Category: Rejoice

The Name of Jesus

Posted on by Dorci

“This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (prophecy foretold in Isaiah 7:14) (which means “God with us”).

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.” Matthew 1:18-24

The name Jesus is translated from the Greek for Joshua or Jehoshua, which is the English spelling for its most literal translation, Yeshua.

Yeshua comes from the Hebrew for Jehovah (or Yehowah)-saved which is derived from the two words:

1.  Jehovah, or Y’hoshua – a name for God meaning Self-Existent or eternal

2.  Yasha – to free, to deliver, to rescue, to avenge, to bring salvation.

To get victory.

Now that is good news!

However you pronounce it, His name should be reverenced and spoken with awe and wonder.  For “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”  Acts 4:12

“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  Acts 2:21

“Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Phil. 2:9-11

“He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.”   Rev. 19:13

“I will bow down… and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.” Psalm 138:2

Proof that great things really do come in small packages.

Merry Christmas!

 

To Us a Child is Born

Posted on by Dorci

Bountifully, Abundantly, Eternally Good

Posted on by Dorci

I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
They tell of the power of your awesome works—
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
They celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.

The Lord is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.
All your works praise you, Lord;
your faithful people extol you.
They tell of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might,
so that all people may know of your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.

The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises
and faithful in all he does.
The Lord upholds all who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.
You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

The Lord is righteous in all his ways
and faithful in all he does.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.
The Lord watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.

My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.

Psalm 145

 

The Secret of Contentment

Posted on by Dorci

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.”  1 Timothy 6:6

It’s a strange juxtaposition in which we believers find ourselves.  We are filled with Spirit of God Himself, bringing heaven down to earth and all the godly riches available to us with such a glorious gift, and yet at the same time we are still on this earth, saddled with these fleshly bodies, so prone to temptation, walking among earthly riches, seeing, smelling, contemplating, desiring…

The flesh and the spirit are at war.

But Paul reminds us that while godliness is good, godliness with contentment is greater.  It is gain.

Holidays are supposed to be a joyous time, but they can be especially rough on some who have suffered a loss of some kind.  The days when seemingly everyone else is rejoicing can be a magnifier for those losses or unfulfilled expectations.

But a magnifying glass only magnifies that on which we are solely focused. And when we focus the magnifying glass on the world and its temptations, even on those things that aren’t necessarily bad, but God has simply, in His wisdom and grace and mercy, not given them to us, then our focus becomes lust and envy.

We become discontent.

Contentment means we have moved the magnifying glass to focus on our Lord and Savior.  We’re focused on Christ and God’s Spirit working in our lives, even through those losses, and have found we have all we need, and even more, to live an abundant life right here and right now.

In Philippians 4:11-12 Paul declared “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

And what is that secret to being content?

He doesn’t leave us wondering; in the next breath he tells us “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

No matter what our circumstances, and we are all in some kind of circumstances–don’t let the enemy tell you that everyone else’s life is perfect and yours isn’t—Jesus Christ gives us strength, not just to endure, but to thrive, to be spiritually well-fed and well-clothed, to have all our physical needs met to the glory of His Name, the magnification of His goodness and faithfulness.

In the world there is always something more to want, something more to chase after.  Just like we can stuff ourselves silly on Thanksgiving only to be hungry again two hours later, the world will never satisfy.  But the overflowing, never-ending, treasure of God will satisfy the soul because that’s what we’re created for.

“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency  in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”  2 Cor. 9:8

The same word that is “contentment” in 1 Timothy 6:6 is used as “sufficiency” here in 2 Corinthians.

Contentment–magnifying Christ in our hearts and minds–knowing He is sufficient for all our needs and able to work through those difficult or even impossible situations, watching Him move every mound of dirt until our mountain is thrown into the sea, will bring us a satisfaction that no amount of earthly riches ever will.

Contentment means we don’t have to worry about our needs because God’s got it covered.  We can come off the sidelines of dismay as we realize the eternal treasures that are ours in the Lord and the strength we receive frees us to carry on, faithfully doing the good work He has carved out for us to do.

In His Good Grace,

 

 

 

Trials and Triumphs

Posted on by Dorci

A 12-year-old boy kills his sister and later finds the forgiveness and love of a great and merciful God.

An angry man, disillusioned by a God who would allow untimely deaths in his family, is later visited by the presence of God, washed in His peace and finds the love of God is all he needs.

A woman turns to the gay community and lifestyle and later allows the truth of God to dispel the lies as He heals her heart and she finds a new life in Him.

A Christian woman struggles with resentment toward God as she watches her believing mother deteriorate from Alzheimer’s disease, but would in time come to understand that the reason was full of God’s grace.

And my own story of growing up with parents suffering from mental illness and substance abuse, then turning to anything and everything in the world to deaden the pain and try to find love, and later finding real love and the forgiveness of Christ in a tiny church filled with the Spirit of God.

These are just a few of the testimonies of God’s faithfulness, grace and forgiveness in the lives of ordinary people who were touched by an extraordinary God in the book Trials and Triumphs, Hope Beyond Circumstances, Forty Life-Changing Testimonies.

I am so blessed to be a part of this project, one of the forty people who tell their stories of grace–either how they came to Christ, or how they held onto Him in difficult circumstances.  Each fascinating account is authored by the person who experienced it.  Every story is unique, but each one points to the same God, the same Lord Who is willing to forgive and give strength and courage to anyone who genuinely seeks Him.

Any believer can watch the news or look at their own family members, friends, co-workers, and on and on can see that the world needs a Savior.  People are starving for the love and forgiveness that we know only God can give through His Son, Jesus Christ.

But the enemy of God is hard at work lying, deceiving and bringing destruction on anyone who believes those lies.

Revelation 12:11-12 tells us that “They overcame him (satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony;”

People can dispute a lot of things about God, but no one can dispute what God has done in our own lives.  All of us who know Christ as our Lord and Savior have a testimony, the story of who we were before we put our faith in Christ, and how He’s changed our hearts and lives since.  Stories of how He’s loved us, intervened for us in miraculous ways, provided for us and protected us, and another page to our story is written every day.

That, God’s Word says, is how the enemy will be defeated in the lives of those family members and friends and co-workers.  As we tell the truth of God’s love, just as someone, somewhere told us, by the faith given by God and the blood of the Lamb, they will be snatched from the enemy’s mouth and set firmly in the hands of God.

Think of it: we have the privilege of joining with Christ to defeat the enemy that has lingered and lied and destroyed since the Garden of Eden by sharing our witness to those lost and dying in their sin.

Maybe you know someone right now who needs to hear these stories of faith.  Maybe you need to be encouraged and comforted yourself as you face struggles of your own.  I pray this book brings hope and magnifies the grace that is our God in the lives of many around the world.

If you’re so inclined, you can find it on Amazon at the link on the right.

Grace and Peace!

The Third Day

Posted on by Dorci

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’” John 11:25-26

The whole world thought he was dead.

Their hopes had been so high.  Living under an oppressive rule, he had emerged as a man who performed miracles among the least of them — the poor, the lame, the blind, the leper, the demon-possessed.  So many lives had changed beyond anything they could have imagined.  They were healed, brought back to life, rejoined to their families, all because of one man.

One man had noticed them when no one else had.  When the only other attention given to them was shame or pity, he had seen them.  He had looked into their eyes, into their very souls, and validated their existence.

He had done and said things no one ever had.  He worked on the Sabbath and made no apologies.  He overturned the tables and cleared the temple for making a mockery of it.  He stood in the faces of hypocritical religious leaders and called them blind guides and whitewashed tombs.  He fed thousands with a boy’s lunch.

They’d hoped to make him king.  He was on his way to greatness and they were on their way to freedom.  Just a week before they had celebrated him.

And now he was dead.

His disciples were in mourning.  He had said something to them about being raised on the third day, but who could know what he meant now.  The past three years were gone, and it all seemed a blur. Things seemed to be headed in such a hopeful direction.  Once they thought he’d be their leader and they’d serve alongside him.  He would redeem Israel.  He would be their savior.

Now he was a prophet at best.  Just a good man lying dead inside a tomb.  Where was God? Why did He let it happen? Jesus’ life and theirs had all taken a turn they never saw coming, and all their hopes and dreams were gone.

But things aren’t always as they seem.

Beyond their understanding, beyond their imagination, beyond their greatest hopes and dreams, Christ rose from the dead on the third day, just like He said He would.

Now, with the benefit of 2000 years and God’s Word, we know the end of the story. We know there was a purpose for His death.  We know He was indeed the Christ, the Messiah who was to come, and that He had to die and live again for the remission of the sins of mankind.  We know He stayed with them, teaching them for another forty days, and then He ascended into heaven to the right hand of the Father where He rules forever.

God’s ways were much higher than Jesus’ disciples ever could have imagined.  He didn’t come just to save Israel for this life, but all believers for eternity.  He didn’t come to be just king of a country, but King of our hearts.  We know He wasn’t only a prophet or a good man, He was, and is, God.

And in His resurrection, He showed His power over death.  He proved the words He’d spoken to them: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  John 14:6

Resurrection morning is all about life.  His life and ours. It’s about the Source of life coming down to redeem us and give us new life.  Not only did Christ rise, but in Him we rise.  When we believe in Him we’re forgiven of all our sins and His life courses through our veins.  We have the promise of our souls rising from the grave the moment our life here ends, and our bodies at the end of all things.

But we are not yet resurrected.  We are still bound to these bodies and we battle sin in ourselves and in the world every day. And there are times our lives can take a jolting turn. Like the disciples, we can have plans that God doesn’t have.  Life had been moving along so well and we had it all mapped out.  And then there was the loss of something — a child, a spouse, a parent, a career, a friendship, health.  Something changed and it wasn’t supposed to be that way.  Disillusion sets in.  All our hopes and dreams are gone.

And we can be like the disciples in those long hours after their friend’s lifeless body had been carried away for burial.  We wonder what happened.  We wonder where God is and how things could have turned out so differently than we thought they would. The hours tick by and we wonder if the third day will ever come.  We feel lost, confused and alone.

But things aren’t always as they seem.

In the dark hours of suffering and loss we can understand what the disciples didn’t: that our preconceived notions and personal hopes and dreams have to die if God’s are to live in and through us.  Just as God wanted to do so much more than the disciples could have imagined, He wants to do much more in our lives than we can ever dream.

We see the end of the story that the disciples had not yet seen. And God sees the end of our story.  He sees what He is making us to be.  He sees what’s on the other side of that hill in our journey.  He sees the joy on our faces as He raises us from the dead and we join Him in heaven.  He sees us living whole, glorified lives, our souls freed from every kind of pain to soar forever with Him in new life.

He is the Author of Life, and we can trust Him.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”  2 Corinthians 4:16

Christ’s power over death is at work in us right now.  It may not look like it; it may not feel like it.  But the disciples would all tell us that looks and feelings can be deceiving.  We can have His joy now, knowing our third day will come soon.  And one day that joy will be complete, when the Maker of Life raises us with Him.  His resurrection gives us a taste of that new life now, and a glimpse of the glory to come.

In Him,

 

 

 

Go with the Flow

Posted on by Dorci

We didn’t have much of a chance to talk when I was growing up, but later my dad and I would talk for hours.  We were both thinkers and we’d each spend way too much time in our heads trying to work out our problems.  We also both shared an inclination to write things down.  And when one called the other, all those thoughts that had been swirling around in our heads or maybe even made it onto paper, spilled out into our conversations.

We took turns, comparing notes, collaborating, solving the world’s problems since we couldn’t seem to solve our own.

I knew a little bit about the difficult life he’d had, and he knew a little bit more about mine.  Being my dad, I know he wanted to help me.  I don’t know much more of a helpless feeling than to be a parent who can only stand by and watch a child suffer.

He saw me flailing, struggling, and it was as if he were watching me from shore with no boat and no life raft of his own to share with me.

So he’d call out to me the best advice he could give: “Go with the flow.”

“Yeah, I know.”

But fighting came easier somehow.  It was instinctual.

They say if you’re caught in a riptide, swim with the current, parallel to the shoreline, until you’re safe.  But most people fight the current.  They use all their strength trying to swim back to shore in direct opposition to the powerful and relentless current, and many don’t make it.

Go with the flow.  Accept.  Yield.

Paul the apostle put it like this:

“Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.  I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:11-13 NAS

For God’s sons and daughters, He is that current in our lives.

He blows the winds of circumstances where He will, and to fight them is to fight Him, and no one wins fighting God.

But when we accept the circumstances of our lives as coming from the hand of a loving, all-powerful, all-present and all-knowing Father, we can, with Paul, learn the secret of contentedness, and trust Him to carry us to safety.

It seems to me at this moment a happy coincidence that my dad’s name was Paul, too.

Whether centuries ago or just a couple of decades, truth is truth, and somehow the Lord in His mercy, knowing full well that one day he’d give his heart to Christ, gave my dad what he needed to get through the storms of his life.

I didn’t get it so much when my dad was giving me his advice years ago.  I was younger then and still had the energy and stubbornness to fight.  But I’m getting it a little bit more these days.  God’s patience and many trials have worn me down.   And I’m glad. All that flailing was blocking the voice of God. Now I’m learning to be still and listen.

There are days I wish my dad had lived long enough to be able to read what the other Paul had to say about “going with the flow” in the light of Christ.  To have the chance to take that thought one step further and know that it’s more than just tolerating life’s trials.  That in Christ he could find strength and even joy in the middle of those circumstances, and even grow through them.

Most of the time, though, I rejoice that my dad was able to escape the suffering of this life and receive his reward just five days after he let Christ into his life.

If he were still here, he’d be 76 today and still trying to figure it all out, just like I am.  But he is home now, and he is ageless, living a life more contentedly than he ever imagined.

I wonder if the two Pauls have met yet.  I can just see them, sitting together, comparing notes, but this time without a care in the world.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Love,

The Best Things In Life Are Free

Posted on by Dorci

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

They say the best things in life are free.  Yet every year the day after Thanksgiving (well, now you barely have time to eat your last bite of pumpkin pie) the stores open and people rush the gates like race horses at the Kentucky Derby.  Even now there are people everywhere still scrambling to find that last perfect present or two.

I wonder if we really do believe the best things in life are free.  All the frenzied waving of credit cards is really just a distraction, a way to make Christmas mean something when we fail to make it about Christ. And it’s hard to do that when He hasn’t been Lord the other 364 days a year.

Thanksgiving Day I was in the kitchen, as I am every Thanksgiving, going about the cooking I’ve now gotten down to a science, when I stole a moment to take a peek through our kitchen window which faces the front of our house.  The streets were lined with cars that had brought family and friends to spend Thanksgiving with so many neighbors.  It made me feel just a little bit lonely.

I love my family, my husband and our two sons whom we’re still blessed to have at home, but we have no extended family we’re able to spend the holidays with.

I didn’t have much of a family life growing up, so it was always my dream to have huge family gatherings at the holidays, the house full of laughing, eating, cooking, and a dozen different conversations going on a once, catching each other up on our lives, our victories and our defeats, encouraging and loving each other, so that when the day was done we’d be as full in our hearts as we were in our bellies.

A long time ago, though, I accepted the house would be a little less full and a little more quiet. That it would be just the four of us, and I’m happy with that.  Still, I couldn’t help but peer out the window a time or two (maybe three) more and caught a glimpse of all those cars in front of so many other houses.

Instead I’ve filled the holidays with one of the few talents I did have: mad baking skills.  I started baking when my kids were tiny and we didn’t have enough money for store-bought birthday cakes.  I started collecting cookbooks and practicing the art of cake making, frosting, and decorating.  I bought all kinds of frosting tips and every food coloring in the rainbow.  I practiced my royal icing roses. My mouth full of sweet teeth had me quickly expanding to almost any kind of cookie, pastry and dessert you can think of.

And when the holidays rolled around I’d have a field day.  I’d stock up on flour and sugar and butter and chocolate and peppermint candies.  I’d pore through my hundreds of recipes of Christmas cookies and delectable desserts and wonder which to bake first.  Wedding cookies or Chocolate Peppermint Pretzels?  And there are always cream cheese frostinged cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.

But now I have health issues that make it almost impossible to enjoy eating sugar or any kind of carbohydrate. Oh I can eat it, I just have to be willing to face the consequences when I do.  My family is trying to eat healthier, too.  So every year I’ve baked less and less, and this year I haven’t done any.  Yet we are inundated with messages that for Christmas to be Christmas we should indulge in one sugar-laced treat after another.  But since I can’t it’s just one more thing that can make me feel like I’m somehow outside the party peering in.

There are other things, too, that getting older make celebrating Christmas the way I’d like very difficult or impossible.

Sometimes, when we’ve been stripped away of so much that the world says we must have and do to be happy, God is able to show us what’s most important.  To see what the best things in life really are.

No matter what gifts I’ve been given, the best by far will always be my salvation.  Ultimately, of course, I am forever indebted to Christ for dying for me, and to the Holy Spirit for pursuing me, opening my eyes, and revealing to me my need for a Savior. Regardless of what I am not able to have in this life, eternity will be filled with family and feasting.  Relationships will be restored and my body will be perfect.  This life is only temporary.  Eternity’s forever. And I’m looking forward to it!

I would not have that hope if it weren’t for the willingness of some to offer prayers and the honest teaching of God’s Word.  Those were gifts to me, gifts I could never afford.  Gifts that are free.

And now I, and many of you, are in the position to be able to offer those gifts to others.  No credit card needed.  Some may not open their gift of salvation right away, perhaps for years.  But even seeds are gifts.  Water is a gift.

So maybe it’s time to slow down and allow those things the world says we must have in order to have Christmas be stripped away.  Maybe it’s time to give a gift that would last for eternity.  Maybe you’re a seed-bearer, or a waterer.  Maybe you’re a harvester.

Wherever God would have you be in the process, give a gift of your gifts.  Your spiritual gifts have been given to you to not only encourage fellow believers, but to bring truth to unbelievers.  There is no better gift than the truth that leads to salvation.

One phrase that I hear over and over every Christmas season that’s become a pet peeve of mine, is when someone uses the word Christmas in place of the word gifts.  “She won’t be able to give her kids Christmas.”  “They won’t have a Christmas.”

Even the Grinch came to understand Christmas when he’d stripped the Whos of all he thought would make them happy, yet their joy on Christmas morning was undeterred and unrestrained.

“That’s a noise,” grinned the Grinch, “That I simply MUST hear!”
So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow.
But the sound wasn’t sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
He stared down at Whoville! The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN’T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?”
“It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!”
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

A little bit more indeed.  A lot more.  It means the birth of our precious Savior who came to give us the best gift of all.

So if you’re struggling this year, I hope you’ll take heart,
And know that the life we live here is only the start!
Christ was born in a stable for you and for me
And He died to give us eternity.
So wherever you are, whatever you do
Remember that Jesus, yes Jesus loves you!
He gave you salvation and that’s the key
To knowing the best thing in life is free.
So remember that Christmas doesn’t come from a mart
It comes when we let JESUS fill up our heart!
So store up for yourselves treasures in heaven
Give the gift of telling others how they can be forgiven!

Merry Christmas and God bless you!

My Redeemer Lives

Posted on by Dorci

I’ve been a believer in Christ almost half my life (maybe more, but that’s a story for another day).  I’ve lived this Christian life so long that I can sometimes forget all that Christ has saved me from.

But once in a while God gives me a reminder, a little glimpse into what my life could have been like had I kept walking the path I was on.  I very well could have died in my sins.  Lost forever. 

But my Redeemer lives.

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”  Job 19:25-27

Even Job, who lived centuries prior to Christ’s incarnation, because of his intimate relationship with God knew he had a Redeemer.  While he sat utterly destitute and broken by the tornado of suffering he suddenly faced, he held onto hope that he would be saved, even if not until he passed on from this life.  He knew His Redeemer would reign victorious at the end of all things and that He would be raised with Him and see his Redeemer face to face. 

God did save Job and restored his life.  And I have no doubt that Job’s faith carried him home to see the face he so longed to see, where all suffering melted away.

God’s saved me from more than I have time to tell you here.  And no matter what struggles I go through as a believer, it’s nothing compared to living this life without Jesus, without the hope of salvation. 

He’s redeemed my soul from the pit.  He’s saved me from destroying myself. He’s rescued me from destructive relationships and from wandering the earth in a state of spiritual blindness. 

He’s given me sight to see Him and ears to hear Him.  He’s changing my heart from hardened stone to pure, soft flesh. He’s blessed me in ways that before I would have thought impossible. And He’s filled me with His Spirit to give me  the hope of salvation and that one day I, too, will see my Redeemer face to face. 

From what has your Redeemer saved you?

Grace and peace!

The Joy of the Lord Really is Your Strength

Posted on by Dorci

I recently came across a video tape (yes, an actual VHS tape) of our oldest son sitting in a highchair conflicted over the beets on his tray, and I was instantly transported back 20 years ago.

I so much wanted to crawl through that screen and do things differently.  Better.  With the bit of wisdom I’ve picked up in the years since.

As the lyric goes, I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger..

My kids stood there watching with me and they commented that even my voice is different now.  Granted, I’m not talking to three year olds anymore, but still.  I’ve changed and I could look back and see my mistakes so clearly.  And it grieved me. 

It seems the older and closer I get to the end of my life, the more I can look back at decisions I’ve made and my heart breaks with disappointment.  If I’m not careful, I can get stuck in the mud of regret.  

The Israelites almost did that very thing.

The walls of Jerusalem had been torn down and the city lay burned to the humiliation of the Israelites for over 100 years until God called Nehemiah and His people to rebuild the city.  They worked non-stop for months rebuilding while being armed and ready for enemy attacks. 

It had been a long haul, but God had restored them. 

The Israelites gathered and stood while Ezra, the priest, read the Word of God from daybreak until noon.  As they heard the Truth, they became overwhelmed with conviction. 

God’s Word will do that. 

Standing in the holiness of God in the reading of the Word they felt the depths of their sin.  They mourned from the pit of their souls and they wept. 

But the people were told..

Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10

The past was gone and God had forgiven them.  He had restored their city and their people and now was a time for rejoicing! 

God never intends for us to carry around regret. He so desires rivers of living water to flow through us, not for us to stand in a quagmire of regret.  That’ll only slow down our journey, weaken our faith and our testimony.

The word strength in this verse means “a fortified place; a defence, a fortress, a rock.”

The enemy had continually tried to pull the people away from God’s work of rebuilding through taunts, lies and deception.  But they were unsuccessful because Nehemiah kept his focus, and the people’s, on the Lord and the work they were called to do.

Just as a wolf will attack a sheep that is injured or sick, God’s enemy (and ours) will seek out someone who is spiritually weakened.  It’s easy prey.

Living in a state of grief over past sins weakens us.  Refusing to forgive ourselves cripples our spirit.

There is a time for grieving over our sin, but that grief should take us directly to the feet of Jesus in repentance. 

And when we do, God’s forgiveness is immediate.  His grace gives us the freedom to let it go, accept the joy He gives and move on.  And that brings us His strength.  We’re free to step out of the quagmire and onto the Rock. 

We join with the Lord and He becomes our fortress, our defence against attacks from the enemy.  Our faith grows stronger and our testimony brings Him glory.

The past is gone and God’s mercies are new every morning. 

My feet may be a little muddy, but I’m stepping out, washing them in the river and standing on the Rock.

How about you?

 

 

Lord Jesus, help us to repent, forgive ourselves, and accept the joy we have in You!”

 

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