Our baptism is a witness to the One who is Lord of our hearts. Another witness is the passing of faith to our children and children’s children. Each child must make a personal decision but blessed are those who see/hear their parents and grandparents live out their faith.

Our promised land may look different than what the children of Israel experienced, but it is no less miraculous! #newheartoflesh #oldheartofstone

What makes the difference in our lives? Why are shy people willing to take a stand for Jesus Christ the LORD and feel a bit uncomfortable? #baptism

What is it that you cannot stop talking about? That is where your heart is! For out of the heart, our mouth speaks. The passionate heart wants others to know how wonderful “HE” is. #love #witness

By staying true to God Almighty, we acknowledge Jesus, His Son, who was sent to deliver us from the curse of sin. I cannot tell you how beautiful it is to know that when others speak anger, God speaks the language of love. #valueandworth

When we are passionately in love, we are jealous for that relationship. That is how much God loves you. – Teresa #staytrue #Heisjealousforyou

Deutoronomy 6: 4-9 (ESV)

⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^{[g] 5} You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

¹⁰ “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build,¹¹ and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, ¹² then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ¹³ It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. ¹⁴ You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— ¹⁵ for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.

Matthew 15: 3-20 (NIV)

3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

  but their hearts are far from me.

8 ” ‘These people honor me with their lips,

9 They worship me in vain;

their teachings are merely human rules.'”

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”

16 “Are you still so dull?”Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts-murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

As we look for solid ground to stand on: remember not to look to a “living” person or thing (everything that has breath).

And definitely don’t look to a delusion of grandeur: everything that can change on a whim.

Instead, look to that which is steady and unchanging. When God weighs our worth, He reminds us that we are valuable. His glory and image is within each and every human creation. It is up to us to keep our eyes on Jesus Christ the LORD and to receive Him onto the throne of our lives.

Did we somehow forget who it is that makes us stand on solid ground? Is it easier to care more about what “people” say or what others portray as images of a high estate? #throwingawaymyheart

Steadfast love is a gift not easily replicated. It must be substantiated to be authentic. We can easily see through those who speak a bunch of BS, but God’s gift speaks louder than mere words. #Love

His supreme action was giving His Son for the sin of the world (John 3:16). This truth is greater than any other evidence of our worth.

If I haven’t floated away on a breeze of anonymity, then I am securely weighted with the valuable truth of God’s love for me. -Teresa

#maranatha #eternityinourhearts #asolidfortress #myheartChristshome

Psalm 81:9 (ESV)

⁹ Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.

Imagine all the worries of your daily life as boulders piled into a dump truck. When you dump it and drive away there is a significant savings in fuel costs aka brain space, not to mention wear and tear on the suspension and tires aka health/wellness.

Last fall, my husband and I did a “clean- up” of our backyard. This involved shoveling the fallow soil from our old planter boxes into a U-haul trailer rental. We worked hard and our reward was to get the lower price (4-hour rate vs. 8-hour rate).

When we released the lever at the DUMP, we felt so much relief. Going back to weigh the vehicles, we were given a price for disposal and realized the extreme weight of our load- 3.6 TONS!

In this Psalm, King David is speaking about a very low time in His life. He experienced the betrayal of one of his closest advisers and friends (Ahithophel)- read 2 Samuel 15-17. This was weighty!!

I encountered this Psalm shortly after the untimely death of my younger brother. My question to God was: “Why, Lord, did my brother take his own life”?

Verse 22 jumped off the page as I realized that we are all at risk of being overburdened and failing to cast on God what is not ours to bear (i.e. it could be a spouse’s infidelity or other relationship, it could be financial troubles or pressures that may cause a downcast soul). The answer is to “cast our cares upon the LORD”. If He is able to sustain His creation daily in this galaxy- where everything is spinning delicately in space, then He is able to sustain us- who are part of His creation.

Our job is to keep casting every crushing burden onto His capable shoulders. Casting does not mean just thinking it through but applying an energetic, purposeful explosion of spiritual muscle contractions (faith). In other words, this burden does not belong here so let me exercise my faith in the Almighty. He is telling the truth about us through His Word so we are not doomed to be held captive by another’s lies.

I burned so many calories the day we shoveled 3.6 tons of dirt in 4 hours. We were intentional in our job and God provided the strength. Of course,physical activity is much better than stewing in emotional duress. Let this remind us to exercise our faith, not just ponder it.

Sometimes we need to trust God for an extra oomph of strength to take our next step of faith. He promises to sustain us! -Teresa #turningtoGodnotdealersofalsesolutions #trustintheONEwhokeepsmefromfalling

Psalm 55:22 (ESV)

²² Cast your burden on the Lord,
and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
the righteous to be moved.

Those who don’t believe in the resurrection are sad (“Sad you see”- as the old saying goes)!

In this passage, their lack of faith was evident as they focused on earthly semantics (whose wife will she be?) vs. the heart of God (love for each individual and a desire to be united with each one of them). #eternalife

Knowing the Scriptures and God’s power to change a heart imbues wisdom. Coming up out of deep darkness, the darkness of having a driving need to be right or to appear clever to others, only happens when we are in the presence of Christ Jesus our Lord. #humbledandunashamed

He is the Father’s evidence to us of a love that never ends. No wonder God (YHWH) introduced himself to Moses as “I am” (not I was).

Jesus (God’s Son) also introduced himself to the crowds with 7 different “I am” statements (see the gospel of John). #IAM #thewaythereuthandthelife #thegoodshepherd #thevine #thebreadoflife #thelightoftheworld #theresurrectionandthelife #thegateforthesheep

If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the patriarchs of our faith, then my faith is in God’s resurrection powers. -Teresa #Godoftheliving

Mark 12:18-27 (ESV)

The Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection

¹⁸ And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying,¹⁹ “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man^[a] must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. ²⁰ There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. ²¹ And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise.²² And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. ²³ In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”

²⁴ Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? ²⁵ For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. ²⁶ And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ²⁷ He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.”