FollowingJesusUS.com

Jesus Forgives!

Forgive Yourself Today!

“There’s no doubt about it, I’m on my way Home, I am not yet where I am going but I am a long way from where I was. I hear a choir of Angels cheering me on.”-No Doubt About It, We The Kingdom

Wherever we are, we are all of us, on our way Home to Heaven. We look at our lives and at ourselves-and we fear that we are not perfect. In fact, we know we are not. Somehow, it seems a lot easier and quicker for Jesus to forgive us, than for us to forgive ourselves. But that guilt we feel is not from God, it’s from the accuser. And this is when we must let what “we know” to override what we “feel”.

“the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”-Proverbs 9:10

“Courage sent from God doesn’t always roar. Sometimes His Courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” Amen.” – A Friend

Jesus suffered for us greatly, just so we could be forgiven! To refuse to accept that forgiveness to waste His Great Sacrifice and Jesus deserves so much better than that. He loves us so!

So today, forgive yourself and remember that – God Loves You As You Are! ?

Life…

From a friend 🙂

“Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there. Some to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson, or to help you figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be, perhaps even a complete stranger. But when you lock your eyes with them you know at that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way. And sometimes things happen to you that may seem horrible, painful, and unfair at first, but in reflection you find that without overcoming those obstacles you would never realized your potential, strength, willpower, or heart. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of luck. Illness, injury, lost moments of true greatness, and even stupidity all occur to test the limits of your Spirit. Without these tests, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. It would be safe and comfortable, but dull and pointless.

Your Heavenly Father crosses your path with those you meet who affect your life, and the success and downfalls you experience help to create who you become. Even the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, the are probably the most important ones. If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart, forgive them for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious when you open your heart. If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because in a way, they are teaching you to love and how to open your heart and eyes to ALL things. Make every day count!!! Appreciate every moment and take from those moments everything that you possible can for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people that you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love, break free, and set your goals high. Be humble. Be Christ-like in your thoughts, words, and deeds.

My thoughts and prayers are that you thank God for ALL things, especially crossing your path with those whom become a positive impact on your life. Ask our Lord to help you seek His Face, His Will and Purpose for your life on earth. That you also are used as His Instrument to cross your path with others to help them, to encourage them, and to complete them to increase His Kingdom. In Jesus’ Name. Thy Will be done. Amen. Peace.”

Jesus Is Still The Answer :)

With offices such as Amazon, Dell, Lyft, UKG (13,000 employees at UKG), Wells Fargo, and many other large companies not reopening their offices and companies such as Bank of America and Chase requiring masks, these are concerning times.

And with some media outlets reporting that countries such as Israel are concerned that the vaccine’s effectiveness is fading (although Israel IS pushing the “booster”, so it is hard to tell if that is true), along with the millions of unvaccinated Americans, anxiety is definitely ramping up!

But whether Covid is as dangerous as they say or not, we need not let ourselves be consumed with worry. Jesus is still the answer. And we are still going to Heaven-where there are no sicknesses and no masks. And the only “government” per se is the one run by Jesus Christ 🙂

So while we probably can’t help but be concerned at the media’s headlines, hold on to Jesus. He’s coming back to take us to Heaven, and God always Keeps His Promises 🙂

What A Friend I Found In Jesus

Simple, but very powerful words.

^“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”-John 12: 12-15

Sometimes friends can just lighten our load by walking in the door. They just make us feel like we can handle anything with them by our side. That’s how Jesus is ?

With Him by our side, we can handle anything life throws at us. Without our having to explain a thing, He understands us. And Jesus loves us with a love so complete, so forgiving, so far beyond what we can even imagine. There is just no one like Jesus!

Don’t miss out, talk with Him today ?

The Rainbow & Jesus: God’s Greatest Promise Kept!

Rainbows are God’s Gift to us, a reminder that God ALWAYS keeps His Promises. God always has and God always will ?

Recently groups who don’t even believe in God’s Word and don’t obey it; have tried to co-opt the Rainbow, but the Rainbow will always belong to God because God created it!

God has kept so many Promises! It is just impossible to list them all. But His greatest promise, to find a way Home for us, a way to reconcile with Him, He did through the forgiveness of our sins through His Only Son Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the Ultimate Promise kept!

Jesus will always be with us on our walk. Helping us, leading us, and loving us! Our Father’s Greatest Promise Kept! Our Light in this darkening world 🙂

The World Is Getting Darker: Jesus Is The Bridge :)

With so many bad things happening in our world it’s easy to become angry. That “evil will appear good and good evil” is clearly happening now! And that is when we need to remember that we battle against the forces of evil – not people!

That more trouble is coming is clear. Casting Crowns sings, “The world is getting darker by the day”, and “broken people do broken things” But in that song, it also says that Christ’s “love is the bridge”.

Pray that those who do not see-Will. Pray that they will choose to use the “Bridge” that Jesus has given us – all of us :}

As Casting Crowns says “where sin leaves a canyon, your (Jesus) love builds a bridge”.

The Battle Belongs To The Lord!

This Is How I Fight My Battles

We fight our battle on our knees in prayer 🙂

It’s hard to miss the bad news headlines these days. They scream for our attention. Mask Mandates. Covid. Communism. The “Woke” riots…And then there are the financial issues, the coming tax per mile, the tax increases, the economy, inflation…And then last, but not least there are the moral issues like freedom, the “cancel” culture, attacks on police officers, the rise in crime and violence, the coming “social credit scores”, transgenderism, gay marriage, abortion, the women’s draft…The list is endless.

But as troubling as all of these are, and as much as we are called to take a stand, the real “battle” will be won by the Lord. And our most important work in this is-Prayer. Prayer for those we love, and for those we don’t. Prayer for ourselves and prayer for each other. And perhaps most important-Prayer that “God’s Will be done here as it is in Heaven?’

Perhaps one of the most important prayers we can pray is for God to give us greater faith, for it is that faith that will sustain us. Other really important prayers, are the prayers we pray for others. Someone once said, “we are most like Jesus when we pray for another”.

Prayer takes practice and discipline. It takes praying when we feel like it, and praying when we don’t. And sometimes we need help in praying-asking the Holy Spirit to help us makes a really big difference! Most of all, our praying needs to never give up!

Never stop praying, God will answer ?

Pain & Suffering: God Can Help!

Pain and Suffering can be really difficult to live with, especially long term-unless you find something positive to do with them. Finding something positive to do with them doesn’t change the pain or the suffering, but it does change us. And it does make the pain and suffering easier to live with.

Obedience. Obedience to God (in this area) is simply a way of thinking about the pain and suffering we are going through. This is the life that God gave us. It’s not Heaven, so it’s not perfect. It never will be – at least while we are still on earth. With God’s Help, living our best life in spite of the challenges we face- is our gift to God ?

Acceptance. Acceptance of the life we have, good and bad, is also our gift to God. Acceptance of God’s decisions in our lives leads to a peace that only God can give. Acceptance of God’s decisions in our lives also helps us to have a closer relationship with God ?

Redemptive Suffering. Redemptive Suffering is a concept in the Catholic Church that our pain and suffering can be offered to Jesus. “Each man, in his sufferings, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ”-Pope John Paul II

Is this true? I don’t really know. But I know that offering my pain and suffering to Jesus has always helped me tremendously. Feeling that there is something useful to God and to others from any suffering I have gone through means a lot to me, and makes it much easier to live with them ?

A word about pain and suffering. In my lifetime I have had a VSD repair (open heart surgery), 3 bladder surgeries, my gall bladder removed, heart failure, lung failure, various heart problems, rheumatoid arthritis, Graves disease, Hashimoto disease, TED, asthma, and now perhaps Sjorgens…Along with bouts or pneumonia and various other ailments…

I share this with you my friends, so that if you are suffering in anyway, you will know that I have shared your pain and this does work. We can suffer much, and even if we never get truly better, God can and will help us! If we let Him ?

And I can share with you, with God’s Help, I have had an incredibly happy life. The best family, the best friends, and much joy! Acceptance, Obedience and Offering our Pain and Suffering to God really, really helps. It makes such an incredible difference! And despite the illnesses I have had, with God’s Help, I have always been able to do everything that I truly needed to do ?

Lastly, the Holy Spirit can be a great Comforter and Friend. Whenever I have had a little more than I can handle, the Holy Spirit has always pulled me up and out of whatever pain or suffering held me down.

So if we are having anything happening in our life, emotional or physical, that is a little bit too much for us-we can ask the Holy Spirit for Help and He will ?

Racism Will End At The Foot Of The Cross

Lately, it seems we hear about Racism quite a bit. The CRT arguments, the riots and demonstrations, and the growing prejudice of the silent majority… It all serves some of those in the political realm, but does it really serve us?

Having had the privilege of attending an all African American Church, often as the only “white” person, I can assure you that many African Americans love our Lord as much as we do! They were all kind, compassionate and welcoming. Why do many African Americans see issues such as gay marriage and abortion completely differently than many “white” brothers and sisters in Christ, I don’t know. But the truth is that many “white” brothers and sisters in Christ see those issues differently.

And the truth is also, I don’t need to know. All I really need to know is that they are Following Jesus just as I am. They love the Lord just as I do 🙂

Jesus’ command to Love One Another is not just for those we agree with; it’s for everyone!

And when we all love Jesus more than we fear each other, when we all meet at the Cross together, Racism and prejudice will end completely. Thank God!

Because we can be sure of one thing, Heaven will be filled with people of all different colors 🙂

The Depth Of Christ’s Love

How does one describe how very much Jesus loves us? Whipped and Crucified because He loved us so-He even carried His own Cross, rejected by His own hometown, watching those He loved so much suffer so…

And perhaps because I am a Mom, that resonates with me the most. As Jesus hung on that Cross suffering so, He knew that His Mom and His beloved apostle John stood at the Foot of the Cross suffering with Him. Their pain, was His pain. Jesus didn’t just suffer physically; He hurt for those He loved as well and for those who loved Him!

Bible Verses:

“And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”-Matthew 13:57

“Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged”-John 19:1

“Carrying His own cross”-John 19:17

“When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided His garments into four parts, one for each soldier, “-John 19:23

“Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother and her sister, as well as Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then He said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” So from that hour, this disciple took her into his home.”-John 19: 25-27

And all of this He did because He loved us. Some of us loved Him in return and some of us treated Him horrifically. And that is still true today. Some appreciate all He has sacrificed for us and some ignore all Jesus has given us and live life on their own terms-instead of For Jesus.

Being loved like Jesus loves us is a Gift that we can never repay. But we can accept it and say Thank You. And love Jesus in return ?