Tag: God’s Word

Wisdom

On By Judy GlasserIn May4 Comments

Insight.

Understanding.

I’m looking for more of these in my life.

How do I get them?

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.” Psalm 111:10.

Wisdom comes from God.  Insight comes from studying his word and obeying.  Understanding comes from honoring God and being devoted to loving him first.

When I trust him and obey him, I begin to understand him.  Then I gain insight into his plans and purposes so I can join him.

It’s pretty clear how I can get more wisdom, insight and understanding.  Now I just need to choose to put myself on that path.

What path are you choosing?

Thank you, Abba Father

Psalm 20, 2017 – Be Blessed

On By Judy GlasserIn May2 Comments

May the Lord always answer him when you call his name.

May he send help and support to you.

May he always remember your faithfulness and service.

May he give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed.

Then we will all shout for joy for you and give thanks to our Father!

For this I know – the Lord helps the faithful ones succeed.  He answers from his heavenly throne with his powerful hand.some trust in chariots

Some only trust in what they can see….and they will fail.

We trust in God so we will always stand firm.

You give us victory, Lord!

Thank you for answering our prayers, Abba Father.

Psalm 90, 2017

On By Judy GlasserIn MayLeave a comment

Lord, you have been walking beside us since the beginning of time.  Before you created the heavens and the earth, you were God.

You determine life and death.  A thousand years to is like a day to you.  I am like grass – new in the morning but dried up and withered by evening.

I cannot hide my sins from you.  I struggle through my life, moaning from trouble and sorrows.  I may live seventy or eighty years – however long my strength endures.

And then I will fly away…….

Please help me understand how quickly my life passes away here on earth so I may be wise in how I spend each moment.

And, sometimes, it feels I am here for too long, Lord.  Even though I have problems and trials, help me live each day in your love so I can be filled with the joy that only comes from you.

May your goodness and love shine through me.

Bless me, God, as I love you and serve you.

Psalm 5, 2017

On By Judy GlasserIn AprilLeave a comment

I know you hear me, LORD.  You listen when I call to you.

You hear my cries for help, God.  Every morning, when I lay my concerns and requests at your feet, I know hear me.

And I watch – expecting your answer.

You hate evil.

You hate lies.

You hate deceit.

You do not welcome evil and proud people into your presence.

Because you love me, I can come near to you and bow before you.  Please guide me on the right path, LORD.

Keep me safe from those who do evil.  I can’t trust one word they say – their hearts are filled with hate.  They are liars.

You are the judge and my revenge, O God.  Declare them guilty.  Let their evil and rebellious ways become their punishment as they choose their own path – separate from you.

But draw all who love you close to you, God.  Give us joy as you spread your protection over us.

We know you show favor to those who walk closely with you, LORD.  You cover us with the umbrella of your blessing.

Thank you, Abba Father.

Who is King?

On By Judy GlasserIn AprilLeave a comment

I don’t have a king….

or do I?

Something or somebody rules my life.

Something or somebody rules your life.

When we’re young, our parents rule our lives.  They tell us where to go.  They tell us what to do.

As we become adults, we gradually make more and more of those decisions for ourselves.  By making these choices, we decide who or what is king of our lives.

Is it money?

Is it our career?

Is it sports?

Hobbies?

Our spouse?  Our family?

For some people, their problems and dramas are ruling their lives – determining their future.

What or who is my king?

What’s your answer to that?

We read several places in Judges “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit”.  This phrase always showed up right after the Israelites made a huge mistake.

And it was a mess.  They actually had a king – it was themselves.  Everybody was doing whatever they wanted.  Kind of like our culture today.

They had no direction.  They had no guidance.  And they were tired of all the  negative consequences of their messes so they asked for an earthly king.  We know the rest of the story – the earthly kings weren’t the answer.

The answer was Jesus – our divine, eternal King.

He is still our answer today.

When we make messes of our lives – he is the answer.  When we get tired of the nasty consequences of our sin and bad decisions – he is the answer.  When we need guidance and forgiveness and strength – he is the answer.

When we make Jesus the king of our lives, we have found the right answer.

Thank you, dear Jesus.

 

Get Lost!

On By Judy GlasserIn AprilLeave a comment

Wow!

Keeping my focus is a very tough thing to do.

So many priorities.  So many different ways to spend my time.  I have always been a significantly goal-oriented and focused person but it’s not easy.

There are just so many distractions in our current culture!

Do you feel that way?

So hard to focus!

And I think there are more distractions now than ever before……until I’m reading through the Old Testament and I realize how inconsistent the Israelites were.  When they had a good, faithful leader, they were on target with God.  When the faithful leader died, they went right back to their old distractions – worshiping all kinds of pagan gods – just like everyone around them.

So many choices.

In the New Testament, Jesus tells us to focus our eyes on him.

Fix our eyes.

Don’t let them wander.

I regularly have to turn away from the distractions in my life in order to clear my focus and get centered on Jesus.  It’s the only way I can avoid getting lost in all of the noise and confusion that defines our culture.

Fixing my eyes means making God a priority in my life.  He needs to come before work, before hobbies, before family, before money, before TV and all the ‘screens’ in my life.  If he’s not up front in my life, I get distracted….

unfocused….

confused….

and I wander.

Please help me keep my eyes fixed on you, dear Jesus.

What’s New?

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

Growing….

changing…

I am not going to be done learning until my heart stops beating.  There’s a time to stop being flexible and stop being open to new things and that time is when I’m dead.  I have learned a lot in these last 50-some years 🙂 and I have a lot to learn in these next 30 years or whenever my eyes shut for the last time on this earth.

I am challenged to be quicker on the learning end than Gideon was as I read his story in Judges.  The Lord told Gideon directly that he was going to bring him victory.  But Gideon didn’t get it – Gideon replied that he was the least of his family.  So what?  God was going to do this, not Gideon.

Gideon prepared an offering to God and the Angel of God came down to burn it for him.  Are you getting this yet, Gideon?

Then God told Gideon to cut down the pole in town that was dedicated to the pagan gods and build an altar with the wood.  Gideon obeyed but he did it at night because he was afraid.

Really?  God is talking to him and sending angels with fire and still Gideon is sneaking around at night?

The townspeople wanted to kill Gideon for cutting down the pole but a leader in town stopped them.  Who did that, Gideon?

Then God called Gideon to lead the Israelites into battle but Gideon still had to test God by laying out a fleece.  Twice!

When are you going to understand that this is God you’re dealing with, Gideon?

It appears like Gideon is starting to learn and trust God when he lets God limit his army to 300 men.  But then he takes a step back when he’s afraid and has to sneak into the Midianite camp to hear what’s going on before he will attack it.

From what we read, that looks like the final step of learning to trust God for Gideon because we don’t read of him testing God again or being afraid.  Gideon leads the Israelites into several successful battles without testing God first.

He learned to trust.

He got it.

So I have to ask myself – how well am I doing in learning to trust?  Do I get it?

How well are you doing?

Please help us to trust you, Abba Father.

Lost in the Weeds

On By Judy GlasserIn March2 Comments

Going in the same direction.

Moving forward together.

Shared goals.

Unity.

And it feels good when I’ve got it, doesn’t it?

But unity isn’t an easy thing to achieve.

There is compromise – it doesn’t have to be all my way.  I need to take a look from other people’s perspective – there are other valid opinions.

Prioritizing – is it worth creating an issue?  Wisdom = losing a lot of battles in order to win the war.

And – if this is a battle that needs to happen – much planning and selflessness needs to be included in figuring out how to bring up the issue.  Emotions stay out of it because they cause me to over-react and say things that aren’t helpful.  Just because something is true doesn’t mean that I can say it anytime I want to.  The timing of discussions on difficult issues can determine success or failure.

I can get lost in the weeds.  Details that don’t really matter can derail me when I’m trying to discuss difficult issues, causing any forward movement to stop.  Sometimes I get so lost that I actually move backwards.  Very disappointing!  I know you’ve been there, too.

So unity is not easy to achieve but it’s very much worth the effort.  We read about the joy the Israelites experienced in Joshua 22 when they avoided some serious conflict between groups merely by talking with each other.  One group thought the other group was rebelling while the 2nd group thought the first group was going to try to make an issue of where they were living in the future.  During their discussion, they realized that they worshipped the same God and they were on the same page.

Unity.

We could use more of it, right?  Where do we get more unity?

God.

As my relationship with God grows, he is able to give me the wisdom and perspective I need to bring more unity into my life – more unity with my husband and family and more unity with my church family.

When we are all looking to God for direction and insight, God provides unity.  It’s his desire for us to live peacefully together and live a life full of joy.

In him, we are unified.

And we find joy.

Thank you, Abba Father.

 

Sold Out!

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

What would you sell your life for?

It’s a great question because sometimes we dedicate our lives to things that just aren’t worth it.

We can sell our lives to making money and spending it.  But everything we buy gets old, breaks and requires more money to fix it up or replace it.

Our ‘stuff’ will always disappoint us.

We can sell our lives to work and accomplishments.  We may love it but, someday, that all goes away.  We get fired, laid off or we just get old.  I recently retired which meant giving up a nice paycheck and a lot of rewards and recognition.  I loved working and now I love being retired.  I’m glad I worked long and hard for over 34 years at something I loved to do.  Now I’m very happy to reclaim all of those hours in my week and move on to the next phase of my life.

We can sell our lives to relationships with our spouse, our children, our family and friends.  They are very important but they will also dissappoint us at times.  It’s a fact.  And they all will eventually pass away some very sad day.

In Joshua 8, Achan sold his life for a robe and some gold and silver.  It was too good to pass up.  So he didn’t, probably believing he would never get caught.  Not smart. He couldn’t hide from God.  After getting caught, he admitted his disobedience but that didn’t change the consequences. He lost his life for that ‘stuff’, ending up under a pile of rocks.

I don’t want to end up like that.

So I choose the path of obedience and faithfulness to God.

I choose to be ‘sold out’ to God.

And I’m 100% confident that it’s the right choice.

What is your choice?

I love you, Abba Father.

Control Freaks – Chill!

On By Judy GlasserIn MarchLeave a comment

Her home was demolished.

Everything she knew was gone.

Her city was burned down by foreigners.

All of her friends and neighbors were killed, only her family was saved.

Things didn’t look good for Rahab.

She and her family were still a live but every one and everything else from her life was gone.  Crushed.  Burned.  Now she had to live in the enemy’s camp.  What good could possibly come from this situation?

Well, we know the rest of the story.  Rahab’s name would later show up in the lineage of Jesus!  She was Jesus’ great, great, too many greats to count, grandmother.

God had unbelievable plans for Rahab when he saved her from being destroyed as Jericho burned.  She didn’t know it.  I’m sure there were times as she started up a new life in the camp of her former enemies when she wondered why she was still alive.   Everyone else except her family was dead.  Everything that she had known before was gone.

Rahab had no way of knowing that God was going to bless all of creation through her lineage.

Just like I have no way of knowing what God is doing as I struggle through the twists and turns of life, trying to figure out how to transition from phase to phase.  Looking back, the pieces often make sense.  But it can be very hard to navigate through the maze of today.

I just don’t know.

But God does.  So I focus on him, trusting him to show me the way one day at a time.  Its often one step at a time.  Trying to control the world causes frustration and stress.  Trying to control even my little space in the world is impossible.

This last year of my life really proved this to me.  I ended up in so many places I never thought I would be – never wanted to be.  God is working good things out of the evil that is done.  I am already seeing some of the good things but there will be many more that I will never see.

Like Rahab.

So I will trust you, Abba Father.