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Keep these Things in Your Heart
I know that enduring to the end doesn’t sound very sexy nor does it put your mind at ease about doing the will of God.
Like you, I want to live a life of great happiness all the time. I do not want to build up my resistance to trials but when we keep the things of the Lord in our heart it does build up our resistance.
Biblical Ground Work: Luke
Jesus Himself said, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) His mother can testify to every inch of this.
Mary did not have an easy life or one without trials even before she had Jesus. She lived in Nazareth where the Romans came to collect taxes and their work was for the Roman Empire. They were not their own.
She became pregnant before marriage and gave birth in a town that was not her own. She went to the Synagogue out of duty and was told her heart would be broken. It was broken and fixed.
Biblical Life Lesson: Keeping these things in your heart will show you the power of Jesus in your life.
In A Soul on Fire we discussed Enduring to the End for the past four weeks and no one can attest to endurance than Mary the mother of Jesus.
From her birth until her death she had to endure some pretty awful stuff. From being pregnant to a missing child; from watching Jesus’ works to watching Him die. She saw Him die then she saw Him alive.
Let’s see what we should make of this in light of our Biblical Power Tools from “A Soul on Fire” in The Bible Gals. You can click on the links below to watch the four consecutive videos.
Endure to the End Part 1 https://www.facebook.com/kathleenderbyshireauthor/videos/270673751399723 Endure to the End Part 2 https://www.facebook.com/theholyproductivewoman/videos/297055762041757 Endure to the End Part 3 https://www.facebook.com/theholyproductivewoman/videos/924718554979590 Endure to the End Part 4 https://www.facebook.com/100328951852611/videos/314810416687428 Enduring to the End Teachings from the Kathleen Derbyshire Page on Facebook Join me in The Bible Gals Monday’s at 2pm EST for “His Women in Our World” Live Discussions. The study of how women can be effective in changing our world by simply choosing to live for Jesus.
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Picking up the Pieces!
I was reading in Genesis recently and was struck by the pieces of unassuming information that reside in that text until I found another one. As I was reading I was reminded of my last 13 years as a Jesus follower and how many pieces of information Jesus has given me along the way that I have had to put together to solve a puzzle. What have I done with all the pieces that God has revealed to me along the way? The habit I have gotten into while reading the Word now is to search my mind whenever I am given a new piece to a puzzling question. I am always pondering information so that I can join it with something else but sometimes it may very well be just the beginning of a new cluster of information. If you read the same story about Joseph in Genesis chapter 37 with chapters 40 and 41 you will find out that all the dreams were in groups of two, why? To get the answer we must first ask the question then wait for more pieces to pick up the answer to the puzzling question!
We can find pieces of information in the Word of God plus the Holy Spirit gives us pieces of information. Even with these different pieces of information we may still not understand although one day when a piece of information is revealed to us all of them will come together. You might have ten pieces of information that make some sense by themselves but remain incomplete together then one day you get another bit of information and all the other pieces come together into that perfect understanding. It is a wonderful thing when that full understanding comes but it is also a wonderful thing to have the pieces as well. These pieces keep us in communion with Jesus to get the answers. Pieces to a puzzle add intrigue to our lives.What do we do with these pieces of information? Jacob and Mary did what was best and we can do it too. When Joseph told his family about the dreams, they hated him but his father kept it in his mind. Mary, mother of Jesus, did that same thing. Every time Mary got a piece of information about Jesus she kept it in her heart and when He was dying on the cross I am sure that she remembered that she was told by Simeon that her own soul would be pierced (Luke 2:35). I am sure that she began picking up all of the pieces that God revealed to her during the 33 years of Jesus’ life. Keeping the pieces in our heart/mind is exactly what we need to do to make sure that we understand everything that God is revealing to us!
