Faith or Going Your Own Way?

 

Monday, February 29, 2016

 Paul wrote the following words to his spiritually adopted son, Timothy: “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.  For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious, gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.  Avoid such men as these” (2 Timothy3:1-5).

 Hey Gang:  Scripture tells us that in the last days man will believe Satan’s lie ”that God knows when you eat from the forbidden fruit your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil” (Genisus:5).  When I listen to the rhetoric of our political leaders I see how effective Satan has been in my lifetime in spreading this vomit.

 There is a tremendous divide in our nation and world where two roads split- one the believers path and the other Satan’s bangles and beads road. These grow farther apart by the hour.  A tremendous chasm is growing wider and deeper as more and more people say, ‘No Lord, I do not want any part of you’.  The sheep are becoming more defined from the goats, the wheat from the tares and the saved from the unsaved.

 Should we be surprised with the rapid increase in lawlessness in these last days?  I think not if you are into the Word of God, Jesus warned us that, what is happening is precisely what is going to happen just prior to His coming for His children:  “…just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man’.  He also said, “as happened in the days of Lot” and we know what happened to Sodom.  (Luke 17:26/ 28)

 I think about Noah a lot these days.   I have done some wood working in my 82 years.  I love to make wood toys just to see the little ones eyes light up when I give them to them.  I have a table saw, a jig saw, sander, drills and all the other electronic gadgets that are needed to get the job done.  But, when I read the dimensions of the ark and realize Noah did not go down to Home Depot or Lowes and buy the precut wood, I am amazed.  He started by cutting a tree down and taken his hammers and chisels and shaped every piece and every piece had to be perfect.   

 How sad he must have been, for the closer he came to the completion of the ark, the closer he knew, God’s judgment would fall on that sinful generation.   I believe with every peg that Noah drove into a board he prayed, Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing. 

 As I listened to the morning news my heart was heavy because I believe God is crying out to this once great and proud nation to “understand what we are doing?”  We were the recipients of a thunder-snow  blizzard last night that took down some of the electric lines and left us in the dark.  I had never heard the term thunder-snow blizzard before.  But I learned what it meant when it was blowing so hard I could not see a hundred feet and with it came the music of thunder.

 We are certainly into a time of new records in just about everything, Last summer we had record fires in the west, record floods in the south, record tornadoes in the mid-New records in the west.  It was a good time to reside in Michigan.  Other new records as well: We just passed a new record high in our national debt: we now owe the world more than nineteen trillion dollars and the number increases by the second.

 These are but a smidgeon of the catastrophic things that are happening in the good old USA.   Let me ask you a question this morning?  If God’s patience runs out, and I surely believe there are enough signs that it is, do you think, if He sent a major catastrophic event into our country that the average Joe on the street would get the correlation between the event and God’s wrath? 

 Do you think many Pastors in our land would recognize God’s hand in the catastrophe and suddenly begin to preach repentance from their pulpits?  Are you up to speed in your relationship with Abba Father? If, and when, a catastrophe would hit our nation, are you are prepared?

 God said: “I AM”.  Is He YOUR  I AM. Research His Names that describe His I AM qualities.

 Blessings, Gramps

Poof! Gone!!!

Monday, February 22, 2016

“Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come” (Matthew 24:40-42).

 “I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” (Luke 17:24-35).

 Hey Gang:  Several nights ago I had a terrible and very frightening dream.  I was out in the woods working, came in for my afternoon coffee and one of Jean’s delicious snacks but when I got there I could not find her. I looked all over the house. No Jean. The car and truck were in the garage.  And there was no note on the refrigerator telling me where she had gone.

 And as I ran to and fro in a nervous dither, the sweat rolling down my face, the above verses began to resonate in my mind.  When at the apex of my dream, I heard the door close and there was the bride of my youth who had taken a walk and stopped by the neighbors to swap stories. 

 

But the more I thought of that dream the more I felt God sent it to me for a purpose.  It has always amazed me that so few people have any comprehension of what that time referred to as the ‘hereafter’ really is.  When one looks at the context of our existence, we note that in reality we are just preparing ourselves for that period referred to as ‘eternity’ and this is but a proving ground for that experience. 

 In the past several years, as I have moved beyond the ‘three-score and ten years referred to in the Word and into the older than dirt crowd, my mind has become more focused on learning all I can about that place called “heaven”, or as Jesus referred to it on the cross as ‘paradise’.  On my book shelf there are seven books that focus on heaven.  It seems there is a growing interest in heaven, for I notice the area on the book shelves reserved for books on heaven has grown significantly in the past years. 

 My favorite was written by Judson Cornwall, an old country pastor that I had the privilege of sitting under his teachings on several occasions.   He brought out an amazing point that I believe is- oh so true today- most folks believe in hell, but does anyone still believe in heaven?    When was the last time you heard someone say, “He was one heaven of a man?  Judson pointed out in God’s great love for His children He used no less than seven words in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, to say that heaven is indeed a place of habitation.

 I do not believe there is a more frightening verse in the Bible than Revelation 20:15: “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”  The fabulous part of that verse is the “if”.  It is God’s desire that none perish, but all must choose to have their name recorded in His book of life. (2 Peter 3:9).

 I tend to think of those who read these ‘morning thoughts from gramps’ are part of the choir whose names are securely recorded in the Lamb’s book, but each day we cross paths with many who are not. The wonderful part of the story is – the story does not end with Rev 20: 15; it is followed by the fabulous description of what awaits those whose names are listed the ‘Lambs Book of Life’.

 Peter closes his second letter with a warning: “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.  Amen and Amen” (2 Peter17-18).

 So, my young friends, Pray today that God will send you a person who needs to hear the wondrous story of Yeshua, God’s gift to all who choose to accept Him as Savior and Lord. 

 Blessings, Gramps

 PS: If you are readers and Whant to know more about what awaits in heaven, I suggest you get a book called Imagine Heaven and or its Sequel Imagine the God of Heaven. The author, John Burke, was a researcher Detective on a police  and later founded Gateway Church in Austin TV. He researched mega Near Death Experiences (NDE) World wide –with Doctors, medical teams and personal stories of what they saw in their “Out of Body Experiences.” Imagine the God of heaven includes inter-actions with Jesus and God.  (Written in 2015)  Gma J 

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” (Ephesians 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 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, ‘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” (Galatians 5:22-23).

 Gd’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 John. 4:7-8).

 “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity” (Colossians 3:14).

 “Fr 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.”  (Romans 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 . Note verse 8: (Gods)Love never fails!

Blessings, Gramps