meditations for an everyday relationship with Jesus

I love you

John 15:9-12 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you. Remain in My love. If you keep My commandments you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and remain in His love.

I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is My commandment: that you love one another just as I have loved you.”

Jesus leads by example! He knows what love is, and it is not all warm and fuzzy. “Love is a battlefield” to quote Joan Jett.

Love is keeping a covenant and the rules that keep it passionate and whole. And sometimes love is about help getting through to a better place than where we have been or even were we are. Structure today plays a big role in our later joy. If we do not build a strong foundation there will be nothing to build upon.

God is our foundation and Jesus our Cornerstone.

Keep the commandments

Love as we have been loved

Follow the example of Jesus

When all else fails remain deeply in love.

As a remnant

Ezra 9:15 Lord God of Israel, You are righteous, for we survive as a remnant today. Here we are before You with our guilt, though no one can stand in Your presence because of this.

Here we stand, Lord God, before you with our sin. And yet, in Your mercy, you do not consume us in your purifying fire.

Help us never to forget that we are a remnant, so very few, and that we survive, not because of what we have done, but because of what You have done … and undone. We know You are just, and we are grateful; but more so we are joyfully aware that you are a God of grace and a God of deep forgiveness.

We are a precious few; You protect and preserve us even in our unrighteousness. Lord God, if we received what we truly deserve, even Your precious remnant would be a vapor today and tomorrow a forgotten memory.

Thank You for Your forgiving heart, Dear Father, and for the dismissal of our sin. Thank you for never forgetting us, always listening ...