Tag: Christian parenting

New Wine

~ Mom Morsels
Photo by Mert Kaya on Pexels.com

New Wineskins to Hold New Wine

To wine connoisseurs, the older the wine, the better it is and the more it costs. But in the Kingdom of God, new wine is better than old wine, if you have the correct wine skin to hold it in. We see in Luke 5:36-39 New American Standard Bible:

And He was also telling them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’

Lord, help us! Change our palates, so that we are not satisfied with “good enough” old wine! Help us to thirst for the new wine! An old wine skin will burst, if you put new wine into it. In the same way, Jesus has to make us completely new, in order for us to hold His new wine.

To make new wine, the grapes have to be crushed producing the fresh juice which is then fermented. Jesus was crushed for us and gave us the new wine of the gospel of grace. Isaiah 53: 10 NASB speaks of Jesus:

But the Lord was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.

Jesus was crucified on the cross, being crushed under the weight of our sin, but then obtaining victory over sin and death. Thus, we don’t have to be crushed, because He has already been crushed for us. There are times when God allows us to go through afflictions, but God promises that we will not be crushed by them. We see in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 NASB:

…we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

Yes, we are afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, but God does not allow us to be crushed, despairing, forsaken or destroyed. That is the enemy’s work, not God’s work. The Bible teaches us that the enemy came to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10). God gives us new life through Jesus!

Let’s take a closer look at what some of these words mean. “Afflicted” G2346 in the Greek means “to press (as grapes), press hard upon, to trouble, afflicted, distressed, to crowd.” What happens when you crowd grapes together and press them, the juice of the new wine will come out. I have definitely had times in my life that I felt afflicted or distressed, but I was not crushed. As we see in Isaiah 53:10, Jesus was crushed for us, so we do not have to be. When I went through the afflictions and clung to Him, it brought a closeness to the Lord that I had not had- it brought me new wine I would not have had without God letting me be “pressed”.

Have you ever been perplexed by your circumstances? “Perplexed” G639 in the Greek means “to have no way out, be at a loss, not to know which way to turn.” When my husband lost his job, we had five children to feed, and I had to work full-time (I usually worked part-time), and I definitely was perplexed about our situation. I often cried on my way home from work, but I worshiped on the way home too and God met me with the comfort of His presence. When you are perplexed about your circumstances, you don’t have to despair. “Despair” G1820 means “to be utterly at loss, utterly destitute of measures or resources, to renounce all hope, despond,” We may have had times that we were out of physical resources, but we always knew where to turn to obtain the best resource- HIS PRESENCE. And we always have hope! Isaiah 49:23 New International Version says:

Then you will know that I am the Lord;
    those who hope in me will not be disappointed.

The next part of 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 says that we will be persecuted but not forsaken. True persecution is not something we often experience in this country, but some have experienced it here and certainly in other parts of the world, persecution has led to martyrdom. But even those who are martyred, are NEVER FORSAKEN. They always have HIS PRESENCE with them! As Stephen was martyred in the Bible, he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,” (Acts 7:56). Jesus stood up to welcome Stephen into heaven! And Hebrews 13:5 NASB promises us:

He will never leave you nor forsake you.

Finally, we may be struck down but God promises us that we will never be destroyed if we choose to walk with Him. Speaking of Satan, John 10:10 says , “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” Satan’s goal is to destroy us, but God will not allow him to destroy us. Our merciful God gives us a way out of the destruction of sin. God gives us another choice – to live eternally with Him in heaven if we trust His Son as our Lord and Savior.

So how do we go about “carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus”? And how do we let “the life of Jesus…be manifested in our body”? By dying to ourselves and our own wants and desires daily, and living to God’s desires for us. We take up our cross daily so that we can live in His righteousness daily. 

So next time you feel the pressing in your life of afflictions, or you are perplexed about your circumstances, persecuted or feeling like you have been struck down, remember that God is sustaining you while He is allowing you to be pressed, and He is bringing new wine into your wineskin.

SO MOMS, LET’S ASK GOD TO GIVE US A TASTE FOR NEW WINE!

In His Love,

Suzanne

Welcoming His Presence into Your Home- Part VII

~ Mom Morsels
Photo by Nothing Ahead on Pexels.com

More Prayer, More Presence!

Prayer is so powerful because it is how we connect with God. If we have a friend that we want to be closer to, we take time to connect with them more. It’s the same with God. If we want to be closer to God, we need to take time to connect with Him more. Prayer provides us with just that connection!

Psalm 145:18 New American Standard Bible says:

The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.

We can call upon Him in our joys and in our disappointments. Many believers pull away from God in their trials because they blame God for their situation. This is the same trap Job’s wife fell into. She tried to get Job to curse God for their difficulties (Job 2:9 ). Please don’t fall into this trap! See our series on HOPE, if this is you (search on the Home page).

Here are some more ways for you to draw closer to God and bring more of His presence into your family and home through prayer.

  • Pray in the middle of your busyness.
    • Jesus gives us His example. Quite often, Jesus spoke to His Father right in the middle of His busyness and with others around. This is great for moms because so often we have our precious little “others” around! In John chapter 16-18, Jesus was speaking directly to His disciples (Jn. 16: 29-33), then with them still around, He went right into prayer with His Father (Jn. 17:1-26), and finally, He went right back into conversation with the disciples again (John 18:1). We can do this with our children-our own disciples.
  • Pray in the middle of your stress.
    • One time, I was overwhelmed, cooking dinner, supervising toddlers, and helping children with homework, sorting laundry, getting ready to go to work (I worked from home part-time evenings from 5pm-1am). I had been reading Proverbs 31 and came to Proverbs 31:14 which talked about the virtuous woman having maidens to help her. So I shouted out to God, “I could use some help! Where are my maidens?!” I heard Him answer,” You have some! Your washer, dryer and dishwasher!” It made me laugh!
  • Pray in the middle of your wilderness seasons.
    • My mom passed away last year, and I leaned into Jesus with my grief. Through hospice grief counseling, I discovered a whole other side of Jesus. Currently, I am healing from a car accident in September 2024. As I lean into Jesus, He is meeting me in my pain, and again I am getting to know Him more. Song of Solomon 8:5, “Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved?” Lean on your Beloved in your wilderness seasons-we all have them. And, Psalm 103:13-14, “Just as a Father has compassion on His children, So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.” You don’t have to explain your pain or suffering to Him, He KNOWS. He knows your frame, your make-up.
  • Pray your thanks to Him.
    • We all feel sorry for ourselves at times. It’s a human thing we do. Thankfulness is a great way to lift ourselves out of the pitty-party pit! I shared this in another blog, but when our children were younger (4, 6, 8, 12, 14), one summer for about two weeks, we had 3 kids in casts at the same time (No, I am not a negligent mom-it just happened). I called my mom to get some sympathy, because I was definitely discouraged about this. Surprisingly, she said to me, “Surely, you can find something to be thankful for in this situation.” Really, mom? But she was right! I could be thankful that no one hit their head, which would have been a lot more serious.

Concluding this series, my best advice to you is to never stop PRACTICING HIS PRESENCE, and it will help you set the climate in your home. Moms, your INFLUENCE is so much greater than you realize! As you pray and connect with God in all the big and little moments of your day, you will be welcoming Holy Spirit into your home!

Moms, remember Phillippians 4:5,

HE IS ALWAYS NEAR, SO LEAN INTO HIM.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Welcoming His Presence into Your Home- Part VI

~ Mom Morsels
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

The Priority of Prayer

I am presently 64 years old, and the older I get, the more I am starting to understand the importance of prayer. Another way to make Holy Spirit feel welcome in our lives and our homes is to pray ANYTIME,  ANYWHERE, WITH ANYONE.

  • Pray with your husband.
    • Between husbands and wives, we sometimes get into complaining or criticizing others in our conversations (speaking of myself and my husband here). My husband and I have realized that when we recognize a shortcoming in others, it is an opportunity for us to go right there and then into prayer for that person, leader, or situation. We often do this on our walks. James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.”
  • Pray with your children.
    • When your children come to you with a crisis, a booboo, a need, pray about it together- right then. This also teaches them to pray. When our children and I were in the car and we heard an ambulance, we would pray for the people that were hurt, that God would comfort them, and that they would cry out to God in their time of need. Psalm 107:19, “Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, And He saved them out of their distresses.” 
  • Pray at mealtime.
    • Take time at meals to thank God for His blessing of the meal and for the blessings of your day. Have you ever wondered why God created us such that we need to eat a few times a day (well, most of us!)? Maybe this is a built-in three-times-a-day reminder to connect with God. Make meal-time prayer a habit, and even little ones will remind you if you forget to pray- our grandchildren do!
  • Pray at bedtime.
    • Pray with your children at bedtime. One of our children wanted to pray for every member of our extended family every night-this was around 36 people! To be honest, it was a bit annoying, but I did it with her. As a young adult, this child is now an intercessor.

By incorporating prayer into our everyday lives, we acknowledge our need for God. Remember one thing Holy Spirit LIKES is our weakness. Why? Romans 8:26 New AmericanStandard Bible says:

And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness…

Holy Spirit is the Helper, so He loves to help! When we ask for His help, it allows Him to share His strength with us. We just need to ask. Prayer is how we ask for Holy Spirit’s help.

So, moms, remember that

ASKING FOR HOLY SPIRIT’S HELP BRINGS HIS PRESENCE INTO OUR HOME.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Welcoming His Presence into Your Home- Part V

~ Mom Morsels
Photo by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels.com

Embracing Holy Spirit Together

So, how do we practically welcome Holy Spirit into our home. These are just a few ways that may help you and your family embrace His presence together:

  • Ask Him to remind you of His presence.
    • I get distracted easily, so sometimes I forget He is NEAR. Almost every day, I go on a long walk (our children are all grown). When I am walking around the lake at our nearby park, I get lost in my thoughts and realize that I have left God about 1/2 mile back! So, I just start talking to Him again, and I ask Him to remind me that He is there. James 4:8 New American Standard Bible, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
  • Ask Him to interrupt your day.
    • Especially when I had littles around me, I was so susceptible to distractions. So I would ask Holy Spirit to interrupt my day and give Him permission to bring me back into His presence in the midst of my busyness. As a young boy, King David was out in the field doing his shepherding, caring for sheep (mom’s we care for God’s little sheep!), worshipping God, and God interrupted his life. Speaking of David, we read in 1 Samuel 16:13, “Then Samuel took a horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward…”
  • Ask Him to share His fruit with you.
    • The Bible talks about the fruit of the Spirit. Before a tree produces fruit, it has to form the bud and then the blossom. Fruit takes time to grow, and so the fruit of the Spirit takes time to form in us. If I ran out of the fruit that God was forming in me, I prayed and asked Holy Spirit to share some of His fruit with me. Galatians 5: 22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
  • Ask Him to show you His New Mercies in your day.
    • At the end of the day, we can take a moment to be quiet (maybe while nursing a baby) and ask God, “Where was Your mercy for me today?” Since His Mercies are new every morning, then we should be able to look back over our day and see His mercies on us. If we can’t think of anything, then we can thank Him for His merciful sacrifice to bring us into fellowship with Him. Lamentations 3:22-24, “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease. For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

These are just a few ways to foster His presence in your life and in your home.

Moms, let’s remember that

THERE ARE MANY PRACTICAL WAYS TO WELCOME HOLY SPIRIT INTO OUR LIVES AND OUR HOME.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Welcoming His Presence into Your Home- Part IV

~ Mom Morsels
Photo by Italo Melo on Pexels.com

Practicing the Presence of God

There is a book I love called The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. This book and the Bible got me through the incredibly busy season of raising five children with my husband while working part-time as a pediatric telehealth nurse. In this book, we learn from Brother Lawrence how to welcome God’s presence into our everyday lives. A humble man, Brother Lawrence served as a monk with the Carmelites in Paris in 1666, and while consecrating himself to prayer, he also served in the monastery kitchen.[1] He learned to fellowship with the Lord in the midst of his busyness. My favorite quote from the book is:

The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great a tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.[2]

What mom is not busy no matter how many children she has! Do you have noise and clatter in your kitchen? Do you have several persons (often little persons!) there at the same time, calling for different things? I had a nursing baby, toddler, preschooler, grade schooler, and middle schooler at the same time. There was a lot of clambering and calling for different things in my kitchen as I am sure there is in yours! But all of us can find His presence in the midst of our busyness, just as Brother Lawrence did.

As I have journeyed with the Lord through motherhood, practicing His presence has been the tool that has helped me the most. Just like any new tool you use, it takes practice to become adept at practicing His presence. Am I perfect at it yet? Nope! I am still learning! I am still practicing!

If you have a friend over visiting in your home, maybe having tea with them, it would be rude for you not to speak to them, wouldn’t it? Yet, even though God is so NEAR to us, we often ignore His presence. He is always NEAR, and when we forget to speak to Him, it feels like we are also being rude to Him. Another quote from Brother Lawrence is:

He is always near you and with you: leave Him not alone. You would think it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you: why, then, must God be neglected? Do not, then forget Him, but think on Him often, adore Him continually, live and die with Him; this is the glorious employment of a Christian. In a word, this is our profession.[3]

We make welcoming His presence so complicated, when it is as simple as talking to Him, because He is right there, a breath away. We think that we have to kneel, be quiet, or have some kind of sacred moment in order to move from conversation with those around us into prayer. But there is nothing like that needed. We can go right from conversation with someone into prayer together with God.

Remember Joshua 1:9:

The Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

…that includes your kitchen, your living room, your bathroom, everywhere! Acknowledge His presence, by talking to Him right there in your home and in the middle of your busy life … you can even start right now! And if you forget He is there, ask Him to remind you- I do! In our next blogs, we will start to talk about the practicles of practicing His prescence…

So, moms, let’s remember that

TO WELCOME HIM INTO OUR HOME, WE JUST NEED TO START TALKING TO HIM.

In His Love,

Suzanne

[1] Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (Old Tappan: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1958), 9.

[2] Ibid., 8.

[3] Ibid., 54.

Welcoming His Presence into Your Home- Part III

~ Mom Morsels
Photo by Imad Clicks on Pexels.com

Setting the Climate in Your Home

Let’s talk about INFLUENCERS. An influencer according to Meriam-Webster online dictionary is “a person who inspires or guides the actions of others.”[1] In our society today, many people want to be influencers trying to garner a huge following on social media. Social media influencers present whatever illusion of themselves that they want you to see- an immaculate home, a perfectly curated meal, a put-together outfit, a flawless air-brushed picture. Currently, the biggest influencers on Instagram are:

  • Cristiano Ronaldo, a Portugese soccer player, with 652 million followers
  • Lionel Messi, an Argentinian soccer player, with 504 million followers
  • Selena Gomez, an actress and singer, with 421 million followers
  • Dwayne Johnson, an actor and former professional wrestler, with 394 million followers

So what qualifies these people to be influencers? They can kick a soccer ball masterfully, act well, sing beautifully, or wrestle expertly. And people want to follow them just because of these skills.

Moms, you are an INFLUENCER in your home! You have a much more profound influence than these famous influencers. You are influencing your children to follow hard after Jesus. You are influencing your children for eternity. Your children are not following an illusion of you on an app, they are watching how you live up close, for real, in front of them. They are following your example! That is the greatest influence!

In 2 Timothy 1:5, Paul describes the influence that Timothy’s mother and grandmother had on him:

For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well.

These women who lived their sincere or “real” faith in front of Timothy, profoundly influenced the man of God that Timothy became. As mom’s we have a much greater influence than we realize!

Have you heard of the expression, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”? A mother’s influence can regulate the climate in her home. Her attitude can set the tone in her home. Her words infuse her home’s atmosphere. You may have noticed that when you have a bad attitude, it spreads. Often, if you have a poor attitude, the children start to act up more. Then, when you greet your husband at the end of the day, if you have a sour attitude, you may not get a good response from him. Bad attitudes are catchy. Yikes! Speaking to myself here!

On the other hand, A MOTHER’S INFLUENCE CAN BRING HIS PRESENCE INTO HER HOME. It can permeate her entire home, relationships, and the whole climate of her home can change with her godly influence. If she is welcoming Holy Spirit into her home, then the climate of her home will be one of HIS PRESENCE.

So moms remember that

YOUR GODLY INFLUENCE CAN SET THE CLIMATE IN YOUR HOME AND MAKE HOLY SPIRIT FEEL WELCOME.

In His Love,

Suzanne

[1[ Merriam-Webster online dictionary at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/influencer.

Welcoming His Presence into Your Home- Part II

~ Mom Morsels
Photo by Robert So on Pexels.com

Holy Spirit Hovers

As we get to know Holy Spirit more, we can better understand how to welcome Him into our home. Let’s go back to the very beginning, to creation, for some insight into who Holy Spirit is. Personally, I had never thought about Holy Spirit’s role in creation, but we see it here in Genesis 1:1-2 New American Standard Bible (italics mine):

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 

This word “moving” H7363 rachaph (raw-khaf) is sometimes translated as “hovered” (see below). In Hebrew this word means “to grow soft, hover, brood, flutter, move, shake.” To better understand the real meaning here, let’s look at another verse that uses this same word, Deuteronomy 32:11-12 (again italics mine), where God is speaking about Jacob (Israel):

Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
That hovers over its young,
He spread His wings and caught them,
He carried them on His pinions.
The Lord alone guided him,
And there was no foreign god with him.

The word translated “moving” in Genesis 1:2 is the same word “hover” used here in Deuteronomy 32:11-12. This moving, brooding and hovering is when the eagle sits over her eggs, hovers over them, then stirs the nest for them to learn to fly and catches them on her wings, lovingly protecting them. The eagle is helping them grow by her presence as she anticipates them hatching, then flying, then soaring. Sort of like when you are pregnant, and you cannot wait to meet your baby, because your heart is filled with so many hopes for your precious child and the life he or she will live.

Just as the eagle brooded over her young, the Spirit of God brooded over the waters. There was nothingness, yet because Holy Spirit was God and part of the divine trinity, He knew what was coming.

God was getting the earth ready. He was getting the garden ready. He was about to create man. God was about to breathe His life into man (Genesis 2:7), and we know that Holy Spirit is the breath of God (John 20:22).

He knew that after Adam sinned and was cast from the garden, Jesus would be sent to rescue man. He knew that EVEN BEFORE GOD CREATED THE WORLD (1 Peter 1:18-20), the Trinity of God had planned for Jesus to offer Himself as the sacrificial lamb (see also Ephesians 1:3-5) bringing man back into the garden of fellowship with God. There was great anticipation and Holy Spirit knew the plan of redemption was on the horizon.

Even before Jesus came, Holy Spirit knew that He would come upon and dwell in men like Joshua and Daniel.

Yet, something even more astonishing was coming! Holy Spirit knew that He would one day indwell any man who proclaimed Jesus as Savior and Lord.

Can you imagine the exhilaration that Holy Spirit must have felt? No wonder He was brooding over the waters. This brooding is also interpreted as fluttering and shaking. If you can imagine someone so excited that they shake or quiver. Our granddaughter used to shake with excitement when we could get the crayons and markers out for her to color, and she would say, “I’m excited!” This is the same kind of excitement that I imagine Holy Spirit had as the world was about to be created, as man was about to be created, as Holy Spirit anticipated dwelling in redeemed man.

Can you see how Holy Spirit wants to come indwell, fill, anoint, renew and fellowship with you (see the chart in Part I of this series for verses on these actions)? Can you feel the anticipation that Holy Spirit has as He waits to be invited first into our hearts and lives, and then into our homes through Jesus? And Jesus Himself gives us an invitation to dine with Him in Revelation 3:20:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

This invitation was written to the church in Laodicea. It was written to believers. So there is a standing invitation for you from Jesus, through Holy Spirit, to dine with Him. Will you open the door and invite Him in? Will you make Him feel welcome in your home?

So moms, let’s be mindful that

HOLY SPIRIT WANTS TO BE PRESENT FULLY IN OUR LIVES AND IN OUR HOMES.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Welcoming His Presence Into Your Home- Part I

~ Mom Morsels
Photo by Barbara Olsen on Pexels.com

Holy Spirit-A Welcome Guest

In this series we will be studying how to welcome His presence into our home. We first need to establish who we are welcoming. We are welcoming Holy Spirit into our homes, as we read in Psalm 51:11

Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

So let’s imagine that you are having someone over to your house for dinner. Most likely you would want to make them feel welcome. You might ask what they like to eat, what their favorite flowers are, what their favorite colors are, maybe their favorite music. In the same way, if we want our homes to be a place where Holy Spirit is welcomed, then we need to know what He likes and does not like. 

You may have noticed that I call Him “Holy Spirit” instead of “the Holy Spirit”, because I am “Suzanne” not “the Suzanne”. It helps us see Him more personally. Holy Spirit is God and He is a “person”. In other words, He has His own characteristics and qualities. He acts. He has feelings. He is sensitive because He is HOLY. He has things He likes and things that He does not like. 

Let’s get to know Holy Spirit a little more. 

What Holy Spirit does:

Teaches- John 14:26
Reveals- 1 Cor. 2:10
Helps- John 14:16; 16:7
Strengthens-  Eph. 3:16
Gives power- Acts 1:28
Gives life- 2 Cor. 3:6		Helps our weaknesses- Rom. 8:26
Hovers- Gen. 1:2
Rests upon- Isaiah 11:2
Indwells- 1 Cor. 3:16-17
Fills- Acts 2:1-47		Renews- Titus 3:5
Anoints- Luke 4:18
Fellowships- 2 Cor.13:14
Comprehends the thoughts of God! (my favorite!) – 1 Cor 2:11

What Holy Spirit likes:

Truth- He is the Spirit of TRUTH- John 14:17, 15:26
The Fruit of His Spirit- Gal. 5:22-23
The things of the Spirit- Gal. 5:25-26		To pray with us- Rom. 8:26-27
To speak through us- Matt. 10:20
Our weakness (because then He can help us with them)- Rom. 8:26

What Holy Spirit does NOT like: 

Evil (this one is kind of obvious!)- Gal. 5:17-21
Sin or the things of the flesh (another obvious one!)- Gal. 5:17
Unwholesome speech (it grieves Him)- Eph. 4:29		To be resisted- Acts 7:51
To be grieved- Eph. 4:30
To be quenched- 1 Thess. 5:15-22
Can be outraged (this one surprised me!)- Heb. 9:14

To welcome Holy Spirit into our home, we need to let Him know that we want to be taught by Him, to be strengthened by Him, to be filled by Him. He hovers, rests upon, fills and fellowships with those who desire to be near Him. We can bring our weaknesses to Him, knowing that He does not expect us to do things on our own, but that He loves us to rely on Him for help. 

If we want Him to feel welcome in our home, we need to cultivate what He likes in our home. We need to create an atmosphere of truth in our home. We need to have a home where the fruit of the Spirit is encouraged and where we pray. And then, we also want to protect our home from the things He does not like. As mom’s we can be warriors in the Spirit, protecting our homes and families from evil, sin and the things of the flesh through prayer and discernment in what kind of entertainment and influences we let into our homes. 

No one is perfect at this. I know I am not perfect at it. But when we fail, we bring our weaknesses to Holy Spirit and let Him help us, because, guess what? He loves to help us with our weaknesses! (Romans 8:26)

So mom’s let’s try to

CREATE A HOME WHERE HOLY SPIRIT IS WELCOMED.

In His Love,

Suzanne 

Beauty- Part III

~ Mom Morsels

God is Beautiful!

This picture is from a trip my husband and I took in the Fall of 2025 to Banff, Alberta, Canada in the Canadian Rockies. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth I have ever seen. The beauty of God’s creation is overwhelming here. The beauty of His creation displays His glory. Psalm 19:1 says:

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

But the beauty of His creation is nothing compared to God’s own beauty. His creation merely reflects His intrinsic beauty, because His creation flows out of who He is, the Creator of all. King David was captivated by God’s beauty. David speaks of God’s beauty in Psalms 27:4 New American Standard Bible.

One thing have I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.

Like David, we are meant to BEHOLD God’s beauty. Behold H2372 in Hebrew means “to see, behold, see as a seer in the ecstatic state, gaze, perceive, contemplate.” If we contemplate something, we spend time thinking about it. We don’t just look at God’s beauty and move on; we stay for a while, gazing, enjoying the comprehensiveness, the vastness, the overwhelming completeness of His beauty. Think of a bride and groom gazing into each other’s eyes. Nothing can remove their gaze from one another. Beholding God’s beauty takes focus, purpose, determination, fixing our gaze on Him. When we contemplate His beauty, we become ECSTATIC about it! Isaiah 33:17 says

Your eyes will see the King in His beauty.

God’s beauty is everlasting. Humans grow old, get wrinkles, lose strength as they age (well, most of us). Our beauty fades. To be honest, I do prefer the way I looked when I was 30 over now at 64, but it’s ok. God looks at my quiet, gentle spirit as most beautiful, and I know I am beautiful to Him. And my husband still thinks I’m beautiful. Our beauty fades but God’s eternal beauty never fades; it remains resplendent forever (Psalm 90:2).

God’s beauty is unsearchable. We could gaze at His beauty forever and never come to the end of it. Around His throne four living creatures with eyes all around cry out, “Holy, Holy, Holy!” day and night (Revelation 4:8). To be honest, I’m a little jealous of them! My guess is that because they have so many eyes, they perceive more of His beauty and are so overwhelemd that they cannot stop saying Holy for even a moment (the Bible says they say it day and night, i.e. ALL THE TIME!). And in Job 11:7, Job said:

Can you fathom the mysteries of God?
Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?

God’s beauty is limitless. Limits means “the end, completion, perfection.” Probing is to search out something. So if we try to search out God, we will never come to the end of our search, because God is unsearchable and so is His beauty. And God’s Son also reflects His beauty. In Hebrews 1:3 we read about Jesus:

And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…

God’s beauty is reflected in His Son. Jesus is RADIANT! He is BEAUTIFUL! Radiance G541 in Greek means “reflected brightness, of Christ in that He prefectly reflects the majesty of God, shining forth, of a light coming from a luminous body.” Yes, Christ reflects God’s majesty. We could behold Jesus’ radiant beauty for all eternity and never get tired of it. In fact, we will join with the four creature’s and every created living thing in heaven, on and under the earth, and on the sea, and give glory to the Lamb, saying “blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever” (Revelation 5:13).

So moms, don’t forget to take time to

GAZE AT HIS BEAUTY AND ENJOY JESUS’ RADIANCE!

In His Love,

Suzanne

Thriving-Psalm 1 Series- Coming Soon!

~ Mom Morsels
Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

Psalm 1- Steps to Thriving on Your Journey

You can make choices on your Christian journey which will help you thrive. As we study through Psalm 1, we will see God’s heart for us to thrive! Come on along! Coming Soon!

Beauty- Part II

~ Mom Morsels
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Reflecting His Beauty

We have already seen in Beauty Part I that we are beautiful because we reflect His light through the hidden person of the heart. We are not to concentrate so much on the outward appearance of our person that we neglect the inward appearance of our person. God loves the imperishable quality of the inner gentle and quiet spirit- it is so precious to Him! (1 Peter 3:3-5).

Imago dei means “in the image of God”. Because we are made in His image, we are beautiful! Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” We are in His IMAGE, so we look like God. But we are also in His LIKENESS, so we are LIKE God in many ways. God created, and man is creative; God is omniscient, all-knowing, and man is intelligent, growing in knowledge; God is all-powerful, and He has given man power; God is eternal, and man has a beginning but will live eternally.* As His creations, we reflect His likeness and this includes His beauty.

And we are not just a bunch of cells that randomly came together. No! We were skillfully made by God as we see in Psalm 139:14 New King James:

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Fearfully here does mean to fear, but it also means “to stand in awe, reverence, honor, to cause astonishment.” You are fearfully, reverently, honorably made. When God made you, He was in AWE of what He made. When someone is in awe of something, their jaw drops, they take a step back and they are ASTONISHED. I understand this feeling of astonishment. It was the feeling I had, when I first saw each of our children. I was totally in awe of what God had made. Each child was perfect.

When our son was born (our first), the doctor came in to do his first checkup. I was just staring at our son’s little PERFECT face and in total AWE. The doctor said, “Don’t worry about his misshaped head. It will go away eventually.” I thought, “What?!” I felt like punching him and wanted to say, “You are the one with the problem! This is a perfect little baby, and I see nothing else but absolute perfection here!” But I didn’t say it out loud, even though I was shouting it inside my head. Even more so, how must God feel about each of His children? Later, we looked at the pictures we took, and our son’s head was very misshapen, but honestly neither my husband nor I saw it AT ALL, because we thought he was just so PERFECT and BEAUTIFUL!

Wrought means “to variegate, mix colors, embroider, fabricate, needlework.” Sounds like artwork, doesn’t it? I like to do cross-stitch (another kind of needlework). When I do my cross-stitch, I don’t just start cross-stitching and expect it to turn into something beautiful.. I start with a specific pattern for the piece. I have a plan. Similarly, when God made you, He wove you together according to His design, like intricate embroidery with variegated colors. How beautiful! Song of. Solomon 7:1 New American Standard Bible says:

How beautiful are your feet in sandals,
O prince’s daughter! …
The work of the hands of a skillful workman.

God was the skillful workman who made you. Skillful means “expert”. You weren’t just formed by any old workman. You were formed by the EXPERT, the best workman there ever was! He formed you in His image, and because God is beautiful, you are BEAUTIFUL! Walk around your house today and shout it out, “I’m MARVELOUS!” “I’m WONDERFUL!” “I’m BEAUTIFUL!” Let it sink in.

So moms, revel today in the knowledge that God is a skillful workman, and

GOD MADE YOU WONDERFUL, MARVELOUS, AND BEAUTIFUL!

In His Love,

Suzanne

* Bob Sarbaugh, The Life and Calling of the Intercessor (Meadville: Christian Faith Publishing, 2019), 42.

Beauty-Part I

~ Mom Morsels
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God Looks at the Heart

Our culture today is so focused on beauty. Outward appearance is highly valued, and people spend inordinate amounts of time and money to look beautiful. Some even have plastic surgery to look younger, better, more attractive. But God has a different view of beauty. If we want to know what true beauty is, we need to look at what God says about beauty in the Bible.

When God sent the prophet Samuel to anoint the next king, Samuel was obviously looking for something different than what God had in mind. In 1 Samuel 16:1, God told Samuel to stop pouting over King Saul, and go anoint a new king. You see, Samuel had originally anointed Saul king, but Saul disobeyed God and lost his anointing. God told Samuel to go see Jesse the Bethlehemite and that He had chosen the next king from among his sons.

Samuel was a great prophet, and as he arrived, the elders of the city trembled and asked if he came in peace. Samuel did come in peace. He sacrificed with them and consecrated both Jesse and seven of his sons, but Samuel did not know that one son was missing. Jesse presented his sons before Samuel. As Jesse’s first son Eliab passed before Samuel, he thought surely that this was the one to be anointed. But God had a different choice. God told Samuel to be careful and said to him in 1 Samuel 16:7 New American Standard Bible:

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

This gives us some idea of what God was looking for. One by one, as Jesse presented each of his sons, every time God told Samuel, “No, not this one.” At this point, Samuel had worked his way through all seven of the sons, and he was out of options. He then asked Jesse whether he had any more sons. Jesse must have thought there was no way his youngest son could be the one God wanted to anoint, so he had left David out in the field tending the sheep. He did not regard David highly enough to include him in the gathering of his sons. David had been forgotten. I want to take a moment here to speak to anyone who is not highly regarded by their family. Please know that God has not forgotten you. God regards you. 

Jesse finally brought David in from the field, and though David’s family did not even consider him, God saw something special in David. David was the one God chose. In 1 Samuel 16:12 King James Version, we read:

And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look at. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him: for this is he.”

David was “goodly looking”, but what God was really after lay deep within David. God was looking at David’s heart. David also had a “beautiful countenance”. In 1 Samuel 25 KJV, we see the same expression “beautiful countenance” is used to describe Abigail. Abigail was a very godly woman, who by her wisdom saved her husband Nabal’s life and then later became David’s wife (when her husband died). 1 Samuel 25:3 NASB says:

..and the name of his wife Abigail; and she was a woman of good understanding and of beautiful countenance.

This word “countenance” H5869 (1 Samuel 16:12) means “an eye, a fountain, face, presence.” Our countenance displays what is in our hearts. It is through our countenance that His light shines. Moses’ face shone after he met with God in the tabernacle (Exodus 34:29-35). Both scriptures about David and Abigail, use the same word for “beautiful”. Beautiful H3303 in Hebrew means “beautiful, fair, pleasant”, from another root word that means “to be bright, be beautiful.” Beauty radiates from within, brightly reflecting His beauty and light. Like God told Samuel, He looks at the heart.

We reflect His beauty as we allow His light to shine through the hidden person of the heart. This is so precious to God! In 1 Peter 3:3-4 NASB, we read: 

Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. 

God doesn’t have anything against dresses, braided hair or wearing gold! Adornment or dressing nicely is fine, but that is not to be ALL we adorn ourselves with. God wants us to focus on the hidden person of the heart. The word “person” G444 in this scripture means “countenance”. We are also to be adorned with the hidden countenance that shines His light from deep within our hearts. That is the MOST BEAUTIFUL to God!! 

So mom’s let’s concentrate on being beautiful by 

REFLECTING INNER BEAUTY FROM HEARTS FILLED WITH JESUS.

In His Love,

Suzanne

My Times are in His Hand

~ Mom Morsels
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He’s Got You

If there is one thing I have learned in my almost 50 years of walking with Jesus, it is that His timing is most certainly not my timing. For one thing, our perspectives are entirely different. I view time in light of my stay on earth, whereas He views time in light of eternity. That is quite a difference! No wonder, when I pray for something, His answer often comes later than I wanted. He is not in a hurry, yet He is always on time-on His time. We read in Psalm 31:14-15a New American Standard Bible:

But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord,
I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in Your hand

As a mom, working part-time as a pediatric telehealth nurse and caring for our big family (five kids), quite often, I felt like I was putting my own desires aside in order to serve our family. It was my choice to do that, and I loved doing that. I knew that God had “my times” in His hands. He had good works for me to do as we see in Ephesians 2:10 NASB:

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

When I invite a family over for dinner, I take time to prepare. I clean the house really well. Many times I cook ahead or arrange a nice table setting before they get there. When someone takes time to prepare something ahead of time, they are being intentional about their purposes. God took the time and effort to prepare the good works beforehand for us to walk in, so it makes sense that He would also have a proper TIME for us to walk in them. And caring for and serving our family was one of the GOOD WORKS He prepared me to do. Helping countless families with their sick children as a Telehealth nurse was another.

God is in charge of our time here on earth as we see in Job 14:5 NASB:

Since his days are determined,
The number of his months is with You;
And his limits You have set so that he cannot pass.

Yes, God has DETERMINED our days and numbered our months. Our time is WITH HIM. I find that comforting. Our time here is a treasure. If you have a treasure, you want to place that treasure with a person who will keep it safe. That person must be trustworthy and capable. God is both. He keeps our days, our months, our times. And yet, we have a part to play when it comes to our time, also. We are given this finite amount of time here on earth, and it is our treasured commodity. How will we spend this limited treasure of time that is entrusted to us? He has set a limit to how long we will be here. This is good news! Why? Because when we are not on earth, we will be with God in heaven for eternity!

It is our decision how to spend this limited commodity of time. God has entrusted it to each one of us. We gain some guidance from Him as to how to spend it in Psalm 90: 12 NASB:

So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.

Numbering our days means realizing that they are not limitless. To present to Him a heart full of wisdom, we have to take time to put His wisdom into our hearts through Bible study and prayer.

And there is more. Not only is God the One who holds our times in His hands and the one who prepares the good works for us to walk in, God further reassures us in Isaiah 33: 6 NASB:

And He shall be the stability of your times, a wealth of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge…

Yes, He is the STABILITY of our times.

So moms, let’s trust God knowing that

HE HOLDS OUR TIMES IN HIS HAND.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Our Daily Bread

~ Mom Morsels
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How Essential is Our Daily Bread?

In the gospel of Mark, as Jesus journeyed along with his disciples, they had an ongoing problem with bread. In Mark 6:35-44, they had a predicament. It was getting “quite late” (v35), and the disciples were worried that if the people following Jesus didn’t leave soon to go out to the villages and buy something to eat, they wouldn’t get anything at all. In those days, they did not have any 24/7 stores, no Walmart around the corner or restaurants open late. They brought the problem to Jesus, and Jesus sent the problem right back to them, saying, “You give them something to eat.” The disciples weren’t sure Jesus understood, and so they asked Him again, did He mean for them to go and spend 200 denarii on enough bread for all the people? 200 denarii was 200 days of pay! It was a lot of money! In response, Jesus asked how much food they had, and they answered five loaves and two fish. Jesus blessed it and fed five thousand, with twelve basketfuls leftover, one basket for each disciple. Bread problem solved.

In Mark 8:1-9, here they were a second time, in another predicament, having another bread problem. The “great multitude” were there again with nothing to eat. This time Jesus brought the problem to the disciples. It was almost the exact samed situation. Jesus said the folks had nothing to eat, and He didn’t want to send them away, because they might even faint on the way home. To this, the disciples responded rhetorically, where would they find enought food for all this people in this “desolaten place”? And Jesus was at it again, asking how many loaves there were. The answer: seven loaves and a few small fish. Was it enough? Yes, we all know that it was, and there were even seven basketfuls leftover. Jesus had fed 4,000 people. Bread problem solved again!

I wonder if the disciples were catching on. Journeying on in Mark 8:10-20, Jesus gets into a boat with His disciples on the way to Dalmunutha. After a brief discussion with some Pharisees, which made Jesus sigh in His spirit, they embarked to the other side. On the way the disciples realized that they had forgotten to bring enough bread. Another bread problem?? Yup! In verse 15, Jesus told the disciples to watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, and Mark 8:16-20 New American Standard says that:

 And they had forgotten to take bread, and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them. And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” They began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart?  Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?”They said to Him, “Twelve.” “When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?”And they said to Him, “Seven.” And He was saying to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

This was the THIRD time the disciples had had a bread problem. Jesus started talking to them about leaven, and they thought He was upset at them for not having enough bread, and so they started discussing it with each other, probably saying something like, “I can’t believe we forgot to bring enough bread again!”. They were totally missing the point. Was it really a problem with the bread, or was Jesus trying to soften their hearts and open their eyes to see something? Let’s look at John 6:51 NASB, where Jesus says:

 I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh

Sometimes the answer is so close in front of our eyes, that we don’t even see it. Here the disciples had three different incidents where they did not have bread, but the LIVING BREAD was standing right there in front of them every time! When Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray with the Lord’s Prayer, He prayed “Give us our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), because we need HIS PRESENCE, THE LIVING BREAD DAILY.

I’ve always wondered why God the Father was so angry with the Isrealites when they asked for Quail intead of Manna. God had been giving them Manna every day, and it had been enough for them. When they asked Him for Quail, He did give it to them, but in Numbers 11:20, He said they would eat it for a whole month “until it comes out your nostrils and becomes loathesome to you.” Ewe! While they were about to start chewing the Quail, God then struck them with a plague (Numbers 11:33). Why do you think He was so angry with them? It was because the Manna represented THE BREAD OF LIFE-JESUS. We read in John 6:31-35 NASB:

 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.

Yes, we need Jesus every day, every hour, every minute, every second! He is our sustenance. He is essential for us to have life and live it abundantly.

So moms, let’s realize that

WE NEED HIS PRESENCE AS OUR DAILY BREAD.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Sound Judgement

~ Mom Morsels
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Having a Balanced God-Image of Ourselves

On the road to having a secure God-image of ourselves (notice I did not say self-image), it seems there is a pit to fall into on each side. On the one side we may think less of ourselves than we ought to, but on the other side, we may think more of ourselves than we ought to. We read about this struggle in Romans 12:3 New American Standard Bible (italics mine):

For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

Staying on the road to a secure God-image means having a balance. Here we learn that we are to have “sound judgment” as to ourselves. In other words, we are neither to be falsely humble nor too prideful. The word for sound G4993 means “to be of sound mind, to exercise self control, to put a moderate estimate upon one’s self soberly,” and comes from a root word G4998 which means “safe in mind.” Safe in mind- in your mind, you can go to a safe place as you think about yourself, to a balanced and healthy place. Personally, I am still working on my safe place for my God image. It takes self-control to have this safe place and also some hard work by renewing our minds. Some of us may not have had a good image of ourselves previously, whether due to what has been spoken over us by others or due to what we put into our mind or due to ourselves. And renewing our minds takes time in the Word, in prayer, and meditation.

In Colossians 2:18-19 NASB we are cautioned about one of the pits we can fall into, namely pride:

Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.

An inflated mind reminds me of the expression “he has a big head”. Yes, pride inflates our own image of ourselves. Pride inflates our own head instead of helping us to hold fast to THE HEAD, Jesus Christ. If we hold on to Jesus, our eyes are fixed on Him, and we get a true perspective of our position as image bearers of God but also as those who need Him. We respond like Peter, in Luke 6:68 NASB, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.”  We know we need Him, we hold onto Him as the Head, and we see ourselves rightly.

We can also fall into a pit on the other side which is false humility. False humility is devaluing ourselves or our gifts. This can either be from having a very poor God-image of ourselves or it can be pride in disguise by trying to get negative attention. Instead of false humility, we need true humility. Just as Christ did, we need to humble ourselves, while holding on to our true identity and value as bearers of God’s image. In 1 Peter 5:6 NASB, we see real humility:

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time

and again in one of my favorite Bible verses Micah 6:8 NASB:

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

With true humility, we humble ourselves, and if God wants to exalt us, He will. Until that time that God chooses to exalt us, we are content to serve Him and to serve others as He leads. Even if He exalts us, we do not boast in anything but God. We see in Luke 17:7-10 NASB a picture of a right heart attitude:

Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’

Yes, we are His servants. We obey Him; we do His will; we serve Him in the way He asks us to. And when we have done ALL- yes, everything, ever last thing that He asks us to do- we still must say, “We are His servants and have only done what He asked us to.” There is no room for pride, only for humility, only room to reflect the praise back to God who enabled us to do all He called us to do. We see how Paul pointed praise back to God in 1 Corinthians 15:10 NASB:

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

Pride takes the credit unto ourselves, while false humility degrades ourselves. In the middle, is the healthy God-image that says, “I have value as God’s image bearer, and anything I do as His servant, I do because He gives me the power and strength to do it.”

So mom’s, let’s avoid pride and false humility and instead,

HAVE SOUND JUDGMENT AS HIS DAUGHTERS, HIS HIGHLY VALUED IMAGE BEARERS.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Take Courage, Arise

~ Mom Morsels
photo by xomidov on pexels

He is Calling for You!

I love all the details God gives us in His Word. They are not there by chance, so I love to study all the particulars in Jesus’ stories that were recorded for us. Let’s look at Mark 10: 46-52 New American Standard Bible:

Then they came to Jericho. And later, as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large crowd, a beggar who was blind named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road. And when he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him here.” So they called the man who was blind, saying to him, “Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you.” And throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus. And replying to him, Jesus said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And the man who was blind said to Him, “Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!” And Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road.

This man was described as a beggar. A beggar is a person reduced to poverty, and so are we without Christ. I’m going to say it again- we are reduced to poverty if we do not have Christ. We are so NEEDY; we need Jesus. Bartimaeus means “son of Timaeus” and Timaeus means “foul, unclean, polluted”- in other words destitute, which is also exactly what we are without Jesus, UNCLEAN, DESTITUTE! We were dead in our sin, when Jesus came to rescue us, ransom us, die for us. His blood, wipes away our sins and makes us clean!

When Bartimaeus heard that it was Jesus passing by, he cried out, “JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!” And we also cry out ‘Jesus, have mercy on us! We are desperate for Your presence, desperate to be near You!’ Bartimaeus seemed to embarrass the people near him with his shouting and crying out. And so those around him “were sternly telling him to be quiet.” “Sternly” G2008 means to “admonish sharply, to tax with fault, chide”, which feels like a sense of shaming, since chide means to scold. “To be quiet” G4623 means “to hush, muteness, involuntary stillness, inability to speak.”

This is just like the enemy. His desire is always to mute us through shame. If he makes us feel ashamed enough, then we won’t speak up about Christ. We won’t even cry out for His help. Shame also destroys our testimony, making us feel like we are not good enough, we don’t have our lives in order enough, our lives aren’t perfect enough to be a testimony for God. But it is precisely our own weakness, imperfectness, faultiness that makes our testimony so powerful. We are NEEDY! We NEED God so much and cannot live without Him. It is in our weakness and neediness that He is strong for us, and so we cry out to Him! We read in the beatitudes in Matthew 5:3 NASB, where Jesus teaches:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Why does the kingdom of God belong to the poor in spirit? This word for poor G4434 actually means “a beggar, pauper, poor”. Poor Bartimaeus, everyone knew he was a beggar, his heritage was “son of unclean”, and he was blind, but the glorious thing about Bartimaeus was that HE KNEW THAT HE WAS NEEDY. We should learn a lesson from Bartimeaus here. We must realize that we are NEEDY, that we really NEED JESUS, if the kingdom of heaven is to be ours.

Just as the many were trying to quiet Bartimaeus, the enemy tries to quiet us. But Bartimaeus gives us an example here to follow. We may get resistance to our fervent prayers, we may look ridiculous to others, and others may try to quiet us (or the enemy may try to quiet us), or try to mute us out of shame, but we are exhorted to cry out for Him ALL THE MORE!  As we cry out for Jesus, we will hear (Mark 10:49 NASB):

Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you.

Jesus is telling us that no matter what those around us are shouting at us, we should TAKE COURAGE, because He is calling for us! Bartimaeus received his healing from blindness when he called out fervently to Jesus. And then what did Bartimaeus do? He followed Jesus.

So mom’s, no matter what those around us are saying and despite how we may feel, let’s

CRY OUT TO HIM ALL THE MORE AND WE WILL HEAR HIM CALLING FOR US.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Planting Seeds

~ Mom Morsels
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Planting the Word in our Children’s Hearts

Timothy was a powerful leader and helper to Paul. In 2 Timothy 1:5, the apostle Paul gives credit to Timothy’s mother and grandmother for teaching him a sincere faith (see my blog post entitled “A Sincere Faith”- you can search it on the Home page). But we also see something else they gave him in 2 Timothy 3:15 New American Standard Bible (italics mine):

You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

FROM CHILDHOOD, Timothy knew the sacred writings. A child cannot teach themselves (usually) but must be taught by their parents or other adults. Someone taught Timothy the scriptures and that is how he knew them. Timothy’s father was Greek, probably a non-believer, and his mother Eunice and grandmother Lois were both Jewish believers, so it was mostly likely his mother and grandmother who taught Timothy the scriptures from childhood. This is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children- teaching them the Bible when they are young.

There are many ways we can plant the seed of the Word in our children’s hearts:

  • Read it to them
  • Sing it to them and with them during the day (our children remembered this way the best!); try Steve Green “Hide ‘Em in Your Heart, Volume I” 1990
  • Sing the Word to them as you put them to bed; I sang songs from the above album that my children are now singing to their children.
  • Memorize it with them
  • Talk about it with them
  • Have them write it (when old enough)
  • Have them draw it (if too young to write)

My husband especially likes the Deuteronomy way to teach our children the Word. He likes to teach our children Biblical principles as they encounter difficulties as they grow, and he will show them how the Bible applies to every situation they face. We read in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 NASB:

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

If you’ll notice these Words of God are first IN OUR OWN HEART. Then we teach them to our children as we sit, as we walk, as we lie down, as we get up. Is your family always on the go? Ours was! According to this verse, the time to teach our children the bible is precisely AS WE GO, or as we live our lives. You’ll notice this verse also says that we teach them to our children DILIGENTLY, not perfectly but diligently. Dilgently H8150 means “to sharpen, whet, teach, to be pierced.” I had to look up “whet” and it means “to sharpen the blade of.” This makes sense. As we teach our children the Word of God, the Bible, if they know it well, they will be using a sharp blade against the enemy and they will yield their sword of the Word more effectively in their defense against him (Ephesians 6:17 and Hebrews 4:12).

If you were to go into battle, you wouldn’t want a dull knife. It wouldn’t be very effective. If you go into battle, you want a very sharp knife. In the same manner, if we teach our children the Word of God diligently, they will have a sharp weapon against the enemy when they leave our house and go out into the world.

This verse also says that the result of teaching our children the Word diligently, is that they will be “adequate, equipped for every good work.” That word adequate means “complete”. We want to send our children out into the world complete, ready to stand firm and equipped for the good work that God has for them to do (Ephesians 2:10).

So moms, let’s teach our children the Word diligently, so that they will be

COMPLETE AND EQUIPPED FOR EVERY GOOD WORK GOD WANTS THEM TO DO..

In His Love,

Suzanne

He Loves the Sound of Your Voice

~ Mom Morsels
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He Listens for Your Voice

I’ve been married 35years, and my heart still skips a beat when I hear my husband’s voice as he comes home from work. I love the sound of his voice! It’s the sound of my beloved coming closer to me, his presence nearing me. I love when he’s near me. And God feels the same way about us; He loves when we are near Him also.

We know that we love God’s presence with us, but do you know that He loves your presence with Him also? Song of Solomon is the beautiful love song of Jesus and the church but it also the love song of Jesus and you. In Song of Solomon 4:9 New American Standard Bible, we see His heart for us:

You have made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride;
You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes,
With a single strand of your necklace.

A glance is not a full gaze. A glance is the movement towards a full gaze at someone. As the head moves to glance at someone, the necklace moves slightly and even this slight movement excites Him. How much more our full gaze at His beautiful face must excite His heart, if even a glance in His direction makes His heart beat faster. As we focus on Him, looking full at His face, focusing only on Him, as in prayer, He enjoys our presence.

And He loves the sound of our voice! Song of Solomon 2:14 is Jesus, the Bridegroom speaking to the Bride and to you as He says:

O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
In the secret place of the steep pathway,
Let me see your form,
Let me hear your voice;
For your voice is sweet,
And your form is lovely.

Sweet H6156 means pleasant and comes from a root word that means “close association, to be agreeable, take pleasure in, be sweet.” God takes pleasure in associating with you, in being close to you. He takes pleasure in hearing your voice. Ponder that for a minute, and let that thought bless you! The God of the universe, the Creator of all, takes pleasure in hearing your voice. Doesn’t that just make you want to talk to Him more? to pray to Him more? to praise Him more? It does me!

And He especially loves to hear your voice “in the secret place.” When no one is around; when it’s just you and Him. That is His favorite. And when you are in the “steep place”, He loves to hear your voice. Have you ever felt like you were in a “steep place”, when every step forward takes so much effort, and it feels like you are fighting an uphill battle? Yes, in the hardest times, in the trials, that’s when He especially loves to hear your voice.

Song of Solomon continues in 8:13 where the Bridegroom Jesus pleads with the Bride to let Him hear her voice again:

O you who sit in the gardens,
My companions are listening for your voice—
Let me hear it!”

Even His companions enjoy her voice. And Jesus says, “Let me hear it!” He calls for her to speak, because He loves the sound of her voice. Even so, He pleads with us to let Him hear our voice. As we pray and praise Him, we can just feel His pleasure as He hears our voices. God even leans in to hear our voice. Psalm 116:1-2 NASB:

I love the Lord, because He hears
My voice and my supplications.
Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live.

Incline means “to stretch, bend, extend, incline, bend down.” Have you ever been in a group of people, and you are having trouble hearing the person next to you, so you lean in to hear them? This shows interest. Just as God “inclines” or leans in to listen to our voice, it shows that He wants to hear what we have to say. He wants to listen to us. And like a parent bends down to hear a child, He even bends down to hear us.

If God is so interested in what we say that He bends down and leans in to listen, shouldn’t we take time to talk to Him? In the very midst of our busyness, we can look to Him, talk to Him, and He is eager to listen to us. As always, I am preaching to myself here! So, mom’s, please don’t forget that

HE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR VOICE, SO TAKE TIME TO TALK TO HIM!

In His Love,

Suzanne

Faith Series- Part V

~ Mom Morsels
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Building Up Our Faith

We want great faith, so how do we get it? We don’t develop great faith overnight. Just as we need to exercise our bodies in order to get them to be stronger, we also need to exercise our faith to make it stronger. And just as we need food to fuel our bodies for exercise, we need spiritual food to fuel our faith. Romans 10:17 New American Standard Bible says about faith:

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

The Word is the Bible. So according to this verse, if we want to have more faith, we need to get more Word! We need to know the Bible. We need to read the Bible. We need to study the Bible. When my faith is weak, the first thing I do is read and study my Bible! The Bible fuels our faith, helps it grow, and helps us be able to stand firm when trials come.

But the process of growing our faith can also be very hard! Often God uses difficulties in our lives to grow us, as we see in James 1:2-3 NASB:

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

As we talked about in the beginning of this series, if our faith is never tested, we don’t really know if it is real (see 1 Peter 1:7). But times of trial and testing cause us to grow by deepening our faith and helping us stand strong fortifying our faith at the roots. Deep roots are what causes a tree to stand strong during storms. Some types of pine trees can withstand high winds because of their deep roots and widespread root system. It’s the same with faith. As we see in this verse, when our faith is tested, it produces endurance in us. Endurance deepens our faith roots, and it is endurance that helps us finish the race of faith (Hebrews 12:11).

Another way to grow our faith is through prayer. In the first eleven books of Luke, we see Jesus delivered two men possessed by demons, healed a woman from fever, healed a man from leprosy, healed a paralytic, healed the centurion’s servant, raised a man from the dead, rebuked the waves and wind, healed Jairus’s daughter, fed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, and much more. Despite being in constant demand, Jesus took time to slip away to be with His Father and pray – see Luke 2:49, 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, 9:28. It was after seeing Jesus’ faith to do miracles and noticing that He often slipped away to pray, that the disciples seemed to make a connection between the two in in Luke 11:1 NASB:

It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.

The discples had discovered Jesus’ secret to His faith, and they asked Him to share it with them; they asked Him to teach them about prayer. Prayer is another way to build our faith. Prayer is nothing more than talking with God; spending time with God communicating our thoughts and our hearts to Him. While it’s good to take time to pray (work with your husband or a friend to make this happen), mom’s don’t often have an extended period in which to pray. But just like Jesus, in the very middle of our busy life with children wanting our attention, chores waiting to be done, work howling at us, we can take a few seconds to talk to God. We read in Luke 5:15-16 NASB:

But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

As a mom with five children (this would be the same for any amount of children!), I often felt like a crowd was clamoring around me for attention, but even in the middle of that, and though I couldn’t literally “slip away”, I could take a moment to turn my heart toward Jesus and talk to Him, even if it was just, “Help, Lord!” We can slip away in our hearts towards God. Learning to practice His presence in the midst of our business will grow our faith.

So moms, let’s build our faith by

TALKING TO GOD IN THE MIDST OF YOUR BUSINESS AND READING HIS WORD.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Faith Series- Part IV

~ Mom Morsels
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Standing Firm

There are certain trials we encounter that are really tough. The kind where we are hanging on by a thread. The kind where we are barely making it through. And if we can just STAND FIRM through these trials, we are doing well! We read in 1 Corinthians 16:13 New American Standard Bible as Paul writes:

Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

In this verse “Stand firm” G4739 in the Greek means “to be stationary, to persevere, stand fast”. Sometimes the only thing God requires of us is the stand fast and persevere in our faith, to continue believing what He says despite what we see around us. The root word here is G2476, meaning “to place, put, set up, make firm, fix, establish, set or place in balance, stand, abide, continue.” We place our faith in God. We fix our eyes on Jesus. We stand on His Word. We abide in Him, no matter what is going on around us- we DO NOT MOVE. We choose to STAND firm in faith.

When I found out I was pregnant with our fourth child, I also found out I needed surgery on my left wrist. Because I was pregnant, they could not operate, so they put my left wrist and forearm in a rigid cast for 9 months. Since I worked part-time on the phone and computer in a fast-paced Telehealth nurse job, working one-handed made life very difficult. When our daughter was 6 weeks old, I then had surgery, and so I cared for our newborn and our three other children with a cast from my hand to my shoulder. At the same time, there were many other negative things going on in my life. I cried a lot, but I still chose to stand firm in my faith with Jesus’ help and with help from my husband, family, and friends. This is just one example, and I am sure that others have faced much more difficult situations, but I felt God’s pleasure over me as I stood firm.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stood firm in their faith, despite the threat of losing their lives. Read their story in Daniel 3:10-26. These three were thrown into a furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar, because they refused to bow down and worship his golden image. There were approximately 14000 to 18000 jews in Babylon with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. My question is, what were the rest of the Israelites doing? Why weren’t they resisting Nebuchadnezzar also and refusing to bow to his idol? The furnace was heated seven times hotter than normal. But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stood firm in their faith as we see in Daniel 3: 16-18 NASB:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

Having faith to believe in God to deliver them is one level of faith. Having faith to believe in God even if He did not deliver them, is faith on a whole other level. This is what I would call GREAT FAITH. In our human frailty, we believe in God when we feel we have His blessing over our lives. Things are going well, we have enough money for what we need and want, our family is healthy, no one has had an accident, everything seems “blessed”. But where is our faith when we are not living “the blessed life”? Would Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego have said they were “blessed” when they were feeling the heat from the seven times hotter fire that they were about to be thrown into? I’m sure they did not feel blessed at that moment, but they made the choice to praise God NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENED. As you can read on in the story, you can see that God delivered them, but if God had not, they had decided they would praise Him anyway.

This is the kind of faith I want. The kind of faith that STANDS FIRM during trials, that doesn’t turn and curse God when He doesn’t give me what I prayed or hoped for. Another place we see this kind of faith is in Habbakuk 3: 17-19 NASB:

Though the fig tree should not blossom
And there be no fruit on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive should fail
And the fields produce no food,
Though the flock should be cut off from the fold
And there be no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will exult in the Lord,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength,
And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet,
And makes me walk on my high places.

There is not much left that could go wrong for Habakkuk and Israel. There were no blossoms on the figs, no fruit on the vines, no olives, no food, no sheep, no cattle; every area of livehood and provision for the Israelites was gone. YET, despite dire circumstances, Habakkuk chose to continue to praise God. Continuing to praise God in difficult circumstances shows GREAT FAITH, because in order to praise Him when things are going wrong, we have to trust that He will eventually make things right for us. The difficulty for us is understanding God’s timing, because His timing is different than ours. We want everything now. But from His eternal perspective, it may be on the other side of heaven that God will right our wrongs, and boy, will He! Read Revelation for the end of the story, and to see what happens to those who have done evil and to those who have not bowed their knee to the King of Kings.

So we have to ask ourselves, what kind of faith do we want to have? Do we want to have the Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego kind of faith? … the Habakkuk kind of faith?

Moms, let’s make a choice today to

STAND FIRM IN FAITH WHEN DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES COME.

In His Love,

Suzanne