“I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” Jeremiah 31:25

Many times we fall into a rut and life is the same old thing day after day. There seems to be no spark in life. Or, we are worn out from work or dealing with a heavy burden.

I have been praying about how to be refreshed by God for both myself and for you. Here are some suggestions:

Seek out God for a spiritual checkup! Pray for repentance and correction. Ask God if there are areas in your life where you have excluded Him.

Be still before God and listen for His voice. God does not think like you so you have to release all your feelings and thoughts and center your mind on God.

Cast your burdens upon God. Release them to Him and let go.

Read a Psalm (like 61) and apply the wisdom in your life.

Ask God about taking a break from life like a weekend getaway, nice dinner, or some other fun activity.

Ask God to refresh you with His Spirit and renew your inner being.

Pray for the joy of the Lord and ask God to help you find satisfaction in your daily life.

Most importantly, praise God at all times and ask Him to give you a thankful heart.

Think of God like a filling station. Go to Him and ask for the fullness of His Spirit. He died to give you His life.

He desires to give you times of refreshment!

 

“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” John 11:25-26

Good Morning,

I wrote this last Easter but it has never been published until today. The question is whether Easter is really important or just another holiday.

This is a very valid question and targets the authenticity of Christianity. If Easter is just another holiday and a reason to attend church and then go out for brunch, then there really is no hope for humanity.

If Jesus was not raised from the dead, you can forget about prayer, reading the bible, or going to church. There is no significance to life except to be born and die. Without the cross, life has no purpose and the Bible is merely fiction.

To prove the reality of Easter, you have to open your heart up to God and accept the message of Jesus by faith. When you experience the living God, you will never doubt the authenticity of Easter. You will see the powerful work of the cross every day of your life.

The gift of God is Easter. He loved you and saw your utter hopelessness living in the world. He created a plan to reconcile you to Himself and give you eternal life. He chose His own Son whom He loved dearly to be a sacrifice for sin and to restore people to God.

Jesus set an example of living the resurrected life. He taught the truths of God, performed miracles, healed people, and shared a glimpse of the power and majesty of His Father. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.

Jesus explained the gift of Easter to Martha about four days after the death of her brother Lazarus. Jesus told Martha that He is the resurrection and the only path to eternal life. He also said that if you believe in Me, even though you die, you will live forever with Me. Jesus then raised Lazarus from death just like He will do for you.

Jesus came to earth for one purpose. He was destined by His Father to die so you could have the gift of eternal life. He died on the cross for you. This sacrificial act provided a method for all your sins to be forgiven and for you to receive the gift of eternal life.

Eternal life has nothing to do with time and is not related to death but to life. When Jesus died on the cross, the gift of eternal life became available to you. You can receive this gift when you accept Jesus by faith as your Lord and Savior.

At the moment you make this decision, you are given eternal life and the Spirit of Jesus is placed inside you. You now have the life of Jesus living in you. This is like a river of living water filled with all the attributes of Jesus and leading to eternal life.

What actually happened when Jesus died on the cross relates directly to you. As a believer, your old self died with Jesus and His resurrected life is in you in the form of the Holy Spirit.

You are a new creature in Christ Jesus and your old ways have faded away and all things have become new. You have to make a choice every day to live by the Spirit or revert back to living for self.

Your old self is dead and if you attempt to go back to living for self you diminish the power of the Spirit of God and make a mockery of the gift of Easter. You are really expressing that you don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus and living for self is a better choice.

As a believer, you have Jesus living in you. He wants to be your best friend and share Himself with you. He desires to give you wisdom, strength, and protection. He is also at work to refine you and create His inner nature within you.

The gift of Easter is living forever with God both on the earth and in heaven. And you become an heir to all His promises. You can trust God to give you an abundant and rewarding life and to bless the desires of your heart. He is a God of exceeding goodness!

Have a wonder Easter and celebrate the gift of Jesus with me!

“I will punish the world for its evil,
And the wicked for their iniquity;
I will halt the arrogance of the proud,
And will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.” Isaiah 13:12

Good morning,

Today is Good Friday!

God woke me up in the middle of the night with this Bible verse. You can’t take God for granted or think you can get away with sin. He is a God of retribution. God blesses and He curses.

Jesus died for sin so when you live for self you are rejecting God. The attitude of arrogance and pride will lead to your downfall.

You may think you can exist and enjoy a good life on your own but this is a path to death and destruction.

Nothing is hidden from God! He is a God of judgment and you and I have been found guilty. The only recourse is the blood of Jesus.

You can’t approach God without His blood covering you! He is Holy and will not be contaminated by your sin.

When you experience the holiness and glory of God you will see yourself for who you really are and cry out like Isaiah. “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

The blood of Jesus gives you the right to be blameless before God. This is why He died on Good Friday. He gave up His life so you can be redeemed by Him forever.

Today is the perfect day to get right with God! He loves you!

 

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Why are You so far from helping Me,
And from the words of My groaning?” Psalm 22:1

These words were spoken by Jesus just before He died and by David when he was going through a very tumultuous time. Neither men could see any light!

These men were expressing a deep feeling of sadness and loneliness because they felt God had abandoned them. They both cried out to God asking why He was so far away and not responding to their pleas for help.

They both loved God with all their heart and wanted to please Him in every aspect of their lives. They lived for God but felt like He had rejected them.

The question becomes why does God seem to drop off the earth when you are in a dire situation? The answer is He will never leave you and is right beside you at all times. God doesn’t think like a human and His ways are different than yours. The idea of what is right and what is the wrong action during a crisis is different to God.

When you step out to serve God with all your heart, you should expect to feel deserted by God at times. The times in your life when God seems distant are designed by Him for you to walk by faith without any evidence of His provision in your life. You are literally living on His Word and believing in His power and dominion over all things in heaven and earth.

God greatly rewarded both of these men for their steadfast faith and praise to God through a very tumultuous situation. Jesus is seated at the right side of the throne of God and has been given power and dominion over all things. David became a great king with riches, respect, adoration from all of Israel.

So when you feel alone and abandoned by God, reach out to Him with praise and thankfulness! He is with you even though you can’t see Him. Never give up on God!

“It is finished.” John 19:30

These were the last words of Jesus. The pain and agony of the cross was over. He was obedient to his Father unto death and had completed his calling from God.

Jesus didn’t die for good people. He died for all regardless of the nature of their sin. Jesus died to be a martyr for sin. He was killed for His beliefs by the religious leaders of the day. They rejected Jesus for religion.

The death of Jesus put to death the sanctimonious character of religion. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You cannot be redeemed by good works or keeping the laws of God. It is by faith in Jesus Christ. This is the only way you can be restored to God.

Jesus was a human just like you. He lived on the earth and experienced all the same feelings as you and me. The difference is He was perfect. He could see all your imperfections and knew the only way for you to be free from sin was by His blood.

The cross is an invitation to accept the gift of eternal life. When God raised Jesus from death to life, He provided the ability for you to share in His resurrected life. The cross brings forgiveness for sin and gives you access to all the attributes of Jesus.

The cross allows for you to experience resurrected life every day. It is about living today with the life of Jesus dwelling inside you.

This Sunday is Easter! It is a celebration of new life made available by the obedience of Jesus to His Father. Easter is a time to praise God and thank Him for this precious gift of eternal life!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Jesus died to give you a new life. You were created in the image of God but you cannot keep the commandments of God or live a life pleasing to Him. This is because you were born into the world with sin residing in you and it will never go away.

You have to be in Christ to become a new creature. There is no other way. You can’t find God by keeping a set of laws or doing good works.

The gift of God is accepting Jesus Christ, the son of God, as your Savior. You must make a sincere and genuine commitment to live for God and make Him the centerpiece of your life.

You can’t come to Jesus and continue living in your old ways. If you are not changing, you probably are not a believer.

When you come to Jesus, this starts a process of converting you into a new identity. Your old self has died with Jesus on the cross and you are a new person.

This work is accomplished by God placing the Holy Spirit inside you. The Spirit, which is the life of Jesus, does the work of refining you into a new person. The Spirit will change you into an entirely new creature. He will permeate every aspect of your life.

The Spirit will give you a new perspective on life and you will think and act differently. The Spirit will take away your fleshly thinking patterns and bad habits. Your personality will begin to reflect the life of Jesus. What was important to you in the past will fade away. You will have new priorities in your life.

You will understand that all good things come from God and He desires to reward you abundantly with a good life.

The Spirit brings life and renewal. He is your lifeline to God!

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