For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses and forfeits himself? Luke 9:24-25.

Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5.

LORD, how great is Your mercy; let me be revived by following Your regulations. Many persecute and trouble me, yet I have not swerved from Your laws…The very essence of Your words is truth; all Your just regulations will stand forever. Psalm 119:156-157, 160.

And continuing our 351 Old Testament prophecies, promises of God, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we come to number 138: Emmanuel to be higher than earthly kings. Psalm 89:27: I also shall make him My firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. And, Luke 1:32-33: He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the LORD God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.

I am just one person of all the billions of us and yet the battles within my own thoughts and heart astound me. We used to belong to a church for several years that sought to keep all the laws and festivals of God. I think I missed the finer point in all of that striving: Loving and trusting Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit. The difference loving and trusting Him brings into my life, cannot be put into words deep enough. It is with His help that we begin to understand why His truth is so needed for all of us and it has to begin there, in Him. Not to shame us or convict us but to counter all the wrong ideas we cling to gathered over a lifetime of living in a fallen world. We are admonished by Paul as followers of Jesus to be able to give an accounting for the hope that lies within us. My hope is in Him. He makes all the difference in helping us see and understand so we can choose life that is good, and there is such relief in that. With Him and the help He brings – or – without Him in our own striving fighting against the strong currents and riptides of our own wrong thinking. We don’t get very far in our own striving. We were never meant to. My own thoughts are critical of myself and of everyone else and that leads to being critical of God who created us and loves us. And where does that always lead? Anger, self-righteousness, enmity against everything good, struggling to understand why everything is as it is, especially in my own thoughts and heart, and at times giving up out of weariness just like swimmers caught in powerful waves. And then when I am spent and turning to Him, He helps me see I have never been without His love holding me up when I can’t. He can. He does whether we are aware or oblivious; but when we release everything to Him, His comfort and strength brings hope and assurance we are His dearly loved and He is our help. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our LORD Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith – into this grace in which we stand – and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:1-5. I could never have understood tribulations – or joy – without God! And the blessing is, I don’t need to. Neither do you.

***PURE HEART – Give me a pure heart that I may see Thee, a humble heart that I may hear Thee, a heart of love that I may serve Thee, a heart of faith that I may abide in Thee. Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961), Markings, trans. Leif Sjoberg and W.H. Auden (Ballantine Books, 1982), 83.***