This week was filled with the last of the lasts for my twin high school seniors. They officially “checked out” of our school district. Soon, they will have their high school diplomas in hand.
While I was waiting in the car for my son to finish his paperwork, a friend of mine walked over to see ...
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Teenagers
Treasure Your Teens by Entering Their World
When I was a teenager, my mom was my best friend. God blessed me with three Christian girl-friends from church, and we were all very close. They were a year behind me in school and attended the cross-town rival. I loved my high school experience and enjoyed many friendships—but because of my stand ...
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Blessing Others With Our Spoken Words
Sometimes God is so intent on your "getting something" that He practically bombards you with it at every turn. That's what the last few weeks have been like for me. Every where I turn, every passage I read, is focused on a common theme ... blessing others with my words. Not just any words, but ...
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3 Ways to Treasure Your Teenagers in the Midst of Frustration
I love people and love being with people. As the years go by, however, I find that I need more and more solitude. My morning quiet time is a coveted, treasured time of getting ready for the day. When my teenagers were toddlers, it was quite the feat teaching them not to come downstairs while Mom ...
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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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A Small Victory for This Overly-Helpful Mom
A couple of days ago I blogged about a sentence one of my daughters wrote in my Mother's Day card: "Thank you for being overly-helpful because I know you are just trying to make my life easier." (You can read about it here.) God used this simple sentence to show me that, although I was trying ...
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When What You Want For Mother’s Day Changes
Yesterday was Mother’s Day—the day moms across America look forward to for 364 days. Breakfast in bed. Someone else to clean the kitchen. Receiving cards expressing appreciation and love. Maybe even a thoughtful gift. And what mom who tirelessly and selflessly serves her family doesn’t need it? She ...
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Laying Down The Conductors Baton
I love music! I always have. If it wasn't piano lessons, it was band. If it wasn't band, it was choir. At one point, I was a music education major. But I realized, although I loved music, I didn't love it enough to make it my career. In my music theory class I learned the nuts and bolts of ...
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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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