More from Luke

 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Luke 24:32
ESV

How often do we read and hear Scripture without seeing Jesus? Do our hearts burn within us? 

In Christ,
Sandy 

Lesson from Luke...

So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd.
Luke 22:6
ESV

And so it is with us....in the absence of a crowd our true self is manifested. What we do in the dark, what we do when no one is watching, when no one is listening, that is what is revealed in our character. But Someone is watching........


Praise be to God that while He has seen and listened, I am forgiven through Christ.


In Him,
Sandy

To return good for good is human. To return good for evil is divine.
 Alistair Begg

Overwhelmed by the love of family....I am blessed indeed

Sydney's Family: Minerva...

Sydney's Family: Minerva...: This seems to be what Sydney's doctors have in mind for her transitional brace. It's called a Minerva brace. Not sure if this can be fitted...

If you are to share the gospel, you must first know the content of the gospel and you must live out the implications of the gospel.
Tim Challies

just thinking...

about  family members....oh that we would be joined together in Christ....

White washed tombs?

I've had this post  rambling thought in my head for a few weeks now. Today, I guess it became even clearer to me.Now, before I get started, there are people out there that cringe at the beginning of my stories but thankfully for them I talk faster than I type, so this won't be quite as painful;) So this thought came to me one day as I was getting ready(read putting makeup on) and I realized that I don't like for my girls to see me doing that. Why? Well, I want them to focus on the" inner" beauty. I want them to see the value in themselves through the blood of Christ. Not the praise of man.I don't want them to think that that's something that they need to do. I have a couple of friends that don't really wear makeup and they look lovely. And yet I continue to ''get ready", it's a habit I suppose. I've been wearing makeup since I was 12...oh my...that's a long time if you're counting! As a girl of 12 I wanted to look older, as a woman of 40 I want to look younger. And so it goes. But I realized that it goes so much deeper than that. Think of the descriptions for make up....concealer, cover up, full coverage, "spackle" if you will. Some of these could be interchangeable with deceit. Really, that's what it is. But underneath, the wrinkles are still there right along with the age spots. And sometimes the "cover up" actually makes it worse, sometimes we and others can see the flaws and wrinkles all the more clearly. Not what we had hoped for, huh?Now, some of you are thinking, "I don't wear makeup", "I don't fuss with my appearance", "I don't care what others think", "what you see is what you get",well, before you think that this doesn't apply to you, there are more ways than one to make ourselves look better. Vanity and deceit sometimes walk together. We all "wear makeup". What about those "fake" smiles that we plaster on? What about that "little white lie"? What about the gossip, does it make you feel better about yourself? Do others think better of you? We've been doing this since the garden, remember when Adam and Eve tried to cover  themselves? They couldn't cover their sin anymore that you or I can. God made their coverings. It took a sacrifice. We could be here for a while.....I'll move on.

So, today we had an issue of a "cover up". Yes, someone had made a "mess" of things at some point and tried to cover it up. They didn't want to get in trouble but decided to take care of  it themselves(read bigger mess). Well, I was frustrated and disappointed to say the least. So, I sent my beloved a text and ask for prayer. Oh, that we would do this more often. What a blessing to have my husband go to the Lord in prayer for me. I had to confront the issue and at the same time convey a message of love. HARD for me to do. Then my ramblings came together some more. I'm guilty of the same cover ups and so are you. We make a mess of things(read sin) and try to take care of it ourselves and end up with a bigger mess. Sin breeds sin. So, where did this conversation take us? It took us to the Cross. Praise be to God for Christ! For His "covering". Only Him, only Him.

I just realized that I haven't even gotten to the title, maybe my typing skills are improving. I think you can figure out where I was going with that:)


Thankful for Christ....

In Him,
Sandy

My beloved...

My beloved is mine, and I am his...
Song of Solomon 2:16 ESV

How fitting that I should be reading this today! I am indeed blessed by my beloved - my husband, blessed by the man of God he is and will become. Thankful for the gracious and Sovereign hand that saw fit to give him to me.

In Christ,
Sandy

Radishes, Aluminum Foil, and Jesus Christ...

Cole and Haley are studying Science together this year. They're currently working on an ongoing experiment with radishes. They love it! There's an experiment everyday for 4 weeks! The most recent discovery came about yesterday. Of the many experiments this one involved two cups and two seeds. The 1st seed is placed in a clear plastic cup and a damp paper towel. The 2nd is placed in a cup completely covered with aluminum foil. After a waiting period of  a few days(I can't remember exactly), it was time to observe and record the findings. As expected the "clear" cup seed sprouted and was a lovely green. Unexpected to Cole and Haley were the findings in the "aluminum" cup seed. Neither of them expected the seed would grow. But lo and behold, grow it did. Seems good, right? What was different? There was no lovely green color, the stem was weak, the leaves were weak and all of it was very pale indeed. This plant left in the dark will eventually wither and die, it will not bear fruit. Why? Well, they answered correctly, there was no sunlight, plants need the sun for food....for life,the lovely green color of photosynthesis. And here we are....we too need the SON light. We may "sprout and grow" for a while in the dark,but we will be weak, we will not bear any fruit, we will soon fade, only to wither and die. But the Light of the world has come. Praise be to God that He has not left us in the dark. We will only be strong through Him, we will only grow through Him, and we will live only through Him and because of Him. Don't stay in the dark. Come to Christ, the true Light.

In Christ,
Sandy

"One compromise here, another there;soon enough the so-called Christian;the man in the world look the same." 

AW Tozer

Love?

“Love Your Enemies,'You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Matthew 5:43-45 ESV



   “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
Luke 6:32 ESV

Is this the way we love? Is there something that makes us seem different to the world or do we fit in with the world? Do we love our enemies? Let's not kid ourselves and say that we don't have any enemies. So, do we love them? Do we  offer the hand of Christian fellowship? Are we forgiving as we have been forgiven? Or do we find ourselves behaving as sinners?

In Christ,
Sandy

humbled to be adopted as a child of God...through Christ

"Most Christians are satisfied living as common Christians, without an insatiable hunger for the deeper things of God." AW Tozer

A lesson from Ruth...

Lay at the Redeemers feet and be covered by His wings.


"At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet!  He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” Ruth 3:8-9

We Soon Fly Away

by Henry Morris, Ph.D. | Feb. 1, 2012

"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." (Psalm 90:4)
In this unique psalm, Moses is stressing the brevity of even the longest human life with the everlasting nature of God. In the pre-Flood world, men were able to live many hundreds of years, but no one ever lived as long as 1,000 years. By Moses’ time, the typical lifespan was 70 or 80 years (v. 10), much the same as today. Moses lived to age 120, but he was twice as old as most of his contemporaries when he finally died (note Numbers 14:29, 34; Deuteronomy 34:7).
Moses, therefore, was profoundly impressed with the ephemeral nature of a person’s time on earth. Even if someone had lived a thousand years, this was only a little while in God’s sight, and his life would soon "fly away" (Psalm 90:10) and be forgotten.
There is nothing in this passage, incidentally, or in 2 Peter 3:8 ("one day is with the Lord as a thousand years") to justify the misinterpretation that attributes billions of years to God’s creation week. In context (and one must always be sensitive to the context if he wants to understand any passage of Scripture), neither Moses nor Peter were referring to the creation week at all. Moses was stressing the brevity of human life, even that of the antediluvians, while Peter was rebuking the latter-day uniformitarians who would come denying the catastrophic effects of the great Flood. It is too bad that so many Christians are willing to distort Scripture like this in order to accommodate the imaginary ages of evolution.
The message we should really get from this Mosaic observation is the application He Himself makes. "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Psalm 90:12)! HMM