Nuggets from God and Mom

Romans 12:1b (The Message)
Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Many people think they have nothing to offer God. All that God really wants from us requires no special talent, no great intelligence, no enormous wealth, no important position, and no political power. He wants us. Our highest calling is to bring Him pleasure. What pleases Him? It is our devotion, our company, and our love. We can’t put Him in a box somewhere, attempting to honor Him on Sunday morning and occasionally through the week. He wants to be our constant companion, acknowledged as the vital part of our life that He is. There is an offering you can bring Him more precious than all the gold and diamonds in the world. It is you, just as you are.

Jeremiah 23:24
“Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?” declares the Lord. “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord.
If I could have hidden from God, there are times in the past when I would have. I didn’t want Him to see that I was choosing to follow my own path instead of His. Having my whole life laid bare before His eyes, though, is actually a blessing. He saw my sin, but He forgave me. He also saw my hurt, my pain, my insecurity, my fears--my everything else that made me weak and stole my joy, and He held me in His arms and made me whole again. With all my failures, faults, and flaws, God loves me anyway—and He loves you, too. Be grateful that He knows you inside out. Be grateful that you can’t hide from Him, for He is always watching to comfort, strengthen, and protect you--His precious child.

1 John 2:1,2
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
Some people think that Christians should never stumble, never make a mistake, and never sin. Ideally, that is right. We should pray that we are always able to live how God wants us to live. Realistically speaking, no matter how much we love Him and try to lead perfect lives, we will still mess up. I love these verses because they remind me that even when I fail, Jesus is pleading my case. “Yes, she messed up again,” I think He says, “but she is mine. I already paid the debt she owes. I have redeemed her.”
And then God smiles and says, “Yes, you have. Her slate is clean.” Just in case it slipped your mind, He is doing the same for you!

John 8:51
I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.
A dear friend went home with Jesus recently. She had lived ninety-two years on this earth. There is a sense of loss for those who knew and loved her; yet going was her hope and her desire. The word “death” should not be used to describe her passing, for she was a Child of God. Death has no hold on her, no right to claim her. She merely left a broken, dying body in a broken, dying world…and she went home. The passing of a Christian who has lived a full life is not a reason to grieve. It is a time of reflection, a time to be grateful for the life that graced our own as long as God allowed. Our comfort lies in God’s Word--in the promise that our lives, which truly began when we accepted Him, will never cease.

Deuteronomy 10:14,15
To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth, and everything in it. Yet the Lord set His affection on your forefathers and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all the nations as it is today.
Do you ever wonder why God bothers with us? We are so imperfect--so able to say and do hurtful things to each other, so likely to be wrapped up in ourselves, and so prone to act against His will. Everything that exists in the entire Universe belongs to Him, yet He values us most of all. He chose us to be His own. He set His affections upon us. He loves us. It isn’t an accident that you are a Christian; He knocked on the door of your heart until you let Him in. It isn’t an accident that you are reading this; He wanted to remind you daily of His love. He chose you. He chose me. He chose us to be His own, and He loves us more than anything. That is why He bothers.

Psalm 40:2
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
God placed us on the Rock when we accepted Christ as our Savior. Unfortunately, stupidly, most of us have slipped, fallen, or jumped off at some point. We peeked over the side, saw what we thought were green pastures, and chose to leave our place of security. We soon discovered that what appeared to be a pleasant place was nothing more than quicksand intended to pull us under and destroy us. The good news--the amazingly wonderful news--is that God will reach down and pull us up again…and again. Never think you’ve messed up so badly that God doesn’t care anymore. He does. Never think you’ve gone too far to come back. You haven’t. The safest place to be, though, is in the center. Don’t wander to the edge. Don’t even peek over the side. Stay in the safety and security of the center of God’s will.

Job 38:4a
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
I can’t say I understand much about the miracle of earth. I don’t see how it remains in orbit, circling the sun while suspended in space. It amazes me to consider how it stays the exact distance from the sun needed to have the perfect climate for all God’s creation and producing everything needed to sustain all life. I can’t explain even the smallest of the miracles of nature. Much less am I able to fathom its grandeur and complexity. I do know one thing, though. I know where I was when God laid the earth’s foundation. I was in His mind and in His heart…and so were you.

Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
We want to understand things. When we are toddlers, our favorite question is, “Why?” As we get older, we want to believe that there is a good reason for everything that happens, and we search for answers. Many times, there aren’t any; and we come face to face with the realities of failure, sickness, betrayal, separation, and untimely death. This is when we must realize that we are left where we always needed to be in the first place—trusting God. Sometimes we just don’t understand, and we can make no sense of what is happening in our lives. All any of us can do is remember that God loves us more than we are capable of understanding. As we spend time in His presence, He will give us peace to accept what we cannot understand.