Tag: faith

He is Amused

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

When we don’t stand our ground,

we give in, and

we go along with the crowd.

Satan watches and he is amused.

He knows our weaknesses.  He and his team figure out the easiest way to entice us to rebel and disobey God.  And, when we give into temptations, Satan smiles.

I see Satan working all through the historical account of the Israelites waiting at the bottom of the mountain when Moses left them to go to the top to speak to God.  The Israelites became impatient with how long Moses was gone (does that sound like you and me?) so they asked Aaron to “make us some gods who can lead us”.

They asked Aaron – who was supposed to be leading the people with Moses.   Aaron – whom God was intending to anoint as head of his holy priesthood.  Aaron – who crumbled immediately to peer pressure and made a golden calf for the people to worship.

Can you visualize the big smile on Satan’s face as he watched all of this go down?

When Moses came back down the mountain, Aaron made the bad situation worse by lying to Moses by saying that he simply threw the gold the people gave him in the fire and ‘out came the calf”.

Read this next sentence which is in the Bible with me: ” Moses saw that Aaron had let the people get completely out of control, much to the amusement of their enemies.”

The Israelite’s main enemy – and our’s – is Satan.  He whispers half-truths into our ears – things that are just believable enough to get us to rationalize away the lies.  He confuses us as he twists the truth.  One of his biggest and most effective strategies is to distract us – anything to get our focus off of God.  He’ll even use good things to fill up our calendars, preventing us from spending time with God.  He wants us to spend out time and energy on anything that is not our relationship with God.  Even ministry can be used to lure us from God if it keeps us too busy to grow our relationship with him.

And Satan is amused every time this strategy works.

I don’t know about you, but this makes me mad.  It makes me mad when I read how the Israelites gave into Satan’s ploys.  And it really makes me mad when I realize that I am listening to Satan’s lies when he whispers them in my ears.

It makes me mad and I am determined to tell him to “take a hike” next time he tries it.  Out loud – so he can hear it.

He will not be amused.

Please help me close my ears to the lies of Satan, Abba Father.

 

Bringing Order out of Chaos

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Too much to do.

New things getting added to the list every hour.

It’s hard to focus.

I’m drowning!

 

Ever felt that way?  I used to feel that way pretty regularly – until I learned an important lesson about my Father God.  He is a God of order.  When I invite God into my chaos, he provides clear priorities and organization.

I love the historical account of Moses with his father-in-law, Jethro, in Exodus 18.   Jethro saw that Moses had large numbers of people coming to him all day every day to settle their disputes.  It was a great opportunity for Moses to teach them about God and direct them in the way God would want them to go.  The problem was that a crowd of people stood around Moses each day, waiting a long time to get help with their issues.  Moses was becoming tired and overwhelmed.

I know that feeling, Moses!

Seeing this, Jethro sat Moses down to share some of his experience and wisdom with him.  He told Moses there was a better way to do this.  We would say today that the process Moses was using was not ‘sustainable’.  Moses was going to ‘burn out’ doing this all by himself.

Any of that sound familiar?

Jethro suggested that Moses pick some honest, capable men who feared God and ask them to take care of the smaller, more common issues.  Then these men could bring the more major cases to Moses.  So smart!  This way the men handling the smaller disputes would hear what Moses had to say about the more major concerns and they could gradually learn how to handle these more difficult issues.

Jethro also showed great wisdom when he told Moses to consult with God to make sure this is what God wanted him to do.  Super smart!  Whenever we get Godly counsel from someone, we should still ask God for confirmation.  The people we are talking to are just people and they have their own perspectives and bias’.   God will give us confirmation if the advice we are hearing fits into his plan.

Moses asked and God confirmed, so Moses did what Jethro suggested.

Jethro and Moses were creating the process that we know today as our judicial system.  And it reveals to us that our God is a God of organization and structure.  He is not messy or forgetful.  He is not lazy or late.

God brings order to my thinking when I am confused.  He clarifies my priorities when I am overwhelmed.  He helps me focus on what he is asking me to do rather than all the other ‘good’ things I could do.  He shines a bright light on what is best, helping me make decisions and making it easier to say ‘no’ when something would distract me from the path he wants me to take.

Do you need God to create order in your life?  If so, ask him and be ready to obey.

Thank you for bringing order out of my chaos, Abba Father.

Too Discouraged

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Problems pile up and then pile even higher.

Situations become worse, not better.

Broken relationships get even more painful.  It’s easy for you and I to get discouraged when we focus on the mountain of issues in front of us.

This is where the Israelites were when Pharoah made their hard work of making bricks even more difficult by not giving them the straw they needed to make the bricks.  Now they had to find the straw and they were expected to make just as many bricks as before.  What?!  Their situation was bad before but now it was really terrible!

I have had times in my life when I felt like that.  Have you?  I have found myself in situations that were hard to deal with and then something happened to make it even worse.  I’ll never forget getting a phone call that my mother was in the hospital just three months after my father passed away.  What was happening?!  I was only 21 years old, just lost my dad and now my mom was sick?   My world was going crazy!

The good news is that my mother had successful gall bladder surgery and lived 28 more years.

The bad news for the Israelites is that they got so discouraged with their current situation that they stopped listening to God.  That’s the opposite of what they should have done.

My discouraging experiences have taught me that turning to God and focusing on him is the answer.  There is a purpose for the dark times in my life.  God is always working things out for my good – even when I can’t see any good.  It can be very messy and confusing even when I’m right in middle of God’s plan.

I just need to keep listening and obeying.

Please open my ears, Abba Father.

 

 

Revealing

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

When times are tough, what I genuinely believe about God comes to the surface.  In the center of the struggle, my actions show my real feelings about God.

When I’m in the center of the storm, do I turn to him?

As my world spins and swirls, do I look to him for direction?

And – the big question – when its dark and discouraging, do I trust him?

Do I trust him when my heart is shattering into a million pieces?  Do I trust him when all of my future plans have just been blown apart?  Do I trust him when my life becomes sad and painful?

These are the situations where my true feelings about God are revealed.

The good news is that these are the same situations where the strength and power and grace and love of my Father God is also best revealed.  He’s always there – right in the middle of all the questions and problems and frustrations.

“I am Yahweh – the Lord.” God said these words to Moses thousands of years ago when Moses was faced with the extremely challenging task of leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

‘God Almighty’ is my God.  He has revealed himself in new and beautiful ways in the middle of the tragedy I have been going through these last 2 1/2 years since my son was killed.  God has been faithful through the storm of grief and emptiness.

He is always faithful.

Thank you, Abba Father.

‘

 

 

How Can I Do This?

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Have you ever asked God that question?

When G0d gives you an assignment – a task to do, something you need to say, somewhere you are supposed to go – but you have no idea how it’s going to happen?

I’ve been there.  In fact, I’m there pretty regularly.  And I find myself asking God this question – how am I going to do this?

Then God reminds me of the words he spoke to Moses when he asked God this same question thousands of years ago.  God replied, “What is that in your hand?”

When God said these words to Moses – and when he says them to me – he means, “What have I already given you?  Use that.”

What has he already given me?  Good question.  This starts me into a process of reviewing the gifts and skills which God has grown within me.  These are the things God wants me to use to complete my new assignment.

I will also review what God has been teaching me lately – he has a purpose for opening my eyes to a new truth.  He wants me to use this new knowledge and awareness in order to complete the task he has given me.

Do you know what I discover when I review what God has already given me?

I find that God has been preparing me for the things he wants me to do and say and the places he wants me to go.

It’s all in my hand.

Thank you, Abba Father.

My Life is But a Breath

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Breathe in,

breathe out.

In the big picture of time, that represents my life here on earth.  One second.

Job  showed that he understood this as he spoke to his unhelpful friends in Job 7,  “You see me now, but not for long.”

In the large scheme of things, the dash between the day I was born and the day I die is the length of time it takes for one breath.  Wow!  That helps to remind me to make sure I’m focused on the important things in my life.  I must not waste time on petty things or differences.

I need to love.

I need to forgive.

I need to care about people and not spend a big portion of my precious time on ‘stuff’.

Most of all, I’ve got to listen to my Father God and do what he asks me to do.  He has a purpose for me here on earth.  He has things he wants me to accomplish in this season of my life.

If I get anything done in this last part of my one breath, I want to be faithful to God’s will, his plans, his purposes.  When I get home, I want to hear those treasured words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Amen, Let it be so, Abba Father.

The Struggle

On By Judy GlasserIn JanuaryLeave a comment

“Is not all of human life a struggle?”

Job tells it like it is.  I agree with him – do you?

Looking back, my childhood seems relatively struggle-free but I know that there were things I didn’t like and situations that were hard for me to deal with.

In my memories, it seemed like Jr. High was the worst time for relationship struggles.  Those years were strange and tough.

And then I got a taste of the adult struggles in High School as I started making plans for what my life would look like after graduation.

Life got more and more complicated after that.  Being a wife and a mother of two with a career was the epitome of the struggle.  It was a challenge just to get through each day.  I’m grateful to God for guiding me through that time, straightening out  my priorities and helping me focus on the important things.

Transitioning into the empty nest was a tough struggle for my husband and I.   Every day we missed the fun and craziness of having a house full of active teenagers.  Our priorities had to shift again.  One very positive thing is that we were able to give God more time and space in our lives.

Now that we are retired, the struggle is different but very real.  Priorities shift once again and there are still challenges.  The picture we had for our future exploded when our son was killed.  The hole his death has left in our lives is big and painful.  Rebuilding our plans for a future without him is extremely hard.

Job was right on – this whole life on earth is a struggle.

Thank you, Abba Father, for guiding me through the struggles.

The Accuser

On By Judy GlasserIn January2 Comments

I hear him.

Do you hear him?

The Accuser.  Satan is called the Accuser right in the beginning of the book of Job.  Satan is also called the Father of Lies in the Bible because he is a professional liar.

He whispers lies into my ears, accusing me of bad things I have done.  He accuses me of the wrong and hurtful things I have said.  Yes, I did those things and I said those things.

But  I know – and Satan knows – that all of these bad things I’ve done and said in the past, present and future are forgiven.  I was forgiven for everything when I accepted the free gift of grace offered by God through the death of Jesus on the Cross.  Jesus paid the price.  It’s done.

Why does Satan keep trying to make me forget that?  Why does he continually try to get me to live in guilt instead of the freedom that God gave me because I believe and trust in Jesus?

Why?  Because Satan doesn’t like my freedom in Christ.  He doesn’t like the fact that the Holy Spirit helps me ignore him.

So Satan whispers his lies….

hoping that I will listen and put myself in chains of regret, bitterness, unforgiveness and guilt.  Jesus died to release me from those chains.  That’s the truth.  So I’m not listening to the Accuser.

I am committed to listening to the words of my Father whose voice, when I listen, overpowers the whispers of the evil one.  My Father speaks to me with love…

and patience,

and grace.

I listen to him and I know the truth.  When I know the truth, I can live in the truth.

The Accuser can just go somewhere else with his lies.  No one is listening here.

Thank you, Abba Father.

 

Guaranteed Success

On By Judy GlasserIn JanuaryLeave a comment

Always.

Joseph’s story in Genesis is filled with words like, “The Lord was with Joseph so he succeeded in everything he did.”  Everywhere he went, every job he did, Joseph did it well because God was with him.

Having God with him made Joseph special and unusual.  This was thousands of years ago before Jesus came to earth and changed everything.  Now God sends his Spirit to live inside every one who has accepted the free gift of salvation through Jesus and has put their trust in him.

God made me special when I accepted salvation and he sent his Spirit to live inside of my soul.  He adopted me and I became the daughter of the King.   As I read the historical account of Joseph, I can tell that Joseph was a good listener and he also knew how to obey.  He heard God’s directions and did them.  This is where his success came from.

When I listen to God and obey,  I also succeed.

The same is true for you.

Let’s not miss it.  Success in God’s eyes often looks different from what we expect success to look like….

but his eyes are the important ones, right?

Please help me listen and obey, Abba Father.

Standing Against the Flow

On By Judy GlasserIn January2 Comments

It’s hard to stand against the pull of popular opinion.

It’s difficult to say ‘no’ when so many people around me are saying ‘yes’.

It’s no fun to stand up for what I know is right when the majority of my culture thinks it’s all ‘ok’.

But there are times and there are situations where I need to stand, even when it’s hard and difficult and definitely no fun.  I need to stand.

You need to stand.

Genesis 27 gives us a good example of what happens when people who want to do the right thing don’t stand up against the crowd.  Reuben was Jacob’s oldest son.  He should have stopped the whole nonsense when his brothers started talking about killing Joseph.  The discussion was bad enough but then Reuben actually let the rest of his brothers throw Joseph in the cistern, leaving him there to die.  The Bible tells us that Reuben was ‘secretly planning to rescue Joseph and return him to his father’.

Too little, too late, Reuben!

While Reuben was distracted with something else, the rest of his brothers sold Joseph to some slave traders passing by.  When Reuben got back, Joseph was gone.

Should have, could have, would have…….but Reuben didn’t.  He didn’t stop his brothers right at the beginning so he missed his chance to do what was right.  He had an opportunity to stand up to his brothers and help teach them what is right.  But he didn’t.

I can miss my chance to do what is right, too, if I follow the crowd when they are going down a crooked path.

Reuben didn’t do or say anything to stop them so he became part of the group that did this despicable thing.

He became part of the problem.

How often to do I miss my chance to stand up for what is right?

How often do you?

Please give us courage to stand up for what is right, Abba Father.