Early morning before the sun is officially up is a beautiful time. As I sit on my east facing deck this morning, I am struck by how God thought of EVERYTHING to point to the greatness of His love.
The crickets are still in chorus right before the dawn. The neighbor’s roosters have joined in. An owl is singing his nightly song in the distance as well. God made all these sounds as a comfort and a joy. I can miss them if I don’t take the time to simply sit and enjoy.
What a lesson! I’ve got what seems to be a million plus one things to do today, but God wants me to sit and listen to His chorus of love He has written for me.
That’s how it is with our God. So often we run around disconnected and thinking about “our” lives. When He deeply desires for us to share His life that satisfies our deepest longings.
He made me for this, to sit with Him, to listen, to tell Him about all the things on my heart. He made me to experience Him.
Not only does His creation call out for me to think upon Him, He has given me His Word. May I cherish every word and sentence of His love letter to me!
He loves! God loves us deeply and we can miss it all together if we refuse to stop being all about ourselves and turn our eyes to Him. He has so much to give that He offers to us! The question is will we come to Him, offer our hearts to Him, and receive?
John 3:16 “For God so loved the World (you and me) that He gave…”
Early morning before the sun is officially up is a beautiful time. As I sit on my east facing deck this morning, I am struck by how God thought of EVERYTHING to point to the greatness of His love.
The crickets are still in chorus right before the dawn. The neighbor’s roosters have joined in. An owl is singing his nightly song in the distance as well. God made all these sounds as a comfort and a joy. I can miss them if I don’t take the time to simply sit and enjoy.
What a lesson! I’ve got what seems to be a million plus one things to do today, but God wants me to sit and listen to His chorus of love He has written for me.
That’s how it is with our God. So often we run around disconnected and thinking about “our” lives. When He deeply desires for us to share His life that satisfies our deepest longings.
He made me for this, to sit with Him, to listen, to tell Him about all the things on my heart. He made me to experience Him.
Not only does His creation call out for me to think upon Him, He has given me His Word. May I cherish every word and sentence of His love letter to me!
He loves! God loves us deeply and we can miss it all together if we refuse to stop being all about ourselves and turn our eyes to Him. He has so much to give that He offers to us! The question is will we come to Him, offer our hearts to Him, and receive?
John 3:16 “For God so loved the World (you and me) that He gave…”
Grandma used to sing a chorus to you all when you were little, “Still small voice I hear you whisper. Still small voice I won’t be the same. Still small voice He’s reaching out to you. Still small voice calling my name.” The words are so very true! But what is the still small voice of the Holy Spirit calling you for? Why does He whisper, reaching out to you, calling your name? He is calling because He desires to be one with us. He wants to fill us entirely, totally and completely with Himself. It is what we were meant for, relationship of oneness with God. He calls desiring that we respond. In order for us to go God’s way and to obey that voice, we have to leave our way behind. We cannot have both. Our way of our self-life only leads to death, darkness, and destruction because our way is not God’s. Ephesians 1 talks about God’s way the still small voice has called us to. It is a life of spiritual blessings, becoming like Him- holy and blameless. It is a life of redemption and forgiveness from our sin. All of this accomplishes the one over arching purpose, He wants us to be ONE with Him! We do not understand this because all we have ever known is separation from God. That is why the still small voice is calling to us. He wants to show us this oneness. We must listen to the voice. We must respond to the call! We must obey!!
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—” Ephesians 1:4-5 NIV
“My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.” Song of Solomon 2:10-13 ESV
Sunday will mark the 7th Wedding Anniversary of my son and his bride. A lot has happened in seven years for them including a growing family. So I offered to watch my grandsons, three years old and one, for an overnight date for my son and his bride. I told my daughter in law, “You need to go out alone and remember why it was you got married in the first place.” I remember what it was like. Having had four children of my own. My mother in law offered to watch them for my husband and I to go away for our anniversary, so I wanted to give my own daughter in law the same gift my mother in law gave me.
This morning I awoke at 5 am. I contemplated staying in bed a little while longer, but I heard the still small voice say to me, “Come away with me.” So I quietly snuck out of my room, fixed a cup of coffee and headed to my upper deck that faces East. Time to watch the sunrise with the lover of my soul, Jesus.
As I have sat here listening to the sounds of morning, in particular the cooing of the doves in the distance, I was reminded of the verses above. And I thought about how I was as a young mom of four. Laundry!! Lots of it! Cooking, cleaning, baths, and boo boos. My life was preoccupied. When I finally got all my kids to sleep, my mind was not on my romantic relationship with my husband. I was distracted. Getting away with him helped me to lay aside all the responsibilities and to remember why it was I fell in love, or as I told my daughter in law, “why you wanted to get married in the first place.”
My heart toward God is not that different. Things crowd in. They occupy my mind and my time. And He calls to me, “Come away!” He wants me to remember why it was I fell in love with Him.
There was a time when the disciples had a time of busy ministry doing good things, the things of God. When they got back, Jesus saw their need. He told them to come away.
“Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.” Mark 6:31-32 NIV
He still calls to His disciples, me and you today. Every morning, if I take the time to listen, He speaks. He calls me away to remember. He reminds me exactly what it was that caused me to fall in love with Him: He is so kind. He is so good. He is so patient with me. He gives me so many blessings. He speaks of His love towards me. The doves cooing, the smell of honeysuckle floating through the air, the colors of a sunrise are all His gifts to me. And His presence…none can compare. When I’ve felt Him, just a small taste of what it is like to be totally immersed in His love, my heart is overwhelmed.
This is why He calls to me. This is why He calls to you! Time with Him is not a duty that we mark off a list of chores for the day. If it is we have missed the point. He wants us to “come away with Him” so we can remember. Remember how much He loves us and we in turn will love Him all the more. Then our desire will be to be close to Him, attached, to know Him intimately.
After Peter declared to the paralyzed man to get up and walk in the name of Jesus, the people around saw him jumping, running and walking and praising God. The people who saw this were utterly astounded. Peter once again preaches to the crowd that gathered. He explained how the Jesus they had handed over to be killed had risen from the grave and there is power in the name of Jesus, the risen Lord.
“And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.” Acts 3:16 ESV
And concluded that repentance, turning from their wickedness to God so that Jesus may restore all things.
“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.” Acts 3:19-21 ESV
Jesus came so that what was lost, our relationship with God and our original design—us as God’s image bearer—could be restored. This comes through the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, uniting us with Him. Our connection to God that was lost through sin is reconnected by the Holy Spirit’s filling of us. This connection gives us power and boldness to declare Jesus name over impossible and to see God work miracles in the lives around us!
May we repent, turning from our wickedness to God, and be filled with His Holy Spirit, connected to Him, so we too may bring glory to God in the words we speak and the deeds we do!
After Jesus ascended into Heaven the disciples did what Jesus had told them to do. They went back to Jerusalem and waited there in the upper room where they had been staying. As they waited there they “joined together constantly in prayer.” It was during this time Peter told those gathering that they needed to choose a replacement for Judas. Two men were nominated and once again they prayed asking God for guidance. Matthias was chosen.
Matthias was chosen to “become a witness with us of his resurrection.” (Verse 22) Matthias was not one of the original twelve disciples, but he had been with Jesus. He walked along the way with Him just as the original twelve did. He watched Jesus be baptized. He saw the miracles. He listened to Jesus teach. He witnessed Jesus’s ascension to heaven as well. He was committed along with the other disciples to wait in that upper room for the promised power from on high when the Holy Spirit would come upon them. (Verse 8). God chose Him to take over the apostolic ministry, to be one of the sent ones.
What an example the disciples gave to us! They waited on the Holy Spirit! They obeyed! They lived constantly in prayer! They new their role was to be a witness giving evidence of the proof of what Jesus had done once filled with the Holy Spirit! We are to live that way as well! As we spend time with Jesus in prayer and yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s guidance waiting on Him to move within us, may our lives be a witness, a testimony- a visible representation of the invisible God to all of those around us!
We settle for far less than what the Father has given to us. We live like paupers when we are children of the King! We are offered intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father through the presence of the Holy Spirit inside of us, but do we truly experience that relationship?
Jesus once again tells us about our Helper, the Holy Spirit. He says something that would seem so odd to a group of disciples that had walked with Jesus, talked to Him face to face, touched Him in warm embraces, been His friends. However, Jesus tells them and He also tells us:
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” John 16:7 ESV
It is to our advantage that Jesus is not physically walking the earth, but instead the Holy Spirit is here inside of us! Jesus goes on to tell us more about what the Holy Spirit does for us.
“All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” John 16:15 ESV
Everything the Father has is Jesus’s, and the Holy Spirit will take what is Jesus’s and declare it to us. What Jesus received from the Father is made known to us by the Holy Spirit. In other words, we can KNOW and EXPERIENCE God!
Our time in prayer is an invitation to sit with God in conversation, not a formulated script or a few words we repeat at certain times of the day. Our time in prayer can be never ending as we walk and talk with our Heavenly Father experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit ALL DAY LONG! We have an ever present Helper living in us who desires for us to know an Intimate relationship with our God not a surface one. Our God is awesome!
In this section of scripture (John 15:1-17), Jesus compared us to a branch that hangs down off a vine. That vine provides the very life flow of nutrients to the branch. The branch’s responsibility is to receive what is given to it and to bear fruit by staying connected to the vine. The branch has to stay connected, “remain in the vine.”
I have lived as a rebellious vine more than once. I was convinced that I could do things my own way, live without seeking to absorb the Vine’s nutrients- His living water, His Word (The Bible). I have thought I was ok disconnected and on my own. Living for me…
The truth is NO BRANCH prospers when it is disconnected from the VINE! You and I are the Branches. Jesus is the Vine! May we examine ourselves today. Are we trying to live our lives without being fully connected to Jesus? Do we come to Him in prayer and search for Him in His Word knowing it is THE VERY LIFE OF GOD that flows into us if we only open ourselves to it’s flow? Jesus spoke words that are soooo true, do we hear them? “…apart from Me you can do nothing!”
If life seems to be far from His peace, His joy, and His love, check your connection. He longs for us to be closely connected to Him for our good and His glory!
At the height of the struggle I had with anxiety, verses 4-5 spoke to me.
“To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”” John 10:3-5 ESV
Anxiety, among many other voices, cry out for our attention, but Jesus assures us that as His sheep we know HIS voice! If we really stop and listen, we can hear that voice. All the other voices shouting at us for His attention are only thieves and strangers. We as His sheep follow His voice alone.
Do not be distracted by all the shouting of lies in your ears! The truth is, when you are in Jesus, you know His voice. If you listen, you will hear it. Follow that voice! It leads to the one who tenderly cares for all our needs, our Good Shepherd.
When faced with Jesus people have so many reactions. This chapter illustrates them so well. Jesus’ half brothers found it hard to believe that Jesus was more than a man. They wanted Him to prove Himself. The religious leaders, who thought they had God all figured out, thought Jesus was a threat to the power they exercised over themselves and others. Others thought He was crazy, demon possessed. Some were curious. Others were offended. Some didn’t know what to do with Him. We are much like that today. People hear of Jesus and struggle to put Him in a convenient Box within their minds that could explain Him away. So they are conflicted as the people of Jesus time.
Verse 46 gives us the response of a temple guard that I think sums up the point where a person begins to see Jesus for who He is and accept Him as who He longs to be in our lives, Lord God.
When asked why the guard did not arrest Jesus. The guard said, “No one ever spoke the way this man does.”
When Jesus speaks to us, His voice is different than all the others around. When we truly hear Him, He is like no other. His word in our heart changes us. It causes us to see He isn’t all the things we thought He might be. He is God and He is Love and He is Lord. May we hear Him speak and recognize that no one speaks like Jesus does. His word is power and it changes our hearts!
Your Love 