Tag: Thankful

The Greater Love

Posted on by Dorci

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:12-13

In the light of the example Jesus gave us at the cross, this is our daily duty – to lay down our lives, our preferences, our wills, in favor of those God gives us.  This is, Jesus tells us, the highest, mightiest, strongest, most powerful love.  It is this love that carries crosses, moves mountains, divides oceans, binds unseen wounds and heals pain that otherwise would never heal.  It is to this love we aspire. 

And it is this love we honor today.  It is this love that leaves behind one’s own dreams, loved ones, births and deaths, to serve, protect, run into harm’s way, fight the enemy even when the odds are down, conditions are at their worst and injuries are unbearable, and risk all to carry our banner.  All for the greater good and love of freedom. 

This love and duty to country has impassioned many to lay down their lives to buy the freedom of an entire nation, and this continued courage and sacrifice has kept us free for over 200 years.  Let us honor these brave men and women with our deep gratitude, but also by following their example of greater love.

When we live our lives with respect for one another, with words that build up and not tear down, with actions that better our own corner of this country, when we live not carelessly, but thoughtfully, we honor those who have fought so hard to make us free. 

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Galatians 5:13-14

May God fill you with strength and courage as you seek to live out His greater love.

 

 

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!

Giving Thanks for Fleas

Posted on by Dorci

Corrie ten Boom and her sister, Betsie, walked into their assigned barracks at Ravensbrück concentration camp.  The windows were broken and fall was quickly giving way to winter.  The room was filled with nothing but piers stacked three high, the stench of broken plumbing, and fleas.

“Betsie, how can we live in such a place!” Corrie asked her sister.

As Betsie asked God to show them how, she remembered what they had read that morning in 1 Thessalonians. Corrie read it again.

“Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.”

But there was more, Betsie remembered.

“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18

So they obediently gave thanks for everything.  They gave thanks that there had been no inspection so that they were able to keep their Bible.  They gave thanks for the inhumanely tight quarters, that more women would hear the Word of God.

And then Betsie gave thanks for the fleas.

That was going too far, Corrie thought.  Thanks?  For the fleas that were making a meal of their legs? She didn’t understand it, but she went along.

Corrie and Betsie began holding worship services for the other women being held in their barracks with the Bible that had escaped the guards’ detection.  Day after day, they noticed that the guards refused to go into their barracks. Why?

They soon understood the reason they could be thankful for the fleas.

Guards wouldn’t step foot into their barracks because of the fleas.  If they had, the Bible would have been confiscated, and they might have been punished, or worse.

Because of God’s provision, they were able to continue reading the Word of God–the light for their very dark path, the truth that pierced the lies of the enemy, their hope in the face of certain tragedy.

Everything we have to be thankful for isn’t always easily noticed.  It isn’t always what we want to be thankful for.  Sometimes it’s the very thing that we pray God will take from us that He wants to use for His glory and our growth.

Sometimes we’ll see the reasons now for the fleas in our own lives–those things that keep after us, making our lives uncomfortable and sometimes downright miserable.  But I suspect we won’t fully understand until the day we can sit down with Jesus under a shade tree in heaven and He reveals the beauty of it all.

You can read the story of Corrie and Betsie ten Boom in The Hiding Place.