With Tender Hand

I want to remind you today of something I shared with you in the last blog. Jesus said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Well, guess what? You cannot love your neighbor or anyone else around you unless you first love yourself! I want you to answer this question out loud – do you love yourself as Jesus wants you to, with a healthy self respect? Do you tend to your own heart needs? Do you speak up when others cross the boundaries of what is acceptable to you? I want to tell you that Jesus spoke up when the Scribes and Pharisees crossed over the lines of what was acceptable or not! If you’ll take time to look into the New Testament and see the words that He spoke to them you will be amazed at what you find! Somewhere along the line we have been convinced by our “churchy” environment that we should lay down and take everything like a doormat and never utter a word of resistance! This is WRONG! Jesus did not do this except when it came to laying down His life for our redemption. The whole point of His ministry was to FREE the captives, heal the broken-hearted, set the prisoners free, etc. That means US! As women in abusive relationships, we have somewhere along the line lost our sense of who we are and what we were meant to be as well as our own respect for ourselves. I want to point you today to Jesus, the great emancipator who is our glory and the LIFTER up of our head! Won’t you allow Him to reach into your life today and lift you too?