Zephaniah 3:17- wrap your mind around it

“The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)

My first reaction to these verses was a typical Shanna "excuse me?" *one eyebrow raised in slight disbelief*

God is with me. Got that, herad it in Sunday School, proved it in Grad School.

He is mighty to save me. Yup, my mind can handle that with very little trouble.

He takes great delight in me? Now let's hold on just a minute. The God and Holy Creator of the whole wide universe takes delight in me?! um.... *scratches head* really? I had a hard time wrapping my brain around that. But as hard as it is for me to comprehend that He delights in me, His Word says it is true. When I allow myself to agree with His Word, I cannot help but smile. To me, “taking delight in” means that Jesus likes to be around me. He wants me to be near Him. He laughs when I’m funny. He listens when I tell Him my innermost thoughts and feelings. He supports and comforts me when I’m sick or hurt, and He instructs me when I screw up so I can be free from destructive thoughts and impure motives.

He delights in me as a parent delights in His child. As His child who sometimes goes astray, He disciplines me to bring me back to Him. He protects and guards my spirit, soul and mind. If I turn to Him when I am upset or fearful, He will “quiet” me with “His love”. This love is strong and unconditional. It won’t diminish over time, and I cannot earn it, but I must open my heart and allow myself to receive it. During difficult times, if I will allow myself to concentrate on what His Word says and not on my doubts or fearful thoughts, His love comes through the Scriptures and into my heart.

He will quiet me with His love. Honestly, my first thought was, "I hope so because delighting in me is throwing me for a loop." But the last one really kicked my butt.

He rejoices over me with singing. Why would He do that? I'm SO not worthy of that kind of love. And with singing?? I don't even like my own family to sing Happy Birthday to me because I don't like that kind of attention on me. Why on earth would God choose to lavish me with that kind of attention. There are certainly more worthy people on earth, why me? Who am I?............

....................... after much pondering I asked myself, "What's the catch? God is too wonderful." I don’t deserve any of this. There must be a catch. A few years later, I’ve yet to find it. There is no risk in giving all of your heart to Jesus. He already knows you intimately. He knows your fears, your insecurities, your self-centeredness, your selfishness, your anger, your frustrations, your doubts, your regrets. Nothing about you shocks Him or causes Him to despise you. He loves you, and His love is perfect and complete. He is ever ready to help you overcome the Enemy. He is “with you”. He is your Champion and Defender. He is “mighty to save”. I need a champion who is “mighty”! How ‘bout you?

To be sure, those in Christ Jesus will live happily ever after—and that’s no fairy tale. When I spend time with Jesus in His Word, in prayer, and in quiet solitude with my heart set on Him in praise and adoration, I know that I know that I know my God is real, strong, and loving . God is wonderful. I don’t deserve all He offers me in Christ Jesus. I never will. Praise be to God that I don’t have to earn it because of the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross. As soon as I confessed my sins and accepted Jesus into my heart, I became His very own and an heir to His kingdom. My Prince has come to me. And His name is Christ Jesus. It’s all about grace fueled by unconditional love. The unconditional, incomprehensible love of God.

Thoughts On Tuesday Night

"Love, Hate, Cling" This was how our Tuesday night C&C Bible study began. Love. Hate. Cling.

Here a just a few highlights:

Romans 12:9 (NIV) "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good."

When we ask "how are you?", do we really care or are we fulfilling a social expectation?

Romans 12:9 (NLT) "Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them."

"We are all like the moon, we all have a dark side we don't want anyone to see."

Where does sincere love come from?

1 Timothy 1:5 (NLT)" The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith"

Sincere love comes from a pure heart, clear conscience, and a genuine or sincere faith. How do we come into posession of a pure heart?

Acts 15:8 (NIV) "God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us."

Only when we give our heart to God can He make it pure and put it back in us. But what is sincere love? What is our example to follow (here's a real kick in the pants!)

1 John 4:7-11 (NIV) ⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Read it again. God's love is how ought to love! Do we? Do we really? Not even a little. Jesus is our standard for how to love others and His love was always outwardly focused.

Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV) ³⁷Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

No where in there does Jesus say, "but make sure you take some time to love yourself". He didn't need to, we've got that down pat! We can love ourselves like no other creature on this planet! No, Jesus says that love should be always pointed outward. First to God and then to others.

Outwardly focused love and outwardly focused manifestations of that love, without hypocrisy.

Think on it, it'll blow your mind!!

Worthless into Precious, Part 1

by Gwen Smith

Today's Truth
"You are precious and honored in my sight..." (Isaiah 43:4a, NIV).

Friend to Friend
Last winter, I bought my daughter a really cute jacket at the mall. It's a hoodie that's made of a cuddly fabric with cream, lavender, and mint green horizontal stripes. The jacket zips up in the front and is well crafted, stylish, and simply adorable.

When I bought it, I felt like the price on the tag was a fair one, so I gladly pulled out my wallet and paid the retail amount. I was like a kid in a candy store on the way home. I fully anticipated a shriek of happiness from my little bag of beans when I gave it to her. Delightfully, I wasn't disappointed. Kennedy loved her new coat, and I was pleased with my purchase. Happy dances all around...until a week later, when I saw the same jacket in the same store at a greatly reduced price. Are you tensing up with me? Suddenly, I felt schnookered! Ripped off. Taken advantage of. As soon as I saw the red line on the price tag of the unsold coats, everything changed -- Kennedy's jacket wasn't worth what I paid for it.

When we speak of the worth of something, we often consider it a relative term - one that has shifting factors. For example: last week the cute jacket was thirty-nine dollars, and now it's nineteen ninety-nine. The jacket didn't change, but its perceived worth did.

Now, consider the worth of a woman. Are the factors that determine her value based upon variable, shifting factors or are they based upon fixed factors? Seems to be a silly question, doesn't it? Fixed, of course! But, if the answer is so glaringly obvious, why do we struggle so much as women with feeling worthless? Why do we walk around feeling like that red lined jacket? I think it's because we often allow variable earthly factors to define our worth.

What kind of variable factors?

There are so many reasons why women feel worthless:

Ø Because they've been abused (raped, molested, physically abused, verbally abused...)

Ø Because they've been told that they're worthless (by a parent, spouse, sibling, teenage child, or another...)

Ø Because of choices they've made (divorce, infidelity, abortion, promiscuity, eating disorders, addictions, uncontrolled anger...)

Ø Because they've been cheated on (infidelity, internet affair, pornography...)

Ø Because they're co-dependent (conclude their value based upon other people -- "If my husband isn't okay, I'm not okay.")

Ø Because they don't collect a paycheck (stay at home moms that have left the work force, laid off employees, displaced employees, those on disability...)

Ø Because they've battled an illness (unable to care for family, perform basic home duties, participate in ministry or Bible study like they once did, can't drive, cook...)

Unfortunately, the variable factors that we use to define our worth are endless. Many of us feel worthless. Why? We've felt ignored, invisible, insignificant, useless, undesired, ugly, unloved, or forgotten. We girls are emotional, broken in many ways. Great portions of our identity and of our personal value are wrapped into combustible packages of emotion...how we feel about this or that. The truth is, our worth has nothing to do with our feelings.

Trust me! I am not going to try to convince you that I know everything there is to know about feeling like a woman of worth. Or about being a woman of worth. I am in the trenches with you. I struggle with normal woman things. I don't live a fancy schmancy, rose-colored wonder-life. I hit the snooze button several times each morning. I pack lunches for my kids. I spend countless hours of my life each year sitting in the car pool line. It's a never-ending struggle for me to keep the laundry cleaned, and my kids often have to fish for a matching pair of socks in the clean-clothes basket. My husband is my soul mate, but is far from perfect. For that matter, Brad should win a lifetime achievement award for enduring the drama of me! And my kids bring me both great joy and great frustration on a daily basis.

Is this sounding at all familiar to you?

See -- I'm just like you, and I'm walking this faith journey right beside you. In fact, the more I know God, the less inclined I am to pretend to have life or faith figured out. Amen? I'm constantly tempted to define my worth with activities, emotions, and accomplishments. I've come to realize, however, that way of thinking is a spiritual dead end road. Scripture tells us that anything we do in our own strength or of our own goodness is of no value to God. "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6a, emphasis mine).

What I do know is this: because of Jesus Christ, I'm a woman of highest worth. Not because of anything else. I'm a grace girl. Not perfect by a long stretch. I've been changed by the unconditional love of God and restored to perfect beauty through the shed blood of Jesus. Because of love, we are His daughters, precious in His sight. In light of this, we need to set aside feelings that diminish our value, and embrace our proper identity: child of the King of Kings.

Hear this, friend: feelings of worthlessness are from Satan himself. It burns me up that the enemy has such a strong grip on God's daughters in this area. We need to associate the word worthless with the word lie. That's exactly what it is, a big, fat lie! I talk to women all the time who bend a knee to negative feelings and live defeated lives because they don't quite know how to overcome their sense of worthlessness. God wants every one of us to experience healing and have an appropriate sense of self-worth.

So let's go back to Kennedy's new coat for just a moment. Imagine walking into God's department store. There on the rack, you spy a coat that is just plain fabulous -- I mean, stop-you-in-your-tracks fabulous! One-size fits all, the tag reads. Yeah, right, you whisper under your breath. Then you flip over the price tag and it's crazy expensive. Way beyond what you could ever dream of paying...like, if you added up every dollar that ever passed through your hands -- then multiplied that by ten thousand -- that kind of expensive. Then imagine the storeowner walking over to you, slipping the coat off the rack and onto your shoulders.

"It's a perfect fit," He smiles.

"Sir," you manage with a whisper, "I could never afford such a coat. This is meant for royalty and I'm, well, just an ordinary girl."

"Oh precious woman, this coat is made especially for you, and the price has already been paid in full."

As the owner straightens the sleeves on your arms and adjusts the collar around your neck, you notice his hands...nail pierced hands. And suddenly you realize that this is the covering you were meant to wear all along.

You see, the Bible tells us that because of what Jesus did on the cross, we can be clothed with the "robe of righteousness." The apostle Paul tells us that when we are reconciled to God, we become His righteousness. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). There's no way we could ever afford or earn such a robe. But Jesus gave His life for us - He earned it for us. He paid the price and we receive the gift. Why? Because you're worth it. You are precious and highly valuable in the eyes of the One who sees. And you never, never, never have to worry about being on anyone's bargain rack again.

Let's Pray
Holy Father, I'm humbled at the very thought that I could be viewed as precious in Your eyes. Thank You for taking on my sin so that I could take on your righteousness. Please help me to see myself as You see me. Help me to thrive in Your beauty!

In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Now It's Your Turn
What came to your mind as you read today's devotion? Grab your journal and write about it.

Are you held captive by feelings of worthlessness? Spend a few moments in prayer and ask God to reveal truth to your heart about how He sees you.

Print or write out this verse: "I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands" (Isaiah 49:15-16, NASB). Set it to memory and allow it to serve as a reminder that you are precious to God.

THE SELFISH GIANT by Oscar Wilde

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used
to go and play in the Giant's garden.

It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass.  Here and
there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there
were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into
delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich
fruit.  The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the
children used to stop their games in order to listen to them.  "How
happy we are here!" they cried to each other.

One day the Giant came back.  He had been to visit his friend the
Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years.  After the
seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his
conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own
castle.  When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.

"What are you doing here?" he cried in a very gruff voice, and the
children ran away.

"My own garden is my own garden," said the Giant; "any one can
understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself."
So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS
WILL BE
PROSECUTED

He was a very selfish Giant.

The poor children had now nowhere to play.  They tried to play on
the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and
they did not like it.  They used to wander round the high wall when
their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden
inside.  "How happy we were there," they said to each other.

Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little
blossoms and little birds.  Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant
it was still winter.  The birds did not care to sing in it as there
were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom.  Once a
beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw
the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped
back into the ground again, and went off to sleep.  The only people
who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost.  "Spring has
forgotten this garden," they cried, "so we will live here all the
year round."  The Snow covered up the grass with her great white
cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver.  Then they
invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came.  He was
wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew
the chimney-pots down.  "This is a delightful spot," he said, "we
must ask the Hail on a visit."  So the Hail came.  Every day for
three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most
of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast
as he could go.  He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like
ice.

"I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming," said the
Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold
white garden; "I hope there will be a change in the weather."

But the Spring never came, nor the Summer.  The Autumn gave golden
fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave none.
"He is too selfish," she said.  So it was always Winter there, and
the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced
about through the trees.

One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some
lovely music.  It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it
must be the King's musicians passing by.  It was really only a
little linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since
he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be
the most beautiful music in the world.  Then the Hail stopped
dancing over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a
delicious perfume came to him through the open casement.  "I
believe the Spring has come at last," said the Giant; and he jumped
out of bed and looked out.

What did he see?

He saw a most wonderful sight.  Through a little hole in the wall
the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of
the trees.  In every tree that he could see there was a little
child.  And the trees were so glad to have the children back again
that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving
their arms gently above the children's heads.  The birds were
flying about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were
looking up through the green grass and laughing.  It was a lovely
scene, only in one corner it was still winter.  It was the farthest
corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy.  He was
so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree,
and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly.  The poor tree
was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was
blowing and roaring above it.  "Climb up! little boy," said the
Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy
was too tiny.

And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out.  "How selfish I have
been!" he said; "now I know why the Spring would not come here.  I
will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I
will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's
playground for ever and ever."  He was really very sorry for what
he had done.

So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and
went out into the garden.  But when the children saw him they were
so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter
again.  Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full
of tears that he did not see the Giant coming.  And the Giant stole
up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into
the tree.  And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds
came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms
and flung them round the Giant's neck, and kissed him.  And the
other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any
longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring.  "It is
your garden now, little children," said the Giant, and he took a
great axe and knocked down the wall.  And when the people were
going to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with
the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant
to bid him good-bye.

"But where is your little companion?" he said:  "the boy I put into
the tree."  The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him.

"We don't know," answered the children; "he has gone away."

"You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow," said the
Giant.  But the children said that they did not know where he
lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played
with the Giant.  But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never
seen again.  The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he
longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him.  "How I
would like to see him!" he used to say.

Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble.  He could
not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched
the children at their games, and admired his garden.  "I have many
beautiful flowers," he said; "but the children are the most
beautiful flowers of all."

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing.
He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the
Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked.  It
certainly was a marvellous sight.  In the farthest corner of the
garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms.  Its
branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and
underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden.  He
hastened across the grass, and came near to the child.  And when he
came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who
hath dared to wound thee?"  For on the palms of the child's hands
were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on
the little feet.

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I
may take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and
he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me
play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my
garden, which is Paradise."

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant
lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.