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On this hump day, here’s a simple verse that brings me lots of hope.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

It’s Friday so I have just a simple little thought to conclude my general ideas about work this week.  In the end, everything we do and everything we build and everything we accomplish should be for one purpose- to make Him known and glorified.

23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,

On Wednesday mornings I have started to attending Anna’s spin class.   I had heard for months that her class was hard and to avoid it, which of course is the reason I choose to start attending.  It’s hard.  She pushes the pace, works the class and encourages the spinners to reach deep and get more out of themselves.

It’s tough!   

But at the end it’s good.

I like the class.   I find myself looking forward to Wednesday mornings, even though I know my body will hurt and struggle for 45 long hard minutes.  It makes me search deep inside myself and find and get more out of myself.

But I know that energy output is short lived and there’s an end to the struggle.  And I know I have the strength to make it to the end.

It’s not always that way in life.  We can fight, we can have encouragers, we can dig deep inside ourselves, and sometimes we need a little more to make it through.  Fortunately, there is someplace we can turn.  The strength of the Lord provides that extra bit to push us through the times when we need more to made it!

“Search for the LORD and for his strength; continually seek him.” Psalms‬ ‭105:4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Keep seeking his strength. Keep pushing.  Make today great!

Will is a strange thing.
And I am not talking about my nephew.
Figuring out the balance between what we should do and what we want to do is a strange complex place. Add in the whole ‘Lord’s will versus our own will debate’ and a whole new complex web of weirdness is created.
Until the will’s are aligned. And really that’s the issue – alignment.
That’s what I like about this passage.

“That’s when Thomas, the one called the Twin, said to his companions, “Come along. We might as well die with him.”” ‭‭John‬ ‭11:16‬ ‭MSG‬‬

It’s an awkward resignation to aligning wills.

Jesus was about to walk about into ‘enemy’ territory and I just imagine his followers throwing up their hands and saying ‘ok, I guess we’ll go to!’.

And sometimes that’s how we get alignment. We can fight against it, and make ourselves miserable, and lose.

Or we can step out on faith and ‘die with him’.

The irony there is that really in order for us to step out on faith and align our wills, we have to let a part of ourselves die, just like he did.

Today, and everyday going forward, lets us ‘die with him’. We might as well, after all he did create the world and is responsible for our righteousness!!

I woke up with these words on my lips.

My life is your yours
My hope is in you only
My heart you own
You make this sinner holy.

They are from a song called Your Glory by All Sons and Daughter, which by the way is one of my favorite worship bands.

The words continue like this.

Because you glory is so beautiful
I fall onto my knees in awe
and the heartbeat of my life
is to worship in your light
cause you glory is so beautiful

The rest of the song just gets better and it ends with a call back to the old hymn ‘Nothing but the Blood’. Sometimes, well most of the time, I just can’t even figure out why the Christ would die on the cross for my sins and why his blood would be shed for me, someone who continues to finds ways not to obey the simple set of instructions he set out for us.

oh, that glory, that righteousness, that goodness, that blood.

Wow.

It brings tears to my eyes and leaves me speechless.

So, let it wash you today. Let his goodness be the reason you live today a little differently than yesterday, washed clean and righteous in the eyes of the Creator!

And then fall onto your knees in awe..

7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:7 KJV

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 19It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 20God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake. 1 Peter 1:18-19 NLT