Worth Every Tender Mercy

God is not who we imagine Him to be.

God is who He says He is in His Word.

God's Word is not filled with suggestions of how to live

but sacred commandments.

 God, through the prophet Jeremiah, has repeated, dire warnings for

all 'who walk after the imaginations of their hearts'

To live, to love and do our part

With strength and mind, to serve the Lord

Is no charge for the faint of heart

Or those impatient for reward

For oftentimes, what seems so small

On the grand scale of recompense

Is not what it appears at all

When trust chooses obedience

Rather than the darling appeal

Of ‘happiness’ that money buys

No glamorous façade, the zeal

That presses to the Greater Prize

…God has prepared for the Blest Meek

Who look beyond the god/laud of Self

To heed the commandment to seek

God’s kingdom first, not worldly pelf

Who loathe the cunning Tempter bent

On preening false illusion’s sway/prey

With logic’s soothing argument

To woo with ‘did God really say?’

Who earnestly guard heart and mind

Where Imagination deceives

The proud with promised lands that blind

With sight, what faith alone perceives

Where the recompense of reward

Is not yet, but someday will be

Worth every (secret) tender mercy poured

Into vaults of eternity

© Janet Martin

Pride is a great enemy to obedience

And quite the cunning foe!

Pride comes in so many forms...

last month our church participated in a fund-raised

meal-pack through Lifeline.

When donating online, the default-setting for donations

is to publicly display the donation amount (why??)

Mortified, I realized too late, after a few corrections

that my 'private' setting had switched back to 'public'!

I contacted Lifeline to please switch it to 'private'

but I think they had more pressing concerns😅🙏

(and it was very hard on my 'pride' to simply let it go)

Pride is such a stinker and humility SO hard to get;

the minute we think we have it we've lost it!!😂

Jesus taught us to give like this...

Matt.6:4

But when you give to the needy, 

do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

 4so that your giving may be in secret. 

And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 5