Refreshing Our Spirits With Scripture

 1.5.25- This year, 2025, i want the peace that passes understanding to set the direction and the pace of my steps. This inner peace, regardless of external chaos. will be the pole N. on the compassion of my life. To have this requires more times of silence and listening. Philippians 4 4  Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!   5  Let your gentle  spirit  be known to all people. The Lord is  [ d ] near.   6  Do not  [ e ] be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.   7  And the peace of God, which surpasses all  [ f ] comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 8  Finally, brothers  and sisters , whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is  [ g ] lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and ...

 1.4.25 There several physical things that happen when you connect with people who love you and know you as you really are. Labs have shown an uptick in good body chemicals. Serotonin, dopamine, cortisol and others. Nerves that have been severed have been shown on a microscope to reach to re connect in PTSD soldiers in good rehab. Therefore, make plans in 2025 to grow in friendship and fellowship with those who love you and can accept you as you are but not leave you as you are. Romans 1. 8  First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ  [ g ] for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the world.   9  For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the  preaching of the  gospel of His Son, is my witness  as to  how unceasingly I make mention of you,   10  always in my prayers requesting if perhaps now, at last by the will of God, I will succeed in coming to you.   11  For I long t...

 1.3.25 E. V. Rieu, 1887-1972, a well known English scholar and poet had a son who wondered what would happen to his dad when he took on a major project. E. V., was so talented he was chosen to translate one of the most important books in the world, Homer. His excellent translation of the Odyessy in the Penquin Classics was read by most college students. When his son found out he had been chosen to translate the four gospels, Mark, Luke and John. He wondered aloud what his dad "would make of it" because he was well know as a lifelong agnostic. Amazingly the thing was not what he made of it, but "what it made of him." At the end of his translation of the Gospels he became a believer in Jesus. My wish for my friends on FB is that you read read a chapter of the Gospels each day of 2025 and see what it will make of you. Psalm 1 The Righteous and the Wicked Contrasted. 1  Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the  [ a...

 1.2.25- Have you ever been so tired that you didn't have the strength to cry out that you're empty? If the low battery light is not given attention it will eventually not shine to indicate low battery. If attention is not given to being spiritually, physically, emotionally, spent there may come a time that you're too weak to cry out for help. "God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your ‘thorn’ uncomplainingly—that is, sweet, patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak—is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace.” J.I. Packer 3,000 years ago a poet wrote. " My God my God, why have you forsaken me?...

 1.1.25 Just a little bit of time until the first few seconds of 2025. I would like to end 2024 with some thoughts about the problems with "What if...." This year I have tried to tell some personal stories of my history and my family's way of learning together. Late this year I came across some great teaching from Katherine Wolfe who was living a "normal" life and then had a massive stroke at at 23 from a birth defect. Her husband was just finishing law school and after 4.8.08 she would be mostly in a bed or wheel chair.  She has gone on to develop a work of helping others who go through had life changes through strokes and other hard life changes.  Their organization called Hope Heals holds summer camps for people with disabilities and she and her husand and two sons work together to help others. She was speaking about the problem becomes a person going through a hard time can ask God, "What if...."  She said what If I gotten and early diagnosis.  How...