wonderful day and again Happy Birthday, Ma.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23 NIV

God’s love is great! The book of Lamentations was written during the invasion of Babylon and eventual capture and enslavement of many of the Jewish people. Even though this book is a book full of sorrow and pain, Jeremiah writes of not being consumed by the situation going on around him. Instead he is choosing to focus on God, God’s love, God’s compassion for all of us and God’s mercy.

Life is hard sometimes but I believe it is even harder for the non-believer. As a child of God, I know that God loves me, that He has compassion for what I am going through at all times and because of His mercy He is willing to give me His strength to walk through the situations of life. As we face struggles, difficult times, sorrow, we can take comfort in knowing as God’s children that His love will always sustain us. Unfortunately the non-believer does not have that same assurance.

As a non-believer faces life and life’s many challenges, there is not a comfort for them of a superior Being who is able to help them. I have friends and family who are non-believers and it is sad to watch them go through the trials of life without that deep knowledge and comfort of having Jesus to lean on, to communicate with, to rely on and to walk with them. My heart aches for them.

As a follower of Jesus, it is my privilege to tell them about Jesus, but that is not always a conversation that they want to have. I wish they would embrace God’s great love, His amazing compassion and He unending mercy for all of us. When we are able to take our eyes off of our problems, our situations, our disappointments, and focus on God, we realize that we are not alone at any time. As God’s children, as co-heirs with Jesus, we never walk through this life alone.

Our hearts break, but we are not consumed. Our God, my God, has given us and me His strength to make it through today because His mercy is new every morning. We don’t deserve it and we can’t earn it, it is a gift from God to us. Great is God’s faithfulness to us!

“I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.” Psalms 86:12 NIV

Many passages of scripture are focused on praising God. Some talk about praising God in a general way and others, like this verse, are personal. What makes this one personal to me is where David writes ‘I will praise the Lord my God.’ In this verse, which is part of a prayer to God, David is focused on his relationship with God. So many times we reference God as ‘the Lord’ or simply ‘God’ but our relationship with God is very personal. No one can develop your relationship with God and no one can harm your relationship with God. You are in charge of how deep or shallow, how intense or how mild your relationship with and commitment to God is.

We know from scripture that David had a very personal relationship with God, he was not just part of the group that worshipped God, he spoke to God faithfully. This verse is just one of many passages where David talks with God. Here David has made a commitment to glorifying God’s name forever, not just when he feels like it or when he is being prosperous but always.

Also in this verse, David states that he will praise God with all of his heart. Some times we praise God with only our mouths or our minds but not always our hearts. Our hearts should always be involved in praising the Lord. We should be ‘all in’ when praising and glorifying our Creator.

When you praise God, are you all in?

“He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20 NIV

A little over a week ago, I wrote about the account of the demon possessed boy that is captured in Matthew chapter 17. At that time, I wrote about the idea that the father was not sure that Jesus could help his son, but was asking anyway. Today I would like to write about how the disciples responded to Jesus after He performed the miracle. They spoke with Jesus in private and told Him that they had tried to cast the demon but were not able to do it. They wanted to know why they could not do it.

Jesus tells them that they have little faith. He compares faith to a mustard seed, which is very small, and tells them that it takes a small amount of faith to do amazing things. During my research through commentaries, the idea that they possibly had misplaced their faith, relying on themselves, was considered.

We don’t know what was in the hearts of the disciples at the moment that they were trying to cast out the demon. We don’t know where they were placing their faith. If they placed their faith in anyway in themselves as the ones who were performing the miracle, they would be misplacing their faith. That would be considered pride and would have stopped them from being successful in casting out the demon.

When we place our faith in ourselves to do amazing things and not God, then it doesn’t matter how much faith we have, it is misplaced. If we believe that the source of any great thing we accomplish, miracle level or just fantastic level, is ourselves, then we need to reevaluate where we believe the power to do those amazing things is coming from. It is not coming from us, but from God who is working through us.

If we are experiencing pride or anything else that can get in the way of being an open vessel for God to use, we should go to God in prayer and ask for direction about how to handle it. He will reveal it for us so that so we can address whatever it is that is getting in the way of us placing our faith in Him where it belongs.

Where are you placing your mustard seed sized faith, in yourself or God?

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!” Psalm 98:4 ESV

Last night my husband and I were privileged to be able to attend a concert in Central Pennsylvania. The concert featured Zack Williams and was opened by Matt Maher, Cain and Ben Fuller. Each band is a giant in it’s own right. There were members from each band that spoke about challenges they faced throughout their lives so far and how God had provided a way for them to come to Him or come back to Him.

I have always been particularly drawn to hearing about people’s lives and what that moment was for them that turned them from wandering away from God to moving, even running, to God. There were no shortage of those stories, miracles if you will. You could feel God in the arena with us which reminded me of Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” NIV.

God was there!!! I felt Him and I know others felt Him too. I love going to concerts and being able to see and hear that many people all singing along to the songs, knowing the words, the melodies and most importantly all worshipping God in that moment. The singing is always beautiful and definitely joyful. There is something so spiritual about being a part of that large number of people being united in that moment. Thankfully those moments of worship to our God and King last for several hours and I absolutely love it.

I am thankful to God for providing the way for my husband and I to attend these wonderful gatherings of individuals, which include Christians from all denominations, those who do not know God as their personal Savior but are interested in learning more about God, and those who just wandered in. Each person, in my belief, that was there last night was meant to be there. I also want to thank my husband for following God’s leading to make attending these wonderful events a priority in our lives.

If you attended the Zack Williams concert last night, please comment on your experience, I would love to hear about how those events touch others.

“On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Luke 10:25

Jesus told this parable because an expert in the law wanted to test Him. The question asked of Jesus was “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” So Jesus asked the expert a question about what his law tells him he has to do to inherit eternal life, which the expert answered correctly. At that point, the expert went looking for a way around the law, by asking a very vague question that he hoped would give him a way to avoid actually doing what his law said he was to do.

How often do we ask God a question and when the answer isn’t what we want to hear, we ask a different question hoping for a different answer. I know that my son has done this when he has not liked the answer either my husband or I have given him. As the parent, it feels argumentative when he does this. I understand that as a growing child that it is good for them to develop negotiation skills over the safe areas of life, such as chores, bedtimes, etc. so that when they are an adult they have the skill to discuss ideas and topics. However, there are times when a child simply needs to listen to their parent and follow the rule without negotiating.

I believe the same is true for us as Christians, there are sometimes when we simply need to follow the law that God has put in place for us without trying to figure a way out of it. I feel that asking God questions is very important because we need to know the answers to things in order to live the life He wants for us, but I caution myself that I truly know what my motive is for asking in the first place. Is it for knowledge or is it to try and figure out a different path through a situation.

There are many reasons that we would want to change how we are to do something, fear is typically the main one, we fear doing what is asked. Fear of failure, judgment, pain, or loss are only a few of the areas of fear that can paralyze us or send us looking for alternative ways through a solution. Our faith in God and His divine nature can help to alleviate our fear if we let it.

So as you and I go about our day today, what if we look at our motives behind the questions we ask God. When we examine the reason for the questions in the first place, we made get a clearer picture of what our prays really should be about. Have a wonderful day.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Matthew 7:3 NIV

This verse has always been an interesting verse to me. Human nature is interesting to me. Very few people want to be held accountable for their actions and most people do not like to admit when they are wrong, but it is in our nature to call others out. Why do we judge? The answer is quite simple, we would rather look at others actions than have to admit our actions and make changes. We don’t like change, we like things to remain the same, to be constant. However, the only constant in our world IS change.

Why is it so hard for us to acknowledge our behaviors? If we did, then we would have to admit that we are not perfect. Our pride, a characteristic we sometimes don’t like to admit we have, could be harmed. This verse is part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus has been talking about how to live life by modeling it after Him. As I read this verse I usually only see part of the meaning, but after doing some research in commentaries and other translations, I learned that there is another way of looking at this verse.

We should not judge, that is simple, I see that in this verse but what I didn’t see was the idea of looking at others and then comparing them to yourself. It sits in the background of the meaning. Obviously when we are judging others we are looking at them and then comparing them to ourselves to show that we are “not as bad” or our sin isn’t “as big of a sin”. However, the mere act of looking at someone else and then comparing them to ourselves can also become a behavior that may lead us to sin.

We should all be held accountable for our own actions, but that is for God to do, not those around us and not us in regards to others. When we focus solely on others and believe that we have to make sure that we are not like this person, which is called judging, or focus on looking at others to see how much we don’t measure up to that person, which can lead to feeling inferior, we are not living the way Jesus wants us to live.

We are placing a lot pf pressure on ourselves to behave in such a way as to be like or not be like someone else. The only ‘Being’ that we should be focused on being like is Jesus. Judging others and comparing ourselves to others are both hard behaviors to stop, but when we do, we can experience peace because we are not focused on others any longer and we can focus on Jesus more.

“But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.” Luke 6:8 NIV

Jesus knew what they were thinking. Do you ever think about what you are thinking about during the day? It is an interesting activity to sit back and examine your thoughts. Are they positive in nature, negative in nature? Are they about work more than fun? Do you think about problems and solutions or just the problems?

What we value tends to be what we think about and what we think about is what our heart is truly focused on. The nice thing about thoughts are that they are yours and yours alone, no one else is able to have your thoughts or even know what you are thinking until you tell them. No one that is except God, He already knows them. He knew them before you thought them.

That can be a scary idea, that God knows my thoughts and that He knows them before I think them. I used to believe that it was scary, but realizing that He knows my thoughts has made me work to capture them. When I capture them, I examine them against God’s word. Is what I am thinking in line with what I believe God thinks about me or how I believe God thinks about the situation that I am facing.

This is done by going to God’s word and looking up what it says about the thought or situation. I was not very good at this for a long time, I would think something negative and then I would get stuck on it, thinking about it for days. Thankfully over time, with a lot of prayer and unfortunately a lot of practice, I moved to maybe thinking about it for a day and now it is even less.

We don’t have to think about everything that comes into our minds. We can acknowledge that it arrived, examine it and if it is not a thought we should be having, we can dismiss it. Our enemy wants us to think that we are helpless when it comes to our thoughts, that we can do nothing about what we think but think it. That is not the truth, the truth is that we have control over everything we think, it is our job to exercise that control more often than we probably do.