THROUGH EYES OF LOVE “The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.” - Psalm 34:15 Our eyes are such an amazing creation. The Lord created them so we would be able to see the world.  In infancy, our eyes see colors and movement, but are unable to see clearly.  As we mature, we can not only see more clearly, but as a learned response to danger, we begin to make snap judgments, based on what we see and past experience.   In a brief glimpse of a person’s life, we decide if they are good or bad, friend or foe. We see the surface and draw conclusions that dictate to our hearts how we should feel about them.  It may be the natural thing to do, but it isn’t necessarily the best response. Snap judgments that cause us to leap out of the way of an oncoming train are wisdom.  But the snap judgement of a person based solely upon appearance is quite another thing. Scripture gives us wise counsel: “Do not be conforme...

CAPTIVATING THOUGHTS “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV Recently, I have been waking up in the middle of the night with feelings of dread.  The first night it was unsettling, and I wondered what might be going on in my subconscious to lead to those feelings.  By morning, the feelings had lifted. The second night, when I awoke with feelings of dread, I reminded myself that feelings are just feelings, and they can lie to us.  I chose to put a stop to the parade of negative thoughts by focusing on my blessings. Each night the dread disappeared more quickly than the night before, as I was training my mind to focus on my blessings.  This morning, HALLELUJAH, the dread was gone. The Lord does not want us to be dragged around and tormented by unconstrained thoughts. The truth is, if we don’t take control of our t...

GOSPEL SHOES OF PEACE “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” – Romans 12:18 Jesus came as an olive branch, extended from the hand of the Father.  When the world was in turmoil, the spotless Son of God came and took His place, surrounded by slaves shackled in their sin. He might have come with anger for what was made of His beautiful world, but He came with love.  In compassion and forgiveness, He bent His knee to serve those who would later take His life. Jesus did not have to agree with our behavior to love us, extend kindness or cry with us when we cry.  He did not view those who would mock, beat and spit upon Him—you and me and every sinner to walk the Earth—as His enemy, but rather as the object of His affection. His enemy was the devil—d’EVIL—THE EVIL that had entered the world in the garden, and introduced the sin that tore a divide between mankind and the loving arms of God. Beloved, we are called to follow the example se...

KISSED WITH HOPE “He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." He said, "Write, for these words of God are faithful and true." - Revelations 21:5 We see it in nature.  Year after year the trees blossom and the flowers bloom and lift their cheerful faces to the sun.  With time, they wither and fade away.  Ecclesiastes reminds us that: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:” - Ecclesiastes 3:1 If you are like me, there are things in your life that died in this season.  Some things passed abruptly, while others languished away.  Both are distressing and bring with them a measure of grief and sadness. These hard seasons have a way of glueing our feet to the ground.  We become stuck where we are, and we struggle to move forward to enter the new life of the season ahead. Do you need help to move forward? Father, we find ourselves mired in the pain and difficulty of the past. ...

  ON LOAN FROM HEAVEN By: Julie Souza Bradley Lilly “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” - 1 Peter 1:17 Many years ago I worked for a large company.  With the cliques and drama, it was work to not allow myself to get sucked into the gossip, or buckle under the pressure of the battlefield.  It is interesting how things changed the day I decided I was going to go back to school.   Suddenly, the same things were still going on around me, but I felt insulated from the drama and stress.  The emotional ties were cut when I realized that I didn’t belong in that job longterm.  It wasn’t my destiny or home.   Knowing my home was elsewhere gave me a new perspective.  It lifted a crushing weight that, before, had weighed me down. As children of God, this Earth is not our home.  So, it makes complete sense that sometimes we feel like we d...

THAT KIND OF LOVE By: Julie Souza Bradley Lilly “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.” – John 15:13 NIV Don’t you just love receiving an unexpected love note or message of encouragement from a friend?  I sure do. It is at stressful times in life that a message of encouragement can come in like a fresh breeze from Heaven, lift my spirit and fill my sails to move again.  Those precious words touch my heart and feel like love. But if truth be told, there is another type of message that I also need to hear that is unpleasant.  I recoil at the thought of being admonished, rebuked or corrected. In retrospect, however, it is those excruciatingly painful messages that often carry the greatest love.  Those words shine a spotlight on a faulty belief, bad attitude or <gulp> an unconfessed sin.  They are lifelines from Heaven, that spare me from receiving a burn, a bite or going over a cliff. It is love that reac...

EXPOSING SECRETS OF THE HEART “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” – Matthew‬ ‭12:34‬b NIV If you are anything like me, you have found yourself becoming increasingly more concerned by what is going on in the world.  The pervasiveness of hatred, perversion, deception, greed, slander, violence and the like. Everyday people suddenly explode into seething anger at the tiniest spark, because the pressure of what is growing inside of them becomes greater than what they are able to contain. Scripture cautions us that what we harbor in our hearts can only remain a secret for so long, before the pressures of life cause its contents to come spilling out. What is in YOUR heart?  What will your words and actions divulge about what is hidden there? Father, change our hearts!  Your Word says that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jer 17:9).  Heal us from the inside out!  Holy Spirit reveal the truth about what we...

RECEIVING THE CHARGE “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” – 1 Peter 2:21 NIV Father, the year is just a few hours old.  We step into its freshness with joy.  We breathe in deep breaths of Your live-giving mercy and hope.  Thank You for having lifted the burden of sin from our shoulders.  You are so good! We follow Your example, and leave the tally of wrongs against us behind.  We cancel the debt, release the weight and close the door.  We take on, instead, Your burden that is light.  What a glorious freedom! Purify our hearts (Ps 51:10), so we will be quick to forgive, and that the challenges that come in this season will not collect and crush us beneath their weight. We do not know what tomorrow may bring, but we know You go before us. (Deut 31:8).  We put on the whole armor (Eph 6:11).  We bow our heads to receive our charge—not just the assignme...

THAT’S WHY WE PRAISE HIM! It was late October.  Though power outages were announced, we felt prepared.  We had two generators—one for each side of the house—along with plenty of propane. I felt at peace slipping into bed that night—until the generator on my parent’s side of the house had a catastrophic failure at 2:00 am.  Then we were running extension cords, in an attempt to make life for them tolerable. A few days later, I was sitting down with my mom.  While we had done everything in our power to make them comfortable, I was apologetic about the stress and discomfort the outage undoubtedly had caused her.  At 89, I had concerns that the stress may have affected her health. She said, “I am not stressed at all!  My needs are taken care of.  We are fed like we are in a hotel.  I have every confidence that you have everything under control and will take care of things.  I am not worried one bit!” What a tremendous joy to know that...

THE ROBE OF THE REDEEMED “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV Confession time:  I struggle with fear.  It rears its ugly heard in the form of anxiety. When I don’t truly believe that God will provide, protect or rescue me, I resort to putting food in the hole under my nose.  I realize that it is irrational.  A cookie has no ability to rescue me.  It only promises a numbing of emotion. And it does numb my emotion—but only until I swallow, and my anxiety is joined by guilt and discouragement.  It’s not a good bang for my buck.  My attempt to cope in the absence of God’s help, leads to addiction—tormenting servitude to a false God.  I am an idolater. It is unfitting for a child of God to serve a false god—to dress immodestly—to sully ourselves with v...

X-RAY VISION & MUSTARD SEEDS When I was young, I absolutely loved comic books.  I would pore over the pages, and once finished, I would flip to the back and discover the fantastic treasures available there.  My favorite was the X-Ray glasses.  Are you old enough to remember those?  How cool it would have been to slip on glasses and be able to see inside of things. I was never able to buy a pair, but I can imagine the children who did, and were disappointed to find it was merely a gimmick to remove pennies from their pockets. We learned when we are young, that many of the things we held to be true, in fact, were not.  And in defense, we attempted to prevent disappointment, by viewing life through a skeptical lens. Skeptical lenses tend to not be selective, and we can eventually view everything through their altered perspective. Then we open the Bible.  Within its pages, we read of miracles and the promises of God.  We scrutinize what we re...

SHABBAT SHALOM “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.” – Psalms‬ ‭103:13-14‬ ‭NIV‬‬ “Shabbat Shalom” is a common greeting shared by both Jews and Messianic believers. The words mean “Sabbath Peace.”  From sundown Friday evening until sundown Saturday evening, the 24 hours of the Sabbath are dedicated to rest, spending time in prayer and ceasing from the toil of life, to enjoy the gracious provision of God. As believers in Jesus as our Messiah, we can know not only rest from our physical labor to earn our provision, but we can know rest from striving to earn the approval and acceptance of God. When on the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished.”  His work on Earth in His physical body was completed, and the sacrifice of His sinless life as a substitute for ours, left our sins covered by the blood. The Lord remembers how we are made.  No more does o...

THE BREATH IN LIFE’S COMMAS We are in the gray days of winter. It can be a time of year that feels sparse and meaningless—days and weeks that, like commas in a sentence, tell us when to pause and breathe, but have seemingly no meaning in and of themselves. In these days of stillness, the quiet gives place for thoughts of Him. Lord, thank You that You meet us in our wasteland with hope. The same magnificent God who created everything from nothing, but the words of His mouth (Ps 33:6), meets us in the desolate places.  It is there that You show Your power.  You are not done creating. It is in the stillness of the commas of life, that You pause to draw Your breath in preparation to speak. Every word is a seed, pregnant with creation.  Not a single word will return void (Is 55:11).   Breathe out joy, faith and streams of living water for the parched plains of our souls.  Breathe life into our spirits, speaking more in th...

THE TESTIMONY OF OUR SCARS By: Julie Souza Bradley Lilly “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” – John‬ ‭15:13‬ ‭NIV‬‬ No one manages to get through life without at least a few scars.  If not physical, there are certainly emotional scars that we collect over the course of our years. Watching TV a while back, I saw a retired firefighter being interviewed.  He had visible burn scars as evidence of his heroism.  He had gone into a burning building and rescued a woman and her child. Another young man displayed a large scar on his leg that came after using the roof of his family home as a skateboard ramp.  It didn’t go quite as planned. It’s interesting that when we see scars, we are curious about how they happened.  Whether from morbid curiosity or an earnest desire to avoid danger ourselves, we want to know the story behind them. Big or small, chances are, in this new year, that we will add a scar or two to ou...

THE ONE Recently I was talking to a friend who is in ministry.  She was discouraged that her ministry was so slow-growing, and that while she was faithful to obey the Lord’s leading, some of her efforts seemed to fall flat. We can all have days when we don’t bring our A-Game. And sometimes we need to brush up on our skills.  However, sometimes on those flat days, the message the Lord is sending through us really isn’t for the masses, but for a few, specific people—maybe even just one. We serve a very personal God.  He is willing to leave the crowd to pursue the one sheep who is lost or hurting.  We are part of a flock, but we are individually and personally loved.  He died for all mankind, but He also died specifically for us. “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost?” – Matthew 18:12. In some fields, we plant.  In...