Cross My Heart Ministry

Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
Psalm 63:3

Life is good. You’ve probably said that a few times – perhaps in response to a passing “How are you?” from a friend. The response has become almost a cliché, on par with:

• Can’t complain!
• Awesome!
• Fine!
• Great!

One organization has successfully transformed “life is good” into a thriving business. (Maybe you own a Life Is Good tee shirt.) Their mission is to spread the power of optimism and their tag line reads:

LIFE IS NOT PERFECT. LIFE IS NOT EASY. LIFE IS GOOD.

As a follower of Christ, I can’t argue with that statement. In fact, I agree with it. My life is good. I am grateful for the life I have and am well aware that I am blessed well beyond what I deserve. Even though life is never perfect and is often not easy, life is still good.

Life … is … good.

But God’s love is better. Because of God’s love we need not settle for good. We get better. We get eternal life. We get freedom in Christ. We get hope for eternity. And all that is made possible because of God’s love. Love that is better than a life that is good.

The nerdy part of me wants to make it work in an equation:

Life = Good

God’s Love > Life

If we pause to count our many blessings – to make a list of all the things that make this life good – that list might include:

• A devoted, godly husband
• Children that bring delight
• Grandchildren that bright delight multiplied!
• A safe home
• Plenty to eat
• Friends I can count on and confide in
• A pastor who preaches the Word
• Coffee
• My Bible
• The ability to read
• Air conditioning
• A gas fireplace
• A library card
• A Kitchen-Aid mixer
• Photo albums
• Chocolate
• Laughter

The list is endless. Some seem trivial and others more substantial, but all are blessings of a good life.

As good as this life may be, God’s love is better. God’s love trumps every other blessing. God’s love brings peace and joy that transcends this life and reaches to eternity. Because of God’s love, my destiny for eternity is secure. I have confident hope.

Life here is good. I love the blessings this life brings. Anticipating that life for eternity is even better brings wonder … amazement … peace … joy.

As I ponder and embrace the truth that God’s love is better than life, the only possible response is praise. I can’t help but glorify Him. As natural as breathing is the song on my lips to the God who loves me. The one whose love is better than life must be praised. He must be glorified. The deep sense of belonging – of abiding in Him – brings a delightful desire to glorify Him.

Surely, there is no better way to observe the Sabbath than to allow our lips to glorify our great God! Let’s declare with the Psalmist: My lips will glorify you!

Although our Spring Bible study is taking a break this week, Laura has a few thoughts to share about II Kings 8 in this short bonus teaching video:

What does God love? According to Psalm 33:5, the answer is righteousness and justice:

The LORD loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.
Psalm 33:5

God doesn’t play favorites. He is no respecter of persons. He doesn’t treat the rich better than the poor (or the poor better than the rich). He is not impressed by designer labels or false humility. He is colorblind.

And I’m convinced He delights when we do the same.

If we are being transformed into the image of Christ, then what He loves, we should love.

To love righteousness and justice means to celebrate fairness, to be happy when morality is exercised.

As I think on righteousness and justice, they also sound a bit harsh … even legalistic. They suggest an unattainable standard. They convict me, as they highlight my own lacking – in my sinfulness, I love righteousness and justice when criminals are punished, but when I consider my own sin, I’m eager to read the rest of the verse! – to be reminded of God’s unfailing love.

Righteousness and justice bring a standard of perfection we could never meet. They clash with God’s unfailing love and mercy. But in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s righteousness and justice are both satisfied, as He extends love and mercy.

As I think about His character, I picture parallel train tracks – His justice and righteousness running alongside His unfailing love and mercy. Both must be embraced to understand God’s eternal nature and character.

Have you ever focused on train tracks as they travel to the horizon? At that point they seem to meet and become one. That point on the spiritual horizon is the cross of Christ.

Righteousness and justice satisfied by unfailing love and mercy. Certainly, an oxymoron from a human viewpoint. But our great God is not limited by finite views or understandings. His unfailing love is almost illogical, from our human perspective.

Do you love justice and righteousness? Are you grateful for God’s unfailing love? Are you celebrating today the cross of Christ, where both come together to make eternal life possible in days to come, while spurring us on to live victoriously in the here and now?

If so, ask yourself how your choices demonstrate you love what God loves.

How are you and I claiming, experiencing, and releasing His unfailing love?

This week’s teaching video from II Kings is now available on our YouTube channel. In II Kings, chapters 6 and 7, Elisha’s servant awakened early and found the city completely surrounded by the enemy. He cried out, “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” We hope you’ll take time today to watch as Laura discusses Elisha’s prayerful response to his servant and God’s answer to them:

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A prior version of this post by Laura was published on
AReasonForHomeschool.com

But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
Psalm 13:5

Do you remember the old game show $10,000 Pyramid (or $15,000, $25,000 or $100,000—depending on the decade you tuned in)? Teams of two worked together, one giving clues to help the other guess the word or phrase in the box on the screen. I loved playing along and calling out clues to the television screen—convinced that my clues were helping!

If the box said unfailing, what clues would you give? A few may come to mind:

• dependable
• steadfast
• reliable
• constant
• without error

Love, on its own, is a powerful word. With Valentine’s Day approaching, we see the word love everywhere. We love our spouses and our children.  We love life and the opportunities it provides. We love God, we love His Word, and we love serving Him.

All that love flowing from us is made possible because of God’s love first flowing to us.

God’s love is unconditional, sacrificial, and providential.

In the book of Psalms, the Psalmist uses the word unfailing 33 times to describe God’s love. When unfailing is an adjective describing love, we can only be referring to God’s love. No human love is unfailing; because we are fallible, we are incapable of unfailing love. Only God Himself will never let us down. Only He loves us with an unfailing, everlasting, dependable, steadfast, reliable, constant, without-error love.

It’s so perfect, it borders on unbelievable.

It’s so wonderful, our hearts can scarce take it in.

Whether I am obedient or disobedient. Whether or not I skipped my quiet time, yelled at the kids, or disrespected my husband. I may have been selfish, insensitive, and prideful. I may have let down a friend, and blown an opportunity to help when it was within my ability to do so. But God still loves me. He keeps loving me.

His love is UNFAILING.

Do you believe that? Do you live like you believe that?

Once you truly take hold of this beautiful truth, it will change how you live. It will reshape your motivations. It will color your day and transform your why. It will bring freedom from condemnation, from feeling compelled to perform. It will elevate have to until it becomes want to … or even delight to.

Take a moment and soak it in, revel in it, be amazed by it: God’s unfailing love.

And then pause to praise along with the Psalmist:

…I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.

Unfailing love is indeed cause for rejoicing!

If you have subscribed to our YouTube channel, you may have already seen this week’s teaching video from II Kings. If not, we hope you’ll take a few moments to watch as Laura shares insights from chapters 5 and 6 of II Kings — the story of how God chooses an unnamed “young girl from Israel” to fulfill His plans.

If you have not already, we invite you to visit us on YouTube and become a subscriber today!

A prior version of this post from Laura was published on
AReasonForHomeschool.com

When I typed love in the BibleStudyTools.com search box, 526 verses popped up.  You and I can most likely anticipate (and even quote) many of them:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16

We love because he first loved us.
I John 4:19

But the fruit of the Spirit is love…
Galatians 5:22

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Matthew 22:37-39

A myriad of others—verses we have written, quoted, cross-stitched, calligraphed, memorized, savored, and prayed back to God over the years—could be added to the list.

Look again at the list above. Besides the word love, what do they all have in common? They are found in the New Testament.

Does an unconscious part of us view the God of the Old Testament as the God of righteousness and judgment, while the God of the New Testament is one of love and compassion?

He is the same!

To celebrate HIS GREAT LOVE, our Write the WORD focus for February is love. That’s probably predictable since it is Valentine’s month, but what might be unexpected is all of these verses will come from the Old Testament. When evaluating that list of 526 scriptures, I found 326 in the Old Testament—far too many for our 28 days of Write the Word in February!—so I pared down even further and chose all our love verses from Psalms. (Even then, there were 143! It was excruciating to choose only 28!)

As we celebrate love this month, we may send gifts and valentines to our spouses, our parents, our children, our grandchildren, and many others we love. But let’s begin by celebrating the One who loved us first. The One who not only is loving, but is the embodiment of love. The One who, in creating love, makes it possible in every other relationship. He is love personified. He is God Almighty.

As we love our way through Psalms, we will be empowered and motivated to pray God’s Word back to Him. We will take note of beautiful, almost-poetic prose that the Psalmist repeats over and again:

• Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens…
• His love endures forever…
• Your unfailing love…

We will note that God’s love is good, it is great, and it fills the earth. Savor these words. Write them out. Pray them back to Him. Let them marinate in your heart and mind throughout each day. And let them prompt praise back to the One who created love and who loved you first.

Visit our Downloads page today for your own copies of this month’s Write the WORD bookmark and optional S.O.A.P. study pages, then prepare to write verses about God’s great LOVE during February.

In this week’s teaching video from our study in II Kings, Laura discusses the story of the Shunammite woman from chapter 4. Although we don’t know this woman’s name, we can relate to her and learn from her:

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An earlier version of this post by Laura
was originally published on AReasonForHomeschool.com

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:18-19

Dwelling in the past robs us of our present and sabotages our future. God speaks to us powerfully through the prophet Isaiah when He says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”

He does not tell us to erase the past or ignore it. He does not say we should not apologize for our part in past sins, or release forgiveness for what was done to us.

He says, do not dwell on the past. Don’t live there! Is your past—either what you have done or what was done to you—eating you alive? Is your past on a loop in your mind, replaying the pain and hurt, day after day?

Just as it’s impossible physically to walk without stumbling while looking over our shoulder, so we cannot function in life if we are consumed with looking back—dwelling on—the past.

Those old hurts, conversations, disappointments, all the shoulda/woulda/couldas, are behind us. We cannot go back and change what has happened, and dwelling on these things only adds to the pile of regret, shame, and sadness. It makes our present another layer heaped onto the sad pile of the past.

What is the way forward?

How can we move on?

Is it possible to make our today and tomorrow different from our yesterday?

Yes. With God.  He is the way-maker.

He wants to do a new thing. He will make a way for it to happen. Yes … even in the wilderness of your life, Isaiah says, as he paints a beautiful, hopeful picture of “streams in the wasteland.”

Regrets. We all have them. They may be professional, behavioral, mental, emotional, or relational.

The relational ones, at least for me, are the heaviest to bear. I made so many mistakes raising my children. As I was lamenting these regrets and crying out to God, “Oh, if only you would turn back the clock. I would do so many things differently.”

God spoke to me in that moment. He has spoken to me many times. While never an audible voice, I know when it is Him. I heard His voice in my heart: Laura, even if I were to do that, you would not do anything differently. Life has taught you many lessons. You needed to live to learn them.

Profound words from a wise and compassionate God. Life-changing words.

Life is indeed a classroom. What happens to us, what we do and do not do, all become lessons to be learned for the future. A teachable spirit means we learn from the wrong choices and allow those lessons to shape future decisions. Refusing to learn, on the other hand, means we may make the same mistakes over, and over, and over yet again.

Owning what I’ve done wrong, asking forgiveness, and releasing forgiveness have all helped me to realize: It’s what you do next that counts.

The Gospel—the good news—means that in Christ we no longer need to be defined by our past. If we could fix it on our own, the Cross would not have been necessary.

Do you know my Jesus? Have you acknowledged your sin and need for forgiveness? If you are forgiven by Him, is it time to forgive yourself? It’s time to MOVE ON … stop dwelling in the past and start living in the present!

Are you ready for His new thing? If so, stop dwelling on the past!

This week was the first of our Spring study in II Kings! We hope you’ll enjoy the introductory teaching video here:

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