Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, is a wake-goer, a practitioner of a Chicago political tradition of Irish Catholic Democrats, one that comes with its own strict rituals:

Here’s a link to the editorial at the Chicago Tribune.

Predicting what history will decide was significant is always dicey. But in the context of our fractured nation and the nonstop Washington tumult since 2016, events in the last three weeks have been nothing short of ­remarkable.

Here’s a link to the editorial at Fox News.

By Debbie McDaniel

“Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” Psalm 55:22
So often in life we may find this to be true: we hold on too tightly to things we were never meant to control. It’s hard sometimes, to let go.
We struggle to change things. We strive hard to maintain order and keep all in line. But when problems mount high and pressures feel overwhelming, we begin to understand more fully how little control we really have.

Maybe we look all different places for help, yet forget we can press in towards our Savior. Maybe we forget that He never changes, and He still holds the power to heal and set free. Maybe we don’t believe that He can, or wants to, work on our behalf. Maybe we forget at times, that He’s still the God of miracles, that He can act “immediately,” that He can do in a moment what might take years for us to work through on our own.
Let’s set aside our fears and move towards Him today, in faith. Let’s press in close, and reach out to the One who is All-powerful, compassionate, loving, and kind. He knows already, the wounds and troubles we’ve carried, He knows the pain and worries we’ve felt, He knows how much we’ve tried to let go, and fix things in our own power. Let’s choose to believe that our situation or circumstance is never too big for Him to bring healing and freedom. He is Able. Nothing is too difficult for Him.

He is always within reach.
He is never far away.
He is close.
He is with us.
He cares.
He heals.
He restores.
He redeems.
Go in peace.
Walk in His freedom and healing.
May His huge grace cover you this day…
Dear God,
We confess our need for you today. We need your healing and your grace. We need hope restored. We need to be reminded that you work on behalf of those you love, constantly, powerfully, completely. Forgive us for trying to fix our situations all on our own. Forgive us for running all different directions and spinning our wheels to find help, when true help and healing must be found first in You. Forgive us for forgetting how much we need you, above everyone and everything else. We come to you and bring you the places we are hurting. You see where no one else is able to fully see or understand. You know the pain we’ve carried. The burdens. The cares. You know where we need to be set free. We ask for your healing and grace to cover every broken place. Every wound. Every heartache. Thank you that you are Able to do far more than we could ever imagine. Thank you for your Mighty Power that acts on behalf of your children. We reach out to you, and know that you are restoring and redeeming every place of difficulty, every battle, for your greater glory. Thank you that you will never waste our pain and suffering. We release to you this day every need and problem we’ve carried or tried hard to control. We believe in your goodness to see us through. We love you. We need you today.

In Jesus’ Name,
Amen.

There Is Only One Way to Be Free
By Rick Warren

“I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved” (John 10:9 NASB).

You’ll encounter lots of doors in your life. You’ll find doors to happiness, doors to sadness, doors to success, and doors to failure. Some doors are traps, and others are opportunities.

Your success in life largely depends on which doors you decide to walk through. The Bible has a lot to say about these doors. In fact, you’ll find the word door throughout the Bible, often used as a metaphor for opportunities.
We often go through the wrong doors, or maybe we miss the right ones. But there’s one door you just can’t afford to miss: the door to freedom.
Freedom is a big deal to God. He doesn’t want you enslaved to guilt, resentment, grief, or anything else. He wants you to live free.
The biggest prisons in life aren’t physical. They’re the mental prisons in your mind. Maybe it’s a relationship you feel trapped in. Maybe it’s debt that you can’t escape. Maybe it’s a habit you can’t seem to shake. Maybe it’s a tradition that holds you back. Maybe it’s a painful memory you can’t forget.
No matter what kind of prison you’re in, you need a way out. You can’t enter the doors of opportunity God has planned for you until you walk out of the prisons that hold you back and through the door to freedom.
In John 10:9, Jesus says something really important about the door of freedom: “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved” (NASB).
Jesus doesn’t just want to show you the door to freedom. He is the door to that freedom. He is the only way to live free!
PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick
Talk It Over

What makes it hard to determine whether a door is a trap or a positive opportunity
What does freedom mean to you? Where in your life do you need to find freedom?
What’s holding you back from accepting the freedom that Jesus offers through faith in him?

Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it.

A Prayer to Renew Your Mind – Your Daily Prayer – April 9

A Prayer to Renew Your Mind
By Remi Roy
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” Romans 12:2
What changes when we surrender our hearts to Jesus? Certainly, not our outward appearance, our income or the people in our families or at work. On the outside, we look the same. So, what changes?

The more we give in to the flesh the more our lives stay the same. The more we yield to the Spirit the more we begin to look like Christ. It is important to note that we cannot and do not change our ways first before we come to Christ. Hard as we try we do not have the power to do that and if God required that no one would be saved.
Paul, however, instructs us to renew our minds.
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” Romans 12:2
Paul knew that it takes a sincere desire to want to obey God to resist the lure of the world, hence his admonition to not copy the ways of the world. The same temptations we experienced in the past will come our way as new creations in Jesus Christ. We will face the same hardships, deal with the same emotions and circumstances. What makes the difference is our sincere desire to please God. Our desire, fueled by God’s grace and love makes real change possible.

Philippians 2:13 says, ‘For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.’
But how do we carry out Paul’s instruction to renew our minds in the practical sense?
It’s all in the Word. God’s Word empowers us and enables us to go all the way in our pursuit of Him.
Our job is to study and apply the Word. It is our weapon against everything that comes against us; whether sickness, fear or evil thoughts. God’s Word is the standard by which we measure our lives and conform to His will.

Lord, help us to study and apply your Word to our lives each day. Help us make this a discipline of the mind and heart, empowered by Your Spirit, transforming us each day more and more into your likeness. Help us have self-awareness of when we’re falling into temptation and turn quickly back to you. Thank you for your tender mercy and love, ever leading us onward. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen!

Love People from the Heart
by Rick Warren — April 10, 2019

“It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart” (Philippians 1:7 NIV).

I’ve discovered that if people are not on my heart, they’re on my nerves. If you don’t have your kids in your heart, they get on your nerves. If you don’t have your spouse in your heart, guess who gets on your nerves?

The reason so many marriages struggle is that mates are reacting to each other from their mind rather than their heart. When your wife says, “I feel depressed,” listen to her; it’s legitimate. When your husband says, “I don’t feel this is the right thing to do; we ought to do it this other way,” listen to him.
Heart love begins with understanding why someone feels the way they do. Ask questions and then listen. Hear the hurt, look for the problems, know what makes your mate tick. You need to understand the moods of the people closest to you, why they act the way they do. If you care, you’ll be aware.
How do you love people that you find unlovable, even when you do understand them and their moods? “God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8 NIV). In Greek, the word affection is the word for intestines. In Greek society, the Greeks thought that the seat of the emotions was in your stomach, your liver, your internal organs.
Paul was saying, “I’ve got a gut feeling of love for you.” That is not a natural kind of love. It is a supernatural kind of love. That’s why Paul said it’s not from himself, but it’s the affection of Christ Jesus. Human love wears out and dries up and dies on the vine. The only kind of love that lasts in spite of heartache and difficulty in tough circumstances is God’s love—the affection of Jesus Christ.
So how do you get this kind of gut love? “God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us” (Romans 5:5 GNT). God’s love is not something you work up. It is something that is poured into you by the Holy Spirit as you let him live in you day by day.
PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick
Talk It Over

What does loving the unlovable look like? When have you seen that kind of love displayed?
What are ways you can listen better to hear the hurt, understand problems, or know what makes your spouse (or close family members) tick?
What are ways you can listen better to hear the hurt and understand problems other people in your life may be experiencing?

Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it.

Only a few days after being sworn in as a member of Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. summarized a 2018 U.N. report on climate change with a dire prediction. The frequently repeated line “we have only 12 years left” is now in the lexicon of almost every Democratic presidential candidate and environmental activist nationwide.

Here’s a link to the story at Fox News.

According to the mainstream media narrative, former Vice President Joe Biden’s touchy, feely, creepy hair-smelling fetishes are simply learned behavior from a sexist epoch in American politics and culture that was finally exposed by #MeToo.

Here’s a link to the editorial at Fox News.

A Prayer for Hard Days

By Christina Fox
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” James 4:8
We all have hard days. Challenging days. Days that stretch us, sometimes beyond what we can bear. Sometimes these days appear as a series of little irritating events that build up to one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Other days we wake up to find one huge unexpected event that lands like a bomb in our life.

Sometimes those hard days find us busy and distracted as we try to fix everything that has gone wrong. Or we get so caught up in our thoughts and feelings about our circumstances that it consumes us. Or perhaps we attempt to hide away from struggle of the day in the hopes that if we don’t think about it, maybe it will all go just away.
Instead of such responses, hard days are opportunities for us to draw near to God. They are opportunities for us to rely on him, depend on him, and receive more of his grace. Such days remind us how desperate we are and how much we need our Savior.

A Prayer for Hard Days
Father in Heaven,
Help me! I am so weary and worn down by this day. So many things are happening all at once and I don’t know what to do. I am overwhelmed. It feels like I am standing in a fierce wind that is whipping and swirling around me. I can’t move; the force is so strong. It may just knock me down flat. And worse of all, what if I can’t get back up again?
Father, I can barely lift my eyes to you. It’s all I can do to cry out for help. Please extend your grace to me this day. Help me to see that you are in this and that you are with me. Help me to remember that you are not surprised or taken off guard by the events of this day.
As I dwell and meditate on who you are, I am amazed and filled with wonder that you would love and care for me. No other religion in all the world has a God that loves his people. No other religion has a God that listens and cares about the cries of the human heart. No other religion has a God that would humble himself and take on frail human flesh and live in this sin-stained world. No other religion has a God that would lay down his life for his people.

But you are that God. You are God alone. Your word tells me that before time began you chose me to be yours through your Son, Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:4). You set your love on me and made me yours. Ephesians also says that through Christ, I have “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (1:7).
Forgive me for my fears about this day. Forgive me for how I have complained and muttered about how hard this day has been. Forgive me for forgetting that you are with me. Forgive me for forgetting who I am because of what your Son, Jesus Christ, has done. Forgive me for failing to remember the glorious truths and riches I have because of the gospel.
It is these truths that I am focusing my heart on in the midst of this hard day. I pray the words of Paul and claim them as my own that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give me the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of my hearts enlightened, that I may know what is the hope to which he has called me, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1:17-19).

Father, hear my prayer. Grant me gospel hope in the midst of this hard day. Help me to cling to your grace, your wisdom, and your strength.
Through Jesus and because of Jesus and in his name I pray, Amen.