Prepared for Company?

 

When I found out we were having company this week for 4th of July, I prepared for our guests. I cleaned, planned, and shopped.  I cleaned sheets, my WHOLE house, including my disasterous playroom/study.  My girls knew someone would arrive when I cleaned the guest bathroom/oldest daughter's shower (about the only time I clean the shower...oops).  I made a menu and went to the grocery store.  Yes, it can be done (note to myself).  I even bought new washcloths.

My oldest daughter, A, also prepared.  She knew if mom cleaned the shower, her room inspection would shortly follow.  She made her bed and even looked under her bed.  She discovered clothes she had missed, trash, and yes, even a chocolate bunny from Easter.  Her closet, a dangerous place,  overtaken by clothes that had fallen off  hangers, shoes without mates, and piles of duct tape (new fad).  Even though she hated to clean up her room, she loves having guests.

While I cleaned, I thought of another guest.  One who doesn't tell me when he will arrive.  One who desires to dine with me.  One who invites me as a guest into heaven for eternity (No.  Not a guest, a daughter).

The guest:  Jesus. 

Matthew 24: 42, 44
⁴² “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. ⁴⁴ For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.

Are you prepared?  We don't know when He will come.

pics on my Grandmother's wall

Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

Are you prepared?  He wants to dine with you.

John 1:12
¹² But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.

Are you prepared?  He wants to call you His child.

Like preparing for my house guests, I must prepare for Jesus.  My preparation for Jesus determines my eternal destination.  I started my preparation when I asked Jesus to forgive me and become my boss.   Preparing for house guests never ends (even though I would love to quit cleaning forever).  Likehouse, my "spiritual house" always needs work.  When Jesus comes, I want to be in awe not ashamed.

What would you change if you knew Jesus would come today?  Priorities? Plans? Purchases?

Are you prepared?  You can have eternal hope.  If you have Jesus, our hope, you can share hope (H.elp O.thers P.repare for E.ternity).
     
Need to prepare?




Linked to:
Good Morning Girls

Need Hope?

Dirty laundry, diapers, disobedient children, There is HOPE!

Dread, depression, divorce, There is HOPE!

Drunk, disease, death, There is HOPE!

Diet, Dumb drivers, delayed, There is HOPE!

Doubled over pain, debt, disabled, There is HOPE!

Distance, drown, disaster, There is HOPE!

Dried land, drained, despondent, There is HOPE!

Everyone needs Hope. Real, down to earth, yet out of this world HOPE. This world may offer temporary fixes to some of the”d”s, but everyone needs eternal hope, this world cannot offer. The Bible describes hope differently than the world. The world’s hope is only wishful thinking. For example, I hope the weather is nice; or I hope there is a front row parking space. The Bible offers Real hope, an expectant truth, given in a person, Jesus. Because God always keeps His promises, we can trust Him and receive Jesus as our hope.

To receive hope, you must believe the Bible. Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Sin, choosing our way instead of God's way, separates us from a perfect God. The glory of God describes God's perfection. Because God is perfect, he cannot allow sin into heaven. Wow! We have a problem. God hates sin, and we are full of sin. To receive hope, we must admit we need hope because of our sin.

The Bible says in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Wages are what we receive for the work we do, what we deserve. The wages for sin: death. "But" (I love that word) read the rest of the verse. The good news: God gave us a gift of eternal life in Jesus. Because it is a gift, I cannot earn his forgiveness.

Jesus came to earth, totally God and totally man, to live a perfect life. Because Jesus lived without sin, when He died on the cross, God accepted his death as payment for everyone's sin. More good news: the Bible says in Romans 5:8, "But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!" Because we cannot make ourselves right before God by what we do, Jesus forgives us the way we are: full of sin. To receive the gift of hope, we must believe that Jesus can offer hope through His death on the cross.

The Bible says in Romans 10:9, "If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Awesome news! ss references:

A.Romans 5:8 : Rm 3:5

B.Romans 5:8 : Jn 3:16; 15:13; Rm 8:39

To receive the gift of hope Jesus offers, you must confess.

Do you need to admit, believe, and confess today to receive eternal hope through Jesus?

 If you would like to receive eternal hope today or just have questions,

I Want Hope

When you receive Jesus you not only have eternal hope, but hope for the daily "d"s (see top).




Linked to A Holy Experience

Easter Memories

Easter Sunday holds a special place in my heart for several reasons.  Yes, first and foremost I celebrate Easter as the day our risen Savior, Jesus Christ, conquered death, the reason for my hope.  But to my family, Easter has other significant memories. 

Easter eleven years ago, our first-born came into the world.  Thankfully she came in the evening so I could wear my highly debated new, maternity dress.  I taught second grade Sunday school class as usual, sharing the great news about Jesus coming to save us from our sin.  We worshipped in "big church", timing contractions and singing along.  We went to my in-laws house for Easter lunch.  When we arrived, I thought I should start with dessert, just in case I had to leave for the hospital.  My contractions, now much longer and stronger, deserved my attention.  My husband wasn't sure if we should go to the hospital, or not.  We had already been the week before, only to be sent home.  Finally, my Father-in-Law said, "Son, I've seen that look before.  I think you should take her to the hospital."  I'm forever grateful to my Father-in-Law.  After waltzing into the maternity floor and taken to a room with no equipment, the nurse says, "You are going to have this baby today."  I'll spare you all the labor details, but at 8:19 p.m., our beautiful, forever life-changing daughter announced in her own way, "Happy Easter!"  My husband, with tears running down his face, opened the door to family awaiting the unknown announcement.  "It's a girl!"  I will never forget this special Easter Day.

Fast forward nine years. My "Easter surprise", now a third grader, gave us one of the most memorable Easters ever.  My family, my husband's family, and friends watched as the Pastor of our church baptized her.  She had already made the most important decision of her life, to follow Jesus, on Christmas night a few months previous.   She believed Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and rose again to take the penalty of her sin. She accepted Jesus' gift of forgiveness, trusting Him to be her boss.  The book of John (Chapter 3) described this as the second birth or being born-again, a spiritual birth.  So, Easter morning her baptism told everyone about what happened in her heart.  My sweet girl, born on Easter, demonstrated through her baptistm that she was"born again."  What an Easter!

And now, this Easter.  My youngest daughter, age six, has asked many questions about Jesus coming again, heaven, hell, and becoming a Christian over the last few months.  Easter Sunday evening we attended Truth Baptist Church that meets at an apartment complex in our city.  The Pastor served the Lord's Supper and wanted us to come up as families to observe the meal together.  (Jesus gave us instructions for the Lord's Supper when he gave the disciples instructions the night before he was crucified.  The bread represented Jesus' body, that was torn apart for our sin.  And the wine represented his blood he gave on the cross.)  Our youngest had never eaten the Lord's Supper meal because she had never trusted Jesus for herself  (or so we thought).  She continued to "bug" us about taking the meal.  As quietly as we could, we argued for her to wait until we could talk to her after the service. When we got home, she wanted crackers and apple juice.  She would have her own Lord's Supper.  We talked to her and realized she understood that her sin separated her from God.  She said she had already prayed to ask for forgiveness, but hadn't told us.  We told her to wait until next Sunday and tell the Pastor about her decision.  She couldn't wait.  "No.  I want to tell someone tomorrow," she said.  So, Monday I called our children's minister and set up a time for her to talk to her about following Jesus.  Wow!  Another Easter blessing.  Now, all of our girls are followers of Christ.  Easter never gets old.       

Do you have any special Easter memories?
He is Risen!

My Lifegiving Rescue in Light of a Breathtaking Rescue

Remember these pics from 10/13/10 in

Santiago Chile?

          Everyone loves rescue stories: in books, movies, and life.  It’s been a year since over one billion viewers held their breaths as 33 men in Chile, trapped for 69 days, finally surfaced from a collapsed mine a half -mile underground.  The last of the 33men found freedom about 22 hours after the first.  What a miraculous story!  From surviving 17 days without contact with the outside world, surviving on food enough for two days, to surviving the actual assent to freedom, each step of survival amazed the world.

I have a rescue story, too.  Even though my rescue has many similarities to the miners’ rescue, we see one major difference.  Like the miners, I needed a Savior.  However, my need was not for my physical life, but for my spiritual life.

I’m sure the miners thought they could die during several occasions over the sixty-nine day event.  Similarly, I remember as a second grader coming face to face with death as a reality, and even feared death, when I lost three grandparents in six months.  I heard about heaven, vaguely understanding the concept, but knew I wanted to go there when I died.  My parents explained that my grandparents were in heaven after they died.  We last saw each of my grandparents’ bodies at the funeral home.  My youngest sister, four-years-old at the time, thought Baggerly’s Funeral home in Edmond, Oklahoma was actually heaven.  These events made me question my own spiritual condition.  By understanding the other similarities and differences of our rescues, you too, can experience a life giving rescue.

First, understand another difference.  Unlike the miners who knew immediately after the collapse of the mine that they needed help, I originally didn’t understand I needed help.  As a young girl, I thought… I’m a pretty good girl.  I go to church every Sunday with my family; I’ve never murdered anyone, even though I’ve been mad enough at my older brother to kill him J.   I try to be nice to my two younger sisters and older brother, and I usually only hit them if they hit me first.  Well, ok.  I start some of the commotion myself J.   I do the best I can in school.  I think God will love me because I’m not as bad as other people.  But through God’s Word, I learned that my bad actions, bad thoughts, bad attitudes were called sin.  And even one sin was enough to separate me from the perfect God of the Bible.   Because God is perfect, he does not allow sin into heaven.  I may not have been trapped under a mile of rock, but sin trapped me, separating me from God.  I realized I needed to be rescued. I needed a Savior.

Now understand the first similarity:  Just think what would have happened if the miners thought they could escape on their own.  They all would have perished.  I also used to think I could free myself from my sin.  Maybe if I just do enough good things, go to church regularly, give money to the poor, then I could save myself from my sin.  Ephesians 2:8-9  says…For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works so that no one should boast.  Just as impossible as it would have been for the miners to escape with a small hammer, it is impossible to work our way into heaven.

The second similarity:  The miners didn’t “deserve” to be rescued.  The miners hadn’t “earned the right” to escape.  They merely experienced the new joy because people that loved them wanted them back.  Therefore, people whom they never even met worked to make it happen.  Likewise, I didn’t have to “do” anything to deserve God’s grace.  Only because of God’s love for me did he display His grace to me by rescuing me in spite of my sin.  The Bible says God came and rescued us “while we were sinners”.  We don’t have to make our lives look better and then God will accept us.  He accepts us even when sin traps us.

The third similarity:  Like the miners only had one way out, God gave us one way out.  God sent Jesus.  John 3:16  For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.  John 14:6  "I am the way, the truth, and the life!" Jesus answered. "Without me, no one can go to the Father.  Why would God send His only Son to die for us if there was another way?

The fourth similarity:  For the miners, it was not enough for them to KNOW ABOUT the escape route, but they had to demonstrate their faith by getting into the escape capsule.  How absurd would it have been if the miners decided to stay where they were and not be rescued?  But they did have a choice to escape, or not.  The miners had to place their faith in the rescue effort.  Once they stepped out in faith into the escape contraption, they did not have to put out any effort of their own to ascend to the surface.  They totally relied on their rescuers.

I remember realizing that my grandparents could only go to heaven because of their faith in Jesus.  They each had to decide for themselves if they would believe.  It didn’t matter if they were born to believing parents.  It didn’t matter if they had perfect church attendance.  It didn’t matter if they knew the great stories of the Bible or the nice songs about Jesus.  If they didn’t believe it for themselves, they would have died in their sin, separated from God.

Similarly, one night we had a speaker at our church (a good ole’ revival service).  God helped me understand that I needed to place my faith in Jesus, God’s only rescue effort. The Bible tells us, the penalty for my sin is death, separated from God forever.  But Jesus died in my place. God accepted Jesus’ blood on the cross as a payment for my sin. I told God I trusted Him and wanted to have Jesus save me by forgiving my sin.  Once I trusted in Christ, I turned from my self- effort of escape to rely only on Christ for my escape.  I couldn’t “do” anything else to help my escape.  It was by faith alone that I God rescued me. 

My life giving rescue changed my life that night.  God gave me freedom from trying to be perfect to deserve His love, which I could never do, to resting in what Christ did for me.  God accepted me the way I was, warts and all.  I no longer lived separated from God, but began a relationship/friendship with God.  I no longer fear death because I know that if I were to die, God has made a way for me to go to heaven.  God not only promises heaven after death, but promises to make life on earth worth living.  God gave me purpose in life, to honor Him all my days. 

The final similarity:  Even though the miners went from darkness to light immediately, they still had to adjust their lives to the change.  They wore sun glasses to protect their eyes.  My life also changed from spiritual darkness to light when I asked Jesus to forgive me, but I am continuing to adjust to my new life in Christ.  God isn’t done with me yet.  He’s fixing me, warts and all, to be more like Christ. 

I praise God everyday for my rescue story.  I would be nothing without Christ.  Life would be futile trapped in sin’s dark mine.   You, too, can have a Life giving rescue story.  Have you realized you are trapped?  Are you trying to work your own way out?  Have you accepted God’s only rescue plan, Jesus?  If you have questions, you can call 1-888-JESUS-2000.

Final challenge for those already rescued:  What if only one man in the mine knew the rescue plan, but refused to tell the others about it?  Suppose he left in the middle of the night, leaving the others to perish.  If you know the plan, when was the last time you shared the plan with someone else?

My rescue was only the beginning of my journey.