Surprise -God Answers in Unexpected Ways

 Tuesday, March 27, 2012

 “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. (I John 3:1-3)

Hey gang:  The sun is out bright, the birds are singing their morning songs, and we even have a resident squirrel that seems to have adopted us.  So, I asked Abba Father to give me something that is light and beautiful for you this morning.  Is there anything more beautiful than to know we are being conformed into the image of His Son? 

One of the very profound statements that the underground pastor made in chapel while we were at VOM was, “What a wondrous revelation it was to learn that I am an ambassador of Christ and God will hone me on His wheel of adversity until I am like Him”.  Does that get your corpuscles to corpuscle?  

One of the very neat parts of serving as a volunteer for Voice of Martyrs is the televisions are there primarily to review the many tapes about persecution around the world.  They are not equipped with outside antennas so getting the evening news is not an option.  On returning to the mission field- the outside world- I turned to the evening news and learned nothing had changed.  It was as if I had just turned the news off from yesterday instead of five weeks ago.

And the results were the same, my blood pressure began to rise and a sense of sadness and depression resurfaced.  How many know that God responds to our down times, if we seek Him to do so.  On Sunday morning it was a damp and rainy day.  I felt like I had been hit by a semi loaded with sharp needles.  The bride-of-my-youth has taught me that I will not feel any worse in church than I do at home, so I trucked off to church. 

And Abba Father was faithful in answering my scream for “help”.  My very favorite hymn is “Jesus Loves Me, this I know”.  Now I ask you, when was the last time you heard someone sing or play Jesus Loves me in a church service? But the pianist had chosen to play a fabulous rendition of Jesus Loves Me and I so enjoyed  whispering those words, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so!.”  

Was there instant healing.  No, but I knew that my heavenly Daddy knew the pain I was feeling and sent me a clear message that He was aware of my struggle and sent His assurance that He would never leave me or forsake me through this, my very favorite song.   

Soooo, my young friends, be advised God stands ready to meet you at the point of your need and, if you ask Him, He will provide a new song for your heart or one of the very good oldies that has impacted on your life many times before. 

Blessings,

Gramps

Words Have Power!

 

Monday, February 26, 2018

“And He was saying to them, “Take care what you listen to.  By your standard-of-measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides.  For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him” (Mark 4:24-25).

Hey Gang: Are there any Rooster Cogburn fans out there?  Rooster had two very serious problems, one, he tended to like to take more than a nip on his jug, which loosened his tongue, and tended to keep him in deep water with his traveling companion, Kathryn Hepburn, a missionary traveling with him who acted as his conscience.

Once when he was especially boisterous, she related the following ditty to Rooster, “A wise old owl lived in an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard, Why can’t we all be like that bird?”  There is an old Dutch adage that says the same thing in a different way; “It is best to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt”. 

Jesus gave a stern warning when He said, “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak; they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.  For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt. 12:36).

Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians put it this way, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear” (Eph. 4:29)

Solomon, a man filled with the wisdom of God wrote, “Words from the mouth of a wise man are gracious, while the lips of a fool consume him” (Ecc. 10:12).

Our challenge for the day, as we put on the full armor and head out into the mission field, should be “Let the words (every word) of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer” (Psa. 19:14).

So, my young friends, what words will you utter today?  Will they be words that bring honor to your heavenly Father?  As the old hillbilly once said, “Choose your words wisely for you may have to eat them.”

Blessings,

Gramps

Amish Proverb: “An unkind remark is like a killing frost – no matter how much it warms up, the damage is already done.’

God's Perfect Will For His Children

 

Monday, February 15, 2016

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:14-19).

 Hey Gang:  I have gained a special interest in heaven in the last few years.  When you are older-than- dirt your thoughts do tend to want to know what is beyond the veil.  I really get excited when I read that Jesus is going to come on a white stallion and call His children up to meet Him in the air.  I get even more excited when I read that we will then go, as part of the bride of Christ, and be wed to the bridegroom at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

 As I thought about that glorious day, my mind turned to another glorious day more than 58 years ago, when I stood at the altar of the Eagle Church of God and saw the pearl-of- great-price who would soon be my bride.  It saddens my heart when I see what has happened to God’s formula for marriage. 

 I do not believe that God created anything that was not perfect in every way including when he created man and woman and said, ‘leave your parents and become yoked together in covenant relationship with each other.’  And then He added, “What is put together under covenant, Let it never be put asunder.”

 Valentine’s Day has rolled around once again, and we have searched for just the right card to say what we cannot say in person.  The tragedy of depending on a card to convey our feelings is they end up in the trashcan much like many marriages.

 Did you know that Satan hates marriage?  He hates for people to love each other and will do anything that you allow him to do, to destroy it.    If we do not have the love of God in our heart, we, and our marriage, is like a sitting duck with a huge bull’s eye on our back; all the ingredients for a successful marriage are found in Jesus.  (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal; 5:22-23).

 God’s formula for a perfect marriage:  “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment and the one who fears is not perfected in love.  We love because He first loved us.” (I John 4:18-19).   

 “Beloved let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 Jn. 4:7-8).

 “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity” (Col. 3:14).  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us and our marriage from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Rom. 8:38-39).

 Do you want to give your wife a very special valentine this extended Valentine Day?  I mean even you macho guys?  Sit down in the quiet of the evening after the kids are tucked away in their beds and read to her, and her to him, the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians 13.   Note verse 8, “Love never fails, all else may fail but love never fails.”  That my friends works every day – we truly do reap what we sow! And that we can take to the bank.

Blessings,

Gramps

This IS Eternal Life, That They May Know You -John 17:3

 

Thursday, February 16, 2012

 

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life”  (John 5:39-40).  Hey Gang:  in the last gramps morning thoughts I shared the deep desire of my heart is to sit at the feet of Jesus just as Mary did.  I asked the question of each of you “Have you ever had a yearning so deep that it filled your every thought."  I pray you have given that question your undivided attention.  But those who know me also know that I am not one who leaves unanswered questions lying dormant in my dome of intellect.  I do not believe God would have me seek such an experience while here on earth without making provision for me to have the desire of my heart fulfilled.   How many know that God does indeed work in mysterious ways.  I just happened to open a book that I have been wading through to the chapter titled “The Undivided Life” and I believe I have found God’s formula for sitting at the feet of Jesus, even now while I am an earthbound homo-sapien.  Ortberg begins by saying you can be a Bible attacker, where the challenge is to read through the Bible from cover to cover.  He warns that to be filled with the knowledge about the Bible but to be unwashed by it, is worse than not knowing it at all.  It can give us a false sense of security.  Have you ever come face to face with a Bible thumper who could quote Scriptures that fit every subject but when one looks at the fruits of their lives?  There is a melt down between what they are saying and the fruits they are producing in their lives.   Now hear me, he was not putting down reading the Bible through or even reading large portions of Scripture in rapid fire motion.  But what he was saying is, speed reading is not meditation on the Word and will not lead to growing in the Lord.  His suggestion, take a passage and first seek the Lord’s guidance and wisdom to understand and grow in the Lord through that passage.   Ask Him, “Lord what do you want to say to me in this moment?”  Keep in mind the Bible is God’s love letter to His children and, to get the depth out of what He is saying, we must consume it like a love letter.  Keep in mind, the goal is not to get through the Scriptures but to get the Scriptures through us.  The Psalmist says that sitting at the feet of Jesus comes to the person who meditates on the law ‘day and night’ (Psa. 1:2).  Keep in mind meditation is a slow process that requires allowing God’s thoughts and words to seep deep into our souls.  Soooo friends and neighbors, do you want to sit at the feet of Jesus?   Then “Be still and know that He is God” (Psa. 46:10).  Remember, the word that God speaks to us can renew our mind, but we must be silent and receive it.  Blessings, Gramps  Gramps