03 | September | 2016 | Susie Stewart

Are you looking?

Are you listening?

Are you searching?

God is there

He is there!

He is communicating to you,

the child who He loves

He is conveying His

Mercy

Comfort

Love

Forgiveness

Himself!

But you’ve got to quiet yourself

Intentionally

You’ve got to look

to listen

to search

On Purpose

For all that entangles

and distracts

and pulls you away

from His loving presence

Will drown out the whispers

and the shouts

of God

– Susie Stewart

Good friend, take to heart what I’m telling you;
collect my counsels and guard them with your life.
Tune your ears to the world of Wisdom;
set your heart on a life of Understanding.
That’s right—if you make Insight your priority,
and won’t take no for an answer,
Searching for it like a prospector panning for gold,
like an adventurer on a treasure hunt,
Believe me, before you know it Fear-of-God will be yours;
you’ll have come upon the Knowledge of God.

– Proverbs 2:1-5 (MSG)

DEMONSTRATE Your ways, O Eternal One.
Teach me to understand so I can follow.
EASE me down the path of Your truth.
FEED me Your word
because You are the True God who has saved me.
I wait all day long, hoping, trusting in You.

– Psalm 25:4-5 (VOICE)

But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep respond to His voice. He calls His sheep by name and leads them out of the pen. After He has brought out all his sheep, He walks ahead of them. The sheep follow Him because they recognize his voice.

-John 10:2-4 (GW)

Photo by Susie Stewart

If any of us waited to get our act together

before coming to Christ,

we’d all still be waiting

We will never be good enough to approach God

on your own merit

That’s why we all need a Savior

And that’s why it’s called “asking Him into your heart”

We accept in our heart of hearts

that He is indeed the Savior

And we are the saved

His perfect sacrifice was the only thing

that could rescue us out of our mess

Thank you, my precious Lord,

Savior of the not good enough

Because You are

– Susie Stewart

Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented Himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put His love on the line for us by offering His Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to Him.

Romans 5:7-9 (MSG)

We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.

– Isaiah 64:6 (NLT)

Don’t be mistaken; in and of ourselves we know we have little to offer, but any competence or value we have comes from God.

– 2 Corinthians 3:5 (VOICE)

Photo by Susie Stewart