For my Son and Daughter in Law and Anyone Faced with Adversity

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
 

1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV

      It is difficult to see clearly God's love and ask him for help when we or our loved ones are afflicted by circumstances or blights common to man.  These things seem daunting and beyond control at first.  Let our first reaction always be prayer.  First ask for a stronger back to bear the burden.  Follow that by asking for His wisdom and courage to overcome these afflictions.     

     If you pray for help and do not have faith that you will receive it, then why are you disillusioned when you do not receive it?  Is not faith the key to the door of Christianity.  Therefore pray with faith that your prayers will be answered and they shall.  Is it not written that God, our Father, knows everything in our hearts before we pray it?  Have faith.

     Do you think God as our Father would let his children experience unending suffering when they reach out to him in faith through prayer for something we really need to carry out his will and glorify his name?  Unequivocally, no.  

     "Have faith in God," Jesus answered.  "Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.  Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."

Mark 11:22-25 NIV

     "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him"

Matthew 6:5-8 NIV

Faith and Faithfulness

love and faithfulness meet together;

righteousness and peace kiss each other.

Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,

and righteousness looks down from heaven.

The Lord will indeed give what is good,

and our land will yield its harvest.

Righteousness goes before him

and prepares the way for his steps.

Psalm 85:1-13 NIV

     Oh, Lord...why are we so blind, so self-directed?  Why do we see and interpret your ways, your words only in ways aimed at our needs, our wishes?  Is it the light we read by?  Is this the light of technology, of greed?  Perhaps, we read by the eyes and not the heart, the holy spirit.

 

     Forgive me, Lord.  To say to you that at all times and all of us see and interpret your ways, your words in the poor light of self would be to ignore those divine instances when the inspired and dazzling light of your holy spirit overcomes all self and causes all around to bow down face to the ground to worship your all loving and heavenly magnificence.

     To see a person stop and bow down on their hurried way to go eye to eye with a small child and simply look into their eyes and stoke their hair with that otherworldly glow in their eyes...I know it's you in there.

     To see a person rush into a burning house to rescue an elderly person they know not...I know it's you inside them. 

     Oh, my dear, dear Lord help us to know you, to love you, to follow you.  Please, Lord help us to know and pursue the exaltation that comes only from serving you.  Help us to clear the clutter from around your holy spirit within.  Help us to put on our new selves.  Please, Lord touch our eyes that they may be healed, our hearts that they may feel, our fires that they may be rekindled.  Give us that faith and that faithfulness needed to know and serve you.  Let us wake to your holy touch upon our hearts.

Do We Believe or Not?

     I sat watching TV.  A reporter was narrating the story of a man on Death Row for the heinous crime of murdering a mother and the unborn baby inside her womb.  How I hated.  I had thoughts of killing the man myself.  The man was getting what he deserved...death.  The reporter altered the story a bit by injecting his professed conversion to Christianity.  Right, he is using that to impress the judge for commutation of the ultimate sentence by man's judicial system.  Kill him...the liar.  The family of the murdered mother was unforgiving and skeptical to say the least.

     As a Christian, I was scoring high marks with our Lord.  That is why he sent this thought crashing like a lightning bolt into my brain; Acts 22:19-20 NIV.

     "'Lord,' I replied, 'these people know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you.  And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.' ..."

     Hmmm...Paul, one of our beloved disciples, was used and loved by our Lord after committing such heinous acts upon our early Christian Saints.  How our holy book, the Bible, is filled with stories of those redeemed from the darkness to be used to carry out the will of our Father.  The power of these stories like Paul's can be life-changing. 

     It comes down to this: do we believe or not?  If God the Lord and Creator of all forgives and loves, who are we to judge?  Our Father judges by a person's entire life not just a few or even  most of his acts.  It is what a man ends as...not what he was. 

     I can condemn and hate the act, but not the man.  It is our command to love the least, the worst.  It is our command to let God be the judge for only he truly knows what is in one's heart and what one has gone through to become that which he is.  Only our Father knows if that man's conversion is real, is pure.  Let us love him and support his conversion.   

     It is tough to do these things.  It takes practice.  If this love and non-judgment thing is not becoming easier or more reflexive, then we are not practicing.  Step out and separate yourself from shallow Sunday Christians.  Whew, it is tough my brothers and sisters in Christ.  Do we believe or not?

With Faith There Is Hope

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Psalm 42:5 

     Take heart you troubled souls for the Lord, our God, hears every prayer his faithful utter whether in silence or out loud.  He never leaves us without hope nor without answers and guidance.  Pray with assurance that He hears and takes action for you are praying not to some caricatured inanimate idol.  You are praying to our living God whom is Lord over all.  As our Father, he is greatly affected by pleas from suffering.  As our Father, he is greatly affected by our love and praise of him.  You can always have hope and confidence when you serve the one and almighty God, our Father, through his son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  With God, the lowest of his sheep are as important as the mightiest.  With faith, there is hope.