If You Look At This Picture, We Can All Honestly Say That Our Path Along The Road Of Life Has Never Been

If you look at this picture, we can all honestly say that our path along the road of life has never been perfectly straight. In fact the road is a bit wavy, and the question is WHY.

We have all had the experience of driving when something to the left or right side of the road catches our eye, and once we take our eyes off of looking forward, the car out drifts out of the lane and we start weaving.

This is a great analogy of what often happens in life. If we were to keep our eyes on God and follow His direction we would always stay in the centerline of the road, but as soon as we allow ourselves to get distracted by things that catch our attention that are outside of God’s truth, we start weaving and the road is made crooked.

Look...nobody is perfect and we all have and will make mistakes, but as today’s scripture admonishes us, keep your eyes on God and follow His precepts. When you do, you’ll never go in the wrong direction and will safely stay on your road through this life.

God Bless Your Day Jesus Loves You

NotesOnLife.org

Let’s face it…if you wanted to become what people often ridicule these days as a 'Holy Roller,' then it would look completely embarrassing and stupid to your friends, family and peers to worship a 'make believe friend' like god. So if for some weird reason you were to change your mind and actually become a Christian, you would not want to do that because you would be embarrassed and ashamed, YES?

OK! I get that and that makes perfect sense. Christians appear to be a bit wacky in that they believe weird stuff like Noah’s ark, stories about a talking donkey, and Jesus raising himself from the dead. It’s perfectly logical to not want to associate with any of that, and if you did, you’d be ashamed to be associated with Jesus…but what does the Bible say about people like that?

In today’s scripture quote, Jesus very clearly says that if you are ashamed of Him, He will be ashamed of you as He stands before the throne of God and the whole host of holy angels in heaven. So even if you maybe/kinda casually agree that this Jesus/God/Bible stuff is probably true or mostly so, but you don’t have the time to get into it — or even more important — would be embarrassed and ashamed to admit it to everyone that knows you, judging by this quote you might be in a position someday that you may not want to be in.

Again, as today’s quote from the Gospel of Mark says, it is His WORD that people are ashamed of, and His Word says to turn to Him as the only way to save your soul out of this world and transport you into the next. Yes, this is a big step and from the standpoint of those around you will appear un-scientific, illogical and EMBARRASSING to associate yourself with what appears to many as a bunch of silly fables.

Friend, life is all about choices. Do you choose to follow Christ, regardless of the ridicule, or are you more comfortable going with the crowd? Either He IS who He says He is and promises what He says He promises, or he isn’t. No one can make that decision for you. So the question is:

“Have you decided to follow Jesus, or follow the crowd?”

God Bless Your Day Jesus Loves You

NotesOnLife.org

by Dr. Jeanne Sheffield Estrada All of us at different times will experience seasons when we struggle to feel the lack of God’s presence. The profound Christian author and theologian C.S. Lewis described this experience in his book 'A Grief Observed' where he relates his experiencing of sorrow and grief after his wife’s death. In it he writes, “Where is God? Go to Him when your need is desperate…and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that silence.”

Have you ever felt abandoned, alone and lost somewhere in the wilderness longing for God’s presence, comfort, and peace, but instead found coldness and isolation? I have - and more than once too! But here’s the answer that will always get us on track, and that is to be reminded of the promises given to us in God’s Word. The Bible is full of sure, strong promises that show over and over again that we can trust Him even when He doesn’t actively or immediately reveal Himself. Once I opened the Word and re-read these many promises, I found the inner peace I so needed assuring me that God was in fact with me, and that he would NEVER forsake me no matter how I FELT or the apparent direness of my circumstances.

If you’ll carefully look at your life, you will most likely see how God has revealed Himself at unexpected times. Perhaps you can now see that life took different turns because He either opened (or closed!) doors or changed the direction of your life in ways then you could not see or understand at the time. Keep in mind always that God is the one that created you, and He wants you to have a glorious, exciting, abundant life! He is always present with you even if it seems He may be far away. When you re-read the promises in His Word, they are always sure and there to comfort us in time of need.

Your heavenly Father loves you beyond measure and He wants your total dependence upon Him. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul. Lean not upon your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.” If you are in crisis or trauma, always remember what Jesus has promised us when he said:

“Come to me, all who are weary and I will give you rest.” - Matthew 11:28

Whenever you may feel alone with no one to turn to, come to Jesus and share everything with Him that concerns you. He already knows all of your needs even before you know them yourself. Yes, even without “feeling” the presence of God, walk in faith - because the Lord is walking right there beside you.

God Bless Your Day, Jesus Loves You NotesOnLife.org

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There is nothing like a fresh, sunshiny bouquet of flowers and likewise, a newborn baby is fresh and vibrant too, but be they babies or bouquets as time goes on they both shall wither and die. Then the question is: WHAT’s NEXT?

Job framed this eloquently in today’s scripture verse in that while the middle of the three stages of life may also be a flowering field in the sunshine, it can also be “Full Of Trouble” as well — as anyone that has been alive can attest! However when the flower of our field through life ends and the only flower left are the ones on our grave, the question then is indeed “What’s Next?”

The GOOD NEWS (literally 'Gospel') is that Jesus has conquered death and the grave and HE ALONE has the keys that can eternally free you from “Death and Hell” (Revelation 1:18) but in order to be unlocked from these two things “You must be Born Again” (John 3:7) and the way you do that is by agreeing with God that Christ is your only hope.

Friend, for you, the “What’s Next?” does not have to be Eternal DEATH, but Eternal LIFE. But how do you get there? Simple.

Agree with God that you are a sinner and ask Him to Save you from death and the grave and He will, then commit yourself to make Him #1 in your life, and not yourself.

Remember! That middle square called 'LIFE' will one day end, and only YOU have the power to walk through an unlocked door to the goodness of God’s blessing of eternity waiting for you. Do You believe this? And if so, will you do that today?

God Bless Your Day Jesus Loves You

NotesOnLife.org

Our national debt today is estimated to be around $30 TRILLION dollars, or to put it graphically, thirty times the one billion dollars of stacked $100 bills stacked on pallets in this picture. It is a debt that is impossible to pay back for our country, but did you know that YOU and I have an EVEN GREATER DEBT that we also can never pay back? It is the debt of SIN.

We all have a debt greater than the national debt that CANNOT be repaid by being a “good person,” being generous, saving the planet, or contributing some great work to humanity. There is nothing you can personally do to escape the debt and payment for sin which eventually will be your eternal death, however someone has already paid that debt for you, and all you have to do is 'Ask for MERCY, because His Mercy is More!'

Friend, the message of the gospel, — plain and simple — is this…

Christ died for YOUR sins and paid the sin debt that YOU owe, and like the master in today’s scripture verse, he showed COMPASSION, FORGAVE & RELEASED the man of the impossible burden of debt that could never be repaid.

Likewise, there is just one thing you must do in order to be forgiven of this debt, and that is ASK GOD TO FORGIVE YOU and repent of what you have done. Mercy means NOT getting what we DO DESERVE, and God is always merciful to all those that simply ask him from a sincere and contrite heart.

Be released of your sin debt today before the Grim Reaper of debt comes to collect. Ask God to forgive, and He will forgive…but he does not forgive unless you ASK.

Have you asked Him?

God Bless Your Day Jesus Loves You

NotesOnLife.org