I Will Bless The Lord

“I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together!”

~Psalm 34:1-3

I like reading the Psalms because they remind me how good the Lord is, especially when life isn’t going the way I like. It’s easy to say we praise the Lord at all times, but do we really? When we are in the middle of a personal crisis, do we praise the Lord? In the middle of stress, anxiety, anger, loss, grief—or any of the other emotions that plague us—is His praise continually in our mouth? I got to test that recently when I was having a really, really bad day. I was not in a praising mood, but the above verse went through my mind, and I had to check myself. It wasn’t easy to suppress the emotions but that is the power of the Holy Spirit. I was able to put aside what I felt and praise God for what I knew to be true.

“I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them (Psalm 34:4-7).”

The Lord cares about our emotions, He cares about our problems, but He doesn’t want either of those things to get so out of control that we forget Who is in control. No matter what we go through in our lives, we can depend on the Lord to work problems out in our favor. Our job is to depend on Him at all times, but especially in those times when our emotions are out of control.

“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all (Psalm 34:15-19).”

Read Acts 1-6

©2018 Marie McGaha

The Absolute Truth

“Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born again.’”

~John 3:5-7

I have felt led over the past few months to speak on salvation, and I have several times, but the impact and importance of salvation cannot be overstated. It is the single most important thing we can do in our lives for our lives. This life is very short. The Bible tells us we are given 70-80 years (Psalm 90:10), but what follows this life is eternity and where we spend eternity is very important. No matter what doctrine a person follows, or what god they claim as truth, or if they believe this life is all there is, and death is the end of everything, one day every one of us will know the absolute truth of God Almighty. At the very moment we exhale our last breath, we will stand before Jesus Christ and we will know the Truth. That is why salvation is the most important topic in the world and cannot be ignored.

“This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other Name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:11-12).”

The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the basis our salvation. We must be born again, or we cannot enter Heaven. There is no other way. To be born again we must identify and participate in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection but how do we do that? First, we must believe the gospel that Christ is the only begotten Son of God and that He is who He says He is. Second, we must participate in Christ’s death by dying to our fleshly self. That is to say, we must recognize that our way of life cannot get us to Heaven, and we must give up our ways and accept Christ’s way of living. Third, we must bury our old life, which is baptism in water. We go under the water as a burial, and when we come up, we are resurrected into a new life as a follower of Jesus Christ. Not only does this guarantee our entrance to Heaven for eternity when we leave this life, it changes the life we live while we’re still here. If you have not made the most important decision of your life—salvation through Jesus Christ—as long as you have breath in your body, it’s not too late. Don’t wait until it is.

Pray: Jesus, I believe You are the Son of God and You died and rose again for me. I accept you as my Savior and choose to live my life for You. Thank you for saving me and loving me, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

You don’t have to say those exact words. Pray whatever is in your heart, God will hear you and Heaven will rejoice over your decision.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).”

Read John 17-21

© 2018 Marie McGaha

Shekinah Glory

“And after six days Jesus took with Him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them, and His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with Him. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for You and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”

~Matthew 17:1-7

This is one of my favorite chapters of the Bible. I always imagine what it will be like to stand face-to-face with Jesus, and here, Peter, James and John not only have seen the person of Jesus Christ, they also got to see the Shekinah glory of God and hear God’s own voice. Not to mention seeing Moses and Elijah! What a gift that was. The Shekinah glory of God is something we will all see when we arrive in Heaven. It is the light of Heaven, brighter than the sun that comes only from Christ Himself.

“Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life’ (John 8:12).”

If you’ve ever been in a dark room, or in the woods at night, you know there is nothing as black as the absence of light; strike a match and the darkness flees. That little flame will light up the dark recesses of a room and allow us to see, so imagine what the light of the glory of Jesus Christ can do! We see the light of glory when we follow Jesus Christ. He is the light of the world, and in Him is no darkness (1 John 1:5). It is that light we see in other Christians and that others see in us once we accept Christ as our Savior.

We will all stand before Jesus Christ no matter what we believe or what we’ve done. When we die, we will close our eyes to this world and open them to Heaven. Even those who do not follow Jesus Christ will still see Heaven and the glory of the Light of the Lamb. I imagine that is the only thing that can make hell worse—knowing what Heaven looks like, getting that glimpse of His Shekinah glory and then be sent to everlasting separation to spend eternity in the darkness where there is nothing but sorrow and suffering. And as much as my heart aches for those who will spend the afterlife separated from God, it also soars for each of us who will spend eternity in His glorious light.

“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb (Revelation 21:22-23).”

Read John 12-16

©2018 Marie McGaha

The Root, The Shoot, The Fruit: Sow You Own Seed

The world we live in is in total opposition to a life in Christ Jesus. In the world, we are taught to be independent, don’t rely on anyone, get up and do it yourself, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but a life in Christ is total dependence upon Him. John 15:1-8 is all about dependence rather than independence, yet being dependent upon Jesus is the most freedom a person will ever have. Sounds like a contradiction but it isn’t. The passage in John tells us that Christ is the vine and we are the branches, and apart from Him, we can do nothing. Jesus is our root system, He is what holds us firmly in place, grounded when everything in the world seems to be spinning out of control. In Him, we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:29).

          Have you noticed what happens to a branch that gets ripped away from the vine? It dies. There is no nourishment from the roots, so instead of that branch continuing to grow and produce fruit, it withers and dies. The branch is useless away from vine. So it is with us. Nothing we do in life, no matter what kind of success we might have, no matter how much money we make, or how famous we become, none of it is worth anything if we are not connected to the Vine that is Jesus Christ.

          The rich and famous have problems, perhaps more problems than the rest of us. They have addiction problems, their children are out of control, they are unhappy and seem to have no direction. That’s because all of the riches and fame in the world cannot produce satisfaction in the soul. True satisfaction can only come from one place, and that’s from the Lord. We have to fill that God-shaped hole with God. Nothing else fits. Nothing else satisfies because our spirits are created to worship only One. When we worship at the feet of the gods of this world, we cannot find the peace we desire, or the satisfaction our souls search desperately for.

          “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

          How many Hollywood “stars” have we seen take their own lives, overdose on drugs, be victims of murder, or have their lives so out of control they become jokes on late night talk shows? Money, fame, and success does not equal happiness and contentment. Very few “stars” stand up for what is right and good and pure. Very few will speak about God, and the few Christian “stars” in Hollywood are ostracized by the rest.

          We see famous politicians, businessmen and women, people who are known for nothing but being rich who face the very same problems in their lives as the rest of us. Money is not a cure for what is wrong in our lives. Fame is not the cure either. If it was, those rich and famous people would not be in such pain and turmoil. The only cure for our souls, for the world as it is today, is a right relationship with God Almighty through His Son Jesus Christ.

          “From whence does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made Heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:1)

          Our only real, lasting help comes from Jesus Christ. He is the only One who can save us from ourselves, the world, and what is to come after our physical deaths. Afraid to die? If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior, you better be! What comes after this life is eternity. Forever and ever and ever… A time that we cannot even truly understand. Eternity is infinite, without end, no time, no calendar, no concept of life as we now know it. Yet we will live eternally. After we die here, and we are all going to die, our souls leave our bodies and go to eternity. Where that eternity is spent is totally up to us.

          “If you confess with your mouth… you will be saved,” (Roman 10:9). If you have accepted Christ as your Savior and made Him Lord of your life, you are saved. You will spend eternity in Heaven experiencing the Lord in a way we cannot even comprehend in this life. It will be joyous, wonderful, and beyond words. We will be with our friends and family who went before us, as long as they also knew Jesus as their Savior. If we had young children or infants who passed away, they will be there waiting to welcome us. I have a son, three daughters, a step-daughter, and three grandsons who are in Heaven awaiting my arrival. My grandmother is there too. What a family reunion that is going to be! The Bible says we will “know as we are known,” (1 Corinthians 13:12). That means we will know one another just as we know them now on earth in this life. But more importantly, we will see Christ face-to-face and we will know Him as He is, (1 John 3:2).

(Excerpt from The Root, The Shoot, The Fruit by Marie McGaha Buy here

©2017 DWB Publishing

Available in paperback, Kindle and now on Audible narrated by Christy R. Diachenko

Read John 6-11

God's Course

“For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

~Psalm 139:13-16

No matter the circumstances of our birth, none of us were created by accident. God planned the exact moment of our conception, our birth and our death. Even if our lives seem random, God formed a perfect moment for us to be here even before He planned the foundation of the earth. Every moment of our lives was seen by God before they happened, and He knew every step we would take before we took them. There is no aspect of our lives that God did not know prior to our being here, including the good, the bad and the indifferent. However, the choice of how we use the days given us is ours to make. We choose whether our lives will follow the world or follow Christ, and by choosing one or the other, we choose the consequences. While God already knows the path we will take, we have the choice to change the course of that path. No matter the circumstances of our lives, we can choose to let it be an anchor that drags us down or a sail that propels us forward. And it’s never too late to follow the course God has for us.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will (Ephesians 1:3-5).”

Read John 1-5

© 2018 Marie McGaha

Harmony of the Gospels

"The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." ~Matthew 1:1

"The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness,  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,  make his paths straight,’” ~Mark 1:1-3

"Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us." ~Luke 1:1

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." ~John 1:1-5

The first four books of the New Testament are The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, followers of Jesus Christ. These men were with Jesus during His life and ministry on earth, witnessed His death on the Cross, His resurrection from the tomb and His Ascension into Heaven. They were eyewitnesses to everything Jesus did, and while they wrote of the life of Christ, each one begins a little differently. 

Matthew is considered to be the most Jewish of the Gospels, giving Christ's genealogy as proof that He is the Messiah they had been waiting for. Mark begins his gospel by quoting the Old Testament, that points to John as the one crying in the wilderness. Luke, the doctor, sounding very scholarly, lays out his case for Christ. John, who is also a cousin of Jesus Christ, was also the one, while still in the womb, was filled with the Holy Spirit. John's Gospel is my favorite because he jumps right in and tells us Jesus is God, He is the Light of world, and in Him is life.  While the gospels differ, it is only because they are from four different points of view, but they are still in perfect harmony bringing the prophecies of the Old Testament to life in Christ. 

We refer to everything prior to what the disciples write as the Old Testament, but in those days, there was no old or new testament. In fact, there was the Torah, which consisted of the first five books of the Old Testament, and the prophets, which are quoted time after time throughout the New Testament. Everything about the Old Testament, from Genesis through Malachi points us to Jesus Christ as the Messiah, while the Gospels reiterate that message. 

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about Him, and cried out, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because He was before me.’”) For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known (John 1:14-18)."

Read Luke 6-12; Weekend reading Luke 13-24

©2018 Marie McGaha

It's A Promise

“He said, 'While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.'”

~2 Samuel 12:22-23

In the above verse, King David’s infant son with Bathsheba had fallen ill. For a week, David lay on the floor fasting and praying for the Lord to heal the baby, but that didn’t happen. The child died. David got up, washed and dressed, and ate a meal. His servants were aghast. In those days, the custom was to fast after death, but David had it right. He prayed and fasted for his son, hoping the Lord would heal him but when that didn’t happen, David’s attitude changed. He knew his son had gone to be with the Lord—“I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”

Loss is something we all experience. We know our grandparents are going to die, followed by our parents and various aunts, uncles and other relatives. But the loss of a child throws our entire view of life off kilter. Our children and grandchildren are supposed to follow us in death, not precede us. When someone experiences the death of their child or grandchild, everything changes. Life, God, breathing, getting through each day… everything is now a huge question mark and answers aren't easy to come by.

When my daughter, Cassandra died at age sixteen, I thought my world had ended. Taking a breath was difficult and just getting up in the morning was a chore, which was strange because I thought I would never sleep again. But I had other children to take care of, to try and explain the loss to, and a husband to take care of. While I was vocal with my feelings and cried often over our loss, Cassandra's father was the opposite. He didn't cry, he didn't talk about her, and in fact, he didn't want to talk about anything. I know he felt guilty because, as a man, he felt as if he should have been able to protect her. I understood his feelings logically, but not emotionally. But I think of David’s words often—I shall go to her, but she will not return to me. This is a promise of being reunited with the ones we love when we get to Heaven and I cling to that.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:3-9).”

Read Luke 1-5

 ©2018 Marie McGaha