DAY 19 /iPad Journaling through John / with SHE READS TRUTH app

Day 19 / John Study / She Reads Truth

THE TRUE VINE

Today’s scripture is so personal for me. It’s all about who we are, and who we are not. God is God, and I am not. Knowing this truth is one thing…BELIEVING it …another.

I am reminded of a song by Stephen Curtis Chapman…

 

Lyrics
And the pain falls like a curtain
On the things I once called certain
And I have to say the words I fear the most
I just don’t know

And the questions without answers
Come and paralyze the dancer
So I stand here on the stage afraid to move
Afraid to fall, oh, but fall I must
On this truth that my life has been formed from the dust

God is God and I am not
I can only see a part of the picture He’s painting
God is God and I am man
So I’ll never understand it all
For only God is God

And the sky begins to thunder
And I’m filled with awe and wonder
‘Til the only burning question that remains
Is who am I

Can I form a single mountain
Take the stars in hand and count them
Can I even take a breath without God giving it to me
He is first and last before all that has been
Beyond all that will pass

Oh, how great are the riches of His wisdom and knowledge
How unsearchable for to Him and through Him and from Him are all things

So let us worship before the throne
Of the One who is worthy of worship alone

Abiding is all about being connected to the VINE. Understanding AND BELIEVING, that apart from it…we can do nothing.

And it’s all for our benefit. “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be FULL!! 

Experiencing God’s presence and His provision happens when we abide…remain, sit, dwell with Him.  We are STUBBORN SHEEP, and we keep doing the same stupid sheep stuff…over and over again. We try to make a way for ourselves, when our Shepherd has made it clear that HE is THE ONLY WAY.

ABIDING = Connection. First with GOD and then with each other. We need one another to encourage this behavior…it’s a choice that doesn’t come easy for us.

We certainly know how to stay connected to our PHONES, RIGHT?!! Well, maybe we should “flip that habit over!”

I have a friend who happens to be an engineer.  She is smart and organized. ( I Love to surround myself with organized people, for I am not!) Anyway, she sets an alarm on her phone to go off throughout the day to REMIND herself to step away and have conversation with God.  Isn’t that a GREAT use for a phone!

Whatever it takes, we need to find practical ways to step into this obedience…stepping away from chasing our “tails” and trying to please people, and instead, walk with our Lord like He’s right beside us…’cause He is! The rewards are FRUIT…LIFE…JOY!

As you begin to REALLY listen to your Shepherd, you will come to know His voice and HEAR it above the noise of social media, consumerism, and the struggle to find acceptance.

“…My sheep hear my voice.” -Jesus

John 10:27  “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”

CLING to the vine, for apart from it, we can do nothing and we will gain nothing.

“Can I form a single mountain
Take the stars in hand and count them
Can I even take a breath without God giving it to me
He is first and last before all that has been
Beyond all that will pass

Oh, how great are the riches of His wisdom and knowledge
How unsearchable for to Him and through Him and from Him are all things

So let us worship before the throne
Of the One who is worthy of worship alone”

 -Stephen Curtis Chapman

Praise His name above all names!  The Vine…”The One who is worthy of worship alone.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE PDF OF ABOVE BULLET JOURNAL PAGE

Bless you Sister!

DAY 18 /iPad Journaling through John / with SHE READS TRUTH app

Day 18 / John Study / She Reads Truth

THE ONLY WAY

I’ve heard it said, many times, by many different people…

“There isn’t just one way to God.” (Oprah made this statement famous)

OR

“I’m a good person, I try to “do right” most of the time…that’s all that matters.

But, Jesus makes it very clear…HE is the ONLY way. If we believe Jesus to be a man of truth, then there is NO room for doubt.

Many believe Jesus to be a great teacher, a wise and honorable man…but not God. Hmmmm, BUT a great teacher and a wise and honorable man would not make false claims, if He did than He would just be a liar, right?

In this age of “political correctness” and fear of offending it is difficult to take this hard line…we most certainly meet opposition. Yet, if we claim Jesus as our Savior, we must also claim Him as our Judge.  He is both. We can’t all be right. If we do not believe in an ultimate truth, than there is no truth.

Love was Jesus’ first priority, but He also spoke truth. (He is truth) We are called to do the same. To LOVE first…but to honor God by sharing who He is and who He made us to be…and in the process, we must share the whole truth…that HE IS THE (ONLY) WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE for all people.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me, you will also know My Father. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”
- John 14:6-7

May the Lord give us the ability to speak truth in love, so that others might hear.

Blessings,

 

DAY 17 /iPad Journaling through John / with SHE READS TRUTH app

Day 17 / John Study / She Reads Truth

John 13 / SERVANT OF ALL

When “squeezed” Jesus served…out of love.

In the study notes today Erin says it like this:

“I’ve heard it said that suffering reveals the real you. What comes out of our mouths when life squeezes us in its vise grip is the stuff we’re really made of.”  -Erin Davis

Can you even imagine?????!!!! Washing the feet of your friends whom you knew would betray you? That’s the kind of vise grip that causes us sinners to ooze out muck. And most of the time, even a gentle squeeze can produce stinky juices.

Jesus instructed us to follow HIS example:

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. -John 13

We certainly can’t produce sweet juice when squeezed without His help.

Thanks Erin Davis for this “picture” of our sin nature.  It will help me to remember to pray for sweet fruit…That I might be filled with the Spirit in order to better SERVE and LOVE.

 

FOR PDF OF THE ABOVE PAGE CLICK HERE

Blessings,

DAY 16 /iPad Journaling through John / with SHE READS TRUTH app

Day 16 / John Study / She Reads Truth

John 12 / THE FATHER’S SON

THE PANDO TREE

The PANDO tree reminds me of the incredible grace filled mystery…

that We can ALL be one…

the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and me!

Here’s a bit of background on the PANDO tree…

The Trembling Giant, or Pando, is an enormous grove of quaking aspens that take the “forest as a single organism” metaphor and literalizes it: the grove really is a single organism. Each of the approximately 47,000 or so trees in the grove is genetically identical and all the trees share a single root system. While many trees spread through flowering and sexual reproduction, quaking aspens usually reproduce asexually, by sprouting new trees from the expansive lateral root of the parent. The individual trees aren’t individuals, but stems of a massive single clone, and this clone is truly massive.

How is it that we can be one with the Son, as He is one with the Spirit and the Father? It is THE hardest thing to “wrap” our minds around…so the example of the PANDO tree gives me a better “picture” of this.

We have the same ROOT system.  Jesus did not operate separately from the Father. Every step He took was ordained by the Father, realized through the Holy Spirit and active through the connection of the Root.

He picks us up, broken and sinful… brushes us off and makes us worthy.

Only through the Son, can be one.

Oh, what a Savior… Oh, what a FATHER…

for what the Father commanded the Son accomplished.

For me.

For you.

JOHN 44 And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49 For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”

Praise His name for His great love and mercy.

FOR PDF WITH NO FILL CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE FOR PDF WITH FILL LIKE ABOVE IMAGE

 

Amen

 

 

 

DAY 15 /iPad Journaling through John / with SHE READS TRUTH app

Day 15 / John Study / She Reads Truth

To imagine our Lord, our Savior, our Shepherd, our King …having a love so deeply compassionate and empathetic He weeps with us…is just so hard to grasp.

For many of us, we haven’t experienced that kind of love and empathy here on earth.

The definition of empathy is this:

-the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Let’s face it…we are often too busy trying to understand our OWN feelings. We don’t have room to think of someone else’s…unless we think it will be of some benefit to ourselves:) Hard to admit, but true.

The definition of empathy also suggests that we SHARE those feelings…stepping into someone else’s circumstance, to walk through it with them. This is what our loving Jesus demonstrates here in John 11.

John 11

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

Can you see it?

He is with you…walking through whatever circumstance you are in right now. Not only is He with you, but He has a heart of compassion and empathy for you…He has experienced what you are going through…pain, sorrow, abandonment, rejection, betrayal, loss.

Rebecca Faines says this:

“Verse 35, tells us that “Jesus wept” for his friend Lazarus. Death has struck a blow, and Jesus weeps to see sin and its consequences in a fallen world. But His tears are not an indication of defeat. Instead, there at Lazarus’s tomb, Christ wages war on death, arresting the powers of death and decay, and reversing them.”

He takes our hand and walks us out of that circumstance!

I am overwhelmed by His love and provision daily.

Let’s raise our hands in praise for His unending love.

JOHN 11 WHEN JESUS WEPT

FOR THE PDF CLICK HERE

Xo,

Late posts!!

Good morning!! For those of you doing the SHE READS TRUTH study on John with me, my posts will be later than “usual” this week!

I am helping my son while his beautiful wife is away!

here is a teaser for Day 15 🙂

More later today!

Hugs to you!!!!!

A Gentle Whisper from the Lord

1 Kings 19

9 There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” 11 And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.[a] 13 And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The Lord spoke to Elijah in a low whisper…a “gentle voice”

In Hebrew, the phrase is Kol D’ mama dekah.

What a Good Father we have. What a tender Shepherd.

Happy Friday!

FYI – for those of you joining me in the SHE READS TRUTH STUDY on John, I will be posting day 15 on Monday:) I am getting ready for my son and his family to move in today!!! They are having some work done to their home. This is one excited Mimi!

 

Can’t wait to have this little cutie patootie!

Here is a Friday Doodle:)

Blessings,

Start with Amen : How I learned to Surrender by Keeping the End in Mind -by Beth Guckenberger (a peek into this new book!)

Start with Amen : How I learned to Surrender by Keeping the End in Mind -by Beth Guckenberger

I’ve only read the first 3 chapters, but Beth had me at AMEN.

If you’ve never read one of Beth’s books, or heard her speak, or experienced her vulnerable, big heart for God, I encourage you to! God will speak to YOUR heart through hers ❤️

She happens to be a “hometown girl”… from my hometown:) After joining the Lord in a “start up ministry” BACK TO BACK, (<—Check it out!) and living in Mexico for many years, she and her family are back in Ohio.

My oldest daughter experienced such growth through this ministry, and it’s easy to see the great work God is doing there. Hope you will prayerfully consider what it might mean to the life of you and/or your family.

Beth Guckenberger is a gifted story teller, with a miraculous story to tell.

Quick to share her stumbles, open and vulnerable in her weaknesses, God tells His story, shares His Glory. through her obedience …and sometimes disobedience, pain, heartache and brokenness.

The doodle below came from Beth’s story about ice cream. I can totally relate. After spending any given day doing “hard stuff” (often in our own power) we feel the need for a reward. Why? Because when we are operating in our own will, using our own “steam” we run out of that steam, without experiencing the blessing the Lord longs to “award” us along the way. We miss out, and try to “bless ourselves” with ____________________ (fill in the blank…maybe it’s ice cream:)

Love your thoughts here Beth Guckenberger!

From “START WITH AMEN” -In Revelation 2, God used John to challenge the church at Ephesus by saying, “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (v. 5). The word translated as “fallen” from Greek is used in other places in Scripture. It can denote a flower that has withered (James 1: 11; 1 Pet. 1: 24) or a ship out of control (Acts 27: 17, 26). When I neglect spending extended time with the Lord, I feel like a withered flower or an out-of-control ship. A withered flower doesn’t feel his peace, doesn’t show his glory, and just seems tired.  -Beth Guckenberger

 

And so is Beth:)

click the first sentence in this post to find out more about her book!

I HIGHLY recommend it!

What feeds your view of self ? We can only be defined by the one who designed us.

& even though our tendency is to turn to Black Raspberry Chip…Jesus is the only one who can quench our endless thirst.

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE IMAGE ABOVE YOU HAVE TO READ BETH’S BOOK!!! 😬

 

Bless you,