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

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.

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

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 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

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

A Genuine Faith

Have you ever faced diffiucult circumstances in your life, and said to yourself, “I wish I could have faith in this situation”? I know that I have. But here is some good news for you! If you have believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and been born again, then you already have the FAITH you think you lack! We see this explained in Ephesians 2:8-9 New American Standard Bible (italics mine):

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

It was through your faith that you were saved, so you actually do have some faith. It is God’s gift to you by His grace, not by anything you did. In fact Romans 12:3 New American Standard Bible clarifies this further (Italics mine, again):

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.

Yes, everyone of us, who trust in Christ as our Savior and Lord, have been given a measure of faith by God. Measure G3358 is translated as “a measure of (“meter”), literally or figuratively, by implication a limited portion, a portion measured off.” Looking at the Greek, it is not clear whether this is “a measure” or “the measure” of faith, but what is clear from this verse is that God determines that we each have at least some measure or portion of faith. I found this fact encouraging! I do have faith! and so do you! The question is, what do we do with our measure of faith?… We have to grow it!

So how exactly do we grow our faith? This is the hard part, because in order to grow our faith, we have to go through trials, difficulties, hard situations. Think of it this way… in order to keep our bodies healthy, we have to exercise. Most of the time, exercise takes effort and often, if we really want to get in shape, some pain is involved. “No pain, no gain” is the saying. It’s the same way with faith. In order to grow our faith, we need to exercise it and often this is a painful process..

If our faith is never exercised, is it really genuine faith? If our faith is never tested, then it’s just an idea or a thought. We really only know our faith is real, if we go through a trial, and we realize our faith in God has carried us through. Let’s look at 1 Peter 1:6-7, and I like the New International Version for this verse:

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Our heavenly Father is concerned about eternal matters. What matters to Him is that our faith is GENUINE or REAL. And how will we know whether our faith is real, unless it is tested? In fact, to God, the genuinessness of your faith is MORE PRECIOIUS THAN GOLD. Wow, that’s very precious! And did you catch the last part of this verse? When our faith is proven genuine, more precious than gold, that in turn brings GLORY and HONOR when Jesus Christ is revealed. God has done so much for us, so it is a great honor for us to be able to give something back to Him, to be able to bring glory to His name.

So moms, please don’t get discouraged when your faith is tested, and remember that

TO GOD YOUR GENUINE FAITH IS WORTH MORE THAN GOLD!

In His Love,

Suzanne

What is Faith?

We could study what faith means for the rest of our lives and never stop learning about it. Faith is a central concept in the Bible, and so much is said about this important subject. In our Faith Series, we will only try to offer a simple definition of faith, and hopefully this will spur you on in your own study of what the Bible says about faith. According to Quora* the word “faith” is mentioned 254 times in the New International Version Bible. Obviously, faith is something God wants us to know a lot about! With such a big concept, we might feel intimidated to even study faith at all, but we are compelled to study faith, because of the importance God places on this concept in the Bible.

Let’s start with a verse that is the closest the Bible comes to a definition of faith, Hebrews 11:1. In our Hope Series, we looked at this verse in the New American Standard Bible version as it related to hope, but I also like how the New International Version Bible is phrased:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know where we will go from here. Faith in the Greek G4102 means “persuasion, moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation, assurance, belief, faith, fidelity.” And faith comes from a root word G3982 that means “to convince, to assent, to rely, agree, assure, believe, have confidence, make friend, obey, persuade, trust, yield.” There is a lot to faith! In the root word G3982, we can see that faith is related to trust.

So, let’s say you have a trustworthy friend. You know this person’s character, that they are truthful, that they are trustworthy, that they love you, that they are for you. Then circumstances arise which make it appear that this person has stolen something from you. Will your trust in that person override the incriminating evidence you see before you? If you really trust this person, you will be convinced that the evidence may be wrong, that there must be some explanation for your friend’s behavior, since you know your friend is trustworthy. FAITH would believe the friend, not the circumstances. It’s the same with God. FAITH believes that God is truthful, that He is trustworthy, that He loves us, that He is for us, despite our circumstances, difficulties and trials.

If we know God’s character, if we trust God, if our hope is in Him, despite what we may see around us, we can have FAITH in God. We will believe in God no matter what we see. We know God and His character, so even though it may look to us like He has abandoned us, we choose to trust Him anyway and have FAITH in Him. Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 4:16,18 New American Standard Bible for more insight: .

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day…. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Many of us lose heart so easily when we encounter difficulties in our lives (you can see that I have included myself here!). But God tells us in this verse how we can avoid losing heart, and it is by fixing our eyes on what is unseen not on what is seen. What is seen are the circumstances that surround us-the amount of money in our bank account (yikes! there have been times with five children that we have lived pay-check to pay-check!), sickness, job loss, appliances breaking down, misbehaving kids (We’ve been through every one of these!). What is unseen, is what God is doing for us behind the scenes, the plan God has for us in these circumstances, how He will either rescue us out of them or help us endure as we go through them. FAITH focuses not on the temporary, ie our earthly troubles, but on the eternal, God’s eternal plan for us. FAITH focuses not on the seen but on the unseen. We stand firm in FAITH, if we keep our focus on God.

So moms, don’t lose heart, instead

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE UNSEEN AND YOUR HOPE IN GOD, SO YOU CAN STAND IN FAITH.

In His Love,

Suzanne

* https://www.quora.com/How-many-times-is-faith-mentioned-in-the-Bible#:~:text=The%20word%20%22faith%22%20appears%20336,Good%20News%20Bible%20(GNB).

His Presence-Our Greatest Gift

Immanuel means God with Us. This name for Jesus, encompasses God’s will for us from the beginning of time-He wants to be with us. Matthew 1:23 New American Standard Bible says:

 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” 

God set up the garden of Eden like the biblical groom sets up a house for his beloved. Eden was the perfect environment for mankind to grow, trees flourishing, lush fruit for eating, no rain needed because a mist came up from the ground and watered the earth. And after He set up this home for man, he placed man and woman in the garden to meet with them in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8), to be with them. It’s so clear that He has always wanted to be with us.

Of course, the perfect garden became imperfect when Adam sinned, but even then, we find that God had a plan in place to rescue us and bring us to Himself through Jesus. Through Jesus the world was reconciled to God and fellowship with our Maker was restored. .If we accept Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are back where we were meant to be, in communion with God.

Often we seek after the things God can offer, but it is in seeking God Himself, His very presence, that we are most fulfilled. Psalm 16:11 NASB says:

You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Fullness here means “satisfaction, abundance, fill, full, be satisfied.” You know that feeling after you have eaten a good meal, not too much, but just the right amount to have a nice full and satisfied feeling in your stomach? It’s that kind of full, a completely satisfied kind of full, a not needing anything else kind of full. And at His right hand are pleasures forever. God’s right hand is where Jesus sits interceding for us. No wonder there are forever pleasures there!

So how do we get more of His presence in our lives? Getting more of the Word in our lives. My husband likes to listen to the Bible; I like to read the Bible. Singing the Word helps me retain what I hear. I also, ask the Holy Spirit to interrupt my day. I love to go on walks, but half way around the lake path, I often realize I left Him 1/4 mile back. I am a busy person, so I ask Holy Spirit to interrupt my life with His presence. A favorite book of mine The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence * says,

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.”

Oh to be able to be like Brother Lawrence! It takes practice to remember to acknowledge God in each moment of our day. We invite Him into every area of our lives, not just the “sacred” moments, but the every day moments, the busy clattering moments which are to Him just as precious, because He wants to be with us ALWAYS AND FOREVER.

So this Christmas season, let’s remember to

PRACTICE HIS PRESENCE IN OUR EVERYDAY MOMENTS.

In His love,

Suzanne

*Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, (Old Tappan: 1958), p.8

Feet Unmoved

In our next verses of our study, Psalm 121:3-4 New American Standard Bible, God reassures us as to what kind of watchman He is:

He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

A slip is an accident. There are no accidents with God. Anything that comes to you has to pass through His hands first because He is sovereign. Remember Job? After all he endured, he said he now saw God, instead of just hearing about Him from others (Job 42:5). God had something more for Job than just letting him live the good life. God wanted Job to know Him more intimately.

When I was on a Ugandan Missions trip in June, we went hiking at a series of waterfalls called Sipi Falls. It had been very rainy with the trail to the waterfalls much slipperier than usual, and we weren’t wearing the correct shoes. Also, the trail was much steeper than what was anticipated. But we were very careful and we had wonderful GUIDES helping us. And no one fell. We were being watched over carefully. If we even tottered or started to slip, there was our guide’s hand stretched out towards us to steady us and keep us from falling, to keep our feet in place.

This phrase referring to the foot not slipping H4132 in Greek actually means to not “waver, slip, totter or be moved.” Your feet will not be moved. Why? Because your Watchman is watching over you and guiding you. This reminds me of the house that was built on the ROCK in Matthew 7:24-27. It got hit with the same storms that the house on the sand did. The house on the sand slipped and fell, but the house on the rocks DID NOT MOVE. If we build our lives on the Word, then when storms come (and they will!), we also will not be moved.

And if we come close to slipping, God is right there. He is ALWAYS NEAR. We see what happens in Psalm 37:23-24 NASB if we start to fall:

The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
And He delights in his way.
When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong,
Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.

Close your eyes and picture a parent holding their toddler’s hand. Just learning to walk, the toddler is a little wobbly. The toddler starts to fall, but the parent pulls the hand up, and though the toddler may falter, the parent’s action helps them place their feet square on the ground again. That is what God does for us. Because He is always holding our hand (if we let Him!), when we begin to falter, He pulls us up, so we don’t fall “headlong”, so we don’t fall on our face ,and so our feet stay on the ground.

When a person is tired, they are more prone to accidents. They might be drowsy, doze off or slumber. Did you know that driving while drowsy is just as dangerous as drunk driving? So I told our kids, don’t drive if you are sleepy! (they knew not to drive drunk). In reference to God not slumbering, the word slumber H5123 is used once in verse 3 and a second time in verse 4. He’s making a point. He said it twice. He does not slumber. He does not get drowsy. He does not miss anything. He is ALWAYS watching over us!

Our verse also tells us that God DOES NOT SLEEP. We need sleep to keep us alert during the day. God doesn’t need sleep to keep Him alert. He is always alert. Good night-watchmen don’t sleep. They stay alert all night looking out for danger lurking in the night. God is our GOOD WATCHMAN, always alert, never sleeping, never letting things slip by Him.

So moms, remember that

GOD IS ALWAYS WATCHING OVER YOU.

In His Love,

Suzanne

Daily Mercies !

When I read the Bible, I sometimes read it like any other book I would read. I realized recently that this is not the best way to read the Bible. The Pharisees read the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) this way, and it didn’t do them any good, because of the state of their hearts when they read it. Jesus said their hearts were hardened and their ears were dull. So I ask myself what is the state of my heart when I read my Bible?

If I read my Bible with a soft heart and my ears open, then I realize how UTTERLY AMAZING all that I read in the Bible is. As I read my Bible with a heart full of faith, I stand in AWE of all that God is speaking to me through His Word. It’s the difference between reading the Word objectively and subjectively. Am I reading the Word like a list of facts or am I reading the Word, knowing that God wrote each Word to speak to me? The Bible is a love letter to us from God. How will we let this letter from God affect us? If we read His love letter to us with a heart full of FAITH, then His letter to us will truly change us.

Here’s an example of what I mean. In Lamentations 3:22-23 English Standard Version we read about what God’s heart towards us is:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is Your faithfulness.

If we really believe that His mercies are new every morning, then with faith in our hearts we should be looking for them. If indeed we receive new mercies from God every day, then at the end of the day, we can look back and see His mercy to us for that day. I have started making this a practice for myself. At then end of the day, I look back and I ask God to show me, where was Your mercy for me in this day? He always shows me something, even on my very worst days.

This word mercies is translated as “compassion, by extension the womb (as cherishing the fetus), tender love, mercy, pity.” Yes, God’s heart is tender and loving towards us, showing us His compassion. He extends His mercy to us in so many ways! It’s so interesting that this word mercies at it’s root means WOMB, because who is more helpless than the baby in the womb, totally dependent on it’s mother for everything it needs to grow and develop? In the same way, we are so helpless and NEEDY, much more than we realize (much more than I realize!). We depend on God for everything we need; we’re so helpless and yet He shows us His compassion and mercy.

I love this verse in Psalm 103: 13-14 New American Standard Bible, which explains His compassion for us:

Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust.

If He knows my frame, then I don’t have to explain myself to Him. I don’t have to explain to Him that I am very emotional and tend to overreact to things-He knows my weaknesses, because He made me. If He knows I am dust, then I don’t have to explain my helplessness to Him. I don’t have to explain how utterly NEEDY I am, how dependent on Him I am for EVERYTHING. He knows that I am helpless without Him.

And if we can’t find any other mercy from Him in our day, then we can find His mercy in sending His Son Jesus to rescue us from our poor dust-filled state and in REDEEMING us! We can thank Him daily for that mercy.

So moms, let’s

LOOK FOR HIS MERCIES EVERY DAY AND WE WILL FIND THEM!

In His Love,

Suzanne

Does God Still Care for Me in the Wilderness?

It’s so wonderful to feel blessed. It’s even better to not just feel blessed but to KNOW that you are blessed! If the Creator of the universe speaks blessing over you, then you do KNOW that you are blessed! At Jesus baptism, God the Creator, God the Father, pronounced a glorious blessing over His Son J also spoke identity over Him. In Mark 1:11 New American Standard Bible, we read:

…and a voice came out of the heavens: “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.”

Almost like when we boast about our children to our friends, God spoke this blessing over His beloved Son in front of a large crowd, so all could hear, saying He was well-pleased with Him. Well-pleased G2106 means “to think well of, approve, be well pleased, take pleasure.” Father God took pleasure in His only begotten Son. I know this same feeling, when my husband and I take pleasure in our children, simply the fact that they are ours (well, on loan from God!). We look at them and smile, enjoying who God made them to be. When you realize that God takes pleasure in you-well, let it sink in, bask in it, like when you bask in the sun and let its warmth penetrate your skin. Yet after God spoke over Jesus that He was HIS SON, confirming His identity and blessing Him, in the very next verse, we read in Matthew 1:12 NASB:

Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness.

Why would God speak a blessing over His Son, then let the Holy Spirit “impel” Him into the wilderness? “Impel” G1544 means “to cast out, drive out, to expel a person from society, to compel one to depart, to draw out with force, to eject” and comes from a root word meaning “to throw or to thrust”. So God the Holy Spirit drove, cast, expelled, thrust Jesus into the wilderness. Doesn’t that seem to be the opposite of what a loving Father would do to His beloved Son, who He just said He was pleased with? Yet, God did just that. Perhaps the blessing that God the Father spoke over Jesus, was to prepare Him to stand strong in the wilderness, so that He would know for certain His identity as the Son of God in the midst of the temptations that He was about to face.

So many times when we are in the wilderness, things aren’t going well, or we feel like God is far away, we think that God does not care about us or love us. But the Holy Spirit (God) drove Jesus, God’s MUCH BELOVED Son, the Darling of heaven, His one and only begotten Son who He was well-pleased with-into the wilderness. He literally threw Him there. This was done to God’s Son. If you are in the wilderness at this moment, do not believe the lie that you are there because you are not well-pleasing to God. Be reassured that God can still be well-pleased with you and love you, even though He is allowing you to be in the wilderness and even though He may have thrust you there. He may be thrusting you there, so He can bring you to a place of victory over the devil, just like He did with Jesus!

Don’t let the enemy rob you of your identity in Christ! We let the enemy hijack our identity way too easily. Satan’s aim is to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10), so if we let our guard down even a little, we need to know that the enemy is going to be right there to snatch it away. Don’t let Him do that! This is why we need to STAND FIRM in who we are in Christ. This is why we need to get in His Word and KNOW what He says about us deep our hearts. The truth of our identity in God needs to be firmly planted there. When the storms come and the winds blow, we need a house that can stand strong on a firm foundation, on the ROCK, on CHRIST (Matthew 7:24).

So mom’s

BUILD YOUR IDENTITY ON THE ROCK, SO IT WILL STAND STRONG.

In His Love,

Suzanne