Jesus, the Greatest Gift of All TIme- But What is the Second Greatest Gift?

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

“So he drove the man out; and at the east of the Garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way o the tree of life” (Genesis3:24).

 Hey Gang:   There is no question the great gift of all time given to us by our Lord is “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).   But, as I was standing by the bed of my brother who had suffered with Alzheimer’s for many years; I realized what a tremendous gift God gave to us when He placed cherubim with flaming swords at the gate to the Garden of Eden to prevent our having access to the ‘tree of life’.   

 When I received the phone call from my daughter that my father had had a series of strokes and was not expected to live the night, I was in Illinois doing a workshop.  I gave her an impossible task: keep him alive until I get home so that I can say goodbye.   This she did, he was there in bodily form only, and as I took his hands and said my goodbyes to him, I closed my goodbye by giving him my blessings to leave earthly body and go and be with the Lord. 

 My father was 90; my brother was 86 years of age, both had lived beyond the words of the Psalmist, “As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or, if due to strength, eighty years” (Psalm 90: 10).  For more than a year my prayer for my brother was “Lord. I pray Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, and I pray that Your will is to take him home.” What a blessing that he did not have to lay in that condition until Jesus returns! Garden of

 As a lad growing up I had a great fear of death.  I lost three of my grandparents within a short period of time and an aunt to a fire.  It was during the time when our nation was locked into a world war, where death was ever present. Many families changed the color of the stars that hung in their windows which depicted whether their son or daughter was alive and or had paid the ultimate price.

 I grew up with the feeling that death and funerals were very sad events ,and one should do as the Jewish traditions called for- bringing in the mourners who wailed and cried out for days in memory of one who passed away.   I remember when my grandfather passed away, the elderly ladies of the church, all dressed in black came and just sat in the house for the three days until the funeral.  As a little boy, death was a terrifying event.

 But then one day the father of one of my employees passed away and I went to the funeral home to pay my respects to the family and was absolutely amazed when I walked in. The air was filled with praise music, people were singing and the building was filed with joy.  It was at that moment that it finally struck home - all of those verses that give us descriptions and promises that await for God’s people who have completed their tenure here on earth and have been invited to come and be with Him eternally.

 Soooo,  my young friends if you have a fear of death, reread the fringe package that God has prepared for those who love Him and called according to His purposes.  There is a lot of running and leaping and praising God going on in the heavenlies.  I also understand it is a noisy place, the air is filed with praise and worship to our Lord.

 Blessings, Gramps

 PS from Gma: If you want to be blessed and excited about Heaven, read Imagine the God of Heaven  by John Burke. 

 

God Wants to Do Something Special Through You Today!

 

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

 “You will know them by their fruits…..’ So every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears no fruit.  A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16-20).

 Hey Gang  Our Sunday School Teacher began his lessons by showing us a drawing of how folks grow in doctrine.  Kind of like the question, “How does one eat a fifty-pound piece of Swiss cheese? One bite at a time!  His point: learning doctrine, or anything else for that matter, is a growth process where we progress up the ladder to the pinnacle of understanding as we learn about or experience the various attributes of the doctrine.

 Years ago I was privileged to sit under the teaching of an old country preacher by the name of Judson Cornwall.   On that particular night he was teaching about growth and commitment and used an analogy that has stuck in my brain ever since.  He said: “For many folks, growth in the Body of Christ is seen as climbing a tree; when one reaches the first limb, they settle in and become comfortable. Believing this is the greatest place in God’s Kingdom, they plan to just stay here and enjoy the security and comfort.

 But, suddenly God shows up with His chainsaw and lops off the limb requiring the comfort-seeker to move to a higher limb. God moved him out of his comfort zone, but he soon settles in and once gain relaxes into his comfort zone.  And then one day God shows up with His chainsaw and lops off this limb requiring him to repeat the process of moving once again. 

 The point Judson was making is that we encounter circumstances in our lives, much like the stepping- stone chart in our Sunday School Class, that force us out of our comfort zones, but there is always two exits from the fallen limbs – the narrow gate or the very wide gate.  It is easy just to slip across to the new limb without using much of our God given abilities and settle into the same level of “no progress”, as the place we were on, or we can see that God has something very special in mind for us.

 One of my most effective teaching tools, when working with the Village young people, was a book titled Holes in Time by Frank Constantino.  Frank was, what was termed, a very bad “motor scooter” in the incarceration business.  He was totally isolated from the general prison population and allowed out of his cell only one hour a day for exercise. The judicial system had ‘thrown the book at him” and there was little chance he would ever see the outside world again.

 How many know the world’s ways and God’s ways are vastly different?  And, how many know that God can do a mighty rebuilding job in very rapid fashion, even with the toughest motor scooters.  Frank was held in a cell that had only one small window in the door that allowed the guards to check him on an hourly basis. 

 One night, in the wee hours of the morning, suddenly Frank’s cell was filled with a bright – blinding light - but the light in his cell was not lit, nor was there light coming in through his door window.  After several minutes the light began to dim and Frank went back to bed; but as soon as he pulled the cover up, a voice spoke, “Frank, I have a task for you that is not being completed because you are here wasting away.  You are leaving “Holes in Time”. 

 The short version to the story: Frank gave his heart to Jesus that night and within several years was released from prison but spent most of his life in the prisons of Georgia ministering to the cons in the various prisons. 

 Soooo, my friends, Does God need to turn the lights on your bedroom tonight and remind you that before time began He programmed you to be a witness for Him?  Are you leaving Holes in Time? 

 Blessings, Gramps

Seeds of a Miracle!

 

Friday, October 23, 2015

“Therefore is anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; he old things passed away; behold new things have come” (2 Corinthians 54:17).

 Hey Gang:  His name was Sandy, he was twelve years old, violent, and his heart was filled with hatred.  He was locked away from society because he had taken his hatred out on several children smaller than he, and had vowed he would never change.  A question I have asked many times in my tenure of working with kids with broken lives:“ How Can That Happen Lord?”

 And then I found out!  Sandy became a project for me in the six weeks he was under my care.  I wanted to find out how a twelve-year-old child could be so filled with rage.  In my first conversations his responses were filled with curse words and venom about everybody that had crossed his path in his short tenure on this earth.  My prayer, in my time with Sandy, was a simple ”HELP Lord”. “Put your words in my mouth that will penetrate the shell that keeps this young lad in bondage.

 Sandy could tell me every time he had been beaten, every time he had been locked in his room for days at a time, every time his dad had come home drunk and beat he and his mother.  Each and every incident was filed away in the recesses of his brain. 

 Sandy taught me a tremendous lesson: if I was willing, he, too, was willing but I had to prove how deeply I was willing.  The night before Sandy was to be picked up by the bus that would deliver him to a facility where he would remain until his eighteenth birthday, we had our last time together. I saw in Sandy’s eyes something that I had not seen before.  A tear? No, but a softening of his eyes.  It was that night that Sandy taught me, “If I was willing” - God would work through me to plant a seed of hope in the life of a twelve year old who had not hope.

The Bible is filled with promises that God wants to give to his children.  Faith is the ingredient that puts these promises into action in our lives, and hope anticipates the fulfillment of His promises.  I also learned that I am not a harvester, but only a seed-planter; the salt that provides the savor of my planting is patience.  I learned that “Thy will be done” is not just so many words but a principle that give us the power to be a seed planter.

 Seeds were planted in those conversations with a twelve-year old who had no hope.  I left California shortly after my time with Sandy, so have no idea if my seed planting resulted in long term good fruit.  But this I know, seeds were planted and will be harvested when Father God says, this is the right moment. 

 Sooooo, my friends and neighbors, let me share a principle that became the backbone of everything I did, said, and taught to the thousands of children, who had little or no hope, and  passed through my life.  Paul gave us the principle when he wrote, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians6:7).

 Luke agreed with Paul and gave us the trigger for the principle when he wrote, “Give, and it will be given to you…that it is your standard of measure that will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).  Matthew said, it makes a difference where you sow, some seeds lands on thorny ground, some in rocky ground, some fell by the road side but some on good soil” (Matthew 13:3-9).  Matthew also said, “We are going to reap more than we sow” (Matthew. 13:8).    Good seeds – bad seeds!  You decide!

 Paul gives us the bottom line of the Seed Planting Principle, “if you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly”   An old country preacher once said, “We choose whether we will be porch box sowers or sow in thousands of acres sowers.  Paul said, “Each must do just as he has purposed in his heart….for God loves cheerful giver”. (2 Corinthians 9:7)

 And now for the promise for those who understand and apply the principle “And God is able to make all grace about to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed” (2 Cor. 9:8). 

 Time to go and find someone I can plant a seed into.  Why don’t you come along?

 Blessings Gramps 

 

 

Why Pray?

 

Monday, October 12, 2015

God’s Power Principle For Today: “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us” (2 Corinthians 2:1-12).   

 Hey Gang: I need to make a confession to you this morning.  I am not a very avid reader.  On my desk, as I write this epistle this morning, are four books with markers that tell me where I am in the book.  In one I am on page 32, the second 18, the third 47 and the last an amazing 123.

 But I have found myself returning to a book by Dr. John DeVries, founder of Mission India, titled, Why Pray. This has been a source of encouragement to me.   I have asked that question many times and, I confess, I have even stopped praying for a season because I did not think God was listening.

 

Yousee, I tended to measure the success of my prayers by what I received from them in short order.  There is an ad on Television advertising ‘Wentworth Finance ‘where the people are shouting, “I want my money and I want it now”.  That was kind of my attitude when I went to the throne room for a specific need.  Have I had victory over that, to a degree, but I must admit the battle goes on.

 But the resurgence of the Village has given me a leg up on the victory-trail over this issue.  I learned, from Dr. John, that when we have a specific need, we should place it in the Father’s hand and move on.  When Cathey, my daughter, became the exulted ruler of the Village, her mom and I felt we needed to build a pyramid of prayer warriors who were willing to pray in a sacrificial way for wisdom and direction and strength and protection for her and the Village. 

 Our challenge to each one, ‘If you are not willing to pray sacrificially and as Paul challenges us ,“without ceasing” please do not sign up to be a prayer warrior.  I believe the prayer warrior ring that surrounds the Village today is the catalyst that has produced the changes and victories that have become a wonderful testimony to God’s grace, mercy and love.  To fail to fulfill your prayer commitment is to leave a hole in the covering.  Satan dearly loves to move into those holes.

 I believe one of the most overused phrases in existence today is “I will pray for you!”  I believe, if everyone, who at one time or another said they would pray for me, did indeed follow through and placed my needs on the refrigerator door, the bathroom mirror or the rear-view mirror of their car, I could have been able to walk on water.  (Just joking).

  My dear friends, let me share a piece of advice I received years ago, when I confessed to a friend that I had a hard time remaining focused when I was praying.  He said, “Journal your prayers.”  Not only will you remain focused, but you will have a record of your prayers and can look back and see when they were fulfilled.  So, I have two recommendations to you this morning: one, if you are asking “Why Pray? I recommend you get John’s book, Why Pray; and, if you have a hard times staying focuses, try journaling your prayers for a season and see how God blesses.

 Blessings, Gramps

Hey, Cheer Up - God Is Preparing to Come - Very Soon

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

God’s Power Principle For today:  “Behold the tabernacle of God is among men. And He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God himself will be among them” (Revelation 21:3).

 Hey Gang:  In this day, when it seems everything that can be shaken is being shaken so that only those things that cannot be shaken will remain, we need to keep our eyes glued to our Abba Father.  If the words through John from Jesus, in the morning Scripture, do not build a fire in the depths of your innards, you had best check yourself into the nearest emergency ward and see if your thumper is still thumping. 

 Each week the Koenig report, which is a report of current and future events that are based on the prophetic word of God, Claudia Koenig begins each up -date with prayer and a word from Father God.  They are always a challenge and give me a firm foundation to begin the new week. 

 This week she challenged me, and I pray you, with these words: “Many times when a faraway missionary was in a time of despair, the question was asked, “What can we do?’  The answer was always, “Pray, pray, pray!”  Today, many ask, “What can we do when judgment for man’s rebellion against God comes to America and people will be in despair?”  The answer is “Pray, pray, pray!” 

 As I read this, a recollection from my early years surfaced in my brain.  When I was eight years old and in the fourth grade, we began each day with the Pledge of Allegiance, several verses from the Bible and the Lord’s Prayer.  We also had a morning update on what was happening in the war zones. 

 I remember that fateful day when the teacher announced that General McArthur had thrown in the towel and left the Philippines but, on his way out he made a vow to return soon, a promise he fulfilled. 

 Yes, today’s news is filled with woe, woe and more woe.  One wonders if there is any wisdom in any capitals of the world.  We are surely paying the Piper for the decisions to remove God from every facet of our lives. 

 But!  Does it not fill your heart with joy when you read the words of the angels who were there when Jesus ascended back to the Father and took His rightful place at the right hand of God? They said: “Why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).  

 Soooo, my young buckaroos, keep your lamps trimmed and filled with oil, your Armor shined and in place (on your body) and pray, pray, pray!.  For you see, God never said the governments of the man would ever have the wisdom to repair what they break, but 2 Chronicles 7:14 gives us the promise that-“If we humble ourselves before Him, pray from the depths of our souls and seek Him until we find Him, He will heal our land!.

 Blessings, 

Gramps

I Have A Problem

Monday, September 28, 2015

 “They had said. “Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation, That the name of Israel be remembered no more.”   For they have conspired together with one mind; against You they make a covenant” (Psalm 83:4-5).

 Hey Gang: In my eighty-two year -tenure on this earth I have heard mucho messages based on Ezekiel’s prophecy of the dry bones.  I confess in my early years I did not have a clue what the significance of that story was all about.  And then a profound thing happened on May 15, 1948, Israel became a nation AGAIN.  Now, I emphasize “AGAIN”. 

 I also confess that for the next seventeen years I did not pay much attention to Israel and the Middle East.  As a matter of fact,  did not pay much attention to anything that was spiritual.  You might say “I had a form of Godliness but denied the power”.  But one cannot be married to the bride-of-my-youth and her witness without feeling the conviction fires snapping at your heels. 

 I will not bore you with the process that took place in my life and changed my attitude from a powerless believer to a warrior-type person for Christ.    I will share -growth in Christ is not an easy process.  At least it was not easy for me.  My flesh fought it all the way and continues to send its barbs frequently today.

 When God called us from California to open what we thought was to be a foster home for four boys which turned into the miracle that the Eagle Village is today, there was a two- year period that was the most frustrating time in my life.  For two years I was the only ‘unemployed director of a non-existent home for boys with problems.’ This was one of the first of that new bred called the ‘stay at home dad’. (Jean was an elementary Teacher.)

 I thought it was a total waste of time but learned, in the years that followed, I could not have handled the constant pressures of building a program, raising the needed monies, and caring for the growing number of boys that God sent our way.  I found, in those early years, that the scar tissue earned during the two-year hiatus of waiting for God to say “Hey, now is the time, let’s go for it” was the glue that gave me the sustaining power to deal with what was to come.

 During the two years of waiting we had a neighbor; she was actually our landlady.  She was not very big physically, did not come up to my shoulders, but her spiritual height was far higher.  We spent many hours together discussing the many questions that kept surfacing in my mind  as I got more involved with God’s Word.    As I look back over that two-year period that I thought was frustration-ville, I  learned very quickly was a time of preparation and the foundation for what was  to come.

 Well, back to the topic of this epistle “I have a problem”.  In that two years I learned to love prophecy.  That is just the way I am, I want to know where I am, where I am going, and how I am going to get there.    It was during the time that Israel began to fulfill Zechariah’s prophecy found in Zechariah 12:2-3.  It was also during that time that I gained a great respect and love for Israel.

  During that time tI learned, as a believer in Yeshua, I had been grafted into His vine and one day, as a graftee, I would spend eternity with Yeshua and all the saints who have gone before me, for all eternity in the New Jerusalem. 

 Soooo, friends and family, I did it again.  I started out with a clear path of where I was heading -but lost my focus and ended up down a different path.  I will try again and give you the whys and wherefores of Why I Have a Problem in the next Gramps Morning Message.    

 Blessings  Gramps

 P.S.  During the two year hiatus referred to above, we were blessed to be able to  provide mentorship for a wonderful group of young people who wanted to learned about Christ and become effective witnesses for Him.   It was our sincere belief that without a proper foundation we cannot become effective witnesses for Christ; without knowledge of how to lead others to Christ, we are limited in our effectiveness as witnesses.  So, we developed a curriculum that we have taught many times since was published on August 23, 2015 on grampswhatshappeningman.blogspot.com for your review

 

 

Have You Touched Someone Today?

 Wednesday, September 23, 2015

"For Surely I know the plans I have for you, says he Lord...to give you a future with hope" - (Jerimiah 29:11)

 Barna reports that the Church in America is on a rapid road to the archives of history.  That most of the old-line denominations have seen a serious reduction in their enrollments and an even greater deterioration in attendance.  An old-salt pastor recently remarked, if you want to find some real peace and quiet, step into just about any church in town most of the time.    In North America, the majority of churches don't have as many members as they did ten, twenty and fifty years ago.  There is growing skepticism among many that the church is no longer relevant and will soon pass into oblivion. 

But, let me share another study that was recently completed in a Canada where a follow up question was added to the primary question:  “Are you an active part of a church?”.  The question ask, “Are you involved in a church? And if so, what church?  Those who listed no affiliation were referred to as the “nones”. 

But there was a second question added that showed the questioners the “nones” looked more like ‘somes’.  The bottom line discovered by the questioner was Canadians are still hungry, even when they deny it.  In my experience of working with young bucks, who had no contact with the religious world, I agree with that assessment.  Most had an itch they could not scratch and really had no idea what was causing that itch.

Let me take you down a side road for a moment before getting to the main point of what I want to share with you, there is a concerted movement on the part of our President and those he has appointed as the guru’s of our military; they are going to great lengths to remove Christ from the military.  But how many know, they removed God from our schools years ago and every time there is a test He shows up invited.  In times of conflict there are no such things as Godless fox holes or Godless cockpits of fighter aircraft. 

My bride, who is an avid reader and supplies me with many interesting goodies shared the following goodie:   A pastor of one of those small, and getting smaller churches in the Midwest, who never allowed  reality to discourage him.  One day I, his friend, asked him, " Pastor Bill, how do you stay so positive when your membership keeps shrinking?  Aren't you afraid you'll close?”

Bill smiled, “I don't know what you are talking about! "We're not shrinking.  We're growing - up ten percent from last year."  "Can't be, "His friend said, "I've seen your membership numbers.  Down every year for the last ten." 

"You count members,” Bill said, "but we count touches.  Anytime anyone in our church does something for someone else in the name of Jesus, that's a touch; a card sent, a phone call made, a meal delivered, a donation to the food pantry.  And our goal is to increase touches.  In the five years that we've counted this way, we've grown every year."

Soooo, Getting back to the ‘nones’ who were ‘somes’, let me share a personal opinion based on more than fifty years of experience of coming along side young folks and older folks and all types of folks who have need of someone to “reach out and touch them” I believe that is what Jesus meant when He said “there is no greater love than for someone to be willing to lay down their lives for someone who is hurting”.  He also said “for those who did this for the last of these my brethren I will bless.  (Hillbilly rendition).

You see when you reach out the touch  (in a smile, kind word...) to that person behind the checkout counter at Walmart. It releases a muscle in their face and a smile breaks out and you have planted a wee touch of heaven into their heart.  Do you have a quota of how many touches you will share today?  I have a theory: the discipline of setting a number for it does two things, it focuses your attention of the needs of people you come in contract with and God sends those who have needs across your path for “His touch through you”.

 Blessings, Gramps