Intimacy. To be completely known, accepted, and loved. It's one of our most basic needs. No matter what else is going on in our lives, we need to know that someone knows us. All about us. Even the worst aspects of our nature. Yet still loves us. Generally speaking, friends like that are hard to come ...
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Spiritual Intimacy
The Only Thing That Is Mine
One of the first words little children learn is the word mine. It's not just the word either. They learn all the emotion that goes behind it.
Mine!
But as believers we are taught that we don't own anything. The psalmist tells us that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and every other ...
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Do You Know How Much You Are Loved?
Do you know how much you are loved?
From time to time, all of us wonder if we are truly loved by anyone. Sometimes we need reminders how much God Himself loves us. If you've ever felt that way, if you feel that way now ... I'm here to tell you that you are not alone. The strongest believers ...
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Are You Captivated By Love?
What captures your attention--and holds it? I don't mean things that occupy your time or preoccupy your thoughts--like social media feeds, games, or TV shows. What is something beautiful that attracts you, charms you, fascinates and delights you--enthralls you! For me, I'm easily preoccupied with ...
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Is Jesus Your Best Friend?
It’s been a couple of weeks since I posted. I have a growing list of post ideas, but none of them resonated with me. So I asked one of my daughters for an idea. She said, “Yesterday was National Best Friend Day.” And then she asked, “Who is your best friend?” Hmmmm … I've written a lot about ...
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Have You Placed God In The Friend-Zone?
Not too long ago one of my daughters was telling me about a series of texts she had with a boy who had a serious crush on her. She made it clear that she liked him very much—as friends—but only friends. He didn’t quite get the message. When she didn't respond to his persistent wooing, she eventually ...
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Are You and God Friends with Benefits?
A couple of weeks ago I was challenged to consider the idiom, friends with benefits, in regard to our relationship with God. I certainly raised my eyebrows! In our culture, this phrase describes a relationship between two people that crosses the boundary of friendship and moves into the area of ...
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WITH The Lord, Is Unfailing Love And Full Redemption
It seems like while I was "with my withouts," a lot of other things were without me!
A dear friend of mine encouraged me to focus on some "withs" as a follow-up to my #write31days challenge of 31 Days of Living WITHOUT.
My heart was so encouraged as I began researching that. This post is the ...
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![This week in our small group study, I felt the Lord’s gentle chastisement.
We looked at the promise in Luke 11:28, “He [Jesus] replied, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.’”
At first glance, the promise of blessing comes from obedience. But it’s much more.
In the preceding verses, Jesus had cast out a demon that caused a man to be mute. The crowd accused Him of casting out a demon with Satan’s power.
Jesus explained how ridiculous it would be for Satan to drive out his own demons. Then a woman cries out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you,” (v 27).
This is the sticking point. Jesus was in the middle of an important discourse when this woman interrupts Him. He corrects her with this:
✨ Blessed are those who HEAR the word of God and obey it.
That word HEAR means to LISTEN with FULL ATTENTION.
✨ We cannot truly obey God if we don’t know what He’s saying to us.
Basically, Jesus told this woman, and the others in the crowd, “Pay attention!! Don’t get distracted from my voice. I have important things to tell you. You won’t know what they are and what I want you to do, if all you’re thinking about is what you want to say or how you can gain attention. Put your attention on ME.”
It’s never fun to be Jesus’s object lesson.
The questions I’m asking myself …
✨ What keeps me from spending time alone with Jesus?
✨ When I finally get alone with Him, what distracts me?
✨ What keeps me from focusing on God’s Word?
✨ What causes my kind to wander when I’m praying?
➡️ Eliminating distractions …
➡️ Exercising discipline …
… to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5)
… brings true blessing.
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