Showing posts with label sacrifice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sacrifice. Show all posts

Thursday, September 29, 2022

What More Then, Do We Need?



Tis quite a thing to contemplate
The measure of love's price
It's law no one can mediate
To keep, or sacrifice

 Where what we sacrifice for Who
Tells who our allegiance is to
What joy when what is sacrificed 
 Turns loss to gain, when done for Christ 
***
He forgives our sins and remembers them no more!
What more do we need?

Isaiah 43:25
I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake
 and remembers your sins no more.

You discern thought’s intents
You look into the heart
Still, morning spills the evidence
Of mercies You impart



You lavish us with love
You keep us in Your care
Your Word, a wondrous treasure trove
Of wealth beyond compare

You hear us when we pray
Your light dispels dark doubt
Your grace sufficient, come what may
Your ways past finding out

You discern thought’s intents
You look into the heart
Still, morning spills the evidence
Of mercies You impart

Your well never runs dry
Where Living Waters roll
Your Bread of Life will satisfy
The hunger of the soul

Your Son died in our stead
One sacrifice for all
To free us from the curse that led
To hell after The Fall

Where blood of bull and ram
Could never pay sin’s price
Jesus, the only spotless Lamb
Fit for the sacrifice

What a gift we receive
You gave the best you had
So, all who repent and believe
May call you Abba-Dad

What more then, do we need
Where greed for gain runs wild
Your goodness is enough to feed
All who become Your child

You lavish us with love
You keep us in Your care
Our hope in You, more than enough
For every cross we bear

Where, when death runs us through
Death is not the last word
But simply the Grand Entrance to
Forever with You, Lord

What more then, can we say
You make our joy complete
As we press on toward That Day
When earth and Heaven meet 

Then, how awed we will be
All that we sacrificed
A pittance, as eternity
Consummates, All for Christ 

© Janet Martin


John 1:12
But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name,
 He gave the right to become children of God--

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Living With An Almost-Heaven Viewpoint

 Beulah Land


turned my train of thought down a slightly different track today...

Living with an Almost Heaven Viewpoint shifts our point of view
Makes us more aware of caring about death’s approaching due
Keeps us keened to what is promised that will forever endure
Rather than the cross upon us or temptation’s dangling lure

Time is such a fleeting measure, just a vapor, my dear friend
The soul is the single treasure that will final breath transcend
No matter where feet may take us or what success we may boast
‘Almost Heaven’s viewpoint tunes us to The Thing that Matters Most

What a joy when we envision as we pay Devotion’s Price
Jesus standing where the mission of true love is sacrifice
Jesus smiling as we smile back while we give and give and give
Because Almost Heaven waits after this little life we live

© Janet Martin

Matt.25:40
And the King shall answer and say unto them, 
Verily I say unto you, 
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
ye have done it unto me.

Monday, October 19, 2020

Thy-Way or My-Way Highway





How easy it is fall from Sunday morning's pew-secure 'Thy-Way, Lord
to Monday morning's My-way Highway😐

and the past few devotions
...are part of the inspiration for this poem

Holy and wholly Thine 
Lord, teach us how to pray 
Thy kingdom come 
Thy will be done 
Thou Potter, I, the clay 

Except the kernel falls 
Into the ground and dies 
It cannot yield 
The goodly field 
That broken seed supplies 

The hardest death we die 
Is veiled in life's façade
As we resign 
The will of ‘mine’ 
To ‘Thine alone, Oh God’ 

Aha, tis not the gift 
That anchors and assures 
But mortal lives 
Through He who gives 
And only death/faith secures 

How easily we fall 
Not to the ground to die 
But to the taunts 
Of selfish wants 
And mistrust’s crafty lie 

Holy and wholly Thine 
No lesser pleas avail 
Thy kingdom come 
Thy will be done 
All else is but to fail 

© Janet Martin 

Thy kingdom come, 
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Matt 6:10

Monday, May 4, 2020

Worth Every While





Worth ev’ry change of plans; all we give up
Ev’ry heave-ho that drains youth’s favoured cup
Worth ev’ry second mile till we lose track
How many miles we have walked back to back

Worth ev’ry farewell-pang, worth ev’ry prayer
All we have given to prove that we care
Worth ev’ry sorrow no matter the cost
Worth ev’ry hour of sleep we have lost

Worth ev’ry while with nothing much to tell
Ev’ry perhaps that turns into ‘oh, well’
Worth ev’ry mistake, each grin, groan, grunt, oh
Worth every ache and painful letting go

Worth every kick-off, low-blow and high-five
Worth all the trouble it takes to survive
Worth all the wishes that never come true
Because of all the surprises that do

Worth all the lessons required to learn
It yields both bitter and sweeter return
Worth ev’ry flying-leap, face-plant, push-shove
This is the terrible worth of true love

© Janet Martin

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

God-given Rite...

Give as you are able
according as the Lord has blessed you...
Deut.16:17

  Never twist justice to benefit a rich man, and never accept bribes. 
For bribes blind the eyes of the wisest and corrupt their decisions. 
Deut.16:19


What counts is not the place or face by rank or rights defined
This is no contest; we are all called to life’s kindred goad
To love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind
To love our neighbour as our self and share life’s heavy load

What counts is not the number of amounts as much as this
The measure of the heart; this is the place where giving starts
God sees beneath the outer scarf to what our intent is
And we cannot deceive He who wealth’s ways and means imparts

What counts is not so much the vessel as its harboured sum
This is no contest; we are all called to life’s kindred role
To love God and each other, for soon what is will become
The blip before God strips us of everything but the Soul

© Janet Martin



Monday, January 6, 2020

New Year's Thankfulness-Challenge


I don't make New Year's Resolutions
but I do review and renew resolves!

Yesterday our Sunday School lesson was about Stephen, the first martyr
For the One, Jesus, who gave His life for us, he gave his....
It got me to examining how I am giving mine!
When 'rocks' are hurled, how do I respond?
Is my life a living sacrifice?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, 
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--
this is your true and proper worship.
Rom.12:1

 
Nobody is entitled to a thing we have or hold
Therefore none are excused to squander mercy’s moment-gold
This day that grace has granted plants within all we profess
A most sacred occasion to examine thankfulness

A book, invisible to we, vexed by the wishful eye
Is filled with man’s responses from the heart that cannot lie
Then pray above all else we crave a heart of tenderness
And take an honest, open look at our thankfulness

For no one is entitled to a single grace we host
This grace, it is a gift from God and ought to fill our boast
(oh, what is more despicable than greed or selfishness)
Lord, work in us a miracle of humble thankfulness

For we are not entitled to one. Single. Cent. we earn
Naked we came into this world, naked we will return
Then teach us on our way to You how to find happiness
Not through 'wealth' we accumulate but by true thankfulness

This state of mass confusion that the world is in today
Is filled with man’s profuse excuses as Self has its say
For we are cursed and blessed with cares common to humanness
And sometimes so contrary to our would-be thankfulness

Where no one is entitled to what is too oft ignored
The One who grants the hope we ought to be striving toward
Because all that we have and hold to cheer this mortal beast
Are but the crumbs that fall from tables laden with a Feast

Then, lest we shift our gaze from things above to things below
Lord, fill our hearts with praise to Thee, from whom all blessings flow
And help us to trust you enough to take pillows of ‘yes’
And sacrifice them on an altar of love’s thankfulness

How do we offer up ourselves as living sacrifice
How do we prove that we are not bought with a dollar's price
How do we ever start to gain a heart of tenderness
First by turning to Jesus, then by learning thankfulness



© Janet Martin

 Jer.17:7-11
 Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not [c]fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.

“The heart is deceitful above all things,
And [d]desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the [e]mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.
As a partridge that [f]broods but does not hatch,
So is he who gets riches, but not by right;
It will leave him in the midst of his days,
And at his end he will be a fool.”