Blessings

On our walks near the Rio Grande, my husband Kenn and I often greet those passing by with a “good morning.” I look at those greetings as extending a blessing in hopes these fellow walkers and runners have a good day. Some receive it with a returned, “good morning,” some with a hello or nod, and others walk by without acknowledging us.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the Greek word, bless, used here is eulogeo—to speak well of, thank, or a prayer of benediction. This word can also mean, praise.

In Luke 2:28, Simeon blessed God in the temple as he held the Christ child. In verse 34, he blessed Mary and Joseph. I believe when Simeon blessed God, he was thanking and praising Him for allowing Simeon to see the promised Messiah. When he blessed Mary and Joseph, he may have spoken a benediction of protection and favor over them.

Here is another verse that uses eulogeo.

“Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
Luke 6:28, NIV

We are to offer a kind word, speak well of, and pray for those who curse and mistreat us.

There’s another meaning for the word blessed in the Bible. The Greek word, makarios, means supremely blessed, happy, fortunate, and well off. My study Bible states, “It is a grace word that expresses the special joys and satisfaction granted the person who experiences salvation.”

Makarios is the word used in the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5:3-11 and Luke 6:20-22. We also find it in these verses.

As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out,
“Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”
He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the
word of God and obey it.”
Luke 11:27-28, NIV

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me,
you have believed; blessed are those who have
not seen and yet have believed.”
John 20:29, NIV

Excuse me a moment while I eulogeo my Lord. Jesus said, makarios are those who hear the Word and obey it and who have not seen and yet believe. That’s us if we’ve experience Christ’s salvation! We are supremely blessed, happy, fortunate, and well off. We find joy and satisfaction in our salvation. Praise God!

Will you join me in offering thanks and praise to God for His supreme blessings, joy, and the satisfaction He grants to those of us who have experienced His salvation?

---

Hayford, Jack W. New Spirit Filled Life Bible: NKJV Kingdom Equipping through the Power of the Word. Thomas Nelson, 2002.

Saying Grace

Has someone asked you to say grace before a meal? Why is the word “grace” used to describe a mealtime prayer? I’ve heard God’s grace described as His unmerited favor and kindness toward us. Grace, we don’t earn or deserve. But what does it mean to “say grace”?

I think of a mealtime prayer as giving thanks and investigated the meaning of grace to find out its connection to thanksgiving. The word grace (charis) in the Greek also means gratitude, favor, gift, benefit, pleasure, and thanks. When we say grace before our meal, we are giving thanks and showing gratitude for God’s bountiful gifts.

As a child, I learned this simple prayer for mealtime:
God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for our food.

I found this traditional prayer while researching for this blog post:
God our Father, Lord, and Savior,
Thank you for Your love and favor,
Bless this food and drink we pray,
And all who share with us today.

In God’s Word, we see Jesus giving thanks for food when He fed the 5000, during the Lord’s Supper, and in the Emmaus Road story after his resurrection.

In the story of feeding the 5000, “given thanks” is used in John 6:11, ESV and “said a blessing” is used in Mark 6:41 and Matthew 14:19.

Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
Matthew 14:19

The Greek word for bless (eulogeo) is to speak well of, thank or invoke a benediction upon.

We find the same descriptions used in the retelling of the Lord’s Supper. In Matthew 26:26, the ESV uses the word, "blessing.” Luke 22:19, uses “given thanks.”

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
Luke 22:19

Thanks, used here, is the word eucharisteo in the Greek, and means to be grateful, express gratitude, and give thanks. The words “said a blessing” and “given thanks” appear to be interchangeable in the verses above due to their similar meanings.

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
1 Timothy 4:4-5

Although I don’t recite a traditional prayer before I eat, my family does say grace. We believe we should follow our Lord’s example by offering God thanksgiving for our food as Christ did, whether we call it saying grace, saying the blessing, or giving thanks.

Do you have a favorite mealtime prayer or one you learned as a child?

Trust His Timing

Please welcome guest author, J. Carol Nemeth to my blog today
as she shares about trusting the Lord and her
Faith in the Parks book series.

As an author who began writing in my teen years, I was confident I would get published early too. After all, my love of writing was every bit as heartfelt and important as any other author’s. Right? No doubt that part was true, but my love of writing certainly didn’t guarantee publication. Far from it. It wasn’t until our second child was born that I actually finished a novel and attempted to gain publication. That journey was fraught with disappointment, rejection and self-reflection. My first novel, Yorkshire Lass, was rejected time and time again, leaving me to wonder if this truly was God’s plan for my life. Or had I stepped out of His will and pushed my plans ahead of His?

I prayed and prayed asking God to lead me, to show me His will concerning my writing. If it’s not Your will for me to continue writing and to pursue publication, then, Dear Lord, please take away this love and desire to write. Well, it never went away, but I prayed for His will to be done as I continued to submit my manuscript. I truly tried to leave it in His capable hands. More rejections followed as well as one publisher who gave me hope. They made suggestions to my manuscript with the idea they might be willing to take it on. They didn’t. Hope again faded as disappointment washed over me. I kept praying, but it seemed God was silent on this issue. Even in the midst of His silence, the fact that my desire to write and to publish my novel should have shown me He hadn’t said no. He was telling me to wait. As most of God’s children often do, I struggled with waiting for His perfect timing.

Our daughter was born in 1990, and I began my novel soon after she was born. Yorkshire Lass was finally published in March of 2016. It took nearly twenty-six years to reach publication. I may never know all the reasons my heavenly Father took me on that disappointment-fraught journey to publication, but He sure taught me some things.

His timing is always perfect, and I must trust His timing. All the details of my life are better left in His hands to work out the proper time for them to happen. Psalm 27:14 tells us, “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”

I also learned that God has our best interests at heart. There’s no doubt He wants what’s best for us. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” He wasn’t withholding publication from me because He was angry at me or was being mean. Perhaps He knew because I was home schooling my kids, I wouldn’t be able to juggle both. There are some amazing home school author moms out there who can do both. I might not have been one of them. Whatever His reasons, He chose to wait until 2016 to publish my first novel. Since then we’ve published eight more books. He’s blessed me in ways I never expected.

I recently read a devotional that stated how God moves the universe to accomplish His will in our lives and to answer our prayers. Think about that for a moment. What did He do in the background of your life, that you’ll never know about, to get you where you are today? When I look back over the twenty-six years it took for me to reach publication, I stand in amazement at God’s awesomeness and how He arranged everything to get me to that point. Do I know all the details? Not at all. I do, however, know the God who arranged them and the fact that He gave me the strength to endure until His perfect time came to pass. And that’s all that matters.

Author Bio

A native North Carolinian, J. Carol Nemeth has always loved reading and enjoyed making up stories ever since junior high school, most based in the places she has lived or traveled to. She worked in the National Park Service as a Park Aid and served in the US Army where she was stationed in Italy, traveling to over thirteen countries while there. She met the love of her life, Mark Nemeth, also an Army veteran, while stationed in Italy. After they married, they lived in various locations, including North Yorkshire, England. They now live in West Virginia, where, in her spare time, Carol and her husband enjoy RVing and sightseeing. Carol and Mark are active in their church and enjoy their two grown children, son-in-law, and three grandchildren. Carol has written nine books and one short story anthology. She is a member of ACFW.

Faith in the Parks Books 1-4 is a contemporary romantic suspense series set in our beautiful national parks, each book set in a different park. The stories are filled with intrigue and suspense intertwined with a thread of romance winding through each story.

Book 1 is set in the Great Smoky Mountains National park in North Carolina while Book 2 takes place in the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Book 3 is set at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina and Book 4 takes place way up at Denali National Park in Alaska. There will be a fifth book in the series so keep watching. There are also two novellas, Dedication to Love and A Beacon of Love, that are prequels to Mountain of Peril and Ocean of Fear in that order.

Purchase link for series https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Parks-4-Book/dp/B087D4DKBD

Website https://www.jcarolnemeth.com/ Readers can sign up for my newsletter at my website or my Facebook Author page. There’s a complimentary short story download when they do.

Social Media:

Amazon Author Central – https://amzn.to/2AbdKRa

https://twitter.com/nemeth_jcarol

https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard

https://www.pinterest.com/carolnemeth1/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnUhQR2avhaC3Pb-2nbozZg/videos

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/j-carol-nemeth

---

Scripture references are from the King James Version.

Title photo by Berenice Martinez - Unsplash

Walking As Jesus Walked

Do you have days when your attitude needs to change? I do. This past week. Then I read these verses about walking as Jesus walked.

But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

1 John 2:5-6, NKJV

I don’t recall Jesus having a poor attitude.

To me, the above verses say that when we keep God’s word, we are showing our obedience to Him and that we truly know and love Him. Through our obedience, His love is then perfected or made complete in us. If we claim we are His, we ought to walk in the same way that Jesus walked by following His example and living as He did.

How did Jesus walk? What examples did He leave for us to follow?

Here are a few instances of Jesus offering love, acceptance, and forgiveness.

In John 8 we read of the woman caught in adultery. The Pharisees wanted to stone her. Jesus told the crowd that whoever had never sinned could throw the first stone. The Pharisees slipped away, and only Jesus and the woman remained. He didn’t condemn her—He forgave her.

We read the story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in John 4. Jesus didn’t criticize her for having had five husbands and living with a man who she was not married to. He accepted her and forgave her.

And what better model is there about forgiveness than when Jesus forgave His accusers and killers?

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

Luke 23:34, NKJV

Besides offering love, acceptance, and forgiveness, Jesus modeled obedience when He surrendered Himself to God’s will. After the Last Supper, Jesus prayed this on the Mount of Olives:

Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me;
nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.

Luke 22:42, NKJV

His time of arrest, suffering, and death soon followed.

Jesus modeled servanthood in John 13 when he washed his disciples’ feet and when he carried out the ultimate sacrifice—His death on the cross.

Jesus also met the needs of others by sharing God’s truths, calming the storm, and feeding the hungry.

Am I called to do any less?

Will it be easy? No. But so worth it!

Lord, I desire to keep your word and walk as you walked—in love, acceptance, forgiveness, obedience, surrender, servanthood, and by meeting the needs of others. Guide my steps, Lord. I desire to always abide in You.

---

Photo by Arek Adeoye - Unsplash