How, not If.

Hebrews 9:27-28. The question isn't IF you're going to die. That's a gimme. The question is HOW you're going to die. As for me? I want to die having loved the One who died so I only have to die ONE time. Because you can bet your bottom dollar, it could be twice.

May Christ forever be praised.

Baptism, first and last.

Please take a moment to read Matt. 3:13-15; 28:19-20; Mark 16:16.

The first and last words of a human being are significant. Jesus opens his ministry by commanding He be baptized as necessary "to fulfill all righteousness," then He closes it by commanding that any who would follow Him be baptized. As He received the Spirit at His baptism, so do Christ's believers at theirs.

Baptism is a wonderful mercy our Great Example has set for us. May our Lord, The Alpha and The Omega, be forever praised!

Early-morning gratitude.

I'm feeling thankful this early morning for five hours of sleep thus far. Thankful for God's presence, love, and guidance over my life. Thankful for my sweet family (physical and spiritual), kind friends and neighbors, and helpful mentors. Thankful for having received innumerable blessings and opportunities over the years. Thankful for the chance to share with you and offer encouragement every now and then. 😍

It's a good thing to see how much we have been given, how much we have to look forward to. Whenever I take the time to take stock of what fills me with peace and joy, even during troubling times, doing so can lift my crestfallen spirit and keep me humble and upward focused.

God tells us to always be thankful Psalm 100:4; Colossians 3:15). I can see why.

Thanks, no worries.

Philippians 4:6-7. "Giving thanks fights the lie that everything is horrible. Even in tragic circumstances, there will be light and grace. God is present and is making Himself known. You need only to look. Trust grows as you look for God’s presence in what feels dark and heavy. He never leaves." — Brittany Yesudasan, Cru https://www.cru.org/us/en/train-and-grow/spiritual-growth/trust-god.html

I have recently encountered a troubling life circumstance that could last a long time. The temptation is to fear for the future, whether we’ll be able to handle it; the temptation is to not trust that God is with me, is well aware of the situation, and is helping me through it. But I must consider this, and all life troubles, light and momentary things, especially when they are placed in God's hand to handle (2 Corinthians 4:17-18 NIV).

Resting in God—and in His promises (that He will never leave or forsake me and has a home waiting for me (John 14:1-4, 15-21.)—is not always easy, but I must practice this ‘resting’ continually, with thanksgiving even for the fiery trial.

When we are still and know He is in control, rely on his Word, and trust in his grace, He'll bring us the peace that passes understanding (Phil. 4:7).

Now, no condemnation.

Read 1 Peter 2:21-23, Luke 6:35-36, and Phil. 2:5-8.

I have struggled of late with thoughts about a decision I have made, whether it was the right decision in God’s eyes. “While it was not a wrong decision to make from a scriptural perspective, I made the decision not fully assured that God was the one prompting me to take this particular life path,” I reasoned, “so, was the decision I made sin to me (Rom. 14:23)?” After all, I had earlier asked God to reveal His will to me which, upon first glance, appeared to be headed in a different direction; was I now following my own will instead of His because I felt strongly that I needed to make it, making Him displeased with me? Or was it in His will for my heart to change from my original plan?

Upon further prayer and reflection in the Word, I came to remember God’s abiding love that covers my sins. All of them—the ones I know clearly are sins and the ones I just guess could be. Christ’s blood covers them all. As to receiving punishment for them, "Jesus forgives, never retaliates. His battle is against the unseen forces of evil, not the blind people who carry it out" (Abide app, "Called to Radical Love"). I remembered I can trust that I am forgiven and rest in His radical love when my conscience condemns me (1 John 3:19-20). The Accuser may be ever present, but God is more powerful.

I remembered that, since I belong to and am led by the loving Good Shepherd, I need fear no ill, for He is with me (Psalm 23). About John 10: 11-13, it was said, “Jesus does not have a response to shame. ‘Perfect love casts out fear.’ He does not turn his back to shame, but goes right to it and meets it. He puts his Hand on our shame, and comforts us with the sound of His voice. When we scatter in fear, He gathers us up again” (Circle of Hope, Daily Prayer::Water blog).

I am happy I can trust my Good Shepherd! I can trust both His correction (rod) and His guidance and protection (staff). He asks only that I abide in Him. He tells us not to fear, little lambs that we are, because God the Father is pleased to share the Kingdom of Heaven with us (Luke 12:32). So join me in resting our hearts upon His precious promises, casting all cares, fears, and worries on Him.

What will you be wearing?

Matthew 22:10-14 has to be one of the scariest passages in the Bible to me.

Sure, we can live a lifetime with a potty mouth, a lustful eye, or with a lazy, greedy, prideful, or unforgiving heart. Sure, we can say "Yes, I love Jesus" and then do nothing to serve and honor Him while we're here: never giving to others in need nor closely obeying His commands. God allows us to live whatever life we want, even though He gives us plenty of directions for how best to live it.

We should not be surprised, however, if, having lived our own way, we find ourselves wearing improper clothing at the Great Wedding Banquet when King Jesus walks in. We'll just be wearing our plain-old, stained, everyday clothes, since we had not continued cleaning them through the righteous blood of the Lamb.

I don't know about you, but I definitely do not want to be wearing the wrong clothes to meet Jesus. This passage of Scripture makes me even more eager not only to put on Christ (Galatians 3:27-28) but to keep Him on (Matthew 25:34-40).

I guess the clothes do make the man...

You don’t want to miss it.

Eph 2:10, John 14:2. God has good works prepared for us down here and an amazingly good home with Him after we leave here. It's a "best of both worlds" deal, the best you will ever have for life. You don't want to pass on it. Choose God.

The Storm Whisperer.

Lots of people have found peace and victory in the middle of their life storms because they believed God could deliver them through those storms:

Noah: Gen. 7:1, 23

Joseph: Gen. 39:21

The Hebrew Brothers: Daniel 3:17

Daniel: Daniel 6:22

Martha: John 11:21-22

Although I've experienced some abnormally stressful life challenges this year, they were nothing compared with what these folks faced. Yet I can still report that trusting and waiting for God's "peace, be still" over any life storm works well, even today.

Got any storms? May the New Year bring you even closer to the master Storm Whisperer. ☺️

Whispers of steam.

Whispers of steam waving off a cup of frothy chai with milk, half-eaten fruit muffin at its side. I sit and contemplate why I'm here.

Not here, downtown; I know why there. Oil change and free tire rotation take an hour, so I must kill time in the local coffee shop. No, I mean why I'm here, as in what I was really put here to do. Be a mother, a wife? Enjoy life and help others gain eternal life, too? I may be called to do these things, but what was I really created to accomplish?

Perhaps the answer is this: I was created to be the best ME there is, a warm, responsive, giving, beautiful, vibrant, hopeful, caring, compassionate, peaceful, helpful, intelligent, thoughtful, hospitable, considerate, loving, affectionate, passionate, seductive, worshipful, holy, spiritual, friendly ME. Maybe that alone is making the world a better place, if only in the lives of a few. Maybe being the very best ME I can be is my most accomplished masterpiece.

Am I to be remembered as a beautiful, wonderful ME, captured in the memory and hearts of those I've loved and cherished like a wood-framed portrait of a dazzling lavender gladiola? I can't seem to keep my eyes off the one here in the shop, its bright, colorful petals aforeground against a sea of dark and sundry greens. Am I, like my frothy tea, to spread my warmth out to the colder world around me, whispers of my heart and spiritual gifts steaming in waves toward those who need it, and at the right times they need it? Is everyone to catch the fragrance of joy as I pass them in life, a scent as delicious as a fresh-baked blueberry muffin?

I am, and they are! Through Christ, I am set free to be ME. I am free to love, to give, to instruct, to correct and be corrected, free to be good. I am free to count my blessings, to be happy, disappointed, and free to cast all my cares on God, who made me free. I am free to love Him and be my best ME. That's what He gave me when He saved me, and it is enough (Ephesians 2:10).

Funny how I always thought living my life had to culminate in some big accomplishment. I never realized living my life in freedom as God created it and as it reflects His glory is the big accomplishment!

I'm glad I stopped in here. Seems my tires weren't the only things that needed rotating.

—Ruthie Counter, March 25, 2011

Search me, O Lord.

"None are more fatally bewitched than those that are bewitched by their own lusts."

--Matthew Henry on Numbers 25

Balaam knew that though God had intended to bless Israel, Israel could still be led astray from a strong relationship with God through their desire for idol worship. He knew the nation's weakness and counseled others to exploit it, to separate them from the true God.

The devil knows what weakens us, too. And though we may stand firm in our belief in God, we can yet be moved to vex Him unwittingly by acting upon human desires that oppose Him. Thus should we always be ready and eager to say, as did the psalmist David, "see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:24). This is a goodly request, and one He will be pleased to honor, if He finds us sincere and humble in asking it.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord.

Before me, always.

Matthew 28:20 holds a wonderful realization for my heart this morning. God’s Son Jesus Christ, to whom God gave all authority over Earth and Heaven, and God’s Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent to guide and comfort His disciples, are not only with me, but are with me every minute of every day. With me from this very moment, eternally.

Jesus and the Spirit want me to sense (see, hear, smell, taste, and touch) that God is surrounding me, nonstop, without pause. They happily give me access and permission to meditatively approach them constantly, whether to praise them, ask them questions, plead for help in big or small matters—everything. In every good and pleasant way I might verbally communicate with my human friends, Elohim wants me to communicate with them.

What a feeling of comfort this brings to me, to realize that I never need to feel alone! God wants me to know He’s always with me, much like the pillar of cloud and of fire manifested His steadfast company with, guidance of, and protection over the Israelites throughout their desert wanderings and beyond (Exodus 13:21-22).

What about you? Do you sense the presence of God with you every minute of every day? Can you, like David, say you have placed God always before you, with all the peace, joy, and comfort that friendship supplies? (Psalm 16:8-11). Perhaps you cannot at the moment, but you certainly can. In fact, He wants that! Hallelujah!

What we desire most.

Is there something you really enjoy having or doing but it requires that you disobey God to have or do it? Leviticus 25:18-22 offers a lesson on how God protects and provides for those who sacrificially live within His will and obey His commands:

Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. You may ask, 'What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?' I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

It is often difficult to simply trust that God will bless us abundantly when we yield to His Word. We feel as though He's not working fast enough to fulfill our needs or that our lives may never happen the way we want them to if we put all our outcomes in His hands. But that is exactly what He wants us to do.

God is fully aware of the desires of our hearts as well as the needs of our bodies, well before we are! (Read Matthew 6:8; Psalm 37:4-7.) What God desires, however, is for you and me to consider Him as our Greatest Desire and our Sufficiency, so much so that we stop striving to get whatever else it is we want and completely trust that He will give it to us at the right time--His time.

I have been guilty of not waiting on Yahweh to act on my behalf and grant my desires; how about you? It never seems to work out the best when I run ahead of Him and answer my own wants through disobedience. Besides, I don't know what wonderful blessings He has waiting in the wings if and when I do wait for Him in obedience.

Let's begin waiting on and delighting in the Lord instead. Watch how He responds to our obedience. And if things never turn out the way we hoped it would? I'm betting we'll be pleased with the results either way, if not on this earth then in the new, everlasting one.

What will He find?

It’s easy to forget that Jesus could return this afternoon. That your next breath could be your last. But the truth is, He could come back in the clouds in a blink of an eyelid, and at that instant, everything is finished (Matthew 24:30). Earth, sky, and sea having quickly melted away, there is only Jesus and you in a vast space, meeting face to face.

What will you say to Him? More importantly, what will He say to you? Would the life you led up to that moment have been one of faithful trust in Him and His power and obedience to His commands?

Jesus wonders this too. In Luke 18:8, He even asks this out loud, about all of us.

Upon meeting, Jesus will tell you that, though you're face to face for the very first time, you have actually encountered Him before. You'll ask, When? He'll say He was that destitute person you saw daily, lacking some of life's basic needs. He was that kind neighbor you smiled at but never took time to meet or pray for. He was that elderly woman you kept forgetting to visit, that teenager you shook your head at in disgust of their appearance, and that convict whom you felt should rot in prison for what he did instead of being reformed and redeemed.

This meeting with Jesus and the end of times could take place a few years, days, or seconds from now. No matter when the moment, let's get ready and stay ready for His return.

Calm for the craziness.

Life can be hectic for working adults. Add to the job responsibilities those for marriage and parenting, and you have a recipe for high stress. It's little wonder so many folks in this country are physically and emotionally unhealthy.

The best counterbalance for the physical and emotional demands in life is to keep a strong, solid, and steady spiritual life. Galatians 6:22-26 provides a key recipe for how to do this. Keeping in step with the Holy Spirit means focusing on repeating His actions and His responses to life’s stressors instead of our own. When we do so, our lives can bear delicious, lovely fruit for God despite the troubles we endure: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

So, how do you keep in step with the Spirit? You do so in many ways, but here are three:

• Lean in on God's Holy Spirit: Prayerfully ask for His guidance to handle life's perplexing situations and for comfort to overcome life's heartbreaks.

• Tap into the Spirit's wisdom: Read and meditate on God's Word everyday. It's your body's best food (Matthew 4:4).

• Praise God’s Spirit for His help: He brings the triumphs, achieves those daily goals, and defeats your hard-to-tackle sins and missteps through Christ's forgiveness and love.

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit of God to be our Divine Helper in the craziness, burdens, and challenges of Life. Let's make the most of this invaluable resource.