Tag: blessings

Finding God

On By Judy GlasserIn August2 Comments

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart.” God says to us in Jeremiah 29.

He tells us we need to call on him.August 11 2013 Finding God

We need to come to him.

And we need to pray to him.

Then we will find him.

Thank you, dear Father.

This verse comes immediately after a favorite verse of ours, “For I know the plans I have for you, ” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

God wants to do all of that for us.

And how does he do that?

He speaks to us, he guides us, he changes us, when we call on him.

When we come to him.

When we talk with him.

We have to do our part and then God has a free reign in our lives to prosper us and to give us a future.

Thank you, dear Father!

The Highway of Holiness

On By Judy GlasserIn JulyLeave a comment

Isaiah 35, 2014:

The blind will see and the deaf will hear.

The broken will become whole and shout for joy.

The earth will rejoice –July 5 Highway of Holiness

*water will gush in the wilderness.

* streams will appear in the desert.

* hot sand will become cool pools of water.

* bubbling springs will feed the thirsty ground.

* grass and plants will grow on the once barren ground.

And the Highway to Holiness will be there for all who are saved.

The unsaved won’t walk on it – the fools won’t go.

There will be no danger there.

Only the redeemed- those who have been rescued by God – will walk there.

They will enter their destination with singing.

Joy will never leave them.

All sorrow and sighing will disappear as gladness overwhelms them.

Thank you, dear Father, for the Highway of Holiness.

 

The Two-By-Four

On By Judy GlasserIn May1 Comment

You wanted it, so I’m letting you have it.

This is what happened to the people of Judah when they stopped following God.  They chose false gods, they set up shrines with male prostitutes and they did the opposite of what they knew to be right.June 2 2014 consequences

So God let them go and experience the consequences of these choices.  “You have abandoned me; therefore I now abandon you to Shiskak.” who was the King of Egypt.

The people then repented and admitted to God that they were wrong so God relented and didn’t let the Egyptians destroy Judah.  But they did become subject to Shishek so that they could learn from their mistake.

God deals with us in much the same way today.  He lets us experience the consequences of our decisions so we can learn.

If we’re honest with ourselves, when things aren’t going well for us, we can often trace our current situation back to bad choices we have made.

Yes, God forgives us of our sins.  And, because he is a great father, he also teaches us lessons we need to learn.

One of my goals in life is to learn God’s lessons the first time so that he doesn’t have to keep teaching me the same lesson over and over.  Whenever we have the same type of issue consistently coming up in our lives, it’s a clear sign that we just aren’t learning.  We aren’t changing our behavior.  It’s been my observation that the issue will just keep growing and growing and growing until it becomes a two-by-four which hits us over the head and now we have to deal with it.  We have to quit avoiding it.  The issue becomes so large that we can no longer look the other way. That’s the two-by-four.  Most of the time, we had opportunities to deal with the issue when it was much smaller.  But we waited..we avoided…we ignored.

Dear Father, please help us learn BEFORE you have to hit us over the head with a two-by-four to get us our attention.

 

 

How Happy!

On By Judy GlasserIn MayLeave a comment

The Queen of Sheba travelled over 1200 miles on camels through a hot desert that was inhabited by roving groups of bandits just to check out King Solomon.  She had heard about his enormous wisdom and wealth.  Now she need to see it for herself.May 15b 2014

After spending a considerable amount of time with Solomon, she told him that he was even more wise than the reports she had heard.  ‘How happy your people must be!” she exclaimed and then she praised the God of Israel who had delighted in Solomon and made him king.

Whenever I read in the Bible about people who are wise, I am reminded of James 1 where God tells us that we only need to ask for wisdom and he will give it to us.

That’s what Solomon did – he asked for wisdom and God gave it to him.  God gave his so much wisdom that King Solomon is still acknowledged as the wisest man who ever lived.

Our Dear Heavenly Father.  Thank you for your word to us.  When we seek you, we always find you. 

Today we ask for wisdom, dear God. 

Wisdom to make the right choices.

Wisdom to say the right things.

Wisdom to set our priorities right so that our lives are about the things that you care about.

And we ask for an extra measure of your wisdom.  We ask that the people around us be positively affected by our wisdom.  We’d like them to be happy because of our influence in their lives just like the people who lived with Solomon and experienced his wisdom.

You have promised you will give us wisdom if we ask, so we are asking expectantly today. 

We know that you train us when you give us gifts like wisdom.  We are anticipating that you will put us in more situations where we need wisdom so that we can turn to you and learn. 

Please help us always to turn to you and learn, dear Father!

Thank you for your transforming power in our lives!

In the awesome name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

Psalm 20, 2014

On By Judy GlasserIn MayLeave a comment

May the Lord always answer you when you call on him.May 6 2014

May he protect you.

May he send his mighty army of angels down from heaven to help you and support you.

May he remember all of the things you have done in his name and to his glory.

May he give you what you desire and make all of your plans succeed.

We all want to celebrate with you as God helps you succeed and have victory in the most important areas of your life.

May the Lord answer your prayers.

And this I know:

The Lord gives success to those who love him.

He answers them by using the mighty power in his hands.

Some people trust in themselves or in their bank account or in the stuff they own.

Not us!  We trust in God alone.

Others may fail, but not us.  Because God lives inside of us and we can stand firm!

Lord, give us victory in you when we call!  We’re watching for your answer!

Psalm 103, 2014

On By Judy GlasserIn May2 Comments

I praise the Lord with all that I am.May 2 a 2014

I can never forget all he has done for me –

he has forgiven all of my sins and healed my brokenness.

He has redeemed me from a life filled with darkness and emptiness.

He fills up my heart with his love and compassion.

He only gives me things that are good for me and renews my strength so I can face each day.

Have I mentioned how compassionate and gracious he is?May 2 b 2014

And he is so patient with me.

I feel his love pouring down over me and overflowing onto those around me.

He doesn’t treat me like a sinner.  His love for me is bigger than the sky.

He has made my sin disappear from his eyes through the sacrifice of his son, Jesus.

God is a compassionate father to all of us who love him.  He knew us before we were born.

We are like flowers in the field which bloom and  then are gone – blown over by the wind and gone.

But God’s love is never-ending for those who love him.  His promises extend out to the children of the faithful.

Thank you, dear God!

The Tomb is Empty!

On By Judy GlasserIn AprilLeave a comment

Hallelujah!

My journey down the Via Dolorosa seeing each Station of the Cross where another horrible thing happened to Jesus culminated in a emotional visit to the garden tomb.ftdDSC_0549

Experts can’t verify that this is the exact tomb where Jesus laid for 3 days.  But it’s in the right place and it has the same  unusual layout that Jesus’ tomb had. 

It’s in a peaceful and beautiful garden – an oasis in the middle of noisy, crowded, tension-filled Jerusalem.  Did I mention that we heard machine-gun fire for several minutes while having lunch in Jerusalem that day?

It didn’t matter to me if this was the exact tomb……Jesus’ body isn’t thereftdDSC_0558 anyway.  He is risen!  And he lives inside of me and all who believe in him!  So it was even more glorious to realize that Jesus was there that day with me.  He was helping me understand what he did for me just a little bit more.  I experienced the depths of his love at a new level. 

And I was overwhelmed with gratitude for those in my life who had introduced me to Christ – specifically for my mother who lived a sold-out-to-Jesus life all the way up to her death.  What a great role-model!  What a great legacy!

So I celebrate my risen Savior today with new enthusiasm and new understanding.

Thank you, Jesus!ftdDSC_0564

Available for All

On By Judy GlasserIn AprilLeave a comment

Not accepted.  Not included.  Born in the wrong place.

March 22 2014All of these describe Ruth, the widowed daughter in law of Naomi.  She was a Moabite.  The Israelites hated the Moabites.  She was a Gentile.  She was a young widow – a relatively worthless person in the community.

And she chose to go back to Bethlehem with Naomi.  She chose to become part of Naomi’s people.  She chose to love and serve Naomi’s God.

As we read on in the story, we see how God blesses her through these choices by giving her a new husband, a new family and a new son.

A Moabite, a Gentile, becomes part of the lineage of King David.  Which becomes the lineage of the Savior of the World, Jesus.

Jesus told us that there is just one way to heaven, one way to the Father, and its through him.  There is only one way but it is available to everyone.  Everyone is accepted.  Everyone is included.  And we were all born in the right place – here on earth.

Because God so loved the world that he sent his only son to die for us so that anyone and everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.

He loves us all so very much!

Thank you, dear Father!

Wow!

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

Wow!  Wow!

That’s the best word I can find that describes my experience in the Holy Land last week.

Wow!

I was trying to think of how to describe what has happened to me and I realized that I have experienced this before in my life.  I grew up in northwest Iowa where we had snow 6-7 months a year and only about 6 weeks of summer.  I had heard of places that didn’t get snow and I believed they existed, but it wasn’t until I moved to South Carolina that I actually ‘experienced’ a winter with no snow.  It totally changed my perspective.  I had believed that there were places that didn’t get snow but now I felt it, I lived in it and I loved it!  That’s the reason I live in Phoenix today:)

This is exactly how I feel about the Holy Land now.  I always believed it was there but now I have felt it, I have lived in it, and I have experienced it.  And I have a totally different perspective.

One of our praise songs in worship this morning was asking God to grow our faith so we would ‘walk upon the water.”The Sea of Galilee(2)

I was there – at the beautiful Sea of Galilee (pictured).  I cooled my feet in its waters, I took a boat ride on it and felt the wind pick up as a small storm moved in….

as it often does on the sea of Galilee….

as it did the day that Jesus calmed storm.

I was actually there – the same sea that Jesus and then Peter walked on.

Wow!

I also walked down a steep path on the Mount of Olives.  I saw the Garden of Gethsemane and the Kidron valley.  I floated in the Dead Sea and visited Jericho.

Some of the sites actually had excavations of buildings dating back to Jesus’ time – where he lived and where he walked.

We visited the Upper Room.  We walked down the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering…. the path Jesus took as he dragged his own cross to his crucifixion.

We spent the afternoon at the Garden Tomb.  Descriptions in the Bible all point to it being Jesus’ tomb.  Of course, he’s not there because he is alive!  And he lives inside of us!  Hallelujah!

We visited Bethlehem which has a cave and a manger which, by descriptions in the Bible, is like the one Jesus was born in. 

We went to the Nazareth Village in Nazareth.  It’s an area the size of a small park that is set up like it would have been in Jesus’ time with people dressed like they would have been dressed and doing the things they would have been doing – shepherding sheep, carpentry and spinning wool.  The lunch we had there was food that was close to the things Jesus would have eaten at a feast.  Wow!

I dipped my feet in the Jordan River and climbed to the top of the Mount of Beatitudes.

We visited beautiful Caesarea on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

And  much, much more.

I have felt it and experienced it and it has changed me.

Just like God planned.

Thank you, dear Father!

 

My Pilgrimage

On By Judy GlasserIn March2 Comments

My pilgrimage to the land of my Savior is about to begin. 

God has called me to this journey.  He has told me that this trip will forever change how I read and understand his Word.  So I am very excited as I anticipate what that means.

Those of you who have been on this journey with me for a while know that God gave me a check to cover the cost of this trip.  He has made it very clear that he wants me to scratch this off of my ‘bucket list’.

I can’t wait!

So you won’t be hearing from me for about 2 weeks.

But when I get back, you can expect some new insights from me as God continue to take us on this journey towards the truth.

Please include me and my friend, Angela, who is going with me in your prayers.

Here I come, dear God!