New Life!

My heart has been leaping with all of the new life in Spring!  The South is absolutely gorgeous in the Spring, with every type of tree budding and blooming, daffodils scattering their yellow everywhere you look, and tulips popping their heads left and right.  I take many pictures of my beloved cardinal in the winter, because the bare limbs allow me to see them more clearly.  Winter symbolizes death for me, with all of life pretty much asleep, so when Spring came this year, my heart yearned to take a picture of the cardinal in the bloom of LIFE!  How perfect that God gave me this picture on Easter!  The day that Jesus rose from the dead so that we all could LIVE is the very day that I was able to capture this precious scene.  GLORY!!  Anyone who accepts Jesus as Savior is clothed in LIFE!  Hallelujah!  I live because He lives!!

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."  (John 10:10)

Bitter Roots

"See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many."  (Hebrews 12:15)

This tree, well now it's a dead tree, has been taunting me for weeks.  I drive by it almost every day, and each time it's as if screams, "Take a picture of me!  I have a word to speak!"  Every time I'm reminded to capture it, I don't have my camera in the car.  It's Springtime, and the chainsaws are screaming, so I've been in a panic thinking that someone would cut the tree down before I could take a picture.

The tree is totally dead.  Some sort of root has trailed up the trunk and squeezed, inch by inch, bit by bit, the life that once lived in this tree.  Just like this tree, bitterness is a deadly root that can take hold of our lives and inch by inch, bit by bit, squeeze the life out of us and out of those we are embittered toward.

I have seen marriages suffocated because of bitterness.  I have watched churches disintegrate because of bitterness.  I have seen friendships vanish because a root of bitterness has taken hold.

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice."  (Ephesians 4:31)

Is bitterness a root that is squeezing the life out of you?

God's Heart

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting LIFE".  (John 3:16)

My daughter Kinsey took this picture on Easter at my parents house.  I love this old oak tree in every season, because the sun always sets behind it.  I quote the "oaks of righteousness" verse quite a bit as I strive to live a free life in Christ.  It is so fitting that the day that Jesus took every sin ever committed and bore it on His perfect Body, He once and FOR ALL made those who would believe in Him righteous before Him.  We are clean because He had to wear our dirty stains.

"Amazing Love, O what sacrifice!  The Son of God given for me.  My debt He paid, and MY DEATH He died, that I might LIVE, that I might LIVE"!!

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."  (2 Cor. 5:21)