Crossing Over

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”  Mark 4:35

God has wonderful plans for another chapter in our lives. He is not content to leave us where we are and He challenges us to trust Him for something new. It seems so nice and peaceful just resting here on this side of what we know, but Jesus may be saying to you what He said to the disciples, “Let’s go to the other side!”

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Jesus is inviting each of us to prepare to be ready for new things. But His challenge includes a word we may have missed, Jesus said “Let’s!”  That single word makes all the difference when we launch out to points unknown.

There’s a song we sing at our Brazilian church in Portuguese that loosely translated goes something like this:

Sail away with faith in Jesus

Because this is the way you will see

What beautiful things He will do

Because with Him you will be secure.

translated from Solta O Cabo Do Nau

So if you feel overwhelmed by the smallness of your boat and the vastness of the sea, remember that in your little boat travels the King of kings and the Captain of all ships. No matter the storms, our Lord will never abandon us, nor allow the waves to keep us from the safe harbor of His arms!

In the Light of Day

If you think of darkness as a loss of the ability to see the path ahead then in all honesty it feels like a very dark time in my life. My plans for the future have been a bit scrambled by my wife’s battle with cancer, changes related to my partial retirement and the seemingly unending struggle to find where exactly we will be living next year.

Though the details of your life may differ the

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challenges remain the same. We are all put to the test moment by moment to decide where we will choose to go, how we will decide to get there and who we will travel with. In the swirl of daily battles our hope remains in the promises of God. He has promised to be our light. all we have to do is to follow. We do not need to know in advance the twists and turns, the cliffs to climb or the dangers that lie ahead. We do need to completely trust that He has promised to walk ahead of us and to lead us all the way to the city of God!

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11:10

Who we Worship

Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only you shall serve.’” Matthew 4:10 NKJV

Who we worship, and not how we worship, is what determines the destiny of our lives. Who we really worship will be revealed when we are put in the fire and tested. In the book of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego told king Nebuchadnezzar, that no matter the consequences, they would not worship His golden image. They would not obey his command because they reserved worship

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for God alone. Because they dared to refuse the king’s command God walked with them in the fiery furnace and the king became a worshiper too! In the middle of my own problems and difficulties who am I worshiping today?