Laura

About three years ago I met Laura.  She was holding a cardboard sign asking for help outside of Walmart.  When I was driving by the Holy Spirit gave me instruction to do something concerning her.  I was to make a sign and write John 3:16 on it and go to where Laura was standing the next morning at 10:00 am.  After I had been there for about five minutes she came over to stand with me.  As we talked she confided in me that she was the daughter of a Baptist minister.  She also told me that she lived with a man who had several girls working "the beat" for him in exchange for food and shelter.

I told her that God had told me to come and see her.  She said her father was too strict and she wanted to be out on her own.  She worked part time at McDonald's and then in the mornings she worked for this man.  She had no car so he took her to work and the place where she was to stand.  I told her that she must be very special if God wanted me to come and see her.  About an hour later the "man" showed up to get her and she told him she wasn't going with him.  He was very upset and gave me a hateful look as he drove off that I will never forget.

I don't know what became of Laura, but I know God did something in that young girl! I hope that she went back home to her parents.  Oh, the power of the Holy Spirit!

Character

Why are sweet memories so important?  I'm old now and they keep me warm on a cold winter's night.  Good memories build character.  Combining God's Word and sweet memories result in a child of God who will someday know that his Heavenly Father is loving. So many today find it difficult to relate to Him as loving.  This is a real dilemma for the Christian.  It hinders his walk in the faith and stunts his growth in his relation to God as his Heavenly Father.  How can we pass down the Father's love and power if we cannot relate to Him ourselves?

Most of us had fathers who were not loving and some of us had no father at all our lives. How can we get to know our Father in heaven?  Jesus said if we had seen him we had seen the Father in Heaven.  (John 14:7)  When we study the character of Jesus we see a compassionate Lord toward His people.  Our Heavenly Father is compassionate to His own and even in this life to those who will never know Him.  He is a compass of compassion. He is even loving in His discipline toward His children.

The Cross of Calvary is spelled "Compassionate".  This is how I see my Heavenly Father.

One Brownie

After much thought it behooves me to warn people about eating too much white flour and too much sugar.  Sounds simple I know, but in all reality these are the two killers among us in the Church today!  Our bodies are created by the living God and we are not to abuse them.(I Corinthians 6: 19-20). This article will address the Body of Christ.  There are some illnesses we cannot control, but most of them we can.

Heart disease and type 2 diabetes are illnesses brought on ourselves.  Today we are a "fast" generation and it is killing us!  Are we not warned in God's Word that if we are given to appetite then we should put a knife to our throats? (Proverbs 23:2).  I know you have heard this over and over about eating habits, but have we looked at it through God's Word?  Will over eating send you to hell?  No, but do you really want to leave your family so soon? I'm not a health food fanatic, but it is heavy on my heart that our children are so obese and some will even die from it!

When we go to a fast food place on a regular basis we do harm to ourselves. The Word tells us to do everything in "Moderation"!  There is an old saying, "It is alright to eat one brownie, but not the whole pan". 

May God help us to take care of our bodies so that we might serve the Lord with energy and have a good testimony to the world.  When you see an obese preacher, what is your first thought?  Oh, God deliver us from an ungodly appetite in the name of Jesus Christ!  Give us strength to do it Lord! Amen. 

500

In the spring of 1970 my heart became burdened about abortion.  I had received some information from Knights of Columbus and what I saw broke me into tears.  After all this time God has reminded me of something that is very important.  At that time the law in Missouri was abortion could only be done if the life of the Mother was in danger.  In this information sent to me I learned that there was an organization called the ACLU who would soon be coming up against the US Senate to legalize abortion.  

In the information I got from Knights of Columbus it said that if every "district" in the United States had only 500 signatures on a legal petition then they could win the fight against this group who wanted abortion on demand.  I went to a local lawyer and he was pro-life so he gladly drew up a petition for me costing only $5.00.  They were placed inside Churches and I went door to door for signatures.  A week later I went to pick up the petitions from Churches.  There was a total of eleven signatures!!  Disappointment could not have covered what I was feeling at that time.  The pastor of one Church was embarrassed and told me that he was sorry, but people were comfortable with the present law in Missouri.  How did my effort turn out going door to door?  I got two signatures.  One woman told me that her son had turned out to be a homosexual and she wished he had never been born!

What if every Church in the United States would sign this petition?  It would over turn Roe vs Wade, but you know I'm wondering if there would be anymore signatures today than back then?  Of course, we know that abortion on demand was legalized on January 22, 1973.  There are lots of petitions online, every time you see one please take the time to sign it.  

Thank you and May God stop the insanity of killing unborn human beings!

100 Years

Remembered an awesome thought today that gave me some real peace.  I have been fussing and fretting about some things in my life.  It came to me, "what will matter 100 years from now"?  We can get so wrapped up in the problems of this life that we tend to shut out what is really important!  There are three things people are consumed with daily: Will I have enough money to pay the bills this month?  Will I get cancer?  How can I make my life better?

Many years ago while we were having dinner with a friend, I was distressed about the price of gasoline.  He smiled and said, "Will it matter 100 years from now?"  I guess you could have hit me between the eyes with a big stick!  What will matter, really?  Eternity with Christ equals "peace"!  The pain I have today, those relationships that have gone bad, or trying to make the world a better place was suddenly of no great importance anymore.  We must remind ourselves that this life is "temporary".

Psalm 90:12

New International Version (NIV)

12 Teach us to number our days,
    that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Sold!

The Pastor said, "If any of you have a financial need this morning, feel free to take from the collection plate".  I think I heard everyone in the room cringe, including myself.  This would mean that the first giver would get nothing and the last giver could get it all.  As it was passed around I saw only one person take from the plate.

LD Sowder is gone now, but he probably put on one of the best demonstrations of "pride" done in a church thirty years ago!  It called for the whole Church to trust God with their money.  In Acts 4:34 it says, "There was not a needy person among them, for qas many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold 35 and rlaid it at the apostles’ feet, andsit was distributed to each as any had need".

"Whosoever"

Some people will manipulate the Greek language to do their best to explain the word "whosoever" in John 3:16 to fit their beliefs about salvation.  This word is not "Past Tense"!  It is Present Tense!  "Today is the day of salvation" 2 Corinthians 6:2.  Past tense would imply that it means "everyone who has already been chosen who believe".  I had to take a step back and look at where I was spiritually.

I have always believed that the elect exists, but not quite the way this person does.  Theology has brought me down and trying to figure out why God does things the way He does!  I'm going back to my belief that God knew who would be saved before the foundations of the world were laid (Ephesians 1:4).  I do not believe that God would create people to go to hell.  I recognize the truth of needing to be born again in John 3:7.   I do not believe that everyone outside the belief of Calvinism is going to hell.  

I'm tired of those who suggest that you must be a Calvinist or you are damned to hell.  My God is not small enough to put Him in a little box of beliefs such as these and tie the string. Then put a great big stamp on the settled belief that the world be damned all to hell who doesn't help tie the bow!  This is not My God.  Jesus gave His life for the world and "whosoever" believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.  (John 3:16).

Family

Most people think that "family" means our earthly loved ones.  To the child of God, it means being apart of the family of God which means belonging to Christ through redemption of the work that Christ suffered on the Cross for us in His due season.  This "family" is eternal where as our earthly one is not.  We love our earthly family, but the Body of Christ is our everlasting one whom we should esteem more highly.

The Lord blesses us with our loved ones here the way He designed in the beginning of time.  The sweet blessing of loving those in Christ is unspeakable joy.  The precious Body of Christ is a bond that goes beyond earthly bounds.  May we keep our thoughts on eternal things and know that our family waits for us in heaven.

Fairy Tale

There are those who are called "Agnostics".  These are people who wonder if there is a God or not.  Mark Twain was one was of those people.  He was a brilliant writer when it came to writing stories, but one who enjoyed making jokes about God.  He lived a hard life and was ahead of his time in many of his writings. 

What kind of life is lived without Christ?  I call it a "fairy tale" life that ends in sorrow for all eternity.  There are troubles in this world, but I would rather go through them with Jesus than to go it alone on my way to hell.  Hell is a real place and so is heaven, which do you prefer?  Like Mark Twain everyone would want heaven or else he would not have wondered about the existence of the Creator.

"human existence is a cosmic joke perpetrated by a chuckling God".  Mark Twain.

                                                                           

Positive Peale

Went into a bathroom today at Walmart.  There was a wheelchair in the special stall.  My heart breaks for people living in such sorrow.  It made me realize that my problems were very small.  I walked out of there!  What does this have to do with Norman Vincent Peale?  He was the first to preach about "Positive Thinking"...he was the very first Joel Olsteen.

Positive Thinking is a lie from the devil just as was "confess it and posess it" by Charles Capps back in the 1980's!  Why is it a lie?  You cannot tell God what to do!  He is not a bell boy in the sky who we hand our Santa Claus list to in prayer!  Some of these positive thinkers are very good with words.  They have always been around because there is nothing new under the Sun, only in different forms.  The bottom line is we cannot think our way into a better life.  Try convincing this to the woman in the wheel chair.  I dare you to think daily that you will be a millionaire in one month!  Our lives are only blessed from the Lord if we belong to Him and then He does the choosing of when and where.

You cannot think yourself "well".  Enough said.  

   

Charity

This might sound hard nosed, but it seems to me that "charity" has gotten out of control these days.  Growing up in the 1950's if we didn't have school supplies we did the best we could with what our parents could afford.  Aren't we called to help the "household of God" before the world?  Sure seems to me things have gotten reversed.  Having very little charity back then taught us that if we had no money we were not to expect anything!  It also taught us that even though we didn't have money, we still had our dignity!

The law of Vagrancy was enforced, so you did not see homeless people.  Due to drugs on the street and the divorce rate, we now see shelters.  We are closer to the coming of the Lord and society is now in the state of an empire who just might fall.  We give to kids clubs in Ukraine who teach them the Gospel, so I'm not saying that we should not give.  It has gone to the extreme here in the states.

II Thessalonians 3:6-9:



^6-9 Our orders—backed up by the Master, Jesus—are to refuse to have anything to do with those among you who are lazy and refuse to work the way we taught you. Don’t permit them to freeload on the rest. We showed you how to pull your weight when we were with you, so get on with it. We didn’t sit around on our hands expecting others to take care of us. In fact, we worked our fingers to the bone, up half the night moonlighting so you wouldn’t be burdened with taking care of us. And it wasn’t because we didn’t have a right to your support; we did. We simply wanted to provide an example of diligence, hoping it would prove contagious.

Saved or No?

Most of the time we are consumed with the thought, "Am I saved or not?".  I have to remind myself so many times that the blood of Jesus is able to save even me to the very uttermost.  His blood covers my sins of the past and of the future.  The enemy constantly stands before God accusing us of being ungodly.  Unfortunately, we listen to him far more than we listen to the Word of the Lord.

How can we know we are saved?  I John 5:13:

"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life".

Our Spirit bears witness with the Holy Spirit of God.  We want Christ!  We know when we sin because the Holy Spirit convicts us and we repent.  We want what God wants.  He wants us to live Holy lives.  He wants us to put Him first above everything else.  He wants us to listen to His Word and obey it for this honors Him. 

We strive, but fall short of all these things and yet He still keeps us...II Timothy 2:13: 

 

"If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself".  If you are reading this and agreeing dear friend, then His blood has covered you in redemption!  Rejoice!



The Visit

Shortley after my conversion in 1977, the pastor's wife asked me to go along with her to visit an elderly woman in Hospice care.  She was ninety years of age.  The daughter was there.  She was not a believer and was against us going in to see her Mother.  She became very angry and told us to leave.  The pastor's wife held the Bible up to her and told her that she would be back because the Lord wanted her to come back for one more visit.  To my knowledge she never went back.

When I went back to visit the elderly lady the daughter was not there.  As I sat by her bedside I talked to her about eternity and God.  She was in great pain.  She told me that she had grown up in the Church and had heard all of that!  She turned her face to the wall and refused to talk to me anymore, so I left.

On my way home I thought "The visit was a failure".  Being a brand new Christian I didn't know that the Word of God will either touch a soul when it goes out or it will drive that soul away.  How many people grow up in the Church and do not know God?  Today, I know that everyone wants to go to heaven, but not all will.  We would do well to think on what the Word says in II Corinthians 13:5: 

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you-- unless indeed you fail the test?  John Calvin taught that one should not look to his works for assurance of salvation. He said we should look to Christ, the object of our faith.

Good Deeds

We are the most giving nation in the world.  We pour out our money, time, and sweat in times of need for others.  Our middle name is 'good deeds'.  Men and women travel thousands of miles in times of disaster to help people who are complete strangers.  The drive in our nation to help others in time of need is phenominal, to say the least!

The first responders are always people of the Church!  I thank God for them who act so fast that they have been noted as "Faith-Fema".  As you probably know, this article is not about praising people, but rather the Lord of those who act out of love for God.

God is the author of giving!  People give out of two reasons.  One, they do it for the glory of God.  Second, they do it to make themselves feel good and claim the glory!  This is something we must consider when we give or do any kind of good deed.  Those who are born again have the love of God in their heart and without this love our 'good deeds' are nothing.

I Corinthians 13:3



³ And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Parental Authority

The words "Parental Authority" are so misunderstood today.  We didn't even understand this in the 1950's.  I really don't know how far back it has been in such wrong thinking.  The truth is a child is under a parent's authority until he/she is married.  This means if you are in your twenties and single, you are under your parent's authority.  Yes, you must obey them even if it seems like they are wrong and ruining your life.  God has ordained this authority in his Word:

Ephesians 5:31



“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

Unfortunately, this has even been left out of our teachings inside the Church.  Why?  It is a "hard saying" and we must handle this great truth with diplomacy, right?  Wrong.  Our children are in such confusion today because we have not taught this truth!  There is a wonderful promise to those children who obey their parents:

Ephesians 6:1-3

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.

² Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;

³ That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

 

Worthy of Me

There are so many things in this life that can get us side tracked from God.  The deep sorrow of lost ones in our family is no doubt at the top of the list.  The enemy haunts us with thoughts that they will end up in hell.  This is done to get our eyes off of Christ and our realationship with Him.  We sorrow over them and certainly pray for them, but all too often we let it consume us until we are depressed.

Jesus said:

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Matthew 10:34-37

We must love the Lord more than "anyone".  The One who created us must have our full attention.  Of course, we love our family, but if we let it control our thoughts then we fall into a snare of the devil. 

Let your eyes look directly ahead And let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.

Proverbs 4:25

Travelers

Glitter and gold will you behold?  Lots of shiny things in this world to catch our eye.  The lust of the eye though can get us into so much trouble.  It might even lead to death.  Does this mean we are never to own a new car or home?  I don't think so.  It is the "lusting" that makes it a sin.

"This world is not my home" is not only an old adage, but also scriptural (Hebrews 11:9).  We are but strangers traveling through a strange country looking for our real home.  What does it mean to be a "traveler"?  To me it is the knowing that we own nothing in this world!  In New York did you know when you purchase a building, you must also purchase the air above it?  This would make a good laugh if it wasn't the truth.  Men live in their wisdom, which is foolishness unto God (I Cor 3:19).

"Travel light" is another old adage.  It should be seared into our hearts as those who belong to Christ!  To me, traveling light means we are to be content with what we have.  Our time is brief  on this earth; every breath we take is allowed only to us by our Creator Christ Jesus, who died so that we might have eternal life. (John 3:16)

I Timothy 6:8-10

⁸ And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. ⁹ But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

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Menopause 101

Menopause is spelled "men~of~pause".  God made woman beautiful with all of her wonderful tender qualities...like "nurturing".  To put it plainly ladies "we are a lovely basketful of hormones" [snicker].  No, this is not an article for men, but it would be good reading for all husbands.  We are special with all of our hormones!

In the days of Jesus, when he walked the earth, the average span of life for a man was forty-five years and maybe even less for a woman.  Today women are living to be in their eighties and beyond, so we go through that time when estrogen begins to decrease in our forties.  I won't give you the details of symptoms like hot flashes etc. because every woman has googled them to death!  No, I want to give you something more.

Most women like a good challenge; if this were not so there would be no one wanting to get pregnant!  This is a great challenge and one to behold in all of it's glory!  The challenge of Menopause is a big one too!  After the fall of mankind we can be certain that Eve knew what these changes were, for she probably lived a long time. "There is nothing new under the sun" (Eccl. 1:9).  I'm so glad that the Lord made me a woman!  Please check out the link below, I found it to be very uplifting:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1165686/Why-menopause-best-years-life.html



Fornication

1989 seems like a long journey back in time for me.  God laid an event on my heart this morning and I want to share it.   A newly wed couple had moved in next door to us.  She was twenty and he was twenty-one.  They were sweet neighbors.

The girl, Shannon, came over one day and was distraught.  She asked if both of them could come over and my answer was yes, of course.  That afternoon we all sat down together.  She began to cry.  The boy, Larry, did not reach out to comfort her.  I took her hand and waited quietly for her to say something.  She blurted out, "He had sex with another girl before he met me"!  I was not prepared for that and I was hurting for her. 

She was a Christian.  He was a nice boy, but I was not sure about his being a Christian.  Then she asked, "Why couldn't he wait until he meant me"?  I was silently asking the Lord to really help me with His answer!  She had really come to depend on me in the short time we had known each other, so the answer had to come from God and not me!  I was very frank with her:

"Men are geared to sex more than women.  This does not excuse fornication.  It is a sin and he needs to repent of it.  You are already married and I praise you for your honesty in wanting to deal with the situation.  There will be many things in marriage that will have to be dealt with for sure.  You are in the wonderful position to forgive him, if he wants to repent of it.  Another thing, he married you, so what happened with the other girl was just a matter of his hormones.  He chose you for marriage."  She dried her face with her hands and her countenance was one of enlightenment.

I don't know what transpired after that between them, but ever since then it has been in my heart the hope that young women will pray and ask God to give them the mate that He has for them!  I'm writing this twenty-five years later and the days are even heavier in the way of finding a man who has loved God from childhood. 

II Timothy 2:22

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Is he?

Is he what you wanted as a mate for life?  Yes?  Then why are you trying to change him?  After you say "I Do" then you have agreed to accept him for who he is and he you.  Are you living in sorrow over your choice?  If so, then you have a great opportunity to warn others who are contemplating matrimony! 

What does the Lord want us to do while we are single?  He wants us to set our standards so high for a mate it will cause people to treat you indifferntly.  The Lord wants you to have a good marriage and even when you do find that special person, God's Word says you will have tribulation.  Marriage is a triangle: God, you, and your mate.  If you are a believer and you marry someone who is not, you will live a life of regret.   English Standard Version (©2001)

"Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?"

Here is an inspired wedding song:

http://youtu.be/t4_sfgjRcfI

Twenty Years

"I will go Church when I'm old" was the response from my sister when I witnessed to her about the Lord.  You would not believe how many people think that going to Church is for old people.  Even worse they associate going to Church with being saved!  They perceive being saved a last minute thing to do in order to go to heaven.  They really do know there is a heaven and hell, but they want to go to heaven on their own terms.  To me, this is truly sad.

My sister has been in hell now for over twenty years.  She never did call upon the Lord for her salvation.  What is twenty years in hell?  We can compare it to throwing an aspirin into the ocean of time! 

Today is the day to call upon the Lord for tomorrow is not promised to no one! 

                                                            http://youtu.be/488FJkmWZbk