Something Christians NEED to remember (R$E)

A Prayer For Today

Heavenly Father,

I thank you for Who you are, and all you do. I thank you for the many blessings you have sent us, sent me. I look around and see the sun and the green grass, the blue sky, and even on cloudy days you provide.

You have provided heat in the cold.

You have provided clothes and food.

You have provided shelter and means to live here, in the blessed USA.

You are great and wonderful, and I praise your Name.

I commit my thoughts and anxieties to you, Dear Lord. I think of my children and all the challenges they face, even today.

Life and death, sickness, despair, hard things, hard decisions, safety---harm, growth, sadness, illness, futures, love, plans.

Each one, Lord, each one faces these things, some especially today. Work in their hearts and lives, Lord. Please help them to look to you in all things.

Provide for them. Help them. Be close to them. Show them your paths of righteousness, for your name's sake. Lead them.

Help me to give them to you daily, to trust you for them.

Thank you for your help, in my job, in my home, in my plans and prayers.

Lord, bless our country, our president, our government. Help these people follow your ways, and stop any sin.

Help them to find you, and repent.

Help my family and friends who don't know you, who are confused about you, to find you and love you with their whole hearts. Help them to repent of sin in their lives and turn toward you. Save their souls, LORD. Snatch them from the fire. Clear up their false notions about you, who they think you are. Help them to overcome.

Come soon, Jesus, Lord. Maranatha. We wait for that glad reunion in the sky. Come soon, quickly.

Help us prepare even today for that moment.

Bless our parents, who are getting feeble in body. Help them to get through this day.

Help us to honor them, to love them as you do.

Help us at our work places. Help us to do everything as unto You, Lord. Give us the strength to do our jobs well and to be light in this darkening world. We look to you for your help.

Forgive me, Lord, my failures----as a wife, daughter, mother, sister, and friend. Forgive me my sin, Lord. Help me to do better to glorify You.

IT's all about you, Lord. Help me to live that out.

Help me follow you every moment. Hear my prayer, Father. Protect my heart, and help me through this day.

Amen. Amen. 

I Believe - Mark Miller

Truth Wins, Ultimately

I'm in my mini vacation right now, only because it is the last four days of school and no calls for subbing have come, and my hotel job is a weekend thing.

So, lots of reading, lots of thoughts, lots of posting on social media...
lots of cleaning, lawn work (mowing), and planning ahead.

I've been thinking about truth.

For each of us it seems that truth is different; it's colored by our experience. My truth is different from your truth.

I love my charismatic friends, I remember my "charismatic" days fondly, with a memory of great spiritual power. This is my truth. I know that Satan is a deceiver and some spiritual experiences are of the devil, but I know that God's Spirit is also at work around the globe.

I have had truths that were real, truths that colored my walk with Christ, doctrine and dogma that formed my worldview.

Objective truth is something more. By God's grace we can truly experience objective truth, or truths.

He gave us the Bible, His Word, Scripture for truth and edification. This is, above all, our only reliable source of His truth. Therefore we must measure all other truth by its words.

Not an easy task, especially without the Holy Spirit and a constant saturation in much of it.

Last night I was reading a book about geology by a young earth scientist. He mentioned several scholars and preachers of a past era where the age of the earth was brought into question. These scholars, in their limited scientific knowledge, became convinced of alternate "truths."

Naturally we know more now, scientifically, than "we" knew then. We have technology that reveals so much more about the earth and the world we live in.

Truth is changing, right?

No. Truth is always truth, and a profound truth (as my father-in-law says) is the opposite of another profound truth. Truth is the question in every heart. What is truth?

Pilate asked Jesus, and it is not recorded if Jesus answered him.

Let's step it back, though. If God created us, and we can deduce that He did, apologetically and reasonably, He has given us an aspect of our being that is a help to knowing truth.

Our conscience.

The conscience speaks to the mind and heart. It cries out that there is more... that there is reason. God pricks it when we hear truth. It convicts us when we do wrong. (Don't deny it!)

You can murder your conscience by repeatedly ignoring it.

But it still persists, born again, when faced with a new situation. It's remarkable. Scientists have tried to explain the conscience through biology and psychiatry, but there is no real explanation except the one I gave you: God made it.

It is to the conscience that I appeal, to every reader of this blog, to my own!

God gives that pin prick of conscience regarding His own infinite truth. We can try to argue, to deny, to ignore, to put off, to run from it.

God invites. He does not force. He is the God of free will. He encourages and loves, but he ultimately judges our own murder of our own conscience.

So, when truth is spoken my conscience listens.

Does yours?

It can be born again, even as you ask the Lord to save you.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Mueller Upends Rule of Law, In Final Appea...

Test the Spirits

Recently there was  column in the New York Times by an "evangelical" pastor claiming to have switched his views regarding abortion.

Sadly, he had been ardently pro-life. Now he is pro death.

His name is Rob Schenk, if you want to look him up. He thinks that babies should die because poor women can't afford to raise them.

Beloved, we are always asked to "test the spirits." This man claims to be a pastor, yet he defies the living God with his views on killing children.

To test a spirit we must always ask, "Is this view in alignment with the whole word of God?"

How can we know?

WE MUST READ THE BIBLE!

We must read the Bible daily, infusing our spirits and souls with its comprehensive truths. We must glean its wisdom constantly, weighing each passage against others, knowing the context, seeing the commands and the admonitions for what and who they are for.

This is testing the spirit, does it conflict or support the word of God?

This is why we can tell that people promoting a LGTB lifestyle are not in sync with God's Word, therefore we cannot see them as being in line with a right spirit.

Apply this to abortion and we see the same thing.

Anyone promoting any type of abortion is not in line with the Word of God. Test the spirits, beloved.

You may address a spirit, asking if Jesus is LORD, and claiming the blood of Christ over it, but the truest form of testing supernatural encounters is knowing and applying God's Word to the situation.

God is so gentle with new believers. He can give them real understanding of truth, even right away, without extensive Bible knowledge. This is always so wonderful to see. I think of Caryl Matrisciana's testimony in particular. After receiving Christ as her savior she was immediately convicted of the sin in her life, that she and her boyfriend were living together, and that it was wrong. She said no one told her this, but her conscience----God's Spirit---convicted her heart.

I read testimonies like this all the time. God's Spirit is a Convictor.

But for those of us who know enough, have been believers for a time, must measure all things in light of Scriptural truths. It is the "meat" that Paul talks about, Hebrews 5:12.

Yes, there are hard things to understand in Scripture. That is obvious. Many things need deeper study and research, and times of meditation. God is not silent. He never was.

We do know that He does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, forever. We can trust that he is not the mercurial personality of Allah.

He defines Himself for us in Scripture, and if your god doesn't look like the God of the Bible you have "another god."

I am convicted by my own need to show love to those who aren't saved. I am meeting the "lost" everyday at my new job, and my heart is so filled with love for these people. I have such compassion on them and the inevitable eternal destiny they face.

I am practicing a loving spirit, a kindness, an invitation to become different.


When the Spirit truly convicts and washes the soul in the blood of Christ, there is a transformation that is like the power of dynamite. Those of us who have experienced it recognize it in each other. WE see it. God is important in everything, He becomes our very reason for living.

The Spirit is powerful!

Do you want it? Do you want a right Spirit? Cry out to God! Repent from sin. Immerse yourself in the reading of Scripture! You will show an insatiable desire to read the Bible for a time. I haven't met any believer who hasn't shown this thirst at some point. God gives it as a sign!

Test the spirit, beloved. If you are not saved, pray now to receive Christ as you savior and Lord. Prepare to give everything (including family and friends) to Him.

It's hard, but it's good. Very good.

David and Goliath...and uh, Marriage....

This morning, at the nursing home, where I am playing the piano accompaniment to the hymns some Sundays this summer, the sermon by old friend Dean was about the Biblical hero, David.

I was thought-provoked.

We've all heard the story of David and Goliath a million times. I have a love/hate attitude toward David, for good reason. He's a paradox, an irritant, an inspiration, a hero.

Actually, he's like most of us in many respects: a sinner with weaknesses and a love for God.


And God saw that love and commended it, especially in Hebrews.

I read the Psalms, and my heart echos David's in all of my love for God and pleading for help. I am glad he wrote those words, because I can pray them and sing them with understanding. His Psalms speak to me. Jesus quoted them, too, even in his last moments.

I love that a young shepherd boy came to a battle with advanced war tactics, defeated a formidable enemy, and then parlayed his way through difficult relationships to become king with God's anointing.

I am irritated that he struggled with his relationships with women.

But no one's perfect, including David.

I should take comfort in that, as it sets a precedent for most marriages. There's give and take, difficulties, annoyances, moments of sin, failures. Most marriages are like that, if we are truthful.

I like a good, old-fashioned Jane Austen romance as much as anyone: Perfect spunky heroine, perfect dashing hero, perfect relationship; happily ever after!

Oh, sure, I'm betting there are marriages out there where everything is done perfectly, total congruence, rightly measured affection, good relationship! There is forgiveness and ease in the give and take.

But I'm betting there are more marriages where the struggles are real, and forgiveness and patience are daily practiced, often.

It's a two-way street. It's never a one-sided problem. It takes two...

David's weakness and consequent God-given victory over Goliath was an incredible lesson for life early on. If he had applied his knowledge of being weak and relying on God's strength in his relationships with women he may have succeeded there, too. But he ended up failing miserably.

Come on, we have to admit it. For me, this inability of his to manage marriage has always ruined him for me. In my own failures I looked to this "man after God's heart" to be an example. He isn't.

But what a picture of God's grace! David loved God. He loved God more than He loved his wives. God recognized that. God forgave him. God made him a picture of Christ, an integral part of Christ's lineage. Nothing David did stopped him from being used by God. God's grace extended beyond David's sin.

When I look at marriage, and all of its joys and sorrows, I see a relationship that is ordained by God. I see a difficult path that is full of unexpected turns and bumps, mountains to navigate, valleys to forge through. There are the cool springs of good rapport and love, but there are the deserts of problems as well. There are the pinnacles of success and happiness, but also the bogs of relentless commitment to a vow made through sickness or perhaps infidelity----until death.

When I am weak, He is strong. That is a true picture of marriage, and every difficulty we encounter within that relationship.

David and Goliath. We face a formidable foe every day.

What is your Goliath?

Have you thought of these things being giant issues:

Comparing your own relationships with other people's relationships?
(You do know that you probably only ever see the positive aspects of most relationships.)
Comparing yourself to a standard laid out by some preacher or teacher you (mostly) admire?
(These are standards to strive for, to keep before one's eyes, but let's be real! We all fall short of the mark!)
Comparing yourself to the perfection of God's standards?
(You've already failed!)
Expecting something remarkable from a (sinful) human being?

After almost 30 years of marriage I confess that these battles of strength and weakness still wage war in my own mind. I am daily evaluating my own behavior and working to forgive those that I must, others including my own long-suffering husband!

I fight those standards and those examples that "live inside my head rent free."

I must always remember that God uses these weaknesses of mine to demonstrate HIS STRENGTH.

I am not living the life I pictured for myself in my teens and early twenties, but who does, really?

I can take the many good things and rejoice with thankfulness at God's abundant blessings, and they are truly magnificent, or I can bring myself to a place of bitterness at all of my failures and lost dreams. Being real is seeing God's strength in my own weakness.

Okay! I love David! I can't wait to meet him in heaven. He was an animal lover, probably good looking, musical, smart, and he had incredible passion for God. He's my kind of guy.

It was probably a real disappointment to be married to him, but now he's perfect---with the LORD.

So much to learn from his life! I need to readjust my thoughts regarding him.

I was provoked today.