When I think about the LORD – How He picked me up, turned me around, set my feet on solid ground! 
Makes me wanna shout HALLELUJAH! Thank You Jesus!
LORD You’re worthy of all the glory, all the honor, all the praise.

Working through Beth Moore’s study on James: Mercy Triumphs puts me on shoutin’ ground! 🙂 I guess I should have known when the title of the study has the word “triumph” in it, that it was going to be GOOD!

Looking closer into the family background story (the connection of James and Jesus) made it so real to me.  1 Corinthians tells us that Jesus had appeared to His half-brother, James, after His resurrection. That must have been some reunion! Now, weeks later many of His followers and His family are meeting together where they had joined each other regularly for prayer meetings. So Beth put this out there: What must James and Jesus’ other family members have felt that day?!

Rewind: Remember when Jesus’ family (we’re assuming James was there since it says that His brothers were) was looking for Him in the crowd that one day (Mark 3)? When the people told Jesus that they were out there, well, He had a strange response ….. you could say “He dissed ’em”! His very own family! When I thought long and hard about that, I think I would have been hurt at best, and very bitter at worst.
OK. Fast forward.

Back to Acts 1. I never saw this particular event so vividly until this week. Everything has changed. Jesus died. But He arose. And now, they are all in that room together. The family He was born into and the family that He called to Himself and they followed. Beth Moore said that it could have made for that family photo with “Awkward” as the caption! 🙂 Indeed!
But that doesn’t seem to be the scene at all. And this is what I read on the page in my study that made me shout!

The power of the resurrection trumps the power of the past, if we’re willing to let it!

  
That will preach! And that’s what I learned about the author. It’s just the preliminary stuff. 🙂
So, ready or not here I come … to dive in and drink of this wonderful book!