Resting in Jesus

Resting in Jesus will help ust to be more like Jesus. He had to rest, not only as a man but as God. Yes, God rested after creation, it was finished, His plan was in effect. It kept multiplying, it was designed to be that way. Jesus had to depend on the Father’s rest and do as He heard and saw. He obeyed His Father or else God’s plan would not have been realized to redeem mankind. Though all may not believe, the opportunity is there.

In the sme way, Jesus was obedient even unto death. Though His heart was wrenched with heaviness and fear, and He wrestled with His humanity, tortured more than anyone ever could have been, He died for us. His work was finished and He is seated on the throne exalted, He can rest.

Only by resting in Him, will we ever obtain the promises He made to us. We do not have to work for His love, acceptance or salvation. But we do have work to do, he blesses the work of our hands and is our prover and has planned good works for us to accomplish, that He may get the glory! This rest is something we have to work for.

It’s a quiet, hot Sunday here in Georgia. So whether been to church already or not, spend some quite time aloe in prayer, talk to Jesus. Get some of His rest, it is so much better. And He promised to give it you. Rebecca Jones

To Be Like Jesus

Oh, to be like Jesus! Wouldn’t it be great to be like Him? If we all were, what peace.  But it took effort for Jesus to be Jesus, He did only what His Father’s said and did.  He had become a lowly human and depended totally on the Holy Spirit, just as we are to as believers. Like I always say, I never tell people not to go to the doctor or take medicine, I’m not suggesting barricading yourself away into a cult. Just walk a little closer, or even a lot closer.

Jesus faced rejection, His opinions weren’t always popular among religious or political leaders. He had to go away and pray, He went off to Himself, probably even to get away from cranky disciples. And as much as He loved helping people, He needed a break. Just like parents from children, caregivers from patients. When all you see is sickness, despair or poverty. It affects you as a person, it affects your heart or soul, which is the mind, will and emotions.

That is why He gave us His Holy Spirit, power if you need it to overcome the enemy. Love and a sound mind to refresh you into getting up the next day or going back on Monday, preaching the next sermon, writing the next page.

Jesus had memories of heaven. He no doubt meditated on the beauty of it. He was certain of returning. It always amazed me that he kept silent before accusers and took so much punishment in our place. By Jesus law, He would have stoned to death, beaten or scourged, not both as He was . I t was the worst imaginable death. For me. It is amazing grace, amazing love, that frees a soul from the bonds of the enemy’s barbaric lies, cruelty and deceit. It brings health and peace.

Jesus had to think about good things as we do. He was skilled in the Word and could use it. He knew when to walk away and when to be silent. He probably sung Psalms and possessed the wisdom of the Proverbs. But before Abraham was He was, the Alpha and Omega. It may not always be easy for us to emulate or to be Jesus.

We should earnestly desire the gift of prophecy, because using that gift of hearing what God says and repeating what God says it will help us become more like Jesus. 1 Corinthians 14:1-5 says to follow after love, which is Jesus, and desire spiritual gifts that we may prophesy. To speak good over others, the gifts God would give. It is their decision to receive or not.

The Holy Spirit is a gift, speaking in tongues is a gift, the ability to prophesy is a gift. It won’t necessarily make you a prophet. It is a gift that the Holy Spirit will help you grow in, it is already perfect but because it is fro m God. It is not predicting the future and people have to receive the prophetic. Prophetic ministry requires study, and not everyone understands it.

Prophesying is not guesswork, or controlling, nothing occult. This would be demonic. But it is a word from the Holy Spirit passed along or spoken over a person. More widely, a congregation or national word, would be more in line with the office of prophet.

I can give you an example, my mother’s cousin, a believer and long time smoker, but a believer, had a minister tell her that he saw in the Spirit, an angel giving her new lungs. She went to churches, revivals and enjoyed them, but I don’t think she held onto that word and claimed it as her own promise. She passed away. She either did not understand or receive. That is why we should thank Him for blessing we don’t see.

Another time, I had driven my mother to the hospital with a severe nose bleed. Actually, twice in one day. I was in the waiting room, wishing I had some cookies or something, and a lady came out. She looked weak, I asked her if she felt better, because she had seen a doctor.  She said, yes. And I was just commenting or so I thought, but I said,  ” You’ll be okay! ”  the way her face lit up, the Lord must have been there. She received the word I spoke over her. I could see a change.

After rethinking and re-studying the passage, I realize how many times i have actualy prophesied over someone. It is the Lord speaking to you, instructing you on what to say. Especially, as you are praying for someone. I have zero medical knowledge but have prayed very specifically. Sometimes, it is as if the Lord is typing my work, I am thinking faster than I can write or type.

Let’s look at the definition…to foretell or predict. to indicate beforehand, to declare or foretell by or as if by divine inspiration, to utter in prophecy or as a prophet. To foretell or predict, makes you sound like a fortune teller, the enemy counterfeits God’s work. To declare by divine inspiration is a better definition.

I pray that we are all ready to receive any and all gifts of the spirit. May I prophesy over you? The Holy Spirit is truth, so this is what I’m told to say.

Receive, receive. There are many unopened gifts in the throne room of heaven. Open them. They are full of grace. May gifts open, eyes, ears and hearts, doors open  and evil door close, in Jesus name.

Rebecca Jones

*** This is also post # 666, we know who tried to overcome Jesus and be God. So this is a good read to put him down again. Jesus always wins!

Guillaume M. / Unsplash

What? JLJ?

 

I read a post from fellow blogger talking about finding an old WWJD bracelet and and the Lord speaking these letters to her. GBJ. Go be Jesus! Those catch phrases were all popular, I had the shirts. F.R.O.G, Fully Rely on God, even D.O.G, Depend on God. My favorite was P,A.N.D.A, Pray and Never Doubt Again. I wish I could have.

What would Jesus do? He would have us to go be Jesus. And how do we do that?  Read the book. Follow along. Do what the Father’s says and does, because if you’ve seen Him you’ve seen the Father. It fairly easy to be nice, pass along a verse, send an e card, buy someone lunch.

Yet, Jesus was walking, talking love and power, He put out lots of devils. So let’s be sure what we are doing. It is His perfect love that casts out fear, which is the adversary. He is the Holy Spirit inside who discerns the enemies lies. We are to be encouraging and to pry for one another and bear one another’s burdens. We should walk in the fruit of the Spirit, we should be vessels of honor, carrying His love, joy and peace. We should be gentle yet as firm as necessary to destroy the devil’s work. Jesus accomplished that on the cross, but that is why He came. He gives us His power and authority.

Kindness should be on our tongue, the learned and pen of a ready writer. We should be faithful and patient. Our fruit should be good fruit, and we should be bearing a lot of it. The girl in the photo is surprised. I think we are all a little surprised that we can really, with His help of course, be like Jesus.

Sometimes, it is not easy being Jesus, it takes effort, but after all who would you really want to be? So JLJ, is what we want to be. Just Like Jesus.

Logan Isbell / Unsplash

 

 

Sowing The Wind

 

My topic today is of great importance and relative to today’s environment, both in the world at large and in family lives as well. When I woke up I had a thought of what to put on my blog. I always pray for me to be able to write what someone needs to hear and share it. This word came with a specific request to pray with clarity.

In other words, our prayers are scattered out over the wind, like chaff or seeds that have blown everywhere. Some were answered, there were sown into good ground, received by either ourselves or those whom we prayed for. Some fell on stony ground, those who failed to received because of unbelief, or God help us, even ourselves, because we fell into some trap of the enemy or through discouragement and delays, allowed the devil to snatch our promise or our profession or thanks. Some hearts are just hard, some are unguarded and become so. While Proverbs 4:23 says to guard our heart, Phillipians says His peace will rule it, but we have to it. I know it can difficult to get past fear and worry but that is why the Spirit is here.

Some of our prayers fell among thorns, prickly people with prickly hearts and tongues and disagreeable natures, wicked or evil hearts and minds. Maybe, you’ve prayed for a loved one to be saved. The promise was given to the Phillipian jailer, that his whole house would be saved. But that promise is for us as well, still those people have to believe and accept Jesus as Lord, if you’ve prayed that, do it once more and then tell Jesus you thank Him for taking care of that person. When it comes to your mind again, don’t pray anymore, thank Him, praise Him, let it go.

If Jesus can’t help this person, why do we think we can? There are people and situations we must leave in His hands. And it is for their benefit and ours as well, because we know we are not to worry or fear, rather to look to Jesus.

So I told the Lord, I called all my words and prayers back together, like a big pile of seeds. And I’m being more specific with prayer and more direct. More positive and doing away with the negative. If you can’t say something good. Don’t say it at all. Don’t pray if it’s His will to heal when He plainly told the leper He was willing. Or whatever it takes for them to be saved, just for Him to show them His love.

Let’s don’t pray scatterbrained like a scarecrow full of stuffing. There are verses for every need and we need to line our prayers up with them. We need to agree with God and not the defeat and dismal pictures the devil paints.

He is coming for a spotless bride, a church full of faith and favor, ready to meet Him. People are in pain, panic, at a loss for hope. They gather in the streets in anger, when Jesus would fill the churches with love.

His words carry weight and go out to accomplish His will. Isaiah 55:11. He gave women the gift of gab and blessed us with intelligence and vocabulary. We can be prosaic or prolific or scattered or specific. We must lasso our words and wrangle them in like my cowgirl friends would say. Round up the strays (words) and use a certain brand of prayer to gather in those sheep who have gone astray or never received Jesus.

Now isn’t the time for idle chatter or gossip, flippant and disparraging or racial jokes or slurs, it not the time for men and women to be be making it an us against them issue. So as believers, let’s be specific, name the disease or cancer, your praying about, it is under Jesus name. Under His blood, one lash left a gash deep enough to heal thousands. Jesus knows the details, but He wants us to be clear and precise. He want us to be like Him. The parable of the sower is in Mark 4 and Matthew’s account is in chapter 13, I like this one best. The devil in an attempt to copy Jesus comes immediately. He will take what we sow or do not understand. He is the prince of the power of the air, but the Prince of Peace is perfect and more powerful in believers.

So if are prayers are being thwarted, let’s rethink them, put them to flight on the wind of the Holy Spirit, and let them be raised upon dove’s wings to heaven. Pray for people and against the enemy. We have sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind, now let’s sow in His grace and peace.

http://biblehub.com/hosea/8-7.htm

http://biblehub.com/isaiah/40-24.htm

http://biblehub.com/parallel/mark/4-15.htm

Nicolas Prieto / Unsplash

 

The Alabaster Box

Jesus was in a house in Bethany when a woman came to Him with an alabaster flask containing very costly fragrant oil. She poured the oil on His head. Matthew 26:6–7 This woman loved the Lord. She had set her love upon Him.

Setting our love upon Him is in Psalm 91, it has a promise of being delivered. A lot of times I would think it was because He loved me I was delivered, but even though that is true, He delivers me because I love Him.

I have to say I always have, sometimes, I thought I was alone in this even with other Christians. I talked a lot about whatever I was studying and prophecy, Hebrew studies, I was excited to share.

My mother would also read and study so much, that I told her to balance it out. It saved her life from a major attack on it, but that’s also an attack that was brought on by serious overwork. It is something I encourage her to avoid now that we are focusing on grace and rest.

It doesn’t seem possible that you can over love. But Jesus does, He loves us over and over again, every moment of every minute and every hour of the day. His love is ever present, omni present, effervescent. It will bubble up and overflow. It is infectious and will cause pure and genuine joy.

This woman was a sinner, a great sinner. She realized she’s forgiven much and was able to love much as we all should. I have read that it is Mary Magdalene, and she would qualify having had seven devils cast out but John 11:2 plainly says that is Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha.

Nevertheless, she entered, it was during the week of Passover and the Jews already wanted to arrest Jesus. She entered and the Bible says she poured it on His head, while most of the time in paintings she is at His feet. That is the account of Luke 7:38, that she entered stood behind Jesus and poured the oil on His head as she wept, and also put it on His feet still in tears and washed His feet and dried them with her hair.

This is a personal favorite of mine, a beautiful story of loving Jesus. She knew she’d been forgiven and recognized Jesus as Lord. Apparently, when others did not. The Pharisee objected, Judas complained, a pretense that the money  could have been used for the poor.

Jesus gently rebuked them, for He already knew about the betrayal.No one offered to wash Jesus feet, which was customary, but Mary did and with costly oil, Jesus said He was being anointed for burial and gave her the honor that wherever the gospel was preached her actions were recorded for posterity.

More than even a recognition of her forgiveness was her devotion to Jesus. Something that Judas lacked. Even though He more or less called Peter the devil for his aspirations of making Jesus a ruler, He was restored. With His crucifixion at hand, the beauty of Jesus sacrifice is apparent with Mary’s devotion, and evil betrayal of Judas is a cruel  juxtaposition.

As much as Mary loved Him, Judas loathed Him. Mary’s heart was broken like the neck of her alabaster box. Judas heart was evil with ambition, he must have perverted the scene into Jesus betraying his plans, his heart was black and cruel, and the devil turned into a madman. Having watched the silent version of King of Kings, Judas palms his communion, I wonder if the real Judas did the same? How could one so close do such a thing? It happens all the time. I have heard so many say the anointing of the Holy Spirit is costly, I suppose it is, if it cost effort time with Jesus and giving up friends or ways that are hurtful, but I always felt like, it cost me nothing and Him everything.

What a beautiful love story between Jesus and a woman named Mary, the same one from Luke 10:46, where Jesus says, …” one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Please enjoy this video with the CeCe Wynans song Alabaster Box. Rebecca Jones

 

 

Why Jesus Came

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 1 John 3:8

                                                           Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:27

Jesus Christ came for one purpose, He wanted to annihilate the works of the devil in your life!  When Jesus hung on the cross, He said, “It is finished.” At that moment, He destroyed the work of the enemy for eternity. The the devil’s power was over, limited to how much or little we let him operate in our lives.The One who holds the authority over all the power of the enemy lives inside of you.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19). You and I are walking “temples” of God! What a thought, can you imagine that?

The same manifested glory that was inside the holy of holies now resides in you. The shekinah glory, so if God’s presence is inside of you… so is His power to deliver you and set you free from every bondage, every snare and every sickness and disease and demonic oppression.

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Romans 8:17 says, so many people try endure suffering, to put up with things. They have been taught to expect suffering, and going to heaven and that’s about all.  We were crucified with Christ and gave us a new life that was hidden in Him.

It is in him that we live and move and breathe and have our being. Acts 17:28 Don’t let satan deceive you into believing or living a lie and accepting second best. The key for receiving the miracle and what is paramount in your life is for you to take your rightful place of authority in Christ and defy the devil. Defy him at every turn. Even if means you lose friends or if your family disagrees, hold fast to Jesus.

Why did Jesus come? He would not have had to. He chose to. He gave His life and love freely. He made the ultimate sacrifice, the holiest of all defeated the cruelest of all. The Prince of Peace destroyed the prince of darkness, He always has and always will. trust Jesus, defy the devil. Thank you Pastor Rod Parsley for your teaching.

Consider Foster Parenting

 

Don’t you just love babies? The smell of powder, no tear shampoo, drool and poopy diapers not so much. I have kept so many children over the years, from helping with Kindergarteners when I was in high school to watching after schoolers. Babies weren’t so bad. As long as they are not screamers. Eight or so elementary age, that could do something or pass the time guessing charades in the afternoon, okay. Twenty five was a lot but I managed, and I was only seventeen.  Then there was the day I got turned loose with sixty and one wild, little, man running circles in front of me. That was an afternoon to forget, daycares are supposed to have ratios. Things happen I get it, but was too many.

I quit daycare early on. But I did help keep children in family daycare and pursued that writing career I wanted. I have never adopted any children, I don’t have or never have had any foster children. My mother has full custody of a great granddaughter, she is a handful. Note to relatives of children who are going to children’s services, let them go and then foster unless parental rights are severed and you can adopt. Why? They will give relatives the first chance if you let them know.

As a foster, you will be entitled to more benefits. Mother did not qualify for daycare and very little state help. There was also a lot of run around without knowing the family history, psychologists and mental health issues. ADHD  and ODD, she let the brother go to another foster home and he has been moved again. You have to be prepared for some of the challenges and the having to let go. There was also another baby, born after she had custody of those two. DFACS wanted her take back the boy and the baby, I was against it. She said no, she knew it was too much mentally and physically.

I have always prayed for children, prayers of protection. I have prayed for sick children. I know the Lord has stepped in and out of my life with children and ideas. A lot of the story lines I have considered for that great novel had children at their center. I am always thinking of children’s books.

I have seen some that I kept that have grown up. But mostly they have gone on and that’s fine. I managed to sow good seeds into those little gardens, they left me singers and praisers, able to color and draw and some reading and writing, and with the knowledge of Jesus’ love. One little girl had profound fears, but she overcame them. She became bright and beautiful and played chess and tennis, neither of which I have mastered. I have never once won a game of chess. And badminton is about as close as I’ve been to tennis.  This little girl once had a seizure, it was so bad I called her father, and told him I was dialing 911, if he didn’t get there and get her to the hospital. She looked dead in my mother’s arms, but now that I know as much about prayer and faith, that was the best place for her to have been. She recovered quickly at the hospital. I’m sure it panicked her father who was only about three blocks away. But Jesus has been good to us and He loves the little children.

I also kept a little boy from being a baby to over eight. He could read the Bible and books by people like Benny Hinn. He’d read them to my mother. He came in from school sick one day, I prayed for him, gave him some grape Tylenol, and let him go to sleep. He once went on a trip with his parents, when he got back he told me about the caverns he’d gone through how deep and dark. ” Becky, it’s just like where the devil lives. ” he said.

I loved all the little princesses and ballerinas and cowboys and pirates, even though there were some that stood out. I wasn’t always in the good health myself, but I did my best. Even with a few that were handfuls and demanding. That’s why healing and the Lord took over my life.

Everyone has something to offer. After talking to people in social services, I’m waiting to see where the Lord leads me. He told me by the Holy Spirit, I had fostered children, so I looked it up.

Foster  / 1. nurture child: to provide a child with care and upbringing 2. develop something: to encourage the development of something 3. to keep a feeling or thought alive

In this sense, I have. I will definitely obey His will but I felt led to encourage other believers to consider this. If you can adopt, foster or mentor, please do so. Children need to hear about Jesus. I’m concerned that so many don’t know the love of Jesus. Abuse and neglect have caused them to live in fear. They are growing up under bridges and in crack houses. I know the behavior can be a problem, but nothing is impossible with God. But it takes faith, help, and sometimes the financial support of the state. It should go to people who are doing the right things for children.

Please consider this with me and even if it is only developing character. Please do it. Help a child. Mentor, visit, take them for pizza, and especially relieve the parents with special needs children if you can or have medical training. I never knew how much those children benefited from their time with me or how much my prayers were denting the enemy.

As of mid June, our home is approved for respite care but I don’t see us taking any children because the past four years of court and visitations, deaths, and the drugs involved were a lot. Children from drug addicted parents will often need special help but I have seen them do very well. It is hard for family to deal with visitation, that is better left to DFACS, mother got a call this morning about M. Her mother has been wanting her for the summer. Without going into detail, the answer is no, even if she goes to court it will be no.  The judge is not fooled. And God is not fooled, He is not mocked, and you reap what you sow.

I believe time is short here with society the way it is, as I said for personal and health reasons I don’t foresee taking any more children but I encourage anyone who can to do so. I am not painting a bleak picture, they are not all going to be difficult, but you could get a messy child who will try to eat you out of house and home, slam doors, be combative, abusive, even violent and use foul language.

If you can do foster or adopt, they won’t all be that way, but six years later, I would have to step back and rethink it. I read a girl’s story. She could not have children and never wanted to adopt. She now has a foster child and wrote about his tantrums in public, the screaming and the ” I wish you weren’t my mother. ” I usually get, ” You’re not my real mom! ” And believe me my mother being told what to do by a little, old, lady at the restaurant when she has fifty years of childcare experience is embarrassing.

And everyone with a cell phone, and a screamer on the loose at the department store is a nightmare. Please don’t be judgemental, I once would have those the children weren’t made to behave. That is not necessarily true. I remember taking fifteen to the zoo, and can’t take one to out to eat. I know I kept children whose parents drank, smoked some pot or even took some pain pills, but never to the extreme. Maybe, times have changed or more likely people haven’t and won’t. Parents who choose that lifestyle are doing their children a disservice if they don’t get help.

My heart and prayers are with you and God will bless your efforts. Like I said, He loves the little children of the world. And He loves you too, praying God’s best for you and His wisdom and discernment.

 

When Jesus Breaks Your Heart

This is a tale passed down by Hassidic Jews and relevant to us as believers. You must understand that the Torah is the first five books of the Bible and these are observant, Orthodox Jews, who do not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus would have run into them in His day, and the are still many today. I know Messianic Jews who are winning aging Jews to Jesus, I pray that is true of all believers. I hope our light or rather the light of Jesus can shine in our eyes, so that others may believe as we did. When we hear and believe in Jesus, the horror of His crucifixion, and His love for us, our hearts are broken by the sacrifice of Christ and His words fall in. It is the only time Jesus will break your heart.

Now the story…. Hassidic tradition says A disciple asks the rebbe: or rabbi, “Why does the Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts’? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?” The rebbe answers: “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and words fall in. Parker J. Palmer in his book, Healing the Heart of Democracy:

And isn’t true that as we are, sinners, Our haearts are hardened, bitter and even cruel? But when you truly come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior, those holy words melt upon the heart of stone and make it fleshy and tender, His grace is amazing. He pours His Word, His love, His salvation inside it. And the oil of the Holy Spirit is poured upon it, to close and heal the wound. He begins to crown you with loving kindness and blessings.

Jesus’ love is alive in you now, you are free to love as He loved, to speak to God the Father as He did, to pray as He did. God had adopted you as a precious son or daughter and will help you grow in grace and favor.

So how do we as believers sit and break the heart of Jesus on a daily basis, by not seeking Him, trusting Him, obeying Him? How do such broken and healed and restored hearts become calloused, lax, and even begin to harden again? There is but one answer. The enemy has come and sown in doubt. God understands doubt, you’re seeking but you’re not quite there yet. Still, He asks us not to do it. It is hurtful to us. And He has plans for our good and not to harm.

And the wicked one has come because of misunderstanding the Word, the Bible says He comes immediately for our words, our faith words. And yes, he troubles our thoughts with fear and worry. Jesus healed immediately and sometimes as they went, the tormenter would seek to copies Him in the opposite way, he take what we don’t understand immediately and as we go, leaving us in unbelief and the Bible calls that an evil heart.

Can a Christian who’s been broken and brought to his/her knees in prayer have and evil heart? It is in His Word. Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. Hebrewa 3:12

This explains a lot of today’s ills, how children raised in church will go astray, how people gather against each other over old wounds and hate that they never experienced personally or just got swept up in. It explains the enemies tactics to divide, nations, races, families, when we all mattered to Him, first the Jews, then the Gentiles.

So let examine our hearts from God’s perspective and become the people He meant us to be, people check their blood pressure, sugar and weight. Let’s check our heart for Jesus, His sweetness in our lives, and lose the weight of a mill stone.

He ovecame for us, His heart beats for us. Shouldn’t we do the same for Him? Do you remember the day He broke your heart? I do, I was eleven. And my heart has never been the same, thanks to the blood of Jesus, and the mercy seat where it sprinkled in heaven. We are about to come into Teshuvah, the forty days before the High Holy Days and the Day of Atonement, the Jewish New Year.

These are days of repentance and then on Yom Kippor, Jesus acts as High Priest goes to the mercy seat. We don’t view time as God does, He is on His calendar. Jewish tradition says it determines if your name is the Book of life another year. It is taught that everyone’s name is there and God takes it out only after exhausting every attempt to redeem you.

But we, as believers can rest easy that ours is forever there, because of the blood of Jesus. There is no need for sacrifice, He is ever covering our sins and short comings, though they have consequences, and certainly if we love Him we don’t want to hurt Him.

I hope you enjoyed this little Hebraic study, I do enjoy them. But now is not necessarily a time for deep studies of Jewish roots, its rathe a time such as this to be prepared and the best way to do that is  by examining out hearts and asking Jesus to guard them and guide them. Rebecca Jones

Christ In You

I often get verses through e mail and one came that is particularly encouraging today. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27. Isn’t that great? We have all heard how we have sinned and come short of His glory, Romans 3:23, but the very Spirit of God dwells in us and we have every right as a believer to hope, to truly expect blessings, favor, for things to work and prosper in out lives, because Jesus cried out ” Finished! ” from His cross of shame that should have been ours.

The very same Jesus that died and rose from the dead resides in us by His Holy Spirit. He came to annihilate the enemy’s work in our lives. He has the authority and right and gives it to use to freely use.

Are you struggling today with something? Has confusion caused you to settle for less? You don’t have to! Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Romans 10:17 Get your faith motivated and stir the gifts and callings He placed in you.

He created Adam and Eve clothed in His glory. They were flesh and blood, body and soul, but first they were spirits, bathed in the beauty of holiness. The garment was praise and their robe, righteousness. It was the golden shekinah glory that they lost. That is why they were naked and afraid, for they had known no fear, no sin, no evil.

Jesus paid a very dear price for us and we did not deserve Him. You can’t begin to imagine being crucified. But He loved us and wanted us and mad it possible for us to be walking in His Spirit, clothed in His glory once more. Seek His face and expect Him to show you mercy and grace. For indeed, Christ is in us, as believers, and He is our only hope of glory. Rebecca Jones

All Things New

I have written before about become a new creature in Christ, how it is like the caterpillar turning into a butterfly. As we wind down the days until eternity, there is a shifting in the body of Christ. God talks about doing a new thing, His promise is to make all things new. This is something we all hope for when we get to heaven or go in the Rapture or catching the way of the church.

But He has given us new life in Christ as believers, from the time of salvation, so have we grown, prospered, followed after His love and will? Or have we been resting on our laurels as believers being content with what we have and quoting His Word out of context, believing as Job, that the Lord gives and take away. That is Old Testament, holy sounding but we have a better covenant with Jesus. John10:10 is clear about who gives and who takes.

I spent a lot time giving to people who did not understand the Word, who didn’t see it as a priority. While it is our duty to witness to the lost, we are supposed to minister to the household of faith, which is other believers. We should rest and help others to rest in His promises.

God is still doing new thing, He has plans for us and things we don’t even know about or aware of. He takes pleasure in prospering His servants, we are not to be afraid as His little flock of lambs. We have a shepherd. We are not lost sheep. He has found me. I hope He has found you, too.

Seek His face and expect good things from God, I hope He is doing a new thing for you, too. Rebecca Jones