Tag: Bible

Yesterday

Jennifred Jones

Yesterday at work, probably against proper political protocol, I wished people a Happy Easter weekend.

It surprised me how many did not respond back. Maybe they are like I was…not knowing God loved them or uncertain if there even was a God.

Up until college, I didn’t really know there was a God. I was a quiet, shy person, introverted, didn’t like it, but didn’t know how to change. I was also afraid of dying…not knowing what would come next. My mother had had numerous cancer operations, all benign, but…it scared me that I would be next. And so, all my teen years, I lived in fear of cancer and death, unable to plan for a future, since I didn’t think there would be one for me.

At 19, in college, I had to find out about this ‘God-thing’. I had a dusty Bible on my book shelf, pulled it down, blew off the dust and opened to somewhere in the New Testament…John or Romans and read a verse saying Jesus was praying for me. I thought, ‘Why would He pray for me?’

In an instant –  at that thought, I saw things in my life I was not proud of  –  while simultaneously feeling that Jesus loved me. All of a sudden I realized I wasn’t afraid of cancer or dying any more. If I died I’d go be safe with Jesus. I felt light and free after all those years living in fear.

Decades have passed, yet I am free, I know God loves me even if no one else does. There are struggles in life, but no one can tell me God doesn’t exist, or that He isn’t helping and guiding me every day… listening when I talk to Him.

That is a portion of my ‘yesterday’. Now I live a new ‘today’ every day…each morning a fresh clean start.

I’m so glad I left ‘yesterday’ and moved into a brand new today!

God gives hope.

Picked By God

Jennifred Jones

Everyone of us peoples… if you are alive then you are a people, has been created, not just made, but created…thought up, thought of, pondered over, uniquely, individually, skillfully, wonderfully (don’t stop reading because of the word ‘wonderful’…it’s true about you) created by the hand of God, Himself, who does not make any mistakes, is un-bribable, doesn’t change His mind mid-stream, or quit when things are difficult.

If you are reading this, and even if you are not reading this, you are in the ‘picked by God’ category.

God picks us and then gives us the choice to pick Him back.

The Bible says many are called but few are chosen. It is not up to us to decide who is and who is not. Our decision is to choose back– in accordance with God’s first choice—that He picked us, gave us the ‘want to’ to seek and find Him and say, “Yes, God, here I am. I want to be one of your chosen and live in your camp and be one of your tribe.”

And He will say back, “He that comes to Me, I will not cast away.” We may be cast-a-ways to the world, but not to our great big wonderful God. He has a secure fishing net that can draw us in out of the shipwrecks of our lives and place us on an island of safety that has a lighthouse on it so we can climb up and look out for others who might need help.

In this world of many men and women and too little of God, we need to know the power and love of the God who created, called and picked us. Sorry…we can’t get any credit for being good enough to get picked by God. He picked us because He made us and wants us and loves us, just like an earthly father would pick and love his child, because he came from him….not because of anything the child did, but just because he belongs to him.

Let God pick you. Then pick Him back, and live safe on His island in this world.

Don’t Give Up, Get Up!

Jennifred Jones

It’s so easy to give up. All you have to do is do nothing! What more could you do?

But the law of sowing and reaping says that if you sow watermelon seeds, you’ll get watermelons, if you plant apple trees, you’ll get apples, and if you plant nothing, you’ll get nothing.

There’s a certain something about working for what you get that has a way of rewarding you that nothing else can. No free handout, no check from the relatives feels quite as good as obtaining it by your own two hands! God said He would bless the works of our hands, so we do the work, and He will bless and prosper it, to cause increase so our needs will be met…whatever need it is that needs to be done or had at the moment, whether it’s getting the bed made, your garage swept, your closet cleaned, or your  resume updated.

Of course, the Bible says, “the poor you shall always have with you”,  yes, there are some who are unable to help themselves for one reason or another and we need to help them, and feel for them, and pray for them, but for the rest of us, we can be confident that whatever God has given us capabilities to do, He will bless them and provide for us through them, and even have left over to help meet the needs of others….remember the story of the little boy’s lunch of fish and bread that Jesus prayed over and divided to feed not just one small boy, but over 5000 men, plus women and children!  And then they had baskets and baskets of food left over. Jesus was not stingy! Jesus did this twice to prove He cares about people, their hunger, their needs, their lunch, as well as their spirit.

If we can get a handle on how much Jesus really does love us, not only in word, but in deed, it will revolutionize our thinking and we won’t be among the ‘giver-uppers’, we’ll belong to the ‘get-uppers’!

Because if God will help us and grant us success, we just won’t want to give up. Once we get moving and start seeing good fruit developing in our lives, and progress being made by our own two hands, we won’t want to remain seated any longer!

Let the excitement begin!!!