Be Not Afraid

Love #13-Those Who Seek Me Find Me

Beloved, are you truly seeking Him? If so, He won’t let you down!

Jesus has already taken the first and biggest step for you. He died for you and longs for you to accept His simple invitation to be one of His own.

If you haven’t done so already, please read my A…B…C… page and ask Jesus to come into your heart as your Savior and Lord.

He is simply and quietly waiting for you with arms open wide…

If you have any questions about asking Jesus to be the Savior and Lord of your life, please write to me at faithlhj777 at gmail dot com.

13 Days of Being Thankful

Day 11:

Jesus, thank You for the mercy and grace of your incomprehensible and indescribable gift of salvation!

Oh, how we long to be in heaven with You right now!

OUR SELFLESS SAVIOR

As I wrote you last Thursday, today begins the series on John 13 by my friend and mentor, Donna Baker. Again, thank you, Donna, for allowing me to share your heart with my readers.

 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. –John 13:1

This was not only the last night of Jesus’ life, but He knew in mere hours He would be tortured and crucified: the most cruel form of death.

And yet He spent His last hours fulfilling the will of His Father, in teaching and serving others.

If we faced that, would we be fulfilling our religious obligations, teaching others—calm, methodical, focused on the goal—or would we be ricocheting off the walls, focused on the end? It’s quite unlikely we would be calm. Maybe we’d even be crying and praying. Jesus did that too in the Garden of Gethsemane later that night.

He was after all, human.

He was obeying God and His written Word in spite of what faced Him.

It was the Feast of the Passover when all Jewish males were to go to Jerusalem to attend the Feast:

The LORD spoke again to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD’S appointed times which you shall proclaim as holy convocations—

My appointed times are these:…

In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight is the LORD’s Passover.’”

—Leviticus 23:1-2, 5

Jesus was not only to go to the Feast, He was to be the Passover Lamb, the sacrifice for all the sin of all mankind. There are so many Scriptures that say this, but I only want to dwell now on the one in John 1, where John the Baptist foretold of Him:

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! —John 1:29

The Jews had wanted to kill Him for years, but they didn’t want to do it during the Passover. However God had other plans and His plans are never thwarted:

I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. —Job 42:2

The Jews thought they were in control but reading about the last night of Jesus’ life should put that idea to rest with anyone who reads it. God caused all things to be as they were foretold in the Old Testament. There are too many to list here.

Be an Acts 17:11 Christian and look them up and you will be amazed at Your God!!

Now these were more noble-minded that those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. —Acts 17:11

God’s plan was in place. Jesus was in lockstep with His Father in spite of what He knew He was facing.

Beloved, as you pray today, ask yourself these questions:

• Am I in lockstep with God’s plan for me today?

• Am I spending enough time listening to Him through His Word and in prayer?

• Am I trusting God for my future even if it is a harsh future, or even death?

• Am I praying and caring only for myself or for others as Jesus did in His last hours?

To be continued next Thursday…

Faith and Trust

I hope you’ve enjoyed all the colorfully illustrated Scripture passage images I’ve shared here for the past couple of weeks while I have enjoyed a self-imposed and much-needed break from my blog. It is really nice to be able to write posts ahead of time and schedule them for a future date.

While I was resting from all the blogging activity, I prayerfully realized I have been devoting too much time to my blog which translates to tons of time on my computer. I have learned not to take it lightly when God is trying to teach me something through several different means. In this case, God showed me in various ways that although I am sharing from my heart for the Lord’s purposes, all this computer time means sacrificing time in other areas: my quiet time with the Lord spent in prayer, meditation, Bible reading and devotions; time with my sweet and understanding hubby Rick; taking care of the home God has blessed and entrusted to Rick and me;  fulfilling other writing obligations; and finally … just plain rest, which I sorely need because of ongoing chronic illnesses.

In other words, I have been so much into the work of the Lord that I have been neglecting the Lord of the work.

Not to worry, though. I’m not deserting my blog, just praying about how to reduce my computer time. I have a few ideas I want to mull over and pray about and I’ll share these with you a bit at a time.

For now, I won’t be writing every day but only as the Lord leads me. From past experience, I have learned that God always has a better plan than anything I could ever think up on my own, so I can’t wait to see what He has planned for the future of this blog.

Beloved, God’s love and faithfulness never changes. Because I know He wants the best for me, I also trust and know He will lead me to that best as long as I first and foremost truly seek to know Him better. And that will lead to my understanding His perfect will for my writing and bloggy life.

Leaning hard on the Lord with faith and trust,