Life healed and Whole!

1 Peter 1:3-9 (The Message)

 ^3-5What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you'll have it all—life healed and whole.
 ^6-7I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.
 ^8-9You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don't see him, yet you trust him—with laughter and singing. Because you kept on believing, you'll get what you're looking forward to: total salvation.

"Putting up with every king of aggravation" is an understatement in my life! As my sweet Aunt Donnie used to say "I have more on my plate than I can say grace over"! We all know what time we are living in, even folks that are not believers will tell you there is to much going on and something has to give! Life is getting scary for many and if someone is dealing with health issues, well, you get the picture. When I read this scripture the first thing that jumped out at me was "God is keeping careful watch over us and the future". Why do we worry (certainly not supposed to worry) and fret?  Why is it so hard for us to trust God? Soooo many answers and all lead to God. Because we want to "see", it is hard to walk by faith. But this is how it works, one step at a time, and one day at a time. Totally relying on God to lead us, trusting Him with laughter and singing. Please read the scripture again and claim it for your own when you need to be strengthened and encouraged. I do believe the time we live in will be more difficult. We need to focus ( I am especially talking to myself) on God, not looking to the right or the left. I pray your week will be wonderful beginning with Spiritual Sunday. Be sure and check them out, you will be blessed.

http://bloggerspirit.blogspot.com/

The Thorns!

Mark 15:17 (The Message)

16-20.The soldiers took Jesus into the palace (called Praetorium) and called together the entire brigade. They dressed him up in purple and put a crown plaited from a thornbush on his head. Then they began their mockery: "Bravo, King of the Jews!" They banged on his head with a club, spit on him, and knelt down in mock worship. After they had had their fun, they took off the purple cape and put his own clothes back on him. Then they marched out to nail him to the cross.



As some of you have noticed, I love decorating my home! Whether it is floral design, painting mistreated furniture, walls or just about anything that doesn't move out of my way. Really anything that will make our home welcome and comforting to our wonderful family and friends that visit us. I found this shadow box at a garage sale and decided it needed some loving care. And of course it so touched my heart because of the message in it. I repainted the frame, got the red silk in it then began to work with the cross. I got it positioned then in trying to figure out where to place the thorns (they are real) I stabbed my finger pretty good. My goodness those thorns are sharp! As this was going through my mind, I immediately remembered our Lord and the crown of thorns that was placed harshly on His Head! It just broke my heart all over again! And this was just a few of things that He suffered and endured for you and me. I can only imagine so much of it, even as I read about the treatment and then to take it personally that if I had been the "only" one, He would have taken the same road to the Cross. I don't know about you, but maybe we all need a reminder sometimes of the price paid for our salvation. The paper you see are the words of the Old Rugged Cross and now this precious reminder hangs over the mantle in our family room for all to see. My clock also sits there on purpose so that no matter who sees it, they are confronted with this truth of the Cross. I hope you enjoy the rest of the week! Remember to not look to the left or the right and certainly not behind you, but look to Jesus and keep focused on Him and the Cross that delivers us from eternal destruction gives us hope and promises of Heaven. Bless You sweet friends!
(Be sure and check out Spiritual Sundays (the link is on the sidebar) There are wonderful and inspiring testimonies of Gods Goodness!

Lost and Alone!

Luke 15:3-5 (New International Version)

3.Then Jesus told them this parable: 4."Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5.And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders.

In this parable Jesus tells us about lost sheep, and of course He is talking about us when we are lost. But, I have another story about something else that was lost. Of a morning, I have this routine I go through so first thing Andy (the cockatiel) gets tended to. This morning though, I heard a cat! After investigating sure enough, a little white Persian cat. Well, I didn't think to much more about it and had lots of errands to do, but when I got home she was still here. Now we do not need any more animals, we already have Sammy the cat, Andy the cockatiel, and Maddy a 4 1/2 pound poodle that thinks she is really big, and Bailey (they are both toy poodles) anyway, we do not need another cat. Now you know what happened, she was covered with fleas, so we got that taken care of. I went ahead and gave her worm medicine and cleaned her ears. Now I am going into detail about this to show you something. This is just the condition we are in when we are lost, we are just as hopeless as that poor little cat. After Jesus washes us white as snow and cleans us up, suddenly everything has a purpose and we develop a vision of Heaven. I really identified with this little cat (and yes we are going to keep her), I remembered how lost and undone I was before Jesus took me in and gave me eternal life. Maybe every once in awhile we need to be reminded of where we came from, and where we are going. Heaven Of Course!