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Thursday, November 2, 2023

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

Who loathe the cunning Tempter bent
On preening false illusion’s sway/prey
With logic’s soothing argument

Where Imagination deceives
The proud with promised lands that blind
With sight, what faith alone perceives

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,



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