For Those Who Love Them

(I originally wrote this piece in 2018 but wasn’t brave enough to post it then. Some of the cultural references may be dated, but the message still holds true.)

 

Lately there have been a lot of suicides.

Kate Spade. Anthony Bourdain. The kid across town.

No matter who you are, you have probably known of someone who took their own life.

What has come over this world?

Why are all these people choosing to leave by their own hand?

 

For most of them, it’s lack of hope.

When you ask suicide survivors why they did it, a majority of them will tell you they thought there was no hope.

None.

 

We need to bring back hope.

Hope for help, peace, understanding, and acceptance.

Hope that is only found in God, through Christ alone.

We must remind them of God’s faithfulness; encourage them to turn to Him.

 

Of course, this must be done gently.

They’re already beat down by their own ugly thoughts.

No need to beat them over the head with a Bible.

By gently sharing the truth of God’s love and reminding them the Creator of the Universe loves them and wants to help them we can begin to point them to the only place real hope exists – in Christ.

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What Are the Gospels?

The Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament.

The word Gospel means good news. When coupled with Christianity it means the good news of Jesus and His resurrection.

These books tell us about Jesus’ birth, His life on earth, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension into Heaven. They show us some of the miracles He performed. They also share a lot of the wisdom and parables He gave us while here.

 

The books are:

Matthew – Matthew was a tax collector. This book was written somewhere between 75 and 90 A.D. It’s main purpose was to prove to the Jewish people that Jesus is the Messiah they were waiting for. It also helped them understand that the Old Testament law no longer applied because Jesus fulfilled it. It explains that because of this, Jesus’ teachings and way of doing things is how things should now be done. Lastly, Matthew explains how the kingdom of heaven is both present and future reality.

You can read about Jesus calling Matthew in Matthew 9:9. It is also mentioned in Mark 2:14 and Luke 5:27 – 28. In these passages the tax collector is called Levi, but many scholars believe these men named Levi and Matthew are the same person. Both were tax collectors. Both were sons of Alphaeus. The story of Jesus calling the tax collector is virtually identical in all three books. Some scholars think Levi was his Hebrew name and that Matthew was his Greek name. Others think Jesus began calling him Matthew when he called him to follow Him. Whichever the case, Levi and Matthew are very likely the same person.

 

Mark – Written by Mark, who was often called John Mark. This book was written around 65 A.D. Written for Gentiles, it’s main purpose was to encourage Christians who were suffering for their faith. Mark spends time explaining Jewish customs and laws so the Gentiles would better understand their Jewish brothers and sisters. He also sometimes uses Roman words instead of Jewish words.

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I Surrender All

There’s an old hymn from the 1890s titled “I Surrender All”.

It is a beautiful song and one of my favorites.

Part of the chorus says, “All to Thee, My Blessed Savior, I surrender all.”

 

I heard and sang that song for years without really understanding what it meant.

I knew what surrender was.

I knew I was committed to Jesus and to living a life that pleased Him.

But, deep down, I was still hanging onto things.

Things I hadn’t given Him yet.

Things I didn’t want to give Him.

Things I didn’t realize I needed to give Him.

 

Then I heard the words no one ever wants to hear, “You have cancer,”

Believe me when I say that will make you think about things you never thought about.

It will also make you look at a lot of things a lot differently.

 

It was like a light bulb went off in my head and I realized there were things I was holding on to that I didn’t know were there.

Unforgiveness. Frustration. Disappointment.

 

The only thing I could do about any of it was to give it to Christ.

Not in some, “Hey this is bothering me” way.

In a deep, honest, get it all out into the open kind of way.

Complete honesty and deep reflection.

Admitting my part in it.

 

It wasn’t easy.

I ugly-cried for days.

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Filtering Through Pain

One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is how to filter my pain through truth instead of filtering truth through my pain.

See, as humans when we’re hurting we often let our pain color our perception of things, people, and actions around us.

We don’t do it on purpose.

It’s that the pain is there and present and in the forefront of our minds so we tend to lead with that and to perceive things from that perspective.

Whether we’ve been disrespected, lied to, betrayed, stolen from, or experienced any other kind of pain, we tend to see others’ actions as potential for that event to be happening again, even when it’s not.

We assume (sometimes without realizing it) that because a person from our past did us wrong this person will, too.

Unfortunately, when we’re expecting and looking for something we tend to see it, whether it’s there or not.

 

God calls us to a higher standard than that.

Instead of filtering our life experiences through our pain, He calls us to filter them through His Word and Truth.

Regardless of how we feel or what we have experienced, we have to put the truth of Scripture first and foremost in our minds and operate according to it and what it says.

 

That can be hard.

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Pick Up Your Cross…

Have you ever heard the phrase, “pick up your cross”?

It’s part of a verse where Jesus says, “pick up your cross and follow Me,”.

This is a good, important thing to do.

It’s one of the basic parts of being a Christian.

 

To pick up our cross means to pick up the practice of obeying Christ and whatever calling He has placed on our life, to choose to lay our self aside, and to follow Him wherever He leads us.

 

Have you ever read the entire verse?

It’s found in Matthew 16:24 and says,

 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. (NIV)

 

Did you catch that?

It says to deny yourself.

 

Too often we try to follow Christ while still doing things our own way and living life on our terms.

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Category: Faith, God, Jesus, Obedience, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

Good Friday 2026

It’s Good Friday – the day we remember Jesus and how He willingly gave up His life to pay for our sins so we can be reconciled with the Father through His precious blood atonement. .

I praise Him for His sacrifice and thank Him for His immeasurable gift!

 

 “He Himself bore our sins” in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by His wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” He said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock Him and spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. Three days later He will rise.” Mark 10:33-34 (NIV)

 

To learn more about Good Friday, please visit my post, What Is Good Friday?

 

For more posts about Easter, please visit my Easter page here – Easter

 

 

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Easter 2026

It’s almost Easter!

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week.

During this week Christians from around the world will remember Jesus and His crucifixion, as they celebrate His resurrection.

I hope you will take time to reflect on Jesus’ sacrifice and what it means for us as believers.

 

If you would like to know more about Easter, please check out these links to previous posts:

 

What Is Easter?

What Is Palm Sunday?

What Is Holy Week?

 

For more posts about Easter, please visit my Easter page here – Easter

 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

 

 

 

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What is Salvation?

You’ve probably heard the words Saved or Salvation used by Christians.

What does it mean in this context?

It means saved from our sins.

 

See, back when God first created the world He created a beautiful garden and placed two people in it – Adam and Eve.

They lived a beautiful and blessed life.

There was no sin.

There was no pain.

There was just joy.

Unfortunately, they made a really bad choice that ended all that.

 

When God placed them in the Garden of Eden, He told them about two trees that were there.

One was the Tree of Life; the other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God made it very clear they could eat of any tree in the garden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The enemy came to Eve, disguised as a serpent, to tempt her into eating the fruit of the only tree God had told them to stay away from.

She not only ate it, she shared it with Adam.

When they ate this fruit, their eyes were opened to see the difference between good and evil.

It was at the moment Eve yielded to the serpent’s temptation and ate the fruit that sin entered the world.

Because of this, God made them leave the garden so they would not eat from the Tree of Life.

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What Is Maundy Thursday?

Maundy Thursday is an important, though often overlooked, part of Holy Week.

 

A lot of things happened on Maundy Thursday.

Among them:

Jesus celebrated the Passover in the Upper Room with His disciples.

We now call this meal the Last Supper because it was the last time He shared a meal with them before His crucifixion.

It was during this meal Jesus instituted Communion as a way of remembering Him.

 

At the end of the meal, Jesus washed the feet of the disciples as a show of humility and as an example of how He wanted them to humbly serve others.

 

Following the Last Supper meal, Jesus and the Disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane, located at the Mount of Olives.

Here Jesus went off alone to pray.

He asked the Father to take this cup away if possible, meaning the Crucifixion He was about to experience, but immediately followed it up with, “Yet, not my will, Father, Yours be done.”

Jesus knew what was coming.

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The Last Supper

The night before He was crucified, Jesus celebrated the beginning of Passover with His disciples.

This meal is often called the Last Supper because it was the last meal Jesus shared with His followers.

 

During the Last Supper is when Jesus instituted the act of Communion (also called the Lord’s Supper).

He broke a loaf of bread and said it was a symbol of His body being broken for us.

He then poured a cup of wine and told them to drink, explaining it was a symbol of His blood being shed for the redemption of our sins.

Jesus instructed them to do this in remembrance of Him.

 

In churches today, we periodically celebrate Communion by drinking a small amount of wine or grape juice and eating a small piece of unleavened bread.*

This is to remind us that Jesus’ body was broken for our healing and that He paid a high price to ransom us. .

When we participate in Communion we are reminded of the great sacrifice Jesus made by dying for us and we are acknowledging we know He did it for us personally.

 

While Jesus and the disciples were at this meal, Jesus told them He knew one of them was a traitor who would betray Him.

He even went so far as to name Judas as the one.

Judas immediately left and went straight to the leaders and priests to tell them where to find Jesus.

This led to Jesus being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane later that same night.

 

After the meal, they sang a hymn and left the Upper Room to go to the Garden of Gethsemane.

Judas knew that’s where they would be and that is where he brought the leaders and priests to arrest Jesus.

This arrest meant the end of Jesus’ ministry on earth.

It also meant the beginning of His trial, which led to His Crucifixion, death, and resurrection.

 

 

To learn more about what happened next, please read my post, Jesus Was Arrested.

 

*Because the bread used during Passover is unleavened, it is tradition to use unleavened bread during Communion.

To read about the Last Supper, please see Matthew 26:17-30, or Luke 22:7-23

To learn more about the Easter Season, please visit my Easter page, a compilation of previous Easter and Lent posts.

 

 

 

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