Praying you all have a week filled with the blessings that are ours in Christ!
Sunday Praise – Ephesians 1:3
Posts by Dorci
Saturday Song – Lift Your Head Weary Sinner
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’
So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
Luke 15:1-20
Maybe you’ve somehow stumbled onto this page, and you’re lost. You’re searching. You know you need God but you’re afraid. Afraid He won’t take you. Afraid of what you’ve done. Afraid you’re too far gone.
My friend, I promise you, God promises you, you are not too far gone.
Maybe you knew Christ at one point a long time ago. Maybe it was just last week. But you’ve done something, and you can’t face Him. You’re afraid, too. Surely He’ll punish you, you think. Surely He’s ashamed of you, disappointed in you. You can’t go back.
My friend, you can.
Whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, get this –
God loves you.
And He is willing at this very moment to forgive you and receive you.
Come to Him, no matter what you’ve done. Come to Him with your sin; come to Him with your wretchedness, your weakness, your guilt. Come to Him, like the prodigal child.
He is there, waiting with His arms open wide to receive you right here, right now, to forgive you, to love you, to welcome you back with no reservation. With no condemnation.
That is how great He is, how great His love and mercy and forgiveness. Whatever it is, it’s all been paid for on the cross.
Just come. And let the chains fall.
If you need prayer, I would be honored to pray for you. Simply email me by clicking on the envelope to the far right of the Facebook icon to the right.
May you bask in the glory of the Risen One, the One Who paid it all.
Friday Funnies – Back Hump Driver
Have a great weekend!
Sunday Praise – Be Exalted!
Heavenly Father, help us this week to walk with you so that our hearts and minds are changed and everything we do is in your name and your power. May you be exalted in the mighty works you do in and through us. In the name of Yeshua Hamashiach – Jesus the Messiah, amen.
Saturday Song – How Can It Be
This song was on my heart today. Even being a Christian for as long as I have, and maybe even the longer I know Christ, the more I’m aware of the blood on my hands…in my heart. I see my sin in the light of His holiness, and I know I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy to stand, let alone worthy of His love and forgiveness.
There is still a dark corner of my heart that holds onto the guilt and unworthiness and keeps me bound to chains instead of living fully in the freedom of the life He gives.
But love is not about being worthy.
If I was worthy I wouldn’t need Him, and the cross, unnecessary.
No one is worthy, and yet we are all loved.
Love is who He is.
That’s how it can be.
The Cross is Just the Beginning
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”
Matthew 16:24
It is just into the first century. The roads are dusty, the work is back-breaking, the nights are long. The religious leaders are corrupt, and the Roman Empire rules the region with an iron hand. Taxes are exorbitant and punishment is cruel. Beheading, strangling, being buried alive, and among the worst: crucifixion. Being hung on a cross. The people are afraid, looking for a savior.
A man called Jesus has risen from among them and has garnered a following. He teaches in the Temple, raises the dead, makes the blind to see, and feeds thousands from five loaves of bread and two fish.
The people begin to have hope, especially the twelve who are His constant companions, those He’s taken under His wing.
But He begins to talk of suffering. That He “must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Luke 9:22
And then He drops a bombshell.
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23
Those with Him look around at one another with a stunned and confused look on their faces.
Take up our cross? Daily? What is he talking about?
Jesus would predict His own death two more times. He would lead the way.
Still, His friends couldn’t grasp what He was saying.
The night comes and He is betrayed by one of them and dragged before Herod Antipas, the son of Herod of Great who was responsible for killing all the boys under the age of two when he heard that men had come to worship the one who was born King of the Jews. Herod Antipas sends him to Pontius Pilate, and Pilate sends Him first to be flogged, and then to the cross.
Jesus carries His cross until near collapse from exhaustion and pain. He is nailed to it, and lifted up to a punishment reserved for the worst of criminals. A punishment designed to not only torture and kill, but to shame and send a message to all those watching.
His friends scatter. Their minds are reeling from the events they’d just seen. They think back to the time Jesus said they must take up their cross.
Are we next?
Darkness comes over the land. Jesus dies and is buried in a tomb.
And that is that. Hope is lost. Death is the end.
But then the morning of the third day comes.
It is evening now and the disciples are gathered together in a room with the doors locked for fear of facing their own torture, grieving over the death of their friend and the hope He’d given them for a better life, when suddenly they hear –
“Peace be with you!”
It’s Him! Wait..is it? Is it a ghost? No! It’s Jesus! And their joy comes flooding back.
And again –
“Peace be with you!”
They laugh and hug and rejoice, and they realize death was not the end.
It was only the beginning.
Maybe the understanding about what He meant by denying themselves, taking up their cross and following Him came as slowly to them as it does to us. But He had given them a stark picture.
It doesn’t mean reluctantly accepting a disease, or a difficult relationship. It doesn’t mean sacrificing any one thing.
It means dying. To everything.
Sacrificing oneself.
Willingly, wholeheartedly, just as He had done.
The word Jesus used when He said “deny” themselves is aparneomai – to deny utterly. To disown.
If we want to follow Christ, to be His disciple, the only way is to follow Him all the way to the cross. Not a literal cross, of course, but a cross for the flesh, the self will. It is saying to the Father what He said in the garden: “Not my will, but yours be done.”
Christ might have in mind for us to go and do and say what we wouldn’t dare. Will we follow? Will we die to our desires, let go of our fears, and go with Him?
Dying to our wishes and desires, giving up the life we had in mind, is not the end!
There is the glorious morning. A new beginning.
It is the beginning to a bigger, better life than we had ever imagined. Infinitely bigger than a life of catching fish.
We will become fishers of men, and women and children and neighbors and family.
When we walk with the risen Christ, we are filled with Life ourselves, and all that He is and has for us.
Peace be with you!
Exposed to the Light
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32
I bowed my head to pray and to forgive someone who had hurt me years ago. As I was praying, I started to say things like “they probably didn’t mean it…”
And the Holy Spirit stopped me right there. “Don’t make excuses. Bring the sin into the Light. Acknowledge it, all of it, so that you can completely forgive it.”
Of course He was right. If I’d made excuses for the sin and acknowledged only part of it, I would only be able to forgive a part of it, and the rest would continue to grow its bitter root in my heart.
Jesus hung on the cross, wearing only a mocking crown of thorns on His head, fully exposed to the crowd, the elements, the humiliation, and became sin. My sin and your sin.
Our sin was on Him, and none of it was covered. He laid bare before the Holy Light of the Father, with every sin heaped upon Him, offering up Himself as a sacrifice. Nothing was held back. No excuses were made. It was raw and ugly. Sin always is.
And it was forgiven. All of it.
When we stand before the Father asking for forgiveness for our sin, or forgiving another, bring it into the Light. All of it. Acknowledge it, no matter how painful and ugly and humiliating it is. And let God pull the sin’s darkness out from the roots and plant His peace in its place.
Sunday Praise – Psalm 18:46
Sunday Praise
“The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted by God my Savior!” Psalm 18:46
Father, we praise you for our salvation. Jesus and Jesus alone is our Savior. Please lead us this week, and help us follow You wherever you go. Give us strength and courage, and may You be glorified and exalted by our obedience. In Jesus’ great name we pray, amen.