I Am The Lord Your God (part 14)

God considers His laws serious and undefilable, although man has done just that many times. (Deuteronomy 17:1-13) God wants the purity of my heart because that purity and that purity alone makes my deeds pure. Judgments, rulings, laws by God are given such that I know what purity of heart is. God has after all appointed and anointed me as one of His priests (1 Peter) along with those He has also called to be Christian. God’s law is spotless. What I and others have to ensure is that with our legalism we do not spot God’s law, that we don’t allow politics to damage His Word and desires. For God’s heart is in those laws, God’s workings of the earth, the laws of nature conform to God’s laws because He made nature and the laws that govern nature. For example, God thinks marriage is serious, as He says in Deuteronomy 22:13-29, serious enough to say that one must consider carefully the person one has chosen to be married to, that there are things that may cause them to want to put them away but these must not be taken frivolously. I cannot just decide I do not want to be married anymore, not without evoking God. God considers marriage a contract with Him and me and my spouse. Neither my spouse nor I can break the contract without giving God a good reason. Just as woman was made for the man, man was made for the woman and God is in control of it all. (1 Corinthians 11:8-12)

I Am The Lord Your God part 14

When I please God, He is happy and rejoices. How do I please God? By living as He tells me. His commandments are not difficult in deed, only in my limited thoughts: 1) I am to live according to His commands (John 15); 2) I am to love Him and my fellow man (1 John 3); 3) I am to walk as He walked (Philipians 2); 4) I am not to lie or cheat or hate (Ephesians 5); 6) I am to be peaceful (Romans 12).

That is not to say that I will not sin. God knows that. That’s why God provided Christ. His blood covers me. But does that mean I can keep on sinning and not learn? (Rom 6:1) No, because sin is serious. God considers it so. (Deuteronomy 21:1-13) No matter what, and how rebellious I am, I am still accountable for what I do. Even though God has mercy to say I have a place with Him in heaven when I come to Him humbly and penitently, there are always consequences. Even though no one sees me in my sin, even though I think that God doesn’t mind one little bitty sin. If I am not in Him, I cannot be with Him in heaven.

I Am The Lord Your God

According to Deuteronomy 19:6-21, God tells me how to live. He tells me not to take life into my own hands because I can never control it, and I did not create it to begin with. That means when things are inconvenient, or someone cuts in front of me in traffic, or someone does something to me that just irritates me to no end, pray for my enemies rather than curse them. God knows what is going on and He has control over it. Revenge belongs not to me, but to Go. In fact God goes further and tells me to act on my prayer.I am exhorted to give my enemy something to eat when they are hungry and something to drink when thirsty. (Romans 12:19-20) I am not God, and only God knows what is true justice for those that do wrong. Even in my thoughts, if I just kill in my mind and not with my hands I am not allowing God to be God. Christ knew this. That is why He advised the Apostles and other followers not to hate, not to even nurture the thought because it would come to be eventually. Satan knows how to tempt me, and that is through my thoughts. No one needs to plant the seed, I can do that quite well. What I need is a way to nurture the seed . Even though it may not be for the best of God’s creation. When I let satan into my thoughts all that matters is it temporarily satisfies me.

And then God cries.

I am THE LORD, Your God (part 12)

One could ask the question why were the early Christians persecuted? Or better stated how could God let this go on? Could this be to make His people (yes, Christians are God's people too (I Peter 2:5)) strong in their faith? (Romans 5:3-5) Certainly, they knew who God was and what awaited them. They knew the road was hard. Could it be so that since those suffering knew God wasn’t the instigator of this, they could see what truly was the cause of their suffering? And knowing His people knew this, God meant to show others who were and would become His people what laid ahead by demonstrating it through the Christians that were suffering then. It definitely called for those who were riding the fence to make a decision. And it was a way for people to count the cost of following Jesus, that it was no bed of roses. It was also a way for God to show that nothing on this earth mattered and it doesn’t last forever. While there are exciting and beautiful things here on earth, that is nothing compared to what awaits those that believe in Him.

I AM the LORD YOUR GOD (Part 11)

God is God, and those that come to lead us are those because God allows it. According to Psalm 72:1-20, God gives leaders their righteousness; it doesn’t come to them by anything they do. God blesses them and at the same time He will protect those who are poor and ill and He promises to break the oppressor. God is in control of all life. What I forget is that while I wish He could do things right now, and am impatient for what I perceive as justice to take place, He knows the best timing. How do I know that if He was to take action when I think He needs to that others may not turn into oppressors too? Humanity doesn’t change that much. That being the case, while delays in removing oppressors seems unjust, at the same time, oppressors are seen for what they are, and God’s mercy and kindness is seen for what it is. What is God’s purpose, to remove the oppressor? No, it is to show us a different way of seeing our situation and in fact a new way to look at the old way that God presented to His people in the Old Testament. He after all did look after the Jews. All He asked was that they looked to Him. And He kept them protected as long as they believed in Him, as long as the whole nation recognized and acted upon the notion He was the One and Only, He kept warring nations away from them. But the minute the nation as a whole sanctioned hypocrisy and idols then God’s justice came down upon them. It is as if the warning of Deuteronomy 13:12-18 to accept only Him as God and to cleave to Him truly bore fruit. He followed through on His warnings.

I amd the LORD Your GOD (part 10)

God is God (thank God for that!) and has established His line on earth through David to Jesus. Actually from Adam to Jesus. And still Jesus had to learn obedience through the Father. And because I sin and so often miss the mark, I have to learn what it is that God wants of me too. God chastens me with His rod but will not push me away.I must decide I want to go from Him. Or else I must make up my mind to follow Him. I must learn that He and He alone is in control. For He is the LORD, He is the patient, merciful, just and true God that created the universe. And He promises that He will protect me. Psalms 96:1-13 speaks of His grandeur and the respect I need to have for Him. God is God and deserves much more of my respect and honor. He is just, although I may not think it so. But God loves me and is more just than I will ever know. For the LORD looks after His people from Zion, sitting in His holy sanctuary and He will shine down upon those worshipping Him there. He knows my prayer, He knows all of His people’s prayers. He knows when I hurt. He knows when His people are suffering. He will comfort and care for us always. But as it says in Isaiah 4:1-6, He will also clean house, and cleanse those who come to live in Zion and He will be the leader of all His people.

Psalm 110:1-7 is another example of how the LORD says that He will protect those in Zion. He is in control and sent Jesus to be King and ruler of this place that God calls His. He came so that I may know God and know my options, to choose Him or not to choose Him. And I and others need to remember Him, as I am admonished in Psalm 137:1-7. I am admonished to remember God’s city, God’s heart, and God’s temple, by being in Him. I need to remember that His people wept because they were carried off by warring nations all because of the people’s seeking after something other than God. Most of all, I need to remember that God, as spoken of in Psalm 85:9-13, will show mercy, to His people as well as to me, and He will demonstrate His great truth and righteousness, when I show Him obedience not to appease Him but because I truly love Him and when I respect Him enough to obey His commands.

I am The Lord Your God Part 10

He will protect His servants. (2 Kings 19:1-37) Satan whispers in my ears constantly, “See how wonderful life is when you do what ever you want to do? Oh, I know He calls it sin and is not pleased, but is He doing anything about it? No. Not one blessed thing.” He shouts his victory yell when I give in. But when I refuse to give demons the time of day by fleeing to God, (James 5), when I refuse to give satan any room by staying in His Word and loving His son, satan weeps and moans and the fires that were licking at his heels threaten to consume him, giving him a taste of what it will be like when my Almighty God ends this universe and banishes him forever to the pool of never ending heat and sorrow.

God Himself is burdened to protect me, especially when I am struggling against those that would see me fall. In Zechariah 9:1-17, God tells me what His burden is. “The burden of the Word of the LORD in the land of Hadrach and Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as the eyes of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the LORD. And Hamath also shall border thereby: Tyrus and Zidon, though it be very wise. And Tyrus did build herself a stronghold and heaped up silver as the dust and fine gold as the mire of the streets. Behold the LORD will cast her out, and he will smite her power in the sea: and she shall be devoured with fire. Ashkelon shall see it and fear; Gaza also shall see it and be very sorrowful, and Ekron; for her expectation shall be ashamed: and the king shall perish from Gaza and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. And a evildoer shall dwell in Ashdod and I shall cut off the pride of the Philistines. And I will take away his blood out of his mouth, and his abominations from between his teeth: but he that remaineth even he shall be for our God and he shall be the governor of Judah. And I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth: and no oppressor shall pass through them any more: for now I have seen with mine eyes. Rejoice greatly O daughter of Zion; shout O daughter of Jerusalem: behold thy KING cometh onto thee: he is just and having salvation: lowly, and riding upon an ass and upon a colt and a foal of an ass. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea and from river even to the ends of the earth. And as for thee, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein there is no water. Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee; When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man. And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the LORD God shall blow the trumpet and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. The LORD of hosts shall defend them: and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls and as the corners of an altar. And the LORD their God shall save them in that day as the flock of His people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land. For how great is His goodness and how great is His beauty! Corn shall make the young men cheerful and new wine the maids.” His burden is me, to protect me, when I declare His Name as the one true Name and that He is the one true God. His burden is also to bring justice to those that have destroyed His temple, enslaved His people and desecrated His holy Word. He demonstrates His will through supernatural occurrences in natural events. This will produce a remnant, much as when He instructed Gideon to hone down His army to those who would really obey and be loyal to him and God. This is also the case with Nehemiah, as only those who were brave enough to continue to build the walls and the Temple and still defend Jerusalem were worthy of being part of God’s house. And further back, those who followed Joshua, when he reported good tidings from the desert and that God’s people were strong enough to subdue their enemies because God was with them. It is this remnant that will abide in the peace of God, and live in unity to gather more so that they too could live in God’s Kingdom. (Zechariah 14:8-21) But this doesn’t occur without pruning so branches that seemingly look good, much as gardeners truly hate to prune branches that appear to be producing good fruit or roses or whatever. If the branch deviates from it’s path, it must be cut off, and God does that. And while He is the Great Mercy Giver, if I need to be pruned He will do it in a heartbeat, not because He is mean, not because “He said so” like so many parents do (although He being the Creator has that right to say so) but because He knows if he doesn’t do it now, if He doesn’t cut off that which while growing needs cutting, then the road I travel will only end in death. There are two ways to follow God, 1) riding the fence, of which He will ultimately not approve but He hopes I come to that conclusion, 2) wholeheartedly, which He absolutely and without question approves. If I need pruning along the way, He will do it. I should say when because I will not be perfect until I come to Him. This church His Son has set up was God’s design that I might learn His ways and live in peace with others that He has also called. How do I live in peace, how do I let God be God? By tending to my own life. By pulling the log from my own eye before asking someone to pull the splinter out of that person’s eye.

I AM the LORD YOUR GOD (Part nine)

Does that mean that I can live as I want? That I don't have to listen to Him? Not hardly. In His role as the Great Almighty, God expects everyone to listen to Him and will act when He is not listened to. Isaiah 37:10-33 shows me this: “Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely, And will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them – the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? Where then is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?” Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: "O LORD Almighty, God of Isreal, enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O LORD and hear; open your eyes O LORD and see; listen to all the words that Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God. It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God.” Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word the LORD has spoken against him: 'The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises and mocks you. The Daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee. Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against who have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel! By your messengers you have heaped insults on the Lord. And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down the tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines. I have reached its remotest heights, the finest of its forests. I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’ Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In the days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stones. Their people drained of power are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up. But I know where you stay and when you come and go and how you rage against me. Because you rage against me and because of your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came. This will be the sign for you Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows up by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. Once more a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above. For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant; and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria: He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp against it.” After all those who live in Jerusalem, those who truly love Him and will follow Him and know that they must go to Him are truly living in the spiritual kingdom, in His Holy City. He will always protect it, and just as Assyria could not prevail against Jerusalem, neither can my sins and satan, both the result of my selfishness by their nature, cannot prevail or destroy me. God will not allow it because I have asked Him to have mercy. I have, as James so aptly put it in the New Testament, humbled myself in the sight of the LORD. God’s will shall be done, regardless of the stubbornness of man and the haughtiness of kings and business executives.

I am the Lord Your God (part 9)

How I treat God determines how I treat others. Do I take Him seriously, at His word or is He a mere figurehead of something I can appease and get what I want? Do I expect Him to jump at my beck and call, or am I willing to march into the valley of death for His cause of peace and love. If I tell God I adore Him, do I really mean it? Am I serious in this adoration? And this is the same way in my relationships. Do I tell others I love them, then leave them stranded? Do I lend my support or do I expect them to support me? Do I give in to appease them, or do I truly love them and want to give them the best of me? All of that is reverence for God.

The reverence I have for God is because the LORD is the creator and lover of me, and He has given up so much for me. He is the alpha and the omega. He calls me to Him. He promises He will do so, no matter what for I am from Him and He declares I am His daughter. (Isaiah 43:1-26) He will never leave me. He extends His power before me and He longs for my relationship with Him. He promises to be with the rest of His people and me. And He promises all of His people will be together. And this is how God expects and desires me to treat His people respectfully because they are His as I am His. How do I know this? God calls me His child. While it may feel as though He forgets He will not. He will not. He will not because His memory is long and His will be done. (Isaiah 49:14-17) And The LORD is in control. He is King. He saved His people and He saved me. Why should I not proclaim His great love for me? (Isaiah 52:1-12) All people of all nations shall come to Him, all who want to be covered by His light. And He shall love all of them who call Him by His name to the fullest extent, although His love encompasses all peoples whether or not they love Him. (Isaiah 60:1-6)

I Am the Lord Your God (part 8)

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. It is God, who decides from where and from whom is His church. In Mark 16:18, where He talks about the miracles and being able to cure the sick and recover from incredible odds, that does not come from the technology of men but the workings of the LORD. In all things, He purposes me to bring people to Him, so that they can come to know His wondrous works, His miracles, things that I could never do. A few years ago, I had spectacular flowers from day lilies to rose bushes to chrysanthemums, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I didn’t do this. God did it. All I did was plant. But the colors were so beautiful, I couldn’t have done that on my own. This is His miracle. His triumph. He has set up a Holy Mountain and a Jerusalem that all will come to and all will bend their knee to Him, in a much greater way than we could ever hope to imagine. Zechariah 2:10,11 says, “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD. And many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee.” And again in Zechariah 6:15, “And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the LORD, and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God.” And again in Zechariah 8:20-23 says, “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; It shall come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities: and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go speedily to pray before the LORD, and to seek the LORD of hosts: I will go also.’ Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the LORD. Thus saith the LORD of hosts; in those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with You’.” These are prophesies not of the rise of the Jewish nation as many are wont to say, but these are prophesies for the formation and growth of the Bride of Christ. Of the miracle that God works among all nations to bring all to Himself in Christ. This is God’s will that all shall come to Him. Zechariah is predicting that God wants us to be joyous in Him. LORD GOD, may I truly see Him for what He is, a loving great God that wants all to come to Him, so much that He sent the flesh of Himself, God with us, Emmanuel.

I Am THe Lord Your God (part 8)

But only God gives us this strength through His grace. (1 Thes 1:1) Only God, through His son Jesus, makes us whole. Only God gives us peace. I do not love peace, I want to fight every living creature in my wake that stands in my way in the name of being righteous. God tells me in His Name stop and think about what I am doing. He cries out for peace through David (Ps 133:1) How can there be peace without unity among people that call themselves Christians? As long as there are so many differences how can there be unity? I hear preachers that want unity, and it makes me wonder. Do these preachers realize that what disunites churches are not the little peripheral things, although these have indeed split up churches? No, what really splits a church are fundamental acceptances or non-acceptances of the ideals that God considers important, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, why worship on Sunday as opposed to another day. Christians think of the bible as static, as one-dimensional like a map. The Bible on the other hand is God’s Word. It is not just a map, but it is alive and living. (Heb 4:12,13) And it only becomes real and not paper when I live or my Christian neighbor lives in accordance with Jesus’ principles and God’s Spirit which is alive in His Word. God is the God Almighty. I am instructed by God through Paul not to go beyond what is written. In 1 Cor 4:6 Paul warns not to put man’s ideas above God’s. Why? Because God is the authority. There is no confusion in Him, in man there is, as I change each minute, God doesn’t. He is the Great I AM.

I Am The Lord Your God (Part 7)

God is in complete and utter control. He has chosen Jerusalem as His central Holy point. Jeremiah 3:17 says “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.” And further in Jeremiah 4:2, “And thou shall swear, ‘The LORD liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness’; and all nations shall bless themselves in Him and in Him shall they glory.” The LORD GOD is in control. It is to Him that all nations shall come, it is His Name they will long for. This is evidenced in Jeremiah 16:19-21 and Jeremiah 31:7-34. He decides who can come, and it is His desire that all come (John 3:16), but they have to do so via Jerusalem. Does this mean the biblical Jerusalem? Maybe a remnant of that, the law, the holiness, the purity relating to the attitude of the biblical Jerusalem. Certainly not the corruption that was that led to its destruction. When Christ came to tear the temple veil, it was the separation of man from God, nothing more, nothing mystical, but representing the commingling of blood and spirit, of purity and fleshliness that is this human race, of heart, soul, body, and mind that God wants all of. It represented the commingling of the perfect (God) with that which would never be perfect (man) until death was overcome and man crossed through the portal to God. So is it the physical place? I don’t think so. I think like so much of God’s word it is figurative, a representation of things yet to come, the representation of a place that God has built for me and you and you and you and all those who believe. Jerusalem is the Kingdom of God, in which He makes the rules and He calls whoever He wants to citizens. Jerusalem is the Kingdom that Daniel described in Daniel 2:35-45. And He will provide for His. A perfect example of this is given in Amos 9:11,12 with the destruction of Jerusalem and rebuilding of Jerusalem. Doesn't this give the same attitude of the old covenant being nailed to the cross with Jesus and the new covenant was used to rebuild the temple of God within each of us. For that is where the new covenant is. And once again I am fooled because I fully believe that Amos is speaking of a physical temporal experience and he in fact is not. Amos is in fact telling me that within my very soul God will rip the veil separating me from Him. His Son’s death and resurrection will accomplish this. And my participation in the act of repentance, faith, and baptism will be to raise the temple within me to the former glory, that is the former reverence of God. I will be come as a priest in the temple. God doesn’t make me as a leader in the sense of coming in on a white horse and slashing everything in its pathway. God makes me a free thinker, one who can stand on my own two feet and a peacemaker. That is God’s strength.

I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD (Part 6)

For those who think God is not active, God promises in Is 62:1-7 that He won’t rest until purity is restored and there will be no peace until righteousness and salvation comes. Christ was consciously put here by God so that I would know what faith in Him is and what real salvation is. God sees all. He knows all. From the day He created this universe until the day He decides to end this creation, He knew and knows what He has in mind to accomplish. (Col 1:15 –28) At the same time, He wants to let us know that His servant (Jesus Christ) is on earth and that He promises comfort. (Is 66:10 – 14) Why shouldn’t I rejoice and be exceedingly glad? After all, in my attitude is where I receive the blessings of the Father. (Gen 12:3) God’s rulership comes out of Judea; that seems to be the game plan from the day He told Abraham to pack up and leave Ur with His wife. No doubt about it, because along comes the Christ child, who was of lineage of David, and was to be the High Priest for his people, not someone from the tribe of Levi. My attitude is not to worship God in splendor or adornment, not to worship in a display of my talent, but to worship in reverence and on my knees in front of the King of Kings. If I make a golden calf, as the Jews did in Deuteronomy 32:21, of my talents and abilities, if I make a statement saying “Look what I am doing to express my love for God”, it means nothing. Nothing. God looks and says, “That’s fine, what are You doing to show Me, the real Me to them. How are you reflecting Me?” That can only be done with His truth and explaining His power. In Exodus, God was angry with His people and wanted to destroy them, and it took Moses to bring Him to forgive them, to remind Him to forgive them. He will provide, as He says in Psalms 2:8 and again in Psalms 69:35-36, but He will only provide for those who love His Name and long to worship Him, not the image of Him I give off by my all too human interpretation when ever I write a story or play music or dance to Him. Those are personal things to Him from me and if someone wants to go on their own search because of me, more power to them but that is just my interpretation of who I think God is. The true God is in the gospels, and walked with the apostles. And David knew this and foretold the coming, as did Isaiah, as did other prophets and finally John the Baptizer. My attitude is not to sing so that other people can see me sing to Him, but to sing to Him.(Ps 66:4), praise Him (Ps 68:31,32). As we will be glad in the LORD because He has made it and all the world is under His control (Ps 113:3; 118:4)

I Am The LORD Thy GOD (Part V)

God is the God Almighty, the El Shaddai that told Abraham in Genesis 17:1 to walk before Him and be blameless. The LORD has a place prepared Himself and for those in His kingdom. (Ps 103:19) Why? I am told in Psalms 145:12, “To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom.” He doesn’t have to, but all He does is to demonstrate His greatness. To demonstrate to those that He has a kingdom that is unlike any other on earth. (John 18:36) His power is that He transcends all worlds. He knows all things. He has created all things. And He built a kingdom for His people, both of the House of Jacob (Luke 1:33) and later the church (Matt 16:28, Matt 6:10) It is so important that as a Christian, I live as though I am under His kingship, because I am under His kingship. His kingdom is the church, which transcends any human kingdom. Think of it, right now, right here on earth, those who have come to Him and say they believe Him are in His kingdom. Already. Those who believe in Him have that opportunity because we are His portion, (Deut 32:9, Is 62:12) He walks and talks with us, (Ezek 43:7), and we are His building in which He dwells. (1 Peter 2:5) He knows we are going to sin, and if we are adamant about it He will give us what we want, which only leads to our destruction. (Jer 12:11) But to those who believe on Him, His strength helps us to live through captivity. (Ps 78:61) We are His temple, as Paul speaks of in 1 Cor 3:16,17. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” Much as the physical temple was in existence before Christ, it is now an internal spiritual one, because in God we are a new creation. (2 Cor 5:17-20) God never intended for us not to be conjoined to Him, but because of our free will, which He allows us to make choices we often choose to go the wrong way. And so many times when we bring idols into our temple and do not worship Him as He wants us to, we forget whose body this is. (2 Cor 6:16) We forget He is on the throne, not us. We forget that He can and will destroy those who are not obedient to Him. (Matt 21:41) We forget that He gives us over to our own desires and we are laid open for satan. (Rev 3:9) And God is in control. Isaiah 55:1-13 so aptly describes how God will care for and take care of all who He supplies, all who need comfort. He will protect, He will provide leadership, and He forms His people into a nation. Truly, one nation under Him. He also commands those in need to look for Him and to look to Him. He tells me and others to seek Him, not just when we are in trouble, but always. He tells me and others to repent of evil thoughts as well as evil doings, to put aside selfishness, to love justice and mercy and to be fair to all and to walk humbly before God. God indeed looks for this and will bless me in this if I do as He says. He wants me to realize that He is in control, not just say it.

I am the Lord Your God (part 5)

And God answers me. In Ps 50:15, He promises to deliver and He knows I will glorify Him in this. He hears me when I ask of Him mercy. (Ps 61:1,2, Ps 64:1,2)He will save me, only He can save me, and when I acknowledge this over and over, that He is capable of saving me and is capable of incredible mercies (Ps 54: 1-3; Ps 57:1,2; Ps 70:1,2) He is also capable of dreadful judgment, meaning those that cause dread and fear within my soul for fear of Him casting me and my people away from Him, leaving us in realm of shock, and in which I acknowledge that no one but God can help me and us. (Ps 60:1-3,11) When I realize that God answers me and that He hears me, then can I truly say the words of the psalmist, in Psalm 71:1,2,4,9,12, “In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me and save me. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the unrighteous and cruel man. Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth. O God, be not far from me. O, my God, make haste for my help.” And in faith, I can ask “Why, God? Why me? Why us?” (Ps 74:1,3,10,11,19,21-23) because I know He will hear me and He will answer in a way only He can. He knows my suffering, He knows when I am overjoyed. For He is the God Almighty and powerful. And He knows my heart. And He promises me redemption, mercy, and grace, even when I don’t think I am worthy of any. And He tells me that I am to be holy as He is, that I am separated from the world so that I can come to Him and so that I can come into His presence. (Lev 9:22; Deut 10:8) and He gives me a responsibility that as one of His chosen I must perform (Deut 11:29,30; Deut 21:5) And the whole key to this is not only for God to minister to me, but also for me to minister to God and by doing so, minister to His people. And there are things about me that pleases God and will bless Him and things about me that don’t and He will cut off from Himself. (Deut 27:11-13; Joshua 8:33) And what I don’t realize is that every time I say God I cannot do this or that, He says yes I know, do it, because the less is blessed of the better. (Heb 7:7). That is, I am made complete in Him, and am incomplete without Him, and all my inadequacies show themselves when I don’t allow Him to be in control. But when I willingly submit my will to His, knowing His judgment is best then I can truly be blessed and separated from the world that insists on telling me that I cannot.

I Am The LORD Your God (part III)

What are the commandments for? What purpose did God have behind giving Moses the ten commandments? Can I say, this is nice, but I just don’t know how this can possibly refer to me? And truly, if I think of God as changing between old and new testament then yes I can possibly say this, that the ten commandments were just given until Jesus came. That is not true because Jesus himself said he didn’t come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. (Matt 5:17-20) And what is the fulfillment of the law? Love. Love comes from God, and obedience to the commandments comes from loving God. “If you love me, you will obey my Father’s commandments.” (John 14:23-24) And so all the charges that Moses dictates to the Jews in Deuteronomy 27:11-26 have to do with people doing their utmost to please God. And it tells me that I need to do my utmost to please Him as well, to the very last. And He must be the first and foremost in my life. Nothing must keep me from Him, not even if to the naked eye it would appear fine and dandy. (2 King 23:11-13) If it keeps my mind from Him and doing His will then I must rid myself of it. Just as all people of Moses’ and Joshua’s time knew what God expected of them, so should I( Josh 8:32-35). God is explicit, plain, and simple. While His will may not always be clear, the way He wants me to conduct myself always is. Do not murder, Do not covet thy neighbor’s wife, honor my parents…etc. And the purpose? “You shall love the LORD, your God with all your heart, soul, mind and body.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-6) In loving Him, I follow the commands He lays out for me. I do not follow His commands because I want to perform for him or try to demonstrate that I am worthy of being called His. No. I do not follow His commandments to appease Him. Certainly not. I follow His commands because I love Him and this is the way to show my love for Him. I also know that Father knows best, and so regardless of my feelings and desires to go another way, if I do as He desires me to do, then all will be clear to me in time. In time. I am as accountable to following His law as the Jews of the time of Moses, Nehemiah, David, and Jesus. God makes me thus when He calls me and leaves the choice up to me when I want to clothe myself with Jesus. When I say yes and decide that Jesus is my Lord and Savior, then there are things that I must still act like His child and to do that there are certain things I must do, and certain things I must not do. But above all I must keep remembering that He is holy. (Nehemiah 8:1-18). I must remember the purpose behind calling His people out of the wilderness and calling them to rebuild the temple. I must remember the whole purpose behind Christ coming and dying. I must finally remember the purpose behind His church is not for me, but to bring more and more and more to Him, to the realization of the collective “I”. And to bring me to the point where I can say with the Psalmist in Ps 44:4, 23-26, “Thou art my King, O God: Command deliverences for Jacob. Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not off for ever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppresion. For our soul is bowed down to dust; our belly cleaveth unto the earth. Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies’ sake.” Not just for me, but all my brethren.

I Am The Lord Your God

Tied in with what I ask of God and how much do I believe Him is the next question: How seriously do I take the communal time together with my brethren and with God? Do I say, “God won’t mind if I skip this service”? I don’t care how many posters I make so that others can see what our latest mission trip was like, how much money I send to help fund the Christian growth of unwed mothers, how many meals I serve the homeless. God wants time with me. He has said it in Leviticus 19:30: Ye shall keep my Sabbath and reverence my sanctuary. I am the LORD. He has said it through David in Psalm 77:13: Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God? And Psalm 84:4: Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house: they will be still praising thee. He had reaffirmed His desire to be with us through Isaiah, in Isaiah 56:7: Even them will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. He wants me to give myself to Him, as in Romans 12:1 where I am called to make myself a living sacrifice, and not to forsake the body of Christ, (Heb 10:25) whether in church or in getting together for a meal or whatever reason. My purpose for doing this, is to fulfill what Jesus said, where two or more are gathered in my name there I am. And if Jesus is there, so is God. God longs for that relationship, daily, constantly, every second. And the test of my loyalty is whether or not I have that same longing to be with Him. That takes honesty and courage to say yes or no, because it means getting to the grass roots of who I am and how much my relationships really mean to me. But if I don’t be honest with God, then the time I spend with Him is just religion, and not true relationship, just going through the motions.

I Am The Lord Your God: Part II

What do I ask of the Deity? Knowing that He is the Lord my God and will empower me to do anything, almost, what do I want of Him? Do I ask for riches, for fame, or do I ask to be wise in how I live? Where is my faith? It is after all hard to push a mule in direction it doesn’t want to go. Where is my faith, and where is it taking me? God allows me sojourns so that I can see what I want is not necessarily a good thing, and what I need is not necessarily bad. Do I realize that I am sick? (2Kings 20:1-7) I cannot be healed if I don’t realize that. Do I realize that He is the one with the power to heal? (Daniel 2:19-23) Where is my righteousness defined? He has all the power and all the glory. (Matt 8:5-13) Do I truly believe that my righteousness is where my faith is and that God has said that my faith saves me, because He saves me?

Worship: Obeying God

I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD (How God commands us in worship)

God saves. Only God saves. And God is not only an answer to “Help me”, He is the answer. It is the answer to a cry to defeat those who would beat me down. When times are tough. (2 Chronicles 20:6-27). When I like Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33:13, 19 face the Hagarites, and I destroy all idols that might distract me from what God intends for me to be pure worship, God will save me. He is waiting to do so. But it will only work if I give Him my devotion, and I do destroy the idols. God brings me from captivity of my sins as he returned Ezra and His people to Jerusalem (Ezra 8:21-23; Ezra 4:12-15). As long as I rebuild His temple in my heart (I Cor 3:16), He will help me for He knows, as any good parent understands, I am ready to use what He gives me. And once I build His temple in my heart, I am ready to speak to Him and pray to Him and confess my sins, as Daniel. (Daniel 9:20-23) He will show me the way through the darkness. But I must be willing to use the flashlight He gives me. And I must come to know that He is the only being I must worship, and nothing else, not even if I think it looks like Him. (Rev 22:9)

Don’t misunderstand me; God is always and ever present. He will never be separated from me. But He knows that I will misuse and am really not listening to Him when He tells me what to do, not really, and so basically He gives me what I want once and for all for His purpose. Why? So that I learn humility. Because in the long run, what I want is not what I need, whether I want to admit that or not. What I think is a strong desire to do, what I believe is a yearning need, is really something else to build a protective wall around. It just an onion skin because I would rather hide than actually be honest with God and say to Him, “OK, God. This is what You get.” What I don’t realize is that unless I truly talk to Him, how will I expect to come before Him honestly? How can I say that I really care and love Him? Until I am honest with Him and do come before Him, it doesn’t matter to me what He thinks, even if He has told me over and over and over again. He through Jesus beckons me, in Mark 1:40-43 and in Luke 5:12.13. He simply beckons with “Come”. When I was twenty-three, and still in college, I dreamed of many things, but most startling, was a dream of Jesus knocking at a wooden door and simply saying, “Come”. About 6 months later I “obeyed the gospel” but more importantly, I obeyed God, what God said about Jesus, when He told Him “This is my son in whom I am well pleased” upon His baptism. When I was an infant, I was baptized as a Catholic, being from New Orleans among a very Catholic city. As I grew up there was always something missing, and I had to find it. Regardless of the ridicule I would face by not being true to the family religion. And so that dream I had stuck in me, as it does now, and my search was on. And I found Him, at first in the dusty pages of a rather unused version of my mother and father’s bible. But then I found Him in my own bible. The baptism I had to go through was something that I had to decide upon, not to have someone else decide for me. I had to decide to follow God and only God and to be called a Christian and only a Christian. To have no other name that was carved by man but to have His Name, a follower of His Son. Christ decided for himself, all those in the bible decided for themselves. I had to make that decision as well. I fell at His feet like the one grateful leper that knew and lived as though He knew the Lord. And I hungered and thirsted for His word and learning of Him. But you see there is much much more to learning Who He is than reading. And that is where prayer and worship come in. I was and I am ready for Him to rule me. He could make me follow Him, but His power and strength is echoed in my choice. My choice determines God’s best use of me. (I Kings 3:1-13) The thing that is frightful is that He could make the choice for me, but there is that free will and He wants me to make up my mind that He is King, Lord, and God.

Barnabas

XXI. THANK YOU
The scripture for this text is I Thessalonians 5:18.

My parents always taught me to say “please” and “thank you” when I was a child. They always taught me the best way to proceed under any circumstances was with manners. As I grew older I must have gotten slammed in the head a few times because it seems that I am less and less courteous and have fewer and fewer manners. God loves me still, regardless of whether I say “please”. But it says over and over to give thanks in everything, and being grateful and thankful is part of a Christian’s prayer life and part of our obedience to Him that saves and serves.

I’ve had so much to be grateful for in my life. A good job that allows me to contribute to helping fulfill the needs of those orphans and students in Haiti, of students in World Bible School, and countless other research organizations dedicated to learning more about and controlling diseases such as diabetes, cancer, arthritis. I have good neighbors that always help me, even when I don’t ask them too. I’ve had a roof over my head, and when I have needed repairing or painting done, people from the church are always there to help. I have a good family at church, one constantly interested in improving itself and growing, as well as being the loving family that God intended us to be. I have a close circle of friends that are my brothers and sisters in Christ, like Gary and Jane Hixson, Rodney and Kristi Pinkston, Russ and Debbie Wilkerson, Linda Hill, Irene Miller, Ken Dellinger, Jeff and Mary Alice Trotter, Mike and Glenda Collins, Brett and Kris Hinson, Ron Wilson, Tracy Murphree and there are many, many more that I have left out. I am so grateful to have each and everyone of these people because without them I would sink. They laugh with me during joyous times and sustain me during my times of tears. I am thankful that they forgive my shortcomings so easily, when I shed my cloak of Christ and demonstrate just how human I am without God. I am grateful to have had a father who for 35 years of his troubled life supported me, sometimes financially, always emotionally, and who loved me and all three of his children even when we were most unlovable. Finally, I am grateful to the Heavenly Father who demonstrated to me that His love was greater than any love ever shown because He gave His son for me, that I might be able to enjoy the parental relationship. Too. How sweet the realization of an eternal, loving, forgiving Daddy, in whose arms I rest when I am crying with no one around, or who laughs with me when I chuckle to myself, or who sees what I do (good or bad) when I think no one notices.

I want to thank the Heavenly Father for one gift in particular. It is by far the best gift, and the most challenging gift He has ever given me. My friend Leslie. We used to be best friends; and at one time my sanity would be nonexistent without her, nor would my insanity have been nearly as fun. We did a lot together, went a lot of places together, did a lot of fun neat things together, and uplifted many people along the way. I seen and done things I thought I never would. A lot of people, including her mom, told me that she changed a lot because of me. I’m here to tell that was not me but her eyes were opened to God and I was just an instrument. I have learned a lot from her. She was always there for me. When I got the telephone call about my father’s death, when I underwent my heart operation, whenever I am down and need a lift up or a hug, she was always there to listen and exhort when needed. Even though I had that relationship for a short time it was really special and shall remain so. The fact that it is not now in existence is a testament to the humanness of God’s children. And how more importance is put on that humanness than what God actually wants of us.

Everyone needs a Leslie, someone who understands, nurtures, guides and someone not afraid to tell you the truth when needed. While it would have been nice to retain that relationship forever, what Leslie was confidence in myself that I could do what ever I set my heart to and that that indeed was OK. For both the good and bad times, everyone needs a Leslie, a pal, a confidante, someone to walk with you through the hardships, and skip with you when the days are beautiful. Someone who sees you through the eyes of Christ, even for a little while.

My prayer for everyone is that they find their Leslie, but that relationship is continuous and everlasting, not like this earth that will some day pass away but more like what God has in mind for eternity.

Barnabas

VII. PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

This text is based on the scripture Matthew 13:26.

In New Orleans, as in any port city, there is a large oyster industry. People shuck, boil, fry, and eat oysters by the tons. If you know anything about oysters, you know their outer shell is rough, and the edges have ridges and there is a tough structure keeping it closed shut so that it takes a rather sturdy implement to pry the ends open. I myself have opened clams and similar mollusks with a dull steel implement that resembles a toy shovel. Once getting it open, you realize that there is really nothing to an oyster other than some primitive internal structures and one rather large, soft, pliable muscle, which is the part that everyone eats. Sometimes, if you look closely, you find a pearl.

Some people raise oysters for pearls, and I really think they treat oysters, that were actually created by God, the way that God does with people. God realizes that pearls need to be sewn and at the same time protected. Hence the rough exterior. And those that raise pearls realize this about pearls and do not mind the rough exterior. Let me tell you, I wouldn’t trade those people for all the money in the world. They are precious because they realize that oysters are precious. As God realizes that we are special and precious commodities. Those people that raise oysters sacrifice so much so that the pearls of God are not destroyed, not by man, not by satan. They are true warriors, those who say “No!” when it counts, “Yes” when they can and can make out the road signs in the fog that so often cloud everyone’s existence.

These are patient people. They often go unheralded; yet continue to work even if unheralded. The ones who go through life, realizing it’s a struggle and do it anyway because they know that growing pearls for God is important and doesn’t matter how long God needs them, just that He does. These are the people who are willing to wait until the point where no human can handle it anymore. They’ll plug and plug and plug and get tired and keep going and rest for a bit, up and up that mountain toward perfection that awaits all in Christ. Because they are human they may reach a crag or a ravine and trip or even fall several hundred feet until they cry out, “Help me, God!!! I can not make it anymore!” and poof! God scoops them up and tells them, “My grace is sufficient for you.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) And gives us the strength to endure or opens an escape hatch for us to run through into His waiting arms until the next time we have such a crisis.

These people we should be grateful for. Because they realize not to give up on us. Because they know the rest of us are simply fools that need direction and wisdom to make it through. We are all diamonds in the rough, but nevertheless still diamonds. When you least expect it, after all that time in a crusty chalky shell, out comes the pearl.

Barnabas

VII. WHEN WE LEAVE GOD

The text is taken from the Book of Hosea.

There was a man married to a harlot. Much like Hosea of the Old Testament, his wife continuously and constantly left him to lead a life full of sin, to return to a dark existence having once tasted what it was like to be loved unconditionally. I can imagine the conversation. I think she was totally open with him about leaving. There were times I am sure she left his be without so much as a “I’ll see you later”. But on one particular night, I can see them picking at their dinner because the tension is so thick it could be cut with a knife. I suspect our friend, being human, got fed up with her and confronted her, saying, “I can’t go on like this. Choose me or…” I can see his eyes tearing up, as he turns away. Then she promises and promises and smiles at him, lifting up his chin saying, “Let’s try again”. And so they do. For a while things appear to be resolving, and maybe this time, maybe this time, she’ll be faithful because she knows there is none better than her husband. Maybe this time, she’ll look to God and say, “I really want to do this. Help me so that I can change. I cannot change myself. You made me. You can change me. I really want to serve you…” Maybe she is faithful for a while, realizing there is none better, and that God indeed will help her and can change her.

But then, she leaves, again. It seems as though there is a new guy in town. And how handsome she thinks he is! And charming too! She gives in to his flirtations with her, because she reverts to her old ways of not believing that God can truly change her. She in fact believes that God does not want her to change, that she was made to continually lust and seek a sinful life.

And her husband weeps.

And God weeps too just like that, every time we leave. Because we have chosen to believe there is a God who obviously doesn’t think highly enough of us to stop us, or take the thorn from our side. Who put the thorn there to begin with, and who allowed satan to rule the earth? Who made satan? If God was that great of a God, why doesn’t He swoop down and save us? If He is that great of a God, why is there suffering and pain? Why are we the way we are, if in fact we are created in His image?

Sound familiar? Some of the same questions people mockingly asked of Jesus on the cross, or the Pharisees asked of Jesus, or, in fact, satan asked of Jesus during his 40 days in the desert. The temptation to not believe God was tremendous and at time it was hard to focus, if Jesus, and we as His followers, had not known, the Father and His promises, which were, and are still today, true. It is the same temptation we go through when we are His followers. After all, when there are a million bits of information hitting us from friends, from the world, and from satan, it is hard not to stay confused. We want to do the right thing, we want to be fair, we want to demonstrate love, but it is difficult at best to endure all the background noise of “ME”, or “I can’t help who I am”, or “God must not understand my problems”. It is a struggle not to act like a spoiled child, especially in this day and age, especially in the country in which we live. We’ve been blessed more than we think, and then when we have to endure trial, we search our lives to see if there is something we’ve done wrong. Not finding anything obvious or that we think is obvious, we blame God for putting us into whatever we are in, whether it is a bad situation that truly is not our fault, or it is a sin that for some reason we have rationalized is really not all that bad, but nevertheless makes us feel ashamed deep down for what we’ve done to the Father. We blame God all the more for the guilty feelings to which we are subjected. It is so easy then to rely on our intellect and snowball the whole situation into massive confusion to where we are really running in place and getting nowhere because we’ve forgotten Jesus. We may indeed know Jesus, having been saved from our sins by His blood. We certainly say we love Jesus. But do we really? If we really loved Him, wouldn’t we believe what He says about God? Wouldn’t we believe the promises of God are true? It is indeed a step in faith and no amount of our reasoning will give us belief. After all, without Him, He says, there is no hope for anyone. Do we believe that? Truly?

When we leave God, we are really trying to convince ourselves that all this Christianity business is not what it is cracked up to be, that there is something better in the immediate environment. That is the saddest notion of all. We’ve given up, on ourselves and our capacity in God to withstand temptation (for He doesn’t give us anything we cannot handle and always provides us a way out, as Paul writes in I Corinthians 10:13). We’ve given up on our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are convinced that they will leave us because of the way we look at things. The truth is our family in Christ loves us, because they are committed to do so by Christ’s love. Our family in Christ realizes that they are no different from us and are subject to the sins we are and so there is no judgment.

Finally, we’ve given up on God, who, through the eternal and immortal instrument of the resurrection of His Son, does indeed save all of us, does reach His hand to all of us, no matter what the sin, even if we are like Jeffrey Dahmer. But God never gives up on us. And His hands are always extended. We just have to have the will and self-control to follow Him. And pray to Him to help us in our unbelief (Mark 9:24). And believe that what He says is true.

Praise God for His great mercy. And may we never forget it.

The Blues

Got the blues today? Get out and walk. Enjoy the atmosphere, especially if you live in a quiet tree-filled neighbor hood.

Remember where that came from and who created it. None of what you see sprouted from nothing and everything has a purpose.

Barnabas

VII. INTO THE LIGHT

This selection is written based on John 3:21 and Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

One day in September 1998, I sat at this same keyboard typing words and feeling very contrite and humbled by the experiences of the day. The day before, I was offered money to consolidate debts, after a long time of praying to be able to better manage my finances. The day I sat typing, two checks came in, just at the moment when I began to wonder if I was in fact being too generous and my giving exceeded my ability to do so. In November 1995, my best friend in the world got married to a man who I believe loves her and would do anything to get her and keep her his. I have kept that marriage in prayer, as I have not heard from either of them in a while. My brother in New Orleans is digging himself out of a slow business turn after Katrina and is finally doing better. My mom is suffering the effects of diabetes, has been through one open heart surgery, two cataract surgeries and a stomach surgery and soon to undergo a hand surgery. I from time to time since that day in 1998 underwent anxiety, “am I going to make it? What will I do with myself? How will my family survive?”. I have come to one conclusion that has taken me a while to understand. The Savior says, “Do not worry about what you’ll be eating or drinking or what clothes you will have on your back or where your bed will be or whether you can get by on a small pittance or if everyone is going to leave you. These are natural things to be concerned with, but don’t carry those burdens. Let me. Seek my Father’s kingdom first before you garner your reserves, before you start to share your grocery list with God and say ‘I need this, this, this, and that to survive’ Before your gifts to Him become ones with strings, before you start saying, ‘God, I’ll give you this this and this. Can’t you in return give me this this this and this?’ Don’t let your livelihoods be a sacrifice but be sacrificial in your whole life. God to Him first and tell Him that you cannot make it and that you need Him and place yourself in His arms, repeating, “Not my will, but Thine”. Remember His kingdom reigns eternal. Many have fallen before, but His Kingdom shall not perish.” I hear my Saviour and it makes me weep, because you see, what is all this about anyway? Is it about asking God for things, or do I truly want to serve the master and give the glory to Him and be truthful to Him? Where are my treasures, in credit cards? In paying my bills? In entertaining? Or are my treasures in my friends, in their smiles and laughter, or in touching someone’s life that have never been able to be reached before in a unique way, or sharing with everyone about what God has given me? Where are my treasures? I know where they ought to be. I know that Jesus is my Savior and my brother and that I have a family in God. I have a heavenly Father, and I have brothers and sisters in Christ, some who are touched by my life, some who touch my life, all who have left a fragrance of everlasting life on me. But what a person holds dear, that is where that person’s treasures are, and before we cam even serve an awesome God we must be willing to admit that our treasures are nothing compared to the glory of the Father.

Barnabas

VII. NEW BEGINNINGS

The text is taken from Philippians 4:13.

I for one was glad when 1994 came to a close. Bad year. One of the worst since I became a Christian. In February, my brother let me know he was HIV positive. He had been for many years but my suspicion is that he was told by his doctor to get his affairs in order. And so he was letting everyone know. In May I went home from my job in North Carolina to spend time with him and to be with him on his birthday, only to spend more time with my parents. Which was fun but not what I planned. Who would have guessed it would be the last time I saw my father alive? Who would have known that two months later, on a lazy Saturday morning for me, I’d get a phone call from my sister-in-law that went something like this, “I hate to be the one to tell you this but your daddy died this morning” and that was that. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to him. I couldn’t tell him once more, just once more how much I loved him. I would never have one of his daddy hugs or see the smile on his face when he saw his grandchildren. I am glad for the time we had together, and that he lasted 17 years with his heart by-pass, many, many years longer than the doctors said he would last. I am glad he saw me graduate from high school 4th in the class and college and then Veterinary School. I am glad for that. But mostly I am glad for the love he showed me always and how close we were.

But I am here to tell you, my daddy is not supposed to be dead. He is supposed to still be here, with his wife, and his children, and his grandchildren. He is supposed to be here so that if and when I get married he can give me away. He is supposed to be here so he could have celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary and now his 60th wedding anniversary with his wife. He is supposed to be here to see his grandchildren graduate from high school and college. It just isn’t fair. One of the constants in my life is no longer constant, that daddy would always be there to wipe my tears or to listen to me rant or to teach me how to write better. The one thing I always wanted is my daddy to always be in my physical presence, so I could share meals out with him, go dancing with him, go to movies and theater with him. But as of 1994, he’s gone.

My brother was infected with the HIV virus. Sure he led a promiscuous lifestyle and at one point was a drug user and certainly a binge alcoholic. But whatever sin he was in, he was still my brother and to watch him continue in his self-destructive ways as an alcoholic with HIV was enough to break my heart.

My mom was broken emotionally by daddy’s death, and also financially. There was simply nothing left when daddy died. There was property that should have been sold but instead was mortgaged to pay for hospital bills. And there were debts that no one knew about until after he died. In addition, mom had to deal with watching her son suffer from AIDS, finally dying in 1997. And she herself went through cancer surgery in 1996.

IT’S NOT FAIR!!!

It breaks my heart with everything my family has had to deal with the last decade and especially in 1994. I have had to go through this from far away, because of my work. It nevertheless hurts, and I feel like I am going through the motions, because every fiber wants me to fold up and die with that hole that is in my heart right now from my loss. If I do that though the devil has deceived me and duped me into thinking eternity doesn’t exist and God does not care, when I know He does, when, with all my heart, I want to shout, “The only reason I am alive today is because of Him!!!” I’ll admit I don’t agree with a lot of what God does, and I don’t always like going through deep, murky waters, and I definitely don’t like climbing every mountain just to understand Him, but I guess that is where faith and the greatest quality of all, love, comes in. If you truly love God, you’ll keep His commandments. If you keep His commandments and do what is right in His eyes and keep His decrees then He will look after you. Not to say you won’t have disease or hardship, but you won’t have the hopelessness that so often accompanies trials. Remember He is the God that heals (Exodus 15:26). Right now, at this writing, there are days where it seems as though I would love God to just to wisk me away, and take my broken heart and mend it or give me a nice warm hug. Folding up and dying, so to speak. Then there are days where everything is great and I know that my Redeemer lives and that God is my Rock and that there is none before Him. And I know that neither the valley nor the mountain in itself is particularly bad, because everything is useful to God. I sure feel as though I could do without those dark times. But it is because of that feeling I understand what Paul meant by the groaning that only the Holy Spirit understood. There are times I don’t know what to pray for me or my family. Do I pray for healing, pray for strength, or do I pray that this is a nightmare and will soon be over and everyone can wake up and we’ll all be happy.

Then I thank God, because without Him there is no heaven, and without Him there are no friends to give comfort and to love me the way my friends do. Without Him, pain will go on and on and on instead of slowly getting better. Without Him there are no promises of a better life and no salvation…

Thanks be to God for taking care of all of us…

Barnabas

The text is taken from the Book of Job.

One day, long before creation, God was walking with Lucifer, before being banished from heaven The conversation varied in its aspects. They spoke of the mathematical set-up of the planets, so perfect for the existence of various minerals and chemicals and on the third one in the solar system where our sun was the planet was perfect for life. They spoke of the intricacies of veins in the tiniest plant and flowering greenery. They spoke of wind and rain and earthquakes and everything the God would use to shape and reshape life.

And Lucifer put this before God. “It is well and good that you can create flowers and planets and things incapable of independent thoughts or ideas and things which ultimately require care or death will ensue. But I’ll wager that you cannot create a being that is eternally loving, beautiful, wise, living in Your truth, and will always be thankful that You are who You are. It can never be done!”

Never say never to God.

God smiled and waved His hand. And there was a baby in a cave, nestled to his mother’s chest, a donkey and a cow breathing softly and providing some measure of heat. He waved His hand again, and there was a bearded young man on a mountain top, alone trailed only by Lucifer. The young man countered everything Lucifer was asking him, and said, “Man doesn’t live by bread alone but on every word of God…Don’t tempt God!”

God waved His hand again. On another mountain top, the same young man was speaking to others and specifically to twelve men that were sitting close by him. He said, “Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, for God hears them all.” And that same man could be seen holding the hands of a child who was paralyzed and the man lifted up the child and the child walked for the first time in his young life. Finally, that same young man is seen on the cross, bleeding, dying, yet looking at those below with the calmest expression of love.

Lucifer prodded more, “That was no ordinary man. What of John or Jane Doe? I’ll bet you cannot create just an ordinary man with human feelings who would come to you. They’ll come to me when I offer them a few moments of pleasure, even if they may die the hard way.”

Didn’t I say never say never to God?

There is an alcoholic standing in a doorway. And he looks into the bottle he holds in his hand and throws it against a nearby wall. He sinks to his knees and holds his head in his hands and cries out, “Help me, I’m so weak…” And suddenly, as if someone heard him, there comes footsteps and there is a person that picks this man up and gives him food and shelter and finds him a job so that he can begin to help himself. And the man struggles to find his way, slipping several times, but he finally accepts that God came into his life and that is for him to change so that he can indeed have a better more spiritual life and live with God in heaven. And he comes to realize that he must choose between a life leading to death or a life with God. As if that is not enough, God’s tour de force. The executive with everything. Good salary, nice home, wonderful friends, loving family. Spends time with that family. Contributes to charitable causes. Tries to be a model citizen. Know the type? And with all this, the executive never gives glory to God. And when he is challenged at church to give time to deliver goods into the worst neighborhood and to feed people at the homeless shelter, his answer was, “I can’t.” But one day, he is robbed of his identity and loses most of what he has. After struggling to make ends meet and losing his house and his job and almost losing his family, the man raises his hands to God and says, “Help me, help me, I am truly weak…” And a voice out of the blue says, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” And the man’s family sticks with him, and he learns to give of himself. He even finds another job that will allow him to do more work with the church. And he gives the glory to God.

But Lucifer was not finished. He walked off, or from what I understand was thrown out because he refused to give glory to God. And then he tempted Eve. And God was ready. Because before man admitted he was a sinner and before man cried out, “Help me, We are so weak…” there appeared a cross and the voice that said softly, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do…”

Didn’t I tell you, Never say never to God?

Barnabas

VII. STANDING UP

The text for this was taken from Ephesians 4:15.


How often when I see something wrong I want to correct it at the expense of someone’s feelings! How often do I forget that God, through Paul, said to live in peace (Romans 14:19) as much as possible! And how often, in trying to correct my habits, do I forget these words do not mean peace at any cost! While it is important to live in peace and to be considerate of others, I don’t think that God intended us to overlook or accept harmful behavior in the guise of exercising rights.

These days it is particularly hard for me to keep silent. After all, someone needs to stand up for what is true and right in this world. Think about it. First, we are told not to pray in public schools. Then we are told that women have the right to harm themselves by having abortions. The last straw? I may not be allowed to let my co-workers know about my Lord and Savior, which to me is as natural as talking about my mother, my friends, or my brothers. I won’t be able to share something that I would enjoy sharing. Instead I have to be subjected to people’s coarse joking and opinions, especially in political circles.

Or do I? Is this a situation where I should keep mum? My heart says no. My mind says no. And most important my God and Jesus say no. Not that I am going against the rules, because according to the First Amendment to the Constitution I have the right to free speech. And when that is infringed upon, do I get riled. While people can scorn my love for God and His Son, what right, according to my rights as an American from day one of this wonderful nation, does anybody have the right to tell me what to say and when to say it? Only God can do that and He only does that on few occasions. Not only because of the First Amendment, but also because I am free in Christ I have the right to speak up and stand up for Jesus. In fact that is a privilege that Christ has given me to do. That in fact was afforded to every human being, the ability and privilege to express oneself and to say what is on one’s mind without recourse. God in His infinite wisdom has provided a mechanism for this to occur without confusion. It’s called being meek and self-controlled. You know, Christ-like. There are those that would say that no one should protest abortions, that it indeed is a woman’s right. While I don’t agree with blocking doors or murdering those performing abortions, I do not believe that I should not be allowed to tell a woman that while it is her choice to have an abortion, she is still wrong. Just as it was wrong for Eve to take the apple from the Tree that God told her not to take from. She still had the choice to do that, but her choice was still wrong. That doesn’t mean Christ didn’t come for the woman that has an abortion, but how will women know it’s a wrong choice (Romans 10:14,15) until someone speaks out in love and meekness and says there is a better way?

Even worse, women don’t realize what a poor choice they are making. Neither does anyone else when they decide to sin. When someone has pre-marital sex or commits murder, sure, they have the right to do these things. But that doesn’t make their actions right. In fact those people that are claiming that they have the right to live their own lives as they see fit are the same that wouldn’t have stopped Neo-Nazis from marching in Skokie, Illinois, because the Neo-Nazis have the right to march even if it is causing emotional harm to the Jewish population. And who was that population of Jews hurting? No one. In fact they were Holocaust victims that just wanted to live in peace. Who is right in that situation? I know and God knows. But think about it, who else knows what the right thing to do is? And if we know the right thing to do, why do we choose the wrong thing and then do it. Are we so comfortable with our plasma TVs and DVDs that we just say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, leave me alone”? Seems to me that we forget that over 230 years ago men were tired of someone telling them how to worship and how to lead their lives and so fought a war so that they could be free. We have the right to make a choice, whether it is wrong or right, true. But we also have the choice to speak out against wrong choices, and to stand up for Jesus. We have a right to confront those who are diametrically opposed to God’s way as outlined in the bible and we have the right to worship God’s way. And no one can tell us we cannot. Why? Not because we are made free by the Constitution. Someone came over 2000 years ago and made us free. We are freed by Christ to speak the truth in love, to walk as He walked, live as He lived, and to flee from what would be demonic spirits into the open arms of God.

May we always make that choice to stand on Holy Ground with God!

When you and I were young

Remember when that song came out, our grandparents were certainly young and dancing to that in the 1930s. Now our parents are remembering Glen Miller or perhaps they were younger and remember Bill Hailey and the Comets. At any age, they have precious memories that while they share with us, those memories bring hidden smiles to their hearts. Treating older people the way we do sometimes should be a crime, because they gave us this country. Our founding fathers may have begun the country but without our grandparents and parents how in the world could we have defeated Hitler or Hirohito?

Be sure and thank the older people of this country. And listen when they speak.

Barnabas revisited

VII. ALIVE IN CHRIST
The text is taken from the scripture Galatians 2:20.

What is it to be alive? If you listen very closely to my heart, you’ll hear a click sound that indicates blood is flowing through my heart and through my arteries and veins. It is indicative of function. Does it mean I’m alive, really alive? You can touch me here and now, and I am warm, I move, I show emotions. Is that what is meant to be alive? Or am I alive because the LORD in His infinite wisdom granted all those who believe (and consequently obey) His Son and know that His Son gives life. He has given me and others unconditional love and said, “Now, take the ball and run.”

Would it surprise you if I say that both conditions are necessary for life, real life, the kind that can go on forever? Christ grew in physical strength, in wisdom and in Spirit. God created us in His image, which is Christ. Indeed God is a Spirit (John 4:24), but He came down to earth in physical form. The fact is that one condition doesn’t exist very long without the other. If one tries to exist without the other there is a warping effect. Either there is too much focus on meeting physical needs and being dependant on others because of that, or the neglect of the physical needs leads to a poverty that God does not want for us either.

There are a lot of people out there who haven’t got a clue. I attended a Wellness Seminar once that kept saying “you must gain control”, that every human must take control of their own lives because their stability is dependant on whether or not they can exhibit self-control. The whole point of our Christian lives is that humans are not in control at all, ever. The minute we say, “OK God I can handle it without You, thanks for your help.”, is when God cries. I hate making God cry, but that is exactly what happens. I have just hurt his feelings by telling Him I am the one in control, not Him and I created me, He didn’t create me at all. I am at that point too blinded to see God not only loves me, washes my dirty, tired feet at the end of a grueling day of work, feeds me when I am hungry, comforts me in prisons that I may or may not have created for myself, shelters me from the elements when my body cannot handle stress. In essence God provides me a way out of any situation. At the point I take control from God and place it in my hands is when I have allowed Satan to convince me that God wanted to hide the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil from Adam and Eve because of the power it would give them, and He is trying to hide that same power from me now. And that is a lie. It was a lie in Genesis and it is a lie today. To think that God would create a very structured but free-ranging universe, to think that God would provide a way for us to enjoy this universe forever, to think that the blessings that God gives daily, is so that He can snatch them away to say, “Gotcha!” is exactly what Satan would have us believe. Satan wants us to think that God wants all the power for Himself and wants us to have none of it, like the lie Satan told Adam and Eve that God doesn’t want men to be as powerful as He is. But, you see, God does want to give us the power, He does want to share it all. After all, He calls us His children. What we must realize is that no matter how much or how little we have, how much physical, spiritual, intellectual power we have is nothing and will fall to nothing unless we realize that none of it is actually generated by us. It is, in fact, the Creator’s power, and He is only using us as reflectors of Himself. He is offering us the gift of a lifetime, eternal salvation, eternal sharing in His inheritance as His children. All we have to do is allow Him to be in control.

Barnabas

Barnabas was an encourager, to bring bright thoughts into otherwise depressed lives. Barnabas was also a wealthy man, who sold all he had and gave the earnings to the church so that the gospel could flourish. What is more encouraging than to see the good news in action, and what is still more encouraging than to watch the seed of hope grow within someone so that they can put the good news into action.

Aging Parents

I live with an aging parent. Mom is up in years and has the energy of a 20 year old. I hope I have that energy when I am her age. It hasn't always been easy being her daughter but it has never been dull. She and I have been through many joys and difficulties together. The most difficult is realizing that she is not immortal, that I may be an orphan some day at least on this physical earth. I cannot say that is a pleasant thought but I can rest in the thought that she has prepared me to deal with anything and has taught me to be steadfast in everything. I can only hope that I have the impact on some young person that she has been on me.

Hi Everyone

Hi everyone

I know this is a little long, but bear with me. I am trying to convert from my web page to my blog sit so I only have one page to worry over per week. Do enjoy and lets have some comments please

Thanks

Lydia

BARNABAS
I. Whose are you?
The text is taken from Job particularly Job 28-42.
What if your best friend is in the hospital, possibly dying and you are told to wait in the waiting room because the doctors are performing surgery on him/her? What if you just ended a very trying relationship, one you wish wouldn't have ended quite the way it did, yet things got out of hand? What if you got fired for something you didn't do, or for something you did that wasn't wrong, it was just unacceptable to the people supervising you at the time and was subject to change anyway? What if someone you loved was addicted to alcohol? Or sex? Or food? Or any of the miriads of things that would get us into the thick of addiction and away from God?
Your first reaction in any of these situations is to cry. The most human response is one of feeling completely helpless, wanting to fix things and yet knowing that there is nothing that you can do. Job lost his wealth and his family and his friends were putting quite some distance between themselves and Job. Job then put sack cloth and ashes and prayed. A little bit more advanced in his thinking perhaps but still did it because he felt helpless. In all of this melee comes one word.
"Why?"
Job said it, not at first, but it surely came from his lips when he'd reached his breaking point. How fast do you reach that point? It's pretty fast for me. "Why?" is almost the first word that comes out of my mouth.
What I forget is what the Lord told Job. "Why indeed! Who made you and the rest of Creation?!" Many people look at trials in their lives as negative experiences that they'd rather forget. Struggles are a bummer when you are pursuing happiness. Ah-ha! Maybe that is it. Maybe trials interfere with everyone's happiness. Maybe we need,and Job had, at least for a while, something else that will always get us through. Contentment. What's the difference between that and happiness? Ask any older Christian person with a smile on his/her face that has really been through struggles in his/her life. Ask that person how he/she coped with financial struggles, especially if he/she was living in the Depression. Ask him/her about the time when he/she lost a younger brother to cancer, or a child to leukemia, or lost a brother or other family member in one of our numerous wars. He/She will tell you that it's all about being able to say, "Not my will but Thine". (Matthew 26:39) Being content is calling God "Abba" (Daddy). (Romans 8:15). And we can only do that if we pray constantly and consistently. Then and only then can you be content, content enough not to really mind being cut off in traffic, or in a telemarketer calling you. Only then can you truly handle anything the world may throw at you. Rejoicing in everything, you can then know the answer to the question, "Who's are you, anyway?"


































II. LIFE’S SHORTAGES

This text is taken from Romans 8:28-39

While working on her Master’s degree in counseling, my friend and roommate, Leslie, also had a job as a cashier at one of the busiest restaurants in Charlotte, NC – the Cracker Barrel. It’s a tough job being a cashier but especially at Cracker Barrel. You know the type of restaurant, located within walking distance or at least driving distance from at least four major hotels, right off the highway so that travelers can stop in. On the way to the airport. And a favorite stop of touring and social groups. Cracker Barrel is wonderful because of the home cooked meals and wonderfully enchanting gift shop. Needless to say on a non-busy day, everyone is still busy. And to be a cashier there means having to brush aside distractions from everyone else’s busy buzzing as well as from customers and then there are the typical crowd noises. At the same time a cashier has to keep track of receipts, cash, credit, whatever, so that the money in the register matches the intake of tickets.

Tough job. I know I’d fall miserably on my face if I had to do that for a living. (I do well to add 2 and 2 and come up with 4). It’s no wonder that when my friend got tired, the little everyday distractions affected her more than normal and there may have been a difference of a few cents at the end of her shift. That was indeed a rare occurrence but it did happen. One day, after we had just signed a lease to our apartment in Rock Hill, SC, I was moving things over to the apartment when Leslie came in. For several minutes, she didn’t speak. I continued to move more things into the apartment. She also moved some things in from her car. There was silence for a little bit, but then she spoke, saying, “Would you still love me if I wasn’t at Cracker Barrel?” Her voice trailed off. When I asked her what was wrong, the floodgates opened wide. The best I could make out between the sobs was that there was a rather large discrepancy between what was in her cash drawer and what the cash receipts said she should have had. She finished with, “I’m…just…so…stupid” and then the floodgates opened again. She sat down on the floor, head in hands. I thought a minute. Then I put my arms around her and said, “Listen, do you want to know something? Imagine yourself as a cashier for God. And you come up short. What do you think He does? Fire you? Of course not! Stop loving you? No! Do you know what He does?” I reached in my pocket and pulled out a 5 dollar bill. “He reaches deep in His pockets and pulls up however much you were short and puts it in your cash drawer and says, ‘Now, what was that about being short?’ ”

Tough job, being a cashier. Kind of like being a Christian. When we come up short and fell like we’ve failed, God reaches deep in His pockets and replaces whatever we are short in and says, “Now, what was that about being short?”

Thank you, God, for making us whole…again…and again…




III CHOICES AND CHANCES

I was born with a defective aortic valve in my heart. Instead of the standard issue of three leaflets, I only had two. Late in the year 1992, my cardiologist said in the following three months if I didn’t do something about it, I could die. It was a matter of time.

It was also a matter of choice. I had to make the choice of accepting a doctor’s scientific opinion that I needed open heart surgery, and perhaps a second opinion and deciding which would be best for me. Was I in danger? No doubt, but how much time I had was not clear. And the surgery itself is risky. Not only during the surgery, but after, during recovery. Open heart surgery changes one’s lifestyle, slows one down, then makes one have to decide when one is doing too much. That is called listening to one’s body. And I could have very easily said, “I don’t want to do this” and take the chance the doctor was wrong. And then once having had the operation, I could be so dependant on everyone and everything that I could no longer function on my own.

I had to decide what to do…and I did. I took the chance. I made the choice. With surgery I was assured a better quality of life. And by making a recovery to the point of being able to function without help, my quality of existence would improve.

And I think that’s what God wants us to do and expects of us.

As limited human beings as we are emotionally, physically, and spiritually, God still gives us an out. He gave us a free will. A will to say, “I believe” or “I don’t believe”. Many times you’ll hear someone say, “I cannot help the way I am. That’s me. I have an illness.” And while mental and physical illnesses are real and should never be downplayed, by the same token God has equipped us to do something about our problems. Jesus descended to earth, took on human form, suffered and died taking on the sins of all creation. All the while saying, “God, thy will be done” and “My Father has many mansions, and I go to prepare a place for you with me” and “I must die to go to the Father” and most important, “Father forgive them they haven’t got a clue”. True we are sick individual in one form or another. But it is that will to say to God, “Whatever you want, God” and it is the grace that enables us to say “No” to ungodliness that Paul talks about in Titus 2:14, and to then allow God to work in us to do something about our failings. We may be sick now, but we can overcome it, because Christ overcame death’s sting. As long as we are trying to see where we are going and know that God is there and that He is a loving, true, loyal, magnificent spirit and that He is alive in us, we can conquer anything. Indeed, as Paul says in Romans 8:37, we are more than conquerors, we are His heirs and children. When we tell Him we will become His by obeying Him the way He wants to be obeyed then we too have that hope that because of God’s love we too can share in the eternal joy that comes in Christ. We have to be willing to take advantage of the promise that God made and fulfilled in Jesus, on both sides of the coin as servants and recipients of service. We have to be willing to “pass it on” as the song says. We have to be willing to give without wanting return and as servants we have to be willing to get out of what makes us comfortable and go the extra mile with people for this “Love one another” thing to work.
There are choices we all make. “I don’t do evangelism, I don’t visit the sick, I’m not good at first contacts, I don’t do well unless I know someone well, the church doesn’t give enough to me, they don’t care for me, they don’t need me, they don’t love me like this other group does”, and so forth. We all look for comfort zones, excuses, rationalizations. We all look for something that sounds good to us because we are the focal point, at least for a little bit. At the same time we don’t want to step out of the warmth and nurturing atmosphere of church folk into the coldness and aloneness of maybe confronting a brother when he is wrong or pulling a sister from the fire when she would really rather burn. We don’t want to risk friendships. But you know what? The promise is that God doesn’t give us anything we cannot handle. (1 Corinthians 10:13). At the same time He does expect us to use the talents we have been given, to work, to serve, and to be served. (Philippians 2:12). And sometimes this involves encouraging people, and sometimes it means challenging people. When I consider my Christian life, I’ve needed the challenges as much as the encouragement.

I was physically challenged by my heart and I made the choice to take the risk to improve the quality of my life. Are we spiritually challenged by how we live our lives and will we make the choice to return to doing what God wants us to do? God is counting on it!




























IV. SATAN AND THE SHOULD NOTS

The text is taken from James 5:16.

One day satan was pondering what he could do to make my life miserable. I know where I am going, and I know that as long as my obedience is to the fullest extent and that God is always number one in my heart that I am not going to spiritually ever die. I know that in my mind. My mind knows many things that my heart will never realize. Unfortunately. This particular day I learned a valuable lesson about letting my mind at least talk to my heart and try to make it realize that God was closer to me than I ever realized.

And not to listen to satan’s lies.

I was coming home from New Orleans. I’d been there because my father had been critically ill in intensive care and his doctor recommended I come home. For two days, I visited with my father in CCU and then on the third day, in an answer to prayers of many of my brothers and sisters in Christ, he was able to go into a regular hospital room. He had begun a rapid recovery. The doctors had done all they could, and after a few days of pumping him full of whatever they knew to give him and then asking why it wasn’t working, the prayers of righteous men and women were answered. I was ecstatic. I was able to share with my father and speak to him of God and the love He has for him. In fact, I was probably the only glimpse of the Light that my family saw in an otherwise dark and gloomy environment. Please understand that I am not patting myself on the back. It’s just that I have never before been able to share Christ as I did then and to let God shine without feeling afraid, as though this may be the last hour of not just my dad’s life, but all people’s lives, and so I’d best get to the task at hand and show the Hope and Glory that is God. Seeing them in this critical situation was really seeing a people without hope, and my heart went out to them.

And as I was riding back to my home on a jet plane, I heard a small voice say, “You should have kept up with the minister so that he could keep talking to your father”, “You should have talked to your mother more”, “You should have done this better or not done that at all”, “You shouldn’t have gotten mad at your brother, that wasn’t very Christ-like”. There was a stretch of time I began to feel low, as though God’s mission was not accomplished through me. I felt worthless.

And then I remembered Christ being available and consistent for many. He healed the lame, the deaf, the blind, he raised children from the dead not to mention Lazarus. But that was not Christ, and He would readily say that, but it was God working through Him. So whenever any one of Christ’s brethren do good works, those come from God as well. Nothing more needs to be added or taken away. And something else. All the while Jesus was healing and lending His life and works to improve people’s lives, He was simply there. He met their needs, and that let the doctrinal issues come when they would come. There was always a tie-in with doctrine, but the expression may not have come at that particular time and it may have been hidden. It is so easy to tell someone what he/she needs to do to get to heaven. How easy is it for that person to actually act upon that knowledge? Jesus well knew they when He healed the man that was lowered in from a rooftop in Matthew 9:1-10. He knew that it is easy to do the doctrinal things, not so easy to actually get into a person’s life and really help them. It is so easy to focus on doctrine and on being religious. But Jesus was not interested just in following the doctrine, but putting His money where His mouth was. He was interested in helping people and making them realize they were important to God. Loving the unlovable, loving those who it is not easy to love. Loving those who wouldn’t give Him the time of day. Loving those who would do Him harm. Sure He wanted people to go to heaven, and He gave many guidelines how to do this, but something He makes me mindful of is that it is not just about getting people to “follow the rules”, its not just about teaching people what they must do to be saved, it is being kind enough to them to want the best for them, to help them improve their quality of physical and spiritual life, to carry their load when it becomes too hard for them. If all I am worried about is making sure people are following the checklist I will fail miserably and I will get into the mindset of works. But God saved by grace, not my works. Christ died so that I could be set free and have eternal life with God. (John 3:16) All I should be concerned with is sharing this message and letting God speak to people’s hearts. I need to love as He loved us. Once I do that it becomes easy to want anyone to go to heaven, and to teach people that they cannot keep sinning and tripping over their own feet and get to heaven. My goal is to help people learn about God, learn to help themselves, and love all and see what their needs are and get those needs met.

May we walk in His Light always, always loving others enough to want to help them see the Light and encourage those who need mercy and understanding of God’s grace, so that they too can walk with Him in heaven.





















V. SHADOWBOXING

Ever been angry? So angry with someone that you couldn’t see two feet in front of you? Ever been so mad you hit the wall, although it would have made you very much happier indeed to hit the person with whom you were angry? Or have you ever met a person you absolutely, without a doubt in anyone’s mind, don’t care for very much, try as you might? Try as you both might to like one another? Someone who you cannot be around for very long without the urge to say, “Take a long walk on a short pier!”, someone who grates on your last nerve?

Maybe it’s a friend of a friend, maybe it’s someone in your neighborhood, maybe it’s an employer who has treated you and others unfairly, maybe it’s an employee who is difficult to deal with, maybe it’s a colleague that back bites you, maybe it’s someone even closer to you, such as in your family, that no matter what you try to tell them still get themselves deeper and deeper in trouble, because they don’t care that what they do today will affect their future.

More heartbreaking, maybe this is your sister or brother in Christ that has decided that the Church isn’t correct, that they need to join another group that professes to speak the truth but doesn’t really by their actions. Or else they have become legalistic in their “religion”. Or else you just don’t see eye to eye with them. You really want to be a good brother/sister to this person or these people and you truly love them, because if you didn’t, you truly couldn’t say you loved God. (I John 2:11) So you try, honestly try, to find out what there is to love about this person or these people and you make a mental list and realize that what you don’t like about this person or these people is in a much larger list that that list with things to like. And you feel guilty because you are supposed to like this person…wait a minute…supposed to? Guilty? Where does the cross fit into this picture? Didn’t Christ wipe away my sins by dying for me and thereby doing away with the guilt? Didn’t he say we are free to be who we are? Free to enjoy our friends and acknowledge there are those we are not going to particularly care for, even if we still love them in Christ? Christians are not exempt from personality conflicts. And truth be told, we are asked to love, not to necessarily like, our fellow Christians and people in general. That means there may be conflict. But that also means we have to work harder to be the peacemaker that Jesus spoke about in Matthew 5:9 and Paul spoke of in Romans 12:18, not necessarily because of the persons involved but because of the expectations in Christ we all have on one another. It is harder to be kinder, harder to have the attitude of a servant, harder to treat each other better without making claims for ourselves, and wanting “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” as the Aretha Franklin song goes. But to get it you have to give it. And sometimes that doesn’t even work. Better said, what you get when you give out and are the servant and do treat others like Christ would is far better than what anyone could give you. You get God’s love. (Romans 15:13)

It is difficult when your brother and sisters in Christ drive you nuts. You love them and they love you, deep down, but you sure wish they were a little more tactful, a little nicer, a little more sensitive, and loved themselves a little bit more so they could love you a little bit more. You want them to think the way you do, act the way you do, and I know that you are probably in denial about that. But think about it. If people did what you did, wouldn’t life be so much easier? And how much more so is that in terms of being a Christian? And if you keep it up, keep wanting people to be like you and do like you, isn’t that like being in traffic where the cars in front stop, start, stop, start, stop, start…or isn’t it like shadowboxing, where you are fighting your own shadow and getting nowhere? I know when I get that wound up about a person, I feel as though I cannot move.

What we, me included, have to remember is that God is there. He has open arms and he is ready to carry us and to protect us and to advise us. I hear his voice saying, “You are mine and they are mine as well. I know people can be irritating. How about the time when you were late and didn’t call to tell anyone where you were? About the time you took a shower and your roommate needed to take the shower and you took all of the hot water? About the time you threw away mail when you were cleaning, mail that maybe wasn’t important to you, but it was to someone else? Unknowingly, but you did it.” I have heard His gentle chiding, and realize how patient He is, and then I drop to my knees and thank God for His constant steadfastness and perseverance with one such as I who loses patience, even when I know that I myself am no different from anyone else. I thank God for His gentle reminder of me and my condition that while I was a sinner His son died for me. (Romans 5:8) And when I slip He continues to cleanse me and make true His great and glorious promise for an eternal life with Him. Thank God for the blessing of a family that, although frustrating at times, are diamonds; without my family my life would be empty. Thank God for His forgiveness, for I am made His and whole by it, my soul is healed by it and I will have eternal peace because of it.






















VI. BE NOT OF THIS WORLD

The text is taken from 1 John 2:15-17

I got a phone call about 12:30 AM one Saturday morning, after a particularly rough day at work and some hard sleep following. The voice on the other end said, “Dr. Guillot?” and I answered gruffly out of my sleep, “Yes, this is she.” The voice, which belonged to the plant superintendent at one of the local poultry processing plants, continued to say, “We need you to come in at 7 AM tomorrow because the Labeling Department is working and there is still a 505 out.” (505’s were documents that were used to show that poultry was inspected and shipped under safe conditions and that the poultry was safe. These were documents used in the US, for interstate commerce and required an official USDA signature.) When I asked why no one had called earlier, his response was that they just found out that the department was working and could not get in touch with anyone on first shift but me. So I grumbled and griped to myself and my roommate that Saturday was my day of rest and how dare they infringe upon that, especially since all week had been a trial and I had plans and…and…and…

I went back to bed angry. I woke up angry. I ate my breakfast in a furious mood. I slammed my car door shut at 6 AM and drove off in a rage all the while saying to God, “GOD, IT’S NOT FAIR!!!! IT’S JUST NOT FAIR!!!” I was about half-way to my office (I am really glad I work 60 minutes from my office) when I realized that what I was saying was true. It truly was not fair. I was not the one they should have called. I was just the relief inspector, not the regular inspectors. I was not responsible for this plant, yet the plant called me. They had the absolute gall to do that.

By the time I got to my office, I was asking God, “How did Your Son stand this?” And God said, “Be quick to listen.” (James 1:19)

…And they called him a blasphemer, and tried him at night, when no one really cared or was even around to say, “Wait a minute, you can’t do that!”, and he was beaten by the soldiers, and made to wear a crown of thorns. He was judged by the Sanhedrin, by Herod, and last by Pilate; and although Pilate would probably have let him go under normal circumstances, Pilate chose instead to ask the mob what they wanted him to do. He was not tried by his peers. There is after all no peer for the Son of God, because he had to make Himself our peer. He was unjustly accused, beaten for no reason, and yet did not sin. (Isaiah 53)There was the temptation to say, “It’s not fair” but instead he said, “Not my will but Thine, ABBA!”

No it wasn’t fair, but think of God’s grace and what that power gave Christ. (Romans 1:16, 17) It allowed him to love people when they demanded the universe from him, to agape those who disappointed him, and the little daily distractions and annoyances that humans seem to equip themselves with he handed over to God to deal with because he knew that each day had its own troubles. It allowed him to say, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!”

Father, forgive the world, for they really haven’t a clue. They are lost sheep in serious need of a master. Thank you for being my shepherd and for helping me to see that without you I’d be as lost as they. In fact, there are times, more often than I’d care to admit, that I act as lost as the world does. Thank you for being there to say, “How do you know that I haven’t selected you for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) as well as saying, “My grace is sufficient for you.” (2 Corinthians 12:9). And thank you for accepting me when I forget that you love everyone, even when they used and took advantage of your son. Even when they use and take advantage of me.






































VII. WHEN VALLEYS ARE AMONGST US

The text for this is Matthew 26:9-13.

The latter part of 1993 was an interesting year. First, although this may sound selfish, either mine or my roommates or both of our cars had been in the shop for one week due to mechanical problems and so we’d been reduced to a one-car family. Although that may not seem so bad, schedule conflicts made our having two cars an absolute necessity. Or so it seemed to me and my roommate. (Aren’t different agendas confining?)

Second, my father, already in pretty poor health, caught a cold and was not able to rid himself of it. Actually what had happened was that his lungs started filling with fluid because his heart was not functioning well. I was 2000 miles away, and could do nothing about it. Or so I thought. (Separation from loved ones geographically pretty confining too.)

Finally, and this one probably broke the camel’s back for me, my roommate Leslie had attack of hypoglycemia that rendered her unconscious until her blood sugar could be raised. She had had attacks like this before but this one was a little more severe than in the past, and the doctor told her not to return to work until the attacks could be gotten under control. And what was puzzling was that she was careful about what she ate; careful about doing the things she was supposed to do. But she continued having spells. And there was really nothing I could do for her. Or so I thought. (Being Servant of the Year is also pretty confining.)

Intermixed in all this was doing three persons’ job for the price of one, due to shortages that where I work is prone to have. I think for the first time in my life as it is now, I am realizing that I am human. But back then I was getting upset because I wasn’t superman. I didn’t want to sleep when I got tired, I didn’t want to get tired, I didn’t want to cry when things upset me or when I lost someone valuable to me, and for goodness’ sake, I sure didn’t need encouragement. Realizing that as I do now, I realize that it isn’t an easy conclusion to make. I liked the fact that God blessed me with the ability to survive through anything and to give of myself until I am spent. It’s not easy knowing that I have to sleep and rest to revive and even that God gave us that capacity so we can revive. It’s not easy knowing that I need to cry because God gave us that capacity too in order to realize that we need encouragement and that not everything is going to be rosy. We all need prayers, we all need people who will tend to us. Even super-Christians. Even Jesus.
In the text for this devotional Jesus is being served by a woman who anoints His feet and wipes them with her hair. And at the protestation of the apostles, Jesus answers that there will always be poor but that she was doing the most appropriate service, to tend to Him during a time when He needed encouragement. She was following the command, “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. (Matthew 22:37-39). What does this mean? It means that first we must love ourselves and then we will be able to love others the way Jesus does. This means take care of our bodies, eat sufficient to maintain ourselves, learn sufficient to exist and know things about the world around us and about God and what He expects, have joy so that we can radiate to others, sleep to revive. We all need to be love ourselves, mostly because God loves us enough to have sent His son and to want us in a relationship with Him where we call God “Abba”. What a great God we serve! And it’s only when I realize how fragile I am and have to go to God and say, “I cannot make it without You Father”, and lean on his everlasting arms (as the old hymn says) that I can truly serve and help those that need me. Then and only then am I a servant.









































VIII. CLAY JARS

The scripture for this is taken from 2 Corinthians 4:7

Ever broken a jar or a piece of pottery? Fragile, one minute it will sit on a table looking beautiful. In the very next minute, it can fall and wind up in a million pieces. Humans are a lot like that, fragile, breakable, one minute in the prime of life, the next, in pieces. It can happen slowly, as aging, or it can happen quickly, as an accident or a premature disease. Amazing that as strong and healthy as Olympic athletes are or appear to be, there is still decay going on in their bodies. Every day, body cells are dying away and being replaced. The old cells in a person who is no longer a youngster are dying faster than they are being replaced, and so we all age. Try as we might to preserve life, there is one process medical science will never be able to correct: dying. Whether or not we want to face it, all things on this earth including us must die. And what is even more sobering is that even the healthiest of us, not necessarily athletes or health nuts, but anyone who has always be “in the pink” can die from a previously undetected heart disease or cancer, or even AIDS.

I cannot handle death. Ask anyone who knows me and they know I am passionate about the subject. I have reasoned that life has already begun and needs to continue. But the older I get I see this is such a lie. I realize this life while may be in part beautiful and lovely will end. But is it truly the end of all things. Actually no. What will happen according to scripture is that God awaits us (Romans 15:13) because He is a God of glory and peace. He doesn’t want us to be alone. And so I can say that it is NOT the end, it is NOT finished. It is NOT over. We don’t have to goodbye forever. Because He promises we won’t be alone. As far back as Deuteronomy 31:6, this has been His promise. He also promised not to leave us in Haggai 1:13 and to be with His people in Matthew 18:20. The list of His promises not to leave is endless.

That His promises are true, I have no doubt. God has gotten me out of more scraps than I could count. But I still have a problem with death. Because there is a small voice in me saying, “I am alone”. When I lost my father, I felt alone. My brother died 3 years after my father. I am alone. I lost any number of friends in the church. I am alone. And there is a hole in my heart that won’t go away, no matter the encouragement. I begin to feel as though I have to carry the burdens of life by myself. With no one to help me. The thought of that weight hurts me all the more. And the one question that keeps looming is “Why?” Why, God? If you were trying to teach me something, couldn’t you have taught me something with me losing people that are important to me?

I’ve lost many dear friends over the course of the years. I lost my dad and brother, as I said, who were what I considered my close friends. I lost an elderly friend who had just become a Christian. She had a heart condition, but it didn’t stop her from working hard for the Church. One day in September 1990, someone broke into her house where her daughter was visiting with her, and murdered her and seriously wounded her daughter. This was someone who never did anyone any harm. Why was she murdered? Why? And what purpose did it serve? Why, God?

Then there was another lady that I had come to know after my heart surgery in 1993. She was a strong lady, had tended to her dying husband, fought back from five strokes to the point of normalcy, was now walking without a walker, who had progressed so far that she could drive herself to the grocery store and that she could add 2 and 2 and still get 4. She was so excited about her life in Christ and couldn’t wait until she could teach again. She suffered another stroke one November day. And while recovering from this she was diagnosed with cancer. And the following January morning she took God’s hand and met those that had gone before her. Why God? Why bring her to the point where she could drive her car only to call her to you? Why make her suffer? And why take someone of whom I had grown so fond? I just was not ready.

Then again another elderly woman, who was in unspeakable pain due to arthritis, but who never ever stopped smiling. She raised 3 boys to be Christian men, all strong and moral and accepting of the LORD. Why did God let her suffer so much before calling her?

Why do things happen? Why? I certainly haven’t the answers, and no one to whom I have spoken has the answers either. What was in the mind of God when He watched as my dad neglected his health and not stick to what the doctor’s advised him to do? What was in the mind of God as He watched my brother lead a loose lifestyle and wind up contracting the AIDS virus? What was in His mind when He watched my friend Louise get murdered, or my friend Georgia suffer through several strokes and cancer, or my other friend live in such agony with arthritis?

What was He thinking?

I don’t have a clue. I only know that He doesn’t want any to perish, as He says in John 3:16. He wants us to come to Him and have eternal life. And I know that He doesn’t want us to be robots but to do His will because we choose to, not because we are forced to follow Him. I think I have come to realize, and am learning this even more so the older I get is that no matter what happens, God is still deeper than anything we can suffer, regardless of whether events occur because of our choice or just because we live in a disease-filled, evil world that still has Satan in it, even though Christ has made Satan powerless to ruin our chances for eternal life. I believe we must, I must, you must, say, “God, I really do want to do your will, not mine.” Because of God, we as His children have the hope of a new life in heaven, a rebirth into eternity with no tears or sorrows. We get to trade the clay jars in for spiritual, infinite bodies. And our cross is replaced with a crown!









IX. BEHOLD THE GOD WHO GRIEVES


In the middle and late 1990’s as I became aware of certain family tumults, such as my father’s illness and subsequent death, and my brother’s serious illness leading to his demise, my own heart condition, my mother’s depression over the desperate state in which my father left her financially as well as her own medical ailments, and indeed my financial woes in which a bad relationship left me, I know what it is like to grieve. There were indeed days that I was so overwhelmed that all I could focus upon was the dark cloud over my head. When I was younger and not facing this melee, I saw someone going through things and thought how sad for someone to be so self-absorbed, to forget that God was there and that He is in control, how sad one’s existence is and how God must be in a quandary over this person who has chose to be so absorbed emotionally.

I was that ignorant, until 1992, when dad fell down a set of stairs and wound up in the hospital and then recovering at home. And my mother threw emotional darts at me because I was away from home and that my friends were worthless. I think I always knew mother was like that, and that she really never liked my choice in friends, with some exceptions. But it didn’t make life any easier. The real kicker was dad, and the final realization that dad was mortal. Oh, sure, I knew about his diabetes, his heart disease, his bad back, and the fact that he never took care of himself, but in the back of my mind I kept saying, “He’s made it this far, he’ll live to a ripe old age and see his grandchildren graduate high school and maybe college”. Amazing how I could put the blinders on, isn’t it? His fall in 1992 led to a blood clot that was inoperable. The medicines and fluids brought him back from that. But he continued fainting, even though it wasn’t from blood clots or any neurological problem. Then there was the time his body just said, “ENOUGH!” and he wound up in the Cardiac Care Unit. And I was called home for what was thought by his doctor’s to be the last time. Which it was not. Not that time. He lasted until July of 1994 when he died at home in his sleep.

I remember it like I was yesterday. And I remember asking God “Why?”.

In February of 1994, I was traveling for business and was called by my brother. He did not lead the purest of lives and had been to the hospital previously for pneumonia. He called because his doctors told him there was nothing that could be done for him and he’d better make preparations. He had contracted the HIV virus and was beginning to show signs of progression into AIDS.

And again I asked God, “Why?”.

When I grieved and prayed I wondered if God was hearing me. Now when I grieve over events I wonder if this is how God feels. I read the entire book of Isaiah for the first time during the hump in the 1990s. And several parts of Isaiah since then. I had read it previously, but never with the glance into God’s heart and soul and understanding His desires for His people. Apart from any book, apart from any writings, Isaiah describes the nature of His heart and His great love by merely describing what He does for us and will do for us. Throughout Isaiah is the theme, “I am the only God, the only one, the One you need to serve. All you have to do is come to Me, just Me, and love just Me. I love you and will gather you to Me if you let Me. But I am the only One. There are no other gods. There’s just Me, and My son and My spirit are all part of Me. I am the great I Am…”

In that book, through the writings of Isaiah, I see God’s pleading and His tears. For He loves us so much He gave up His Son for us and sent His Spirit to us. He is a powerful, pleading God, that has been grieving for us since Adam and Eve sinned, perhaps even before, in knowing what His people would do. Although the first few verses show just how happy almost gleeful God truly was to even create man and to give man a woman for companionship. But at man’s fall, God becomes a grieving God. He actually seems to go through all the stages of grief except for one—denial. I don’t think God ever denies there was a loss when His people chose not to follow Him throughout history or that there is a loss when we choose a life contrary to His will. I think there are times that He longs for there to be no loss because as Jesus so aptly put it in Matthew 23:37, “How I wish I could gather you like a mother hen gathers her chicks, but for your stubborn hearts!” Oh, yes, He knows and feels the loss.

The more I read, the more powerful I see God’s grief truly is. I see Him angry at Sodom and Gomorrah. I see Him angry at the world during the time of Noah. I see Him devastated during the time of Hezekiah, enough to allow Nebuchadnezzar to do his thing. I see an accepting God on all fronts, accepting the good and bad in David, Jacob, Moses, Peter, and Paul. I see a God in control of all things, even when things look out of control. I see God not exercising His control when His people want it, but when He knows it will do the most good. For all of us, pain is not an option. How else do we know we can feel and how else do we realize something is pleasant? How else in truth do we experience life? If death is but a portal, life is a window through which we must look to see what the true existence in God is. A mirror, only giving us a partial reflection of what God wants for us.

Finally, I see a God that has triumphed in Jesus’ resurrection, whose power is realized early on a chilly, breezy Sunday morning when a stone is rolled back and two angels speak with two women about what has transpired. I see Jesus who in one moment tells the women not to fear and in the next allowing Thomas to touch His side to prove to himself that He is alive. I see God joyous again, with such joy as I have never seen before, because there are those who have come to realize his power is not in the law, but in His unending grace which allows Him to say, “You can’t live up to the law. Let me show you a more excellent way.” His love is so great that while we were knee-deep in sin, He provided a way for us to be pulled from the fire and to be cleansed of our sins. (Romans 5:8)

Thank you, God for loving us…thank You God for serving us…thank You God for making us whole and saving our souls…



X. HARSH REALITIES

The scripture for this text is Psalms 46:10.

No matter how often I said to myself, “Dad’s going to die”, no matter how long I prepared, I couldn’t know what I would feel until I actually did go through the situation. I knew Daddy was going die, I’d been preparing myself, bracing myself, because I knew how sick he was and sooner or later he would be gone. But knowing something and living through it is two different things.

When I finally did, when it finally happened, after all the false alarms, and all the tears and pleading for his life back, and when he finally said, “I have had enough; let my God judge me, I have suffered here too long.”, there was a cold slap across my face, like being hit with an ice cold rag. All at once, I felt as though I’d been hoping for something that would never be, and that it indeed was foolish and prideful that I could change the course of what God has set in motion for all humanity, not just a love one who is terminally ill, but all of us, whenever God is ready for us. Even now, although 14 years ago, I hear my sister-in-law’s voice on the other end of the telephone receiver saying, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your daddy died this morning.” When I first heard this, I crumbled, composed myself, stumbled, fumbled then crumbled again. I started out in my roommate’s room and wound up in my bathroom. Going in spurts. A million thoughts rushing into my head. And every time I hear that voice at the other end of the phone, those range of emotions hit me again. In fact, there are moments even now that I have where I think that this is a dream, that he is indeed alive, and all I have to do is pick up the phone, call my parents’ house in New Orleans…

But he’s not there. In fact, my mom is not there. The home I grew up in has been sold and so it is out of the family. My mom moved up to live with me after my roommate got married, 4 years after dad died, and the same year my brother passed. What I have to realize is that life has moved on. My father won’t be answering the phone, neither will my brother and my mother lives with me. So I must move on because life moves on. But I can deal with it now, because God has put a great healer here, time.

When I was in the midst of dealing with Daddy’s death though, I had the big 3-D hole that is left in my universe when people who are close to me pass away or who leave and with whom I am no longer in contact. When that happens, I am empty, because a part of me leaves with those people. I fall on my knees before God to take away the hole. But it doesn’t fill up fast enough and I continue to play a sort of cat-and-mouse game with myself, now I hurt, now I don’t. And I play a mind game with myself where my buttons are pushed and I am caught by my own devises. I spiral downward until I finally have to ask God, “My God, my God, why have Thou forsaken me?” I do feel like God has turned His back, I do indeed feel forsaken. As I am in the throws of these emotions, I feel the sting of being totally alone, and all I can do is live in the confusion with all the barbs and spinners attached. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, and I have often made the decision to stop talking to God, because I don’t feel Him there and I am angry with Him. But you know something…

For three days He was alone, but it really started long before He went to the grave. He had a three-year ministry. He lost many of his followers (John 6:66), there were people who tried to trap Him into political nonsense (John 8:1-8; John 7:24), His cousin John was beheaded as a gift to a king’s daughter, and everything from demons to Satan himself was thrown at Him during His life. He probably lost His earthly father, Joseph, because there is no mention of Joseph after a certain point in the bible. During His last days on earth, Jesus was scourged, mocked, whipped, spat upon, falsely accused, and finally left to hang on a crucifix. For three days He was most alone while He was carrying my sins, and everyone else’s sins. For three days he was alone, and yet He never denied the power of God. Never caused Him to doubt His Father. Never caused Him to think there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Because God was whispering to Him, “Be still and know I am Your God.” (Psalms 46:10)

And He rose. Above all else is God’s power to resurrect. And so He did. And does. And that is a promise. My soul becomes a part of Him because I am clothed with Christ. (Galatians 3:26-27) My life does go on. My soul belongs to God and there is joy in that, no matter what I face. And God loves me enough to send His Son to die for me.

My hurts are healed and stay healed when I remember that His love makes me whole, over and over and over again. He covers my holes, no matter how many there are. And I will see him face to face.
























XI. PUSHING THE STOP BUTTON

The text for this is Genesis 3.

Cassette tapes are becoming obsolete, but for those of us who played them by the hour know that there are tabs in the back of the tape that if you don’t want to lose any of the music or information that is on the tape you remove the tab. You can replace the tab with tape if you decide you want to record over it. But even that won’t work as well as never having removed the tab.

Which means that you might not be able to ever remove some song or people speaking on the tape that you really didn’t want to hear because it evoked memories that were bittersweet or down right unpleasant. You would have to either fast forward or push the stop button and remove the tape.

We have internal tapes. Tapes from which the back tab has sometimes been removed. Internal tapes exist not for any other use but our private use because we are creatures of habit. Tapes are what we put our internal data on, what we’ve listened to since childhood, what we’re being told now. Some of them are positive. Many of them are negative. And depending upon how often we have heard the tapes and how old those tapes are we can erase them or not. How we process what is on the tape is significant to what we think of ourselves. Satan knows we have internal tapes. Satan has figured out that tapes determine how we react and feel about various aspects of life. He has also figured out that the messages recorded on those tapes are not always positive. In fact, some are negative, some needing to be erased or at least not to be played. And he loves it, because he knows that even if we’ve accepted Christ we keep listening to these tapes and won’t push the stop button. He knows we choose not to push the button because old habits are hard to break. Only through really devoting oneself to Christ, only through prayer constantly and consistently, as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, will we be able to look past those tapes and head toward what God wants us to be and do. The strong in Christ know how to either replace the tab or to push the stop button not to listen to the tapes. But even the strong in Christ grow weak. And Satan knows that the strong in Christ forget or choose not to stop the tapes or replace the tab. We would rather be comfortable listening to the tapes and be miserable rather than be challenged by the truth of God and His love for us and be blessed by that enough to stop the tapes.

Does that mean that satan has outwitted God? Certainly not! Although tapes are a part of human nature, God knows tapes are temporary. Why? Well, why do the cassettes when you can have the live concert? God gives us free tickets and says, “Come, see me, talk to me, hear me?” and every seat is the best seat in the house. Every melody is memorable and every conversation uplifting and full of joy. And this replaces any tape we’ve ever made for ourselves. And the concert goes on and on. While we are on earth we’ve got glimpses of the live performances between and in spite of all the trials we have to live through. Just ask any older person who walks with God, “Why do you smile?” They smile because they know while on earth they have been to the concert many, many times, and when they go to meet God, the concert is permanent. We get to sing, clap our hands,
laugh, and praise God always. Personally I can’t wait.













































XII. ELOHIM
The text is taken from Job 38,39,40.


I was riding through the mountains of West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky on my way to attend a training session in Louisiville, KY, and couldn’t help witnessing God’s majesty. Man can make skyscrapers, he can build airplanes for intercontinental travel, but I have yet to see the man regardless of his degrees that build a mountain standing majestically against a sky with a gray cloud dancing around it or a bird that can fly gracefully through the air to land on a twig or branch of a tree or on a rock, or even build a creature as terrifying as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Nothing man can make can surpass that of the Creator.

Think about the following. On my journey, I noticed the difference in terrain and saw that the clay so familiar to North Carolina and Southern Virginia changed to shale and then to stone. Something else man cannot do. How much fun God must have had doing this! I can imagine Him with His hand on His chin deciding which terrain would be perfect for which continent, or where on which continent to put what landscape. And when He placed the animals, I can imagine Him looking at the cattle He had just placed on the mountainside munching lazily on the grass. I can imagine how joyous He was, how He must have smiled to say, “Yes, it is good.” I visited the Falls of the Ohio, which separates Kentucky from Indiana, and was fascinated by the power of what God created. Here the rocks and cascades were enough to prevent river traffic for centuries, only recently being diverted safely for travel. This situation forced men to come together to form settlements such as Louisville. Isn’t God’s wisdom amazing? He stopped man’s progress long enough so that we would talk to each other and build communities rather than be so worried about how much to explore and exploit the land.

And His wisdom is infinite and everlasting. I love any natural history museum because of the wealth of information they supply. While it may not be expressed outright, the wonder of God’s creation is there. God created the numerous species of plants, some of which are now extinct. God created animals and lifeforms that are now mere recordings in fossilized stone. In God’s infinite wisdom, He created man. Why? To enjoy His creation, to enjoy that which He made, and to do what is most pleasing to Him, to God give the praise, and the glory for all He has done. The saddest day for Him was when Eve bit into the apple, and He realized His Son would have to die for such a generation as man; but, you know, it probably was a good day too. Because He realized that if His Son went down to earth and offered man a choice of being forever slaves to themselves and satan or of coming to Him with penitent hearts willing to turn their lives over to Him then man would truly be created in His image. (Galatians 3:27) Man would truly be receptive to His truth.

Get out and enjoy what God has given you, green grass, ocean waters, white beaches, and huge majestic mountains, and any number of animals. It’ll do your heart and your soul wonders.

XIII. IN HIS ARMS

The scripture for this text is Matthew 26 and Romans 8:38,39.

“Daddy, Daddy, I’m so frightened. Help me, Daddy, the monster is after meeeee!!!!”

Ever feel like that sometimes? Like there are things that are pulling at you, evil or not, that are trying to suck the life and love out of you, or that are simply demanding your time? What do children do when monsters are after them? First they scream. Then they call for the most secure being they know. And sometimes its Mommy and sometimes its Daddy. What did Christ do in the garden of Gethsemane? First he cried for help. And then he went to the most secure being he knew. The Heavenly Father. Christ has been through every situation. He’s known pain, sorrow, joy, peace, contentment, anger, frustration, and every temptation that satan can throw at a human being, but through all this, he never has lost his focus. He’s never forgotten the Father’s love for him. The child was, and is, always alive in him and when things hurt him or made him mad while he was on earth, he never forgot the one he could run to and be loved by. Even in joy, he was, and is, joyous because he knew the Heavenly Father was the source of all his joy and peace. That allowed him to say, “No, I will not sin. God holds me in his arms and I will not give that up for the things in this world”. And it allows us to say it, too. (Titus 2:11-13) It’s not always easy to say “No”, because the coating of sin is an immediate, though short-lived, pleasure. To give up pleasure for the sake of doing God’s will is tough, but not impossible with Him. And when we are clothed in Christ, as it speaks of in Galatians 3:26,27,we learn to do God’s will so it becomes easier to resist sin. In true child-like fashion, resisting sin becomes a “Daddy, satan’s bothering me again!!!” approach, and we learn to go to His throne as a child, not as an adult, but in the submission of child to a loving parent that will take care of the child. Like a child, we come to realize that we cannot fix things and to know that life is beyond our capacity but not beyond the Father’s realm. Like a child we will not be afraid to fail because we know we can run to God and say, “I really messed up on this one…can you help me repair myself…what do you want me to do?” God then wraps His ever-stretching arms around us and smiles His broader-than-a-universe smile and says, “Here’s what I’ll do…” And we can rest in His arms, confident that He is indeed in control.