Refreshing Our Spirits With Scripture

 1.1.21 Matthew 1. 21  She will give birth to a Son; and you shall name Him Jesus, for [ t ] He will save His people from their sins.

 1.1-365 Questions About Life Why do some people have followers and others don't? Luke 15.1 15  Now all the tax collectors and the [ a ] sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him.  

 12.31- We live in a world of division.  If we walk with Jesus we can have peace in the midst of divisive times. He teaches us to depend upon the Father in heaven.  We open our prayers with a reminder that God is our Father.  He is someone whom we can completely trust. This post winds up eight years of putting a post on this blog every day with something new and different. Every day of my life I can find joy and peace when I read a Psalm and reflect upon the goodness of God. God is a reliable helper. God is the creator of every good and perfect gift. God gives us vision when without Him we are blind. God picks us up when we are down. God carries out justice when the world falls short. God supports the fatherless and the widows. He has been the power behind my heart to post something for these eight years and I hope to post something new everyday here for the year coming up. 2021.   146  [ a ] Praise [ b ] the Lord ! Praise the Lord , my soul! 2  I will praise the Lord while I live; I

 12.30- There are some of us who grew up in loving, healthy family environments.  This a blessing for us.  If we have been born with a temperament and bend toward being peaceable and easy going there is a tendency to need to turn up the assertiveness at times.  Timothy seemed to be that kind of follower of Jesus. These people need to remember that God will give all the grace, mercy and peace we need to carry us through every day. Some of us need to stir up the love, power and self discipline needed to do the work of spreading the good news of Jesus. We need much grace and forgiveness for times we have been ashamed of the words of Jesus on difficult subjects that this world wants to do it their way instead of Jesus' way. God is full of mercy to give us another chance.  Peter denied Jesus, but later was recruited by Jesus to preach the first gospel sermon after Pentecost. 2 Timothy 1  Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus [ a ] by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Chris

 12.29-   We who are the children of God and followers of Jesus will have many people who are against us.   They will be negative and even slanderous toward us and that is to be expected.   Jesus taught His disciples to not be surprised at this.   Jesus said that those who are not against us are for us.   We need to take the daily life with Him as one where many who are not devout followers will still be happy to leave us alone to our good work with Him without opposing us.   On the other hand there will be some who will call us troublemakers.   They will oppose us even if we are well aligned with Jesus.   When someone opposes us it is good to do a good self exam to make sure we are not off track and doing something Jesus wouldn’t want us doing.   If we are aligned with Him then we need not be overly concerned about opposition.   Jesus said we need to just persevere when people oppose us because of His word.   We believe that people need to be filled with the Holy Spirit

 12.28- There are times when we feel our life is draining away.   It can happen at any age.   We see our time in a certain stage of life ending and we feel we are about to die.   I felt this when I was about to get married.   I also felt this way as I approached my graduation from college. It is a feeling that something big is ending.   Jesus as a human felt this as His life on earth was coming to a close.   He knew that He was going to go to Jerusalem and be killed.   He described this ending as a kind of new beginning for something else like a seed of corn or wheat planted in the ground.   Out of it would become something else that is good and glorious.   We are promised at the end of each stage of our life with God is another stage that will also be glorious.   Larry Wishard 12.19.20 John 12. 20  Now there were some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; 21  these people then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and were