Sunday Writing... 4-14-19... "GLORY TO GORY"

Good morning!

Today's writing, "GLORY TO GORY," is about Passion Week.  We start with Palm Sunday and move to Good Friday in the life of  Jesus.  Read on below to see what this means for our lives as well.

Blessings,
Jan

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Today's Devotional: 

"GLORY TO GORY"

by

Jan Andersen

This is Passion Week in the church year.  We start with today, Palm Sunday, where everyone is glorifying Jesus as the king entering Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, waving palm fronds and laying their cloaks on the ground as a majestic pathway.  As the week progresses, He goes through many experiences until the very end of the week when He is tortured and hammered with nails onto a cross to die a gory death.  Our Lord came to earth for this.    

From glory in the streets,  to a gory death on a cross.

 

We may experience tremendous highs and lows in our lives as well.  Sometimes we will be on mountain top experiences - joyous weddings, celebrations of births, huge advances in the workplace, miraculous healings and so forth.  Then there will be times of great sorrow as well - seemingly unanswered prayers, great suffering at the hands of others or even due to our own mistakes and shortcomings, and losses that rip our hearts out.  Our lives can become quite gory at times.  It can cause us to spiral into a deep black hole that seems to suck the very life out of us.  No one will have a perfect life with no "gory" times.  Even faithful believers have highs and lows, and none are perfect people who can make it through without God.  

Thankfully the story does not end there, neither in our own guilty lives nor in Jesus’ grisly death on a cross.  We know that on the following Sunday Jesus rose from the dead and is in glory greater than ever before in heaven now.  In the same way we know that our sin-sick lives will not always be spent in suffering on earth.  We are simply tasked with remaining faithful even through the gory times and trusting God.  He will provide to all the faithful his greatest glory in heaven above.  As long as we do not reject our faith, that Jesus died on the cross in our place as payment for our sins, by God's grace we will freely receive the greatest glory of all - complete healing and restoration and a heavenly home with Him! 

Romans 8:1-4 NIV  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

So even when we are in the gory times, may we remain faithful, turn to God for help, and remember the glory that is sure to come!

Dear Father in heaven, thank you for sending your Son to earth.  On this day, Palm Sunday, as we celebrate his glorified entry into Jerusalem, help us to rejoice in His coming into each of our lives as well.  As this Holy Week progresses and we remember the gory reality of Good Friday and Jesus’ death on the cross in our place, help us to also remember You are always with us both in glory and gory times.  Lead us to the cross… and beyond, to You!  In Jesus’ name,  Amen. 

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SONG:

HOSANNA (PRAISE IS RISING)

Brenton Brown, Paul Baloche

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Prayers are lifted up daily for you by the Devotional Writers and the Monthly Writing Staff of Women's Focus Ministries

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