Jennifer A

In the beginning of today’s passage, we see that David waited patiently for the Lord, the Lord heard his cry for help, lifted him from his pit of despair, and set him steadfast to walk in praises of joy unto the Lord. Jesus does the same for you and me. He calls us to have full trust in His plan for our life. No matter where we find ourselves, we need to fully lean on Jesus, especially during hellish times, because it is within those moments where He wants to truly grow and refine us.

David understands that God does not take delight in sacrifices or offerings, rather He wants us to be in oneness with Him, a connection through our heart and a relationship. You and I no longer live under the old system of sacrifices and offerings to atone for our sins, as Jesus was the only sinless sacrifice Who qualified to bear the weight of our sins on the cross as a substitute for the old sacrificial system. Even though King David lived many generations before Jesus even walked the earth, David’s heart for the Lord, understood that He did not require burnt offerings or sin offerings. God’s instructions were written on David’s heart, and those instructions of the “Good News” were not meant to be kept hidden in his heart but were meant to be shared. King David a man “after God’s own heart”, had a spiritual awareness of Jesus without human knowledge of him. Jesus is found within every part of the Bible, and that is because Jesus existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through Him, the Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought Light to everyone. No darkness can ever extinguish the Light of Christ. (John 1:1-5) Friends, as containers of the Light of Christ, and by His unfailing love for us, we must ask the Holy Spirit to keep moving us along the path that God has for us so that as our faith keeps growing, we keep sharing the Good News of Christ all of the time!

Psalm 40:1-8 (NLT)
For the choir director: A psalm of David.

1 I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.

2 He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.

3 He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord.

4 Oh, the joys of those who trust the Lord,
who have no confidence in the proud
or in those who worship idols.

5 O Lord my God, you have performed many wonders for us.
Your plans for us are too numerous to list.
You have no equal.
If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds,
I would never come to the end of them.

6 You take no delight in sacrifices or offerings.
Now that you have made me listen, I finally understand—
you don’t require burnt offerings or sin offerings.

7 Then I said, “Look, I have come.
As is written about me in the Scriptures:

8 I take joy in doing your will, my God,
for your instructions are written on my heart.”

Prayer: Jesus, thank You for caring endlessly for me. Help to cleanse me, Lord, each day so that Your Word can instruct my heart and bring me closer to You. Open doors so that I can share Your unfailing love with at least one person each day. Keep me growing in Your Truth, growing my faith, and bringing me closer and closer in our relationship to You. I ask all of this in Your Name, Jesus. Amen.

In Psalm 29, David does an amazing job of connecting the strength and power of a storm to the voice of God. This is a song of praise to the Lord for His splendor and holiness.

The first two verses begin with David addressing heaven and calling for all heavenly beings to Honor the LORD for the glory of His Name, a Name that is repeated eighteen times in these eleven verses. Friends, throughout scripture we are called to glorify God in all that we do, not just in worship and in service, but in every aspect of who we are and what God calls us to do.

In verses three through nine David uses imagery of a thunderstorm to reveal to us the glory and power of the God we serve. The fact that His voice is loud like thunder shouldn’t scare those who know His voice and are living a life of faithful obedience to His call. “For the LORD of Heaven’s Armies has a day of reckoning. He will punish the proud and mighty and bring down everything that is exalted. He will cut down the tall cedars of Lebanon and all the might oaks of Bashan.” (Isaiah 2:12-13) We serve a God Who is sovereign and there is no other God except Him, so all who falsely stand in His place over His Creation will eventually be shattered.

In verses ten and eleven David reveals how God has made his glory known to us, not through His loud thunderous voice in judgment, but rather through the Prince of Peace Who by baptismal water and Spirit we are given the opportunity to be saved. Friends, one day we will each stand to be judged. I envision this moment will be between just me and Jesus, and I won’t be able to refer to anyone who He has blessed my physical life with along the way. As it is just us, and I stand in judgement of my walking life, my prayer is that my Master (Creator, Jesus), will say: “Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!” (Matthew 25:23).

Psalm 29

A psalm of David.

1 Honor the Lord, you heavenly beings;
honor the Lord for his glory and strength.
2 Honor the Lord for the glory of his name.
Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.

3 The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea.
The God of glory thunders.
The Lord thunders over the mighty sea.
4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is majestic.
5 The voice of the Lord splits the mighty cedars;
the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes Lebanon’s mountains skip like a calf;
he makes Mount Hermon leap like a young wild ox.
7 The voice of the Lord strikes
with bolts of lightning.
8 The voice of the Lord makes the barren wilderness quake;
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks
and strips the forests bare.
In his Temple everyone shouts, “Glory!”

10 The Lord rules over the floodwaters.
The Lord reigns as king forever.
11 The Lord gives his people strength.
The Lord blesses them with peace.

Prayer: Jesus, please forgive me for my sins. I need the Holy Spirit to help guide me every day, so I am becoming more and more obedient to Your Word in my daily life. I want to be walking with You and walking out the plan You have prepared for me. I know this will prepare me for when You call me Home and when I stand before You in judgement. On that day, I long to hear You say, “well done”. I ask all of this in Your Name, Jesus. Amen.

On this Memorial Day, we thank Jesus for the many men and women who have paid the ultimate price for defending our county with the loss of their lives; and we ask for their families and friends to be supernaturally covered and filled by the Holy Spirit.

Today’s passage about “The Future Glory” fits well with it being Memorial Day. We have all asked the question “why” about trials, sorrow, pain, and death at some point in our lives. In Romans 8, Paul helps us to understand that all of God’s creation, including you and me, have been subjected to God’s curse on sin from the very beginning when Adan and Eve sinned in the garden (Gen 3). Although there is no way that we can deliver ourselves from sins, Jesus paid the ultimate price for our sins to be forgiven and the Holy Spirit is our helper in our times of weakness until Jesus returns. When Jesus returns “No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and His servants will worship Him. And they will see His face, and His Name will be written on their foreheads.” (Rev 22:3-4)

As you and I look forward to Jesus’ return, we know that there will be suffering, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” (v. 28) Please take note, that this Truth is “for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them” which means this is for believers, and as believers we must allow the Holy Spirit to guide us through our times of suffering and do it with God’s grace which covers us. We have to stay fully connected to Jesus to experience His future glory, we must stand firm with Him when times and circumstances get tough, because the enemy is waiting for a time of weakness. Remember what Peter says in 1 Peter 2:11: “Dear friends, I warn you as ‘temporary residents and foreigners’ to keep away from worldly desires that way war against your very souls.” Our earthly lives are but a vapor, here today and can vanish tomorrow (James 4:14) so we must stay away from those things of this world that pull us away from Jesus and stand with Him and ready through faith and hopeful for His return and for our Homecoming.

Romans 8:18-30 NLT

The Future Glory
18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27 And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.

Prayer: Jesus, thank You for the brave men and women who have, are, and will stand to protect our county. Please bless the families and friends who have lost someone in service. May they see Your love and comfort even within their great loss. Help all of us to see how You are moving for our good even in tough times. Keep us rooted in You, growing in our relationship by Your Word, and protect our souls from the enemy of this world. We want to be prepared for Your return. We ask all of this in Your Name, Jesus. Amen.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in The Cost of Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die”. For a Christian, this quote should speak to the core of a person’s salvation and redemption. How when a person allows Jesus into their heart, and when they truly turn to Him through salvation, that person’s old life of habits and of sinful living need to die, because now that person is redeemed and should be choosing to live in the new life that Christ offers. Is living the new life in Christ easy? No, it takes obedience and focus on wanting to grow in a thriving relationship with Christ.

Prior to today’s passage, Peter ended chapter 3 with Suffering for Doing Good, we must “Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong!” (3:17) Peter goes on in chapter 4 to help us see how we are now to be Living for God. He wants us to realize that Jesus changed and continuously is changing us from the inside out. The old person who we once were is no longer alive, because Jesus saved us from that wasted dead life that we once entertained.

Friends, we cannot go back to our dead living, we must stay the course with Jesus and live in the new life that only He can offer and we must focus on growing ever so close to Him each day.

1 Peter 4:1-6 (NLT)

Living for God

1 So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin. 2 You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. 3 You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy—their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.

4 Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you. 5 But remember that they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead. 6 That is why the Good News was preached to those who are now dead—so although they were destined to die like all people, they now live forever with God in the Spirit.

Prayer: Jesus, thank You for what You endured so that I might be forgiven and truly live. Help me, Lord, to keep living for You. Please use me to bring more people into Your Kingdom. I ask all of this in Your Holy Name, Jesus. Amen.

Today we will be looking at the last six verses of Acts 27. As a reminder, Paul is a prisoner who is being taken, by boat, to Rome where he will face trial before Caesar. Up to this point, 276 people had been sailing for days with great difficulty and they had lost a lot of time due to bad weather. Paul spoke up to the ship’s officers, “’Men,’ he said, ‘I believe there is trouble ahead if we go on – shipwreck, loss of cargo, and danger to our lives as well.’” (v.10) Since there were prisoners on board, like Paul, the officer in charge of the prisoners, listened to the ship’s captain and to the owner and not to Paul. They ended up in a great storm at sea with gale-force winds that required cargo and gear to be thrown overboard, like Paul had predicted. Paul called the crew together and told them that they should have listened to him, Paul went on to say: “But take courage! None of you will lose your lives, even though the ship will go down. For last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me, and he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul, for you will surely stand trial before Caesar! What’s more, God in his goodness has granted safety to everyone sailing with you.’ So take courage! For I believe God. It will be just as he said. But we will be shipwrecked on an island.” (v.22-25) Paul goes on to guide the commanding officer and the soldiers, and he even breaks bread, much like Jesus did with the disciples, giving great thanks to God before everyone on the ship and in the midst of the storm. That brings us to today’s passage, where we see what takes place next, and how God remains true to His Word, and everyone escaped safely to shore.

When you are in the midst of one of life’s great storms, do you rest peacefully in God’s loving care, listening for His guidance, and allow Him to bring you through the storm? Or do you panic and try to do things your own way?

Here’s another question, in the midst of your most recent storm, did you find yourself giving thanks to God and bringing others to Him, like Paul did when he broke bread? Or did you isolate yourself and not share about the goodness of the God that you serve?

Many times, within our storms we question “why God” because we want Him to stop the storm. Right? Think about it, God could have stopped Paul from being arrested, he could have stopped the storm, he could have stopped the shipwreck, and the list goes on and on. But, when we patiently wait until the end of the chapter, we see that God spares everyone’s life. Think about this, if you could sit and talk to all 276 people who were on that ship, how many would share a testimony from that storm that forever changed their lives and brought them to a relationship with “Paul’s God” and saved their lives for all Eternity!

Acts 27:39-44 (NLT)

39 When morning dawned, they didn’t recognize the coastline, but they saw a bay with a beach and wondered if they could get to shore by running the ship aground. 40 So they cut off the anchors and left them in the sea. Then they lowered the rudders, raised the foresail, and headed toward shore. 41 But they hit a shoal and ran the ship aground too soon. The bow of the ship stuck fast, while the stern was repeatedly smashed by the force of the waves and began to break apart.
42 The soldiers wanted to kill the prisoners to make sure they didn’t swim ashore and escape. 43 But the commanding officer wanted to spare Paul, so he didn’t let them carry out their plan. Then he ordered all who could swim to jump overboard first and make for land. 44 The others held on to planks or debris from the broken ship. So everyone escaped safely to shore.

Prayer: Jesus, please help me to be more like Paul when I am in the midst of life’s storms. You did not leave Paul during these many storms, and I trust that You will not leave me. Help me to see You within each storm, to praise You for the lessons that need to be learned, and to glorify and share Your Holy Name no matter what I am walking through in this life, because I am living for Eternity with You now, Jesus. I ask all of this in Your Holy Name, Jesus. Amen.

If you were not able to attend yesterday’s time of worship, Pastor Mary used a great visual that applies perfectly to today’s devotion (the image below is an example). First, she held up a red paper heart that had “Me” written on both sides. She explained that when we focus on ourselves and our problems, we forget to focus on God; thus, we allow the enemy in to work on our hearts. As she explained this, she tore the heart into pieces, because let’s face it, the enemy seeks to break our hearts and to leave us broken. Then, Pastor Mary held up another heart that had “Me” written on one side and “God” on the other side. She explained that when we focus on God to take care of us and our problems, He holds our hearts in wholeness and He works to heal and restore them.

God does not get angry with us when we cry out to Him, or when we are honest with Him because He wants us to seek Him at all times. We must remember that this natural world is fleeting, but what Jesus has for us in the supernatural is eternal and available to us now. We need to get to the point where we are instantaneously sharing the good, bad, and ugly with Jesus. Our focus needs to be on God first and foremost all of the time and in all circumstances. We need to be listening for God’s voice, following Him, and obeying His Word. As His people, if we want to be prepared for His return, we need to be in constant communion with Him now, we cannot wait until it’s too late.

Psalm 102:1-17 (NLT)

A prayer of one overwhelmed with trouble, pouring out problems before the Lord.

1 Lord, hear my prayer!
Listen to my plea!
2 Don’t turn away from me
in my time of distress.
Bend down to listen,
and answer me quickly when I call to you.
3 For my days disappear like smoke,
and my bones burn like red-hot coals.
4 My heart is sick, withered like grass,
and I have lost my appetite.
5 Because of my groaning,
I am reduced to skin and bones.
6 I am like an owl in the desert,
like a little owl in a far-off wilderness.
7 I lie awake,
lonely as a solitary bird on the roof.
8 My enemies taunt me day after day.
They mock and curse me.
9 I eat ashes for food.
My tears run down into my drink
10 because of your anger and wrath.
For you have picked me up and thrown me out.
11 My life passes as swiftly as the evening shadows.
I am withering away like grass.

12 But you, O Lord, will sit on your throne forever.
Your fame will endure to every generation.
13 You will arise and have mercy on Jerusalem —
and now is the time to pity her,
now is the time you promised to help.
14 For your people love every stone in her walls
and cherish even the dust in her streets.
15 Then the nations will tremble before the Lord.
The kings of the earth will tremble before his glory.
16 For the Lord will rebuild Jerusalem.
He will appear in his glory.
17 He will listen to the prayers of the destitute.
He will not reject their pleas.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for never leaving my side. Holy Spirit, help to open my spiritual ears to hear from the Father and guide me with heavenly wisdom so I may keep on the narrow path that the Father has for me. I do not want to remain in places of despair, rather I want the joy of the Lord to rise up within me. I ask all of this in Your Holy Name, Jesus. Amen.

If you joined us yesterday for worship, you may recall that we spent time in Psalm 23 and John 10. We were reminded by David, in Psalm 23, that the Lord is our shepherd and that His goodness and unfailing love will never stop pursing us because it is gravely important to God that we ultimately reside in His House for all eternity.

Then Jesus, in John 10, uses a parable about how He is the Good Shepherd, and we are His sheep. At the end of John 9, Jesus was debating with those who objected to Him giving sight to a man who was born blind. Jesus is still speaking to those criticizers, but they tell Jesus that they do not understand what He is saying. “So, He explained it to them: ‘I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep.’ Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through Me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” (John 10:7, 9-10)

Today’s Psalm is “A Psalm of Thanksgiving”, and it invites all of the earth to shout with joy to the Lord. Remember, Pastor Mary helped us yesterday to understand that the enemy will do anything to steal our joy. But, handing over our joy is a chose we have, because Jesus lives within us, and He is our joy. So, even though the enemy is always around, he has no power to take our joy, unless we give it to him, because Jesus, Who is divine and holy power, resides in you and me.

Psalm 100 is meant to encourage us to acknowledge God and His vast power that created us. It is directly connected to Psalm 23 and John 10, because we are God’s people, the sheep of the Good Shepherd’s pasture. As His sheep, you and I must enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with joyous praise because His love will never fail and will continue for all eternity.

Psalm 100 (NLT)

A psalm of thanksgiving.

1 Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!

2 Worship the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing with joy.

3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his.
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.

Prayer: Jesus, thank You for being our Good Shepherd. Help us to hold firmly onto our joy. We do not want to hand anything that is of You over to the enemy. Thank You for being our gate, the One Who welcomes us into our eternal Home. We ask all of this in Your Holy Name, Jesus. Amen.

When we look at the Old Testament writings from the prophet Isaiah, we see a total of 66 chapters. In the first 39 chapters, Isaiah warns the people of Israel (so it’s a warning from all of God’s people) of forthcoming judgement and their need for repentance of their sins and to turn back to God and to His Word of Truth. In chapter 40 we see a shift as Isaiah is offering comfort for God’s people, but what he shares continues to be rooted in God’s Word of Truth. Isaiah 40:7-8, are quoted in today’s New Testament passage from Peter.

Within these verses, Isaiah wants God’s people (us) to understand their (our) frailty. So, he compares people to grass that withers and flowers that fade. Then in stark contrast Isaiah reminds us that the Word of God remains forever. During yesterday’s sermon, Pastor Mary said that “we are temporary residents of earth”. She is speaking the same Truth that Isaiah shares in the Old Testament and that Peter shares in the New Testament.

When you and I chose to give our life to Jesus, we began drinking from His cup of salvation. In that moment we were reborn, our old life of sinful dead living was laid down at the cross, and we picked up our cross and began to walk out our born-again life. This new life lasts forever, because it is eternal with Jesus; but our physical life and all of life on this earth is fading and it will all come to an end. But, until the end comes, you and I have a holy expectation from God to spread the Good News message about Jesus. Just as each of us wants to be drinking from the cup of salvation, we also want as many people as possible to meet Jesus and to drink from that same cup. We do not want to see anyone parish from being trapped in the cup of God’s wrath.

1 Peter 1:23-25 (NLT)

23 For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God. 24 As the Scriptures say,

“People are like grass;
their beauty is like a flower in the field.
The grass withers and the flower fades.
25 But the word of the Lord remains forever.”

And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.

Prayer: Jesus, thank You for the most precious gift, my salvation. I know that I had to choose it, but I also know that You have been cheering me on from the moment I took my first breath, and you will keep cheering until I take my last breath and meet you face-to-face. Wow, that will be the greatest moment! As the earth fades and as I grow older, I remain hopeful even when I am in the valley because I carry You, Jesus, within me and I know that the best is yet to come with You in eternity. Please help me to keep drinking from Your cup of salvation as I stand firmly rooted in You and against the enemy. I lift all of this to You, Jesus. Amen.

As a reminder, Psalms 113 – 118 are known as the “Hallel”, which means praise, and these Psalms were often sang in connection with Jewish holidays or celebrations such as Passover.

Today, we are spending time in Psalm 114 and celebrating the deep sense of ultimate security that God gave, and continues to give, to His people. During the Exodus, we see God’s powerful commitment to save His covenant people, Israel, from slavery by the Egyptian empire. It was such a spectacular event of redemption. You and I must always remember that this ultimate redemption was for God’s people then and is for God’s people now. We are God’s holy people, and we will always clash with the world’s ungodly systems, just like our Israelite brothers and sisters did when they were in Egypt. But we must never forget that we are a part of God’s Kingdom, and God is always seeking to rescue and to protect His people as we are God’s sanctuary, His temple.

“Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

The Psalmist reminds us of God’s sovereign power with the parting of the waters at the Red Sea and at the Jordan River. God made a way for His people, just like He makes a way for you and me. We know that the Israelites experienced miracle after miracle and they still struggled with their faith. That is why we must fear and tremble at the sheer holy presence of the Lord. I am not saying that we must be afraid of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit; I am actually saying the complete opposite. We must grow so close to each of them, as One, that we cannot think, say, or act without the holy guidance of the Holy Trinity within our lives. Only then are we living in true fear of the Lord, or a place reverence of the Lord.

God wants to move the mountain within my life and within your life…and if you do not have a mountain standing in the way right now, then praise Jesus; because He is Who you will call on when you are faced with one that seems far too big to climb.

Psalm 114 (NLT)

1 When the Israelites escaped from Egypt—
when the family of Jacob left that foreign land—

2 the land of Judah became God’s sanctuary,
and Israel became his kingdom.

3 The Red Sea saw them coming and hurried out of their way!
The water of the Jordan River turned away.

4 The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like lambs!

5 What’s wrong, Red Sea, that made you hurry out of their way?
What happened, Jordan River, that you turned away?

6 Why, mountains, did you skip like rams?
Why, hills, like lambs?

7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob.

8 He turned the rock into a pool of water;
yes, a spring of water flowed from solid rock.

Prayer: Father, thank You for Jesus, Who redeemed me and rescued me from sin. Thank You for the Holy Spirit, Who seeks to guide my second-by-second life. I need Your protection, at all times. This world seeks to mess with my soul, and I know I need You to have full control over my soul. I want my mind to be fixated on You, Lord. I want my will to be firmly rooted in You, Lord. Finally, I want my emotions to be guided by You, Lord. I want my faith to keep growing because I know in order to grow closer with You that is what needs to happen. I ask all of this in Your Holy Name, Jesus. Amen.

Yesterday ended the Lenten season, but that doesn’t mean that we stop living for Christ simply because one of the annual “holidays” in which we celebrate Him is over. Actually, as Christians, we need to be celebrating Who Jesus is and what He has done, is doing, and will do for us ALL OF THE TIME!

In today’s passage the Apostle Paul tells us that we are to put to death our earthly selves because we no longer live for ourselves since claiming our salvation in Christ; we now live as one with Christ. Paul goes on to caution us against living for our earthly desires because God’s anger will come upon us. When we live for our earthly desires, no matter what it is that seems to satisfy us, we must remember that everything and everyone is temporal, the only One Who is eternal is Jesus. So, we need to focus on making Him the only idol that we worship and stop placing ourselves in an idol position by worshipping our desires because that is living for ourselves and not living for Jesus.

You and I must remember that we are new creations in Christ, and so as we celebrate Him daily (and not just during the Christian holidays) new desires that are holy and in alignment with His Word start to grow and navigate our lives. We begin to despise the sin that we once loved, and those outside of our Christian Family may start to think that we are weird, and that God has too many rules. The truth is that you and I simply choose to love Jesus more than we once loved our sin, and we shouldn’t care how weird or unaccepting that is to anyone.

Verse 11 is my favorite…we are all free in Christ and He is in ALL of us. There is nothing that makes any one of us stand ahead of the other in our oneness with Jesus because there is no distinction! Friends, that means we must treat each other the same, just as we would treat Jesus.

Colossians 3:5-11 (GNT)
The Old Life and the New

5 You must put to death, then, the earthly desires at work in you, such as sexual immorality, indecency, lust, evil passions, and greed (for greed is a form of idolatry). 6 Because of such things God’s anger will come upon those who do not obey him. 7 At one time you yourselves used to live according to such desires, when your life was dominated by them.

8 But now you must get rid of all these things: anger, passion, and hateful feelings. No insults or obscene talk must ever come from your lips. 9 Do not lie to one another, for you have put off the old self with its habits 10 and have put on the new self. This is the new being which God, its Creator, is constantly renewing in his own image, in order to bring you to a full knowledge of himself. 11 As a result, there is no longer any distinction between Gentiles and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarians, savages, slaves, and free, but Christ is all, Christ is in all.

Prayer: Jesus, thank You for so many beautiful reminders this past Lenten season. Help me to focus more and more on growing in our daily relationship together. I want my desires to be what You want for me because I know that Your plan and purpose for my life is perfect. I ask all of this in Your Name, Jesus. Amen.