bible

The burden of Merit…We can’t get religious enough. We can’t be good enough. We cannot do better for God. Jesus did it for us. 

/ jill autrey dorman

Photo by cottonbro

“The fact is that sin is a bigger disaster than we think it is and grace is more amazing than we seem to be able to grasp that it is. No one who really understands what Scripture has to say about the comprehensive, every-aspect-of-your-personhood altering nature of sin would ever think that anyone could muster enough motivation and strength to rise to God’s standard of perfection. The thought that any fallen human being would be able to perform his or her way into acceptance with God has to be the most insane of all delusions. Yet we all tend to think that we are more righteous than we are, and when we think this, we have taken the first step to embracing the delusion that maybe we’re not so bad in God’s eyes after all.”   Paul Tripp

  1. You better pray everyday
  2. You better read your Bible every day.
  3. You better join the choir, teach Sunday school, be a missionary, or do some kind of ministry.
  4. You better tithe.
  5. You better be at Church every time the door was open. (This one was easy because my Dad was a Pastor.)

 So, if you are out there trying to earn your way into relationship with God it is a burden that you need not carry and when you realize this Truth it is actually a relief. Then you can start to actually do and say the things that please God by letting His Spirit live in you.

It can be a rough ride and not a pretty sight, but Jesus did not come and die for us because it was comfortable or pretty. He did it because he understood and still understands that it is HE who brings life from sin and death, and it is Jesus in you that will produce “good works and fruit.”

Your behavior will change because Jesus transforms our hearts and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, the hands serve, and the love overflows. I know, because I spent years trying to be good enough and failed and then as I lay all of that down I began to change.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

Nursing Journal Memories

/ jill autrey dorman
Photo by Mike van Schoonderwalt

She is a petite and elegant woman. She is dying. After receiving palliative care for a year and a few days, she is now receiving continuous care until she passes away. In the area of Hospice nursing, continuous care abbreviated to CC marks the twenty- four hour care beginning. I have been on twelve hour shifts with her for three days.
The first visit I noticed that she continuously positioned her right hand in a fist with her thumb slightly curvedat the top of the fist. I would straighten the hand out flat thinking this would be more comfortable but within five minutes that hand would return to the position of holding onto a rope. I began to observe that even in her brief waking moments she would do this action with both hands.
Eventually during very quiet and brief conversations we talked of her younger life and all the glorious days that love in life have brought her. A loving husband, healthy children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren. She told me that her husband is the best human being she has ever known. She was the first female professor of a big University in Texas and she said her husband supported her all the way!
On the last day she was weaker and her voice diminished so we didn’t talk much. I had been straightening her hands off and on for days and within a minute or to she would peacefully dose off and put her hands right back in this unique position. Finally, I asked her about it and she said, “sometimes I become a little afraid of dying and when that fear hits I am reminded of a braided cord. A cord made up of three separate fibers that are entwined as if they were one large rope. Unbreakable bonds, least that is what they say. One day the pain and fear overwhelmed me and I whispered to God and asked for comfort. Then as I prayed my hands seemed to involuntarily fold like a fist holding a rope and it was so comfortable and calming. As I lay there praying the Spirit of God greeted me so gently and told me he loved me and soon he would be taking me home. He told me to hold onto to this rope of The Trinity and not let go. He said that he won’t leave me and to just trust him and hold on to the rope and even as I grow weaker and you straighten my hands they return to the rope and I hold on so hard that I feel no pain nor fear at all. Within the hour this beautiful, faith filled woman died but without a doubt I know Whom she was holding to and that He would never break his promise.

“It is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. 2Corinthians 1:21,22