Nourishment and Refreshment for your soul.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Galatians 5:1

Why has Christ set us free? So we can be free.  God does not want us to be enslaved to any sin or habit. The chains of sin  prevent us from walking with Christ.  If we have accepted Christ as our Savior, we have the power, at any moment, to let it (sin) go.

Anger … let it go. Wrath … let it go. Bitterness … let it go.  Jealousy, hatred, envy, vengeance … let it go. When we let these injurious things go, we will be able to receive God’s healing and blessing.

As our verse states, freedom requires work. We must stand firm and not let ourselves be burdened again with sinful thoughts, attitudes and habits. We have been freed so we can set these things free. Let them go and let Him fill us up.

Action Points:

1. Name one thing you need to let go.

2. If you let it go, how will your life change?

3. What will you do in place of the item you let go?

Life is sweet.

Nourishment and Refreshment for your soul.

“2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2

Last week I was having a hard week. Usually I am a pretty happy person; I can find joy in the little things of life. A lovely sunset, a quiet walk in the forest, an elegant house from a bygone century can bring a smile to my lips. I was feeling a little out of sorts. As my mother would say, I was “feeling a little cross.”

Feeling cross (Webster’s): angry, annoyed, irritated, put out.

Jesus has also felt cross, but his experience was very different than mine. According to Hebrews 12:2 when Jesus was feeling cross, He felt joy.

Feeling cross meant pleasing His Father. Feeling cross meant purchasing our redemption. Feeling cross meant salvation for all mankind. Because Jesus was feeling cross, we have been set free from our sin and shame and are free to live for him.

Feeling cross (redefined by Jesus): joy, peace, grace, freedom, thankfulness, blessedness.

Action Points:

1. How has the cross changed your life?

2. Thank Jesus for the life changing work of the cross.

3. Today, share the work of the cross with another person who needs encouragement.

Life is sweet.

Nourishment and refreshment for your soul.

There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved [Jesus].” Acts 4:12

We all remember taking tests in school. Fill in the dot, multiple choice (otherwise known as multiple guess), true and false, short answer, and the dreaded essay question.

If I had prepared for THE TEST, I actually liked working through the process of multiple choice questions using the “Cross Out Strategy.”

The Cross Out Strategy:

1. Know the truth.
2. Examine all the questions and search for truth.
3. Cross out the obvious wrong answers.
4. Analyze remaining answers.
5. Cross out answers that contain a bit of truth.
6. Circle remaining answer.

The key to the Cross Out Strategy is knowing the truth. Without having access to the true answers, the Cross Out Strategy is futile.

The same strategy works when looking for the answer to life’s biggest question: How may we be saved?

1. Know the truth.
2. Search for the truth.
3. Cross out wrong answers that contain a bit of truth.
4. Accept the correct answer.

The answer to our biggest question is contained in our verse above: There is no other name by which we must be saved. Jesus. It is only by accepting His sacrificial death on the cross that we are saved.

It all comes down to the cross: cross out all other answers.

Action Points:

1. Is Jesus your Savior? Have you crossed out all other options?
2. Do you depend only on Him for salvation, restoration and forgiveness?
3. Do you allow others to rest only on Jesus, or do you require others to continually pay for their sins?
4. Are you hanging on to something Jesus has already nailed to the cross?

Life is sweet.

Nourishment and refreshment for your soul.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

When I was in elementary school, the declaration listed above was a very common promise between little girls. After sharing a vital piece of information with a best friend, we would very solemnly draw a cross on our hearts with two fingers, and then pledge to fulfill our cross my heart oath … even to the point of death. Usually these childish cross my heart pledges were made late in the night, between giggles, as we shared our secrets with one another.  I look fondly back on these childhood promises; some broken, some kept.

In the book of Deuteronomy, God calls us to make a very solemn promise: a cross your heart kind of promise. He vows to never leave us or forsake us. He takes our sin and our shame. He etches a cross upon our heart and asks us to love Him with all our strength. It is a promise never broken, always kept to the point of death … even death on a cross. Cross His heart and we have hope when we die.

Action Points.

1. Have you asked Jesus to be your Savior? If not, please click on the link below.

2. Is God not just your first priority, but your every priority?

3. What needs to shift so God can be a greater priority?

4. How do you love God with all your heart? All your soul? All your mind?

Accepting Christ

Life is sweet!

Nourishment and refreshment for your soul.

When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Mark 8:34

Come after Me. Jesus issues a call to all people to come to Him. The word come in the original Greek is erchomai, which means “to come from one place to another.” I have been a few places.

Come …

… walk out of darkness and into light.

…  walk out of sin and into righteousness.

… walk out of condemnation and into grace.

… walk out of death and into everlasting life.

In Mark 8:34, Jesus invites whoever desires to come and follow Him. Desires means to will, to determine, to purpose, to find pleasure. The “cross-walk” (following Jesus) leads to a life of purpose, joy, and fulfillment.

Before we can cross-walk, we must first deny ourselves … self or cross.  Self-walk or cross-walk. We can’t do both. If we decide to cross-walk, we will leave footprints of hope, struggle, peace, pain, joy, and life that will lead others to the foot of the cross.

Action Points:

1. Which way are you currently walking, self-walk or cross-walk?
2. Who else desperately needs to know how to cross-walk?
3. Is there an area of your life you haven’t laid down at the foot of the cross?
4. What do you need to do to lay it down?

Life is sweet!

Nourishment and refreshment for your soul.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 12:1-2

While we are walking out our life on this earth, a great cloud of witnesses have their eyes on us. In order to walk correctly, we need lay aside any distraction and every sin,that clouds our vision and keep our eyes on Jesus. Their eyes are on us. Our eyes are on Jesus. Eyes on the cross. Cross-eyed.

Scientific research proves where the eyes go, the body follows (Research Article). Therefore, if we keep our eyes on the cross, we will follow Jesus.

Verse 2 uses the term looking unto Jesus, which transliterates into one Greek word, aphorao. Aphorao means “to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on something, to turn ones mind.” Aphorao descends form another verb horao, which means “to see with the eyes and mind, to become acquainted with by experience, to perceive, to know. ”

Mind … body … eyes. All connected. All leading somewhere. Eyes on Jesus. Eyes on His word. Eyes on the cross.

Cross-eyed.

Action Points:

1. Are you cross-eyed?
2. What is getting in the way of seeing Jesus? Do you need to lay something aside?
3. What do you think about and meditate on? What do you fill your mind with?
4. Do you know Jesus? How can you get to know Him better?

Life is sweet!