Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:18
If only you had paid attention to My commands,
(God's people have been reduced to living in exile in Babylon.
Despite a fervent and loving call to them to obey God,
Israel chose to wallow in rebellion and disobedience,
the result of which led them into deep bondage.
The Lord's anguished cry expresses the grief
of our loving, patient, and sorrowful Father
as He looks with great sadness on the choices His beloved people have made
and the consequences of those choices.
He knows the commands He gives us are not to build Him up,
not to fulfill some kind of ego need in Him,
but that they guide us in the way that is best for us,
in the way that helps us draw near to Him.)
your peace would have been like a river,
your well-being like the waves of the sea.
(Had we followed the desires of His heart for us,
we would have experienced the shalom peace
that is prosperity and complete salvation in every sense of the word,
a complete good toward us that would have engulfed us
with an ever-flowing freedom and serenity that swells to its banks
with a peace flowing over us that passes all human understanding
and that never runs dry even in the difficult seasons of hardships.
What is the Lord saying to us today?
That submitting to Him and to His purposes takes us into the abundant life
that He has promised us, that He will guide us into His paths of righteousness,
even if we have strayed from Him into our own kind of exile,
He is eagerly waiting for us to turn to Him and to His ever-present salvation.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:17
This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
(God uses His titled name, the I AM, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Eternal, Self-Existent One
and identifies Himself as the Holy One of, not only Israel, but of … put your own name here!
He is speaking to you and He wants to make sure you know Who is talking to you.
He wants you to know that the Lord God Almighty is your Redeemer God,
the Holy One of – put your name here!)
"I am the Lord your God,
(Just in case we didn't get it the first time He declared to us Who He is,
He repeats again that He is your God, your Lord.
He is forever patient in revealing the truth of the foundation of His relationship with us
and eagerly desires we stand on the truth of that relationship.)
Who teaches you what is best for you,
(He is the One Who not only knows what's best for us,
He teaches and instructs us in the better way,
the way that is a benefit and profit to us, and that better way is in Him.
If we are going through hard times, difficult situations, unsettled times,
that is the most important moment to remember He, the Lord our God,
is using all of those circumstances to teach us and grow us and mature us and heal us
and draw us deeper into His purposes and His healing and into what is best for us!
He never wastes difficult trials and times,
but lovingly uses them to work together for our good!
That is our eternal and promised assurance in Him!)
Who directs you in the way you should go.
(He never leaves us adrift, without an anchor.
He is never lost and never forgets the way.
He always knows where He is directing us.
He never leaves us without hope, without help. He never leaves us!
The Lord our God teaches and guides us in all that is the best for us.
He directs our steps, even, and especially, through the raging storms of life!)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

ly One of – put your name here!)
"I am the Lord your God,
(Just in case we didn't get it the first time He declared to us Who He is,
He repeats again that He is your God, your Lord.
He is forever patient in revealing the truth of the foundation of His relationship with us
and eagerly desires we stand on the truth of that relationship.)
Who teaches you what is best for you,
(He is the One Who not only knows what's best for us,
He teaches and instructs us in the better way,
the way that is a benefit and profit to us, and that better way is in Him.
If we are going through hard times, difficult situations, unsettled times,
that is the most important moment to remember He, the Lord our God,
is using all of those circumstances to teach us and grow us and mature us and heal us
and draw us deeper into His purposes and His healing and into what is best for us!
He never wastes difficult trials and times,
but lovingly uses them to work together for our good!
That is our eternal and promised assurance in Him!)
Who directs you in the way you should go.
(He never leaves us adrift, without an anchor.
He is never lost and never forgets the way.
He always knows where He is directing us.
He never leaves us without hope, without help. He never leaves us!
The Lord our God teaches and guides us in all that is the best for us.
He directs our steps, even, and especially, through the raging storms of life!)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:16
Come near Me and listen to this:
"From the first announcement I have not spoken in secret;
at the time it happens, I am there."
And now the Sovereign Lord has sent me, endowed with His Spirit.
(Whether the pronouns here refer to God Himself or to the prophet Isaiah,
the Lord is making it clear that His prophetic pronouncements
have never been made in secret,
but that He always reveals His plans to His people.
His great desire is that we accept His divine invitation to listen to Him and to His Word,
assuring us that whatever He says will occur will, in fact, happen.
Today, He still invites us to listen to His Word,
to tune our hearts to this Sovereign God
Who calls us into His protective embrace to be safe and confident in His provision.
He even grants us His Own Holy Spirit to empower us to be strong,
to be filled with the joy of the Lord, to be unafraid even in the midst of hardship and trial.
His promise to deliver His people from their Babylonian exile extends to us today
From these first promises to His people made long ago,
He assures us that He still delivers His people today.
No matter what our plight might be today,
we belong to Him and His Word of deliverance and provision is still true for us today.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:15
I, even I, have spoken; yes, I have called him.
I will bring him, and he will succeed in his mission.
(Already being carried out even before the man was born,
the Lord's proclamation is declared with emphasis,
with Him repeating that it is He Himself Who has spoken,
that He would use a man named Cyrus, a future Persian king,
to deliver His people from their Babylonian exile
and that He would make sure that man is successful
in the endeavors God Himself has ordained for him.
In His limitless, omniscient power, not only is the Lord foretelling this future event,
He is also declaring who He will use and how He will bring about
the deliverance of His people from their Babylonian exile.
Knowing beforehand the exact places of hardship and loss and trial
in which we ourselves would find ourselves entrapped one day in our own Babylon,
the Lord has also ordained for us to be set free from these places
and, even more, just as He proclaimed for Cyrus, for us to walk out specific missions
for which He Himself will provide success for us.
We can be assured today that the Lord has specific and unique missions
for each one of us, missions He has designed with our needs and strengths in mind.
The Lord has declared these promises long before we were born,
and they will come to pass because He has vowed He would make us over-comers
and cause us to walk out His purposes.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:14b
The Lord's chosen ally will carry out his purpose against Babylon;
his arm will be against the Babylonians.
(Whether the pronouns here refer to the Lord Himself or to His chosen servant Cyrus,
a future Persian King who has not yet been born
and whom the Lord has already ordained to carry out His bidding regarding His people,
the Lord's Word stands and will be fulfilled through His Own means.
The Lord has declared His intention to make this future king
His means by which He would deliver His people.
God's love for His people is so intense, so encompassing,
that He uses even those who are not avowed God-followers
to fulfill His sovereign purposes for His people.
Today, the Lord still uses "Cyruses" to fulfill His designs
when He needs to deliver His people and give us relief.
Not only might He use external and foreign situations
like a Cyrus to bring about our deliverance,
but He also often chooses to use us ourselves as Cyrus vessels
to implement His plans for those around us.
Not only can we rejoice when the Lord sends a Cyrus into our lives,
but we also may, in turn, become a Cyrus in God's plans for others.
The great truth here is that the Lord knows our places of exile
and has already begun putting into place His future enactments
so that either He Himself or His chosen emissary
will intervene in our lives and bring about His release from our Babylon.
He invites us today to listen and watch and heed His declarations over us.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:14a
Come together, all of you, and listen:
Which of the idols has foretold these things.
(No idol the Israelites or their adjoining neighbors worshiped had ever foretold
anything so remarkable, anything so unbelievable,
anything so amazing, anything so accurate,
as the prophecy that God is unfolding to His people.
He is prophesying to them that they would be released from their captors,
a revelation so remarkable and fantastic
because the mighty Babylonian empire was seemingly unconquerable.
The Lord still today proclaims to us release from the places where we are in exile,
release from our captors, no matter who or what they are
even though the situations we face, the exile in which we are presently living,
may seem insurmountable and impossible to overcome.
Even as God foretold the israelites' coming release long before it would come about,
He has also declared to us our release and victory over outwardly impossilble situations.
He has known about our difficulties long before they came upon us,
and He has proclaimed from long ago that He would provide deliverance for us.
That deliverance is present for us today.
Today, the Lord challenges us even as He did the Israelites long ago
to listen to His declarations over us and to measure the pronouncements
of our own idols of anger and fear and attempts to exercise control over our lives
against God's proclamations of truth that align perfectly
with the omniscience and purity of His character and word.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:12-13
"Listen to Me, Jacob, Israel, whom I have called:
(Just as surely as the Lord spoke to His people Israel in days of old,
He is speaking to you and me today.
Just as surely as He chose and called out Israel as His peculiar people,
He has chosen and called us out as His special envoy, His trusted ambassadors,
His peculiar people, to carry out His purposes.
In the same way the Lord called Israel out of the slavery of Egypt
and then the later exile of Babylon,
today He is calling us out of the places of our bondage and banishment.)
I am He; I Am the First and I Am the Last.
(Now that He has our attention and we are listening to Him, He tells us Who He is.
He is the I AM and is the Alpha and Omega.
He is the initiator, the origin, the originator, the cause of all things created,
the creator of the beginning, the One Who was before the beginning.
He is the also the conclusion, the ending, the final curtain,
the One Who puts the last period on the conclusion,
the One Who exists past the ending, the finale of all things created.)
My Own Hand laid the foundations of the earth,
and My right Hand spread out the heavens;
when I summon them, they all stand up together."
(Now that the Lord has focused our attention on Him, has reminded us of Who He is,
He now tells us what He does. By His Hand through the mere power of His Word,
He spoke all of creation into being and established the earth in its place.
His right hand of power extended the expanse of the heavens,
carefully measuring them with the span of His Own Hand,
a limitless, immeasurable, unimaginable power.
When He called the heavens into being, they emerged into existence together
and now always stand in obedient alignment with His commands and purposes.
For us today, if God really is Who says He is
and if He really has done all that He says He has done and will do,
how can we ever doubt that He will protect us whom He has called,
how can we ever doubt that He will keep us by that same Voice
that summons everything in our lives to come forth at His command,
and how can we ever doubt His Hand of power that lays out the foundation of our lives.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:11
For My own sake, for My own sake, I do this.
(The Lord has declared He has heard the cry of His children in exile,
an exile that the Lord permitted because of their rebellion and disobedience
to teach them and to draw them back to Himself,
but now He has promised to deliver them.
Even when He disciplines us, He is always doing so
out of the love of His Father's Heart,
out of His great mercy and deep longing to align His people with His plans for them.
While He always hears our heart's cries,
while He is always moved with compassion for the plight in which we find ourselves,
His deliverance always comes from His Own divine purposes and motivations.
He doesn't have to be convinced to help us out of a mess.
He has purposed in Himself and because of His Own sake to redeem us.
Redemption springs out of Him, not even from our own need, as great as it may be.
That truth is an encouragement. We don't have to plead our cause.
God's Heart is a Heart of redemption.)
How can I let Myself be defamed?
I will not yield My glory to another.
(Because His Name is at stake, because the power of His redemption itself is in question,
He cannot let His people remain in their exile.
Because the world sees.His people in dire need,
because the world needs to see that God does not forsake His own,
He cannot let His people remain in exile.
Otherwise, the truth of Who He is would be sullied and defiled.
We can be thankful that the Lord Himself guards the integrity
of His promises, of His truths, of His Name,
and that we benefit today from the glory of His Almighty Name.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:10
See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
(Even as silver is refined through the smelting process
so that the heat from the fire separates the dross from the valuable metal,
the trials we undergo serve to refine us and grow us.
When the fire has done its work and the dross has been removed,
the resulting silver is so pure and clear
when the master looks into the molten surface
he sees his own reflection as in a mirror.
The Lord sees the dross in us and knows our need to be matured
and to separate us from the impurities that mar our hearts and minds.
When we walk through the fire of challenging situations,
those are the times we most often call out to God,
when we most often set aside our pride and rebelliousness,
and, in our desperation, turn to Him.
Even in the hardships, what a blessing to know
that we are not going through them for nothing.
In fact, the Lord is using those very situations to work together for our good
and also so that, when He looks into the mirror of our hearts and minds,
He sees only His own reflection.
May we look more and more like our Master today
as He leads us through His purifying and refining process.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:9
For My Own Name's sake I delay My wrath;
for the sake of My praise I hold it back from you, so as not to destroy you completely.
(Though we, like Israel, are guilty of disobedience, rebelliousness, and lukewarm attention,
the Lord declares His intention to restrain Himself from meting out
the deserved justice due us for our rebellious attitudes and actions.
The original language describes the Lord's extraordinary choice to muzzle His righteous anger
in much the same way an animal is muzzled to prevent it from acting.
Though the Lord chooses to extend His mercy to us because of His nature,
not only do we not deserve His mercy, but we also actually deserve the exact opposite.
We actually deserve the just deserts of our willful disobedience,
the wrath of His punishment which would completely separate us from Him,
but the Lord holds Himself back and muzzles His pronouncement of judgment over us.
Instead, His Name, carrying within it all the aspects of the holiness and righteousness of His character,
impels Him to withhold what is due us for the sake of proving the mercy inherent in that Name,
He gives us the opportunity today to acknowledge the great mercy inherent in His Name,
enabling us to more easily see and know the true nature
of the ocean of forgiveness and forbearance which He washes over us.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:8
You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ears have not been open.
Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth.
(Though we may try to console ourselves with the idea
that we are helpless victims of our circumstances,
that the God we say we believe is just not attentive to our needs
and we are being unfairly treated and forgotten,
though we may try to console ourselves
so we can justify our own worth,
the Lord reminds us that we continue to view Him and His promises
through the lens of our unbelief and doubt and self-pride.
He reminds us that, until we experience regeneration in Him, our sin nature propels us,
that we need to acknowledge and establish that fundamental truth as fact
so that He can take us to the release of the new Truth in Him.
He reminds us of our base nature, not to beat us up,
not to continue the flogging until morale and attitudes improve,
but to show us our deep need of Him and to remind us
that He is the answer to our deepest need, the need for us to hear and obey Him.
His offer to us persistent and disobedient rebels today is His invitation
to see Him and to accept Him as He is, to acknowledge that He is Who He says He is
and that He will do what He says He will do,
and to accept His proclamation of new Truth, that we are who He says we are,
beloved by Him and whom He has declared
now redeemed, changed, and called by His Name.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 48:6b-7
"From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.
(Though the Lord has lovingly and continuously reached out to us to reveal Himself
through all His proclamations of deliverance and salvation from ages past,
and though we have continued to ignore or to dilute His declarations
with our own interpretations of them, the Lord determines to yet again today
speak new hope and new revelation into our lives.
This is a thing the Lord Himself is declaring,
and it does not depend on what we think or do.
He does not wait for us, nor ask our permission.)
They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today.
So you cannot say, 'Yes, I knew of them.'"
(The Lord is speaking specifically about His new revelation to His people Israel,
that He not only sees their plight but that He will deliver them from their exile in Babylon,
a feat that He will accomplish through the power of a foreign Persian King Cyrus,
a man who has not even been born yet.
In the Lord's absolute determination to reveal Himself and His power to us,
He tells us His thoughts and future purposes toward us.
The idea in the original wording was that the deliverance the Lord promises now
was accomplished the moment He conceived the thought.
That initial thought was also the exact same moment of fulfillment,
the moment of finished work, the finished work being contained
in the very conception of the intent.
But we were not yet ready to receive His intentions toward us.
We were not yet ready to acknowledge that His work toward us is of His doing, not ours.
For us today, we can be encouraged and thankful
knowing that His deliverance for us today is already accomplished
and was completed the moment He conceived it,
that He has revealed His purpose to us today,
and that now He uncovers His intent because we are ready to receive His disclosures to us.
No matter what our circumstances today, we are safe in Him
and in the deliverance He has purposed and promised.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word Correction Regarding Isaiah 47

Good afternoon, friends.

My face is red! I must correct a recent error regarding the Good Word for Today!

This morning, I discovered that the recent Good Words that I have labeled as being from Isaiah 47 have actually been from taken Isaiah 48:1-6a.

While I occasionally discover typos in the Good Word for Today and cringe, I am thankful that you forgive my oversights and choose to overlook them, but I feel must correct the recent incorrect Scripture references.

Thank you for your understanding.

Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 47:5-6a
Therefore I told you these things long ago;
before they happened I announced them to you
(Even though we persist in trying to find our own means of control and "salvation,"
in His omniscience and endless love for us,
the Lord declared from ancient times how He would deliver us,
how He would save us, how He would provide for us,
speaking the end result before our need
for salvation and rescue even evidenced themselves.)
so that you could not say, 'My images brought them about;
my wooden image and metal god ordained them.'
(He purposely foretells to us His proclamations and promises
because He knows how prone we are to take credit for a positive outcome
for events over whuch we can claim some power
or to rationalize away His godly intervention by claiming it was a coincidence
or that some other influence had brought about a resolution.
We even claim that the gods we so eagerly turn to
are responsible for the victorious outcome,
such gods as our own ability to effect the world around us,
the people in whom we place our trust,
or the material resources we can access and bring to bear on situations.)
You have heard these things; look at them all. Will you not admit them?"
(He longs for us to yield to His plea to acknowledge Him and His works,
to both acknowledge and submit to His revelations of Himself and His plans.
As we yield to Him today, He pleads with us even today
to open our eyes to see Him and His work in our lives,
the acknowledgement of which, in turn, reaps in us
the great peace and comfort and victory for which we long and need today.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!
John 14:1-3
(Right before His crucifixion, Jesus had just told His disciples, yet again,
that He would not be doing, nor would He be, what they were expecting,
that He would not be the earthly messiah they thought He would be.
While they thought they had been helping Jesus
for the last three years of His ministry to step into His role in an earthly kingdom,
He told them He had other purposes to fulfill,
and now He comforts them and us with these words.)
Do not let your hearts be troubled.
(Even when it appears that things are not working out the way we had hoped
or even the way we had fervently prayed,
when Jesus isn't what we had expected Him to be or expected Him to do,
we have choice in the way we respond to hardships—
we can choose to trust Him rather than to fear.)
You believe in God; believe also in Me.
(The antidote to troubled hearts and fears
is to focus our trust in the One Who can be trusted above all others.
Because Jesus comes from His Father
Who provided for the plan of salvation long before time began
and because Jesus willingly laid down His life for our redemption,
we can trust Him and lean on Him during hardships.)
My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so,
would I have told you I am going there to prepare a place for you?
(Jesus and His Father have prepared safe havens for us
and designed purposes and a destiny for us to fulfill.
Jesus always goes before us to places He has prepared,
and we know that as we travel to those places He will already be there.)
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
(Even when we feel He is distant and far away,
He always reveals to us His way of salvation
and continues making provisions for us of which we are not yet aware.)
I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am.
(He makes sure that we are with Him,
and He makes sure we walk where He wants us to be.)
You know the way to the place where I am going.
(As we listen to Him, we know the way to Him today because He is the Way,
because He lives in us and communicates to us
His designs and purposes and directions through His Word
and through the still, small Voice of the Holy Spirit.)
Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!
John 21:25
Jesus did many other things as well.
If every one of them were written down,
I suppose that even the whole world
would not have room for the books that would be written.
(Not only did Jesus do much, much more before His death
than all the Gospel writers could possibly reveal,
but His appearances after His death were so many, His actions so countless,
that reporting them all would have been impossible,
just as reporting all the acts of God is not feasible.
Doing what was impossible for man to record or read everything that Jesus said,
all His prayers, all His comings and goings, all His sermons and teachings,
God has singled out and given us everything in these pages of Scripture
that we need to know about Him and His ways,
about His purposes and about what He's like.
He has brought the Kingdom of Heaven to earth,
He has changed our world, and now,
because of our encounter with the Living God,
He has changed us!)
Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!
Acts 1:4-11
On one occasion, while He was eating with them,
(What a tender picture of Jesus revealing Himself, still fully human,
as He breaks bread with His disciples in fellowship and community.
As we eat of the Bread of Life that He offers us today,
what a wonder that Jesus still today fellowships with us
through the Covenant meal of promise that He has made with us.)
He gave them this command:
"Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift My Father promised,
which you have heard Me speak about.
For John baptized with water, but in a few days
you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
(Jesus promised He would never leave us, that He would be with us always
through His gift of the Holy Spirit, a part of Himself,
Who will be everything and more to us today
that Jesus Himself was to His disciples.
Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is more than beside us
as He was when He walked with His disciples.
Now, Jesus dwells within us, a miracle of the Holy Spirit's Presence within us.)
Then they gathered around Him and asked Him,
"Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates
the Father has set by His Own authority.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;
and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
(Still failing to understand the Kingdom that Jesus has ushered in,
the disciples have not yet experienced, but will soon receive,
the fullness of that Kingdom that Jesus is offering them.
Today the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand for us,
joining us together here on earth to His Kingdom.
The same gift He poured out over His disciples is ours today
as He breathes into us His Holy Spirit to be His Presence within us
and to empower us to fulfill His purposes and His mission in our lives.)
After He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes,
and a cloud hid Him from their sight.
(Again, in full view of many witnesses, Jesus removes Himself
from their presence and from His physical residence on the earth
and ascends into Heaven, the final phase of the miracle of the Resurrection,
where He sits beside the Father, His redemptive work finished and completed,
and, close to the Father's ear, intercedes for us.)
They were looking intently up into the sky as He was going,
when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.
"Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky?
This same Jesus, Who has been taken from you into heaven,
will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven."
(The wonder of Christ's ascension is small
compared to the glory of His returning
and the fulfillment of our hope that He will return in His fullness
to take us to Himself at His Second Coming!)
Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!
Acts1:1-3
In my former book, Theophilus,
(The author of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles
was also the author of the Gospel of Luke.)
I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach
until the day He was taken up to heaven,
(As incredible as Jesus' resurrection is,
the true finale of the miracle of the resurrection is His ascension
into the heavenlies to take His place seated at the right Hand of the Father,
seated and at rest because His redemptive work
is accomplished and complete and finished.)
after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had chosen.
After His suffering, He presented Himself to them
and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive.
He appeared to them over a period of forty days
(Not only has Christ died, but He rose again, freed from the finality of death,
the first fruits of those of us who have already and still yet
will step into new life from death.
To ensure people received the good news of His resurrection,
Jesus appeared in person to so many people over such an extended period of time
that the truth of the Resurrection was undeniable and, in fact, changed the world.
That truth still holds for us today the truth of His presence with us.
His message to them is still His message to us,
that the Kingdom of God is here, is within us,
is a new institution in the lives of man, and gives us the strength and power
to walk out the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.
Presenting Himself to a wide variety of people in a wide variety of settings,
Jesus remained visible and accessible to His disciples for forty days.
He began His ministry by fasting for forty days in the wilderness,
preparing Himself for the mission ahead of Him,
and now He shows Himself alive for forty days in a victory tour
as He brings His mission to completion.
The number forty often represents testing and trials,
such as the Israelites' wandering for forty years in the wilderness
or rain flooding the earth for forty days.
These forty days the Lord chooses to linger on earth
are also another example of the grace and mercy of the Lord
as He replaces the times of defeat with a time of triumph,
as He remains here on earth in person to give more than ample proof
to His followers of His resurrection life!)
and spoke about the kingdom of God.
(His message to them is still His message to us,
that the Kingdom of God is here, is within us,
is a new institution in the lives of man, and gives us the strength and power
to walk out the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.)
Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!
Matthew 28:16-20
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee,
to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.
(Jesus had earlier told them to meet Him on a particular Galilean mountain.
By this time, He had revealed Himself
to many of His disciples at different times and places.
But now He has appointed His disciples
to meet Him for His special instructions.
Today, He has also invited us to go to the mountain of the Lord,
to the very place in our lives today
in which He has predetermined to meet us,
to the very place He Himself has directed us,
and He meets us there to reveal Himself to us.)
When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.
(Stubbornly resistant, even standing in the very Presence of the Lord Himself,
some still doubted what they were seeing and had heard.
Though we stand in the very Presence of the Lord Himself,
though we are the very dwelling place of the Lord,
stubbornly resistant as we are, we, too, often still doubt.)
Then Jesus came to them and said,
(Doubting never daunts Jesus.
He comes to those who doubt, still seeking them out to reveal Himself to them,
just as still today He seeks us out to erase our doubts
and to prepare us to hear His next words of commission,
words from Jesus Himself that give His Own divine purpose for us.)
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
(Declaring His sovereignty and omnipotence,
Christ assures His friends that the mission upon which He is about to send them
carries with it His full endorsement and empowerment,
a reminder to us today that He still retains
that same authority and sovereignty and omnipotence in our lives
as He clarifies and endorses the mission He has for us today.)
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
(Here is our purpose today, to go, to disciple, to baptize, and to teach.
We go among those around us,
we live lives that draw them to us to see Jesus more clearly,
we immerse them in the newness of life that is theirs,
and we teach them truths the Lord has revealed
in the Good News and in His resurrection.
For some people, we are the only Jesus they will see.)
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
(Thank You, Lord, that You never leave us
and that You empower us to walk out the mission You have given us!)
Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!
John 20:19-29
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together,
with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders,
(Mary Magdalene had just told the disciples that she has actually seen the Lord,
risen and alive, and He has actually talked to her.
With what incredulous wonder they must have received the news,
and yet, filled with the fear of man,
they still failed to comprehend the full measure
of what His resurrection really meant.
Even though we have the fully documented truth of His resurrection
and know the impact of all that His resurrection implies for us today,
we still so often live in fear rather than grasp the truth that is ours in Christ.
What part of our lives today do we still lock away in fear,
failing to apply the truth of Who Jesus is to our daily walk?)
Jesus came and stood among them and said,
"Peace be with you!"
After He said this, He showed them His hands and side.
The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you!
As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you."
And with that He breathed on them and said,
"Receive the Holy Spirit.
(Jesus' appearance is always accompanied by His peace,
and He always immediately and tenderly extends His peace to us.
His perfect love casts out all our fear,
and then He breathes the new life of His Holy Spirit into us and over us
to empower and strengthen us as He sends us out.)
If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven;
if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
(As the disciples take the Good News to new audiences,
sent by Jesus into the world even as He had been sent by His Father,
now merely by virtue of proclaiming the forgiveness of sins in Christ,
and, depending upon the hearers' response to the disciples' call to repentance,
the disciples are, effectively, forgiving or not forgiving those who hear
by simply giving them the message for them to choose.)
Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve,
was not with the disciples when Jesus came.
So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in His Hands
and put my finger where the nails were,
and put my hand into His Side, I will not believe."
(Stubborn to the last, skeptical, unconvinced, disbelieving,
refusing to accept others' eye-witness accounts,
somehow rationalizing what is uncompromisingly laid before us,
we, like Thomas, often declare our unwillingness
to commit to new truths we have been given,
depending, rather, on our own limited understanding
and individual experience as the sole basis for fact.)
A week later His disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.
Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said,
"Peace be with you!"
Then He said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see My Hands.
Reach out your hand and put it into My Side.
Stop doubting and believe."
(Even with Thomas, even with us,
the Lord mercifully meets us where our need lies, where we are resistant,
where and how we most need Him to reveal Himself to us.
Thomas' absence from Jesus' first meeting with His disciples was no accident.
Instead, the Lord used Thomas' absence to reveal to us His determination
to reach out to all of us who doubt.)
Thomas said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
(Without hesitation, spontaneously,
no longer needing to touch Jesus' nail prints or His Side,
Thomas worships Christ, acknowledging Him as Lord.
When the Lord reveals Himself to us,
our only response is worshipful acknowledgement of Who He is.)
Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed;
blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
(You and I today are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
And today we are blessed as we rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus!)
Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!
John 20:11-18
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying.
As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb
and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been,
one at the head and the other at the foot.
(Just as the two carved golden cherubim
who protected the mercy seat of God's chosen dwelling place
faced each other seated atop the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant
with their wings folded heavenward in praise
to point our view upward toward God in praise and submission to Him
and their eyes cast downward gazing on the sprinkled blood of the sacrifice,
a picture of where God's gaze rests when He addresses our sin,
even now two angels stand guard over the place Jesus' Body had lain,
the ultimate and final Mercy Seat, one at His Head and one at His Feet,
guarding the spot where the Body had been placed
from Whom the blood sacrifice was given,
the Body where God Himself through Jesus Christ dwelt.
The stance of the cherubim teach us an important lesson,
to lift our hands in praise to Him
while our gaze remains intent and steadfast on His provision.)
They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"
"They have taken my Lord away," she said,
"and I don't know where they have put Him."
At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there,
but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
(Distracted, frantic, and desperate with fear and grief,
even the appearance of angels doesn't faze her.
How often does distraction blind us
to the very presence of heavenly hosts around us
as we entertain angels unaware.
Mary even fails to recognize Jesus through her tears and agony,
the very One she is seeking, the very One for Whom she longs.
In our trials, we so often fail to see Jesus
standing right before us revealing Himself to us,
waiting for us to focus on Him instead of the circumstances.)
He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?
Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking He was the gardener, she said,
"Sir, if you have carried Him away,
tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him."
Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic,
"Rabboni!" (which means "Teacher").
(Finally, when Jesus speaks her name, the fog of her despair and grief lifts
as she realizes she is standing in Jesus' very presence.
Today, He still tenderly asks us the question as a warm and loving invitation
to tell Him about our deepest hurt and our deepest needs.
He still stands before us today calling us by name to focus on Him
instead of the hopelessness and fear of circumstances we face.)
Jesus said, "Do not hold on to Me,
for I have not yet ascended to the Father.
Go instead to My brothers and tell them,
'I am ascending to My Father and your Father,
to My God and your God.'"
(Perhaps He is admonishing her that He is no longer the same,
that He is now the Holy Presence of God Himself.
Perhaps He is reminding her that His ascension is still some time away
and that she will have additional time to see Him.
Perhaps He is reminding her that His resurrected presence
impels her to step beyond herself and into His greater calling,
but the real treasure here is that Jesus gives
this solemn and joyous mission to a woman of that day.
He still extends that same calling and mission to us
to go tell others that He has risen and ascended into Heaven.)
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news:
"I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that He had said these things to her.
(With what incredulous joy they must have received her news
and one of the affirmations to us today that He has risen from the grave
and now lives in us through His Holy Spirit!)
Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!
John 20:1-10
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,
Mary Magdalene went to the tomb
and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
(As a picture of all of us who were lost and desperately need Christ,
this lowly woman had been delivered from darkness
and now is the one first chosen to see the first evidence of the resurrection.
When we are walking in the dark, in situations of loss and pain,
when we first seek the Lord, He shows us
that the stone has been rolled away to allow our entry into a new reality
of the situations we thought we were facing.
What she saw tells us that no stone in our lives is too big to be rolled away.)
So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple,
the one Jesus loved, (the younger disciple John) and said,
"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,
and we don't know where they have put Him!"
(As we often do in the circumstances of our lives,
she completely misinterprets what she sees,
assuming the Lord is no longer accessible,
seeing only what her closed perspective allows.)
So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb.
Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter
and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in
at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in.
(The younger and faster John leans over at the entrance
and intently and carefully inspects and examines the scene
in the way a careful detective would examine the scene.)
Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb.
He saw the strips of linen lying there,
as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head.
The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.
(The grave wrappings having been carefully removed
and folded tidily in place show clearly that Jesus' disappearance
was not the result of grave robbers having hastily stolen His Body in the night.)
Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first,
also went inside. He saw and believed.
(Because of his careful scrutiny of the setting,
the carefully folded grave clothes,
and recalling what Jesus had been telling them,
John now believes that Christ has risen.)
(They still did not understand from Scripture
that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
(Although John now believed what Jesus had repeatedly said to them,
neither he nor Peter still comprehended
that the Scriptures themselves had foretold and pictured
the necessity of, first, Jesus' death and, then, His resurrection.
To help us grasp, like these men, His message for our lives today,
the Lord patiently keeps revealing to us—where we are today—
the incremental pieces of Truth we can understand,
unveiling to us all that we can take in.
The Truth tells us that no challenge we face is greater than Jesus,
no stone is so big that it can separate us from His love,
from His resurrection power, not even death itself.
Even that challenge has been swallowed up in victory. )
Christ Is Risen!
He Is Risen, Indeed!

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings,

Sally
513 254 3874