Relentless Love

I just started reading in Hosea, a book I haven't read in the Bible before. The story starts out with the Lord commanding Hosea to take a wife who was a harlot. Hosea in the story represents the Lord and his wife Gomer represents the children of Israel who God saved but they turned their back on the Lord yet He continued to be merciful to them. 

This verse struck me, literally moving me to tears: Hosea 2:14-15

Therefore, behold, I will allure her,

Will bring her into the wilderness,

And speak comfort to her. 

I will give her vineyards from there,

and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope;

She shall sing there,

As in the days of her youth.

I know the female terms here represent Israel but they also represent me. I am the one who knew the Lord and walked away. I am the one who bent to other gods in spite of my knowledge of Christ. I am the one who was a wayward child. But my God spoke to my heart, He rescued me not just with Christ death but again and again when I did not deserve it. He is so good and so full of mercies that are new everyday! He is making me sing again as I did in my youth, I am the Lords and He is mine!

God doesn't care about where you have been, He loves you relentlessly! Don't let your past keep you from the AMAZING life the Lord has to offer. 

First Love

Jesus said to the church at Ephesus “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Revelation 2:4 ESV

You may how wonder does someone abandon their first love?

My husband and I have been married 10 years, Many years ago someone gave Rob and I the Love Dare book for Christmas. It's a 40 day bible based challenge that helps reignite the passion and fire in your marriage. Little did we know at that time that we would go through a season where we needed it. 

One of my favorite devotions from that book talks about the overwhelming affection we have for our mate when we first meet. In fact we create this room in our head, the appreciation room. In this room we store all of the things we love about this person. We go there often to think of them and be in awe over the object of our affection. The appreciation room is generally built up in the first few months of our relationship. 

But over time we create another room out of a darker cooridor of our heart. The depreciation room. Here we write all of the bad things our spouse does, all of the hurt and pain is held onto here. Words for arguments are stored here and Divorce can even be plotted in this room.

I realized we have these rooms created for every relationship we have not just marriage. We usually dont start out feeling bitter toward our loved ones, our friends, parents or coworkers. But over time hurts can build up in this room and the door to the the appreciation room is opened less and less. 

I wonder do you think its possible we have rooms like this for God? Sometimes we can feel so inspired and in love with Him. We want to pray more, worship more, read more, serve more. Our eyes are intentionally fixed on Him.

Can you remember when you first fell in love with Jesus? The passion that lit your heart up?  You were on fire, sold out for Christ. Ready to tell the world about his mercy and grace. I remember that time where nothing mattered but Him. Where I wanted to shout my excitement for Jesus to the world. 

But then life happens, we go through hard season sometimes and seasons where God is quiet. 

Over time the world and our enemy help us create this other room for God. Our fear lives there, fear that He won't come through for us, fear that He has forsaken us, we may go to this room when we experience hurts in this life, maybe when we have unexplainable events like death. This room thrives on our lack of trust for God.

The enemy wants to keep us locked in this room but we have to challenge ourselves everyday to shut the door! And to only go to that door to write Chosen by his grace and covered with His love on it's panels. 

Jesus said to the church at Ephesus “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Revelation 2:4 ESV

The good news is He will never abandon His love for us. 

The enemy wants to keep us in the depreciation room for all of our relationships. 

I would challenge all of us to think about what the rooms we've allowed ourselves to flee to when times get tough and the world is hard. And to ask ourselves this question, what would life look like if I allowed myself to feel how I felt when I first fell in love with Jesus!

Compassion

Jesus had compassion on people, time and time again in his ministry he met people's physical needs; feeding them and healing them are just a couple of examples. 

Through caring for a persons physical needs we can bring them a spiritual blessing! People see Christ in us when we reach out with a genuine act of kindness. 

God cares about the needs of the people in this world and we are called to care also. No act of kindness is too small or insignificant, if the Lord put it on your heart He will do a good work with it! 

Where can you bless someone today with a compassionate act of kindness? Don't be surprised, blessing others blesses you too! Don't wait to multiply what you can give rather give what you can and let God multiply it!

How Excellent is Your Name!

Psalm 8:1 "O LORD, our LORD, How excellent is your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens!"

This earth, the moon, the stars and all that our Lord made are glorious creations! David says in verses 3-4 "When I look at Your heavens, and the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?"

Compared to the whole of the cosmos humanity is a small thing. When David wrote this Psalm he was in awe of the Lord and the way that He cares for us in light of His whole creation. That is the beauty of God though, He loves us so deeply that He sent His only son to die for us. God is not set on high marveling at the cosmos but rather His word reveals that He is bent in loving and caring for humanity in such a personal way that we should be looking up marveling at Him saying O LORD, Our Lord How EXCELLENT is Your name in all the earth!

Joy FULL!

Hello Coffee! Good morning Vacation! I am happy to be alive and sitting in my kitchen window studying for a short bit.   

John 15:9-11 tells us “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” 

It is so powerful to know that our obedience will bring us Joy! The Lord wants our Joy to be full and it can be full when we are connected to Him because Jesus brings TRUE joy! We may feel sensations of joy in this life but TRUE joy is found when we are trusting Him, leaning into Him, praising Him and reading His word! 

All the hard stuff gets a little easier when we are looking through the lens of His love and His purpose!  I have walked through difficult seasons with and without the Lord and I can look back and see what a complete wreck I was without Him. I never again want to have a perspective that does not start with Gods love and purpose. 

Are you walking through a difficult season today? Maybe it's like ground hog day in your life? Ask your self this; Am I looking through the lens of Gods love and purpose? If not everything may be skewed out of perspective because the filter we apply to our life is everything. Truly there is only one pure filter to put us in proper perspective, Jesus Christ! Run everything through Him and you will see what a difference it makes!

 #remaininHim #connectwithJesus #yourjoycanbefull

His Delight

I was reading in Jeremiah this morning when I came across this beautiful passage:

“Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the LORD.”

Jeremiah 9:23-24 NKJV

I am always blown away by the character of God especially in comparison to the character of man. The Lord knows our tendency to love wisdom, power, strength and money but He says glory in knowing Me! Can you imagine what the world would look like if we were all aspiring to know God more.  

The verse says that He is exercising Loving Kindness. That word in Hebrew means favor and mercy. The Lord, regardless of our sinful nature, has a nature to love us and to show us favor. He says He is exercising loving kindness, judgement and righteousness, but also that He delights in them! How lucky we are to have a God who in His supreme character has a heart to love us and has a nature is to bring righteousness and justness to this world.

It may be easy at times to misunderstand the heart of God but this passage reveals that He is Just, He is Righteous and He delights in giving us His loving kindness. He desires you to seek Him, to glory in Him. He wants us to know Him and love Him more. Get to know the Lord and you will see that His character is beautiful, it is love and it is so good!

Unlimited forgiveness!

Peter was asking Jesus how many times he should forgive a brother who sins against him, 7 times? That actually was a generous offer considering that some rabbis required their students to forgive only 3 times! I think Jesus probably blew their mind with His answer: "I do not say to you, up to 7 times, but up to 70 times 7." 

Jesus teaches that we can not put a limit on forgiveness when someone is truly trying to repent. There is no magic number where we can stop forgiving. You may wonder why that is because it's certainly not always easy to have someone hurt you or sin against you and then forgive them but that is what God does for us! 

Ponder this parable from Matthew 18:22-35

“Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses"