Tag: God’s Word

This is the Key

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

Some people spend their whole lives searching for the key to life.  And many of them never find it.

It’s extremely sad that a growing number of people are choosing suicide as an alternative to living an empty and hopeless life.

And yet the key to having a full and meaningful life is readily available.

It’s soooo awesome that Moses said it thousands of years ago and it’s still the answer today.

“Oh, that you would choose life…  You can make this choice by loving the LORD your God, obeying him and committing yourself firmly to him.  This is the key to your life.”

This is the key to my life.  I know that.  I have tried filling my life with other stuff as I moved through different phases of my life.  I know the lack of contentment that comes from chasing after material belongings like cars and houses.

I know how it feels to being consumed by meaningless rounds of parties and partying friends, trying to fill the void.

I also know the ache that comes from putting my career first before everything else in my life.  When I achieved success and recognition at work, my reaction was, “Is this all there is?  Why do I feel so empty when my career is going so well?”

All of these worthless, meaningless, empty feelings went away when I committed to put God first in my life.  My experience matches up 100% with the advice Moses gives us – God is the key.

I’m so glad I found the key.

I hope you have, too.

I choose you, Abba Father.

I’ll Never Know

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

I’ll never know all of the things God has done for me.

I’ll never know all of the ways he has protected me and guided me.

I don’t see it all and I don’t always recognize what he is doing.  Much of what he does is subtle – a whisper here and there in my ear…

I try to stay aware of his movements but the cacophony of the world around me so easily drowns God out.

While preparing the Israelites to enter the Promised Land without him, Moses said, “For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out and your feet didn’t blister or swell.”

Looking back on their last forty years, the Israelites could see how faithful God had been.  Forty years and their clothes didn’t wear out?  What an obvious act of God – and very practical.  As they continued to move across the desert, replacing clothes would have been difficult.  So God took care of their clothes as well as their feet.  A massive crowd of people walked through the dry, hot desert for 40 years and didn’t have problems with their feet?  Only God could do that.

As I read this, I am comforted to know that God is taking care of issues like this in my life as well.   Every once in while, God gives me a glimpse of a potential problem that he has taken care of in my life and it reminds me of how much more he blesses me and watches over me each day.

When I look back, the distractions of today drop away and I can clearly see God’s faithfulness in my life from before I was born.  I can come up with a very long list of  little problems and huge issues that God has handled – caring for me and loving me through it all.

And he hasn’t stopped.

Thank you, Abba Father.

It’s Amazing!

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

Hard to explain,

but easy to see.

I’m talking about the supernatural power of God.

Moses was forbidden to enter the Promised Land with the Israelites so, before his death, he spoke to all of them to remind them of everything God had already done for them.  (This reminds me of how easily I forget all the things God has already done for me.)

Moses say to his people, “Do not be afraid of the nations there (in the Promised Land), for the LORD your God will fight for you.”

God was fighting for them –

and he is fighting for you and me right now.

Today God has my back.  He is orchestrating good things for me.  He is arranging circumstances to help me move in the right direction.  God is fulfilling his purposes on earth through me – today.

The same can be said of you if you are a Christ-follower.

Right now, God is saying to us,

___________, (fill in the blank with your name) ‘ Do not be afraid of __________(fill in the blank with what keeps you awake at night) for I, the LORD your God am fighting for you.’

Thank you, Father God.

Fear

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

It makes me anxious.

It makes me worry.

It makes me focus on ‘what if?”

My fears usually center around situations that I have no control over.  There is nothing I can do to get rid of these thoughts that fill my mind with dread –

except trust God.

He is in control.  He loves me and wants the best for me.  I believe that with all of my heart and soul.  He has proven it over and over.

When I remember to trust God with all of it, the fear goes away.  Confidence in my Good Father wipes out the anxiety and worry.  I say to myself, “What if I just let God handle this?” and the dread of what could happen disappears.  I know that, no matter what, God is going to walk beside me through it.  He has always been faithful in the past, he will always be faithful in the future.

The spies who Moses sent into the Promised land seriously missed this trusting in God idea.  They were scared – the people living in the Promised land were big and powerful.  Their towns were large with high walls around them.

The spies spread their fear through the rest of the Israelites until they became so scared that God tells us in the Bible that they cried all night.

Caleb and Joshua were two of the spies and their report was much different from the rest.  “Let’s go at once to take the land.  We can surely conquer it.”

What?  The people of Israel were trembling in fear and Caleb is saying they must go ‘at once to take the land’?  How could the response of Caleb and Joshua be the opposite of what the rest of the spies were saying?

The difference was that Caleb and Joshua trusted God.  It was not about the Israelites doing this on their own.  God had promised to give them the land, so God was going to do it.

They trusted God so they were willing to obey him in spite of how the situation looked.

How good am I at trusting God in those kinds of situations?

How trusting are you?  Have you been anxious or fearful lately?

Please help us trust you with all things, Abba Father.  Take away our fears and anxiety.

There is Light

On By Judy GlasserIn FebruaryLeave a comment

Look around – do you see the darkness?  Evil lurks.  Hate grows.  Sin is encouraged.  Violence moves closer.

It’s dark.

But God’s people live in the light because God is light.  The presence of God’s Spirit in my soul brings light.

I love the visual picture I get in my mind as I read Exodus 10:21-29.  The LORD made a plague of darkness cover the entire land of Egypt because Pharoah would not let the Israelites leave.  It was so dark that the Egyptians could not move because they could not see their next step.

“But there was light as usual where the people of Israel lived.”  Can you see it?  Light shining on the people of God while everywhere around them was pitch black.

That’s our whole world today.  God’s light of love and grace and forgiveness shines down on us – his children – while the rest of our world lives in darkness.   God still loves the rest of our world – that’s why he sent Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins so every one has the opportunity to believe and be saved  That’s why God asks us to share our stories, our “God experiences” with those who are living in darkness – so they can put their faith in Christ and be saved.

Because we are followers of Christ, God shines his light into my life and into yours.

I feel it.  Do you?

If you don’t feel his light, the best answer I know is to get closer to him.  And then closer.  And even more close.  You’ll start to feel it.

If you”re like me and feel God’s light in your life today and every day, please join me in praising and thanking him –

You are an awesome father, God.  Thank you for shining your light into our lives and saving us from the darkness.  We love you!

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.