Thursday, January 20, 2011

Psalm 9:1-2

"I will praise you O Lord, with my whole heart;
I will tell of all Your marvelous works.
I will be glad and rejoice in You;
I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High."

Several things strike me about these verses:
1. "With my whole heart" - wow! Our hearts are so desperately wicked, we don't even know the depths of our own sin. And yet, God sees our desires, He sees Jesus' righteousness credited to our account. My desire is that my whole heart praises God, but there is so often a   rebellious part of it that wants my own way. May we beg God every day to purify our hearts!
2. "I will" - sometimes you have to make yourself do it:) "I will praise You" - even when I'm discouraged. "I will praise tell of Your marvelous works" - even when I don't understand what You're doing. "I will be glad and rejoice in You"- even when the world's pleasures are tempting. "I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High" - because no matter what I'm facing YOU ARE THE SAME, YOU ARE WORTHY TO BE PRAISED!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Open our Eyes!

Sorry it has been so long that I have posted, everyone! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are starting off the new year with a desire to be more like Christ this year!

I was reading in Luke 8 this morning, and was struck with reading again stories I have known longer than I remember:) Jairus and his dying daughter, and the woman with incessant bleeding for 12 years. As I read these verses for the quadrillionth time and asked the Lord to show me something new...He struck me with the obvious!

How blind we are! Jesus feels the woman pull on the hem of His robe and asks, "Who touched me?" His disciples try to cover for His (to THEM) silly question. "Master, the crowds are pressing in all around You, how can you ask who specifically touched You?"

Jesus looks at them with superior, but loving and gracious knowledge, "I felt power go out of Me." Then the woman acknowledges herself, and He blesses her for her faith.

Then messengers run to Jairus and tell him to stop bothering the Master, for his daughter is dead. Jesus insists on going to the house anyway, where mourners are already gathered, wailing at the loss of the teacher's only daughter.

He turns to them and says, "Do not mourn, she is only sleeping." They laugh in amazement and disdain, does He really think she's only asleep? Does He think we didn't make sure she was dead? This is not the time for jokes!

He takes Peter, James, John, Jairus and his wife up to the room where the dead girl lies. And raises her from the dead.

We don't see the way Jesus sees. Our view is limited by the black and white of gravity, space, and time. We like to call ourselves practical and realistic.

Jesus calls it unbelief.

When the angel appeared to Zechariah and told him that his wife would bear a son, he asks, "How can this be, since we are old?"

To us it appears a practical question. But GOD SAID IT WOULD HAPPEN, and that should be enough.
When will we learn to trust?
When will we learn to see as God sees?
He is all-powerful. Sure, Jairus' daughter was dead by human standards. She had stopped breathing. She was dead. But to Jesus, a mere thought would raise her to life again. A mere touching of His garment healed a woman whom earthly doctors called incurable.

Open our eyes, Dear LORD! Help us see those around us like You see them. Help us see problems from Your perspective, for the power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us! And when we cannot understand, help us trust You and believe that Your plan, so infinite above our own, is PERFECT.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Can you believe it is 2011?????

The year "2011" sounds a little surreal to me.  Isn't amazing how God is exactly the same as He was in 511 B.C, and 11 A.D. and 311 A.D. and 1111 A.D. and 2011 A.D????
God is so good and faithful! He is our rock, our Life, our very existence is dependant on Him!
Cling to Him this year and commit your way to Him! Trust in Him and He shall bring it to pass! He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday sun!