Heads-up! Who needs a holy facelift?

 

(Raising hand sheepishly.)

 Things are looking up – except when they’re not. Or perhaps more accurately, things are looking up when I am looking up.

 

How does everything improve when we look up, as in keeping our eyes on God, instead of on ourselves and our own concerns?

 First, here’s an important clarification. Our God is omnipresent. That means He is everywhere – not just up. When we talk about looking up towards God, we’re speaking physically, not geographically. We’re pointing to His higher honor, wisdom, nobility, strength, power, and dominion – not to any tangible destination that we could mark or measure.

 

OK, back to the original question: How does looking up improve our outlook?

 How does everything improve when we look up, as in keeping our eyes on God instead of ourselves and our own concerns?

 

Let’s start with a big basic biblical truth. God is the one who lifts our heads.

 We might say that God does all the heavy lifting, when it comes to building our faith and raising our spirits. (To be clear: the Lord does all the heavy lifting in every situation His children face. And whatever lifting we do, we only do because He equips and enables us to do so. That’s not a trite, coy, or cute statement. It’s the bedrock of our belief.)

 

Another important Scriptural truth is this: God lifts our heads when we bow them to worship Him. (This becomes clearer when we consider the Scriptures cited below.)

 King David wrote the third Psalm after his own rebellious son drove him away from his royal city. In hiding, David might have been described as keeping his head down. But his outlook was upward, as he covered his head to pray to the Lord.

 “Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise against me! Many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver him. But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. I call out to the Lord, and He answers me from His holy mountain” (Psalm 3:1-1, NIV, emphasis added).

 The Hebrew word וּמֵרִ֥ים (pronounced ū·mê·rîm) pertains to lifting, raising, elevating, exalting, extolling, offering up, or setting on high. The same word (or related derivatives) appears nearly 200 times in the Old Testament, including these spots:

 “The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will praise Him; My father’s God, and I will exalt Him” (Exodus 15:2, NKJV, emphasis added).

 “All the gold of the offering which they offered up to the Lord, from the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, was 16,750 shekels” (Numbers 31:52, NASB, emphasis added).

 “The Lord makes some poor and others rich; He brings some down and lifts others up” (1 Samuel 2:7, NLT, emphasis added).

 “O, my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens” (Ezra 9:6, ESV, emphasis added).

 “Stand up and bless the Lord your God for ever and ever: and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.” (Nehemiah 9:5b, KJV, emphasis added).

 “And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me; In His tent I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord” (Psalm 27:6, AMP, emphasis added).

 “Come, let us tell of the Lord’s greatness; let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:3, NLT, emphasis added).

 “Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at His sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy, I will sing and make music to the Lord. (Psalm 27:6, NIV, emphasis added).

 

Look up!

 I’m feeling better already. Are you encouraged by these holy verses too?

 Let’s wrap this up with a favorite Scripture that always give me a lift. I hope it will lift your spirit (and your head) as well.

“The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” (Numbers 6:25-26, NKJV, emphasis added).

 Image/s: Public domain photo

 

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• Stick-necked or Soft-hearted?

 

Feel free to follow on Twitter. Don’t miss the Heart of a Ready Writer page on Facebook. You are invited to visit my Amazon author page as well.

Let's journey through the 4 Gospels in 45 days

Here’s a handy challenge for reading through the Gospels! We’ll read a couple of chapters each day to work through the first four books of the New Testament.

 The plan takes us (in biblical order) through all four Gospels.

   It’s a super way to study the ministry of our Lord Christ on the earth, as we read each of the four Gospel accounts: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

 We’ll start on February 1^st and finish in the middle of March.

 

Here’s a handy calendar to guide our daily reading.

 You can even print it out and check off each box, as we go. (I’ll be updating the one in the sidebar of this page, making myself accountable for the goal.)

 

Gospel readers: Start your engines.

 Ready, set, go!

 

Related items:

·        15 Scripture memory tips: 1) Write ‘em out.

·        Bible study cracks me up

·        Doing a new Bible study and losing sleep over it already

·        When God states the obvious, it's probably not

 

 

Feel free to follow on Twitter. Don’t miss the Heart of a Ready Writer page on Facebook. You are invited to visit my Amazon author page as well.

 

Image/s: Public domain photo/s, tracking calendar generated by this user

Join me in reading through Psalms and Proverbs in a month

 

Who’s diving into the Scriptures, as the new year opens?

 Not sure where to start? Here’s an idea.

 

Join me in reading through Psalms and Proverbs in one month.

 It’s simple. Just read FIVE PSALMS and ONE PROVERBS chapter each day. (Hint: Save a little extra time when we get to Psalms 119, the longest chapter in the whole Bible.)

 

Here’s a handy calendar to guide our daily reading.

 You can even print it out and check off each box, as we go. (I’ll be updating the one in the sidebar of this page, making myself accountable for the goal.)

 Let’s dig into the Psalms and Proverbs, and see what God teaches us this month.

 

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• 125 popular expressions with biblical origins
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• New Year’s question: Spigot or sponge?

  

Feel free to follow on Twitter. Don’t miss the Heart of a Ready Writer page on Facebook. You are invited to visit my Amazon author page as well.

 

Image/s: Public domain photo/s

When God states the obvious, it's probably not

 

 Repetitions and seemingly obvious statements in the Bible probably aren’t as simple as we tend to think they are. We may be tempted to skim or skip through passages that sound redundant or overly familiar to us.

But maybe that’s the point.

 If God took the time to repeat something, it’s not because He slipped in His speech, as we are wont to do. And He’s not nagging.

 You know how we might relate the same stories or jokes or other statements multiple times, perhaps because we forgot we’d already told them? Or we thought someone might not have listened to us the first seven or eight times? Or we didn’t like how a listener wasn’t really listening or answered us in an unexpected and unsatisfying way?

 

 I’m thinking that’s not what it means when God repeats things – especially in His Holy Word. Or when He restates something that seems already evident to us. When He does this, it’s clearly for emphasis. He wants to make sure we really grasp the point.

Here’s an example.

 In Joshua 13, the chapter opens this way:

 “Now Joshua was old and advanced in years, and the Lord said to him, ‘You are old and advanced in years’” (v. 1, ESV).

 It’s not like Joshua didn’t already know his age. He was old. He was advanced in years. (And aren’t those literally the same thing?) But God pointed it out to him.

God wasn't springing Joshua’s age on him as a surprise. I suspect God was recognizing and acknowledging Joshua’s situation. (The Lord went on to outline Joshua’s instructions, which were becoming more urgent as he grew older.)

 Looking at our own lives, how often does God point out our most obvious conditions, crises, or concerns? Consider these possibilities:

 Now Jake was battling post-traumatic stress disorder. The Lord said to him, “You are battling post-traumatic stress disorder.”

 Now Katy was struggling with chronic migraines. The Lord said to her, “You are struggling with chronic migraines.”

 Now Grandpappy was enduring his third round of chemotherapy. The Lord said to him, “You are enduring your third round of chemotherapy.”

 Now Lucy and Sy were sorrowing over another miscarriage. The Lord said to them, “You are sorrowing over another miscarriage.”

 Now Leslie was job-hunting after receiving another pink slip. The Lord said to her, “You are job-hunting after receiving another pink slip.”

 Our all-seeing and all-knowing God is not caught off-guard by any of these difficult scenarios. Not ever. He’s waiting for us to call on Him.

We get that – at least much of the time we do. But how do we feel when He tells us about our troubles, which we painfully and obviously already know about?

 It’s like God is affirming our challenges.

 

“I see you,” He says.

 He understands. He knows our anxieties. He sees our struggles. He feels our pain. And He steps into our lives to meet us exactly where we are.

 And then, once He has our attention, He leads us forward, be it through or over or past whatever we’re facing.

 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9, NIV)

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• Dark and difficult emotions don’t negate our faith.
• Does God say no to earnest prayers?
• Maybe worry isn’t all bad.
• Ouch! Why do we grieve grievers with tacky questions?
• Peace in the storm can only be God’s.

 

Feel free to follow on Twitter. Don’t miss the Heart of a Ready Writer page on Facebook. You are invited to visit my Amazon author page as well.

 

Image/s: Man with a Knapsack, Winslow Homer, 1873, public domain