Hello.  My name is Nancy Shurilla.  Most of you won’t have the first clue who I am, but hopefully, you’ll know me a little better by the end of this devotion.  My husband, Chris and I planted a church in Collinsville, Illinois, which is just 12 miles east of St. Louis, Missouri, back in 2009.  But that of course, isn’t where our journey began; it’s just the latest ‘duty-post’.  Now, don’t get all wound up by my using the word ‘duty’ to describe our ministry.  For us, it is so much beyond duty; it truly is our love and passion.  We work this ministry because of our love for Jesus.  And that love is what this devotion is about.

Not long after my husband got saved and I had re-affirmed my own salvation, we found ourselves moving to the small town of Branford, Connecticut in 1997.  Both of us are born and bred New Englanders, so moving back to Connecticut was a welcome homecoming.  Why we had left in the first place is an entirely different story best left for another time.  Through a miraculous series of events, we found Heritage Baptist Church in Wallingford, Connecticut.  We LOVED that church.  We loved Pastor Bish and his preaching and the people and his wife, Trina.  Trina was a formidable Pastor’s wife.  She could be loving and stern at the same time.  And oh!  Her laugh!  Her laugh was the most infectious and unique laugh I have ever heard.  You knew EXACTLY where Trina was, even across a crowded room!  Sadly, Trina was taken home to be with the Lord she loved so fiercely a few years ago after a battle with cancer.  I miss her.  I wish I had called her more after we left for Bible College and beyond.  I wish I could call her now.  Here’s how I imagine the call would have gone:  

“Hi Mrs. Bish.  Do you have a minute?  I got asked to do a devotional for the second time and God won’t let me say ‘no’ this time around.  I’m freaking out!  I have NO idea what to say!  Who wants to listen to ME?!

Nancy, (she would be using her serious voice), you have plenty to say. My Jesus wouldn’t have asked you otherwise.  He’ll tell you what to say.  Above all, be yourself.”

And there’s the gem.  Those two little words Trina would use so often in her conversation.  MY Jesus. The most important lesson I ever learned from Trina, though I wouldn’t even realize it until YEARS later, was that He needs to be ‘MY’ Jesus.  When you speak of your Saviour, it should be personal.  The same way you say, ‘My kids’ or ‘My husband’.  Possessive.  Loving.  Is that how you think of Jesus, or do you not really think about that relationship much at all?  We all hear quite regularly in preaching that we need to have a relationship with God(Jesus), but do we really think and ponder and try to figure out what that entails?  Oh sure, there’s the ‘read your Bible more!  Here’s a 1 year plan!’  and don’t you dare misunderstand me, reading your Bible is paramount in a Christians life, but are you just going through the motions of Bible reading so that you can check off a little chart?  You’ll be closer to Jesus than if you weren’t reading at all, sure, but would you feel that possessive love?  Trina challenged me without even saying it to get that possessive love.  To thirst for it.  And it’s so funny because, the closer you get the more you want. 

I LOVE my Bible.  No, I mean I literally physically LOVE my Bible.  It’s beautiful.  It’s precious to me.  I have two, actually.  One smaller KJV in a beautiful purple leather cover complete with all kinds of cute bookmarks and glitter pens for highlighting (cut me, do I not bleed glitter?) that I use for church and travel and a bigger much more expensive leather bound wide-margin note takers Old Scofield KJV that I recently got for my birthday for me to decorate the pages and write praises and thoughts in as part of my personal devotions. Oh, it smells soooo good!  My Bible is God personified to me. Think I’m weird?  Well, not to bring scripture into a devotional, but:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. – John 1:1, 14”

The Bible itself says that My Jesus IS the Word and the Word IS Jesus!  

My love affair with my Bible started a while ago with a particularly painful time in our first post-college ministry.  The small country church we pastored at had let us know in no uncertain terms that they were not interested in being a conservative, fundamental church.  Soul winning was not for them and tithing was not 10% but rather ‘whatever God tells us’.  They no longer wanted conservative music and they just wanted Chris to preach while ‘they’ ran the rest of the church business.  So that business meeting didn’t go well, LOL.  The very next service, my husband stood up and resigned.   I was devastated, confused, hurt, and scared.  With crystal clarity I remember that first night after he resigned and we drove all our belongings to our friend’s house. We tried to find sleep in their spare room, the tears coming hot and heavy.  My husband had finally fallen asleep, and I didn’t want to burden him further so I did something that seemed so natural at the time, even though I wouldn’t have even thought of doing it a week earlier.  I grabbed my Bible off the nightstand and clutched it to my chest as if it were the last life preserver on the Titanic.  And to me, it was.  Our lives had been upended in the most agonizing way.  What we had left home and a beloved church for, gone through college as married students with a young growing family for, what I thought was the epitome of ‘we made it!’ had been ripped out from under us like a cheap carpet.  I poured my heart out to God like never before.  In that moment, I realized that Jesus of the Bible, the Saviour who died for all, was MY Jesus.  He loves me SO much and wants the same love and devotion from me!  He brought back to memory EVERY time Trina peppered her sentences with ‘My Jesus’ and I finally GOT IT!  He want’s so desperately to have that possessive relationship with you and with me that He sometimes must use drastic measures to try and get our attention. At that point, he certainly had mine.  

All these years later, am I a perfect Christian with a perfect walk?  Ya, no.  Not by a long shot.  But God’s still working on me just like He’s still working on you. I want to be so much better than I was yesterday for Him.  I strive, no I yearn to be closer to My Jesus every day.  Do you have that same yearning?  Are you constantly looking for new ways to be closer to your Jesus in addition to daily Bible reading and prayer time?  Do you love your Bible?  If you take a moment after some close introspection and realize you’re just going through the motions of Christianity, I implore you to focus on your relationship with Jesus.  Start simple.  Get a notebook or journal and write out just one verse a day and think about it all day long.  There are plenty of sources online or through apps that will send you a verse a day.  Write down your thoughts about the verse, or your daily Bible reading.  Or try writing an honest letter to God where you actually talk to Him just like he’s a good friend.  Don’t be surprised if He answers!  Tell Him all your woes, fears, and doubts.  Praise Him for His goodness to you!  Try verse mapping or Bible journaling or get yourself a KJV coloring Bible and some awesome glitter gel pens.  Anything to get yourself to spend more time with Jesus. Journaling or coloring not your thing?  Try singing a chorus or two of a favorite hymn before your Bible reading time.  Sometimes, if you are truly hurting or in a dark place, all you might be able to manage is to sing a psalm or just have a good cry with God but at least it’s something.  I pinky-promise you, you can’t go wrong searching for a closer relationship with God and Jesus.  The closer you draw to God, the closer he draws to you.  That’s a Bible promise you can claim!  And trust me, with the way this World is spinning, we want to be as close to God as possible!  

That’s what Trina Bish taught me all those years ago that took SO long for my pea-brain to get…My Jesus.  My Strong and Mighty Tower.  My Rock.  My Salvation.  I hope and pray He’s ‘Your’ Jesus too.