Before heading off to Bible Study yesterday morning, I ran across a video that takes a hard look at data from Europe and a little bit from the US in regards to viruses and how they work in populations. When you mention this, people quite often grit their teeth and rush to fall back on their tribe’s position on the subject. And of course the subject is COVID-19. It is an automatic assumption by now. But COVID-19 is a virus, since we live in a world created by our God, and a sensible world at that, things in this world work in accordance with their kind.
Scientists, before they turned to a Man centered world, vs God created, used to believe that this was a sensible world and the answers they were searching for would come from a world made by God, who was Loving, Merciful and Unchanging. Darwin and others changed that and now most people see Man as having the answers.
This video answered several questions of mine and opened my eyes again to how God works in the world. I urge you to watch the video and decide for yourself what to make of it. And then thank God for creating a sensible world for His creatures to live in.
Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
And while you’re at it, I encourage you keep going through the rest of His book. It will open your eyes.
For us, Labor day had always meant BBQ chicken. That started in 1959 when I was a wee lad and got brought to Red Rooster Day in Dassel MN. We continued the tradition when my son was born and brought him as a wee lad.
Even while living in other states, we grilled chicken on that day. Since moving back home to Minnesota, we still grilled chicken, as my standing in line for anything days has seen better days. We grabbed my wife’s Mother and headed over to my wife’s sister’s place. The town we live in is about 6 blocks square so getting from A to B to C is like a minute at most.
And instead of BBQ’d chicken, I BBQ’d ribs. Something I picked up a couple of years ago and since we lived in New Mexico for awhile, theses ribs make your eyebrows sweat real good.
My wife’s sister’s Son showed up with his wife and 6 kids and my Pastor and neighbor came over with his wife and 3 kids and then a friend of the Nephew showed up with his wife and 6 kids. It was a small house full of kids and they were angels, all of them. Much good fellowship and laughter.
The transition of seasons is always interesting to witness. Sunrises and sunsets are a bit more vivid. Last evening was a classic. A storm front was on its way and we had a perfect blend of clouds and open sky as the sun went down. My drone has a battery that will keep it in the air for 30 minutes or several smaller flights within that time frame. The flight controller, which is a hand held device that flies the drone, has a battery that will last for a couple of hours. I had made a flight about a week and a half ago and hadn’t used the drone again until last evening.
When I booted everything up, as the sun was setting, so in a bit of a rush, I noticed that the flight controller was at 20% battery life and the drone at 63%. I sent it aloft and reached picture altitude which for me is around 300 feet. About the 6th picture into my session, the flight controller went into “Warning, Warning Will Robinson” mode and commenced squealing at me to land right NOW. I pressed the “Come Home” button and the drone started descending in rather a hurry. I thought it a bit much as I still had 13% left in the tank. Got the drone back on the roof and fetched the pictures. It was worth all the calamity.
I mentioned yesterday my interest in the sky and weather; I guess I would have to say bird watching has become a favorite of mine also. I have been truly blessed with the ability to notice details and patterns. My brain was not wired for math, and a possible consolation prize for not understanding zeros was that I am able to notice a track on the ground or a flash of color in the trees with no problem at all. It certainly helped to put meat on the table back when I hunted and now to identify birds at our feeding station.
Once again my Raspberry Pi helps out with this. I have a Pi and camera that live outdoors, under our bay window, that point at the bird feeder and we can watch that video feed on our laptops while sitting on the couch. My rule with technology is that it works for you, not you for it. And while that was good and all, I wanted a much more closeup look at things. These Pi cameras can record at up to 90 frames per second, so I put a motion sensor on my Pi and told it to turn on the camera at its fastest rate whenever a Hummingbird showed up. I moved my Pi to about one foot from the hummingbird feeder and turned it on. And this is what it recorded.
At the end of this video you’ll notice the hummer in the forefront perks up and notices another hummer coming in fast and hot from the top right of the screen. These guys are amazing in their mobility and ability to notice things, and I have to say I am a bit jealous at that.
Give glory to the Lord for He has created all things, said better here: Revelation 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
All things, even those rioters that have caused such misery and destruction. God created those guys like he created you and me and those hummingbirds I love to watch. I think we should consider those guys, who clearly have not been doing the Lord’s work, are probably prisoners of war.
What war you ask? The war between the Light of the world and darkness. They have been captured by satan and doing his work. I just want you to try that concept on for size and search the bible and see what it says to you if you are in disagreement with them as prisoners of war. Since you are reading this online, there are many places to search the scripture. BibleGateway and Blueletter Bible are a couple. As I said before, make technology work for you. Search and see if these unpleasant people have been created as creatures of God and deserve to be prayed for at the very least. This is what Jesus said about people of Jerusalem: Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!
Hopefully this will make you look at people you don’t like with different eyes, and that is something Jesus would want.
I have always been interested in the sky and weather. Growing up in Minnesota during the 60’s and 70’s I was able to witness awesome blizzards and snowfall and during the warmer months, observe tornados from my backyard. A real treat was a couple of comets that we could see with our own eyeballs.
Moving forward into my adult life and still keeping my eye on the sky, I acquired a couple of drones. We were living in Southern Kansas at the time and the sunrises were spectacular when seeing it from 500 feet up. Plus with 2 drones, I could see it in stereo. The glory of the Lord was evident in each one prairie sunrises that I had witnessed.
These days, I have pared my drones down to just one, but added a little device that is called a Raspberry Pi. It is a micro computer about the size of a man’s wallet. You can do many things with these Pi’s and my favorite thing is to add a camera to them and tell them to take time lapses of sunrises. And they do, I just have to remember to get the pictures before they get overwritten by the next morning’s batch.
Previous to this, I had been placing all these images on FaceBook, but since I own this domain and pay for it, I figured I would start putting them here. So, here we go…
This morning’s very windy sunrise.
And here is an hour and fifteen minute time lapse taken from about 5:30am to just before sunrise.
That little blinky dot in the middle right and rising is Venus.
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear.
The Lord’s strength is more than adequate to bring deliverance to captive Israel and to us today. His ear is attuned to the call of His repentant people. We are His people and can claim Abraham as our Father, just as the Jews do. Let us look at Romans 4 verses 9 to 12:
9 Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, “Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.” 10 How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; 11 and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them, 12 and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.
God always had planned for Gentiles to be included in His Grace and Mercy, to be offered His hand in saving Grace and salvation. The Jews were to be His ambassadors and priests to the world. But the Jews were stiff necked and not accepting of His Son, the Messiah and our Savior.
We must remember that God is always available and fully capable of helping His people. God never moves away from His people, they move away from Him. He hears and answers prayers, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
Who has separated from whom? Has God left us or have we left him? If our prayers are not answered, and the salvation we wait for is not brought unto us, it is not because God is weary of hearing prayer, but because we are weary of praying. If you are persistent in sin, you have in fact caused God to hide His face from you and He will give you up to your sin. As in Romans 1 verses 24 to 25:
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken falsehood, Your tongue mutters wickedness.
It sounds like Romans 1 is the right place to continue. Verses 28 to 32.
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
4 No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly. They trust in confusion and speak lies; They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.
We are puffed up with pride and will do, or say, anything to save face. We will tell a lie, if it will sway the decision for us. We are lost to sin and nothing has changed from then to now. Isaiah is telling his people that their hearts and minds are stayed on evil.
5 They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web; He who eats of their eggs dies, And from that which is crushed a snake breaks forth.
This is speaking of the evil imaginations they hatch in their evil minds. They tell one lie upon another to catch a person in their evil web. Those who associate with them become just as evil as they are. How is it that we think that we can associate with satan and not be affected? And satan quite often comes in the guise of a believer, someone you would trust, who would beguile you with a smooth message that makes sense. Remember what happened with Eve.
6 Their webs will not become clothing, Nor will they cover themselves with their works; Their works are works of iniquity, And an act of violence is in their hands.
They are not weaving material for garments to help someone. They are weaving to trap someone who is unaware, like a spider would. Their works help no one at all. They are works that are useless.
This we have seen in our own society in recent years, that acts of iniquity and violence destroy, they do not build.
7 Their feet run to evil, And they hasten to shed innocent blood; Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, Devastation and destruction are in their highways.
This seems to be taken from Proverbs 1 verse 16:
For their feet run to evil And they hasten to shed blood.
The words focused on the national depravity of Israel that stood in the way of God’s deliverance. Paul showed that what was true of sinful Israel is indicative of the depravity of all mankind; Romans 3 verses 15 to 17:
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
8 They do not know the way of peace, And there is no justice in their tracks; They have made their paths crooked, Whoever treads on them does not know peace.
The way of peace they know not. Neither the way of peace with God, supposing it is to be made by man, and not by Christ; and are ignorant of the steps and methods taken to procure it.
Look closely at our present day and marvel at what was spoken 2600 years ago is so true in our day and time. We who do everything possible to avoid discomfort, boredom and drudgery and are so easily swayed by what the world wants of us in our churches. We have churches that have ordained gay/lesbian clergy, who support Planned Parenthood (63 million abortions), who say they believe the God of the Bible, but not the bible itself. And yet we are so incurious as to even bother to find out any of these things, but willingly sit in the pew and let life slide by.
A Confession of Wickedness
9 Therefore justice is far from us, And righteousness does not overtake us; We hope for light, but behold, darkness, For brightness, but we walk in gloom.
Because we have no regard for justice or honesty, God will not plead our cause against our oppressors; He does not defend our rights, nor avenge our wrongs; as if he had said, If we had executed judgment and equity among one another, they would not now have been far from us.
John 11:10 “But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.”
Jesus says walk in the Light.
John 8:12 “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
The secret to all of this, is repenting and coming to God, so that the Light will guide you.
10 We grope along the wall like blind men, We grope like those who have no eyes; We stumble at midday as in the twilight, Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men.
They have eyes to see, but they do not see. Their sin has blinded them. Their spirit is dead.
11 All of us growl like bears, And moan sadly like doves; We hope for justice, but there is none, For salvation, but it is far from us.
They are in desperate need of a Savior. God could not wait until they, or we, deserved to be saved, because they could not pull themselves out of the darkness. God sent His Son to bring the Light to the world, so that whosoever would could be saved.
When the Light of Jesus shines in your life, it does away with all darkness. They just need Jesus, their Messiah to come and awaken them.
12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And we know our iniquities:
If we shut our eyes against the light of Divine truth, it is just with God to hide from our eyes the things that belong to our peace. The sins of those who profess themselves God’s people, are worse than the sins of others. And the sins of a nation bring public judgments, when not restrained by public justice. Men may murmur under calamities, but nothing will truly profit while they reject Christ and his gospel.
13 Transgressing and denying the Lord, And turning away from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words.
Luke 6:45 “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”
14 Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands far away; For truth has stumbled in the street, And uprightness cannot enter.
With evil men there is no justice. They lie and cheat to get whatever they want. There is no such thing as a fair trial, when you have evil witnesses.
The Lord took it on Himself to change Israel’s condition through the intervention of His Suffering Servant (53:12).
15 Yes, truth is lacking; And he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey. Now the Lord saw, And it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice.
In an environment where evil prevailed, anyone who departed from it became a victim of his environment because he did not fit in.
Those, who are living evil lives, try to destroy anyone who tries to break away and do right. One of the reasons for this is because the evil ones are afraid their evil ways will be found out.
God helps those who try to break away from evil. God will fight on your behalf, if you make a stand for God.
16 And He saw that there was no man, And was astonished that there was no one to intercede; Then His own arm brought salvation to Him, And His righteousness upheld Him.
Not any man came forward to try to straighten this out. It is not known why, but perhaps from fear, no one stepped forward to work for God in this matter. God had sent judges, and prophets, but the evil ones had killed them.
There was no man who would do this, so there had to be the Arm of God to be the Savior. Jesus Christ is the Arm of God. He is the Savior. Jesus was not a man, but was housed in the flesh of man for His stay upon the earth.
He not only had righteousness, He was Righteousness.
17 He put on righteousness like a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing And wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle.
The Lord armed Himself for the deliverance of His people and for taking vengeance on enemies who would seek His destruction. Paul drew on this terminology in describing a believer’s spiritual preparation for warding off the attacks of Satan (Eph. 6:14, 17, 1 Thess. 5:8).
Jesus did not need armor like the kings wore in battle. His armor for His breast was righteousness. He is the Head of the church. He brought salvation to all who would believe. He is the Head; the believers in Christ make up the body.
The only weapon He used was the two-edged sword, which is the Word of God. His sword came from His mouth.
The Bible says that vengeance belongs to God, He will repay. He worked tirelessly, so that all who would believe would be saved. He worked 6 hours on the cross to complete His work on the earth. When the six hours were over, He said, it is finished.
18 According to their deeds, so He will repay, Wrath to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies; To the coastlands He will make recompense.
The judgment is generally against all, in Israel or outside it, who come under this description. The word “islands” is used, as elsewhere, for far-off lands. The words point to every such judgment, from that of Cyrus to the great final day.
Lest we think that judgement here is only for the wayward Jews, I remind all that it is a narrow path that we must choose and all will bend a knee to our King, Lord and Savior.
19 So they will fear the name of the Lord from the west And His glory from the rising of the sun, For He will come like a rushing stream Which the wind of the Lord drives.
Fear could be thought of as reverence to God. The Gentile world will depend on the name of Jesus to save them. This just means when the great armies of the world come against the believers, Jesus will raise a standard against Satan and the world.
20 “A Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” declares the Lord.
Romans 3:30 “Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.”
21 “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from now and forever.”
This is that everlasting covenant that God made with man.
Galatians 3:16 “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”
In Christ we inherit the promises of both Jew and Gentile.
Galatians 3:29 “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
We are to take no thought what we are to say. God will fill us with the correct thing to say, as we need it. He is with us, and in us.
Colossians 1:27 “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:”
Now may the Lord bless you, and keep you;
May the Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you;
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.’
Once again Pastor DelRoy led this Wednesday’s Bible study to finish out his talk on the Rapture and Tribulations. I want to thank DelRoy for all the hard work he did in putting together these two talks, to educate us on a subject that will affect every single one of us. As DelRoy mentions, we are all going to have eternal life. Where we spend it is the question at hand. Along with the audio, we also have two worksheets that he wrote up with all the Bible verses mentioned in both his talks.
This is a goldmine of information from a very experienced Pastor, on a subject that is not always clear to understand. I encourage you to listen to both talks and do some research on your own. Ask the Lord to help you in this study and also ask Him to bless DelRoy for sharing his knowledge.
Kept From – Not Taken Out worksheet is from his Pt 1 talk of last week. He did refer to to it during most of the first half of this talk.
Order of events at End Times was used during the last part of the talk. A very handy list of how the End Times will play out. Get your reserved, all access seat by coming to Christ now. John 3:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For those of you few who only get this post through e-mail, you will not get the audio in your e-mail. You will have to come to this site to hear it.
This being the apple picking season, the majority of ladies that attend Bible Study decided to go apple picking this Wednesday morning. That left us stalwart men, all three of us, with some free time on our hands. And that was good because we just got a new 8 week old Rat Terrier puppy and of the three us in this house, only the puppy is sleeping well.
She, after the second night, has decided that she sleeps with us or she throws a titanic hissy fit. Being she is pretty small yet, and mostly stays still throughout the night, it’s not that bad. The bonus is that this 3 pound pup can hold her bladder all night long. That pretty much seals the deal for me.
You could call that a blessing, which I suppose it is. And as long as we are talking of blessings, let’s continue with another true blessing from our Father. Since we got this house, a 1920 Craftsman style that had fallen on hard times, one of the most obvious things about it is that it was in serious need of paint. Somebody mentioned to me that he knew the guy that painted it last time and that was 20 years ago. The house had been a rental for about 5 years and paint was not as important as the rent coming in on time. Which, from what I heard, it didn’t, so we got the house for cheap and the idea was I would fix it up, like I did last time.
Except things are different now than they were then. I was very self reliant then and did most of the work myself. I had also not fully accepted the Lord, although his Grace was still at work in me. I don’t fully understand it, but even though I had not fully bought into Jesus Christ as my Lord, there were many things that I can think of that could have only been the Grace and Mercy of the Lord and could have turned out much worse if the Lord had been not looking out for me.
What I have come to understand, by reading the Bible, is the Father chooses you, long before you were born, long before the world was born and all you have to do is accept. He gave us free will and we can choose poorly. Many people do. Matthew 7:13-14 13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
I would say I was on the wide path, never denying God, living as I thought I should. The evil deceiver had done his work on me and I was what you would call a Carnal Christian. Many I see today are as I was not that long ago.
So now we have another house to fix up and now I can’t do it. I still have the skill in my head and most of my tools to get the job done, but God is not about having capable people doing things on their own. No, God is about trust in Him. Weakness in you, strength in Him. 2 Corinthians 12:10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
My hands last year could do many things. I had started scraping the house. We actually got 30 feet of the North side of the house scraped and painted before winter.
This year, it is clear that God is in charge. He does not work on our time table and quite often does not work in our ways. As such, yesterday, my brother-in-law showed up with a power washer and tractor with a bucket. I asked what’s up? He said he and others from the Church were going to power wash the house in preparation to get it painted. WOW!
I had been praying for something to happen to get this house ready to sell. It has lots of stairs, and stairs and I are not on the best of terms right now. With the wife’s seizures and the Lord removing from me what He could not use, the self reliance, self confidence, pride and things, it seemed a good time to move to something smaller and flatter. The details of how that is going to come about is something the old me would troubled with until I had everything figured out and scheduled. In the old house, that took about 7 years.
Now, very happily, I will let God tend to the details of our lives. I have lived without worry since accepting Christ on our Father’s terms; I know all things are not mine to know but for our Lord to take care of and I truly feel blessed, in all things. If given a choice again, knowing what I know now, I would happily choose God’s way, including ALS or whatever else He would choose for me. The Blessings outweigh every other thing you would compare it to. Fabulous wealth, strength, whatever, you can keep them. What I have now is the Love of my God and his Son, who died on the cross to save me from the road that I was definitely walking on.
Blessings like this are a gift that you too can have. Not necessarily painting your house, but the internal kind. Read your Bible, find a Church that preaches the scripture, and be aware that not all Churches do. Many of them are walking the wide road that says Heaven, but leads to Hell.
Psalm 145 A psalm of praise. Of David. 1 I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. 2 Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. 3 Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. 4 One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. 5 They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty and I will meditate on your wonderful works. 6 They tell of the power of your awesome works and I will proclaim your great deeds. 7 They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. 8 The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. 9 The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. 10 All your works praise you, Lord; your faithful people extol you. 11 They tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might, 12 so that all people may know of your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. 13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does. 14 The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. 15 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. 16 You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. 17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does. 18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them. 20 The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. 21 My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord. Let every creature praise his holy name for ever and ever.
We had some interesting weather last night. Not something new, or even unexpected, as the weathermen are sure to let you know of the slightest possibility of doom, weeks in advance.
No, just being woke up to the sound of a freight train running you down.
I’ve been around a few tornados in my day and lots of bad weather. I am not saying it was a tornado, but from the sound of it and the banging of the hail on our windows, it seemed probable to me that a tornado was very near by. And the most delightful thing happened. In my mind’s voice I said “I will trust in the Lord to provide.” I sighed deeply, smiled and had not one worry.
I say this not to gloat, only to marvel at the absolute transformation of what I was to what I am now. Which is still nothing, but I would not have had that response in the past. Which causes me to wonder, who or what do you trust?
Since coming to the Lord and I say coming to, because I did not find the Lord, He found me. John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
Serpent in the Garden
Before I accepted Christ and quit rebelling, I would have had a weather radio blaring out a warning, made sure I had my generator and chainsaw fueled up and a clear path to our cave, which we had in Kansas. A marvelously cool place, full of spiders, that liked to drip in heavy rain. But that’s where we went in those days, when I only trusted in myself.
We find in Philippians 4:19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
But there’s something you must do. You must have Faith.
Hebrews 11:6And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Faith which is trust in our Lord. Trust in the Lord to provide, and I do, much to my absolute amazement. From all the wind, thunder and lightning, hail and noise, we accepted the Lord would provide and keep us safe. Or he would take us home. A win win I call it. I understand people’s fear of death, but only if they have not accepted Christ. That truly would be a very frightening idea.
Tomato Damage
We woke to a bit of damage to our tomato garden. Which to my wife’s idea, was a good thing. She’s come to the conclusion that tomatoes are a burden which she no longer enjoys. Oh well. As such, I make the offer to anybody to swing by and harvest our almost ripe tomatoes. And if you know anybody that needs a very nice pressure canner, I can make you a swell deal.
Matthew 15:11 “Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”
It was a beautiful summer weekend. The wife and I arrived, impromptu at a beloved Aunt and Uncles place to connect with family I may have never met before. 27 years on, I am still the New Guy at most of these family gatherings. I do have a valid excuse for not knowing who’s who, as we’ve been out of state for about 20 years.
As the evening wore on, past the re-introductions, guys standing around and asking what you do or did do. And a little while after that, what I knew was coming, the lowering to the lowest common denominator. Jokes, guy jokes.
I have found through 60 years of life as a guy, when we get together, we get stupid. And it doesn’t even require beer. The jokes start and even before I was a Believer, I was uncomfortable.
What was running through my mind was Matthew 15:18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.
They started telling jokes and these were not really bad jokes. But these were family members, that should have known better, and I was standing there, very unhappy with them and myself because I’m standing there not doing anything about it, so I was sharing their sin.
Being new to this, a believer in Christ, I had no tools to speak to these guys where they would listen. Short of calling fire down on their heads, which would cause uncomfortable questions from the wives on what did you do to my husband and over what?
These are mostly Scandinavian stock and not very forgiving as a rule, over simple things like this.
What comes out of your mouth, reflects what is in your heart. One of the first things to change in me was how I talked. I was never real bad but we all tell ourselves the same thing. Once you accept Christ, repent and believe, if you have truly done this, the Holy Spirit will come into you and start making changes. Now, just because the Holy Spirit is in you does not mean you stop sinning, no, but you start sinning less. And if you ask the Holy Spirit to take control of your life, your thoughts and actions, your life starts changing for real.
If you are not feeling a change within you after accepting Christ, ask the Lord what is holding you back. Try this “Oh Heavenly Father, please show me what is holding me back from your blessings, grant me the knowledge of what I need to do to walk within your Will.” Thank HIM and praise HIM for HIS Grace and Mercy. A consistent and earnest prayer of something like this will definitely show you what the problem is. It has shown me in full living color, what exactly is wrong with me and what to do about it.
I am continually surprised at people’s unbelief of the power of Prayer. Our Father wants to hear from you, often, and is more than happy to give what you ask for, as long as it is in line with his Will. What is his Will? Ask HIM. HE wants you to ask.
I have since learned from my Lord what to say and do, but mostly be courageous enough to speak out. The Lord never puts you into a situation that you can’t handle. Ask for courage from our Lord. We all need more of it.
