The words stung like a knife. “How about if we all treat her to dinner to thank her for all the lovely ornaments she is letting us give out?” All the ornaments SHE is letting us give out? Are you kidding me? I contributed quite a few of those ornaments, and so did other coworkers. Why is SHE getting all the credit?

Reactions, perceptions, offenses, responses…What a difference words can make.

It was Christmastime and my coworkers and I were getting ready to go caroling at our local hospital. Along with singing the carols, we gave out ornaments to the patients to wish them a Merry Christmas and hopefully bring some cheer. Who wants to be in the hospital at Christmas, especially in a cancer ward???

It was a noble endeavor for us and we felt good about it, but then there were those ornaments. Someone had the idea for each of us to bring in ornaments from home that we no longer wanted and use them to give to the patients, as long as they were nice of course. We had tried making ornaments the year prior and they didn’t seem to hold up very well so we were looking for nicer ones but didn’t want to spend a lot of money to purchase them. It seemed like a good idea…. until SHE got credit for ALL of them!!

Well, at least it bothered me, but then maybe other people just weren’t bold enough like me to speak up; but was speaking up really worth the wrath that followed? I think not, now that I’ve suffered the consequences, and those consequences continued on for quite a while, and it even caused us to forego the caroling the following Christmas.

Thinking about Abigail’s response in 1 Samuel 25 when Nabal refused David’s request for food after watching his flocks, the way she immediately went before him in humility, showered him with food and gifts, intervened on behalf of her mean husband, makes me so wish I had responded differently in this situation. Makes me wish I had overlooked the comment the way Abigail overlooked her husband’s selfish responses.

Unfortunately, once the words are spoken from our mouths or put down in print, they are irreversible. The damage is done, and sometimes the effect cannot be undone no matter how hard we try.

We all want to live out a good testimony for the Lord, don’t we? But when we find ourselves taking offense to something someone said and reacting to it, we often tarnish that testimony. That is how I felt about what happened when I reacted about who was getting credit for those ornaments.

Humility. Not always an easy thing to carry out in our life. To be able to overlook an offense, to be able to let something go that really gets under your skin, to be able to truly leave it in God’s hands instead of taking into our own and lashing out…wow, what a struggle it can be!

But God is faithful! Let us always remember Proverbs 15:1, which says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

Lord, help me to always use Your gentle answer and never my own harsh words. Help me to remember who I am in Christ and lead me in behavior and speech that reflects Your character, not mine.

I happened upon Creflo Dollar’s broadcast this evening and know it was a divine appointment made by the Holy Spirit.  He was speaking about the difference between what we had to do when under the law and what Jesus already did under grace.

I bet you have heard the saying, as I have, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.”  Well, as Creflo pointed out, we are saved by grace (Glory halleluia!)  BUT, we are no longer sinners!!  Once we are saved, we are the righteousness of Christ!  The bible says that Jesus Himself is righteous and that “He justifies and accepts as righteous him who has true faith in Jesus.”~Romans 3:26b  When we have true faith in Him, He gives us His righteousness.  Glory halleluia!!

Romans 6:13 instructs us to “not continue offering or yielding your bodily members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but offer and yield yourselves to God as though you have been raised from the dead to life, and your bodily members to God, presenting them as implements of righteousness.”  We are to live as if we were raised from the dead because of what Jesus did on the cross for us.  We are to present ourselves to God as righteousness not as sin because Jesus lives in us and He gives us His righteousness.  Our sin died with Him on the cross.

Galatians 2:20 states that we have been crucified with Christ and we no longer live, but it is Christ who lives in us.  We are still in our body but we now live by the faith of Christ. Sin no longer has power over us and we should no longer think of ourselves as sinners.

We have to exercise faith in order to receive what Christ gave us when He died on the cross, but we don’t rely on ourselves for that faith; that faith comes from Him!  Him living in us gives us the faith we need to receive all that He did for us on the cross.  That, my friend, is exciting revelation!

II Corinthians 5:21 puts it this way: “For our sake He made Christ to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Time to celebrate my friend!  If you have true faith in Jesus and He lives in you, you are no longer a sinner but are the righteousness of Jesus Christ!

My personalized version of Psalm 44:5-8:

Through you, Lord, I push back my enemies; through Your name I trample my foes. I do not trust in my own resources; they do not bring me victory, but You give me victory over my enemies. You put my adversaries to shame. In God I make my boast all day long, and I will praise His name forever!

And from Psalm 34:1-6:

I will extol the Lord at all times.  His praise will always be on my lips.  My soul will boast in the Lord.  Let the afflicted hear and rejoice.  Glorify the Lord with me.  Let us exalt His name together!

Revelation 1:7, “Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.”

While reading this scripture today, the Lord gave me insight that I hadn’t really had before.  Sure, I’ve always known that His word says Jesus will return “in the clouds” and “every eye will see Him”, but today I noticed the end of the verse, “and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.”

My dear reader, do you know Jesus, or will you be one who mourns at His coming?  You see, once we accept Jesus into our hearts, acknowledging what He did on the cross in payment for our sins, He comes to live inside us by means of His Holy Spirit.  At that point, we are no longer “peoples of the earth” but instead peoples of His spirit.  We will not mourn at His return but will instead rejoice because we will forever be with Him in Heaven for all eternity.

I Corinthians 15:50-54 declares that “…flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God…”  Peoples of the earth live out life in their flesh and blood.

Let’s break down what John 3:18 says, “Whoever believes in Him (referring to Jesus) is not condemned (this person has eternal life in Heaven with God), but whoever does not believe (the peoples of the earth who reject Him) stands condemned already (this person is condemned because of his own heart and actions) because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only son.”  (We must acknowledge our need of a Savior, accept that Jesus is that Savior, put our life in His hands and live for Him the rest of our days, not living for the things of the world.)

So, which will it be?  Will you mourn or rejoice at His coming?  He is coming back soon and I hope you will be among those who rejoice at His return!