If you haven’t fielded that question from a child or a newcomer to the Christian faith, you’ve probably wondered yourself. The common answer is “It’s good for us, because the cross is how Jesus saved us.”

But there is more to the story. The day Christ died was a good, bad, and ugly day like no other. And if you observe this day in the fullness of what it represents, your worship will be all the more passionate and truth-honoring, like sweet incense rising toward heaven.

FIRST, THE GOOD (EMPHASIS OURS):

But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. I will give him the honor of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death.

Isaiah 53:10-12 NLT

Jesus paid our debt, and saved us from God’s wrath. For the joy set before him, Christ chose to do his Father’s will, in spite of the pain, the shame, the horror. The gospel is far beyond anything else we could consider “good.”

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

—Isaac Watts
“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”

THE BAD:

He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open His mouth. Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people.

Isaiah 53:7-8 NLT

The authorities tortured and murdered Jesus in the cruelest way they could devise. He was mocked, flogged, beaten, forced to wear a crown of thorns, and nailed from his hands and feet to a wooden cross.

” Our Savior suffered like no other, for a joy like no other. “

Don’t become desensitized to the violence. Consider afresh the horrors our Lord endured. In the words of the African American spiritual “Were You There?”

“Sometimes it causes me to tremble.”

THE UGLY:

He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised and we did not care.

Isaiah 53:3 NLT

All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.

Isaiah 53:6 NLT

Judas betrayed him. His closest disciples fell asleep when he asked them to pray with him. Peter denied even knowing him, three times. His neighbors shouted “Crucify him!” His friends cowered in the distance.

And let’s not be smug. As our friend Mars Hill Worship Pastor Joe Day wrote in “What Have We Done”:

Peter denied you three times,
I have denied you more.

At some point, most of us have shirked from taking a stand for Christ, and for far less significant reasons than the threat that Peter felt.

Finally, even his Father forsook him to fulfill the requirement of the covenant. God placed all the wrath that we deserved on Jesus. No one has ever been so utterly alone. This is ugly.

Bad Friday.

Ugly Friday.

And ultimately for our fate and for the glory of God, Good Friday.

Our Savior suffered like no other, for a joy like no other.

__________

This post is taken from:

Bobby and Kristen Gilles, “The Good (the Bad and the Ugly) Friday,” The Resurgence, entry posted April 6, 2012, http://theresurgence.com/2012/04/06/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-friday (accessed April 6, 2012).

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Just prior to speaking these words, Jesus knelt down to wash the disciples’ feet, a model of love for the disciples. But Maundy Thursday celebrates more than a new mandate of sacrificial love, it points to a sacrifice of eternal significance.

Slaves and Foot Washing

For the sandal-wearing disciples, washing feet was a common cultural practice. It was proper hospitality to offer your guests a basin of water for their feet. But guests were usually expected to wash their own feet. Washing the dirt off someone else’s feet was a task reserved for only the lowest ranking Gentile servants, and Jewish slaves were often exempted from this duty. In a household without slaves, everyone washed his or her own feet.

Yet Jesus willingly dropped to his knees in the position of this extra-lowly slave to wash the disciples’ feet in John 13:1–20. The disciples were immediately shocked, and it seems, embarrassed by this act of humility. But their surprise should be no surprise to us. “There is no instance in either Jewish or Greco-Roman sources of a superior washing the feet of an inferior.” And this was the Creator of the universe on his knees washing the dirt from the callused feet of his followers!

When Simon Peter refused to have his feet washed, Jesus said, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand” (John 13:7). Whatever the meaning of the foot washing, it was not immediately evident to the disciples. The washing provided an example of love towards one another (John 13:12–17), but it also forecasted something.

Hold that thought for one moment.

Slaves and Crucifixion

If foot washing was the task of the lowest slave, public crucifixion was a unique threat to the slave class. With few exceptions, Roman citizens and the upper classes were spared from crucifixion. Slaves were especially vulnerable.

Crucifixion was a public tool to discourage dishonesty, retaliation, and rebellion among the slave class. In 71 B.C., after a slave rebellion was suppressed in Spartacus, over 6,000 slaves were crucified together along the Via Appia between Capua and Rome. In other instances, if one slave was caught breaking the law, the entire slave community within a single household could be rounded up and crucified together, irrespective of individual guilt.

So while the brutal punishment of crucifixion was used for dangerous criminals and for political insurrectionists (of which Jesus was accused), it was especially used to intimidate the slave class. Public crucifixions kept slaves in line. So much so that crucifixion eventually became known by a convenient circumlocution, “the slaves’ punishment.”

Slavery and crucifixion merged in the social consciousness, writes one author:

It is hardly an accident that crucifixion, the most dishonorable form of public humiliation that socially conscious Roman elites could employ in their efforts to punish and discourage rebellion among the lower classes, was so closely associated with slavery, the lowest class in the stratified social world of Roman antiquity. The juxtaposition of the two ideas — σταυρός [cross] and δούλος [slave] — served to compound the social stigma associated with both slavery and crucifixion in the ancient world and thereby to reinforce in the public arena the social hierarchy that served the interests of the dominant culture.

Back to Maundy Thursday

When we look again at Jesus’ humble act of foot washing, we see why the disciples were unable to immediately grasp the significance of the act. Jesus lowered himself into the position of a lowly slave, he served like a slave, he washed the disciples’ feet like a lowest-of-the-low slave, because ultimately he was preparing to die the dehumanizing death of a slave. In essence this is the connection made in Philippians 2:5–8.

As he washed out dirt from between the disciples’ toes, Jesus performed a parable of the cross. The disciples could not see the the symbolic anticipation, not here, not now. The full explanation for why Jesus washed their feet would only become clear after the substitutionary atonement of the Savior on Good Friday. Then they would look back and understand the act of deep humility in the cross that brought us a once-for-all, head-to-toe, cleansing from our sin.

On Maundy Thursday Jesus dropped to his knees to scrub away every ethnic and economic hierarchy from the church. He upset cultural norms. He now calls us to go low in foot-washing-like service to one another. But most importantly we are reminded that the Son of Man came to earth as a slave to serve us, to be crushed for us, to free us from our own slavery to sin that leads to eternal death, and to open the way for us to enjoy and delight in God’s presence now and forever (Matthew 20:28; Psalm 16:11).

__________

Our greatest misfortune can catapult us into our greatest service for the Lord. Consider Joseph and Daniel, two Old Testament teens whose kidnappings took them to distant countries where they later become God’s ambassadors in strange lands.

Saint Patrick died March 17, 461, a day that has since borne his name. Patrick was born about 389 in Britain. His father was a deacon and his grandfather a priest. Roman protection of England had deteriorated, and bands of Irish invaders tormented coastal areas, pillaging farms, slaughtering villagers, kidnapping teens. Patrick was taken at age 16. The Irish farmer who bought him put him to tending sheep, and somehow through all this Patrick found Christ. “The Lord opened to me a sense of my unbelief, that I might be converted with all my heart unto the Lord.”

Following a daring escape at age 22, Patrick returned home to joyous parents who prayed that he would never again leave. But Patrick’s heart burned for his erstwhile captors, and one night he dreamt an Irishman was begging him to return and preach. After several years of Bible study, Patrick returned to Ireland as a missionary. The Irish were almost wholly unevangelized at the time, worshiping the elements, seeing evil spirits in trees and stones, and engaging in magic, even in human sacrifice, performed by the druids. “It very much becomes us,” he said, “to stretch our nets, that we may take for God a copious and crowded multitude.” And so he did, planting 200 churches and baptizing approximately 100,000 converts, despite a dozen attempts against his life and violent opposition from civil authorities. In his Confessions, he wrote, I am greatly a debtor to God, who has bestowed his grace so largely upon me, that multitudes were born again to God through me. The Irish, who had never had the knowledge of God and worshipped only idols and unclean things, have lately become the people of the Lord, and are called sons of God.

Legends have occasionally crept into Christian history. Stories of some of the early martyrs, for example, handed down orally, have sometimes become embellished and romanticized. Such is the story of St. Valentine.

Two Valentines are actually described in the early church, but they likely refer to the same man — a priest in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. According to tradition, Valentine, having been imprisoned and beaten, was beheaded on February 14, about 270, along the Flaminian Way.

Sound romantic to you? How then did his martyrdom become a day for lovers and flowers, candy and little poems reading Roses are red … ? According to legends handed down, Valentine undercut an edict of Emperor Claudius. Wanting to more easily recruit soldiers for his army, Claudius had tried to weaken family ties by forbidding marriage. Valentine, ignoring the order, secretly married young couples in the underground church. These activities, when uncovered, led to his arrest.

Furthermore, Valentine had a romantic interest of his own. While in prison he became friends with the jailer’s daughter, and being deprived of books he amused himself by cutting shapes in paper and writing notes to her. His last note arrived on the morning of his death and ended with the words “Your Valentine.”

In 496 February 14 was named in his honor. By this time Christianity had long been legalized in the empire, and many pagan celebrations were being “christianized.” One of them, a Roman festival named Lupercalia, was a celebration of love and fertility in which young men put names of girls in a box, drew them out, and celebrated lovemaking. This holiday was replaced by St. Valentine’s Day with its more innocent customs of sending notes and sharing expressions of affection.

Does any real truth lie behind the stories of St. Valentine? Probably. He likely conducted underground weddings and sent notes to the jailer’s daughter. He might have even signed them “Your Valentine.” And he probably died for his faith in Christ.

But he almost certainly never wrote, “Roses are red, violets are blue. … ”

This is Solomon’s most beautiful song. Kiss me tenderly! Your love is better than wine, And you smell so sweet. All the young women adore you; The very mention of your name Is like spreading perfume. Song of Songs 1:1-3

Excerpted from On This Day by Robert J. Morgan

 Harry Emerson Fosdick

Officiant: Do you, Ryan, take this woman to be your bride?

Me: I will … but not right now.

_____

So I want to talk about a subject that seems to be the most talked about thing in the twenty-something culture today: marriage. As a man who is in his mid-twenties, I am living through a time where there is much transition. It seems like society has its social structures put up for every individual: your born, you go to school, you go to college or the military or the workforce, you finish college or whatever else your doing, you go into the workforce (or stay there), you get married, you get your first home, you have kids, you raise a family, then your kids move on, then you die.

And it seems like the majority of that has to happen in your twenty-something years or else you are “out of the loop” or “you’re missing out” or “something’s wrong with you.” And that seems really unfair…

Because everyone is different and everyone is blessed with the life they are given in different ways and capacities. True, we all have the capacity to make decisions in life and it might seem like things are in our control… but in the end, God is sovereign and he has an ultimate plan set up. And everyone might not be called to live the “stereotypical” life of college, work, marriage, and kids all in their twenties. Better yet, some people might not be called to some of those things at all!

WARNING: YOU MIGHT BE OFFENDED BY WHAT YOU READ NEXT!

I’m here to set the record straight on my life and how I feel about marriage and how people treat others about this subject. As many of you know that read this, I live in the South. And it seems like the popular thing to do is to get married. Really? Yes!

People in the South treat marriage like its going to the movie or to the club… it’s the thing to do. We have popularized marriage because the South is the Bible Belt. For some reason, in Christian culture in the South, marriage is something required. God forbid you choose to stay single past 18! I mean, if you are finished with college and you aren’t married yet… you’re crazy! “What are you waiting for?” most people will ask you!

The South needs to find way better things to do than to make going to a wedding the highlight of every weekend. The South needs to get a freaking life!

Well let me tell all of you something: I am not crazy, and I’m not wrong for waiting! So to all of you twenty-somethings that are married… stop thinking you are better than all of your friends that are not married… because your not! And I’m sick and tired of your pompous attitudes and how you carry yourselves: “Look at us: we have rings, and a house, we have game nights and a couple of pets, and we have nic-nacs and stuff…” Congratu-freakin-lations!

And to all of you twenty-somethings out there who are single… don’t think you are better than dating couples because you have freedom and you can do what you want and you don’t have to regard anyone else’s feelings. Don’t think that you are more spiritual because you are taking the Apostle’s Paul’s charge to be celibate very literally! Paul said it was a good thing, but not the only way to live. Also, I know some of you twenty-somethings that feel alienated because you don’t have someone and you feel lonely and depressed: Hey! Listen! It’s ok, you being single doesn’t make you any less valuable. And anyone that makes you feel less than what you are can frankly go jump off a bridge!

Yes, I am angry at those who are married that think they don’t need to associate with dating couples anymore because they “moved on to better things” or single people that think they are “uber-spiritual” because they are taking the celibate route. I do feel alienated by both parties and it hurts. Thank God I have my girlfriend who is encouraging, supportive, loving and cares about me immensely. I also thank God for Himself and his comfort and peace!

So, I will leave it with this: If I hear one more person ask me when my girlfriend and I are “tying the knot,” then I will literally jump off a bridge myself. It’s no one’s business when I choose to get married, and you’ll know when I will get married when I put it on Facebook and when you receive that “Save the Date” card that everyone throws away anyway!

Fin

David Brainerd

This year has proved to be a challenging, yet somewhat rewarding time for me. This isn’t like my usual writings but this is something straight from my heart: this is a personal plea!

This is me sharing what is going on in my life because I honestly need all my brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for me. Asking for prayer is something I am not always keen to do. Yet, it is something I should do.

Just as the quote above, prayer that is seen as useless is psychologically arresting. I don’t want to believe that my prayers go up into nothingness, but that I have a God who hears my prayers and will answer them according to His perfect will. Knowing that all of my prayers get answered is a comfort, knowing that they might not be answered the way I want them to is not.

I feel like as of late that my time with God has become somewhat of a dead ritual. I believe I have allowed Satan to arrest my mind and have me believe that my prayers are useless and that I will not be fulfilled or satisfied in life. I delve into sadness at times thinking that my life will be useless and I will always be stuck in the muck and mire of life.

I want to be free from the muck and mire, I am tired of my life not amounting to anything so I pled with you… if you are reading this just pray for me — that’s it! Just lift up a simple prayer for me, that I will begin to be satisfied again with the Bread of Life and the Living Water. That I will see that God has a plan through all of my suffering and that I can be renewed and have positivity for the future.

So I close with some prayer requests. I plead with you that if you have any prayer requests or needs that you can tell me. I will write them down and pray over them. I don’t want my prayers to be selfish and just focused of self… I want to pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ as you pray for me!

Seeking His face,
Ryan

________________________

Here is what you can pray for me:

1. Interviews

I have already applied and have begun the process this week with interviews. I have several interviews at many different places over the next couple of months for a Chaplain Residency position at several area hospitals. Pray that God will help me in these intense times and that God will lead me to the right place so I can minister to those in need.

2. Provision

I am blessed to have employment but pray for provision in my life. I am in a season of lack and so I pray God will open up more opportunities to work and that God will bless me in a miraculous way.

3. Seminary

I am in my second semester in Seminary and I love it, yet it can be very difficult and draining. Pray that I can be strengthened and endure to the end, and excel, so that I can graduate next year and move on to other things — such as ministry and marriage.

4. Personal Endeavors

Pray for me as I am continuing to write a book and I pray that it can be completed, edited, and published soon. I don’t know how all of this will happen but I serve an amazing God… so pray for continued dedication on my part.

5. Family and Friends

Continue to pray for my brother as God has done amazing things in his life and that He will continue to do so. I have seen a God who is a Great Physician. Pray for some friends of mine who are raising money for mission endeavors to Dominican Republic, India, and Japan. I have seen a God who provides. Pray for many peers and friends of mine who are engaged or newly married, that through these joyous but trying times that they would see grace and share grace to each other. I have seen a God who brings people together as one.

I will post up other prayer requests (and praises) as they come along…

Just wanted to give you all an update on the future of “Dare to Follow” and my website :

First, I started “Dare to Follow Ministries” (now “Dare to Follow”) in order to encourage the body of Christ to “go out and make disciples” and for the lost to come to know the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Second, last year I purchased a website domain (ryanmulkowsky.com) in order to finally have a presence on the Internet for future opportunities in ministry and a place to share all of my content and writing.

But a new time for this ministry is coming…

Starting February 2012, my blog “Dare to Follow” and my website “ryanmulkowsky.com” will merge. Yes, that means that when you go on my website, you will be directed to this blog. I’ve noticed that having two separate entities was unnecessary. Having one thing to maintain is easier than two.

So with all that said, look forward to the new changes coming up in the next couple of weeks. First, the website will direct you to “Dare to Follow,” my blog. Second, there will be a new look to this blog; completely redesigned to be easier to navagate. Third, I hope to write way more often to provide you with inspirational and Biblical content for growth and to share.

Lastly, I am in the beginning process of writing a book and I plan to be done with the manuscript by end of Summer 2012. After my manuscript will come heavy editing and advanced copies to some friends and family who are willing to contribute to constructive criticism. Later on in the year and into next year I will be asking for donations to the publication of the book. Those who contribute a specific amount will be mentioned by name in my “Acknowledgments” page as a sign of appreciation. Details on the book will come periodically and can be found right here.

God bless to all of you who have been reading and encouraging me over the years, your friendship means so much!

For His glory,

Ryan

What do I think of this coming year? Well, I don’t know yet… I have some expectations but other than that it’s an open book for me.

Many people ask me what are my New Year’s resolutions for this coming year… it’s a popular question and something I should have an answer to since I probably had time to think about it. Yet, when asked I can’t come up with a definite answer…

Should I be worried? Maybe… but it’s a reminder to formulate realistic goals and to set my sights on something greater than before.

Here’s one thing about me that you should know when it comes to this time of year… I DO NOT MAKE RESOLUTIONS! Oh, but why you ask… well, because resolutions aren’t that successful for most people.

I mean, let’s be real… most people don’t keep their resolutions to the end of the year, heck… most don’t keep their resolutions for a few weeks! That’s just the nature of the beast. What’s most important is change, not resolution.

What’s the difference? Well, here are some definitions for resolve and change:

re·solve

“to reach a firm decision about”

change

“to make radically different”

Big, gigantic difference… right? I mean to resolve is simply referring to behavior modification, about individual decision-making… on the other hand change is not referring to behavior modificaiton, but character transformation!

The reason why resolutions don’t work most of the time is because making small changes in behavior doesn’t last… you have good intentions at the beginning and you might stick with it for a day, month, year… or maybe longer. Yet, most of the time you will stop… you will fall. We all fall and that’s ok, but making simple resolutions hasn’t changed many people’s lives according to my everyman observations.

Making changes is different: Change implies transformation… becoming one thing into something completely different. Changes last. Changes aren’t based on making slight resolutions or decisions from time to time but it’s a change in character, in mode, in disposition.

So this year, DO NOT RESOLVE to be a better person. Whatever your goals are for this coming year (there are plenty you can choose from), don’t make small decisions or simple resolutions that will fade away with the coming year; but make some big, gigantic changes in your character, your very being.

If you decide to make change, whatever goals you have… they will be fulfilled because you are not making simple resolutions with old character traits… but new changes that are symptomatic of new character… a new being!

I will close with a quote:

“Things do not change; we change.” — Henry David Thoreau

So stop with the disappointing resolutions and start committing to make some changes… real, life-altering changes!

~ Eugene Peterson

In just a few moments I would like for you to take some time to wrap around your mind what Christmas really means, and what it doesn’t. In these moments I won’t go into a diatribe against those who simply look at Christmas as a day “Good ol’ Saint Nick” comes around to little boys and girls homes (or apartments, condos, mobile homes, whatever) to deliver them gifts, or I won’t go into why people want to remove “‘Christ’ out of Christmas” or why our government can be so antagonistic about anything religious: you know and I know that these things lead to never-ending discussions and arguments — and that in and of itself can lead us away from the true message.

So with that disclosure said (hopefully plainly and clearly), I would like to share some thoughts from Matthew 1:18-25 about the narrative of the birth of Christ — I mean this is the “baby boy” I’m speaking of, and what the Christmas holiday is centered on…

Recently I taught in my Sunday School class (11th Grade @ Mount Zion Baptist Church) some insights that most people glean over when we discuss what the birth of Christ really means:

1. A baby conceived out of wedlock!

Many people, when they explain the birth of Christ, don’t discuss the scandalous element that is plainly written in the narrative. Verses 18 and 19 discusses how Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph, and that before they even made it to the “honeymoon suite,” Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant with child!

Ok, so first… how is this not scandalous? I mean, Mary is pregnant… before she was married! You think this is taboo today, imagine 2,000 years ago in Jewish culture. If Mary was discovered to be pregnant outside of marriage by the religious leaders of the day, she could have very well been stoned to death! (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)

Also, it says that “Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.” (Mt. 1:18-19b MSG) Can you imagine how difficult it would be, as a man, to find out your soon to be wife is pregnant, and not by you! I would be livid, angry, and the first thing I would want to do is disgrace her… and find out who got her pregnant! Joseph chagrined: he was uneasy, embarrassed by the whole situation; but he remained noble: he possessed great character and despite everything — he still kept everything quiet and determined to still love Mary despite the situation.

2. A baby conceived by the Holy Spirit?

As if a young, virgin girl getting pregnant outside of marriage by someone who is not her soon to be husband isn’t bad enough… to find out how Mary got pregnant sure helps to tip the scales on “crazy”! First, in this passage it states that Mary already knew how she got pregnant but Joseph had not found out up to this point. I can imagine being Joseph and finding out that your fiancée got pregnant, not by another man, but the Holy Spirit… WHAT?!

Yep, Mary’s baby was conceived by God, the Holy Spirit. Don’t ask me how this works… it is truly a miracle. I mean, if God can “breathe the breath of life” into man and “form him out of the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7), then He can pretty much do anything! But still… this is crazy scandalous. I mean why didn’t God wait until Joseph and Mary got married? Why didn’t God just allow Mary and Joseph to have a baby and God “bless it” with divinity? Because that wasn’t the plan. God had written in the Old Testament scriptures that “a virgin will have a son and it will be called Immanuel (God with us)” (Isa. 7:14). This answers both questions into why God couldn’t make an ordinary baby divine (Col. 2:9; 1 Tim. 3:16) or allow Joseph and Mary to consummate the marriage (Mt. 1:24-25).

This is a mystery that we will never be able to explain how it happened, but we know that it did happen!

This wonderful passage in Matthew 1 concludes with the dream Joseph receives from the angel of the LORD, and the most important reason why all of this scandal happened is stated:

“She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus — ‘God Saves’ — because he will save his people from their sins.” (Mt. 1:23 MSG)

Joseph is the “unsung hero” of the narrative: he didn’t put Mary to shame, he took care of things quietly, and he didn’t hesitate to obey the voice of God in the midst of scandal. Even though we do not have a single recorded word by Joseph in Scripture, he is just as important to the story as Mary, whom many revere.

So what can we learn? Well, God sometimes calls us to very difficult things. Will we be unwaveringly obedient despite how tough the circumstances are, or how much we might have to sacrifice? God called Joseph and Mary to something very difficult but rewarding, they were to birth the Son of the Living God!

Remember, this Christmas, to be completely obedient to God’s leading in your life… anything less than complete obedience will not bring blessing in your life…

So be blessed this season and into the next year!

I love to write…

and I miss it!

But I will keep this post brief. All I want to do is to give thanks! Giving thanks… it’s something we should do everyday. I don’t know why we have to have holidays to celebrate concepts that should be so intertwined in our lives. I’ll be lighthearted and say that for this holiday, Thanksgiving, it’s an excuse to take off work (for most of us), to gather together with loved ones and eat way too much!

I want to simply share with you a passage of Scripture I have been studying this week. It has really spoken to my heart and God has something good to say here!

Psalm 133

¹Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
²It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
³It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the LORD has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.

Here are some principles to take away from this Scripture:

1. Reconcile

If you have any relationships in your life that need to experience forgiveness and reconciliation, then take this time to seek that person (or persons) out and to display an act of thanksgiving: by stating that you are sorry for the brokenness and that you want healing in your relationship.

2. Regain

So many times we focus on our external circumstances instead of the One who is ultimately in control of our lives. We need to regain focus on God, who is the Giver and Sustainer of our lives. He alone is worthy of thanks and praise. Find time to praise him, not just for what He gives but who He is. Then you will understand that despite good or bad times, He is still good.

3. Retrust

There is nothing wrong with asking for provision, but there is something wrong with not giving thanks for what has been given to you. Stop focusing on your lack and focus on your provision — no matter how big or small it seems. A friend once told me this quote: “What if the only things we have today are the things we thanked God for yesterday.” Powerful isn’t it?

Let us remember these things…