Satan Thought -"It Was Finished!

Satan Thought “It Was Finished”

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last.  And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When the Centurion, was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed his last, He said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:37-39).

Hey Gang:  Do you think all the demons of hell rejoiced and threw a huge bash when Jesus cried out, “It is finished”?  Do you think Satan was busy sending out notices to his hoards that all vacations and all sick leaves were cancelled, and all his imps should assemble at the tomb with strict order to keep Him (Jesus) in the tomb for at least four days?

After thirty-three years of trying, they had finally been victorious.  But had they?  It was a day of rejoicing in the halls of Hades, but Satan knew it would be a short-lived victory; for he knew the prophecies of the Old Testament well. And he knew that this would be yet another “clock cleaning” on his way to his final “clock cleaning” and his date with the Lake of Fire.

I sense there is a growing cockiness growing in the halls of darkness once again.  One might say, with the things that are happening in our world, that Satan is on a roll. But again, I would remind you - Satan knows the battle has already been won! And it is only a matter of WHEN God chooses to send His Son to take back what is rightfully His and place the battered body of one Lucifer in a pit for a thousand years. 

We will soon celebrated Jesus’ Resurrection once again, God’s powerful victory over death.  If that does not get your thumper to thumping, then note this promise: “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, and remain will be a caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore, comfort one another with these words!” (I Thess. 4:16-18)

Wow, what an awesome day it will be when our Jesus we will see!

Blessings -remember after Friday comes Resurrection Sunday!

Gramps  

Eternity, A CLoud and a Harp or Nebby's Fiery Furnace?

“As for the days of your life, they contain seventy years, Or, if due to strength, eighty years.  Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10).

Hey Gang:  Recent poll studies said the greatest problem with advertising is people burn out on repetition, so they spend big bucks finding new ways to sell their products.  I do not think that is restricted to selling Campbells Pork and Beans but also fits many areas of our lives.

So, I ask you, have you burned out on Grampsmorningthoughts?  Is it time for me to get out my trusty recliner - I hate rocking chairs - and pull it up by the fire and get involved in a good book?  Now, I will not know the answer to this survey without your letting me know who the survivors are out there.

As you know I have reached the “older than dirt” plateau in my earthly existence and you can see from the morning Scripture that I am living on borrowed time.  I have found it interesting that, in recent years what hair I have left has turned grey, thoughts of what happens when my thumper quits thumping, is what happens next.   I appreciate Paul’s Philippians 1:21 comment when he said, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain”. 

 

Now understand I am a lousy reader.  When I graduated from High School I read on about a fourth-grade level but then I met and married a school teacher who in the past sixty years has improved my reading skills to about the sixth-grade level.  My problem is I am a word reader and plowing through a book of more than a hundred pages can be an experience in agony and pain. (Kindle for my birthday has improved that – I have read over a dozen books in the last 5 months!)

With that piece of unnecessary information in mind you will understand the miracle that transpired in my life in the last three days.  Our Pastor, in his message, mentioned a tidbit from a book he had read titled Divine Revelation of Hell. That caught my attention.  Not that I plan on spending one iota of one second there!  And do not want that for others. 

When we checked Amazon to see if they had the book we learned the author, Mary K. Baxter, wrote several other books with the Divine Revelation Title, including Divine Revelation of Heaven.   The books gave a living account of her many visits to heaven and hell with Jesus as her guide.  Her mission was to share what she saw and experienced, in her time in hell and heaven.   Soooo, I was immediately hooked and wanted to see what she had to say. 

The miracle? I read both books on my Kindle in three days!  Out of sight!  I was ecstatic to get finished with the Hell rendition, a book that was filled cover to cover with depression and agony and pain.  But what joy it was to read the book describing heaven.  There is no question in my mind, if our Congress passed a law that every person in America had to attend a seminar on these two books, the rapid decline of those who say they believe in nothing would change abruptly.

I am always amazed when I see a person who has been blessed with a wonderful body, a wonderful mind and a wonderful soul with the potential for a wonderful life here on earth and a wonderful eternity with Jesus, literally destroy the perfection that God built into them.     How sad it is when a person with these wonderful attributes rejects all the blessing that God wants to give them and chooses to “go their own way” here and after their life has ended.

So, my friends, would I recommend the books?  Yes, especially the Divine Revelation of Heaven.  When you say, “Father, forgive me for the sins I have committed and turned your life over to Him” the book on hell is not going to add to your Spiritual walk.  Just make sure your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and have your seat reserved at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.

Blessings,

Gramps

P.S.  When it comes to books of folks’ visitations to heaven and hell I have always been a wee bit -no make that very skeptical -but Mary K. Baxter, the author, has been and continues to be a speaker in many venues throughout the world.  But that is not the reason I have accepted her Divine Revelation of Heaven as creditable, I counted 174 Scriptures from 36 books, Old and New Testament that provided Biblical back up for everything she wrote.     

        

What Happens when the Rubber-Hits-The Road?

“For what credit is there if, when you sin (hit your thumb with a hammer) and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience?  But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God” (I Peter 2:20).  “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity” (Eph. 2:26-27).

Hey gang, I have learned in the past two months that these two verses go together.  I have also learned what the person who coined the saying, “if it works, do not fix it”, meant.   I have also learned that I do not have the slightest clue what to do when one of the weird screens comes up on the computer that I have never seen before and has no connection with what I am trying to do! 

If it does not disappear when I re-boot, I am dead in the water until I can call my friendly computer guru or find a six or seven- year- old lad or lassie that knows far more about such things than I will ever know.

When our computer internet and phone provider recently merged with another company and we were advised that we must upgrade our equipment to gain all the wondrous advantages the new company was offering, and the carrot was that it would cost less money and make it much more convenient, it sent shivers down my spine! 

My question to the upgrade describer – how much pain and agony is attached to getting all the bugs worked out and until my level of understanding is acclimated to using the new system?  Oh, no worry!  This is a tested and proven bug free mechanism that even an 83-year-old that does not understand the “For Dummy’s books’, can become proficient within minutes.

After several weeks, and more than twenty hours of listening to a multitude of so called technicians, my bride packed up the entire system and went back to the place it was purchased and announced I do not leave here until this thing is doing what you said it would do. 

Okay, what does that have to do with the Scripture of the day?  First, I thought I had my anger totally under control and could handle about any circumstance.  Wrong!  I wanted to throw the computer down the basement stairs.  I also learned that my patience was not as rock-solid as I thought it was.

Perhaps that is what this whole trip through the wilderness was all about.  I must confess, I did indeed go to bed very angry some nights and I must admit that my patience was at best – tarnished!

The point my young friends, keep in mind the devil waits for his chance to turn your patience control to ‘tilt’ mode and stoke up the anger that you thought you had total control. But I also learned that, if I take a moment or two and say, “Okay, God, if you can’t handle this we are both in trouble”.  He has never failed!

The computer is working fine, my anger has gone underground again waiting for another opportunity to test me and see, if I learned anything from the last time God bailed me out!

Blessings,

Gramps 

Are YOU Something Very Special?

"I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well" (Psa. 139:14).

Hey Gang, As I have traversed through this life on earth, I have grown more amazed daily at the magnificence of God's creation, namely me.  I have been amazed with the unlimited capabilities of the control center that God placed in our heads.  I have read, and heard it said many times, that the average person uses but a tiny bit of that capacity.   Have you ever taken a moment or two just to take a deeper look at the center of your electrical system, your brain? 

God placed this magnificent miracle in each and even person whom He created.  You do believe you were created by God even before time began, don't you?  Paul made this clear in his letter to the Colossians, "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things have been created through Him and for Him" (Col. 1:16).

I woke up this morning with the song "We Shall Behold Him" running through my electrical system.  I wish I could say I always wake up with a song on my heart but that would be an untruth.  But within a few moments the song passed and the challenges of the day became my focus

Now for the goodie of the day, God also gave us the ability to program our electrical systems to bring honor and glory to our Creator.  I have often used the analogy that we have knobs on the inside of our foreheads; these are designed to hang knowledge that God can pull out of us when the need should arise. 

Here is a question for you to ponder this morning?  Can God pull out of you knowledge that you never put in?  Oh, I know the God is all powerful and can do as He pleases but do you think He might depend on you to put into your brain those things that He can pull out when you get in a bind? 

I do believe that is what Paul was talking about in his letter to the Romans when he wrote, "I urge you, brethren by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship."   That is the principle, now he gives the application "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom. 12:1-2). 

So, good and faithful believers in Yeshua, your task for the day is take a few minutes and hang a new piece of knowledge on one of those knobs in your head that God can use to mold you into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. He gave you 66 books to help you learn to know Him better.

Blessings,  

Gramps

Time To Take a Serious Peek!

"Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming, If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him." (I John 29; read also 3:1-9).

Hey Gang:  Read that verse again.  John says, "Abide in Him" always, so that when He appears we do not have to shrink into the shadows because of the things we have been doing with our lives.  In essence, John is saying, that when we claim we are children of God, we need to look a heap different than when we were without Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

There is no greater miracle in the world than to see a drunk from skid row suddenly come to the realization that there is a God who loves them and stands ready to fix and restore the life and even use them to His glory.  But there is a prerequisite – repentance with a sincere heart.

His life was a mess.  He had drunk away his family, his home and business and his health- but one day when he was on his back in a gutter with an empty bottle- God spoke to him, “Harold, I have something I want you to do for me.  I want you to get up out of the gutter, clean yourself up and prepare to go into all the land and preach My Word”.  The transform-ing power of God reached deep into his gizzard and he became a powerful man of God to those who also found themselves in the gutters of this world, and many more  

In this passage of Scripture John gives us a panoramic view of what it is like to be a child of God fully engrained in the family of God; we need to take a peek at this passage, periodically, to check our commitment level to Yeshua.   In verse 2:29 John tells us that we should be ‘confident and content in our walk with God.’  Are you confident and content this morning?

In verse 3:1 John tells us ‘we should enjoy God's love.’  In essence God says, "I claim you".  Notice in verse two He says, "Beloved , now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be ."  Is it not awesome and sometimes a wee bit hard to totally comprehend? God said, "You are my body, my family, I call you my children"?

It would have been nice, if John would have put a period at the end of this verse and left it there, but he did not.  He went on to say, "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His Seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (verse 9). 

So, I believe the key word here is "practices".  Do we sin? Yes, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23); however, practicing sin is a horse of a different color. Is Jesus your label or your LORD?

Blessings,

Gramps

Is Humility Obsolete in the Day and Age?

The Sword of the Lord clearly tells me to, “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.   Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:5c-7). 

Hey Gang:  Jonathan Edwards wrote:  Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility.  He went on and said, “When we have the courage to see ourselves as we really are, we cannot help but realize how very weak and needy we are and how much we need God in our lives.”

It is once again time for the politicians to fill the airways with all the wonderful things they have done and, if reelected, will do in the future.  I sense, if one were to bar the words “I” and “me” from their rhetoric, most would be dumb founded as to what to say. I do believe that, if a brave hearted soul were to open a store in the Belt Way selling humility, they would soon find themselves in bankruptcy court.

In his book Humility, the Beauty of Holiness Andrew Murray defines humility as a ‘place of entire dependence on God.  Pride is the loss of humility and is the root of every sin and evil’. It is a place of quietness of heart.   In other words when we allow pride to take over the control mechanism in our hearts we have chosen to “go our own way”.  

Murray went on to say that, if a person wants to be like Christ, then humility will be their primary characteristic.  Jesus said, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.   For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”  (Mathew 11:29-30).

In Matthew 5:5 Jesus gives us the opposite of pride: “Blessed are the gentle (meek), for they shall inherit the earth”.  I always thought piety would be the highest standard when measuring a Christ like person but Jesus calls on His children to take on humility as we place our total dependence on Him.

Now, hear this, after researching the word humility, I find there is a needed ingredient to implementing humility, that being thankfulness.  I have learned that folks who tend to be pride- bitten demand certain things where humble people accept with gratitude what the Father allows.  Notice Luke’s words: “For everyone (no acceptions) who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (14:11).

So, my friends and neighbors, as you traverse through this day, open your mouth and sing this little ditty, “If you want to be great in God’s kingdom learn be a servant of God” and make sure you fill your platter this day with “humble pie” and exalted by the Lord.

Blessings,

Gramps

Question? Can You Be?

“How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.  Nor stand in the path of sinner, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!  But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.” (Psalms 1:1-2).

Hey Gang:  Time to put your thinking hats on.  Time to lay your cellphone down and do some serious thinking.  The Question :- Was David different? He certainly had some deep flaws in his behaviors.   Did God not say, “He was a man after God’s heart”?  Why did God say that?  Can you or I be a ‘person’ after God’s own heart? Was that changed when Jesus said, “I must go so that I can send a comforter that will be with you always?”

Was he different than you or me?  I think not.  So, how did he become so special in God’s eyes?  As I was thinking about this question, the Scripture of today came to mind, especially the last part “And in His law he meditates (meaning deep thinking) day and night.” 

Now, let’ lay some foundation for deep thinking or meditating.  As a boy David was a shepherd.  If you were in the wilderness with a flock of sheep, there is not much that can distract.  In other words, he had somewhat of an advantage over you and me -  No cell phones, television, automobiles, a thousand distractions with new ones coming by the hour. 

In Psalm 8:4 we find David asking the question, “What is man that You take thought of him?” Would you agree that is a pretty deep subject?  It would be worthy of your time to read Psalm 8 every day until it penetrates deep into your soul.

The point:  One can tell from his Psalms that David was a deep meditator.   Now for another question to ponder, when was the last time you really, I mean really meditated on God’s word?  When was the last time you cried out, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The Moon, and the stars, which You have ordained”?

In Psalm 57 we find David in a cave hiding from Saul, who was bent on killing him. In the midst of his trial he cried out to God, “Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me, For my soul takes refuge in You.  And in the shadow of Your wings I will take refuge until destruction passes by” (vs, 1-2). 

Soooo, my young friends, let me close with another question?  Do you want to know God better? Then do as David did - put the sheep to bed and get alone with Him, look into the heavens and see the magnificent display of God’s glory and majesty in the thousands of stars.  Keep in mind He knows each one by name and, I have wonderful news for you, He knows every hair on your head. And He wants to have a chat with you, but He wants your undivided attention!  Was David special, yes, I believe he was, but not any more special than you.

Blessings,

Gramps 

Do You Have Trust? Where Is It Focused?

 The Lord appeared to Abraham one day and gave him an incredible command: “Go forth from your country, and from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you” (Gen. 12:1).  What would you say, if God said that to you?

 What an amazing experience!  Suddenly, God picked out a man and told him. “I want you to get up and go, leaving everything behind: your home, your relatives, even your country.  I want to send you someplace and I will direct you how to get there along the way.”

 And even more amazing is -“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went” (Heb. 11:8).

What was God up to?  Why would He search the nations for one man, and then call him to forsake everything and go on a journey with no map, no pre-conceived direction, no known destination?   Think about what God was asking of Abraham.   He never showed him how he would feed or support his family, nor did He tell him how far to go or when he would arrive. 

He said: “Go, and “I will show you the way.”  Is that not an incredible story?  In essence He said:

“From this day on, I want you to give me all your tomorrows.  You are to live the rest of your life putting your future into my hands, one day at a time.  I’m asking you to commit your life to a promise that I am making to you, Abraham.  If you will commit to do this, I will bless you, guide you, and lead you to a place your never imagined”.

The place where God wanted to lead Abraham is a place he wants to take every member of Christ’s body.  Abraham is what Bible scholars call a “Pattern Man,” ie., someone who  serves as an example of how to walk before the Lord.  And Abraham’s example shows us what is required of all who would seek to please God.

Make no mistake, Abraham was not a young man when God called him to make this commitment.  He was already married and Moses said  age 75 when he left Harran (Gen 12:4), He probably had plans in place to one day turn the sheep and goats over to the kids and join the elders at the town square. 

Was it an easy decision?  I think not.  He had to be concerned over many considerations as he weighed God’s call.  It would mean separating his family, from their relatives and friends, and having to trust God completely to provide for them all.  Yet Abraham, “…believed in the Lord; and (God) counted it to him for righteousness” (Gen 15:6).

The apostle Paul tells us that all who believe and trust in Christ are the children of Abraham.  In short, we’re a people who please God by trusting him.  And like Abraham, we are counted as righteous because we heed the same call to entrust all our tomorrows into the Lord’s hands.

 Jesus also calls us to this way of living: giving no thought about tomorrow and putting our future into his hands. 

I love the story of Abraham because I can identify with him.  God said to the Hainley family of Concord, California, “Sell your house, all of your possessions, quit your jobs, and move to Michigan where I have a work for you.”  Even though He had send a young man into my life that placed a compulsion in my heart to do something to reach out the hurting children and families, making a move that that magnitude with four little ones required an “act of the will”. 

When I asked “Why, Lord, did you choose me, His answer was “because you were obedient”.  The marines have an advertisement: “We need a few good men”.  Are you a good man or woman?  Jesus said, “Come and I will make you a fisher of men!”  (Mark 4:19).     

Blessings,

Gramps