Easter was Unique and Filled with Opportunities to find Joy. Even if our pastels appeared on television instead of actually going to Church. We know we will tell this Easter day to generations yet unborn!
We enjoyed 4 Easter Programs today. We read from the Gospel of Mark and were read to, to Look Upward. Enthralled I repeated, "Look up." And our Pastor then said, 'Now repeat with me, "Look Up!" ' So Edward and I repeated this, again.
If you have time this week... you might want to look at few Good Friday and Easter Sermons on Youtube.
When I have done this Sermon Youtube finding, (we zigzagged today between Easter activities and Sermons) I have found repeat Sermons; the messages are repeating in phrases due only to One factor. The Holy Spirit. Comfort. Comforter. Helper. Hear O Israel, The Lord Thy God is One. Last week during Holy Week, the Sermons said, "What will you learn from God this season?" In God's Timing, I'll be able to answer this for myself. And you will answer for yourself.
This Holy Week, I learned how much of Life is beautiful, how blessed we have been with plain life and in not counting the blessings, the Blessings almost passed by uncounted. And I feel assured in faith, more answers to this question of learning will arrive. We will look to the journey Father God gives and find the answers.
Easter, the message from different locations, was the same. Look Upward. Look Up.
Isaiah 49
Listen to me, O coastlands,
and give attention, you peoples from afar.
The Lord called me from the womb,
from the body of my mother he named my name.
2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
in his quiver he hid me away.
3 And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the Lord,
and my recompense with my God.”
5 And now the Lord says,
he who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him;
and that Israel might be gathered to him—
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
6 he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
7 Thus says the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation,
the servant of rulers:
“Kings shall see and arise;
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves;
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
The Restoration of Israel
8 Thus says the Lord:
“In a time of favor I have answered you;
in a day of salvation I have helped you;
I will keep you and give you
as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land,
to apportion the desolate heritages,
9 saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’
to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’
They shall feed along the ways;
on all bare heights shall be their pasture;
10 they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
and by springs of water will guide them.
11 And I will make all my mountains a road,
and my highways shall be raised up.
12 Behold, these shall come from afar,
and behold, these from the north and from the west,
and these from the land of Syene.”
13 Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the Lord has comforted his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted.
14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
17 Your builders make haste;
your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.
18 Lift up your eyes around and see;
they all gather, they come to you.
As I live, declares the Lord,
you shall put them all on as an ornament;
you shall bind them on as a bride does.
19 “Surely your waste and your desolate places
and your devastated land—
surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants,
and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
20 The children of your bereavement
will yet say in your ears:
‘The place is too narrow for me;
make room for me to dwell in.’
21 Then you will say in your heart:
‘Who has borne me these?
I was bereaved and barren,
exiled and put away,
but who has brought up these?
Behold, I was left alone;
from where have these come?’”
22 Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations,
and raise my signal to the peoples;
and they shall bring your sons in their arms,
and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
23 Kings shall be your foster fathers,
and their queens your nursing mothers.
With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you,
and lick the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”
24 Can the prey be taken from the mighty,
or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?
25 For thus says the Lord:
“Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken,
and the prey of the tyrant be rescued,
for I will contend with those who contend with you,
and I will save your children.
26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh,
and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine.
Then all flesh shall know
that I am the Lord your Savior,
and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
The work God has given mankind is to believe in the One He has sent. Jesus.
God has also told us we are like Living Stones. We are building. Believing and building are daily work. We have to put aside what is negativity and reach with great determination for what pulls us Up. Look Up. Work Up. Go Up. Believing in Jesus Christ and His Promises. Finding what is real in His Mercies Renew Daily. Finding how He Daily Loadeth us with Benefits.
God tells us in several verses. Heaven has Highways. The Hills and Highways of Heaven.
Wondrous. We are on this High Way today. Look Up. Jesus has plans for us, as Prodigal Children, to be run to by Father God.
When the Bible tells us of going to Jerusalem, God calls His New City, the Bible always says going 'up' to Jerusalem. Jerusalem, God's Chosen City, is upward in elevation.
One foot forward. One step 'Up'. In the time of virus, we say don't make the road too short. We all think this. God is saying something more wonderful. He is saying when we walk in His Paths, He is our Encouragement. He is our Joy and makes us Strong. Jesus never said I find the weakend sheep helpful. God has always said, I am The Good Shepherd. Jesus says this about the road to the Hills and Highway High Ways of Heaven, I am The Way.
Jesus goes on about being on the High Way, He says, "I am The Life."
The problems along the High Way are malnourishment in the place of nurturing. Sometimes from poverty of soul, love, finance, body, health, sadness. A bandaid that doesn't do healing: Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
The High Way works and has this: We walk with the Holy Spirit, Father God places in us. We love because He first Loves us.
We take one step up. We are Loved. We know within us God Loves us as our Father. Joy, God encourages Joy. He finds Joy gives us strength and generosity. Father God walks with us and shows us our Strength in God brings Joy. Father God gives us Peace. Not the always happy variety the Disciples of Jesus didn't have. Peace walking with Jesus we will find the blind see, the deaf and tender patience and then hear, the leper is held and healed, the dying have hope and are raised, parents receive their children back to them. New Life. Jesus doesn't walk down Mount Tabor from the Transfiguration and blast the disciples for being unable to help the horrified father of an ill son. Jesus is Patient. The father can't summon faith, Jesus helps with his kindness. The Goodness of God walking with us is to want goodness and mercy to be our footprints as David did. Jesus walks with us to give us faithfulness. The journey is decades long and Jesus gives us self control to take the next step 'up' to see the future with hope.
In Jesus Christ we are Looking Up. We are on the High Way leading to the hills and Highways of God's Living Kingdom. Today.
Matthew 6:33
Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.Keeping in step with the Holy Spirit.
Exodus 23:16
You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor.
Jeremiah 15:16
Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts.
John 6:68
Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Philippians 3:13,14
Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have laid hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.
Exodus 10:9
Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old. We will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the Lord. "
Galatians 6:9
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-22
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
Isaiah 58:11
“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desires in scorched places, and make your bones strong; and you will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose water does not fail.”
1 Peter 5:10
“After your season of suffering, God in all of his grace will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
Psalm 138:7
“Though I am surrounded by troubles, you will protect me from the anger of my enemies. You reach out your hand, and the power of your right hand saves me. The Lord will work out his plans for my life—for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don’t abandon me, for you made me.”
Isaiah 66:9
“I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born.”
Philippians 2:13
“For God is working in you, giving you the desires and the power to do what pleases him.”
Deuteronomy 20:4
“For the Lord your God is going with you. He will fight for you against
your enemy and he will give you victory.”
Matins (during the night, at about 2 a.m.); also called Vigil
Abba,
Jesus was suddenly walking with the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus. And their hearts were strangely warmed and they asked Jesus to stay to eat with them. Your Words are Living and Active and when we long for Your Words, You are there.
To Know Scripture is to Know the Power of God. For Your Glory, Father God.
We ask You, to walk with us and guide us and lead us from this time. Help us and encourage us to see what this season teaches us. With Your Spirit, we will be Brave, filled with Valor, and Diligent. You have taught us, when we wander away and have fallen, You will search for us. Help us in those moments to be found by Jesus, wonderful Jesus.
Help us to see the Blessings in each day and in finding Your Blessings, the day is blessed. The times of refreshing more enduring. Meaningful Life. Abundant Life to Look Up and Find what You daily give us. If we don't see our blessings, we cannot live our Blessings.
In Your Enduring and Prevailing Love, Grace and Mercy we Live.
We are Blessed to seek You First. Blessed to be finding the High Way of Your Heaven today. Blessed to ask to see more Heaven upon earth. Blessed to have You as our Daily Bread. Blessed to ask to Live Love, Joy and Peace.
Blessed to pray in expectation of Your Love and Willingness. Blessed to say Thank You that during Holy Week, we have seen the Glimpse of Your Glory working to end this oppressive Virus.
In Jesus we Live and ask this for those we Love. We pray for our own strength, Love and ask Jesus to cover this Nation, those who lead this Nation and all other nations in this fight.
The Light of mankind to shine with Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the Lord, Amen.
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