Daily Encouragement Net Header
The on line Bible teaching ministry of Stephen & Brooksyne Weber
A daily, Bible-based perspective of hope, encouragement and exhortation.
Home   About Us  Archives   Free email subscription   ListenListen to these messages
Contact Us
  Print Text only for printing
  Bookmark and Share  

Make A Donation
 See here for more info.

<Previous Message                           Next Message>

Thursday,
October 17, 2013

 
Union Mill fall display 10/9/13
An abundance of fall decorations at the Union Mill

"Eagerly Awaiting"

ListenListen to this message on your audio player.

"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ"  (Philippians 3:20).

CrackerbarrelWhen we travel we usually like to have at least one of our meals at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant. We both enjoy country cooking and Brooksyne likes to browse in the gift shop while I enjoy moseying around looking at the old stuff on the walls. We've been in Cracker Barrels all over the country and almost always have a good, predictable experience. (We've noticed the older you get the more you like "predictable".)

We stopped
at the Cracker Barrel at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware last weekend to have breakfast. We ordered and then enjoyed our coffee while we eagerly awaited our meal.

Baby in highchairBrooksyne deals with a tingling or burning pain in her hands especially in the early morning hours. Those who deal with the painful effects of carpal tunnel often find relief by shaking their wrists and wiggling their fingers. Brooksyne was doing this so she could do away with the numbness before her meal arrived and she could hold her utensil for eating.

The young server approached our table with my eggs and country fried steak along with Brooksyne's buttermilk pancakes. She observed Brooksyne's strange exercise and offered, "You must really be excited about your breakfast today!" We were taken back at first by her comment and then realized that she thought she was shaking her wrists out of excitement like a baby or little child excited about a treat they're about to receive (kind of like the photo with the baby's hand thrust in the air). We all had a good laugh when Brooksyne explained to the waitress the reason for her shaking her hands over the table.

What do you anticipate?

We both enjoy traveling and seeing God's creation. We are anticipating a trip next week to the Southwest to see the Grand Canyon and several other national parks. I also enjoy engineering type projects such as the Hoover Dam. Brooksyne will join me in a tour deep inside the dam for a power plant tour. What a good sport she is!

But any excitement on this side of eternity should pale in comparison to a future event we should all be eagerly awaiting!

The apostle Paul, although a citizen of Rome, which was valuable at that time, made this statement to the believers in the Roman colony of Philippi,
"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ."

"But our citizenship is in heaven." I am a citizen of the USA. Our readers may be citizens of many different countries all over the world. But for those of us who have placed our faith in Christ and become His child our citizenship is also in heaven. We do well to see this as our primary citizenship since we will reside there far, far longer than we live on this earth!

My heavenly citizenship is a fundamental perspective I want to live with daily.  When I do so I find the reality of God's promised peace.  However when my focus is on my earthly citizenship I find myself experiencing anxiety, even despair when I see the increasing wickedness. The disgrace of sin abounds, but the grace of God doth much more abound!

As I prepare this message I consider my maternal grandmother who died in the early seventies. As best as I can determine she is a strong link in my spiritual heritage. Could she even have imagined the spiritual apathy and moral decadence we are seeing today? The desecration of God's order in marriage, babies slaughtered in their mother's womb, vile programming across the airwaves. Like never before may we boldly assert, "This world is not my home!"

"And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ."  If you are a believer in Jesus Christ do you "eagerly await" the return of the Savior?  For many years we have sung, "When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be."  Do you believe that? As Paul said elsewhere, "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far" (Philippians 1:23).

Who knows? We might just find ourselves shaking our wrists or jumping up and down when we catch sight of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, either in heaven or when He returns to this earth.


Be encouraged today,


Stephen & Brooksyne Weber

Praying manDaily prayer: Father, citizenship affords many accommodations and provisions as well as their national identity. Most of us take our citizenship for granted since it comes to us when we're naturally born into a particular country. But when we are born again we become citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives...for our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in His name that we come to You in prayer. Amen.



Union Mill Acres fall display 10/9/13

The old wagon was decorated with an abundance of fall produce. The miniature gourds in the little Flyer Wagon is perfectly sized for the child size tractor.



Today's Suggested Music
and Supplemental Resources

"I Am Bound For The Promised Land" (On Jordan's Stormy Banks)  Video   Indelible Grace

"This World Is Not My Home"  Video  Homecoming series

"How Great Thou Art"  Video  Chris Rice
 
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!"

"Revelation Song"  Video  Kari Jobe

Contact Us
Send a message to Stephen & Brooksyne

To receive the "Daily Encouragement" each Monday-Friday through email see this page to subscribe to our email list. You can also subscribe to the Wordpress rss feed or through a Wordpress email subscription. (See the email subscription on the right side after opening this page.)


Make A DonationAre our daily encouragement messages a blessing to you? We ask you to consider making a donation to Daily Encouragement Net so that we can continue to prepare and provide this daily resource which is accessed by believers and seekers all over the world. Daily Encouragement Net relies solely on the generosity and financial support of its readers and podcast listeners. See here for more information on supporting this ministry. Gifts are tax deductible.

Permissions: Please feel free to pass on, reproduce and distribute any material on Daily Encouragement Net, in part or in whole, in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way or charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. It is our desire to spread this material, not protect or restrict it. I do request that you keep the contact, copyright and subscription information intact.

Text only version for printing: To make a text only version for printing (without photos or any of the supplemental materials)
1) Open the basic text editor that comes with all computers (known as wordpad, textpad, etc.) You can also use a program like Word and select paste text only.
2) Select and copy the text from the portion of the message you want to print.
3) Paste into the text pad. (The photos won't show up but you will have a brief text description of the photo which you can delete or just ignore.)
4) Format if you desire (change font, increase or decrease size, etc.)
5) Print!

Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: New International Version. © 1984 by International Bible Society; NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, New King James Version (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. and the King James Version.

Personal Mission Statement: "I am created by God to bring Him glory. Through God's Son Jesus Christ I have been redeemed and I make it my life's goal to please the Lord. My mission in life is to honor God through my faith and obedience and to prepare myself and all whom I may influence for eternity."

© Copyright 2013 Stephen C. Weber - All Rights Reserved

Daily Encouragement Net - 495 Kraybill Church Road - Mount Joy, PA 17552  USA



This device counts unique visitors by nation and state. I installed the international version in mid April 2010 and the state version later. They thus register unique visitors to since then.
free counters



Free counters!


"Living securely today anchored in God's solid foundation"