I often say that I hope this happens or that happens. Sometimes I get corrected. "Don't you mean you'll pray about it" or some other correction. People want to call my faith into question when I say "I hope". That is wrong thinking. To have hope is to have faith. I hope because I have faith. Hope is part of my faith.  Hope anchors my faith. We have this hope as an anchor for our soul, firm and secure .  Hebrews 6:19a NIV What is hope? How does it anchor our soul? For me, hope bubbles up from my faith that God is good, that God knows best, that God has everything under control and that He loves me and desires all good for me.  In fact, He works all things for the good of those who love Him. Sometimes good has to be worked through. To get good, we have to strain and struggle. The butterfly won't fly if it doesn't work to get out of the cocoon as nature intended - I mean chrysalis, not cocoon. A toddler doesn't learn to walk unless allowed ...

Hebrews 12:15 "See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." See to it that no one misses the grace of God..... The prior verse, verse 14, is " Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord." It is our job as Christians to help people see God. We are supposed to be being remolded and reshaped into the image of God.  Our actions should be one way that we help people see God. When we " make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy " we help people see God. When we behave as Christ would, we demonstrate the love of God. Each and every encounter of each and every day is an opportunity to demonstrate the grace of God. You may have the same type of encounter each day.  We go to work with the same people, run into the same people at the store, live with the same people in our homes. Do they always see the grace of ...

Cleaning is not on my list of things I like to do. I do it, not often and not well. It seems that I can dust, and in a day, you can't tell I've dusted.  As soon as I vacuum, the dog scratches and deposits a nice bit fur on the carpet, or leaves crumbs of food in his wake. When I actually clean a window, within a very short time, either the sun shines through and loudly proclaims that I made the window streaky, or my dog puts his wet nose on the glass just to make sure there is a pane of glass there.  I think you know what I mean, right?  Cleaning is never ending and is never done. That's why I don't like it. As I was bemoaning this thought the other day, another thought struck me like lightening.  How does God feel about cleaning ?  He forgives my sins then I get all dirty again, smudges of grime, streaks of bitterness, bits of fur in my wake.  He cleans me by the power of the blood.  Then I step in filth, rub my nose in someone else's business, tra...

Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together…..let us encourage one another. I have a favor to ask, not just for me but for any blogger you read regularly or even those you don't but find a post interesting. Many, probably most, bloggers post as they feel the need and as they are encouraged by readers. I know for me, I write a post when I need to examine a passage from the Bible, or when I need to share something I've discovered, or when I need help understanding something. There is no real accountability to anyone for a blogger to post something (unless they are being paid)....so over the last few months, I haven't written many posts.  If there is no other reason besides self, writing a post seems.... unnecessary for lack of a better word. I've discovered that people, me included, visit blogs and never read them.  We visit sites for pictures, diagrams, sketches to use for whatev...

Matthew 18:7 Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! These are the words of Jesus. It is in the conversation where Jesus tells the disciples that they must be like children to enter the kingdom of heaven, that they must accept the children and never lead them astray. I was surprised by " such things must come ", such " things that cause people to stumble" . I haven't thought of temptations and trials as being necessary. Perhaps I'm wrong but what other reason could there be that " such things must come "?  Why do things that cause people to stumble have to come? God calls us and woos us. He gives us loads of chances to meet and commit to Him. Perhaps that is why " such things must come ". They say that people won't get help for their addictions until they have hit rock bottom. Perhaps they won't come to Jesus until they reach...

On Tuesday, I wrote a post about Psalm 71 saying that we are to pass along what we know about God to the next generation.  On Wednesday, the post was from Ezekiel saying that we should continue to pass along God's love and our knowledge of Him regardless of whether anyone listens or not.  Then I read Hebrews 2:1-4. " We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will." Now to be really honest about this, I didn't see the connection, until I looked at the Bible Study we are starting on Miracles . One of the questions ...

Hebrews 12:14 (New Living Translation) says: "Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord." The Bible gives us clear direction that it is not easy to do what God wants.  We are to WORK.  In this passage we are to work at living in peace with everyone and living a holy life.  The Bible acknowledges that it takes work to live in peace with everyone.  It takes WORK to live a holy life. Each day we get up and get ready to go to work.  We leave home to go work some place other than home.  We also clean house,get groceries, fix broken things, and loads of other things that we WORK at.  In general we spend a lot of our time working.  We work.  That is what we do. This passage tells us that besides the above we also have to work at relationships with others and with God.  We can all relate to someone who is just hard to get along with.  We have to work at even ...

I've been without the Internet for several days so I haven't been able to post.  The other day, the same day I lost my Internet connection, I wrote down eight different verses that spoke to me.  I wondered if looking at the passages after several days would make me forget why I wrote them down.  It is interesting that today, some of them seem more intertwined than when I wrote them down.  Here are the passages I wrote down 3 days ago. Leviticus 19:32 "Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD." Leviticus 19:14 " Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the LORD." Leviticus 19:16b "Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. I am the LORD.   James 4:14b  "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." James 4:17 "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins....

What I do each morning (ok, most mornings) is to read my Daily Bible, my UpperRoom daily devotional, and some other daily readings.  I always have a notebook and pen handy so I can write bits of scripture that I want to remember.  I use that as a reference to post to this blog. But the main reason I started writing scripture in a notebook is because it helps me remember passages. I don't have many memorized.  I certainly can't tell you that Hebrews 13:5a says "keep your life free from love of money...." except that I wrote it down today. I know that I have a better chance remembering things if I write it down. My daily reading ritual includes scripture.  I use other sources which comment on scripture but I always include the referenced scripture too.  My daily Bible is good for reading all of scripture.  By reading through the entire Bible, I find things that I wouldn't find just looking at other people's commentaries.  For example, did you know tha...

Hebrews 11:3 (ESV) By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. This is the third verse that seems to be to relate to the last two posts.  "By Faith, we understand...."   One of the hardest things about being Christian is having a satisfactory answer for "but how do you KNOW?"  The real answer is faith.  I have faith that what I believe is true.  Samuel believed that Eli knew what he was talking about when he said to respond to God calling.  Samuel had faith that Eli knew.  Jesus revealed the truth of scripture and the disciples had faith that Jesus was who He said He was.  I have faith that those before me, those who have formed my faith, knew the truth of God in Christ.   Hebrews chapter 11 is sometimes called the Hall of Faith.  It is filled with people of faith who believed God, who acted upon God's commands sometimes contrary to...

Hebrews 10:24-25 “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together…..let us encourage one another.” This evening was spurred because of this passage of scripture. A great bunch of people got together for food and fellowship. Some knew each other.  Some only knew a few people.  But we all have a similar experience with the Walk to Emmaus.  The Walk to Emmaus is a 3-day Christian program for developing Christian Leaders. After a person has experienced this wonderful weekend, he/she is called 4th Day.  Well, a couple of 4th Day decided that they needed to be encouraged and knew of no better way than to use 4th Day people to get together to praise God. We ate.  We sang some wonderful praise songs.  We listened to a witness speaker who told us that she chooses to be glad because this is the day that God has made in spite of it being the birthday of a dear niece who died entirely too young....