Live with the confidence that comes in the power of Jesus!

Satan can disturb us, but he cannot defeat us. The head of the serpent is crushed!

A petroleum company was hiring strong backs and weak minds to lay a pipeline. Since I qualified, much of a high-school summer was spent shoveling in a shoulder-high West Texas trough. One afternoon the digging machine dislodged more than dirt! “Snake!” shouted the foreman. We popped out of that hole faster than a jack-in-the-box. One worker launched his shovel and beheaded the rattler.

That scene is a parable of where we are in life. In Revelation 20:2 John calls Satan, “that old snake who is the devil.” Has he not been decapitated? Not with a shovel, but with a cross. So how does that leave us? Confident—in Jesus’ power over Satan! Trust the work of your Savior!

From Next Door Savior

~Max Lucado

such wisdom...

Do you visit the Grand Canyon for the T-shirt or the snow globe? No! The reward of the Grand Canyon is the Grand Canyon! The wide-eyed realization that you are part of something ancient, splendid, powerful and greater than you!

The cache of Christianity is Christ! Not money in the bank or a car in the garage or a better self-image. The Fort Knox of faith is Christ! Fellowship with him…walking with him…pondering him. The heart-stopping realization that in Christ you are part of something endless, unstoppable, unfathomable! And that he, who can dig the Grand Canyon with his pinkie, thinks you’re worth his death on Roman timber. Christ is the reward of Christianity.

From Next Door Savior

~Max Lucado

2016

The Christmas Season with all the fullness of family and friends is almost over. The last hurrah will come on New Years Day with yet another family food fest! My only hope for  2016 is a kinder, gentler American. One in which we lean on God's truth concerning the foreigners who live with us and those who are living in abject hell elsewhere in the world. A land that returns to her roots of welcoming with open arms all people to her soil as she did to our own families so many years ago. I want us to have empathy for other cultures and realize that it is up to God, not us, to judge. Paul tells us we are only to judge those who claim Christianity as their religion not those who do not.

Maybe it is that time...that time to silence the hatred, prejudice and profiling that is so rampant in so many  Christians today.

God will not be mocked....make no mistake... when we try to play God it comes with His reprisal.

Read the Scriptures and then base your life on His word made flesh, Jesus Christ. And what did Jesus say would fulfill the Gospels? To love God above any person, place or thing and to love others with the same love we give to those closest to us.

Be blessed!

Make room for Him in your heart!

Some of the saddest words on earth are: “We don’t have room for you.” Jesus knew the sound of those words. He was still in Mary’s womb when the innkeeper said, “We don’t have room for you.” And when he was hung on the cross, wasn’t the message one of utter rejection? “We don’t have room for you in this world.”

Even today Jesus is given the same treatment. He goes from heart to heart, asking if he might enter. Every so often, he is welcomed. Someone throws open the door of his or her heart and invites him to stay. And to that person Jesus gives this great promise, “In my Father’s house are many rooms.” What a delightful promises he makes us! We make room for him in our hearts….and he makes room for us in his house!

~Max Lucado

Kamden Nana's little angel

~Max Lucado

I wish I could say it’s forgiven and forgotten—but it isn’t. As much as I’ve tried—all I feel is the anger and the bitterness. 

Without forgiveness, bitterness is all that’s left! Maybe it’s an old wound. A parent abused you. A mate betrayed you. And you are angry. Perhaps the wound is fresh. The friend who owes you money just drove by in a new car.  The boss who hired you with promises of promotions has forgotten how to pronounce your name. And you are hurt! There is a fire burning in your heart. It’s the fire of anger. And you are left with a decision. Do I get over it or get even? Do I let my hurts heal, or do I let hurt turn into hate? Proverbs 15:9 says, “The Lord hates what evil people do, but He loves those who do what is right.”

From Grace for the Moment

Our life is filtered through God's love

Isaiah 43:2 says, “when you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you.”