Corona Devotionals

Have you ever made tea (iced or hot) with loose tea leaves?  The fave flavor for my husband and I right now is cinnamon-orange, and I make a pitcher-a-week that we enjoy very much.   But almost more than I enjoy the taste of the tea (and it's tasty!)...I love watching the tea leaves dance and dart and dazzle around the pitcher when I first pour the kettle of boiling water over.   Initially covering the bottom of the pitcher in stillness, those tea leaves come alive for a few seconds when the boiling water wakes them.   They zoom and dash all around the space of the filled pitcher, and then after a bit they resettle at the bottom once again, puffed and thicker, now that they have been energized and plumped by the water. Each time I make a pitcher of (loose) tea, I think with excitement: I want that to be me, Lord. Me for Jesus.  Me in my faith.  Me in my hope.  Me today for the Lord. Delighting in Him. Delight yourself also in the  Lord , a nd He shall give you the desires of your h

How do we know if we are being authentic in our desires to serve the Lord today?   Psst!  I found a little check-list in  I Thessalonians, Chapter 2  to check-our-answers, and our hearts.   It outlines what God's messengers   should  be-motivated-by, and it also goes into detail about what we should not display.   So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.   (4)  For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.  ( 5)  Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know.    ~I Thessalonians 2:3-5 ~~~ Are we preaching with any deceit ?   Do we (ever) bend God's Word to suit our needs/arguments/or comfort?  Do we omit parts of the Bible that are not popular, or that contradict what is current in culture?  (If yes , then we are preaching with deceit. ) If we are not fully obeying God, then we are actively dis obey

God loves us deeply.  So deeply.  But He is holy.  He  must  be just.   An owner loves their new puppy, but they must  train it, or there will be no respect and obedience, and thus there can be no true companionship.  In order for a puppy to become a trained dog, the owner must  be just.   A parent loves their child (loves!), but the role of parenting is a God-given responsibility.  The Bible directs that God-fearing parents must  be just, for the well-being of the child...and for the family as a unit.   He who spares his rod hates his son, b ut he who loves him disciplines him promptly. (Proverbs 13:24) If discipline is required, then out of love  (for the child) then the parent is directly by God to give it.  The parent must  be just. Discipline out of love?  A parent must be just?    This sounds incorrect, and it definitely sounds counter-cultural if you ask most parents in today's culture. It is a hard truth.  Almost too strict to enact, for many.   But God demonstrates His lov

What is God up to today in our lives?   We often don't  know  what God is doing.   We can't .  That's why we have to trust Him, and His leadings, and His Spirit ( the Holy Spirit ).  Don't stifle God.   Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.     ~I Thessalonians 5:19 ~~~ A friend of ours shared a story about one day years ago when he was selling his bison meat at a local farmers market.  A friend came up and introduced him to a young man who was from Iran. Thoughts of persecutions flashed through my friend's mind.   "How long you been here?" our friend asked the Iranian man. "I got here yesterday", came the Iranian's reply.   "You should come to our church tomorrow", our friend invited.  And the Iranian man did .   That was ten years ago.  The Iranian man and his (now) wife have attended that church just about every Sunday since.  They are Believers in God and their testimonies are astounding. Why? Because our friend felt the Holy Spirit te

There's a storm coming. Some of us have a storm bearing down on us, and it's scary.   We don't know what the damage and effect will be like, but it sure seems/feels/appears as if destruction is imminent, and the front-end anxiety is eating us alive.   Some of our on-coming storms are weather-related.  "Hunker down", they say.  "Flee!", they say, and every "they" has different advice.  Some of us are facing health-related storms.  The cancer (for example) keeps going...and growing.  Or the scheduled-surgery looms.  Or the elusive diagnosis will not come , and so the struggle of our daily lack-of-answers slowly strangles us, and the storm rages on.  Some of us have financial storms brewing.  We know it.  We have seen the small indicators gain strength and force and become bigger gales.   Some of us have relational storms crackling with thunder and lightning.  The air won't clear, and the tension has infiltrated our relationship and our peace.

Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance.  ( 13)  Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other.  ~I Thessalonians 5:12-13 ~~~ Have you hugged your pastor lately?   No-- really.   Do our pastors know how much we appreciate all that they do and are  to us?  God reminds us in the Bible that we should  show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work.   Every day should be pastor-appreciation day and today is a great day to  honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. Hug your pastor today! We are grateful for the youth pastors in our churches too. Even if we don't have kids: someone is investing and shedding light on God's Word and ways to the youth in our church.  Theirs is a critical and influential role in the next generation of Believers and  they work hard among our youth  and give spiritual g

Call me nostalgic (or crazy), but I slid an (over-a-decade-old) children's music CD into the car-player the other day while our whole family was together.  As the music piped through our vehicle, memories streamed through our minds.  These songs of yesterday brought back days-gone-by, (much!) smaller children, and years-ago that seem like only moments-ago. In review, the hands of time travel quickly, and as I sang the songs and stepped back from present-day, I realized that our today  is not all that different from our yesterday.   We busy ourselves with the routines, responsibilities, and attempts of each day, and (I felt) that the song-refrain I was humming pretty much summed-up life: Let us chase the squirrel--Up the hick’ry, down the hick’ry, Let us chase the squirrel--Up the hick’ry tree. That's (sort of) what we're doing here day to day, isn't it?  Chasing the squirrel up the hickory and then down the hickory. We go to the same jobs and homes day after day.  We ma