I HAVE NOTHING BUT...

     I have no will but that of God whose will is good and loving. I have no fear but the fear of God, creator and ruler of all. I have no possessions but that given by God and therefore his to give as pleases him. I have no hate or evil in my spirit for my spirit is from God and God's spirit is filled with love and good. I have no compassion or patience but God has limitless compassion and patience, and, through my faith, God fills my spirit with his compassion and patience. I have no God but the one true God, father of my Lord Jesus Christ. I have nothing without God, but with God I have everything.

     Turn the sun off, drop the moon out of sight at night, do away with manmade electricity, tear my eyes from their sockets, remove fire from the picture but with God I have eternal light.

     Grow the trees and plants through all the highways and roads but my Lord is the way and he has given me a path that will never be overgrown nor impassable as long as I live, and that is forever through faith in him.

     Make unreachable all the food and liquids that nourish my body but I shall not pass away for I am nourished by the love, mercy, and grace of my God who is in a spirit that is eternal and not bound by this physical world.

     I hope you understand that I am made and sustained by God and not by man or his things. So am I free of the fears and stresses of a physical world corrupted by man's lust for power and his greed to possess something that he has no power to possess, God's loving-limitless spirit.

PLANK EYE

     How many times have I looked at other people and been critical of their appearance and/or actions? My, my, my, how perfect I am and qualified to judge others. I went to the doctor and found out I have Plank Eye Disease, a common affliction among mankind and one that Dr. Jesus had a cure for. He said, DON'T JUDGE OTHERS YOU HYPOCRITE. As always, he had diagnosed the problem correctly and prescribed the correct cure. 

      The time I spend judging could be better spent loving. A non-believer commented that the non-judgmental attitude was just common sense. Right, common sense because Jesus said it and made it the rule, not the exception.

      Please, join me in making it a common practice to replace judgment with love. We have enough stress from our bad actions and appearances are subjective. After all, God forgave us and could care less about our appearance. For God, it's all in the spirit, and none of us make a connection with the person's spirit we are judging. Otherwise, we would just love them immediately because they were created with divine love by God.

     A friend of mine who is a retired Minister asked me this question concerning judgment causing me to ponder it for several months before I could write this last paragraph, "We must make judgments of people everyday in order to carry on our lives and businesses. Are we going against God's command? This is the answer I received through pondering and prayer: judging another person for hiring as an employee, to purchase an item from, to vote for in an election, etc is judgment of a person's skills, knowledge, political leanings, etc, whereas Jesus' judgment is of the person as a creation of God who loves them without condition and sees them as worth every effort to save even at the sacrifice of his own son. 

     So you see, the person may perform bad actions, but God separates those actions from the entity of his Holy Spirit that dwells within. We must throw aside our dislike and disapproval of a person's actions to get to the Holy Spirit of God alive within that person and love them for that very indwelling of God's Holy Spirit. Bad or what we call evil cannot destroy God's Spirit, though the evil may hide the spirit from our judging eyes.

   

     According to the Greek definition, sin means that one has missed the mark. All of us miss the mark on a daily basis, but that doesn't destroy God's spirit within us, it merely hides it from our worldly or physical vision. Love without judgment and you will hit the mark and put a smile on God's face and begin the process of whittling away at the facade hiding God's Holy Spirit within the person. In the end, you will be healed of Plank Eye Disease.

LIST OF THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE

THE COMPLETE LIST OF THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE

1) Put on clean underwear

2) Make sure my socks don't have holes in them

My mother was adamant about those two items. I couldn't go anywhere until I had done those two things. It would be devastating if the things people remembered about you were that you died with dirty underwear on and you were wearing a pair of socks with a hole in them. I definitely wouldn't want to be laying there in my casket with all my family and friends walking by saying, "Did you see that? He had dirty underwear on and his socks had a hole in them." How embarrassing would that be?

By the way, I came up with this tidbit due to God telling me the things I am fretting about today aren't worth the energy that I am putting into it. Chill out - God is in charge and taking care of the important things and the small things aren't worth worrying over. So, God replaced the worry with a piece of life's humor. Now, I can start all over in a much more relaxed manner. Thank you, Father.

 

HEAVY LOADS AND SPIRITUAL JOY

     Do not pray for God to lighten your load. Pray for a stronger back. After all, does God not give the heaviest loads to his best children? Every day we should thank God for the honor of the load he places upon our backs, and carry it with joy in our spirit. We do that by keeping our focus on Jesus, not on our load. A sad and depressed face and spirit are a bad witness for Jesus' message of hope.

IF AND THE WAY

     If I had the means and the time to travel all the world, I would take the time to visit with and get to know all I encountered in all the countries around this drop-dead beautiful planet that God created just for us. I would travel through all the Middle East visiting the magnificent historical sites resplendent in their history-laced charm. Of course I wouldn't leave out that mystical land of India in my all-encompassing expedition. Nor would I leave out the vast plains and chilling tundra lands of Russia. Oh, Tibet and China are a must see. Let's not leave out Europe, South America, Greenland, and Africa. Onward to the Outback of Australia and the jungled islands to the north of those Aussies. Antarctica, yes. I would see it all and as many of the world's peoples as God allowed.

     Sadly, in this restless and factionalized world, where brother fights brother and kills over politics, religion, race, etc, it is nigh on impossible to travel through many areas. But if I could find the way and the means, I would get to know and love all the people in this world - just like God, himself. I feel there is good in all people that has been covered over by a lifetime of taught-hate and taught-suspicion. It is no mystery why Christianity when practiced in its true form is the one hope to be the savior of this world with Jesus Christ as our loving ruler.

     On the joyful side, if we give our hearts and love through faith in Jesus Christ, then we are a great beginning for the hope of God for the world's salvation. Let it begin with us through love, forgiveness, example, faith, compassion, empathy, service, and all the many other good commands brought to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us show the world that this life doesn't have to be the end but a loving and glorious beginning through faith. Many say, impossible, but ours is to know that all things are possible through God.

Remember that Jesus told us the greatest commandments of all in Matthew 22:37-40: Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."

     So you see, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if we want to see God's world and visit with his children in order to know and love it and them, we must know that the only way is through the love of and our faith in Jesus Christ and all that he tells us and by his divine example. And Jesus said in John 14:6, ..."I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

How Great Thou Art 

WHERE WAS GOD? STORIES OF HOPE AFTER THE STORM

     You absolutely must see this documentary concerning the F5 tornado that destroyed over 4,000 homes within a few short minutes in Moore, Oklahoma that is on the south side of Oklahoma City, I live on the north side. It is a Christian movie that is exceptional in quality and so moving. watch the trailer. If you have lost children or love ones, watch it. If you want to see God working in the midst of a great tragedy, watch it. You will not regret it. But have a box of tissues handy. It is now available on NETFLIX. The victims answered several very important questions for me concerning God. We do not understand everything within God's will, but we know it is good even though it has the sound and feel of bad during and immediately after...until we see it with a perspective over a long period of time. Just trust God and have faith that all he does is good.

CLICK ON THE LINK FOR THE TRAILER:  WHERE WAS GOD? STORIES OF HOPE AFTER THE STORM