Hear my prayers, Father, and show me your compassion. I will hide myself in your shadow until my fears and worries go away.
I ask that you fulfill your purposes for my life. I know the angels of heaven are fighting my battles and they will give me victory.
Your love and faithfulness never leave me, Father.
I am surrounded by the evil one who is trying to take pieces of me and devour me.
But I still praise you, God. May your glorious light shine over all the earth.
My enemy sets traps for me – especially when I am weary and distressed. The evil one digs deep pits in my path but then he falls into them himself.
I am confident in you, oh God. My heart sings your praises. I awake every morning with a song of praise to you. Thank you for your love and faithfulness which has no end.
I praise you, Father. May your glorious light shine over all the earth.
O God, you are my God. I am searching for you with all my heart.
My soul needs you. My whole being longs to be close to you in this empty, weary and very confused world. I treasure the precious time I get to spend with you.
I have personally witnessed your power and glory. I praise you for your love which makes this life worth living.
I will lift my hands and heart up to you in praise for as long as I live. Only you can fill the emptiness inside of me and make me sing for joy.
In the darkest part of the night, I remember how much you have loved me in the past and how much you have promised to love me in the future. My heart sings for joy as I cling to your promises and feel your arms around me, holding me safe and securely to your side.
The Evil One and his team are all around me, Father, trying to ruin me. But I know you are fighting my battles, God, and you have already won the war.
I rejoice in you, God. All who know the Truth know you. Liars will be silenced.
I will lift my praise to you for the rest of my life, Abba Father.
I will share this great news with everyone I know. Everyone needs to hear this – there is no one and no thing that compares to the LORD!
Say it with me – God is good, all the time!
When I talk to God, he answers me and takes my fears away.
The light of God’s love shines out of us, his children, and we are never ashamed. When we are lost in a pile of problems that we created, we can call on God who rescues us. His angel protects us and sets us free!
Try him and see! God is good!
My Father God is a safe haven and a provider for me and for everyone who has faith in him. Those who look strong on the outside are actually weak and empty on the inside if they don’t have faith in God.
God’s children have everything they need.
Listen to me –
respect and honor the LORD and you will live a life filled with good days. Stay away from lying and all evil. Be a peacemaker.
God watches over those who do what is right. He hears our cries. God is always close to the brokenhearted.
But God turns his face away from those who do evil.
When we have faith in God, we will still have trials but God walks beside us every step of the way – giving us peace and strength.
The wicked get what they deserve. The LORD condemns anyone who opposes the people who love him.
God rescues his children – he is a safe refuge that is always available to us.
Sounds good – let’s all do whatever works for us. Then we’ll all be happy.
Or not.
“In those days Israel had no king: everyone did as they saw fit”. Judges 21:25. This is how the book of Judges ends. It may sound good until we scan back a couple of chapters and realize what they thought was ‘fit’ to do.
Family members were stealing from each other. They obviously thought this was an ok thing to do.
Family members were kidnapping each other. They thought this was ok as well.
Family members were killing each other to the point that they virtually annihilated one of the 12 tribes of Israel. I wonder how they could possibly think this was ok but they did. They could rationalize anything. Their moral judgement was quickly spirally into total chaos and confusion.
Because they had no compass.
Sounds familiar? Our current culture obviously has many of these same issues.
Why?
When I base what is right and wrong on what I think, I’m in trouble. Then I’m just like these Israelites – doing what I see fit and letting my standards waiver in whatever direction the wind is blowing. When I do what I think is right, it can hurt you as well. My bad decisions have a lot of consequences.
God has been very clear to you and me on moral boundaries. His Word to us is full of direction and guidance. I might not like all of it. You may not agree with all of it. But that doesn’t change his Word to us.
The image of standing under an umbrella of God’s Blessing is stuck my head and reminds me that one of my main goals in life is to stay in line with God. When I obey God and follow the compass he has given me, I am placing my life under his umbrella of blessing. When I don’t obey God and just do what I want to do, I am stepping out from under his umbrella. I can’t expect God to bless my decisions and life when I’m not obeying him.
One example is tithing. If we have put our faith in God, we also want to put our money in his hands. This means being faithful with tithing. We can’t expect God to bless our finances if we don’t.
It’s my choice and I choose to obey so I stay under the umbrella – every hour of every day.
What do you choose?
Dear Father, I desire to walk in your path of truth. Please guide me because your moral standards are what ‘fits’ me best.
It’s a story of redemption. It’s my story because I needed a Redeemer, someone to fill up the hole that was deep within my soul. I needed the Only One who could save me from eternal separation from God.
It’s clear to me that the story of Ruth in the Bible is the story of everyone who has put their faith in Jesus. I can see God orchestrating his love and grace in every step of the story. Without Jesus in our lives, you and I would all exist in a famine, without hope – stuck in our past.
But in Jesus we have found our kinsmen Redeemer! Hallelujah!
Jesus paid the price of our sins for us so we could make him Lord of our lives and become part of his forever family. When we admit that we need a Savior and turn away from our rebellion and sin while turning toward Jesus, we become filled with the power of the Holy Spirit under God’s umbrella of grace and blessing.
Have you made this decision? It not, today is a great day to fill the emptiness inside your soul with the light of Jesus.
“Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsmen redeemer.” Ruth 4:14.
Before Moses died, God told him, “Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in Moab, across from Jericho, and view Canaan, the land I am giving the Israelites as their own possession. There on the mountain you have climbed you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.” Deut. 32: 48-49.
I like that. It makes great sense when someone is a believer. Moses’ people were in heaven. His Father was in heaven. And his Savior was in heaven.
This makes me ask the question – where are my people?
God has blessed me by giving me a family with a very long lineage of Christ-followers. Many generations of my people are in heaven. My son who was a Phoenix Police Officer killed in the line of duty is already in heaven.
The people I identify with here on earth are also Christ-followers. These are my people. They will be with me when I am gathered to my Father – when I am gathered to my people.
I’m thinking about starting to use this phrase with believers instead of ‘died’ or ‘passed away’. Some people wouldn’t get it but that’s ok – some people don’t get a lot of things.
How about you? Are your people in heaven? Is your Savior in Heaven? If so, then he has prepared a place for you.
Will you be with me when all believers are gathered to our Father in Heaven?
I hope and pray that you will.
On the day you have already determined, I will be there, Abba Father.
I am reading the entire Chronological Bible for the 11th consecutive year and I know there is a group of you who are reading it with me. It’s February so we’re still in the beginning of the Bible but God highlighted a phrase to me that we have already read several times, ” Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may be well with you.” Deut. 6:18.
I definitely want things to ‘go well’ with me and I’m sure you are on that same page. God is telling me – and you – that he wants to guide us. He wants to light up our path. He wants to walk beside us when the trials of life on this planet try to overwhelm us.
The part you and I have in this is to do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight.
That’s my goal. I’m not perfect- no one knows that better than my Father God. It’s very clear to me that God doesn’t expect perfection, he desires that I admit my mistakes and sins to him with a humble heart and turn away from them.
I have found that it is much easier to do what is ‘right and good in the Lord’s eyes’ when I am reading God’s Word each day with my eyes and heart open to what he is saying to me. I am also finding a huge benefit from reading the entire Bible – not just a verse here and a chapter there. Reading God’s Word in Chronological order has helped it make sense to me. I tried one of those reading plans where you read parts of the Old Testament, New Testament and then a Psalm or Proverbs. It didn’t keep my attention. I lost my motivation. What I was reading didn’t tie together into a bigger picture.
The Daily Chronological Bible has kept my attention for 11 years. Because it is a Daily Bible, it has dates on the top of the pages which help give me the structure I need to keep going. I sometimes get ahead and other times I get behind but I keep moving forward. This Bible is not good for studying verse by verse because chapters are condensed and combined. But it is a great reading Bible.
Because I am consistently reading his Word, God is consistently talking to me, guiding me and teaching me his truth.
There’s no question in my mind that this is ‘right and good in the Lord’s sight.’
Thank you for your awesome Word to us, Abba Father.
God’s Word is very clear that he loved me first. Before I was a tiny newly-fertilized egg inside of my mother, God knew me and loved me.
As I read the words Moses said to the Israelites in one of his last addresses to them before his death, I am reminded of how this verse changed my life.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your strength.” Deut. 6:5.
God challenged me over 30 years ago to put him first in my life. I was what I would call a ‘cultural Christian’ at the time. I went to church, served at church, gave to the church and said I loved Jesus. But there were things in my life – like my family, my career and what I wanted – that had a higher priority than God. When I hit 30 and I finally reached all my goals of what I thought I should have and own at that age, I was surprised to find that I felt empty. Over worked and over stressed. And very empty.
Then God opened my eyes to this verse and challenged me with it. I knew something had to change so I did some heavy-duty thinking.
What would it feel like if I loved God with all my heart? What did I need to change so I could love God with all my soul? What would my life be like if I loved God with all my strength? How could I ignore the distractions of this world and the strong desire to do what I want to do so I could love God first?
The emptiness was eating me up so I took the challenge. One step at a time, God showed me how to change my priorities and put him first. I gradually put him first in every area of my life and I learned the huge lesson that the commands God gives us are for our own good. As I moved closer to God, I watched him help me be a better wife, a better mother, a better employee, a better friend, a better neighbor, a better sister, a better daughter…you get the idea. Everything was better because he was in the middle of it.
Is there an empty place in your soul that God is longing to fill? Are you just checking the boxes in your Christian life or do you have a daily, intimate relationship with God? Have you made the decision to put God first in your life?
God desires to be first in our lives because he wants to give us strength, peace and purpose for our journey. And he helps us with all the rest.
I see it in the gorgeous sunrise as God once again declares his faithfulness to me with the start of a new day. I feel it in my 3 year-old granddaughter’s hug. I see it in the smiles of my friends. I feel it in the ‘love you’ from my husband of over 40 years.
It’s the great love God has lavished upon me.
God tells me that I am a precious child and he proves that by showing his love for me in a multitude of ways, every day.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God.” 1 John 3: 1a
It’s very encouraging to realize that the closer I get to God, the more of his love I feel pouring out over me. As I’ve been consistently memorizing God’s scripture these last 6 years, I also feel his wisdom pouring out from his Word. More knowledge. More understanding.
I am his child! How much more love and wisdom and knowledge and understanding does he have available for me?
There is no limit!
As 2022 quickly approaches, I am looking forward to seeing what God has planned for this next year. New challenges. More love.
Ash is sifted to find anything important or useful in it. Wheat is sifted so the unusable chaff is separated from the valuable grains.
I know what it feels like to be sifted. My world shook when my son, David Glasser, who was Phoenix Police Officer was shot and killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016. My life crumbled. All of my hopes and dreams for him were stripped away. His future completely disappeared, leaving gaping holes full of hurt in my world.
What was left?
I had to dig deep…..
very deep,
into my faith and what I knew to be true in order to stay standing in the middle of the devastation.
Harsh sifting.
So Jesus’ words to Peter in Luke 22 stop me. “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.” vs 31-32.
Satan asked to sift the disciples – this is not the first time I have read this but it’s the first time it has sunk in. Satan knew that Jesus expected the disciples to share the Great News of salvation to world so the disciples became a pivotal target for Satan.
Jesus knew that Peter would deny him three times in one night. Major sifting. So Jesus was encouraging Peter that his faith could not only withstand the shaking it was going to get, it was going to become stronger. Through this experience of denying Jesus, then repenting and turning back to him, Peter would be more prepared to help strengthen his brothers.
I have learned there is purpose in the pain when I let God control what happens next. God can make good come from evil – he did it in my life. My prayer is that my sharing this with you will help you turn to God when you are being sifted so your faith and trust in him will be strengthened.
Come with me on a Journey through the Bible 