Today

Two nights ago I had an interesting dream that has prompted this blog topic.  I do believe the Lord gives his children messages in the form of dreams, including to my husband and I, however, I am not completely certain this particular dream was truly from the Lord or not, but because I did learn a good lesson from it, I feel it is worth mentioning.  Anyway, in the dream a man I do not know in real life approached me and told me that the Lord wanted me to read the entry from May 5 from my devotional book.  He said the message was something the Lord wanted me to understand.  That was all I remember from the dream.  When I woke, I wanted to figure out if that was just a nonsensical dream or not.  I only have one devotional book that is divided into daily readings (that I can think of or could find) so that narrowed down where to look.  The book I have is "Mornings With Jesus: Daily Encouragement for Your Soul" from the year 2017.  It is published by Guideposts; and I got it free from the library a few years ago.

The entry from May 5 was written by Suzanne Davenport Tietjen.  She was once a nurse in the ER, and it was her experience working around so many unexpected deaths that inspired the writing.  She reminded us that death occurs at any time and most of us have no idea when it is coming.  She also pointed out that we must be very careful with what we say or don't say because we don't know if it will be the last thing we ever say. We need to live for  today, not for yesterday or tomorrow.  

I really look that to heart but also felt like there was another lesson I needed to remember.  It is very important to let go of bitterness and resentment.  Ephesians 4:26 says we are not to let the sun go down while we are still feeling anger. We need to daily let go of our anger and hard feelings toward one another.  When years and years of hard feelings have built up, it may be hard to let the bitterness unroot itself.  You may even need to think of it as a daily project.  Each night when you go to bed do a self-evaluation of who you may be feeling angry toward.  Then pray that the Lord helps you to release those feelings and make a conscious effort to forgive each offense. If you have to re-release the hard feelings every night for years you probably are not truly forgiving that person, but if you acknowledge you need to get your attitude right with the Lord, that you are on the right path.

In Matthew 18:22 Jesus says we are to forgive one another 70 times 7. That does not mean we are to keep a tally of how often we forgave a specific person, but to do the opposite and lose count. As I mentioned above, we may need to re-forgive the same trespass many times over before our heart truly begins to change.  But do not give up on yourself and keep trying to heal no matter how hard your heart feels. With the strength of the Holy Spirit, you will eventually soften!

Lamentations 3:23  says, "..the LORD'S mercies" and "compassions fail not. They are new every morning..."  How can we be any less compassionate and less merciful?  We should also renew our mercies every day. We, and I very much am including me in the we, should remember to pay more attention to what we say and tell others more often that we love them.  We do not want any regrets when that person is gone and we realize we had been too unkind or stand-offish.  Quit worrying about rejection and past hurts and reach out today, just as Jesus would have you do.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 40:31-32

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matthew 6:15

I want to take this message from my dream in another direction the Guideposts writer did not take.  Mrs. Tietjen pointed out that life is short and unpredictable, but we need to do more than focus on others, we need to get our own act clean first. We need to make sure we are right with God today.

 I want to re-share this excerpt with you from my previous post, "Now is the day of Salvation" https://thankful-julie.blogspot.com/2020/04/now-is-day-of-salvation.html

So do we wait until some crazy gunman is at our door (so to speak) before we choose to make the decision to live a holy life, or wait until we have the symptoms of the Coronavirus?  Of course not.  "There are no atheists in foxholes," so the saying goes.  And it is also true that God will have mercy on your soul if you wait until you are on your deathbed to call upon God and repent of your sins.  Yet, why would you wait until then?  If everyone died at the age of 99, most would wait until they were 98 ¾ to start living right.  But no one ever knows when their time on this world is coming to an end.  Nobody is invincible.  Let's face reality, we face our own mortality 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Age, race, wealth, none of it matters when you’re on a highway full of reckless drivers or the day to decide to go to the courthouse to renew your driver’s license just happens to be the same day a man with bombs storms in and blows the place up.     

For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. II Corinthians 6:2

You must repent to Jesus and ask him to save your soul and daily evaluate your life and walk with God and make sure you are still living a pure life. 

Don't wait - do it today!