Listen to this message that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel and Judah—against the entire family I rescued from Egypt:
“From among all the families on the earth,
I have been intimate with you alone.
That is why I must punish you
for all your sins.”
-Amos 3:1-2 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, faith, God, life, mountains, nature, personal, photography, salvation
Above all else, guard your heart. We usually hear this with a sense of “Keep an eye on that heart of yours,” in the way you’d warn a deputy watching over some dangerous outlaw, or a bad dog the neighbors let run. “Don’t let him out of your sight.” Having so long believed our hearts are evil, we assume the warning is to keep us out of trouble. So we lock up our hearts and throw away the key and then try to get on with our living. But that isn’t the spirit of the command at all. It doesn’t say guard your heart because it’s criminal; it says guard your heart because it is the wellspring of your life, because it is a treasure, because everything else depends on it. How kind of God to give us this warning, like someone’s entrusting to a friend something precious to him, with the words: “Be careful with this—it means a lot to me.”
Above all else? Good grief—we don’t even do it once in a while. We might as well leave our life savings on the seat of the car with the windows rolled down—we’re that careless with our hearts. “If not for my careless heart,” sang Roy Orbison, and it might be the anthem for our lives. Things would be different. I would be farther along. My faith would be much deeper. My relationships so much better. My life would be on the path God meant for me . . . if not for my careless heart. We live completely backward. “All else” is above our hearts. I’ll wager that caring for your heart isn’t even a category you think in. “Let’s see—I’ve got to get the kids to soccer, the car needs to be dropped off at the shop, and I need to take a couple of hours for my heart this week.” It probably sounds unbiblical, even after all we’ve covered.
Seriously now—what do you do on a daily basis to care for your heart? Okay, that wasn’t fair. How about weekly? Monthly?
– John Eldredge, Waking the Dead
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: beauty, Christ, faith, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, love, nature, ocean, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, Sunset
For the Lord is the one who shaped the mountains,
stirs up the winds, and reveals his thoughts to mankind.
He turns the light of dawn into darkness
and treads on the heights of the earth.
The Lord God of Heaven’s Armies is his name!
-Amos 4:13 NLT
Photo: National Park Service
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, California, earth, faith, God, life, mountains, National Park, nature, photography, salvation, Yosemite
Personally, I find one of the most startling things Jesus says tucked away at the end of the fourteenth chapter of John. He is preparing his closest friends (and soon-to-be-successors) for his departure. They still don’t believe or don’t want to believe he’s leaving. Here is what Jesus says to them (and to us):
“Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)
Wait—do not let your heart be troubled? I thought to myself, We have a choice? We let our hearts be troubled? I’ve always assumed it was the other way around—that trouble strikes in some form or other, and our hearts simply respond by being troubled. I’ll bet this is how you look at it, too. Trouble descends upon you: your house is robbed, your daughter gets pregnant, you lose your job. In that moment are you thinking, “This doesn’t have to take me out. I’m not going to let my heart be troubled. No way”. We think “troubled heart” is unavoidable, appropriate even. But Jesus is talking about his coming torture, his death, and, following that, his departure from them. On a scale of personal crises, this is a ten. Yet he says, don’t let your hearts be troubled.
Friends, this is important.
You have a say in what your heart gives way to.
– John Eldredge, The Utter Relief of Holiness
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: Christ, enviroment, faith, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation
Do what is good and run from evil
so that you may live!
Then the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper,
just as you have claimed.
Hate evil and love what is good;
turn your courts into true halls of justice.
Perhaps even yet the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies
will have mercy on the remnant of his people.
-Amos 5:14-15 NLT
Photo: Victoria Happekotte Borjesson
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, California, enviroment, faith, God, life, mountains, nature, photography, salvation, survival
The Sovereign Lord showed me a vision. I saw him preparing to send a vast swarm of locusts over the land. This was after the king’s share had been harvested from the fields and as the main crop was coming up. In my vision the locusts ate every green plant in sight. Then I said, “O Sovereign Lord, please forgive us or we will not survive, for Israel is so small.”
So the Lord relented from this plan. “I will not do it,” he said.
Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. I saw him preparing to punish his people with a great fire. The fire had burned up the depths of the sea and was devouring the entire land. Then I said, “O Sovereign Lord, please stop or we will not survive, for Israel is so small.”
Then the Lord relented from this plan, too. “I will not do that either,” said the Sovereign Lord.
-Amos 7:1-6 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, earth, enviroment, faith, God, life, nature, salvation, survival
“In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth while it is still day.
I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning
and your singing into weeping.
You will wear funeral clothes
and shave your heads to show your sorrow—
as if your only son had died.
How very bitter that day will be!
-Amos 8:9-10 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, nature, photography, salvation, storms, wallpaper
The Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
touches the land and it melts,
and all its people mourn.
The ground rises like the Nile River at floodtime,
and then it sinks again.
The Lord’s home reaches up to the heavens,
while its foundation is on the earth.
He draws up water from the oceans
and pours it down as rain on the land.
The Lord is his name!
-Amos 9:5-6 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, earth, enviroment, faith, God, life, mountains, nature, photography, rainbow, salvation
“Then my people living in the Negev
will occupy the mountains of Edom.
Those living in the foothills of Judah
will possess the Philistine plains
and take over the fields of Ephraim and Samaria.
And the people of Benjamin
will occupy the land of Gilead.
The exiles of Israel will return to their land
and occupy the Phoenician coast as far north as Zarephath.
The captives from Jerusalem exiled in the north
will return home and resettle the towns of the Negev.
Those who have been rescued will go up to Mount Zion in Jerusalem
to rule over the mountains of Edom.
And the Lord himself will be king!”
-Obadiah 1:19-21 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, earth, faith, God, life, mountains, Mt. Rainier, National Park, nature, photography, salvation, Washington
Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn’t make it. Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah’s God. “O Lord,” they pleaded, “don’t make us die for this man’s sin. And don’t hold us responsible for his death. O Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.”
Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once! The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.
Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.
-Jonah 1:13-17 NLT
Photo: Uknown
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Bible, faith, God, life, nature, ocean, photography, salvation, survival
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