475
Whew, I’m glad already wrote this during the afternoon, it was so out of the blue to write because usually the Lord doesn’t make me stop in the middle of the day, but for some reason I had to write this out today and I’m so glad I did because just now a truck on the turnpike almost hit me (after yesterday that also happened)… Whew… Freaky… Blessed to have the save, but whew Lord that was close!… Fear and joy of the Lord… Thanks for the save Lord!
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Date: Apr 21, 3:45 PM
Children from Rocks, 21Apr
It’s such a blessing when we get to share spirit in an uplifting way like by singing praises… that’s the kind of permanent memory marks that currently and future-ly will permeate my mind when I feel those dark stormy times… Light overcomes darkness, always… Music feeds in to feed the soul…
I don’t ever want to take life for granted, certainly life on earth is a short window of time… It’s a blessing to sing the Lord’s praises everyday… And it’s also a praise that each of us all woke up today… An important pause and praise that I didn’t get taken out by a tractor trailer on the turnpike yesterday, as traffic has been sketchy lately, whew… Thanks for the save Lord…
I believe we all need to thank the Lord for His saving hand, and the joy of life He gives… And the appropriate praise song lyric is: “I bow my heart to sing” (from Your Mercy by Paul Balouche)… And to me that means I fear the Lord, so I best to come in Him in repentance…
Repentance… That is us wanting to change our sinful ways… That is where Jesus comes to help us, but we must ask for forgiveness… We ask for His help and He is very willing to run to us with His mercy.
Scripture tells us that John the Baptist asked for people to repent – offering them baptism in the Lord’s name – he saw the hypocrites of the day and essentially warned them to stop leaning on their entitlement to life as “children of Abraham”, and reminded them that the rocks can be made into children of Abraham, yeah they can… So drop the entitlement and repent… Yeah, fear the Lord for He is really that powerful, and fear and love the Lord for He is good… He loves us sinners and gives us mercy and grace, and forgiveness – and keeps us around another day living for His will… It’s His plan, not ours…
And John the Baptist taught about Jesus… for the purpose of baptizing us with the Holy Spirit… Jesus came, and Jesus also had to leave. Jesus had to leave His disciples so that the Holy Spirit would come to them… He sends the Holy Spirit to us too – we are called to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit moving in our lives – called to be living for His will… It’s His plan, not ours…
Surviving swerving tractor trailers and my own driving distractedness too, these shows me that we don’t know the plan… We just know that we should appreciate that we are in it!
We should ask Jesus to lift our sinful lives. We should also ask the Holy Spirit to guide us…
We are blessed when we repent, our repentance lightens our loads… Jesus lightens our load…
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11
Continued repentance shows our continued devotion to Jesus. Repentance frees us to be children again… We are free to be children of our Lord…
Amen
Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”
John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist.His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John 14:15-21 (NIV)
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
John 16:7-15
…But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Debbie Upper 