Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 75, Ruth 1
Did you know that the famous words from Ruth 1:16, “For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God,” were spoken by Ruth to her mother-in-law, not her husband? Well, now you do. In fact, Ruth said this to her mother-in-law after her husband’s death.
My grandma made this for me as a wedding gift. Ruth 1:16.
Little did my Grandma know when she cross-stitched Ruth 1:16 for a wedding gift for me, what an enormous impact my mother-in-law would have on my life. To be honest, as a young bride, I struggled in my relationship with my mother-in-law, but God… God used my mother-in-law’s patience, kindness, and forgiveness to draw me to better understand God’s patience, kindness, and forgiveness.
How’s your relationship with your mother-in-law? Rather than dwelling on all the things she’s done wrong, try dwelling instead on all the things she’s done right. You married her son. She must’ve done something well. Next time you start thinking about all the ways you’d like her to change, try looking at what you could change to improve your relationship with her. Could you be more patient, kind, and forgiving toward her? Start there and see what God does. And if you need to make a call or have a face-to-face chat about something that happened days, months, or years ago, do it. Today. Don’t let bitterness take root and spoil the good fruit that God wants to bear through you.
Baby #1 – very tired parents, very happy grandparents At Baby #1’s wedding showerThe day I first became a Mother-in-law
Heavenly Father, Thank You, Lord, for the gift of a mother-in-law who loves You and who loves me. Help me to be grateful and to recognize that this truly is a gift. Thank you for blessing my son with a wife and my daughters with husbands. Give me the wisdom and strength I need to be a patient, kind, and forgiving mother-in-law myself. In the Name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.
I Will Trust My Savior Jesus – City Alight
FORMERATHEIST58
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 69, Judges 16
Judges 16 has lessons for both men and women. I have been blessed with two sons as well as two daughters. I see lessons here for both of them.
Sons, guys, be careful who you fall for. The wrong woman will lead you in the wrong direction. Strong men can become weak men in a woman’s hands. Get to know who a woman really is before you give her your heart. If you see that she has a selfish, manipulative, deceitful spirit, RUN!
Daughters, ladies, be careful how you use your seductive powers. You can manipulate a man into doing things both you and he will regret. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Don’t manipulate men, making them your puppet. It will only lead you astray.
For all of my children, for all of you reading this, it’s not too late. God can work through you to accomplish HIS purposes. He is the God of second and third and fourth chances. He is the God of redemption. He is on His throne. He works even through SINFUL men and women like Samson and Delilah and Bill and Kim.
Heavenly Father, I pray for my sons and my daughters, my granddaughters and my grandsons, men and the women. May their hearts belong to You. May You be their greatest treasure. Protect them from the sins of deceit and manipulation. Teach them and strengthen them to guard their hearts. Fill their hearts with pure, holy desires, that they would love what You love and hate what You hate. And remind them that it’s never too late to return to You. In the Name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
Come Thou Fount – Shane and Shane
GOD WORKS even through SINFUL MEN and WOMEN like SAMSON and ME 🙋🏻♂️🙋🏼♀️
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 66, Judges 13
An angel appeared to Hagar in the desert (Genesis 16) and to Mary, the mother of our Savior Jesus (Luke 1). The Lord answered the prayers of Hannah when she asked for a son (1 Samuel 1). Abigail’s discernment and quick actions spared David from having revenge on foolish Nabal (1 Samuel 25).
Here, in Judges 13, the Lord has chosen Manoah’s unnamed wife, a barren, childless woman, to be His messenger to her husband.
Sisters, God wants to use YOU as a blessing to your husband, your children, your church, and your community. He has a purpose for YOU. If you’re married, encourage your husband as your head by sincerely, genuinely sharing your life with him. Whether you’re married or not, whether you have a house full of kids or not, if God has chosen you as His child, then He has chosen you to be His ambassador, a messenger of the most high God.
Brothers, God wants to use YOU as a blessing to your wife, your children, your church, and your community. He has a purpose for YOU. If you’re married, encourage your wife as your helper by sincerely, genuinely listening to her. If God has chosen YOU as His child, then He has chosen YOU to be His ambassador, a messenger of the most high God.
Heavenly Father, I pray that we would call out to You, seeking You, morning by morning and evening by evening and that we would hear Your voice as You answer me. Thank You for choosing me to be a vessel of Your grace. May that grace overflow to my husband and my children and their children. May that grace bring glory to Your Name. Give my husband and I discernment as we listen for Your voice. Help us to know when You are speaking and grant us unity in Your Holy Spirit. Help us both to be humble toward each other and to You. In the Name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
Give Me Jesus – Fernando Ortega
Does God only speak to MEN? – FormerAtheist58
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 57, Judges 4-5
God has often asked me to do things that, frankly, I don’t want to do. I didn’t want to homeschool. I didn’t want to start a ministry to women who were continuing their pregnancy after finding out something was wrong with their unborn baby. And every time the Lord has told me to go talk to someone I’m having conflict with, I’ve tried to come up with excuses for why I’m not the right person for the job.
Why did God call Deborah to judge Israel? Why didn’t He choose Deborah’s husband, Lappidoth, or that mighty warrior, Barak?
Why did God choose Jael to put a tent stake through King Sisera’s skull? Wouldn’t her father or her husband or her brother or her son have been a better choice?
The answer to these questions is this: I have no idea. 🤷♀️
But I do know that God’s ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-8), and God uses the weak to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27). I do know that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5) I know that it is the Lord who gives both life and death (Deuteronomy 32:39, 1 Samuel 2:6), and He can use whoever He pleases to accomplish His purposes.
Is God calling you to do something hard, something impossible, something you don’t want to do?
Listen carefully to His voice.Fix your eyes on Him and allow Him to guide you by the truth of His Word and His Holy Spirit.
Fix your eyes on Him and allow Him to guide you by the truth of His Word and His Holy Spirit.
Walk by faith and not by sight.
Do the next thing – by faith in His power and might.
Heavenly Father, what a blessing and gift to know You, to be clay in Your hands. Use us for whatever You’ve called us to. Make us Your vessels, Your instruments, Your servants and ambassadors and ministers, that the lost would find hope and rest and peace at the feet of Jesus Christ, our judge and our deliverer. In His Name we pray. Amen.
One Set of Footprints – Heartland Harmony Girls
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I grew up in the great state of Iowa, where the corn grows tall and people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. My parents were hard workers, raised by hard workers. Maybe that’s why Matthew 11:28-30 is so special to me. I have labored ( to memorize this passage, treasuring it in my often weary heart. Indeed, I have labored, and indeed I am thankful for the rest Jesus promises me.
“Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
This past week, as I’ve been studying this passage in more depth, I’m finally seeing the context in which Jesus is speaking.
These verses are sandwiched between Jesus denouncing the Jewish cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, and Jesus telling the Pharisees that they don’t understand what “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” means. This paragraph begins in Matthew 11:25 with, “At that time Jesus declared, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to little children.'”
Jesus is talking to the Jewish religious sect called the Pharisees. Despite being eyewitnesses to Jesus’s miracles and hearing His preaching first-hand, they did not recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah. The Pharisees remained unrepentant. The Pharisees would have been considered the wise and understanding, but they missed the joy, peace, and freedom that faith in Jesus could bring.
Like Jesus explains in Matthew 23:4, the Pharisees “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.” (Read Matthew 23 for more on this)
These heavy burdens are not farmers’ chores, like plowing fields, slopping pigs, and shoveling out horse stalls, nor are they housewives’ chores, like cleaning your house until the floors shine, cooking three nutritious gourmet meals every day, and homeschooling a dozen children. Rather, the Pharisees’ heavy burdens are religious duties designed to earn salvation from God. Religious duties like strictly tithing, offering animal sacrifices, and keeping the Sabbath down to the minute detail.
In the modern American Christian homeschooling circle that I ran with, it may indeed include cleaning your house until the floors shine, cooking three nutritious gourmet meals daily, and homeschooling a dozen children, along with keeping your kids in church with you, teaching your children’s Sunday school class, volunteering at your church’s VBS ministry, knocking on your neighbors’ doors to share the gospel, and serving at your local food pantry.
Friends, these are all good things. Please serve your church and community. Take good care of your children and your home. Please serve the homeless and share the gospel with all your neighbors. Please work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, as Colossians 3:23 instructs. Please be workers at home, like Titus 2:5 says. Please do! But do these works, because you’re following Jesus.
Does your SOUL need rest? Are you tired of working to pay God back? Are you tired of trying to earn salvation? Are you tired of trying to atone for your own sins?
Let your life flow from a place of rest and abiding in the vine, a place of joy and blessing. Jesus loves you, and He wants to work through you to bring Him glory. Wow! What a privilege that this little girl from Iowa has been chosen to bring glory to the Lord of Heaven and Earth!
Jesus, the promised Messiah, took my sins upon Himself by his death on the cross. Jesus bore my griefs. Jesus carried my sorrows. I have been healed by His wounds. Isaiah 53:4-6
Jesus invites us to give Him our burdens, to come to Him with the trusting faith of little children. In Jesus, we can find rest, not only for our bodies, but for our SOULS.
Friend, you can never, ever be good enough. Never. You can never pay God back. You will never deserve being saved.
Jesus paid the price for you. He is inviting you to take His yoke upon you and learn from Him, that you can have soul-rest.
Heart-check:
How are you tying up heavy burdens for yourself to carry? For others?
Have you come to Jesus and taken His yoke? What stands in your way?
Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your grace. Thank You for Jesus. Thank You for giving me work to do, and thank You for giving me the strength to do it. Help me to have joy in the journey, to follow Christ, to give grace to others as I have received it from You. Keep me humble and fill my heart with Your peace. In the Name of Jesus, my Savior and Master. Amen.
Come Unto Jesus – Laura Story, Jordan Kauflin, Keith & Kristyn Getty
All My Boast is in Jesus – Keith and Kristyn Getty, Matt Boswell, Matt Papa
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 44, 2 Corinthians 5
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 ESV
Kelly Hall and I first met almost thirty years ago when I was a first year teacher at Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, Missouri. Little did I know then how God would mightily use Kelly and her courageous faith in my life. Kelly and I had lost touch after exchanging annual Christmas letters for many years only to be reconnected when I discovered that my faithful Memphis-area prayer partner, Beth, also knew Kelly from their husbands’ mutual service in the air force in Texas! Isn’t God amazing?!? He is the great tapestry weaver.
I hope you’ll take a half-hour of your time to tune in to my interview on Kelly Hall’s Unshakable Hope podcast and subscribe, so you can be alerted as she releases new ones.
Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 39, 1 Corinthians 16
We hear 1 Corinthians 13 read at every wedding. Love is patient and kind. Love does envy or boast. Love is not proud or rude. Isn’t it beautiful?
But love is also steadfast and firm, immovable and strong. Love is a mother telling her toddler, “No,” a hundred times in the same day. Love is a grown daughter telling her alcoholic mom that she’s got a problem. Love is refusing to stand idly by while pornography tries to ruin your marriage or homosexuality tries to steal your teenager.
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.
1 Corinthians 16:13-14 ESV
Love takes guts. Love takes strength. Love takes the stamina of a thoroughbred racehorse and the patience of Job. Love requires you to be willing to get battle scars for the sake of another because you believe they’re worth the fight.
Ladies, sisters, friends, act like men. Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.
Heavenly Father, Your Son, Jesus Christ, is the perfect manifestation of manhood and love. Strength and humility. Stamina and kindness. Make us more like Him. Teach us, show us, how to love like He loves, how to give up our lives for another, to be willing to suffer to save someone else. We need You, Father. We can’t do it on our own. In the Name of Jesus Christ, the Lover of my Soul. Amen.
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 37, 1 Corinthians 14
I remember many years ago when my oldest daughter was about five years old and playing on our town’s youth soccer team. My husband was the coach, and I was standing on the sidelines keeping one eye on our two-year-old son and one eye on the game. Midway through the game, the ‘soccer mom’ standing next to me struck up a conversation with me. Somehow she ended up asking me where I went to church and if my church was spirit-filled. I didn’t really understand what she meant, and I just replied with a brief, somewhat confused, ‘Yes, we were,’ because, well, we believe that people are filled with the Holy Spirit when they are born again by faith in Christ. After talking to her more, I came to understand that she was asking me if we spoke in tongues. Why, I wonder, has “Spirit-filled” come to mean, “Speaking in tongues”?
Maybe because of my background as an atheist, I have always really struggled with the pettiness of so many denominational differences, so I have really enjoyed studying Paul’s words on spiritual gifts here in 1 Corinthians chapters 12 – 14. 1 Corinthians 14:12 sums up my thoughts really well.
So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.
1 Corinthians 14:12 ESV
Sadly, in my experience, including that day 20 years ago on the sidelines of a soccer field, the people who have talked to me about the gift of speaking in tongues have been more concerned with building up themselves than with building up the body. The scriptures are clear. If the Lord gives you a gift, it is to be used for building up others and glorifying God, not yourself. We ought to see ourselves as stewards of whatever it is that the Lord has given us, whether that’s time, treasure, talents, testimony, or a spiritual gift of speaking or serving.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit, who guides me and convicts me. Please help me to exercise the gifts You have given me for the building up of the body of Christ and for Your glory. Remind me that any good thing that I have is a gift from Your merciful hand, and any good thing I do is the fruit of Your work in my life. Keep me humble and grateful that Your light will shine such that people’s attention is drawn to You, the Gracious Giver of every good and perfect gift. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
God, the Uncreated One (King Forevermore) Official Lyric Video – Keith & Kristyn Getty
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