April 22 2019

It’s A New Day!

 

I hope you have enjoyed 40 Days of Lent – Morning Devotions with Laurie. I trust that it has been an inspirational, motivational and thought provoking journey for each one of you and that you have grown through spending some dedicated time in the Word. I thank you for allowing me to share this time with you!

I am happy to announce that I have formally registered my new business – Laurie Hopkins – (which will focus on abundant, authentic, faith based living).  You can check out my new website and new blog site at https://www.lauriehopkins.ca/.  In the meantime, because of the time I will be devoting to my new adventures, I will no longer be sharing daily devotions on my Facebook Page and on my Blog.  For now, I will continue to commit to a weekly devotion here and hope that you will continue to join me for that. Watch this page and my new website for some upcoming opportunities to connect with me in a new and exciting way and to join me in on my new journey. This is abundant life!

For those of you who have been following for me for the duration, you know that my blog has taken on many forms, most recently a devotional format.  I’m currently working on a new look for my Blog, which includes a new location, as well as a new focus. Going forward the blog will be an opportunity for conversations about abundant, authentic, faith based living, with a specific focus for those who find themselves stuck.

I have a heart for those who live daily with chronic illness (physical or emotional) and who are stuck in their faith journey as they try to match the inside they are with the outside they present. I hope that you will continue on this journey with me as I believe there is much for all of us to learn, and that learning happens best in community with conversations.

Please watch this blog as we begin to transition our focus – you will note that the old blog location automatically redirects you to the new location on my website:  https://www.lauriehopkins.ca/

While you are here reading the blog, feel free to check out the rest of the website as well.  This is abundant life!

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April 22 2019

Did Our Hearts Not Burn Within Us?

Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them. Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24: 28-32

After the crucifixion of Jesus, two of his followers walked on the road to Emmaus with a Man. 
They told Him the story of Jesus, His arrest and crucifixion.  
The Man unfolded the Scriptures for them. 
What they didn’t realize was that the Man was the resurrected Christ.  
They did not recognize Him.  However, when they stopped for a meal and He blessed the bread and broke it, immediately their eyes were open and they recognized Him before He vanished. 
They didn’t recognize Jesus in His resurrected body until He did something familiar – 
the breaking of bread.  
Sometime we don’t recognize the working of Jesus in our lives unless He is doing something familiar.  
The moment He moves in a new or different way we begin to doubt that it is He at work.  
The unfamiliarity of the move leaves us inflexible.  
But the moment He moves in a familiar way we recognize His Hand at work.  
We need to get to know our Jesus more intimately.  
We need to understand that He moves in various and sometimes mysterious ways.  
We must not depend on the fact that He will always move in a familiar way in our lives. Unfamiliarity doesn’t need to lead to inflexibility. Oh that our faith would rise above the expectation of the familiar into the realm of the unknown!
I trust that our hearts are burning within us even now, as we have spent this prolonged time together in the Word.  
I prayer that you will continue to take the time to dig deep into the Word, 
spending time with Jesus and 
cultivating that most important intimate relationship.
Question for Discussion
What new thing is Jesus doing in your life that you need to stop and recognize?

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April 21 2019

Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead?

Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? “He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, “saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’ ” And they remembered His words. Luke 22 1:8

What has God told you?  
What is it that God has spoken into your life?   
Have you forgotten it in the midst of a Friday in which everything has been turned upside down and a Saturday which can’t get any longer? 
I’m here this Easter Sunday morning to tell you that that thing that God has spoken will come to pass in your life.  
On the Sunday morning when you go to check out the dead things, hoping that what has happened hasn’t really happened, that you can turn back time, you will hear, 
“why do you seek the living among the dead?”  
That thing is not dead; 
it went through the process it had to go through, in order to bring life!  
It is risen! 
Question for Discussion
What process are you in that needs some raising?  Sunday is coming!

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