How to Make The Most Of Each Day We Live

 Don't you just love the feeling of accomplishment?! 

even if it's something as common as cucumbers pickled...

...imagine, on the flipside, the horror of realizing how little we accomplished of eternal value

after it is too late to undo, redo or just do...

The one thing none can keep we ought to learn to give away

Life’s little splash of wake and sleep is not a holiday

So in this glove where push and shove leaves chaos in its wake

Let’s live as if life was more than a grand buffet of Take …

A smile, a hug, a gentle word, the slower company

Of very old or young, a listening ear, a cup of tea

The heart to make an altar of each new day’s mercy-tide

(Imagine if we caught a glimpse of this life’s Other Side)

…to share with wild abandon what the hand of grace has lent

To bear each other’s burdens, and with less be more content

To fling wide doors of heart and home in hospitality

And live as if today is love’s last opportunity

To take the hand of God and walk with kind humility

To bear in mind time’s daily grind impacts eternity

So if we want to make the most of each day that we live

Let’s make the grace of God our boast and give and give and give

© Janet Martin

 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; 

and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully…

 
Proverbs 19:17
Kindness to the poor is a loan to the LORD, and He will repay the lender.

Hebrews 6:10
For God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown for His name as you have ministered to the saints and continue to do so.

Mark 9:41
Indeed, if anyone gives you even a cup of water because you bear the name of Christ, truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward.

 
Matthew 25:40
And the King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me

Happiness Worth Living

Oh God, what hidden splendour

Presses against the gates

Where in buds of surrender

Full bloom of blessing waits

The heart is like a bower

That cannot bloom until

We submit to the Power

Of the Creator’s will

Then when Heart yields its hardness

The bud begins to brim

Unfolding from the darkness

The glorious Light of Him

Where what we thought we wanted

Falls like a withered leaf

After the seed God planted

(or, after the will God granted)

Surrenders to its Chief

…and finds within love’s giving

Life’s beauty, sweet and kind

Where happiness worth living

Keeps others first in mind

© Janet Martin

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, 

I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.

 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, 

and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, 

but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, 

  but have not love, I gain nothing. 

1 Cor.13:1-3

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, 

but in humility consider others more important than yourselves.

Each of you should look not only to your own interests,

 but also to the interests of others. 

Phil. 2:3-4 

I know I shared this song recently but in my own life /love

it bears replaying/repeating!

Heaven-bent

Sometimes the best way to give is through something we’ve never had

By relinquishing personal ‘druthers’ for the benefit of others

Let’s spend today giving away in copious amounts

The best we have of do and say for that’s what really counts

Let’s give; the only thing that we can keep of dust-to-dust

In treasure stored beyond this world where it will never rust

For all we have and hold of gold and silver cannot save

The soul when it succeeds the body tendered to the grave

Let’s make the most of moments, not by what we hoard and heap

But by giving away the only thing that we can keep

For if we invest only in the things that we can see
What will we do then, when we step into eternity?

© Janet Martin

 No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other,
or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and money.
Matt.6:24

 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Mark 3:36

 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, 

where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 

where moth and rust do not destroy,

 and where thieves do not break in and steal. 

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 

Matt.6:19-21