Looking for an earlier Watchword?
- Wait on the Lord - Wait on the Lord: I have no idea how many times I have sat in a doctor’s/dentist’s waiting room, waiting and waiting. There is a difference between waiting for an appointment and what the scripture is telling us to be strong and wait for the Lord. What does it mean to “wait on the Lord”? In practical terms, waiting on the Lord means spending time in prayer, seeking Him. It means standing firm on what God has already promised. To wait on the Lord is to wait on God’s answer, His voice, His promise. Wait on the Lord is as simple as - Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Continue reading
- War within Yourself - War within Yourself: Somewhere, deep within, a voice is telling you “You’re not good enough” and that “you will never amount to anything”, and it sounds like your own voice, your 7-year old voice, or 11, or perhaps your 17-year-old voice, and you believed it. You carried that scar with you as you grew into adulthood. Then, more recently, another voice, the Voice of God, saying “Come to me, my dear child, you are weary and burdened, come to me and I will give you rest for your soul”. The voice tells you to take His yoke upon you and learn from Him” and you can tell from the tone of His Words that He is gentle and humble and you know that is the better road to go. And as you come to Him, the other voice is stilled, for a time. You hear, again, God speaking: “My beloved, I have been waiting for you these many years. I AM Your good, good Abba FATHER and you belong in My Family. Continue reading
- Long-life Lament? - Long-life Lament? So much of Psalm 90, “A Prayer of Moses”, reads like it should be part of Lamentations. It speaks about God’s anger consuming us all of our days. Regardless of how many years we live, they pass under the wrath of God. There are phrases like “we finish our years with a moan”, and “the best of our years, are but trouble and sorrow”. This Psalm is attributed to Moses as author. I like the idea that a saint is just a sinner who fell down, but who got up with the help of the Lord. Continue reading
- Second-hand God? - Second-hand God? Even with two books published and two more likely to come out in the next two years, it is still hard for me to accept the title ‘author’. One of my favorite Christian writers was/is JB Phillips (may he rest in peace). He writes about a “second-hand god” and argues that most people have a somewhat restricted view of life, and they rely, to a large extent, on the vicarious experience of life that they find in reading books, or going to movies, or plays. That way they come to know detectives, serial killers, children’s thoughts, lovers, abusers of animals, etc., but not really. I could tell you a lot about Barabbas, or Jericho Road, or even Jesus at Jacob’s Well in Samaria, and none of it is first-hand, of course. Biblical research is not the same as physical encounters. Continue reading
- The “What Ifs…” of Life - The “What Ifs…” of Life: What is your response as life leads you along a sometimes bumpy road? We know how our lives can change and we are confronted with challenges that test our faith. We may wonder how He is going to save us from one difficulty after another, temptations, a health challenge, a loss of our loved one, or whatever. Yet, He does save us, if we would but pay attention. There are times when our common sense must give way to the gratitude and praise of our faith, when our “What ifs” become thank you, Jesus! Continue reading
- Give Unto Yourself - Give Unto Yourself: “Meet Me in morning stillness, while the earth is fresh with the dew of My Presence. Worship Me in the beauty of holiness. Sing love songs to My Holy Name. As you give yourself to Me, My Spirit swells within you till you are flooded with divine Presence. The world's way of pursuing riches is grasping and hoarding. You attain My riches by letting go and giving. The more you give yourself to Me and My ways, the more I fill you with inexpressible, heavenly Joy.” Sarah Young Continue reading
- Faith Questions - Faith Questions: Have you ever kept a journal? Or maybe just a notebook of your thoughts, inspirational ideas that come to you, to-do-lists to remind you of things that you must do? Or maybe you keep one close by when you are doing your meditation readings or Bible study? At present, I’m completing still another notebook and as I page through it I came across an interesting phenomena -- lots of questions about my faith walk. Let me share just a few to stimulate some thinking. Do you have enough drama in your life or do you think Christians need to have an opinion on about everything? How can I expect God’s strength if I don’t live by his Commandments? So many other questions, some have answers, some are designed to get us thinking. Continue reading
- No Grounds for Fear? - No Grounds for Fear? We worry, we fret, our minds are so filled with fearful things that we can’t sleep. We avoid conflict, so conflict never gets resolved, and that stays on our minds and becomes something else to worry about. Overcoming our fears is something that we have learned in fits and starts along the way. As we mature, we begin to realize that some of our fears have absolutely no substance. At some point in our Christian walk we began to realize that there is real strength in knowing that Jesus is our Lord and Savior and indeed is that ever-present help in times of trouble. Continue reading
- A Christian Halloween - A Christian Halloween –By Matney Woodard: Unless you live a very sheltered life, it is almost impossible to avoid being influenced by the Halloween season. It is now one of the biggest holidays for retailers, and a huge money maker for Hollywood. Scary movies, witchcraft, demonic activity, the occult, are all being promoted by the media, entertainment, and pop culture. All of these in some way introduce fear into people’s lives. Fear is the opposite of faith. The root of ALL fear is doubt, or unbelief in God. It is your faith that pleases God. Continue reading
- Yikes! - Yikes! Have you ever taken an honest and deep look into the dark reaches of your soul? All those hidden things that your sense of honor or pride or shame, you just couldn’t, wouldn’t reveal? Yes, yikes, is a good way to put it. We want to keep those things all tucked inside, so there’s no possibility that someone may see, may know that about us. Or the goblins will get ya if ya don’t watch out!!! Continue reading
- Old Testament Jesus? - Old Testament Jesus? You say that Jesus is not mentioned in the Old Testament? Are you looking with honest and spiritual eyes? One of the beautiful things about Jesus being the fulfillment of the law is that the Old Testament points directly to him as the Messiah. Please note, it is not like we threw out the Old Testament or rewrote it once Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Granted, the New Testament is added to God’s story, but remember that both are testaments to the truth of who God is. Continue reading
- Safety - Safety: Feeling safe is the doorway to happiness. How can one be happy if you are experiencing anxiety, fear? We long for safe places. Remember yesterday when you were in peaceful safety and did not worry about an unseen evil? Maybe a virus? Remember? Well, that peace that you felt, that safety you told yourself you rested upon? Those all came from our Lord and Savior. Remember, “Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty”. Get that? Those who live in the shelter (within the Word). How about “Those who trust in the Lord shall renew…” Continue reading
- Conflict vs. Comfort - Conflict vs. Comfort: How would you describe your comfort zone? Maybe a state of being that feels good, and feels…well, comfortable. It is one of those human conditions that might be difficult to communicate to another, but you know when you are taken out of yours. Even though our world has changed drastically since the time of Jesus, the basic needs of humanity, of you and I, have not changed. Jesus repeatedly challenged his disciples not to worry or be afraid, and yet they did worry and were afraid. That fear became intense at the foot of the Cross. Of course, that soon changed! Continue reading
- Much-Afraid and the Shepherd - Much-Afraid and the Shepherd: I am reading, again, the book Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hunnard. It is an allegory of the Shepherd Psalm, where the main character is called Much-Afraid. Have you ever wondered away, looking for...something, or avoided doing what the Lord was leading you to do? Ever been defeated? Fired from your job? Divorced from the one you loved? Alienated from a beloved friend? Did you ever become Little Much-Afraid, dwelling in fear? How does a shepherd restore the soul of a sheep, or, for that matter, leads sheep along paths of righteousness? We live in the divine confidence that after every storm there is a rainbow, no matter how long it takes to show up. The lesson learned by Much-Afraid, that transformed her into Grace and Glory. Continue reading
- The Lord Is My Shepherd - The Lord Is My Shepherd: Psalm 23, just six verses. if you memorized this Psalm as a child, as I did, you probably recite it in the King James Version. As soon as you speak the first verse, The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want, the rest of the verses just flow, hardly without any encouragement or thought. Should we seek out other versions; the message, NIV, etc., it’s not nearly as familiar and meaningful. Who wrote this Psalm? See, that is something else we probably know, if we gave it some thought. David, the shepherd boy, later the Shepherd King, is credited with the authorship. He imagined the thoughts of a sheep expressing how it feels about its shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd implies a profound affection and a practical working relationship between the creature, us, and the creator, our Savior. Continue reading
- Repent! - Repent!: Can’t you hear the echoes from the gospel tent of an old time evangelist urging and calling to his congregation, “Repent! Turn from your sinful ways. Failure will lead you to hell’s damnation!” What does repentance mean? It means a change of mind, simple as that. Jesus’s first directive was not to believe, but to repent. repentance leads to faith—it’s a foundational practice we cannot afford to ignore. Repentance is not a “one and done” transaction because we step from grace to sin, repeatedly. Jesus is Lord of everything, or He’s not Lord of anything. Continue reading
- Letting Go and Letting God - Letting Go and Letting God: People in the Bible repeatedly found strength through their relationship with God. For the Israelites, Faith in God followed a pattern of on again, off again, throughout their history. To what extent do you trust the Lord? To the point where you can let go of all the difficulty of your life into His nail-scared hands? The space of all that worry will be filled with His Peace. Continue reading
- Hot Wheels - Hot Wheels: Rachel Remen, in her book "My Grandfather's Blessings, tells of playing Hot Wheels with her 6-year-old nephew, Kenny. Kenny had two of the little cars and they had a great time with imaginary traffic events. An oil company’s promotion of giving away Hot Wheels for gas purchases allowed Rachel and her friends to present Kenny with a box of several models of the cars.The gift had a puzzling impact on Kenny. He lost interest in playing with the cars! When asked, he told Rachel that “he didn’t know how to love this many cars”! Do we collect too many “Hot Wheels”, or wealth for that matter, without realizing that we have a “box for giving?” What are you doing with your “Hot Wheel” collection? Continue reading
- Whatever is Untrue - Whatever Is Untrue: I wrote the following on Friday, February 28, 2014, almost seven years ago. Some might read into this something political, but they would be wrong. When I posted this in 2014, I got some feedback, including one that claimed I had “misquoted Paul”, to which I replied that I wasn’t quoting Paul, I was speaking to disciples of Christ. In today’s hurting world, it seems appropriate to, once again, speak to disciples of Christ. Continue reading
- Decisions, Decisions - Decisions, Decisions: At one time many thought being a Christian meant try hard to be a “good person”, and that was the key. For me, that “good person” idea began to change in the face of the challenges of a family with two young children, a change in my professional life, and poor decision making along the way. Inch by inch, God was leading me along a different way, and, at age 40, I accepted Christ and the whole tone and structure of my life changed. The decision to follow Jesus, is not a group decision, it is a personal, solitary decision you make. You literally "decide to follow Jesus." Continue reading
