Behold

Short and sweet thought for the week…

There is an old adage that says we become what we behold. There may be some truth there. Our focus greatly influences life choices and paths.

Therefore, let us behold the glory of God, the essence of who He is, and the wonder of what He does—so that we may become more like Him every day!

Let the transformation begin!

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are
being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” ~2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV)

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Omnipotent

Short and sweet thought for the week…

Earth orbits. Days dawn. The sun shines. Flowers bloom. Fish swim. Rivers flow. Breezes blow. Birds fly. Night falls. Stars twinkle. The moon glows. We never have to worry about these things taking place because God has them all under control. He is omnipotent.

Author Francis Chan once marveled, “Isn’t it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?”

So never look at the size of your problems; look at the unlimited power of your God!

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…
to Him be glory…to all generations, forever and ever. Amen! ~Ephesians 2:20-21

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The Next Thing

Short and sweet thought for the week…

Life can be overwhelming. We have too many problems to deal with, too many burdens to bear, too many obstacles to overcome, too many people depending on us, and too many mundane tasks to do. It can all get to be too much to handle. During these times, it helps to take the advice of missionary Elizabeth Elliot who often quoted this excerpt from an old English poem…

“Fear not tomorrows, child of the King,
Trust them with Jesus, do the next thing.”

Do the next thing! Of course, this will be different for each person. It might be closing your eyes to rest. It might mean saying a little prayer while taking a shower, gassing up the car, cooking dinner, taking the kids to school, fixing a leaky faucet, or doing a load of laundry. Just keep on keeping on! Put your life in God’s hands and do the next thing! 

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season
we will reap, if we do not give up.” ~Galatians 6:9 (ESV)

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Storms of Life

Short and sweet thought for the week…

I must admit I get a little discouraged thinking about the storms of life. It seems like every time I turn around a friend or family member is going through another disheartening disaster. Cancer has threatened a loved one’s life. Fire has demolished a friend’s house. An unexpected death has left a family in turmoil. There are no words of comfort to console a weary soul. Prayer is our lifeline to help those in need.

Here is a thought I cling to when storms of life rage: Sometimes God calms the storm but when He doesn’t, God can calm the child. Only God can bring comfort out of chaos.

“The Lord will give strength to His people. The Lord will
bless His people with peace.” ~Psalms 29:11

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New Year/New Theme

Short and Sweet Thought for the Week…

It’s the New Year and already my life is in turmoil. My emails got hacked so I had to take my computer in for a diagnostic. But then, that’s a life lesson, isn’t it? Life is just one inconvenience after another. Some things never change whether it’s a new year or an old one. That’s not always such a bad thing. For example, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We can be thankful for that!

However, I will be trying to make a few changes for 2025. My goal is to downsize a bit and not do as much that isn’t necessary. Therefore, my 2025 blog theme will be modified. I’ve decided to make each post a short and sweet thought for the week. These might be my thoughts, or quotes, or sayings, or refrigerator magnet wisdom…with a few pithy comments to hopefully bring you a smile or something to ponder.

Let’s start with one of my favorites: Today is the first day of the rest of your life, so don’t screw it up. But if you do, don’t give up because God never gives up on you.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning…” ~Lamentations 3:22-23

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A New Year

From God comes…

From God comes the New Year! Do we realize what a gift that is?

A New Year gives us more time to serve God and reflect His love to all we meet! We have another year to prioritize the most important aspects of life. We have more time to forget the failures of the past and look forward to the possibilities of the future.

Years are composed of days and each day is a gift from God. Psalms tells us, “This is the day that the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24).” Our days are gifts from God, but we choose how to use them.

To motivate good choices, people make New Year’s resolutions in hope of improving themselves. The most popular resolutions are to lose weight, exercise more, eat healthy, make more money, enjoy life more, and quit smoking. These are all admirable causes, but they aren’t really the most important aspects of our lives. The most important aspects of lives focus on God and others, not ourselves.     

There are many resolution choices we could make where others, including God, reap the benefit. Kindness is a choice. Rejoicing is a choice. Patience is a choice. Focusing on the positive is a choice. Being polite is a choice. Gratitude is a choice. Smiling is a choice. Prayer is a choice. Refusing to argue is a choice. Encouraging others is a choice. Praising God is a choice. These are some resolutions worth pursuing, and I’m sure we could all come up with many, many more.

The anomaly is that when we focus on God and others, we reap the benefit as well. That’s the way good and perfect gifts from God work. They benefit everyone!

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…” ~

James 1:17 (NLT)

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Indescribable Gift

From God comes…

From God comes an indescribable gift.

During the Christmas season, our minds naturally turn to giving and receiving gifts. Some times we want to get people a one-of-a-kind gift or something that is custom-made just for them. Who wouldn’t want to receive something like that? Well, guess what? You already have!

It’s a good and perfect gift straight from God’s heart to you (James 1:17). His name is Jesus. The birth of Christ brings us more than glad tidings, for Christ is a one-of-a-kind, custom-made gift from God to all mankind. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift (2 Corinthians 9:15)!”

Jesus is the gift that exceeds all others! He is our Redeemer (Psalm 130:7-8). He is the Lord of Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:4-5). He is full of wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, and knowledge (Isaiah 11:2-5). He is the Prince of Peace (Isiah 9:6-7). He is our Savior (John 3:16).

God showed us His love by sending us His Son, Jesus. God’s love for us was manifested by sending “His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him (1 John 4:9).” Jesus came to be an atonement for our sins (1 John 4:10). He sacrificed His life so we might be saved and redeemed (Ephesians 1:7).

How do you describe what is indescribable? Words cannot do justice to the gift of Jesus for words are very limiting. Our human ability to comprehend the width, length, depth, and height of His love for us is limited, whereas His love for us is limitless (Ephesians 3:18). To receive the gift of Jesus in our lives, we must learn to embrace and accept what we may not fully understand.

So don’t ever think you aren’t getting anything for Christmas. You already got the most wonderful gift of all. You might say it is indescribable. So, rejoice! The birth of Christ gives us many, many reasons to be merry!

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

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Peace

From God comes…

From God comes peace.

When Jesus was born the angels declared, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace… (Luke 2:14)” But where is that peace? We certainly don’t see it around us. Countries are filled with conflict and war. People are filled with hate and anger. It can be discouraging and disheartening, especially at Christmastime when we so desire peace and love to be the norm. Unfortunately, it has been that way throughout history.

The famous America poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote a beloved poem on Christmas Day in 1863 during the Civil War. Death and devastation had devoured loved ones. Longfellow was in the midst of nursing his oldest son Charles back to health after a Confederate bullet almost paralyzed him while he listened to church bells ringing out good tidings on Christmas morning.

Henry struggled to reconcile his current situation and depressing plight of the war-torn land with the message the angels gave to the shepherds about peace on earth when Jesus was born. The result was the famous poem I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. It starts with…

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play.
And wild and sweet, the words repeat
Of peace on earth and good-will to men!

Soon the verses segue into a darker mood because of the state of events surrounding him.

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

After another verse or two, he writes…

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

As often happens when we pray, God grants a little clarity. He ends with…

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

The message of Christmas is not that Jesus caused peace to rain down like showers of blessings to all mankind. The message of Christmas is that Jesus is our peace. By worldly standards, He may have appeared to come to earth unnoticed, as an insignificant baby born in obscurity. However, by God’s criterion, the angels proclaimed His glory and He was declared the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

Jesus came to be our peace (Ephesians 2:14). When we accept Jesus as our Savior, this inner peace is ours. With it, we can withstand difficult times. Plus, in the end, wrong will fail and right will prevail. Jesus told us that on earth we will have trials and sorrows, but “take heart, because I have overcome the world (John 16:33).”

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

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Grace

From God comes…

From God comes grace. Grace from a spiritual perspective means undeserved, unmerited favor. Because of this favor, God bestows many blessings on us.

We may say to ourselves that we aren’t so bad. If we do good things, why shouldn’t we receive good gifts from God? However, blessings resulting from God’s grace cannot be earned. They are freely given to those who have accepted Jesus as their personal Savor (Ephesians 2:8-9). God’s grace is extended to us through Jesus Christ. We have all sinned and fallen short, but by God’s grace our sins are forgiven because of Jesus’s sacrifice (Ephesians 2:4-5).

Through Moses we received the law, but it is through Christ we receive truth and grace (John 1:17). This grace is God’s divine love flowing to us. Technically, God owes us nothing. Yet, when we surrender our lives to Him, we realize that we are supported and loved unconditionally.  

God’s grace is powerful. It provides sufficiency in all of our circumstances (2 Corinthians 9:8). Life can be filled with trouble and hardships. We all struggle to cope with problems. To spiritually survive, we must remember that our sufficiency comes through God’s grace (2 Corinthians 3:5).

Paul learned this when he asked God to remove a “thorn in the flesh” that bothered him (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). God does not always immediately deliver us from a trial. He didn’t in Paul’s situation. However, He did tell Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you… (2 Corinthians 12:9).”

Christians are not immune from troubles and hardships. They go through divorce, cancer, death of loved ones, career setbacks, financial losses, wars, imprisonment, floods, and tornadoes just like everyone else. God’s grace assures us we never have to face these trials alone. We have extra help. Only God knows how to turn weakness into strength, despair into hope, or light into darkness. Only God can give peace to a weary heart or heal a wounded soul. Trials may abound, but God’s grace can abound much more (Romans 5:20).

When we feel bombarded with one dire circumstance after another, we can feel numb. We feel like we are immersed in quicksand pulling us down. I’ve felt that way. Sometimes the only prayer I’ve been able to continually utter is, “Your grace is sufficient for me.” Even if I don’t feel it, I know it’s true. Sometimes I just repeat, “Jesus, you are enough,” over and over again—through the heartache and tears.

From God comes grace and God’s grace is a powerful thing! God’s grace provides strength to face each new day. God’s grace allows us to know that what happens on earth is temporary. God’s grace grants the assurance of hope for the future.

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

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A True Heart

From God comes…

From God comes a true heart.

God is very big on heart issues. That’s why the Bible is full of references about our hearts. God doesn’t want us to just serve Him, but to serve Him from our hearts. 2 Chronicles 25:2 (NRSV) tells us about King Amaziah who “…did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not with a true heart.” Another word for true might be sincere.

Obedience is not enough. It’s a start but the goal is to respond to God from our hearts. Hebrews 10:22-25 (ESV) says, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”

The heart is at the core of our physical existence. We can live without a foot, leg, arm, hand, gall bladder, ear, eye, or even brain functions, but without a heart—we die.  

The heart is also central in reference to emotions, illustrated by these idioms. When we eat our hearts out, we are envious. Our heart breaks when we are sad. We lose our hearts when we fall in love. We follow our hearts when we are happy. When we say something from the bottom of the heart, we mean it sincerely. The cold-hearted are unforgiving. When we pour out our hearts, we are telling others how we feel.  

We cannot fool God. God knows our hearts better than we know ourselves (Hebrews 4:12). We can pretend we feel a certain way but eventually our hearts reveal our true attitudes. A good heart will bring about good for others. An evil heart will bring about bad for others. The truth will always come out. Our words eventually belie our true intentions (Luke 6:45). We will put time, money, and effort into where our heart is (Matthew 6:21).

Sometimes we use the phrase “to get to the heart of an issue.” That’s what God would like to do with us. He wants to replace our insincere hearts with new ones (Ezekiel 36:26). He actually wants to live in our hearts and be a part of our very lives. When we seek Him with all our hearts desiring a relationship with Him, He readily makes Himself available.  

We must guard our hearts because they determine how we live our lives (Proverbs 4:23 NIV). We do this by filling our thoughts with what is true, pure, lovely, good, virtuous, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). We guard our hearts by staying focused on God because only He can give us a true and sincere heart!

“Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God…”

~James 1:17 (NLT)

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