“Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor. “Barabbas,” they answered.
“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!”
“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!” All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”
Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. (Matt. 27:21-26)

So, if you were in the crowd, what name would you yell? You probably want to believe that you would be different from everyone else and you would cry out “JESUS.” Unfortunately, each one of us would have most likely joined in with the crowd and yelled “Barabbas” right along with the rest. At the beginning of that week everyone wanted Jesus, but things had changed.

Have things changed in your life? Did you at one time cry out for Jesus, but now He is being crowded out? Beth Moore states that “if we aren’t worshipping God then we are worshipping something else.”

What are you choosing to worship? Personal desires, Wants, Success, Money, Comfort, Family? Kathy Troccoli in her study on How to Live a Fulfilled Life presents the following thoughts:

In our affections, something else steals His place
In our addictions, something else holds His place
In our desires, something else fills His place
In our relationships, someone else takes His place

What or Who are you choosing to fill His place? Joshua challenged the people in Joshua 24:15 with the question – whom will you choose to serve? Both Joshua and the people picked to serve God. If we pick God, then we are also choosing to obey God and put away all other Idols (or things that take His place). “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel” (Joshua 24:23).

If you have chosen to pick Jesus – You Choose God – You have chosen Life! (Read Deut. 30: 15-20)

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).
When we draw near (pick) to God, He will draw near to us. God requires that we exercise our desire toward Him first and He will embrace any believer no matter how long or to what extent we went away from Him. God stands ready to accept us with open arms. “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him” (Psalm 145:18).

Choose today to PICK JESUS!

Lynne Jahns
Christian Counselor

I think something must have happened in my childhood to cause me to resist deadlines. I have been known to reject book contracts because they would add one more deadline to my life. My vote would go toward self-publishing because an author can set their own timeline.

I don’t find the word ‘deadline’ in the Bible; however, as I look in scripture the word ‘time’ appears often, much to my dismay.

Gen 4:3 And in process of time it came to pass,

The word first appears in the fourth chapter of Genesis. (So soon?)

Do we really have to talk about deadlines so early in the year? I know, I know… I have already pointed out that Scripture spoke of ‘time’ early, too.

Apparently God dealt with deadlines, too.

Luke 9:51 And it came to pass, when the time was come….

Gal 4:4 But when the fullness of the time was come….

Apparently God has a plan that includes the right time.

I don’t like to have to face deadlines, but even I must admit that there is one deadline that cannot be ignored.

Heb 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

We all have one deadline God will not allow us to ignore. But we have warning that the judgment day is coming and we CAN be ready.

Act 16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

Marilyn Willett Heavilin

Marilyn is a wife and mother, author, and international conference and retreat speaker. She and her husband Glen serve as Counselors-in-Residence at America’s KESWICK during the summer months.

I am watching over my word to perform it… Jeremiah 1:11

Unlike us, God means every word that He speaks. Not only does He mean it but He, and He alone has the power to make it so. “…not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed.”

He keeps His word. His Word has intention and purpose and He accomplishes every one, without fail.

Job said, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

Solomon said, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.”

Isaiah said, “The LORD of hosts has sworn: ‘As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand … For the LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?’”

“declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ … I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.”
“so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

All those words are a comfort as we stop to consider that His Word is forever firmly fixed in the heavens. BUT have we stopped to consider that God Himself watches over His word to perform it? To me, it speaks of the intimate connection God has with each of us. He has not sent out His Word and turned to other things; He is watching over it to perform it in and around our lives.

Praise be to God that His Word is true, powerful, purposeful and certain.

Blessings,
Diane

1 Joshua 23:14
2 Job 42:2
3 Proverbs 19:21
4 Isaiah 14:24,27
5 Isaiah 46:10-11
6 Isaiah 55:11
7 Psalm 119:89

There are two things I am constantly misplacing or forgetting. First are my keys and second is my cell phone. I am sure that I keep my neighbors quite amused. I live on a dead-end street and by time I get to the corner each morning, without fail, I have forgotten something. Obviously, not my keys if I am at the corner! But many times I end up backing down the street to retrieve my phone. It usually takes me no time at all to realize that I am not connected. Today, however, I got all the way to work without my phone. There was no going back so I am spending my day “disconnected.” No emails, no calls, no texts.

I have to ask myself, “Do I miss being ‘disconnected’ from Jesus as quickly as I do my cell phone?” If I get a nudge from the Holy Spirit do I answer the call or do I ignore it? Yet the beeps, kurplunks and chimes of our cell phones get immediate attention. How much time can go by before I really miss connecting with God and hearing from Him?

How easy it is to be connected to the wrong things. Not that cell phones are bad or wrong but when do we cross a line to stay connected to technology while we forfeit what we need most? We have all heard about how we need to keep plugged into the source, which is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The old part of that is we forget what an electrical line looks like. One end is securely in place while the wire stretches out to the other end with a plug that has two or three prongs that fit into another source. (We remember these plugs when the computer isn’t working, don’t we?) It is still the same today. Regardless of how wireless we have become we must stay connected to the Source of our power. We know this to be true but do we miss being connected when we have moved away from the Source as quickly as we have moved away from our phones? Few of us can be anywhere and not make or receive a call. Yet we get into places where God’s voice is muffled and sometimes barely audible. Do we miss hearing Him as much as we miss hearing from all our other contacts?

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4).

Kathy Withers

Kathy’s on staff at America’s KESWICK in the Development Department. Kathy has been married to her husband Dave for 26 years. They have two adult children. Kathy is active in her local church and has previously served as a Teaching Director for Community Bible Study. Her passion is to encourage women to deepen their walk with Jesus Christ by finding and living out the truths of God’s Word.

“And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Ezekiel 36: 27).

Entering into the New Year I begin to take into account of certain goals I like to achieve this year. I must set aim and become resolute to carry out my goals. Of course I like them to be simple to achieve. I realize realistically I need help to accomplish the goals I decide to obtain. I mull over and question myself, am I doing everything I need to maintain my health? I have to start an exercise plan that is simple to attain, and then work my way to maintain my workout. This leads me to realize my eating habits are not good: no more cookies with my tea or potato chips in the afternoon and stop picking up a Hershey bar every day. I have picked the Hershey with almonds and have convinced myself it’s healthy, humbug. I have to remember to take my vitamins, to ensure my body has the proper nutrients to be healthy.

However, I start to analyze what really takes precedence is my spiritual health. I ought to be praying more and take time to listen to the Father as I pray. My Father will lead me and guide me into the best path. “For such is God, Our God forever and ever; He will guide us until death” (Psalm 48:14).

As I memorize scripture my mind is being challenged and renewed spiritually. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

My heart must be exercised and guarded from evil. “With all my heart I have sought Thee; Do not let me wander from Thy commandments. Thy word I have treasured in my heart that I may not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:10-11).

I need to become skilled at and resolve to be Christ-like, acquaint myself by reading the Bible on a more intimate level. “Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interest of others” (Philippians 2:2-4).

As I walk with My Lord, I can be confident He will help me to achieve the goals, My God wants me to accomplish. “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Colossians 2:6).

Glory to God!

Sandra Roman
Staff Member – WOC Graduate

“Seek first the Kingdom of God…” Matt 6:33

OK, so I’ll join the others that hit on the idea that this is a new year – will it also be a new you? Most of us contemplate resolutions; most of us never keep them. I am convinced this year that there is only one resolution that we as Christians should make or consider. That is the resolution to make First things First, or put simply to put our Faith development first and foremost in our lives. If you do that, then scripture promises that everything else will fall into place.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart …in all your ways acknowledge him, and HE will direct your path” Proverbs 3:5-6. Simply stated again – it is time to surrender to His will and His ways. If we do that – all the puzzle pieces of our life will fit together. Remember God’s plans for us are good, not harmful (Jeremiah 29:11).

Why do we as Christians struggle so with this? If you went to any 12-step group – do you know what the first thing they tell you that you must do? Surrender to God… Now, I’m not going to get into a discussion about what God they are really about, but the point is that they know we need to put something in first place besides ourselves. As Christians we know what that TRUE something is: GOD. Stephen Artherburn and David Stoop collaborated on a book on the keys to spiritual renewal.

Key number #1 – SURRENDER.
What is surrender? Webster defines it this way: “to yield to the power, control, or possession of another…; to give oneself over to something (an influence).” We surrender each day. We yield to peer pressure, temptation, the opinions of others, etc… Surrender like that does not lead to renewal – it leads to destruction and defeat. Godly surrender or putting Him first in our life, seeking His will before our will, getting ourselves and others off the throne and putting God on the throne – that is the surrender we need to resolve to this year in our lives.

2 Peter 1:3-4 tells us what our lives can be like when we resolve to make Him first. “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

Are you ready this year to escape the world and live in His promises? Then surrender your will and put Him first. Everything I read and have experienced tells me that if we do… then 2012 will be the year that exceeds our plans and expectations.

Lynne Jahns
Christian Counselor

I’ve been reading a book lately that encourages the reader to dream big. To ask God for and pray for things that only He can accomplish in our lives. And I’ve seen God do big things in my life in recent days, but right now I can’t really think of anything big to pray for.

So I just opened up a blog that I frequently read and the writer was talking about her New Year’s resolutions. She usually makes big, grand ones – like saving the world. But this year she felt God was telling her to think small, and that just didn’t seem fun, or challenging – boring, really. Until she realized that what is planted small, and fed and watered and nurtured day by day, can grow into something big, something wonderful, something God-sized.

It reminded me of the verse, And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities’ (Luke 19:17). God requires us to be faithful in the small things before we can do big things. And very often, it’s the accumulation of the small, daily things that end up being something big.

And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, (Deut. 10:12).

He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Sometimes God does ask big things of us. And sometimes He takes our big dreams and makes them become realities. But sometimes all He asks of us is that we be faithful in the everyday, the small, the routine, the boring.

So until He gives me another big dream, I want to be faithful in what He has given me to do today.

Ruth

Ruth Schmidt is on full-time staff at America’s Keswick, and grateful to be a daughter of the King.

Lord, my prayer this morning as I opened Your word was, “Lord, prepare my heart to spend time with You as I tarry a moment with You.”

As soon as I said it I realized the foolishness of that prayer – how can I tarry a moment? It sounds so contradictory; to tarry takes more than a moment.

Isn’t that what characterizes my morning times? A moment! So often, I take but a moment, a brief time to read a chapter or two before I’m racing off to the next thing.

Tarry sounds so wonderful, so spiritual, as I envision Mary sitting at Your feet soaking in Your every word – basking in Your presence. But honestly, that does not describe my mornings with You.

How about you? Do you tarry with the Lord during your times with Him? How can we say we love the Lord if we are so quick to move on to the next thing? If we have a friend or spouse that gives us a moment here and a moment there, quickly moving on to their busy lives, we would wonder how genuine their love for us is. Am I right?

Lord, I pray that I would want, even yearn, to tarry in Your presence – morning by morning and that I would be compelled to action to make it so.

Blessings,
Diane

Recently, I was part of a group discussion and in the course of it, this question was asked?

“What are the most important four letters in the Bible?”

Like me, your first thought probably went right to L-O-V-E. I dare say, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that most, if not all, would come to that same conclusion. However, the answer given was not L-O-V-E; rather, in their thinking the correct response was O-B-E-Y.

When I heard this I had an instant reaction: Huh? What? I didn’t understand at all. Some discussion followed where there was some attempt at persuading the individual to see love as the most important thing. And, in turn, there was an effort and turning our thinking away from love being the most important word.

Without a doubt, we ought to know and understand that obedience is critical in the life of every believer. But the question is, why obey? Apart from love what is obedience? What value is there in keeping the law without love as the driving force?

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…and now abides faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” ~1 Corinthians 13:1-8;13

Without love: tongues, prophecy, faith, giving to the poor, giving one’s body to be burned…it all fails. That must include obedience. For what is obedience; what is any of it without love?! Love spurs us on! Love compels us to want to obey our Creator, God and King!!

The morning after said discussion, I was on my way to work when the Apostle Paul came to mind. Here we have an excellent example of obedience as the primary thing. Paul so zealously obeyed the law that he went to great lengths to persecute Christians. Not until he met the Lord Jesus on the Damacus road was it revealed that he really didn’t love God. He loved the Law.

It wasn’t until his encounter with the One who is L-O-V-E personified, the One who is the reason to O-B-E-Y, that Paul motivated by LOVE Himself began to walk in true obedience out of a deep, abiding relationship with the Savior of his soul. Love which cost him his very life!

Selah
Stephanie

Stephanie Paul, wife and mother of two grown children. An “instrument of change” in the Redeemer’s Hand, in the lives of wounded and hurting women. Currently serving as a part of the Addiction Recovery Team at America’s Keswick as Woman of Character Program Administrator.

Isaiah 54:10 “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

As I was reading Isaiah and came across this verse, I asked myself, “What is His covenant of peace?” A little investigating drew me to Ezekiel 34:25-31. “I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places all around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land. And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them. They shall no more be a prey to the nations, nor shall the beasts of the land devour them. They shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid. And I will provide for them renowned plantations so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the reproach of the nations. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord GOD. And you are my sheep, human sheep of my pasture, and I am your God,” declares the Lord GOD.

God promises peace to His children, His covenant of peace. With that promise comes security, blessing, belonging, freedom, protection, provision, satisfaction, acceptance, and peace. His promise. His peace.

In these times it is tempting to fret and worry about just about anything. But how would we stand apart from our unsaved neighbors if we fret and worry about the future? God promises that even if the mountains depart and hills are removed (such as we have seen with recent hurricanes, earthquakes and Tsunamis) HIS STEADFAST LOVE AND HIS COVENANT OF PEACE SHALL NOT BE REMOVED-NO MATTER WHAT.

You have HIS peace. Take God at His word. By faith, believe.

Blessings,
Diane

Diane Hunt is the Director of Addiction Recovery and Development at America’s KESWICK. In addition to her Keswick responsibilities which keep her busy, she loves to read, write and teach, travel and laugh with her grandchildren. Diane has been married to her husband John over 26 years. She has 2 children, 3 grandchildren, 3 step-children, and 7 step-grandchildren. Cross references:

A. Ezekiel 34:25 : Ezekiel 37:26; Isa 54:10
B. Ezekiel 34:25 : Lev 26:6; Hos 2:18; Isa 35:9; Isa 11:6-9
C. Ezekiel 34:25 : Ezekiel 38:8, 14; 39:26
D. Ezekiel 34:26 : Gen 12:2; Isa 19:24; Zech 8:13
E. Ezekiel 34:26 : Lev 26:4; Ezekiel 22:24
F. Ezekiel 34:26 : Mal 3:10
G. Ezekiel 34:27 : Ezekiel 36:30; Lev 26:4
H. Ezekiel 34:27 : Ezekiel 34:25
I. Ezekiel 34:27 : Ezekiel 6:7
J. Ezekiel 34:27 : Jer 30:8
K. Ezekiel 34:28 : Ezekiel 34:22
L. Ezekiel 34:28 : Ezekiel 34:25
M. Ezekiel 34:28 : Ezekiel 34:25
N. Ezekiel 34:29 : Isa 60:21; 61:3
O. Ezekiel 34:29 : Ezekiel 36:29
P. Ezekiel 34:29 : Ezekiel 32:24
Q. Ezekiel 34:30 : Ezekiel 34:24
R. Ezekiel 34:31 : Psalm 74:1; 100:3; John 10:16

Cross references:
A. Isaiah 54:10 : Num 25:12; Ezek 34:25; 37:26; Mal 2:5