Mar

9

Dammed

By Julie B Cosgrove | Leave a Comment


He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.  And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands?  . . .  And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.    Mark 6:1-2, 5-6a

Only one thing can block us from receiving God’s blessing and power in our lives – our own lack of faith.   

If there is any dam that blocks the flow of grace and mercy, we have built it ourselves like busy beavers. It is constructed out of twigs of doubt, held together with the sludge of our anxieties and negative thoughts.  All of the debris in our lives that we try to scoop up ourselves and turn into something useful and purposeful accumulate to plug up the flow between us and our Lord. We stop His love from gushing into our souls, and then wonder why it only trickles through and we are left parched.

In the Doxology we sing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”  Until we realize the truth of that phrase and let it seep into us, that dam remains. We built it up ourselves, but Christ can send it crashing down with the force of His love – if we let Him break through.  The people of his hometown wouldn’t. So His power to influence their lives was thwarted. He only could heal a few of the sick – perhaps individuals who were desperate enough to believe.

Do we give him bits and pieces, like doling out candy to a small child? “Here Jesus- do this for me or heal this hurt. Then, if you do that, I might give you something else.”  Or do we give it all to Him, trusting He will handle it in perfect timing? Do we give him just a bit of the sludge clogging up our lives, or invite Him to knock the dam down and flood our lives with His abundant grace?

Do we dare do that? Could we handle that much God in our lives?

Mar

9

A Song In My Heart

By Jan Ross | Leave a Comment


There is a simple chorus we occasionally sing at church that runs deep in my spirit and has become my personal prayer as I continue to present my life as a living sacrifice unto God.  Perhaps you’re familiar with the words:

Take my heart and form it
Take my mind, transform it
Take my will, conform it
To Yours, to Yours, O Lord!

As these words ring in my heart, I’m reminded of Romans 12:1:  “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

Whenever I’ve read this verse in the past I always applied it to my physical body, to give it to martyrdom if necessary. But, it’s more than that.  It’s saying that my “body” in His eyes is my entire being—my heart, my mind, my will AND my physical body. All of me must be presented to Him as a living sacrifice. Such a sacrifice is holy in His sight. It is the reasonable service of a servant to a Master. It is a small token of gratitude to One Who has given His all for me.

How can I ever hope to hold back anything from Him?  If I love Him, I’ll give Him my all. After all, He deserves my all. He IS my all!

Once again I pray from the depth of my innermost being:

Take my heart and form it,
Take my mind, transform it,
Take my will, conform it,
To Yours, to Yours, O Lord!

Lord, take our hearts and form them into your image; take our minds and transform them to your likeness.  Lord, take our will and conform it to your will, into Your image, into Your likeness, and according to Your will.  Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. Take everything I am and everything I ever hope to be and use it, for Your glory. Amen!

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

© Jan Ross
All Rights Reserved

Mar

8

Everlasting to Everlasting

By Jan Ross | Leave a Comment


Eternity, a time which knows no measure, no beginning and no end. Our God was, and is and will be forevermore, from everlasting to everlasting—eternal. Before the earth was formed, He was! Before the heavens were measured out, His throne was established! Before the stars were set in place, His plans for your life were set in motion!

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” (Psalm 90:2)

Take a few moments today to think of His eternal existence and to contemplate His everlasting presence. To do so will cause you to drop to your knees in honor of His awesome holiness, power, righteousness—His magnificence! There is none like our God; no where can there be found any like Him.

Now take a few moments to honor Him and worship Him with a greater understanding of how awesome He truly is! Glory to the King of Kings, the Eternal and One True God!

Father, your greatness overwhelms me; your eternal existence is truly a mystery to my limited ability to comprehend. Your holiness is unsearchable, and your holiness untouchable.  Thank you for the shed blood of the Lamb who was slain before the foundations of the earth, in the eternity before time. You alone are God. Your throne is established forever. You are the Most High, the Almighty, the Exalted One, and so much more! You are my God and I will love You with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength. There is truly none like You! Be glorified today in my life, in every ounce of my being, amen!

“But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.” (Jeremiah 10:10)

© Jan Ross
All Rights Reserved

Mar

4

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

By Julie B Cosgrove | 1 Comment


 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear . . .  Mark 4:23-24a

Did you hear  me?  How often I said that to my child. Selected deafness. I could whisper, “Wanna go get ice cream?” and he’d hear it two rooms away. But I could stand within arm’s reach and tell him to clean his room or pickup his toys. “Huh?”  As a teenage I’d ask him to mow the lawn before it was to rain on Friday. Patiently I’d wait for the sound of the motor. Nada. The only sound would be thunder on Friday morning. “When did you tell me to do that?”

Did you hear me? Futile to have a conversation  with the hubby over the roar of the TV.  In one ear and out the other. “Why didn’t you tell me  you had a meeting and wouldn’t be home ’til 8pm. I was worried about you.”  “I did. Three nights ago.”   ”When? I didn’t hear you.”  Thank you Lord for email and texting. You don’t have to hear that and you have written proof!

Did you hear me? I poured my heart out to a friend, but her mind was to full of her own problems. It was like talking to a brick wall, or rather bumping into it. I know she didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, but she did. I really needed someone to listen. But then again, maybe so did she.

Did you hear me?  In a meeting I objected to the course of action. I was certain that was not the direction God wanted us to go. But my voice was drowned out by “But we’ve always done it that way”. Besides, I was not an officer, so I had no voice in the matter. It all fell apart and went totally wrong. If only they had listened?

God often wants us to listen, but do we? He wants us to hear Him through the din of human life. But do we hear? Or are we so caught up in our own agendas, in the distractions around us or in set ways of doing things that His voice gets drowned out by the hum of the crowd. Just as it is hard to hear conversations next to you in a room full of people talking, our ears can become too stuffed with other meaningless sounds. 

Perhaps that is why the Bible is so important to read regularly. There it is – His still small voice screaming through the pages. I love. I forgive. I restore. Written proof. May we listen with our heart, and our souls and lean not on our own understanding, but that of the Spirit within us. Can you hear Him?

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. (vs 33)

Mar

3

What Has God Done?

By Julie B Cosgrove | Leave a Comment


Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack. He said to his brothers, “My money has been put back; here it is in the mouth of my sack!” At this their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?”  Genesis 42:26-28

The brothers who has sold their own brother Joseph into slavery and left him in a ditch are now in Egypt begging for food. But, they do not recognize the right hand man of Pharaoh is their long lost brother.  When they are granted grain  and find the money they had paid was also in the sacks, they panicked. “What is this that God has done to us?”

Instead of seeing the generosity of Joseph, they thought they’d been tricked.  They were convinced soldiers would be coming over the next sand dune to arrest them for stealing from the Pharaoh. Is this how God was to punish them finally for the burden of sin they had carried for so many years? Was that Holy zap from the sky aimed at their heads?

 The trouble was, they did not know God as they should have, even though they were raised by a man we now consider a Patriarch of the faith. They did not know Him a a promise keeper, a provider, and Lord of All. The weight of their unconfessed sins had blocked them from knowing His loving Grace and Mercy.  They had spent years waiting to be found out and fearful of when that fateful day would come. So, they convinced themselves God was a revengeful, conniving type of god. Their guilt had formed God not their image.

But unless they repented and turned back to God forgiven and cleansed,  how would they become the founders of the Twelve tribes, thus fulfilling God’s covenant with their grandfather Abraham? They needed a catalyst to come back into relationship with their Heavenly Father. So, what had God done? He had begun the process to turn their hearts around. We can all learn from their story.

 If left unconfessed, sin can eat away at our hearts and embitter our souls. But, nothing is hidden from God. If we do not confess, He will lead us full circle and make us confront our wrong. Why? Because He loves us and doesn’t wish for anything to separate us from Him, even our own guilt. Until we can stand before Him cleansed, how can we look Him in the eye and take the blessings He wants to bestow on us? How can we see the gold mixed in with the grain as a good thing?

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