My husband and I are searching for a new home. We drive around various towns and check for homes, we check the neighborhood, we even go online and do a an extensive online search. We talk with real estate agents, sellers and fincial wizards to be sure once we pick the right home we get the right financing.

There is another home we are also preparing for. You can only get into the particular home one way; through Christ.

To all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12 NLT

It doesn’t matter how good you are, what your credit score is or even how many times you attended church or put money in the basket. You must first accept Christ as Savior. This and only this will give you the right to become a joint heir with Jesus and a child of God.

Examine yourselves to see if your faith is really genuine. Test yourselves. If you cannot tell that Jesus Christ is among you, it means you have failed the test. 2 Corinthians 13:5, NLT

…and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain Rev 21:4

Last month was quite traumatic for my family. My son-in-law, 29, died in an automobile accident leaving behind my daughter, 25, and their 21 month old son. This wasn’t my first experience with death.

I was 8 or 10 when I was first introduced to death. My grandfather had gone into his backyard to mow and before he could get started suffered a massive heart attack. Instantly he was gone. We traveled from our small hometown south of Kansas City to Chicago where I experienced the first of many funerals. As a child I didn’t understand why grandpa was laying there like that in that funny looking bed. Then at the cemetery as I stood far away from the gravesite I turned and looked back to see the coffin being lowered into the ground. That wasn’t right! Why would they do that while my dad and grandma sat there and watched?

Since that time I have seen death attack my family taking a sister at 11, my husband when I was only 37, my father, various aunts and uncles, a very dear and close friend, a brother-in-law, and my first grandchild. Some died instantly, some after a lingering illness.

April 16 we, as a nation, we will celebrate a death. Christ died not instantly in an auto accident, not after a lingering illness, but He died a cruel and agonizing intentionally, to save me!! To save you!! He could have saved himself, but He chose to go through with the pain and death as a sacrifice for sins I have committed and will commit. Christ died that I may have a home with Him in heaven. BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!!! Death may have held my grandson and father and friend, but death did not hold Christ. Death was not able to hold Him in the grave. No, after 3 days Christ defeated death and came out of the grave, He walked the earth, spoke with people, and then He ascended into Heaven where He is preparing a home for me. Click here for the Resurrection Story and Easter Fun Ideas.

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.  John 15:2

I recently watched Joyce Meyer speak about how God prunes us like vines are pruned for a fuller bloom. Pruning essentially involves removing plant parts to improve the health, landscape effect, or value of the plant. One of her illustrations involved taking a large pair of pruning shears and her suggestion was to hang it on a wall somewhere like you would a picture or a plaque. Then when you notice things are really changing in your life, some things or people are being ‘cut away’ you can look at the shears and be reminded that God is pruning to improve your overall spritual health, landscape effect and value.

Pruning can be painful when it occurs in your life. When you follow God’s lead and find you are being pruned, you are having things or people around you cut away, remember that when a vine is pruned the fruit it produces is fuller and more plentiful.

Is there a pruning shear in your life? Don’t despair and watch for the bountiful crop.

And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. Mark 10:13-16

The disciples prevented the little ones from coming to Jesus. We note in the scripture this displeased the Lord. He didn’t like that the disciples were preventing others from coming to Him. Do we, as a church today, prevent others from coming to Christ? This idea is explored in the outer and gives us something to think about.

He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Psalm 91:11-12

“Because he loves me,” sys the Lord “I will rescue him; I will protect him for he acknowledges my name”.
Psalm 91:14

It is tough being a single mom and working to provide for her family. Offer to take the children for a few hours and allow her time for some peace and quiet. If possible, give her a gift certificate to a local coffee shop or for a massage.

Something to think about: Mary was an unwed mother and later a single mom

Deliver me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of evil and cruel men.
For you have been my hope, O Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth. Psalm 71:4-5

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head–Christ– from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

“For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11