Find refreshment for your heart, home and life
Seasons of loss bring reflection and contemplation in the solitary moments of your own grief. It boils all the complexities of life down to the very rudiments of our existence. To pass through this valley without it is to waste a very precious time of learning and growth.
As I attended the funeral of my dear father this week, I heard these words spoken about my dad…
Continue reading “You’re Preaching Your Own Funeral”A quick glance at today’s headlines are more discouraging than the wrinkles that reflect in my mirror. With daily reports of violence, inflation, deadly storms and a global pandemic, a person could look around them frantically for a means to protect themselves.
Horses and chariots are man’s means, and they can help, but how wise to trust even more in the name of the Lord!
Author Johanna Weaver put it this way –
If God isn’t bigger than my life, then my life is bigger than God and that’s when anxiety takes over.
But let’s go a little deeper in this subject of trust. Are we so foolish that we put our absolute trust in any of those methods of protection, but NOT put our faith and trust in the God of this universe?
All around us there are men and women who will accept the plans of people with their whole heart, but then shake their fist in the face of God as they mock Him and deny His very existence. They have turned their back on God’s plan of salvation through the shed blood of Christ. They reject the God Who gave them life, and the gift of His Son Who died to give them eternal life.
Some trust in horses and some in chariots.
Horses die.
Chariots fall apart.
Our resources crumble.
But when you remember the name of the Lord our God and depend on Him for the one thing that matters most – your eternity – then you have a sure and solid protection for both these difficult days and eternity!
What are the “horses” and “chariots” that you are trusting? Are you keeping your faith more in the eternal God or the short-lived fixes? This is Satan’s tactic – to get us so focused on the temporary that we neglect the eternal.
To choose Christ is true wisdom. To reject Him is more foolish than anyone you may point at that isn’t using the temporal protection of your choice. It’s so easy to get upside down in what we value most. We can be wise in making good choices for our earthly protection, and totally miss what is truly important. Friend, be sure of eternity. Jesus is the choice that matters most.
Easter plans have changed this year.
Easter services are different than we would ever have imagined.
Easter traditions have been put aside.
But when everything else is stripped away, there is one thing that remains securely in tact and that is the reason why we celebrate Easter.
It’s Jesus. It’s His resurrection from the dead; the fact that He lives!
For me personally, you can hear in this video what I still have today on this Easter, even though everything else has been stripped away.
Thank you for listening to my story. It’s the truth that makes me put my feet on the floor each morning. It’s what gives me hope when everything around me seems hopeless. It’s what energizes my speech and motivates my life.
If you have never received Jesus and seen what a change He can make, I am extending His invitation to you to come to Him today. Don’t delay.
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Revelation 22:17
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10:13
There’s nothing you need to do first. He will fix the broken parts of you after He is your Savior. You don’t need to be better or try harder because Jesus did all the work for your salvation on the cross.
We won’t have beautiful church services, egg hunts, or family gatherings this year, but we still have Jesus, and He is all we need.
Happy Easter, my friends!
Hi friends! I’m back! To you perhaps I was only gone yesterday, but I’ve been away for a week and a half. We had family vacation that was such a precious time, and I might also add, very needed. We tend to go at break-neck speed, so getting out of town to rest and refresh is truly critical for ministry families (and I’m sure every other family!!). We got to spend those days at the ocean. Here’s a totally unedited picture of the sunrise on our last day there…
That was well worth getting up early to see!
I was amazed that there were a few people walking away from the sunrise that morning instead of towards it! Why would you turn your back on something so beautiful? I couldn’t understand that one!
We got home from vacation on Sunday and while we were unpacking the car, we learned that a dear man in our church had been taken to the hospital. We dropped everything and went to spend the evening with him and his daughter. He’s a precious member of our church and truly like family to us. We went to the hospital, not watching the clock, but his face, and also his chest rising slowly with each deliberate breath. This event changed everything his week would have looked like. Instead of being in the comfort of his home, he was being poked and probed, and was now confined to a small room with beeping machines and IV drips that allowed him to sleep. It seems that his day to leave this world is imminent. Scripture tells us…
It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this, the judgment. Hebrews 9:27
I visited him in his hospital room again yesterday. As I drove home later in the day, I thought about all the people passing by me in their cars, scurrying here and there, sure they’re going to have tomorrow, making plans as though they’ll live forever. Some are ignoring God and His call to trust Christ for salvation. They assume that this thing of dying is far off. They are like the people on the beach who were walking away from the sunrise, ignoring the fact and the beauty that was just behind them.
These moments are appointed to each of us. If Christ doesn’t return first, we will each die. We will each have a change in the plans we were making for that day. Do you understand that death can be, not just a fact, but a beautiful thing? Oh the process can be ugly and hard, but the end result of death is seen in this verse as being precious…
Psalm 115:16 – Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.
Psalm 23 reminds us that death is only a shadow, and a shadow cannot hurt you. For our dear friend, when he takes his last breath here, he will open His eyes in heaven.
Absent from the body present with the Lord! II Corinthians 5:6
He has this assurance because He received Christ as His Savior for His sins. He trusted in what Christ did for him on the cross and those truths make dying beautiful. Our friend’s death, whenever it happens, has reminded me that death is like that sunrise – it will happen, and I can look forward to it and see the beauty in it.
Are you turning your back on the reality of death? If you’re afraid, is it because you don’t have an assurance of eternity with the Lord? Trust Him today to save you and receive the joy of walking with Him here, and having the comfort of a beautiful meeting in heaven One Day!
Last Sunday as my husband began preaching from Revelation 8, the emphasis of the message dealt with living in the atmosphere of eternity. I’m pretty sure we all had many points of conviction about being so busy we miss out on what is best. He said If we do live in the atmosphere of eternity, life is simple(r). Don’t we all long for that?! I sure do!
As I pondered the message, here are my applications of what that kind of mindset will do for me ~
If I live for eternity every single day:
Let that which will matter when we’re caught up matter most.
The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast us.
How are you living today in the atmosphere of eternity?
With love,
RefreshHer 