Pleasing Him

It’s possible to worry so much about pleasing God that we forget nothing pleases Him more than when we are with Him.

Lost in the Details

It’s possible to get so caught up in the details that we miss the point.

Celebrate

2Corinthians 13:5-9

Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it. I hope the test won’t show that we have failed. But if it comes to that, we’d rather the test showed our failure than yours. We’re rooting for the truth to win out in you.  We couldn’t possibly do otherwise. We don’t just put up with our limitations; we celebrate them, and then go on to celebrate every strength, every triumph of the truth in you. We pray hard that it will all come together in your lives.

Take a Breath

Wow, wasn’t that a busy week!? Well done. We need to be sure to find some rest today, recharge and let God fill us for what He’s got in store for us next week. He loves you so much.

Homesick

Home is where there’s no question that you’re loved, the place you’d rather be than almost anywhere. You can trust home, count on it, it’s familiar. You can be yourself at home; it covers you, keeps you sheltered and is safe. Home sounds a lot like God and can’t we take Him with us everywhere?

In the Still of the Night

I heard a story on the radio recently about sleep. They mentioned a paper published in 2005 that revealed much evidence that before electricity the common sleeping pattern was for us to sleep for 3 or 4 hours, awake for an hour or so and then return to sleep. The story also cited an experiment completed in the ’90s where a group of people were put into total darkness for 14 hours each day and after a period of adjustment they fell into the same pattern. The reporters speculated that quite possibly this was how we were designed.

I can totally see God creating us with a built in time set aside for being alone with Him each day. Next time you wake up in the middle of the night instead of fighting to get back to sleep, take advantage of the opportunity to be with Him.

Hold Me Dad

At breakfast yesterday my daughter said, “Hold me Dad” as I was walking away from the table. How could I do anything but pick her up, hold her, nuzzle her cheek and ask for time to stand still? Soon I won’t be able to lift her up like now, but nothing will keep me from holding her or her older brothers.

How much more our Heavenly Father? We’ll never get too big for Him to hold us as a Parent does their child and somehow, I truly don’t understand how, He loves us even more than we love our children.

Immeasurable Greatness of His Power

This from E. Stanley Jones today, “The resurrection of Jesus is not something in history to be looked at and admired and rejoiced in ; it is something to be appropriated and lived by—something that works in us. The same power, which turned the most abject defeat in history – the defeat of the cross – into the most glorious victory in history – the victory of the Resurrection – is available in Christ now.”

Imagine the implications of realizing this in our lives.

Sometimes I think I feel…

I love the last sentence in Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Philippians 1:8 that was posted here yesterday, “Sometimes I think I feel as strongly about you as Christ does!” How wonderful to have people around that feel like this towards us. After all didn’t Christ say love Me and those around you? You can even make a strong case from scripture that we love Him when we love others. There is someone that you will encounter today that will really appreciate seeing that you care for them.

Philippians 1:3-8

Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God’s Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. It’s not at all fanciful for me to think this way about you. My prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality. You have, after all, stuck with me all the way from the time I was thrown in jail, put on trial, and came out of it in one piece. All along you have experienced with me the most generous help from God. He knows how much I love and miss you these days. Sometimes I think I feel as strongly about you as Christ does!