He Will Wipe Away Every Tear

Revelation 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. 

The thought of no more pain in particular, in this season of my life, gives me the hope to press through the pain in life. I have often been in so much pain that tears start flowing and my prayers become desperate pleas. The Lord gets me through it each time. What really got me in reading this verse this time around is the fact that he will wipe away every tear. I had a visual in my mind of Jesus sitting beside me with a tissue in hand wiping my tears away forever. What does that say about our Lord? The words love and compassion come to mind first but also tenderness and gentleness. How many times has anyone wiped away my tears? Probably not since childhood but I have no distinct memory of it. The act of wiping away tears is figuratively like they are trying to take away the pain and hurt. Jesus will literally wipe our tears away and they will be no more. Now that is hope with a big dose of LOVE!

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 336

I have been pondering the word rely since Monday when I got through my day without calling on God for help. I resorted to doing it my way and I was frustrated, angry and even said something that offended someone. To make matters worse, I knew I was not being a very good example of Christian love and the fruits of the Spirit had turned sour. I was a mess and instead of taking my stress to God and dealing with it in godly ways I went home had a glass and a half of wine (that is a lot for me these days) and then proceeded to let go of self-control and ate too many chocolate almonds. I woke up the next morning feeling very sorry for my pathetic display and asked God for forgiveness and help on being better prepared to handle my day at work that is extremely challenging right now. That word “rely” popped in my head so I tried looking it up in the concordance of my bible but it wasn’t there so I did a search on line for scripture about relying on God and was led to what I needed. I gave me a good visual and for me a visual works so well. God led me to another visual too of a father walking with his daughter holding her hand and as they go down the path they encounter a big pile of sticks in the way so the daughter looks up to her father and asks what they should do. My pile of sticks is my current workplace and the challenge of dealing with another culture and a communication barrier in the middle of 5 butt-loads of work that keeps piling up. Prayerful preparation with my Daddy and the visual tools helped me get through my day with patience and gentleness and my self-control was focused on what would glorify God.  The visual brought me instant peace and a smile to my face every time. If you have encountered a pile of sticks in your path, look to our Daddy and let him help you decide the course you should take.

Jeremiah 17:5-9 Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 307

I have found a three part sermon series on the fruit of the spirit that is very well written. The first part of the first sermon is setting straight that it is not fruits of the Spirit but fruit of the spirit. The nine character traits that are in Galatians 5:22: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are a parts of what we can have with the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. And like all fruit(s) these character traits ripen and grow over time with the guiding of the Holy Spirit and our daily walk with God. Here are two statements from this first sermon that state in a clear way what that “Fruit of the Spirit” is:

Fruit of the Spirit is a physical manifestation of a Christian’s transformed life.

Fruit of the Spirit is the visible growth in Jesus Christ.

Take some time to meditate on this today and let the Holy Spirit speak to you about your character traits and how the ripening process is going.

John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 208

Saturdays are always in need of more patience and gentleness because I am with my strong-willed daughter all day. Thankfully, I have the power of the Holy Spirit within me to help me overcome my own need to control and be gentle and patient with my daughter who wants to take charge. Praying your Saturday will be filled with joy, love and all the fruits of the Spirit.

2Corinthians 13:11 Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 162

I come from a family of women who are have a tendency to not listen well. We speak before thinking, react before processing and let anger take control. My mom, sister and I were on our annual spa trip together this last weekend. It is a good time but inevitably becomes a therapy session. Being the quieter one within this trio, I tend to just let them do the talking and will pipe in when there is a purpose behind it. I am not one to talk much about nothing. This time around I was having a very difficult time maintaining my patience and gentleness with them because of the negative stuff that seemed to be coming out more than anything else. My mom, being older and wiser, realized she may have to temper her mouth a little more so as not to set off my sister. I came to the point that I was thinking about not doing this anymore. I need a vacation from my vacation. It feels like walking on egg shells at times because anything you say can be held against you and may set off a volcano. I can’t be the therapist to my mother and sister and our relationships because I am too close to it all so I just have prayed and let them know I love them and hope that the Lord will guide them both in drawing nearer to the Lord so that they may bear the fruit the Holy Spirit can give.

James 1:19-21 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 157

The other day at work I had to listen to a phone conversation that got very heated. The Assistant Manager was trying to get information on the new program that I have to use to import. I ended up with an error message and got the word on what to do to avoid that and than came to a screen that I was at a loss on what to do. The training I had with our manager never went this far in the process because of a program issue. The conversation was mostly done in a foreign language but there were a few English words in there and the tone, frustration and anger made it obvious that she wasn’t getting the info she needed but an apparently rude and disrespectful brick wall. This person apparently has a reputation for acting this way. There have always been some thing I will not tolerate and one of those is disrespect. My immediate thought was I had better avoid having to ever talk with this person because I may loose it. But later after letting it sit in my mind for a while, I started to think of how would have Jesus responded to such a person. Gentleness and compassion were the words that came forward. He would treat any person regardless of the rudeness or disrespect as a valuable person who is loved by God. It will definitely take the power of the Holy Spirit within me to do what Jesus would do in this kind of situation.

Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 121

My heart was angry yesterday at the words of my co-workers who told me of what happened on Monday when I was out. Micro-managed doesn’t even fully describe it. Being managed in such a way, with only negative comments is very degrading to a person. They have no trust in us and our work. All of us are busting our butts doing the best we can with what we are given. They made it even worse by condemning our team lead saying she doesn’t even know what her team is doing. No, she trusts that we know our job and can see that we are working away all day long. I had to call on the Holy Spirit to hold my tongue and just respond with gentleness and kindness with what happened to my co-worker and team lead. Something went down last week with the same co-worker and team lead through an email. They responded saying they wished to discuss the issue. Our office manager didn’t respond so they are really upset about the so-called open door policy that is not showing. All I can do is encourage them to communicate with her without anger whether it is in an email or catching her in the hallway. You can’t put someone down and not let them defend themselves. I find this all very disconcerting because of the injustice of it. It is only with the Holy Spirit’s guidance I can navigate this in a way that will bring glory to God.

1Corinthians 2:14-16 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 365

It has been exactly one whole year I have been writing up my praises. This has been a tremendous blessing to me and I hope to you who have read them. I am thankful to God for the use of this blog to be able to praise Him for all he is, does and gives us. It just wouldn’t be the same writing it in a private journal. It has been an honor to share these praises with you this last year. So, what is up for the year to come? There are a few different options I have been thinking about but I keep coming back to this one so here it comes:  365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge.  The Holy Spirit is within us but we need to call on His power to work in us everyday. My favorite scripture is Galations 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  So, this coming year will be devoted to praying about these fruits, seeing these fruits in my life and striving to be Spirit-Filled everyday. I hope you will continue on this journey with me and will be Spirit-filled with all these fruits each day in the year to come.

Galations 5:25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 174

As I was driving home yesterday in heavy traffic, I was thinking about the voice mail that a man from an alarm company left. Lets just say he was not very happy. Because of the way we are doing things now, an alarm company can't just call and directly talk to anyone. It's voice mail or email.  This in itself is frustrating to many. But I thought about all the people I have called back who have left not so nice voice mails or emails in all CAPS and realized that when they are confronted with a real live person that genuinely wants to figure out what's going on and help them out, their frustrations and anger are stored away inside rather than being directed at me for the most part. Not everyone has a filter on their anger and frustration. It's just not nice to take your anger and frustration out on an innocent person that is stuck in the middle. I wonder how well I have been with my angers and frustrations. Am I letting them spew out to innocent people or am I calmly talking my anger and frustrations out to the appropriate person? Self-control is probably one of the toughest things to master.  For some of us, it's the self-control with our emotions; for others it's the self-control of eating, drinking, smoking or some other physical thing that ultimately hurts us. The Holy Spirit can give us all we need, including this self-control but because each day is a new day, we need to ask for the Holy Spirit to fill us with all we need to face the challenges of our day ahead. Let's say a prayer: Father, we thank you for this gift of the Holy Spirit to be with us until the time when Jesus will return. Holy Spirit, fill our hearts and souls today with all the fruits of the spirit and especially that of self-control. Help us to look at each new challenge we face today through your eyes and ears and face them with fruits you alone can give us. Amen.
Galations 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.