Tag: hope

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Sacrifice of praise

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.” Hebrews 13:15 NIV

When I studied this seemingly simple verse, I found that it is saying a lot. First there is the idea that the word ‘through’ is talking about how the only way to remove the wall that separates us from God is to acknowledge Jesus as the final and permanent sacrificial offering. Acknowledge that He is the One who came to save the world by removing that wall that separates us from God, giving us the ability to communicate with God.

The next part, “Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise” is thought to be Paul talking about how, as Christians, we are sacrificing all that we are each and every day in order to follow God’s will for our lives. We know that God’s will is better than ours, but the idea of dying to self is hard at times as our desires are strongly rooted in us. However, the willful submission of them in order to follow God’s plan for our lives is our sacrifice of praise.

The last part, “the fruit of lips that openly profess His name.” conveys that we should be willing to speak out to God. That we should not be only thinking thoughts of praise to God but we should be vocalizing them, in song, poems, reciting of scripture or our own created prayers of praise. We are to be voicing our connection to God and expressing out loud how much thankful we are, how much we love our Lord and how much we want to be like Jesus.

So, as I read this verse, at first glance I didn’t take in all that it has to say about how important our public profession of faith in God is. However, knowing that the Christian path begins with knowing that Jesus is the path by which we are able to communicate with the Father, and the sacrifices of our desires for His desires is how we follow, then the idea of publicly professing our belief in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is the natural conclusion.

If we are willing to give up our desires to follow God’s will for our lives, then we should be willing to say all of that in public for others to hear and possibly decide for themselves if they wish to do the same. This is a way of life that is too good not to share and to important to be kept to ourselves.

Do you openly profess God’s name?

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Rejoice in all circumstances

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV

This is the second devotion for this verse that I promised when I posted Wednesday’s devotional. I wrote about giving thanks on Wednesday and I want to look at rejoicing always today. The world would have us living life by a set of standards that places us in a mindset of negativity and a lifestyle of complaining. As I said on Wednesday, thankfully we don’t have to live by the world’s standards.

As a Christian, we have a different set of standards to live by, the ones put in place by Jesus. His idea of how to live is usually the exact opposite of what the world views as the way to live. The world will tell you that you should only feel and express the emotion that fits with the circumstance you are in. For example, if you are in a disagreement with another person, then you should feel angry or hurt by the situation and therefore you should express anger or sadness, possibly even entertain the idea of revenge. The way that Jesus instructs His followers to face that situation, is to have the emotion of anger or sadness, but to then give it to God, and choose to express love for the other person or show forgiveness for their part in the situation. See, the exact opposite.

The reason that Christians can choose to express joy at any time is because our joy is not determined by our situation, but by the fact that we are God’s children. If we rely on our situations to be joyful, then we are only joyful when the situation calls for it. Situations change which means our emotion changes per the world, but God doesn’t and since we are to base our joy in Him, our joy does not have to change. Even in some of the most difficult times in Christians’ lives, joy can be found.

As a Christian, an expression of joy in a difficult time doesn’t mean that we don’t experience other emotions such as sadness. Jesus isn’t saying we should not feel our emotions, we should, we are not robots. The difference is what we are choosing to do with our emotions at that moment. The world would say we are to remain in the sadness, where Jesus is telling us that we are to focus on Him and remain in the joy that we have because we are connected to Him. We are connected to Him because Jesus is always with us. As a child of God we can remember that situations change but God doesn’t change, we can count on Him remaining the same.

Are you able to rejoice in all things?

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Thanksgiving

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7 NIV

I know that I have written about these verses before, however, I purposely did not write about the last section of them during that post. I wanted to save this portion of the verse for today, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has always been a special holiday for me. I have always loved the food that is associated with this day. I have always loved the idea of having people gather and celebrate what we are thankful for in our daily lives.

When I still lived at home, my mother would invite her friends and people she worked with to Thanksgiving dinner, especially if she knew that they didn’t have family locally. Over the years, my husband and I have developed a tradition of opening our home up to our extended family’s friends for any occasion. Today is not going to be any different. We are blessed today to have several people outside of our immediate family join us to celebrate Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for the ability to be able to share what the Lord has blessed me and my husband with. I am thankful that the Lord brought me and my husband together and that my husband is such a giving person. I am thankful for the many blessings the Lord has given me and my family such as heat, clothes, food, a home, jobs, relationships, love and most importantly eternal salvation.

If you would like, please leave a comment about what you are thankful for, what you have been graciously blessed with. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.