Author: marquitabp

To know me is to accept me, and to love me is to help me.
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Daily Devotion

Transparency
 
O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause.  Jeremiah 20:12
 
Growing up, when I was in my elementary through high school grades, my teachers used transparencies for our notes and sometimes quizzes.  They would prepare the notes for the class and put them up on the screen for all to see.  This was before school got all high-tech with the smart boards, which I did not see until college. 
 
Much like those transparencies, with the notes on them that could be wiped off with water, but dried on over time is our mind and heart.  The notes we have taken from the past on how to deal with people often cloud our judgment, and can prevent us from receiving a blessing or blessing someone else.  Our pain has become smudged with bitterness and we refuse to wipe it away.  Thank God for His healing waters, His Word, and His love that can erase anything!  Just like God casts our sins away forever, we can cast away unforgiveness, painful memories, guilt or shame.  We can make the choice to walk with God so that He can teach us to forgive…so that like in the verse above He can impact vengeance.  Once we give things over to Him, we are no longer stained by our hatred, we are washed and renewed–transparent in His love.  Whenever it was my turn to write a problem, I always hoped to get the new transparencies that were untarnished and clear…not weathered with age by time.  Don't let your hurt and pain leave you tarnished or worse yet, permanently scarred.  God sees through us into every nook and cranny, let His love heal you and then shine through to others.
 
"So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord–who is the Spirit–makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image."  2 Corinthians 3:18
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Daily Devotion

Forsaking All Others

"If people come to me and are not ready to abandon their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as their own lives, they cannot be my disciples.  So those who do not carry their crosses and follow me cannot be my disciples."  Luke 14:26-27

I'm sure everyone has heard the traditional wedding vows during a wedding or marriage ceremony, right?  Well just in case, here they are: I, (Bride/Groom), take you (Groom/Bride), to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part. Well after you and your love are officially married, you no longer see yourself without that person.  You forsake all others in the name of your marriage.  In some marriages (and as is the natural order as God intended from scripture–my personal interpretation) no person comes above your spouse but God himself.  For the unmarried people like myself, that space is currently filled by my mother and immediate family.  I do not think there is anyone I love more than them other than God.  In the scripture above, Jesus tells us that we have to be ready to abandon all to follow Him–really meaning we are supposed to love Him more than anything.  And why shouldn't we?  He died so that we will not have to spend eternity without Him–in the true death of the soul. 

There is a song I absolutely LOVE hearing and singing–Lamar Campbell's More Than Anything.  The lyrics of the chorus say: I love you Jesus, I worship and adore you, Just want to tell you, Lord I love you more than anything.  This is the kind of love Jesus is calling us to.  We are supposed to love Jesus more than our fathers, more than our mothers, more than our spouses, more than our children, more than our siblings, more than our own lives.  I think the last part of that scripture is the most critical.  You see, all of those people comprise our lives.  Our jobs and careers, our travels, our salary, even our physical bodies encapsulate our lives.  We have to put loving God above that.  Luke 17:33 says "If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it."  So…what are you waiting for?  Don't you want a real love, a true and pure love?  God wants us to love Him with every ounce of our being…and don't you know that He will give us everything we desire, even more as long as it is within His will?