Category Archives: Worship

This Sums It All Up!!!

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I have a birthday coming this spring. As I realize I will be three quarters of a century old and I have fewer days ahead of me than behind, I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the years gone by.

Interesting – sometimes I cannot remember what I had for lunch but memories of life when I was five or six are so vivid.

If I had to say what these reflections have led me to conclude about life so far, this song says it all. Committing my life to Jesus Christ at six years of age was the best decision I have made.

Life has brought joy and sorrow, moments of great excitement and moments of despair. But through it all, I see the goodness of God.

What Kind of Fast Does God Desire?

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We have entered the season of Lent – 40 days of prayer and fasting before Easter as we reflect on the suffering of Jesus Christ and examine our own hearts.

For some churches this is a very big part of their services. For others, little, if anything, is said about this season.

Growing up in a church that did not emphasis Lent, I have come to really appreciate it as an adult.

While the Bible does not specifically mention anything about Lent, (the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. began this observation), the Bible is full of calls to fasting and prayer.

  • 1 Samuel 7:6 – the people fasted in repentance.
  • 2 Chronicles 20:3-4 – the people fasted for protection
  • Ezra 8:21-23 – the people fasted for direction and unity
  • Matthew 4:1-11 – Jesus fasted in preparation for His public ministry.
  • Acts 13:1-3 – the people fasted in preparation for expansion of their ministry.

There are hundreds of ways people observe this time of prayer and fasting. Some actually go without eating for a day; others miss a meal for one day or throughout Lent. Some give up a specific food or drink that they normally have each day.

The idea is not just giving up something, but spending the time that would be given to a meal or a favorite food in prayer.

But Lent is not about giving up to make us feel “holy.” If we do not take this time to really reflect on and seek God for spiritual direction, vision, right living, compassion….the list could go on and on….our sacrifices of food or favorite things are meaningless.

Isaiah 58:6-8 tells us what kind of fasting we should do in this time of Lent.

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

A New Christmas Carol

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I love the old Christmas carols that I grew up singing and listening to on the radio and at church. But a couple of trees ago a new carol was written. To me, it is one of the best conveyors of the Christmas story.

Hope Has a Name.

Hope you enjoy it!

Friday’s List – “I AM”

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In the book of Genesis when the Lord spoke to Moses out of the burning bush instructing him to go to Egypt and lead the Israelites out of bondage, Moses asked his name. The reply was “I am that I am.”

The Hebrew words are ehyeh asher ehyeh. Many Bible scholars believe this could be translated “I will be what I will be” or “I will become whatsoever I may become.”

This phrase could be considered an idiom, an expression whose meaning cannot be understood by the individual words. Like “It’s raining cats and dogs” or “it costs an arm and a leg.”

So what was God saying by calling Himself “I AM

I think to Moses he was saying that He would be whatever Moses and the Israelites would need as He led them to freedom. To us today the great “I AM” tells us He is faithful and will be whatever we need in any and every situation we face.

With that in mind my list today is of the “I AM” Jesus spoke while on earth.

  1. I am the Bread of Life.
  2. I am the Light of the World.
  3. I am the Gate for the Sheep.
  4. I am the Good Shepherd
  5. I am the Resurrection and the Life.
  6. I am the Way and the Truth and the life.
  7. I am the True Vine.
  8. Before Abraham was, I am.

This week, I encourage you to think about these things Jesus claimed to be. What do they mean to you that he is the bread of life, light of the world, etc.?

Friday’s List for Wisdom and/or Laughter

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More wisdom from my daily devotion book.

  1. Salvation is not a self-help program.
  2. What you worship is what you become
  3. We are often so caught up in our activities that we tend to worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship.
  4. Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.
  5. Satan never fears the Christian whose Bible is covered with dust.
  6. Religion is man searching for God; Christianity is God reaching down to man.
  7. The greatest treasure a person can leave her children is an intimate knowledge of God.
  8. Many people pray as if God were a big aspirin pill. They only come when they hurt.
  9. Ministry is our love for Christ dressed in working clothes.
  10. Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them.

Friday’s List for Wisdom and Laughter

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  1. Eternity is too long to be wrong
  2. Say “no” to sin and “yes” to God
  3. Make no “appeal” for God until you “kneel” to God
  4. God is not so much seeking those who can do everything as He is those who are willing to do anything.
  5. Security is not the absence of danger, but the presence of God no matter what the danger.
  6. We cannot look at the cross and still think our life is of no importance to God.
  7. The only part of the Bible you believe is the part you obey.
  8. Man sees your actions, but God sees your motives.
  9. Satan never fears the Christian whose Bible is covered with dust.
  10. Religion is man searching for God, Christianity is God reaching down to man.

Friday’s Quotes – Importance of God’s Word

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  1. Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
  2. How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living accord to Your word.
  3. I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.
  4. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.
  5. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
  6. It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
  7. The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.
  8. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
  9. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
  10. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Sixty-eight Years – and He is Still Faithful!!!

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I posted this in 2018 but today I celebrate 68 years of walking with my Savior, my best friend.

My Commitment

Life has had its ups and downs, but one thing has remained true. Jesus has been faithful to me through it all.

  • He was there when my father left my mother and I when I was fourteen. “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” Psalm 27:10
  • He was there when my husband was killed in an accident leaving me with two little girls to raise. “I will be with you always.” Matthew 28:20
  • He was there when the doctor told me “The odds are not in your favor” and gave me little hope of surviving more than a few more years. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me.” Psalm 23
  • He is here as I began to age and face pain of arthritis and all the other issues of the aging. “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, “The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”

In 74 years of life, I have made a lot of decisions, some good, some bad. But that decision as a six-year-old was the best one I ever made and one I have never regretted.

Friday’s List for Wisdom and Laughter

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Recently I posted about my visit to the Wesley Garden on St. Simon’s Island.

https://wp.me/p5cw98-2dY

Looking at that visit, I was reminded of the list John Wesley created for the group of people who were gathering each week to pray and encourage one another in their walk with God.

He had a list of questions they would use in their gatherings to help them in their Christian commitment. These are good questions for us to also consider today.

Questions to Ask:

  1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am?
  2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
  3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
  4. Can I be trusted?
  5. Did any of my words or actions this week cause someone harm?
  6. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
  7. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
  8. Did the Bible live in me today?
  9. Do I give it time to speak to me every day?
  10. Am I enjoying prayer?
  11. When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?
  12. Do I pray about the money I spend?
  13. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
  14. Do I disobey God in anything?
  15. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
  16. Am I defeated in any part of my life?
  17. Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?
  18. How do I spend my spare time?
  19. Am I proud?
  20. Do I thank God that I am not as other people, like the Pharisees who despised the publican?
  21. Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
  22. Do I grumble or complain constantly?
  23. Is Christ real to me?

How Does Blood Make Me “White as Snow?”

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The Christian religion puts a lot of emphasis on the blood of Jesus. Depending on what church you go to, you are asked to remember the death of Jesus by taking communion daily, weekly, monthly. Again, depending on what church you go to, you will told that this wine actually becomes the blood of Jesus – or is just a representation of the blood of Jesus.

Growing up in my church we often sang songs about the blood of Jesus.

What can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

There is power in the blood of Jesus.

Oh the blood of Jesus, oh the blood of Jesus, oh the blood of Jesus. It washes white as snow.

To be honest as a child I wondered how blood could make something white as snow. In our culture, we see blood as a stain. If we cut our finger and get blood on our clothes we immediately try to wash it out before it leaves a stain.

The Old Testament is full of the concept of using blood to cleanse. All the animal sacrifices were said to cover the people’s sins. Blood was to be sprinkled on a person with leprosy and on homes with mildew or mold. It was sprinkled on the priests as they began their ministry in the Temple.

The New Testament speaks often of the blood of Jesus making us clean and in the last book of the Bible we are told

they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

While I never understood how blood makes something white, I did believe that the death of Jesus somehow cleansed me from sin.

Recently I read a wonderful book called “In His Image.” The book is co-authored by two doctors who worked in India, one of them with the leprosy colony. Their description of the function of blood in our body is amazing.

When the writers of the Bible referred to the cleansing properties of blood, they had no knowledge of our body and how blood serves us. But, of course, God did.

Modern medical science has shown how using blood as a symbol of cleansing is so accurate when seen in our body.

The writers of the book suggest if you want to see the power of blood as a cleaning agent to put a blood pressure cuff on your arm, pump it up until it is as tight as possible and wait. After a few minutes of being uncomfortable, try to pick up a pencil or cut a piece of paper. They note that after a few minutes you not only will not be able to do those tasks, you will be in terrible pain. When you release the cuff and the blood comes rushing back in, you will find relief from the pain and you can function again.

The pain, they say, comes because you forced your muscles to keep working without any blood supply. As our muscles work, they produce waste products that are flushed away by the blood. When the blood was not allowed to flow through your arm, these waste products began to build up and you had pain from the toxins not removed by the blood.

The authors describe how our blood circulates through our body carrying toxins to our liver and kidneys to be removed and to our lungs so we can exhale the carbon dioxide and rid our body of this poison.

This example of how blood cleanses our body from toxins, is a great example of how the blood of Jesus does “wash us white as snow.” As we accept the forgiveness of Jesus, his sacrifice on Calvary cleanse us from the waste products we call sin. These sins are to our spirit like toxins to our body. If we do not get rid of them we will be poisoned spiritually just as our body would be if blood stopped flowing through our system.

The writers say:

Too often we tend to view sin as a private list of grievances that happen to irk God the Father, and in the Old Testament He seems easily irritated. But even a casual reading of the Old Testament shows that sin is a blockage, a paralyzing toxin that restricts our realization f our full humanity….Pride, egotism, lust and covetousness are simply poisons that interfere with our relationship to God and other people. Sin results in separation from God, other people, and our true selves.

I would encourage you to get this book “In His Image” by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey. They share more insights into how marvelous our body is and how it points to the image of God.