“You do not know about tomorrow. What is your life like?  For you are a puff of smoke that appears for a short time and then vanishes.”   James 4:14

Recently, as I walked along the streets of Seattle, I became intrigued with the golden inserts in the sidewalks. As I stopped at one intersection, one in particular caught my attention. It said:

“I always knew that someday I would travel this road but yesterday I did not know it would be today.”

It reminded me of how casually I live my life, not considering that tomorrow could be totally different than anything I could have ever expected or for that matter, for me, tomorrow might not even exist.  James tells us that my life is like a puff of smoke that appears for a short time and then vanishes. John Wesley said that life is like an arrow shot from a bow and passing swiftly over the sea of time.

Life is short and fragile and everyday is a gift. No one has ever gotten out of this world alive. We indeed all know that someday we will travel that road, but as the plaque in the sidewalk inferred, we know not when.

As an attorney, I have written hundreds of wills for clients and their focus is usually on what will happen with their estate when they die. I remind them that estate planning does focus on death, but it also ought to focus on life planning as well.. what you will do and how you will use your resources for your remaining days, however many that may be.

So, it is a reminder to live our lives more focused on the limitation of time we have on earth and how we can best use it for good and for God. Here are some thoughts and suggestions:

• Live each day as if it were going to be our last. Never go to bed without resolving internal turmoil of external relationships that need to be resolved with others.

• Be prepared to meet God face to face at any time by making sure you have made the right decisions about your relationship with Jesus and your salvation is secure. After all, the next life will be a lot longer and more important than this one.

• Make sure that each day you live and love life the way God would want you to.

• Live, laugh and experience each day to the fullest, so that when you die, you will have no regrets, no reservations and that you will be prepared to receive the greatest revelation of your life.

• Take your eyes off your circumstances and focus on your relationship with God.

And, above all else make sure that you live each day with praise on your lips, love in your heart and worship in your soul and make sure that when the roll is called up yonder you will be there.

(a thought on life from John Grant )

by John Grant
used by permission

John Grant is a former Florida State Senator and is a practicing attorney

FURTHER READING

Waiting God’s Way –   by Kathy Cheek

The Ugly Truth about Self-Reflection

Show Me Your Ways – by Phil Ware

Prayer for God to Make a Way –  by Roy Lessin

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“Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. Isaiah 38:5 (NIV)

Judy’s brother died unexpectedly of cancer.  Feeling sad and lonely Judy spent a lot of time crying, worried about her own mortality.  One night during a time of many tears, she awoke from a sound sleep.  She sat up in bed and said, Isaiah 38:5

She laughed and spoke aloud to herself,  Did I just say Isaiah 38:5?

She lay back down, intending to fall back to sleep.  Then the thought came,  ‘Was this from God?’

Judy didn’t even know how many chapters were in the book of Isaiah!

So she found a Bible and read, ‘I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.‘

Oh, what comfort!

Judy said, ‘I don’t have to cry. God has already seen my tears.’

Yes, friend, God knows all about your trials.  He will comfort you if you’ll go to Him in prayer.

by Vonette Bright
used by permission

FURTHER READING

• In My Life   – In my tears I know His comfort,
• Hurting Quotes – Encouragement Quotes
• Dry Bones Praying by Sylvia Gunter

Homepage for the  Devotionals

The post Time of Many Tears appeared first on Thoughts About God.

In the movie The Patriot, Benjamin Martin is a loving father who reluctantly goes to fight in the Revolutionary War. His youngest daughter Susan is too young to comprehend why her father has to go away and refuses to speak to him when he returns for a visit. He begs her to say something, anything. But she refuses. As he rides off on his horse to fight once again, Susan screams for her Papa not to go. All he has to do is tell her what he wants her to say, and she will say it. The father jumps of his horse and takes Susan in his arms and assures her that she doesn’t have to do anything. He delights in her because of who she is. He looks her in the eye and says, “You make me happy.”

What a blessing to receive from a father!  Receive this blessing from your Father as he kneels down to look you in the eye and say, “You make me happy.”

Listen with your spirit to Ephesians 1:3-6.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will- to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”

Precious one, receive the defining love and grace of your God and Father of your Lord Jesus Christ.

You existed in God’s heart from eternity as a precious being before time was. You abide in his everlasting love that adopted you as his child through Jesus Christ.

Be blessed to hear your Father speak his blessings to you.

Be blessed to discover many deposits of his blessings in your inner being. Let them trickle down to soul, heart, emotions, will.

Be blessed to live and move in tune with your Father’s heart for your identity, legitimacy, and birthright. Jesus living in you is the unique glory of your life. He created you for the praise of his glorious grace. This is God’s final word on who you are. Be blessed as you receive all the good gifts of life-giving incarnation from the Spirit of the Life-giver in you. Receive his faith, hope, and love.

Your life is like a treasure map, and you are on a journey of discovery of your true identity, legitimacy, and confident freedom. Feel God’s light shining upon you, revealing the seven colors of the rainbow of his covenant to you.

Be blessed as your God and Father creates new pathways of significance where none has consciously existed.

Be blessed as you discover how the seven colors of God’s covenant are displayed in you.

Be blessed with deepening significance that you can sense should be there. Receive the gentle voice of your Father speaking in the core of your essence, “You are my beloved.”

Don’t find your identity and legitimacy from any human person, thing, or accomplishment. Only your spirit connection with your Father is significant to your identity and legitimacy. That’s the truth of your life. Claim it, and live it.

Precious one, be blessed as you live your life as a redeemed eternal child of your eternal Father. His will for you is that you know that you are beautiful, his own special creation.

Be blessed to know that he determined for you an appointed place and time and purpose and that in him you live and move and have your being (Acts 17:26,28).

Be blessed to live and move in tune with your Father’s heart for your identity, legitimacy, calling, authority, and birthright. Today is the day of his favor for you.

Be blessed as you stand tall in all your legitimacy as a covenant right from your Father the King.

Be blessed as you choose to live from his heart and in your authority in him. Be blessed in Jesus’ name as a child of his God and Father (Ephesians 1:3).

Be blessed in the name of the Spirit of adoption (Romans 8:15 NKJV – Spirit of sonship in NIV).

by Sylvia Gunter
used by permission

Further Reading

• Seven-fold Blessing –  by Sylvia Gunter

• Blessed are the Merciful –  by Bill Bright

• God’s Blessings – by Alec Niemi

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The post You Make Me Happy appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.� 1 Peter 2:21

It was a beautiful watch, one of the top brands. I loved wearing it and it always gave the right time. I priced one in a jewelry store at more than $5,000. But after wearing it for nearly a year, the stem broke and I threw the beautiful watch in the trash. Now, you might ask, why would I throw away such a valuable timepiece rather than getting it fixed. The answer is that it was a fake, one that I purchased for $25 at a flea market in Beijing. The watch gave every exterior evidence of being the real thing, but inside, it was a cheap imitation.

A lot of Christians are like that…. imitation Christians. “Oh, I believe Christ was our Great Example“. I always ask myself, ‘What would Jesus do?’ and then I try to do it.” Sorry, my friend, there’s no place in the New Testament that comments on following the example of Jesus to be saved or in any way confirms the doctrine of “salvation by imitation.”

The apostle Peter mentioned Christ (in 1 Peter 2:21) as an example who was sinless even under gross mistreatment and who entrusted Himself completely in His suffering to His Father. Peter continues, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; for by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)

We are not saved by imitating Jesus. We are saved by surrendering our life to Him. The biggest problem with being saved by following Christ’s example is that we’ve already blown it. It’s awfully hard to imitate someone with a perfect record, especially when the only “passing grade” in that system is perfection.

Jesus is not only our example but He is also our substitute. He took the consequences of our sin upon Himself so that through faith in Him we might receive forgiveness and healing and abundant eternal life. Even if your concept is close, when you try to “be like Jesus” in your own strength, you are doomed to frustration. You can’t do it. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life and that comes not from imitation, but from total surrender.

You must transfer your trust from your own “trying” to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. You must divorce your notions of what you think Jesus would do, and accept the Scriptures as the standard for what you believe and do. And, put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross and arose again from the dead, to be your only Savior and the King of your life.

Are you an “imitation Christian” or the real thing?
(a thought on life from John Grant )

You can comment on this devotional online at:
https://thoughtsaboutgod.com/blog/2009/11/15/jg_imitation/

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“For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”
1 Peter 1:23

Peter most earnestly urged the scattered saints to “love one another deeply, from the heart,” and he wisely obtained his argument, not from the law, from nature, or from philosophy, but from that high and divine nature which God has given His people.

In the same way that a wise teacher of a prince might try to foster in them a kingly spirit and dignified behavior based on the prince’s position and descent, so too Peter says to us: “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:22-23)

Peter says this as he looks on God’s people as heirs of glory, princes of the royal blood, and descendants of the King of kings, earth’s truest and oldest aristocracy. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, in the spirit of humility, we recognized the true dignity of our reborn nature, and actually lived up to it?

What is a Christian? If you compare him with a king, they add priestly sanctity to royal dignity. The king’s royalty often lies only in his crown, but with a Christian it is infused into their inmost nature. A Christian is given a truly honored position through their new birth.

We ought to carry ourselves, in every way, as people who are not merely “commoners“, but chosen out of the world. We should be distinguished by sovereign grace, written among “the peculiar people” and who no longer grovel in the dust, and no longer live purely for the material things of this world.

Let the dignity of your reborn nature, and the brightness of your future, compel you to yearn for and cling to holiness, and to avoid all appearances of evil.

Question: What does it mean to be a descendant of the King of Kings?

You can comment on this devotional online at:
https://thoughtsaboutgod.com/blog/2009/07/29/cs_king/

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