Sunday Evening Thoughts

Today on the church calendar is what is remembered as Ascension Sunday...the day we recognize and "celebrate" when Jesus was caught up in the clouds and ascended back into heaven 40 days after His resurrection on Easter Sunday.  You can read more about that in the first chapter of Acts, with particular attention to the following verses:

Acts 1:9-11 Jesus Ascends to Heaven

9 Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 

10 And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, 

11 who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

Our Pastor preached a very good sermon on this topic today, and if you wish to hear the whole message, you can watch it here, right after the choir sings.

This morning before breakfast we were reading our daily devotions and scripture verses, and this was also the topic for today.  When I got to these verses above, I was overcome by emotion. It took me back to when I was a little girl, sitting in our church services in the old church building, where these two big stained glass windows adorned each side of the sanctuary:

On the right side was this one above, the Ascension of Jesus Christ, and on the left side was this one below, of  Jesus as The Good Shepherd.   I've written about this before, and the link is below, but today in particular my mind went right back to that picture depicting Christ ascending in the clouds, and I can remember as a child thinking about that and wondering how He did that...because at that time I didn't really understand the whole story of Jesus overcoming death and then going up into heaven right before their eyes, and also hearing the angels stating that He would come back again in the same manner! But as I grew in my relationship with Christ and studied the Bible more, the wonder and amazement that I felt as a little girl actually became even more pronounced, and so much so that even today I was overwhelmed with emotion in thinking that one day we will see Christ coming back in the clouds to call us all up to heaven to be with Him forevermore... But in the meantime...

Psalm 47

"1 Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples!

Shout to God with the voice of triumph!

2 For the Lord Most High is awesome;

He is a great King over all the earth.

3 He will subdue the peoples under us,

And the nations under our feet.

4 He will choose our inheritance for us,

The excellence of Jacob whom He loves. Selah

5 God has gone up with a shout,

The Lord with the sound of a trumpet.

6 Sing praises to God, sing praises!

Sing praises to our King, sing praises!

7 For God is the King of all the earth;

Sing praises with understanding.

8 God reigns over the nations;

God sits on His holy throne.

9 The princes of the people have gathered together,

The people of the God of Abraham.

For the shields of the earth belong to God;

He is greatly exalted."

I think it is amazingly appropriate that today also marked a Day of Prayer for our Nation to turn back to God...Reclaiming our nation for Almighty God, because our country was founded as "One Nation, Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."  And also that even our monetary system proclaims, "In God We Trust".   I didn't get to watch any of the proceedings at the Washington Monument in our Nation's Capitol today, but I hope to see some of it tomorrow on YouTube.  However, we definitely prayed for our nation this morning in church, and in my heart it felt good to know that churches and people throughout the country would be doing the same thing.  I do believe God is at work in our midst, and there are some very good things ahead. May we continue to pray.

You can Click HERE for another post on the back story on these windows.  And I thank my sister Doris for these current pictures of the new windows that have replaced the old ones in that same building, which you can read about in that post linked above.

I was going to write some other stuff and show a few pictures from the past couple of days, but I think I will save that for another day and  just close this post now with all of the above giving us all much food for thought and prayer.  

So until then, good night my friends. Be blessed.