Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.
– Mark 6:31 (NIV)
The apostles then rendezvoused with Jesus and reported on all that they had done and taught. Jesus said, “Come off by yourselves; let’s take a break and get a little rest.” For there was constant coming and going. They didn’t even have time to eat.
– Mark 6:31 (MSG)
Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
As Jesus was saying this, the leader of a synagogue came and knelt before Him. “My daughter has just died,” he said, “but you can bring her back to life again if you just come and lay your hand on her.”…
When Jesus arrived at the official’s home, He saw the noisy crowd and heard the funeral music. “Get out!” He told them. “The girl isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.” But the crowd laughed at Him. After the crowd was put outside, however, Jesus went in and took the girl by the hand, and she stood up!
– Matthew 9:18-19, 23-25 (NLT)
It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose His temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, He embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on His own, with no help from us! Then He picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
– Ephesians 2:1-6 (MSG)
God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
– John 1:5 (NLT)
Everything was created through Him; nothing—not one thing!— came into being without Him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.
– John 1:4-6 (MSG)
A light that thrives in the depths of darkness, blazes through murky bottoms. It cannot and will not be quenched.
– John 1:5 (VOICE)
You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.
– Matthew 5:14-16 (MSG)
When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
The very thought of God, to a man who truly loves Him, is ecstasy! If my eternity could be spent in a dungeon with my heart full of love to God, it could not be an unhappy experience to live so!
But, at the back of this, there comes a far greater thing. Brothers and Sisters, we know that God loves us. I never dare to try to speak about this great Truth of God—it is a thing to think over rather than to talk of. I like to get away quietly in a corner and just try to roll this sweet morsel under my tongue, to suck on it till I draw the very essence out of it—God loves me—or, as the hymn puts it—“I am so glad that Jesus loves me.”
For God to think of me is something. For Him to pity me, is more. For Him to help me practically, is still more. But for Him to love me—this is the greatest wonder of all! You know how you, being evil, love your own children, but your Heavenly Father loves you far more! You husbands know how you love your wives, yet there is One who loves His Church far more, for He gave Himself for her! God loves you, my Brother. God loves you, my Sister, if, indeed, you have been brought to believe in Jesus. And to know this great Truth of God is to have an “exceeding great reward,” because, if God loves us, everything must be right!
– Charles Spurgeon
So if you, who are sinful, know how to give your children good gifts, how much more so does your Father in heaven, who is perfect, know how to give great gifts to His children!
– Matthew 7:11 (VOICE)
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
– Matthew 7:1-5 (MSG)
Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples.
But in thinking about love and grief we must be careful not to confuse either with that sentimentality which is part of cheap grace. The kind of loving grief I’m talking about involves acceptance of the precariousness of life and that we will all die, but our wholeness is found in the quality rather than the quantity of our living. Real love, between man and woman, friend and friend, parent and child, is exemplified for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who offered us and still offers us the wholeness of that costly grace which gives us the courage for healthy grief.
We live in a time where costly grace is what makes life bearable; more than bearable – joyful and creative, so that even our grief is part of our partnership in co-creation with God.
– Madeleine L’Engle
For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.
– Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NLT)
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
– Psalm 24:18 (NLT)
God blesses those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
As Jesus and His disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to Him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, butfew things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
– Luke 10:38-42 (NIV)
Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in Him! Fear the Lord, you His godly people, for those who fear Him will have all they need. Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry, but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing.
– Psalm 34:8-10 (NLT)
For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.
– Psalm 84:11 (NLT)
This is a comprehensive promise, and is such an assurance of the present comfort of the saints that, whatever they desire, and think they need, they may be sure that either Infinite Wisdom sees it is not good for them or Infinite Goodness will give it to them in due time. Let it be our care to walk uprightly, and then let us trust God to give us everything that is good for us.
– Matthew Henry
“No good thing will He withheld,” but how is this true, when God oftentimes withholds riches and honors, and health of body from men, though they walk never so uprightly; we may therefore know that honors and riches and bodily strength, are none of God’s good things; they are of the number of things indifferent which God bestows promiscuously upon the just and unjust, as the rain to fall and the sun to shine. The good things of God are chiefly peace of conscience and the joy in the Holy Gost in this life; fruition of God’s presence, and the vision of His blessed face in the next, and these good things God never bestows upon the wicked, never withholds from the godly, and they are all cast up in one sum where it is said, “Blessed are the pure in heart (and such are only they that walk uprightly) for they shall see God.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon
For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.
– Proverbs 4:25,26 (NIV)
Looking straight ahead
fixing my gaze directly before me
means decidedly ignoring distractions
means not being dissuaded from the path
the Lord has laid out for me
no matter what tempts me
to veer off
Eyes and heart
set determinedly forward
and straight on,
for this deliberate path
is one of reward
of joy
of the few
– Susie Stewart
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
– Matthew 7:13,14 (NIV)
A highway will be there, a roadway. It will be called the Holy Road. Sinners won’t travel on it. It will be for those who walk on it. Godless fools won’t wander onto it.
From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave Him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save Him.”
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
When the centurion and those with Him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely He was the Son of God!”
You stepped up to me when I was young and flung open your coat so I could see what you carried.
You cooed, “I’ve got it all. Anything you want.”
You seemed nice enough. So I took a hit.
First it was popularity, which has taken approximately my whole life to come down from.
Then you let me sample pride, possessions, power. It was all so strong. It was all so intoxicating. You spun me around until I was too dizzy to look straight and you sent me on my way, “I’m all yours, baby. Live it up.”
I guess it could have worked but in my reeling stupor the Savior of this world grabbed me by the shoulders, He called my name. And I was, with great resolve, wholly His. The aroma of His love exposed the aroma of you, which smells mostly like rot.
He set me straight and showed me how truly upside down you are.
You put the best looking first and the least of these last. You pour accolades on the rich and devastate the poor. You invite the popular first. You hide the unwanted in the shadows.
But can I blame it all on you? You convinced me that it’s my life I need to save – and for a time I agreed.
But His call was so inside out. It was so fantastically right. It went something like this, “Let’s lose your life and go save so many others.”
….We must act.
We must allow Him to use our life for something greater than this world has to offer.
– Brianne McKoy
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake, you will save it.
– Matthew 16:25 (NLT)
We know what real love is because Jesus gave up His life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.
– 1 John 3:16 (NLT)
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give His life as a ransom for many.
Susie Stewart 