Category Archives: Day to Day

All Glory to God the Father

Let us turn to Isaiah 59

Separation from God

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. 

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 11:6 And 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. 

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.

Followers of the Way–“and [Saul who became Paul] asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem,” (Acts 9:2)

I believe a re-introduction is in order here. I am sure you’ve noticed a bit of a change in decoration and content and that’s pretty much what’s happened with me also. The old content and the old me, deleted. Like Paul in Philippians 3:8-10, everything I was, counts for naught. I think GOD had decided, probably some time back before the Earth was formed, that when we moved back home to Minnesota, it was time for me to quit fooling around like I was in control of my life, Hah! In Kansas, living out on the prairie and not too close to anything, we had to do for ourselves.

Back in Aug 2015, I quit my job with the School District my wife and I worked for and went to work fixing up our 1878 stone house, It had not been well taken care of since around the end of the 1930’s, and when we got it, windows and doors were falling apart, plumbing was piecemeal and slow and the electrical, which was from 1950 when it was put in, was down right dangerous. I have always been able to learn from books, video or just plain watching somebody. In fact, I was quite proud of that “self learned” approach. I was able to watch Youtube and learned how to plumb, wire, weld and build furniture, anything really. And the house and property needed every bit of it.

Spiritually, I was a wasteland of self deception, denial and rebellion. I grew up a Lutheran, going to Sunday School, Confirmation and Church every Sunday. I’d have to say it didn’t stick to me. I did not go to College but continued learning on my own and was very interested in Science and History. And I would have to say that is where doubt really entered my mind. Satan just has to knock you off course a degree or 2, a whisper here, a nudge there and the next thing you know, you’re on the wide path to Damnation, along with all your neighbors. There were hints here and there that GOD was still interested in me. The fact that I am still alive after doing so many stupid things, says we have a most merciful GOD indeed.

It took 2 years to get everything done, and I’d say that in the last 6 months of that hectic time, I had noticed something was wrong. I have always been strong, able to do whatever I needed to do, and now my feet were not acting right. I did not seem to be able to control my ankles, so my feet were kinda slapping the ground when I walked. And my right hand was feeling just a little weak. But I was so busy getting the house ready to sell, I didn’t have time to worry about being a little tired in spots.

The house and property did for us what we needed it to do. We ended up selling it the first day, for cash, Grace again, and then it was a rush to get packed up and out of there. We ended up in Minnesota, where my wife and I grew up, around the end of September 2017. My wife’s Mother, Sister and her husband lived in the small town of Grove City. We were graciously invited to bunk up at her Sister’s place until we found a place of our own. My Sister in law and Husband are the salt of the earth people and good solid Christians to boot. In fact, my wife’s entire large family would be characterized the same way. Good solid Christians.

It was about this time, GOD started applying a bit more persuasion to me, placing me in a home with these two Baptists. Sure, we went to Church with them and all that, but I was not done being my honorary stiff necked Jew quite yet.

We ended up buying a house, from my wife’s nephew, about a block and a half from her Mother’s and her Sister’s places. The whole town is about 4 or 5 blocks square, so that’s not saying much.
I went to the Dr and complained that my feet and hands were not working right. He poo pooed me and sent me home. I went back a few months later, and was a quite a bit more insistent. He scheduled me to see a Neurologist in Willmar, a town about 19 miles to our West. The catch with the Neurologist was it would take 3 months to get in to see him. Busy man apparently. This is where GOD’s Grace drops into the scene like it’s all a big happy coincidence, and the amazing thing is I was not done rebelling yet. The cool thing I have learned about GOD is, if HE wants you, you’er gonna get got.

The receptionist from the Neurologist called again and said she had an opening, for the next day, bright and early. We then spent the next 3 days with the Dr. probing, spinal tapping which is my all time favorite, MRI’ing and his prognosis was CMT, which is 3 Doctors names (that I can never remember) for a disease that weakens the extremities in older people. He wasn’t ruling out anything more serious without some more testing. The Dr. called the next week and told me that he found protein in my spinal column which should not be there and that’s not good news. By this time I had come to the conclusion that it was ALS. How did I know that? Well, my Mom died from it and her Father died from it. I am pretty good at seeing the handwriting on the wall and that’s what I came up with. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. Everything from I’m too young to die, wah!, to I have many more things I want to do and this is not fair. Of course not, it was only Spring, ya whiner. Everybody know the fair comes at the end of summer. The whole while GOD has got his hand out, offering it to me. But the scales were still on my eyes.

The Neurologist offered me a plan to reverse the CMT with infusions of Hemoglobin which has to be done 2 days in a row, every 2 weeks. The process takes up to 7 hours to complete, with you sitting there, sitting there watching it drip, drip, drip slowly into your arm. And you feel miserable after you get home. It has to do with it being millions of bits of other people coming into your body and sometimes producing hives and labored breathing. I did 3 sessions of that, and got to watch other people coming in to get their chemo treatments. And see the pity in their eyes cast at me, thinking I was getting chemo too. That was a very educational experience. He called off the treatment by the end of June as no improvement was noted. I was starting to come around to the idea of accepting GOD and maybe the earth was created 6752 years ago, on a Tuesday.

It’s now late July 2018 and one night my wife woke me up because she was having a very bad seizure. She’s never had a seizure before and I was pretty dang sure I could not handle this on my own. Ended up with about 20 people in the house trying to get her in the ambulance. I called my Brother in law and shakily asked to come over and he did. My next door neighbor Pete, walked over at the same time. Pete was the Pastor of the Baptist Church we had been going to and an all around great guy. Pete, my Brother in Law and I went to the Hospital and I am not sure if it was then or exactly when, but I had totally bought into GOD’s program, hook, line and sinker. We got my wife home, went back to sleep and she promptly had another seizure, not as bad. So she ends up going to the same Neurologist I am seeing. Next, they find a brain tumor in her head when she got an MRI because of the seizures. By this time I am ready to grow a beard, get some cardboard and go down to the Highway, waving the REPENT SINNER, THE END IS NIGH sign at all who drive by.

Turns out this long story has a happy ending. I finally grasped GOD’s outstretched hand, just in time, too. I found out I do have ALS and it really does not matter to me anymore. What does matter is that I did accept Christ as my Savior, I read the Bible for the first time and now I am leading Wednesday Bible Study, which Pastor Pete used to lead but he was called to Northern Minnesota to minister up there. Pastor Delroy was then our Shepard and has since decided to take the summer off and I got the nod. Funny thing, Pastor Delroy still comes to Bible Study, I guess he meant he didn’t want to work this summer, and is now making noises like maybe I should just keep doing it. I guess it’s a good thing I like to learn and love history.

There are many lessons to be drawn from this. You are never so lost that GOD cannot find you. Our GOD is a patient, loving GOD. Our sins have been forgiven when you accept Christ, however, you need to do some forgiving too.
Matt 6:14-15
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,

15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

And this is important, not for your Salvation, but to receive GOD’s Blessings like Faith, Discernment and just about any other thing that GOD wants to give you. And you will be disciplined as a Father always disciplines a child of HIS when they err, but that’s a whole lot better than eternal darkness and torment in a lake of fire, without the love of Christ.

My wife accepted Christ back in ’84 and had been patiently tapping her fingers, waiting for me. Now, as of last week, we have been baptized and joined the Baptist Church. I also have been blessed to speak boldly for the Lord in Bible Study, which is a very big surprise to me. My ALS is proceeding in that I can’t do much with my hands and walking is difficult. My breathing and swallowing are not affected. And once again, I will let Paul speak for me. This is from 2 Corinthians 12 and it will start out mid verse 7.

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 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.

Blessed again, to use my mouth for the Lord. It will be a bit of a challenge to walk down to the Highway with my REPENT SINNERS sign, but if GOD wants me to do it, I will get there. Be sure to wave if you see a wild eyed man waving a cardboard sign on the corner of 2nd street and Highway 12, Grove City.

Psalm 23:6

Of late there is a saying floating around “Are you tired of winning yet?”, with GOD it’s “Are you tired of his Blessings yet?” GOD will provide, you just have to ask. I leave you with this from Charles Spurgeon:

Our heavenly Banker delights to cash his own notes. Never let the promise rust. Draw the word of promise out of its sheath and use it with holy violence. Think not that God will be troubled by your importunately reminding him of his promises. He loves to hear the loud outcries of needy souls. It is his delight to bestow favors. He is more ready to hear than you are to ask. The sun is not weary of shining, nor the fountain of flowing. It is God’s nature to keep his promises; therefore go at once to the throne with, “Do as you have said.”

Yesterday at our Wednesday Bible Study, we discussed George Muller, a man who took GOD at his word. Our Lord said in Matt 21:22 “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

George never took a salary or a loan or a mortgage and yet built 5 orphanages and fed thousands of orphans. This is a story from George Muller’s journal about receiving Daily Bread.

One morning, all the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. There was no food in the larder and no money to buy food. The children were standing, waiting for their morning meal, when Müller said, “Children, you know we must be in time for school.” Then lifting up his hands he prayed, “Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat.”
There was a knock at the door. The baker stood there, and said, “Mr. Müller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2 a.m. and baked some fresh bread, and have brought it.”
Mr. Müller thanked the baker, and no sooner had he left, when there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage, and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he could empty his wagon and repair it.

And that’s how Mr Muller’s life ran, every day, Faith that GOD would provide.
I thank Josh, our Pastor, for bringing this guy to my attention last Sunday. So, I asked our group what would it take to have that kind of faith, to trust our Lord to provide for our needs, just like it says in the Bible. I noticed a lot of far away looks for a few moments.

With faith as small as a mustard seed, the scripture says you can move mountains.
Matt 17:20
20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

First things first. Do you believe in Christ? If not, take this first step and pray to GOD, asking him for his presence in your life. That would be your first act of Faith. If you are honest with yourself and GOD, HE will lead you to more information and people that will help you.