(((((Love, and God Bless)))))
Posted on 01/01/2021 6:43:29 AM PST by JustAmy
Thank you, Kitty! (((Hugs))) they are much needed and appreciated.
Thank you. They are most welcome and appreciated. I think we’re gonna make it. Just sleeping a lot.
Oh my! Get lots of rest. Herbal tea, like chamomile...Orange juice maybe, for Vitamin C....Feel better tomorrow! Hope to read you are better Monday afternoon when I get home from work.
🌸🌼🌺
Good night Kitty!
🌙⭐️
Bible in a Year:
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
The psalmist pondered where his help came from, maybe because the hilltops around Israel were dotted with altars to pagan gods and often contained robbers. Or it could have been because the psalmist looked up beyond the hills to Mount Zion where the temple stood and remembered that the Maker of heaven and earth was his covenant God (v. 2). Either way, to worship we must look up. We have to lift our eyes higher than our circumstances, higher than our troubles and trials, higher than the empty promises of the false gods of our day. Then we can see the Creator and Redeemer, the One who calls us by name. He’s the One who will “watch over your coming and going” today and forevermore (v. 8).
Reflect & Pray
How can you “look up” today—beyond your circumstances—to see God? What would it look like to call upon Him for the help you really need?
Dear Father, thank You that You’re the Creator and Keeper—the One who made the heavens and the earth and watches over me. Help me to lift my eyes higher to see You and to put my trust in You.
Hello there, hoping you are feeling better today. 🌺🌼🌸
Have a restful and good night
🌙⭐️💫😴
Bible in a Year:
If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
David’s first beating came at the hands of his father on his seventh birthday, after he accidentally broke a window. “He kicked me and punched me,” David said. “Afterward, he apologized. He was an abusive alcoholic, and it’s a cycle I’m doing my best to end now.”
But it took a long time for David to get to this point. Most of his teen years and twenties were spent in jail or on probation, and in and out of addiction treatment centers. When it felt like his dreams were entirely dashed, he found hope in a Christ-centered treatment center through a relationship with Jesus.
“I used to be filled with nothing but despair,” David says. “Now I’m pushing myself in the other direction. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I tell God is that I’m surrendering my will over to Him.”
When we come to God with lives shattered, whether by others’ wrongdoing or by our own, God takes our broken hearts and makes us new: “If anyone is in Christ, . . . the old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christ’s love and life breaks into the cycles of our past, giving us a new future (vv. 14–15). And it doesn’t end there! Throughout our lives, we can find hope and strength in what God has done and continues to do in us—each and every moment.
Reflect & Pray
Where were you headed when you received Jesus as your Savior? How does it help to know that God continues to shape your life to increasingly resemble His?
Dear God, thank You for interrupting the downward trajectory of my life and making me a new creation! Make me ever more like You.
Have a nice GratiTuesday!
Sunny here for the first time in a week. 🌞
Sunny here too!
Luvie 🌸🌼🌻Flowers for you, hope you are feeling better.
All: Good night and rest well
🌜⭐️💫😴
Bible in a Year:
So Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites.
God knows the power of music, and He told Moses to “write down this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it” (Deuteronomy 31:19). God knew that long after Moses was gone, when He had brought Israel into the Promised Land, they would rebel and worship other gods. So He told Moses, “This song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten by their descendants” (v. 21).
Songs are nearly impossible to forget, so it’s wise to be selective about what we sing. Some songs are just for fun, and that’s fine, but we benefit from songs that boast in Jesus and encourage our faith. One of the ways we “[make] the most of every opportunity” is when we speak “to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit.” So “sing and make music from your heart to the Lord” (see Ephesians 5:15–19).
Songs can be an indicator of the direction of our heart. Do the words make much of Jesus? Do we sing them wholeheartedly? What we sing will influence what we believe, so choose wisely and sing loudly.
Reflect & Pray
What should you look for in a worship song? Is there a favorite song you can sing more often? Why?
Father, this song is my prayer to You. (Sing your favorite.)
Bible in a Year:
You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes.
The winter night was cold when someone threw a large stone through a Jewish child’s bedroom window. A star of David had been displayed in the window, along with a menorah to celebrate Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. In the child’s town of Billings, Montana, thousands of people—many of them believers in Jesus—responded to the hateful act with compassion. Choosing to identify with the hurt and fear of their Jewish neighbors, they pasted pictures of menorahs in their own windows.
As believers in Jesus, we too receive great compassion. Our Savior humbled Himself to live among us (John 1:14), identifying with us. On our behalf, He, “being in very nature God . . . made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:6–7). Then, feeling as we feel and weeping as we weep, He died on a cross, sacrificing His life to save ours.
Nothing we struggle with is beyond our Savior’s concern. If someone “throws rocks” at our lives, He comforts us. If life brings disappointments, He walks with us through despair. “Though the Lord is exalted, he looks kindly on the lowly; though lofty, he sees them from afar” (Psalm 138:6). In our troubles, He preserves us, stretching out His hand against both “the anger of [our] foes” (v. 7) and our own deepest fears. Thank You, God, for Your compassionate love.
Reflect & Pray
In what areas of your life do you need God’s compassion? How can you show His care and love to others?
O God, I thank You for understanding my struggles and comforting me with loving care. Remind me always to share Your compassion with others.
Learn to love like Jesus at DiscoverySeries.org/Q0208.
Have a restful good night
🌙⭐️💫
It is snowing here, hopefully we won’t get much. Have to drive to work in the morning.
Have a good day on Friday.
Hang in there everyone.
I know you’re all praying for America and our great President.
🙏
Thank you.
Your welcome!
Bible in a Year:
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”
“Don’t get on the expressway!” That text came from my daughter one day as I was leaving work. The highway home had become a virtual parking lot. I began trying alternate routes, but after experiencing gridlock on other roads, I gave up. The trip home would have to wait till later in the day, so I drove in the opposite direction to an athletic event my granddaughter was involved in.
Discovering that no roads would lead me home made me think about people who say that all roads lead to an eternal relationship with God. Some believe the road of kindness and good behavior will get you there. Others choose the road of doing religious things.
Relying on those roads, however, leads to a dead end. There’s only one road to take to God’s eternal presence. Jesus clarified this when He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He was revealing that He was going to die to open the way for us to enter His Father’s house—to His presence and the real life He provides for today and eternity.
Skip the blocked highways that don’t lead to God’s presence. Instead, trust Jesus as Savior, for “whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (3:36). And for those who already believe in Him, rest in the way He’s provided. Reflect & Pray
Why is it vital to know that only Jesus can save us? Why are we prone to try to add to what it takes to be welcomed into His family?
Dear God, I want to trust You for eternity. Thank You for the salvation found in Jesus alone.
Read about the difference between relationship with Jesus and religion at DiscoverySeries.org/Q0215.
Happy Friday, everyone.
As far as I know, I’m not banned from any site. Just lots of heart-ache getting a new computer up and running.
Today, I’m boycotting FaceBook.
Hopefully, I will have all of my files back tomorrow.
Take care of yourselves.
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