“I am writing to all who have been called by God the Father, who loves you and keeps you safe in the care of Jesus Christ.”Jude 1:1 NLT
I want you to know that today you don’t have to strive to take care of “number one” because you are already in the care of Jesus.
You don’t have to stress to win the approval of others because you are already accepted by Jesus.
You are called by God to come near to Him.
You don’t have to wait until tomorrow.
You don’t have to wait until someday when you are good enough or until you get your life all together or until you “get better” at whatever you are trying to get better at.
Today is the day to receive all His love and power.
Don’t wait for someday...live in the truth of God’s love for you today.
Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” PSALM 37:4
Which side of the comma are you living in?
Delight or desires?
What you focus on determines what you experience.
Take delight in the Lord,
or
And he will give you the desires of your heart?
When you are focusing on delighting (joy, great enjoyment, and pleasure) in the Lord, the world is a wide-open space for you to experience with someone you love.
When you are focusing on the desires of your heart, the world is a small closed space where you can only see what you don’t have and envy what everyone else seems to have.
Living on the delight side of the comma means that your focus is on your relationship with God and trusting Him with the rest.
There is sweet freedom found in delighting in your relationship with God while letting Him holdyour desires.
He is a good Father and knows (and loves) you more than you know (and love) yourself.
Life often demands that you keep going even when you are tired.
When you are burdened with grief, you still have to go to work.
When you are battling anxiety, someone still has to do the dishes.
When you are restless to go but must stay right where you are.
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.” Matthew 11:28 MSG
Jesus invites us to walk with Him, work with Him, and watch how He lives in the fullness of God’s love every day while bearing a great burden.
Your world may be dripping with unmet expectations, foundation-shaking experiences, and unbearable obligations.
Or it may be boring and frustrating with endless monotony.
Whatever is happening around you, Jesus wants to walk with you through it.
Lean on His strength and let Him love you right where you are.
However you get away with Jesus – time in the Word, time in prayer, time in worship, time in silence- lose yourself in His love and recover your life.
“The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.” Nahum 1:7 NIV
Every time you step out in faith in Jesus, it is a risk.
Being faithful to Jesus may look like being a failure to the world.
He may ask you to leave what you know, sacrifice whatever is needed, and embrace a temporary difficulty for the hope of a future promise.
Know that even though the risk seems great, a life lived in faith in the Son of God means that every cross He asks you to bear leads to a resurrection to a new kind of life you have never lived before.
This is the prayer I am whispering over you today, “Jesus, take care of my friends as they step out in faith. Thank you that they are trusting you as they face risk. Reward them with courage and vision and do what only You can do – the impossible in them and through them. In Your Name, Amen”
“By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said.” Hebrews 11:11 MSG
We are born dreamers.
As children, we see the world around us and dream about being a part of it.
We dream about what our place in the world will be, what we will do, and who we might become.
The dreams revolve around us and what it will mean for us if those dreams come true.
As we grow up, there are some dreams that hold onto us more than we hold onto them.
It is those dreams that feel devastating when they shatter and remain unfulfilled.
We put them in the realm of impossible.
When the Lord told Abraham that Sarah would give birth, she overheard it and laughed (Genesis 18:11). She laughed not because she thought it was funny but because she thought it ludicrous. The dream of having children probably died when she was in her 60s or 70s. She had accepted her barrenness.
My friend, God often challenges what you have already accepted.
He will speak a word to you that seems impossible.
Something that seems ludicrous.
Something that you gave up on and now He is asking you to pick up again.
He is asking you to dream again but this time to dream it differently.
How? By placing your hope not in what the dream will do for you but in what God wants to do through you.
God asked Sarah to dream again. She knew she could not make it happen, she already tried. But somewhere deep inside she chose to trust God to do the impossible.
My friend, put your hope in God today.
And when He calls you to believe in the ludicrous dream again, say yes.
“So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (human philosophy) but in the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:5 AMP
When your faith rests in the wisdom of man, it will falter because at it’s best, it is a human attempt to explain divine power.
When your faith rests in your own feelings, it will surge and wane like the waves of the sea.
When your faith rests on your past experience, it can morph into whatever you have experienced, good or bad.
When your faith rests in the Son of God it is like a solid rock upon which the waves of emotion break, the wisdom of men shatters and He becomes the foundation of truth that gives your experience perspective.
Don’t make your decisions based on how you feel, what others say, or what happened in the past.
Ask Jesus to lead you and He will. The One who died for you, rose again and sits at the right hand of God will show you the way forward.
He is bigger than your fears, knows what to do with your worries, and is working behind the scenes to bless you.
May today be filled with the promise of the finished work of Jesus and bring you to a new level of faith that is not tossed by emotions but anchored in God’s unchanging love for you.
Cindy Grasso 