“Feed my sheep.”

John 21:16

Those three little words say so much to us who choose to follow Jesus.

They tell us what to do: Feed. We are to give what would bring nourishment…what would bring strength and wholeness to someone else…what would sustain and increase life. We are to feed others in the immediate…for right now…or their physical needs…and far more importantly we are to feed others for their eternal spiritual needs to be met. And those can only be fed—and fulfilled—by the love, the grace and the truth of Jesus Christ! 

And those three little words tell us who we are to feed: “My sheep”—God’s sheep—God’s people. That means all those God created, all those around us. We all are God’s sheep, and we all have gone astray in one way or another (Isaiah 53:6). And it is through the Bread of Life, our Lord Jesus Christ, giving His life to bring us eternal life and nourishment for our souls that all of us you believe are fed!

May we see all people through the loving eyes of Jesus—as His sheep. And may we feed these precious sheep with love, mercy, compassion and tangible help so that they may know and receive the fullness of life that comes the Eternal Bread of Heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

With my mouth I will greatly extol the LORD;

in the great throng I will praise him.

For he stands at the right hand side of the needy one,

to save his life from those who condemn him.

Psalm 109:30-31

Today many of us will worship our God, “extol the LORD,” at a church service. We will be in “the great throng” to praise and thank our God.

May each of us recognize His nearness as His needy ones—each one of of us is just as desperate for God as are all others. And may we have joy and great peace in the knowledge that as children saved by our God—by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus—no one can condemn us…not even our own sins. We are saved! Our God is with us!

May we each greatly extol the LORD and praise Him always—both in “the great throng” at church and in “the great throng” of people with whom we share this world each and every day of our lives!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

No one can serve two masters.

Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Matthew 6:22-24

Sometimes we can be so blind. So blind to ourselves…to our way of seeing, to our way of perceiving, that even we who have Jesus as our Savior don’t truly know Him—or allow Him—to be Lord and Master of our lives.

Maybe it is Money—the pursuit of it, the worry about it, the pride of having it, the plan and energy to obtain and keep it, the fear of losing it—that your eyes, the eyes of your heart and your perception, focus on and rule over your thoughts and behavior instead of Jesus as Lord. Maybe the Master of your eyes and, therefore, your whole being is Money…and all things Material. 

OR…maybe you don’t struggle with Money being your Master. So, what is it that keeps Jesus from truly being the Lord of your life?

Maybe it’s Your sense of Yourself and the Control you want and believe you have. Your way of thinking and behaving—Your perception that You are always right, that You have done everything You can, that people would all be better off if they would just do things according to Your plan—has become your Master. Your eyes, the eyes of your heart and your perception, focus on yourself and your apparently superior way of thinking and doing as the worthy Master of your life rather than humbly allowing God to be God and Lord of your life. You may even be sincerely thankful for your salvation, that comes from Jesus alone and will bring you into the presence of God when you die to this earth. But in the meantime, you’ll stay focused on maintaining the position of being Your own Master of Your life on this side of Heaven. Thank you, very much.

No matter what we look to as the Master and Lord of our life—Money, Self, Whatever—if the eyes of our heart focus on anything else rather than Jesus, we are living in and filled with darkness. Jesus alone is the True Light and the True Lord of the world. Not us. Not our stuff. Not our thinking. Not our doing. Jesus is the One and Only Eternal Master of all there is. Jesus is the Name above all names. Jesus is the Only One to whom our eyes should look and in whom we should place our trust as Master of our lives.

Good eyes look to trust and obey One True Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

With all that is within me I want every single person in this world to know the love of God. I want every single person to realize that we all need God…that we all need His mercy, His peace, His hope, His gift of salvation and eternal life that comes through our Lord Jesus Christ alone. 

With all that is within me I want every single person to know that God gives full life and full freedom right now…that God heals and transforms hearts and minds and lives right now…by His unfailing love and unlimited power.

If I, who am frail, flawed and finite—and sometimes just so darn self-focused, stubborn-hearted and hard-headed—desire this for all people, how much more must our Holy, Eternal, Loving LORD want this for all of us!!?

For those of us who already know the saving grace and eternal love of our Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that you and I will choose to live in such a way that declares God’s heart towards all people…I pray that you and I will choose to be better ambassadors of Christ to all those around us.

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors,

as though God where making his appeal through us.

2 Corinthians 5:20 

—————————-

God is patient with you [with all of us], not wanting anyone to perish,

but everyone to come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:9

May each of us choose to reveal God’s loving, merciful, welcoming heart for all people…at all times…in all circumstances!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

Yesterday I wrote of our tender and tenuous responsibility to judge our brothers and sisters (and ourselves) in the household of faith—for the LORD and with the LORD (2 Chronicles 19:4-7)—as representatives of our Holy God.

It is just as important for every one of us who claim to be a Christian to offer the FULL grace of Jesus Christ to those who have humbled themselves before our God and repented of their sins. We must no longer make anyone feel like an outcast or a failure. Because every single one of us needs the FULL sacrifice that cost Jesus His life in order to pay for our sins.

To offer the FULL grace of Jesus Christ, we can no longer malign any person for what they have done. In the FULL grace of Jesus Christ we can no longer hold anyone in bondage by our judgment or disappointment. In the FULL grace of Jesus Christ we can no longer point out anyone’s past sins or continue to point them out or discuss them with others.

The FULL grace of Jesus Christ puts an end to all condemnation in the heart of our Holy God towards each of us who receive His forgiveness and renewal. How much more should we, who are also sinners, put an end to all condemnation towards our brothers and sisters in Christ!! 

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life

set me free from the law of sin and death…

God did this by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man,

to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man,

in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us…

Romans 8:1-4

 God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us,

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

Full life, full freedom from accusation and condemnation, full redemption, full forgiveness, full transformation of our standing with our Holy God happens only in the FULL grace of Jesus Christ! May we offer no less than this to our brothers and sisters in Christ!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

Yet this I call to mind

and therefore I have hope.

Because of the LORD’s great love

we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:20-22

Call this to mind when you are overwhelmed with the hurting of your heart from the death of your mom or dad, your husband or wife, your child or grandchild or your friend.

Call this to mind when you are worried and uncertain about what the future holds for you as you face the diagnosis of a devastating disease that just won’t seem to let go of your body or your mind….or that of your mom or dad, your husband or wife, your child or grandchild or your friend.

Call this to mind when you are rejected, mistreated, ridiculed, abandoned, lost and alone.

Call this to mind when you are faced with your own sin and the ugliness of it and the destruction your sinful choices have brought to your life and your peace and to the life and peace of those around you.

Call this to mind and have hope in the LORD.

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

God truly does love us. Every single one of us. With all our baggage of hurt or shame…with all our bondage of sin habits—whether they are seen or unseen by others.

The last two days I have been blessed and challenged to spend time again (my 20th–22nd visit since 2003) with different groups–two Therapeutic Groups and one Family Group–at Mathom House, the Rehabilitation Center for Adolescent Sexual Offenders in Bucks County, PA.

Having been so horrendously abused myself, it is only by the power and passion of the love of Jesus Christ—who died for all sin committed by all people—that I am able to enter into to the lives of these perpetrators of ugly sexual sins and into the lives of their families and still be absolutely CONVINCED that our God is a God of Transformation! Our God is the Lord of Salvation, Forgiveness, Eternal Life…and RENEWED MINDS and LIVES right here and now! 

BUT! We must do things God’s WAY which is the very BEST way for all of us. Period.

This is what the LORD says—

your Redemeer, the Holy One of Israel,

“I am the LORD your God,

who teaches you what is best for you,

who directs you in the way you should go.

If only you had paid attention to my commands,

your peace would have been like a river,

your righteousness like the waves of the sea.”

Isaiah 48:17-18

Our LORD loves us. He alone truly knows what is best for us—what will bring peace and righteousness to our lives…and to the lives of all those with whom we interact. It is time for all of us to pay attention!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be pleasing in your sight,

O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 19:14

Oh, I do want this to be true of me. I want God to grab such a hold on me that everything I say, do and think would be pleasing in His sight. This is my sincere prayer from my heart.

But, sadly and frustratingly, not every word…not every action…not every thought of mine is always pleasing to my LORD. Not from today and not from yesterday. And I’m pretty sure that unless I’m either in a coma or already in Heaven with Jesus tomorrow, that not every word, action and thought of mine in the coming days will be perfectly pleasing to my LORD either.

Yet! We still need to desire that every word, action and thought we have would please our LORD.

And then, we need to accept the full grace that comes to us through salvation and receive the gift of forgiveness and renewal that Jesus alone offers—without ever forgetting the full truth that these gifts come to us at the high cost of Jesus sacrificing His life for ours.

This is grace and truth. Receiving both of these from Jesus will keep us in that place of balance where we truly are able to seek and to pray with sincere hearts:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be pleasing in your sight,

O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 19:14

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

Twice this past weekend I saw what I consider very optimistic signs which read: Temporarily Out of Order.

I like that. The things that carried this sign were not to be discarded, nor were they to be considered as permanently out of order. There was hope for them yet! They were only Temporarily Out of Order.

And there’s hope for me too. And for all of us who trust our eternal lives over to the King of Heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ! We will walk through this life where things and our bodies and relationships break down and suffer. But in Jesus, we are only temporarily out of order! We can hold onto the glorious promise that all things will yet be made new—for all eternity…and that the old order of things that are temporarily out of order will pass away!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:1-4

Thanks be to our Loving Lord, our Almighty God, who makes all things new! Our Lord redeems and transforms all that was once Temporarily Out of Order…all the brokenness of sin and shame and suffering and death from the old order of things will pass away as He proclaims,

“I am making everything new!”

Revelation 21:5

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane