{"id":21394,"date":"2017-05-23T00:10:55","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T07:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=10853"},"modified":"2017-05-23T00:10:55","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T07:10:55","slug":"may-23-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/05\/23\/may-23-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"May 23, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cLooking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith\u2026\u201d<\/em> Hebrews 12:2<\/span><\/p>\n

Every Last Piece<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

When my son was little, he became fascinated with puzzles. It was so interesting to watch him take the pieces of a complete picture and reassemble them one by one. But sometimes, he would lose a piece or two of a specific puzzle, so he would search for the missing pieces. If he found them, he would complete the puzzle. If he did not find them, I would eventually throw that particular puzzle away.<\/span><\/p>\n

I love the idea that Jesus is a finisher. He can take the pieces of your broken life and put them back together. He never loses a single piece; in fact, He will take every single broken piece of your life and use it for His glory. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given Me, but raise them up on the last day. For My Father\u2019s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day\u201d<\/em> (John 6:39-40).<\/span><\/p>\n

The puzzles that my son can do are limited; even if no piece is missing, the picture will look exactly the same every time he completes the puzzle. But Jesus can change the picture of our lives. In fact, we know that He will. While we are still alive on this earth, Jesus is taking every broken piece and creating an entire new picture. No longer will our life look like a vast wasteland. It will one day look exactly like Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is\u201d<\/em> (1 John 3:2).<\/span><\/p>\n

If you belong to Jesus, rest assured that the broken pieces of your life have a purpose. Jesus is re-puzzling you to look exactly like Himself. Do not be discouraged if this feels like a long, chaotic process. Before my son finishes a puzzle, the scattered pieces lying around usually look like a mess. But as soon as the last piece is in place, the picture makes complete sense. Our lives may feel this way for now, because the picture will not be completed until we are face to face with Jesus. In that moment all of the confusion will be gone. The last piece will have been put into its proper place.\u00a0 We will instantly look exactly like Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus does not lose even one piece of the lives that He is holding. Nothing we give Him, no matter how ugly, is ever wasted. He alone can create a beautiful picture out of what once was ugly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDear Lord Jesus, thank You for taking every broken piece and creating a beautiful picture of us. Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLooking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith\u2026\u201d Hebrews 12:2 Every Last Piece When my son was little, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5z4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}