Run With It

Monday, August 25, 2025

My Ways are Before You

They Persecute Me Without Cause

“Princes persecute me without cause,
But my heart stands in awe of Your words.
I rejoice at Your word,
As one who finds great spoil.
I hate and despise falsehood,
But I love Your law.
Seven times a day I praise You,
Because of Your righteous ordinances.
Those who love Your law have great peace,
And nothing causes them to stumble.” (Psalm 119:161-165 NASB1995)

Jesus Christ taught us that we are blessed when we are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. We are blessed when others revile us and persecute us and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely on the Lord’s account, on account of our walks of faith in obedience to our Lord and to his will and purpose for our lives. We are to rejoice and be glad, for our reward is great in heaven. And we are to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.” (John 15:18-20 NASB1995)

But who was “the world” who hated and persecuted Jesus? They were his own people, of his own faith, and they were his brothers, and they were the rulers and the teachers of the Scriptures in the temple of God. They were all people who claimed to believe in God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but who refused to believe in Jesus Christ, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (same God, not a different God).

And if we are truly following Jesus Christ with our lives today, in surrender to his will and purpose for our lives, in walks of obedience to his commands in holy living, and no longer as slaves to sin, we will be hated, rejected, and persecuted even by others who profess faith in Jesus Christ, and even by leaders in the church and teachers of the Scriptures who are altering the gospel to make it more appealing to human flesh and to the ungodly.

Persecution: [Matthew 5:10-12,44; Matthew 10:16-25,34-39; Matthew 24:9-14; Luke 6:22-23; Luke 12:49-53; Luke 21:12-17; John 15:18-21; Ephesians 6:10-20; Revelation 6:9-11; Revelation 7:9-17; Revelation 11:1-3; Revelation 12:17; Revelation 13:1-18; Revelation 14:1-13]

But we are not to let such persecution take us out, or to cause us to stumble, or to dishearten and discourage us in our walks of faith in obedience to our Lord. We must remain steadfast in faith and in our walks of obedience to God, and we must keep pressing forward in being his witnesses and in sharing the truth of the gospel in the same way in which Jesus and his New Testament apostles taught it, in truth and in righteousness.

For we are to be those who love the Word of the Lord and the testimonies of Christ and of his New Testament apostles. We are to love righteousness and truth, and we are to desire his commands to do them. And we should be those who hate lies and who expose the lies for what they are so that others do not follow after the lies, but so they will seek out the truth, to do it. And many lies are being spread today in the name of Christ and of truth.

So many are believing and/or they are teaching that faith in Jesus Christ is just something we profess with our lips but which requires nothing of us beyond that. Many are teaching that God no longer requires death to sin and walks of obedience to his commands, and so they are leading many people to a false hope of salvation based in a lie, and so they continue in their sins and not in walks of obedience to God, and it will not end well for them.

For Jesus Christ taught that to come to him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in his power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

Gospel:[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

Higher Ground

By Johnson Oatman, Jr. / Charles H. Gabriel

I’m pressing on the upward way,

New heights I’m gaining every day;

Still praying as I’m onward bound,

“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

My heart has no desire to stay

Where doubts arise and fears dismay;

Though some may dwell where those abound,

My prayer, my aim, is higher ground.

I want to live above the world,

Though Satan’s darts at me are hurled;

For faith has caught the joyful sound,

The song of saints on higher ground.

I want to scale the utmost height

And catch a gleam of glory bright;

But still I’ll pray till heav’n I’ve found,

“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

Lord, lift me up and let me stand,

By faith, on Heaven’s tableland,

A higher plane than I have found;

Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

https://youtu.be/F2emsPPCH4c?si=zHB0VvQzAL6dA149

Caution: This link may contain ads

They Persecute Me Without Cause

An Original Work / August 25, 2025

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Sunday, August 24, 2025

You Have Loosed My Bonds

“What shall I render to the Lord
For all His benefits toward me?
I shall lift up the cup of salvation
And call upon the name of the Lord.
I shall pay my vows to the Lord,
Oh may it be in the presence of all His people.
Precious in the sight of the Lord
Is the death of His godly ones.
O Lord, surely I am Your servant,
I am Your servant, the son of Your handmaid,
You have loosed my bonds.
To You I shall offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
And call upon the name of the Lord.
I shall pay my vows to the Lord,
Oh may it be in the presence of all His people,
In the courts of the Lord’s house,
In the midst of you, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 116:12-19 NASB1995)

Faith in Jesus Christ, which is biblical faith, is not a “God does it all and I do nothing” kind of faith. And I know that the Psalms are from the Old Testament when they were not under the New Covenant God now has with those who are of genuine faith in him. But under the New Covenant teaching we are taught that we must deny self, die to sin daily, and follow our Lord in walks of obedience to his commands, in surrender to his will for our lives.

Faith in Jesus Christ is reciprocal, i.e. God does for me and I do for him what he requires of me. Because of what Jesus Christ did for us in dying on a cross and in putting our sins to death with him, and being raised from the dead, then by God-gifted and God-persuaded faith in him we are now able to die with him to sin and be raised with him to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to the righteousness of God.

And when we believe in Jesus, this is not a free ride to heaven with no cost to us at all, where he does all the work, and where we reap all the benefits. For when we believe in Christ to be Lord (Owner-Master) of our lives, our lives are now surrendered to him to do his will. For this is a covenant of marriage to Christ where he now becomes our husband, and we become his bride, spiritually speaking, and so we want to please our Lord in all we do.

It is similar to a marriage between a husband and a wife where we take vows to be faithful to our spouses and to have no other lovers. Our lives are now no longer our own to be lived however we want. Now we promise to be faithful to our Lord and Master, and to do what pleases him, according to his will and purpose for our lives. We are no longer to live like we are single, free to do what we want without consideration of what God wants for us.

Because of what Jesus did for us on that cross, by faith in him we are able to be set free from our bonds of sin, but not just to be forgiven our sins, but to be set free from our slavery (bondage, addiction) to sin so that we can now walk in holiness and in righteousness in obedience to our Lord. And now our desire is to please our Lord, and to be his servants and messengers, and to do what he requires of us in the way of thought, word, and deed.

This is what the Christian life should look like. This should not be all about what Jesus does for us without mention of what he requires of us, in return for what he did for us. For the Scriptures teach that our faith must result in us dying to sin and walking in obedience to our Lord, in practice, or it is not biblical faith. And, if we profess faith in Jesus, but we continue living in sin, and not in walks of obedience to God, we will not inherit eternal life with God. So, please know what the Scriptures teach in context, and obey God.

Seek the Lord

Based off Isaiah 55

An Original Work / July 20, 2012

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Musical Instrumentation by Mark Bradley

“Come to Me all you who thirst; come to waters.

Listen to Me, and eat what’s good today,

And your soul will delight in richest of fare.

Give ear to Me, and you will live.

I have made an eternal covenant with you.

Wash in the blood of the Lamb.”

Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him.

Let the wicked forsake his way, in truth.

Let him turn to the Lord, and he will receive mercy.

Freely, God pardons him.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,”

declares the Lord, our God.

“My word that goes out of My mouth is truthful.

It will not return to Me unfulfilled.

My word will accomplish all that I desire,

And achieve the goal I intend.

You will go in joy and be led forth in peace.

The mountains will burst into song… before you,

And all of the trees clap their hands.”

https://vimeo.com/379408296

You Have Loosed My Bonds

An Original Work / August 24, 2025

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

O Lord, Save My Life

“I love the Lord, because He hears
My voice and my supplications.
Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live.
The cords of death encompassed me
And the terrors of Sheol came upon me;
found distress and sorrow.
Then I called upon the name of the Lord:
‘O Lord, I beseech You, save my life!’” (Psalm 116:1-4 NASB1995)

There are multiple ways in which this passage of Scripture can be interpreted, but I am going to take the most clear path, based on the wording used here. For what this sounds like is someone who was dying physically and/or spiritually, who then came to the realization that hell, and not heaven, was what awaited him. And so he was distressed and sorrowful over this situation, fearing both death and hell.

He then called upon the Lord to save him from both death and hell. And obviously God saved him, for he lived to give testimony of God’s saving grace. He loved and praised and thanked the Lord because the Lord heard him and his cry for help, and the Lord inclined his ear to him, to listen to him, and to answer him. And he saved him. And because of that he declared that he would call upon the Lord as long as he lived.

Now there are currently multiple interpretations of what it means to “be saved by God’s grace,” and the most popular teaching is not what Jesus and his New Testament apostles taught as the gospel of salvation, not if taught in the correct biblical context. So, what is most popularly being accepted as the gospel of salvation makes no requirements for death to sin and walks of obedience to our Lord’s commands, so it is false.

The grace of God, which is bringing us salvation, is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we wait for Jesus’ return. For Christ “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (See Titus 2:11-14; Ephesians 2:8-10)

By God-gifted faith in Jesus Christ, which is not of our own doing, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to righteousness in walks of obedience to God’s commands. We are no longer to permit sin to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it results in death. But if obedience to God is what we obey, it results in sanctification, and its end is eternal life with God (see Romans 6:1-23).

And we learn in 1 John 1-3 that if we claim that we have fellowship with God, but yet we walk in darkness (sin), we are liars. If we claim that we know God, but we do not obey his commandments, in practice, we are liars. For it is not the one who claims he is “in Christ” who is “in Christ,” but it is the one who has denied self, died with Christ to sin, and who is now walking in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in practice, and no longer in sin. They have the hope and the promise of eternal life with God in heaven.

Please know and believe what these Scriptures teach, for they do not teach that belief in Jesus makes no requirements for death to sin and obeying God.

Walking in The Light

Based off 1 John 1-2

An Original Work / November 16, 2011

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

When I lift up my voice, and

Sing praise unto God,

I will fellowship with my

Lord and Savior, King.

In Him there is no darkness.

He is in the light of truth.

If we walk in His light,

From sin He purifies.

If we repent of our sins,

He’ll forgive us now,

When we humble ourselves, and

Before Jesus bow.

The man who says, “I know Him,”

But does not obey His truth,

There is no truth in him.

In darkness still he’s found.

Do not love the world of sin,

For it is hell bound.

If you follow the world, you’ll

Not in Christ be found.

The world and its desires

Will not last; they’ll expire.

The one who does God’s will,

Receives eternal life.

See that what you have heard from

Christ remains in you.

Then, you’ll remain in Christ, and

In His Father, too.

This is what He promised us –

His eternal life with God.

So, continue in Him, and

You’ll receive a crown.

https://vimeo.com/114160122

O Lord, Save My Life!

An Original Work / August 24, 2025

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

The Worship of Idols

“Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
But to Your name give glory
Because of Your lovingkindness, because of Your truth.
Why should the nations say,
‘Where, now, is their God?’
But our God is in the heavens;
He does whatever He pleases.
Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of man’s hands.
They have mouths, but they cannot speak;
They have eyes, but they cannot see;
They have ears, but they cannot hear;
They have noses, but they cannot smell;
They have hands, but they cannot feel;
They have feet, but they cannot walk;
They cannot make a sound with their throat.
Those who make them will become like them,
Everyone who trusts in them.” (Psalm 115:1-8 NASB1995)

If we are followers of Jesus Christ, who are living for the Lord, doing his will, going where he sends us, and saying whatever he gives us to say to the people, and if good comes from this in the lives of those who hear the Word of the Lord, then God gets all the glory, not us. For it is God who sent his only begotten Son Jesus Christ (God, the Son) to the cross to put our sins to death with him so that, by faith in Jesus Christ, which comes from God, we can now die with him to sin and walk in obedience to his commandments.

But if we are actually sharing with others the truth of the Scriptures, in their correct biblical context, in today’s world, we are most likely not going to be receiving much praise and glory. But, depending upon where we live, we are more likely to receive much rejection, persecution, criticism, and even mocking. But if we are teaching the truth of the Scriptures, it is really God who they are mocking, and it is HIS truth they are refusing and rejecting. But God continues to be God and to fulfill what he promises he will do.

The idols spoken of here, the people worshipped instead of worshipping God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the idols appeared to be physical caricatures of what appeared to be human beings, but made of wood, stone, silver, gold or other natural materials. For they had fake hands, mouths, eyes, ears, noses, feet, and the like. But not all idols have to look like that. Not all idols are crafted out of wood, stone, silver, or gold, and made to look like human beings.

An idol can be anything that is worshipped above and in place of worship of the one true God. And worship has to do with giving our praise, loyalty, devotion, obedience, submission, commitment, surrender, dedication, adherence, faithfulness, duty, allegiance, and fidelity to what is worshipped. Now, those who have jobs so that they can pay their bills, they must be committed to their work. And parents of small children must be dedicated to the care of their children. Those, in themselves, are not idols, but can be.

But many people, even those who profess faith in Jesus Christ, make idols of themselves, or of heads of nations, or porn stars, or actors, or politicians, or sports heroes, or certain preachers, pastors, and/or evangelists who have gained popularity. Or they make particular church denominations and/or their religious philosophies, traditions, and theologies their idols of worship. Or they make an idol of a particular political party and their philosophies, or they worship a nation or a particular ethnic group, and the list goes on.

And there are many people, professing Christian, or not, who have made idolatry, adultery, and immorality, in its various forms, their idols of worship. Their lives are dedicated to viewing sexually explicit material in pictures or in videos, and for sexual stimulation and self-gratification. And the longer that they remain addicted to sexual immorality, the deeper they may go into it, and the more they will move in a downward direction, in a moral decline, and the more wicked and perverted they will become in heart and mind.

For the longer they serve and obey these false gods of the flesh, the more they become like them, just as crooked, evil, and perverted as those and as what they worship as their “gods.” And the longer they put their trust in these false gods, the stronger their allegiance to them becomes, and the more blinded they become to the truth, and the harder it becomes for them to break away from them. And it isn’t that they cannot break away from them, but that they lack the motivation to give up their loyalty to their idols.

Idolatry [1 Corinthians 5:11; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Corinthians 10:1-33; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Galatians 5:16-21; Ephesians 5:3-6; Colossians 3:5-10; 1 Peter 4:1-5; 1 John 5:21; Revelation 21:22-27; Revelation 22:12-15]

As the Deer

By Martin J. Nystrom

Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water

So my soul longeth after You

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield

To You alone may my spirit yield

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZv3jzOTE70

Caution: This link may contain ads

The Worship of Idols

An Original Work / August 24, 2025

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Saturday, August 23, 2025

Who Will Stand Up For Me?

16 Who will stand up for me against evildoers?
Who will take his stand for me against those who do wickedness?
17 If the Lord had not been my help,
My soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence.
18 If I should say, “My foot has slipped,”
Your lovingkindness, O Lord, will hold me up.
19 When my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Your consolations delight my soul.
20 Can a throne of destruction be allied with You,
One which devises mischief by decree?
21 They band themselves together against the life of the righteous
And condemn the innocent to death.
22 But the Lord has been my stronghold,
And my God the rock of my refuge.
23 He has brought back their wickedness upon them
And will destroy them in their evil;
The Lord our God will destroy them. (Psalm 94:16-23 NASB1995)

This whole Psalm, vv. 1-23, appears to be on the subject of the wicked against the righteous. And it sounds as though the wicked are speaking, as well as they are doing evil against the righteous. It sounds like the wicked are gossiping about and slandering the good character of the righteous while they vaunt and puff up themselves to try to make themselves appear better than they are. And in their pride they think that no one can see their evil.

But the wicked are those who believe the lies, even their own lies, and they convince themselves that they are not wicked, but that they are good, and that it is those who are righteous who are bad and who need to be destroyed. So they devise mischief, and they band themselves together with others to come against the righteous, to condemn the innocent to death. For they despise the righteous who are following Jesus Christ in obedience.

And so they alter and they dilute the message of the gospel to make it more acceptable to the ungodly and to human flesh. And their gospel makes no requirements of its followers to leave their lives of sin behind them and to follow our Lord in surrender to his will and in walks of obedience to his commands. For they call that “works salvation.” And they teach (out of context) that we are saved by grace, through faith, which are left undefined.

But God’s grace, which is bringing us salvation, is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we await our Lord’s return. And faith, which comes from God, and which is persuaded of God, and is gifted to us by God, and is not of the will of the flesh, persuades us of God’s righteousness and of our sinfulness and of our need to die to sin and to obey God in practice.

But Jesus told us that this would take place. He told us that we who follow him will be hated and mistreated and persecuted as he was, so this should not surprise us when it happens. And the Lord is our stronghold in such times as these. He is our rock and our refuge to get us through it all. And he will, one day, bring back their wickedness upon them and destroy them in their evil because of their evil and their refusal to bow to him as Lord.

So, we are not to be afraid of what evildoers might do against us. We are not to give in to anxious thoughts, but we are to put our trust in the Lord. For worrying and fretting has never solved anything, but only makes matters much worse. And we must accept the fact that we have no control over what others might do to us or say about us without our knowledge of what they are doing behind our backs, too. We have to just keep trusting the Lord and giving it all over to him, trusting him to work it all out for our good.

[Matthew 5:10-12; Matthew 7:13-14; Matthew 10:16-39; Matthew 24:9-14; Luke 6:22-23; Luke 21:12-17; John 15:18-21; John 17:14; Romans 5:3-5; Philippians 3:7-11; 1 Peter 1:6-7; 1 Peter 4:12-17; 2 Timothy 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5; James 1:2-4; 2 Corinthians 1:3-11; Hebrews 12:3-12; 1 John 3:13; Revelation 6:9-11; Revelation 7:9-17; Revelation 11:1-3; Revelation 12:17; Revelation 13:1-18; Revelation 14:1-13]

For Our Nation

An Original Work / September 11, 2012

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Recording Via Gerry Peters, music producer and arranger

Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.

Jesus Christ is gently calling

You to follow Him in all ways.

Trust Him with your life today.

Make Him your Lord and your Savior.

Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.

He will forgive you of your sin;

Cleanse your heart, made new within.

Men betraying: Our trust fraying.

On our knees to God we’re praying,

Seeking God to give us answers

That are only found in Him.

God is sovereign over all things.

Nothing from His mind escaping.

He has all things under His command,

And will work all for good.

Jesus Christ is gently calling

You to follow Him in all ways.

Men deceiving: We’re believing

In our Lord, and interceding

For our nation and its people

To obey their God today.

He is our hope for our future.

For our wounds He offers suture.

He is all we need for this life.

Trust Him with your life today.

http://youtu.be/_XQkomPFz4Y

Caution: This link may contain ads

Who Will Stand Up For Me?

An Original Work / August 23, 2025

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

God Disciplines Those He Loves

“Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord,
And whom You teach out of Your law;
That You may grant him relief from the days of adversity,
Until a pit is dug for the wicked.
For the Lord will not abandon His people,
Nor will He forsake His inheritance.
For judgment will again be righteous,
And all the upright in heart will follow it.” (Psalm 94:12-15 NASB1995)

We read in Hebrews 12 that the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastises every son whom he receives. And if we are left without discipline, then we are illegitimate children, and not sons and daughters of God. And he will use trials and tribulations, and rejections and persecutions, et al, as his instruments of divine discipline, correction, and training. For God disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. And later such discipline yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who’ve been trained by it.

We also read in Titus 2:11-14 that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training (instructing) us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives. And we read in 1 Corinthians 11 that when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. And we read in Revelation 3:19 that those Jesus loves, he reproves and disciplines. So, as followers of Christ, God will discipline, train, instruct, and purify us.

But the whole point of the discipline, via the trials and tribulations which we face, is so that we grow in Christ, that we mature in our walks of faith in obedience to our Lord, that we gain wisdom and understanding, and we draw closer to our Lord. It is so that we learn obedience, faithfulness, moral purity, honesty, commitment, and devotion to our Lord and to his word and to his will and purpose for our lives. And it is so we are strengthened in our faith and endurance so that we can withstand the persecutions we will face.

And the people whom God will not abandon are not those who refuse to believe in Jesus Christ as their Messiah. They are also not those who give lip service only to God, who profess faith in Jesus Christ, but then who continue in deliberate and habitual sin and in living for self and not in walks of obedience to our Lord and to his commands. It is the upright in heart who he will not abandon, who follow in his ways and who obey his commands, in practice, and for whom sin is no longer what they practice, by God’s grace.

As the Deer

By Martin J. Nystrom

Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water

So my soul longeth after You

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield

To You alone may my spirit yield

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZv3jzOTE70

Caution: This link may contain ads

God Disciplines Those He Loves

An Original Work / August 23, 2025

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Run With It

Habakkuk 2

Monday, August 25, 2025

My Ways are Before You

They Persecute Me Without Cause

Sunday, August 24, 2025

You Have Loosed My Bonds

O Lord, Save My Life

The Worship of Idols

Saturday, August 23, 2025

Who Will Stand Up For Me?

God Disciplines Those He Loves

Original Works

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