The Road He Traveled

 Good morning. I hope you all are preparing for a very Merry Christmas. Just remember that although Santa Claus is a fun little story, the story and reason for the season is and always will be about Jesus. He is our hope and our salvation. We cannot earn it, we can only accept it. 

If you have never given your heart to Him and accepted what He did on the cross, today is the perfect day. After all, none of us are gaurranteed tomorrow. 

Today I am going to shre with you the second of the two Christmas poems I wrote. My brother-in-law, who is celebrating his first Christmas in heaven, asked me one day to write a poem combinging two stories from the Bible that had noting to do with each other. 

I asked him how I could possibly do that. He laughed and said that was my problem. I couldn't figure out how to do that so I prayed and asked God for His help. About one minute later God gave me this poem. 

If you enjoy this please share it with your friends. 

God bless you all.

  The Road He Traveled

 

Three shepherds watched their flock out in a field one starlit night

When suddenly up in the sky there was a brilliant light.

An angel floated in the air and they were so afraid

It’s voice fell lightly on their ears and this is what it said.

 

“Fear not, for God has come to man as a little baby boy,

And all who worship at His feet will have exceeding joy.

A virgin of the house of David gave birth to Him today.

This star so bright will lead to where He’s on a bed of hay.”

 

So, they left their flock and traveled east, following the star.

They searched and found the child one night, though it was very far.

And though they had no gifts that day they worshiped for a while

Then Jesus looked into their eyes, and gave a little smile.

 

The shepherds went back to their flock, their hearts were all aglow.

Joseph took Mary and the babe, ‘twas time for them to go.

They raised Him up along beside His sisters and His brothers

But knew He was the Son of God and nothing like the others.

 

And when the time was come for Him to do His Father’s plan

He left and walked from town to town and witnessed man to man.

He told the people of God’s love, so rich and full and free.

He turned water into wine, and calmed an angry sea.

 

He preached upon the mountain top and fed five thousand men

With five loaves and two fishes, then He preached to them again.

A man was raised up from the dead, and demons driven out

This truly was the Son of God, of that there was no doubt.

 

But one day as He walked along the road, this Nazarene

He met a leper crying out, “Unclean, unclean, unclean.”

Then Jesus laid His hand on him and said, “My son, be well.”

His sores dropped off, he cried for joy, at Jesus feet he fell.

 

A blind man standing close could hear the man cry out with glee

And said, “Oh, Master, if You will, I know You can heal me.”

Jesus touched his eyes and gave him back his sight that day.

He turned to His disciples and began to walk away.

 

But a man with a withered arm said, “If You only will, my Lord,

You can heal my arm with Your touch or Your spoken word.”

Then Jesus said, “Take heart My son, your faith hath made you whole.”

With two good arms he hugged Christ and said, “Thank You with all my soul.”

 

Then the three men said, “You won’t recall, for You were too young to know,

But we knelt down at Your manger bed, many long years ago.

Our shepherd’s life has been unkind, and made our bodies this way.

But by chance You came along and healed all of us today.”

 

“It was not by chance”, Jesus gently said, “that I came down this road.

For, long ago, when you knelt down, I felt your heavy load.

I looked into your eyes that day and saw what lay ahead.

I could have traveled another road, but came this way instead.”

 

“From the manger bed I set My path to meet with you today.

For I saw what life would do to you, and I couldn’t turn away.

I’ve searched for you for many years, just like you searched for Me.

Now live a full and healthy life, for you have been set free.”

 

We must still seek the Son of God, and worship at His feet.

For there you’ll find exceeding joy that makes your soul complete.

Yes, life can be cruel and bend you low, but God’s love, time can never erase.

For once you have knelt at Jesus’ feet, He never forgets your face.

 

                                                        Janice Austin Bates 

December 13, 2003

1:51 AM

 

The Fight Before Christmas

 Each Christmas I like to send you my two Christmas poems I wrote. Here is the first one. I will give you the second one next Sunday. 

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas. 

Janice

The Fight Before Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house

The tension was bad as I fought with my spouse.

The stockings were hung, and the presents were there.

The tree lights were shining, but I didn’t care.

 

She had said something that had made me mad,

Unless she said “I’m sorry” this fight would be bad.

The children were hiding upstairs in their beds,

While loud angry voices whirled ‘round in their heads.

 

She had been wrong and I knew that she knew it

This fight would go on until she said she blew it.

My wife went upstairs, brushed her teeth and her hair.

I decided I’d sleep in my reclining chair.

 

My eyelids were closed but my mind wouldn’t rest.

The anger sat there like a brick on my chest.

When all of a sudden, from somewhere outside

I heard such a wail you’d think something had died.

 

I jumped from my chair and my feet hit the floor,

I stomped through the house and threw open the door.

The moonlight reflected on new fallen snow

As my eyes became focused on objects below.

 

And there on my porch, surely up to no good,

Stood eight tiny snot nosed brats from the hood.

They were all bundled up, their eyes full of glee

As they sang Christmas carols, mostly off key.

 

Two were dressed up like Joseph and Mary,

In the little girl’s arms, a wee doll she did carry.

They sang Silent Night, and Away in a Manger.

They had not a clue of my justified anger.

 

I started to scold them and send them away.

Who could have joy on this miserable day?

But, just as I opened my mouth to implore

That they take their miserable singing next door.

 

A wee voice said, “Mister, do you know the reason

That we celebrate during this Christmas season”?

My head dropped in shame, I said, “Tell me about it”.

He replied, “When you hear it, you never will doubt it.

 

Did you know that Jesus came down from above

To live among us with a heart full of love?

He left all His riches to live here on earth

And started this life with a poor, lowly birth.

 

He had to come down because we had been bad.

He didn’t place blame, it just made Him real sad.

He died on a cross where we should have died.

The people who loved Him were sad, and they cried.

 

He rose up again and to heaven He flew

And we can all go there to live with Him too.”

They said “Merry Christmas”, as they walked away.

Their singing was precious, I wished they could stay.

 

I suddenly realized that I had been wrong,

This fight with my family had stolen my song.

My anger had drowned out the sweet Christmas spirit.

The song was still there, but I couldn’t hear it.

 

I knew that I had to make up with my wife,

To tell her “I’m sorry” and stop all this strife.

I climbed up the stairs and swallowed my pride,

And gathered my wife and my kids to my side.

 

As I asked for forgiveness and started to weep,

My wife said, “I love you, now let’s get some sleep.”  

We all settled down for a nice winter’s rest.

I thought of my family, and knew I was blessed.

 

My children are nestled all snug in their beds,

While memories of Christmas songs float in their heads.

‘Tis the night before Christmas and everything’s good

Because of eight twinkle eyed kids from the hood.

 

Janice Austin Bates

December 2, 2011 11:26pm

Are You Mad At God?

 

While in the Phenix AZ airport I found myself sitting next to a man named Jim. Striking up a conversation, we started sharing things about our lives.

After a while Jim told me that he and his wife took the Covid shots to protect themselves. Unfortunately, his wife of 45 years developed a blood clot behind her knee. The doctor was dealing with it, trying to get rid of it.

One day the clot moved and went to her lungs. When a blood clot is in your lung it causes your lung to be unable to process the oxygen you are breathing in. Even though she was breathing, she was slowly smothering.

Jim called an ambulance and was trying to help her until it arrived. He lives in the country and there is only one ambulance to service their area. What he didn’t know was, on that day there was no one to work on the ambulance. By the time they found people to work and get to his home it had taken one hour to arrive, and his wife had died in his arms.

He told me, “I am mad at God right now for taking my wife.” I suggested he needed to find a really good church to go to where they could help him through this. I was happy to hear him say he does have a very good church and goes all the time. The people are trying to help and encourage him. However, he is still mad. We talked for a while and I tried to uplift him as much as I could.

I have been thinking about him and praying for him ever since we met and he told me his story.

As Christians, we might think being mad at God is a sin, but it is not. It is a weakness. Anger is something we all must deal with at times. Although I’m sure God doesn’t want us to be mad at Him, He truly understands. Just talk to Him about it. He has very big shoulders, and He can take it.

He is not going to turn His back on us because we are angry, but we do have to work at getting past it.

The truth is, God never does things to hurt us so He can watch us suffer. Often, the bad things that happen to us are a result of a direct attack from Satan. However, it can be the consequence of our own foolishness or disobedience. No matter what we have done, God wants to forgive us if we will let Him. That doesn’t always mean the consequences will go away. Sometimes we still have to go through them.

There are times that God allows bad things because we have pushed Him away and haven’t allowed Him to be there to protect us, but He never causes bad things to happen to His children. He is the best father who has ever been.

If you had good parents when you were growing up, I am sure you will remember times when they told you what to or not to do, but you did what you wanted no matter what they said. After they watched things go badly as a result of your disobedience, they probably said something like, “Maybe next time you will listen to us.” Maybe you did, or maybe you had to learn another hard lesson. So it is with us and God.

The point is, when we go through something painful, it is never God’s fault. When we blame God and get mad at Him we are incorrectly putting the blame on Him. Sometimes our anger is the result of a broken heart, as it is with Jim. No matter what, if we give it to God and lean on Him, He will help us through it, and help us heal up from the anger.

Please don’t think I believe Jim did anything to bring this on. I don’t. He seemed like a very good Christian man. Besides, it is not mine to judge.

 

I know a man who turned against God when his baby boy died almost 60 years ago. To this day he wants nothing to do with God. Even after all these years of being mad at God, if he would stop blaming God and turn back to Him, he would find that God is still waiting for him to come back. God is not angry at him.

Being mad at God isn’t a good thing, but it happens. It doesn’t have to destroy you or your relationship with God, but you must allow Him to heal you. The choice is yours.

Remember that God has huge shoulders, He loves you, and He wants you to lean on those giant shoulders. They can carry any load.

So, if you are mad at God right now remember, He is not mad at you. He is there to help you through, no matter what it is. His desire is to heal you.

Think about it.

 

Wrappers

 Recently I was reminded of a true story I would like to share with you.

For the sake of privacy, I will call the father John and the mother I will call Mary. The son will be Billy.

When Billy was growing up he was very hyper, which inevitably got him into a lot of trouble. John and Mary took Billy to the doctor about it. Of course, the doctor prescribed medicine to calm him down. Since they did not want Billy to grow up learning to take drugs for everything, even if it was prescribed medicine, they researched it on the internet. They found that if they kept him off red and yellow food dye and didn’t allow him much sugar he was calm. Perfect.

When Halloween came around they didn’t want Billy to miss out on all the fun the other kids were having, trick or treating, and playing games where they were winning candy. By the end of the evening Billy had a whole lot of candy. Mary took it on herself to dole out the candy to Billy. He got about two small pieces per day. That way he could enjoy his candy without being too hyper.

They didn’t understand why, with such a small amount of sugar Billy was extremely hyper. He was bouncing off the walls. It didn’t make sense.

After about a week it was time to wash Billy’s sheets. When Mary lifted the mattress to remove the bottom sheet she found about 120 candy wrappers. Besides the candy his mother was giving him, he was helping himself to an additional 15 or 20 pieces of candy each day. Now it all made clear what was going on. John and Mary took care of the problem.

It got me to thinking about my mattress. My spiritual mattress that is. I am sure that all my life I have hidden spiritual candy wrappers under my mattress, thinking God might not find them. Of course, God sees right through my mattress and sees everything I have hidden there. Somehow it always seems like a good idea at the time. Funny how I always seem to think God won’t notice me bouncing off my spiritual walls.

Lucky for us, we serve an all-knowing and all-seeing God, and He loves us. However, that seems to come with a lot of correction.

My father used to say that punishment is God’s strange work. In other words, He doesn’t like to correct us. He does it because we need it, and He corrects us as gently as we allow Him to. In Christianity we have a saying. “God loves us the way we are, but He loves us too much to leave us this way.” We should thank God every day that He does correct us. That is what keeps us on the path to spend eternity with Him.

When was the last time you took a good luck under your mattress to remind yourself what candy wrappers you are trying to hide from God? Do you really think He doesn’t notice you bouncing off the walls?

Those candy wrappers have a way of flattening right out so we don’t even notice them. But everything that was wrapped up in them really takes a tole on us. We need to voluntarily hand over the candy wrappers to God and let Him fix us. Better yet, we need to stop sneaking the candy.

Think about it.

Daniel

Have you ever experienced a divine appointment? I am talking about when you meet up with someone, friend, or stranger, and started realizing this was not by chance. You know God set you both on a path to meet and have this conversation.

Well, that happened to me recently, and I want to share it with you.

We have a prayer meeting at our church every Wednesday evening. Last week as we were praying I thought about the fact that I hadn’t had anyone to witness to who was really interested in hearing about God for a while. I just asked God to help me to have someone to talk to who would listen.

I am not a big shopper, and I never go to the mall. However, there has been one thing I have needed to go do at the mall for a long time. For various reasons I have put it off for 4 or 5 months. On Friday I woke up and knew I needed to go to the mall that day. So I did.

As my brother Rick and I were walking through the mall there was a young man selling skin care products at a kiosk. He asked me to come over to the kiosk but I said no. he wouldn’t take no for an answer to the point that he took me by the hand and lead me to the kiosk. He informed me that he travels from mall to mall and that he was only here for a week. (that is why God sent me to the mall on that exact day)

I have written two children’s Christian books telling the stories of creation, and the fall and salvation. Somehow as this young man, Daniel, and I were talking I mentioned my books. As I told him about them he said we serve different gods.

I asked him who he serves and he told me he is a Jew and they serve Yahowa. I explained that we also serve Jehovah. It is the same name, just the Jewish and English pronunciations. Then I told him we also serve Jesus.

As we talked he started saying he didn’t feel like us meeting was an accident. He felt like God wanted us to meet and have this conversation. I said I felt the same way. He told me that four or five times.

This led to a conversation for about twenty minutes. He told me he could never serve Jesus or his family would throw him out.

I had to be at a certain place by noon so we had to move on.

On the way back as we passed Daniel we waived to each other. He walked over to me and asked me to tell him about my books. This opened up the conversation again.

He told me he prays to the east three times a day. I asked him if he really wants to know what the truth is and he said he really does. So, I said if he would ask God to show him the truth every time he prays, that God would show him.

I kept thinking about Daniel saying he couldn’t serve Jesus because his family would throw him out. So, I told him about Jews for Jesus, which is a group of Jews who have become Christians. I knew they could relate to him on a level I couldn’t.

I asked him if he would read my books if I gave him a set. I also asked him if he would read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John if I gave him a Bible. He thought I meant for him to read it all in one night and he about had a heart attack. I told him no, to just read about five minutes a night. I believed if he really was wanting to know the truth, five minutes would lead to more. He agreed to do that. He told me his job is to travel from town to town for a week at a time and work the kiosks. He said Monday would be his last day there and he would be moving on to the next mall. I told him I would be back. He let me lay hands on him and pray for him.

Rick and I went to Walmart and bought him a Bible. However, as I looked at it I realized it was a very plain Bible and there was nothing in it to help him understand. God impressed on me to give him my study Bible which has all kinds of information in it to help you understand what you are reading. I knew that was what he needed to read.

As I told people about Daniel everyone wanted to help. My friend from our church, Diana Symons, put Daniel on the prayer chain, and she felt God wanted her to give him a copy of a wonderful book she wrote. It is called The Key of David. It is a beautiful read.

My sister, Diane, wrote down a lot of scriptures showing where the old testament describes Jesus as the messiah.

We had a pastor from India, Brother Santosh Thomas,  visiting our church and he prayed over Daniel. It was one of the most powerful prayers I have ever heard.

On Monday, his last day before leaving town for his next assignment, I showed up with the set of my books, the study Bible, The Key of David, and a paper I typed up giving the scripture references my sister gave me (including the page numbers to help find them) the web address for Jews for Jesus, and the web address to my blog.

Daniel was amazed and said he couldn’t accept all of this. He thought we were doing too much for him. I told him he had to accept it because God had impressed it on all of us to give these things to him.

He said okay, and that he would read fifteen minutes a day even though I had only asked for five.

He assured me he is a very honest person and that he really will do the things he promised, (reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, reading my two books, reading The Key of David, praying and asking God to show him the truth, checking out the Jews for Jesus website, and spending fifteen minutes a day on this.)

I had included my email address so he promised he would email me and let me know what he thinks.

Before I left he said he thought they were going to schedule him to come back to our mall in about February. He said he would email me the date when he would be back because he would like to talk to me some more about this.

I can’t stop thinking about this because it was so obviously arranged by God. Please help me pray for Daniel. I believe God is going to change this young man’s life.

I don’t want you to think I'm saaying that I did all of this. It was not me. It was God showing me and encouraging me to say and do it.

God has people for all of us to talk to and all we have to do is ask Him and then do what He shows us. He does all the hard work.

I encourage each of you to ask God to give you people to talk to. But, be ready because He will do it.

When you have encounters like this I would love to hear about them. You can write to me at littlechrisameebooks@gmail.com

Think about it.

The Mantle

 

Last week we lost a member of our family. My sister Diane’s husband, Harold, went to be with the Lord. He was an incredible man of God. He was a pastor for over thirty years, and a missionary to Ghana, Africa for over eight years.

For more than a year now he has been having multiple mini strokes called TIAs. He would heal up from them, but eventually they were making him weaker and weaker each time. Finally, he got to where he could neither walk nor talk. He was not in pain but was extremely frustrated.

My husband, Ray, had a very hard time with it all. He kept asking me why God would let such a faithful servant as Harold suffer, and why He would let the family suffer watching him go down like that. It made no sense to him. He kept asking why God didn’t just take him quickly.

I would just tell him that God has a plan. We might see what it is, or we might never find out, but God always has a plan going on behind the scenes. He tells us that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His plans are higher than our plans.

The doctors offered to put a small new device into Harold’s heart that would stop blood clots from escaping his heart, where they are formed, and he should not have any more strokes. They assured them it was very safe and highly successful. This seemed like it might be the answer they needed so they agreed to have it done.

Unfortunately, Harold was one of the few people who reacted the opposite of what was expected, and instead of stopping the strokes, it caused him to have more. They put him into a rehab hospital to help him get through it and hopefully get well. However, he kept going downhill. A week and a half ago he had a bigger stroke which left him paralyzed on his right side. The next day he went home to heaven. That was what he had been telling Diane and everyone else that he wanted to do, was to go home to be with the Lord.

Of course, Diane was broken hearted, but some wonderful things happened as a result of it all. While Harold was in the rehab hospital he had two different roommates. As a result of these two men watching Harold and all of his Christian visitors coming in and talking to and praying with Harold, Diane had the opportunity to speak to each of them about God and pray with them.

One of the men she thought it was very possible that he had accepted the Lord and became a Christian. We are really hoping so.

The other man was a very rough, tough, crass biker type. The day before Harold died this man spoke to Diane. He said, “he is dying.” Diane said, “I know, but he is a Christian so he is going to heaven.” This tough biker guy teared up and said, “I want to go to heaven.”

Diane took the moment to tell him about God and explain the plan of salvation to him. She told him how he could ask God to forgive his sins and be his Savior. She asked if he would like to do that and he said yes, so she prayed with him right then. She said she really felt like he was sincere and had truly become a Christian.

They moved Harold to another room, but the whole rest of the time she had with this man his eyes were filled with tears. Harold passed away the next day.

I was telling our prayer group at our church all about what happened in the hospital. We agreed that Harold had devoted his entire life to telling people about God and leading them to salvation. We all believe that Harold would have gone through his ordeal a thousand times without complaining if he knew these two men would come to know the Lord while Harold was there in the hospital with them. You see, if Harold hadn’t taken the path to his death the way he did, they never would have met these two men. Who knows if either one of them would have met the Lord if God had “mercifully” taken Harold quickly. I believe that Harold ending up in that hospital with them was God’s behind the scenes plan.

The Bible tells us about Elijah and Elisha, and how Elijah threw down his mantle to Elisha, who picked it up and carried on Elijah’s work.

About a month after my father, who was an incredible man of God, and a preacher who was constantly leading people to salvation, had gone home to the Lord, I was thinking about him one day. I asked God who would witness to all the people my father would have told about the Lord. God spoke very clearly to me and said, “That is your job now.” At that moment I realized my father had passed the mantle to me. It was overwhelming.

I believe that as Harold was slipping out of this world, he threw down his mantle to my sister. That was why my sister who is naturally a rather shy person, was able to boldly speak to these men and lead them to the Lord. She had picked up the mantle.

I also believe he threw down his mantle to his daughters, and everyone else who knew him. Now it is up to each one to decide if they will pick up the mantle.

When I say “pick up the mantle” I am not saying the mantle is something magical, or that we can absorb his spirituality. Each person’s spirituality is the relationship between them and God. I believe the “mantle” is the challenge God gives us to continue the work and be witnesses for Him. We can all do it if we choose to. The question is, who among us will pick up the mantle?

As I told you, my father was a powerful man of God. He was a pastor for about fifty years.

When it really hit me who my father really was happened at his funeral. In my mind he had always just been “Dad” also known as Bill.

We had three local pastors give eulogies at the service. One of them was a pastor named Glen Parks. He gave a wonderful eulogy, and he ended it by quoting from the Bible, John 1:6.

It says, “There was a man sent from God, and his name was John.” However when he closed his eulogy he said, “There was a man sent from God, and his name was Bill.” That was when I realized who our father really was. What a privilege it had been to have him as our father.

Harold lived his life the way our father did. They both were always about the Father’s work.

Now I would like to use that Bible scripture one more time and say, “There was a man sent from God, and his name was Harold.”

So, what do you say? Will you pick up the mantle?

Think about it.

For Such a Time as This

 

Okay, I am going to give away my age right now. I grew up during the 50s and 60s. The TV sitcom “Happy Days” showed it exactly like it was.

The girls dressed as cute as they could and our hair and makeup had to be perfect, while the boys wore letter jackets to show how successful they were as athletes, and they drove muscle cars to look and sound cool. We all had lots of face to face time and long conversations. Communication was great back then. Young people really have no idea what they are missing out on.

Things were basically peaceful and innocent back then. Those of us who lived during that time miss it and long for it to come back.

Everything is so different now. The Bible tells us that in the end days what is right will be called wrong, and what is wrong will be called right. It used to be considered honorable to stand for what is right, but now we are called haters and terrorists. I just keep reminding myself that the Bible also says that he who will not believe the truth will be allowed to believe a lie. That is what we are seeing here.

I thank God that we still have millions of people who know and believe the truth. That is the only thing that is holding this world together. When Jesus returns and takes us home the Christians will be gone and the world will have trouble like it has never dreamed of.

Many times I have wished I had been born about 20 years earlier so I would not have lived through the changes I have seen. The people born after us will see a lot more horrible changes than us.

I feel so happy to have lived through what it was like when we were in our teens. I also feel so sad to be living through what we are seeing now. So many times I have thought about how I don’t want to deal with what is happening now. It can be very sad and discouraging. It can also be very scary.

The other day I was thinking about how I wish I had been born a few years earlier so I wouldn’t be feeling all this stress and trying to hold onto our society. It seems determined to destroy itself, and we are desperately trying to prevent that. I actually get to feeling sorry for myself that I have to deal with this. Why couldn’t I have been born at a different time.

Then God brought to mind the story of Esther, in the Bible. She “just happened” to be in the right place at the right time to become the queen. Her entire race was about to be wiped out and her uncle Mordecai asked her to intervene for her people.

She was very afraid to approach the king because if she went to the inner court unbidden, and the king did not hold out the golden scepter to her she would be put to death. Mordecai encouraged her and helped her to find the strength to risk going before the king without him sending for her. When she was afraid, Mordecai told her, “Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” What a thought.

After thinking about it for a while I came to the conclusion that God knows exactly what each of us who has ever lived was able to deal with and He specifically placed each person in the time in which they lived. God knows exactly what our strengths and weaknesses are, and He has placed each one of us in a time that we are suited to be able to handle. Like Esther, we are created for a time like this. God has never made a mistake and placed anyone in the wrong time period.

When Esther went before the king she saved all of her people. You might feel like you don’t hold the same power she held. After all, you aren’t married to the king. The truth is our place is more powerful than that. We are the sons and daughters of The King of Kings. Like in the days of Abraham, we can petition for God’s grace for our country and our world for the sake of the Christians who are here. There are many times He will show mercy for our sakes. We just have to seek His face and ask. He will always hold out His golden scepter to us. He has promised us that. He might not always give us what we are asking for because we don’t always ask for the right thing, but He will never turn us away.

So remember, even when we feel like we can’t handle things anymore, the truth is we can because we truly were born for a time like this.

Think about it.

He Reigns All Over The World

 

When you were growing up did you ever feel alone as a Christian? I did.

I suppose it was because when we were teenagers very few young people talked publicly about their faith. I always felt like the youth in our church were the only Christians in our school because I wasn’t aware of any other students even attending church. I now know that wasn’t true.

I also thought almost no one in other countries even knew about God, much less served Him. All I knew about religion around the world was mainly Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and so on.

Thank goodness, as I have gone through my life I have come to realize more and more that this is not the case. Although it is still true that far too few people are Christians, it is also true that there are hundreds of millions of people all over the world who are totally devoted to God.

In America we still have the right to worship God openly even though many people here want to take that right away from us. They very well might succeed in that, depending on what Christians allow them to get away with. However, even if that happens, they cannot get rid of us. As long as God is in control, which will never end, they cannot stop us. We might have to go underground, but that is still okay, because when the church has to go into hiding we actually become stronger.

When we went through the Covid crisis we saw great change in the church. The reality is the church became smaller but mightier. As we were not allowed to gather together the people who were Christian in name only used that excuse to escape having to go to church all the time. The true Christians couldn’t wait to get back together. In our church, we have become more concentrated and devoted to God. The constitution says the government has no rule over the church. If we have another pandemic, we will not be shut down again.

In many countries around the world Christians have to meet secretly, in hiding, or they very well might pay with their lives. I guarantee you there are no “in name only” Christians doing that. The Christians who are risking their lives to serve God have to be very strong or they will fall by the wayside.

Years back I heard someone talking about how God had shown them a dream or vision, (I don’t remember which it was). They saw the earth from a great distance. They were amazed by hundreds of millions of little points of light shining up from the earth. These lights shone straight to heaven. This person asked God what all these lights were. God said they are prayers. He sees every prayer as a light shining up to Him, and He is working on each one of them at the same time. That conjured up a picture in my mind of millions and millions of lights rising from EVERY country in the world. Kind of gives a whole new meaning to Christians being the light of the world doesn’t it.

I now also see praise, worship, and love for God as those same lights shining up to God’s throne. The Bible does refer to Christians as letting their light shine or hiding it under a bush. The lights aren’t coming just from our country but from all around the world. If those lights shine brighter according to how deep and powerful the dedication to God is, maybe the people who have to worship in hiding, at risk of death are the brightest of all. That is just a thought. They might all have the same brightness. The point is, there are more lights shining than we could possibly imagine. That is an exciting picture to me.

What got me first thinking about this is the words from one of my very favorite songs. It is called He Reigns, and was put out by Newsboys. Part of the words talk about how all this praise causes the devil and his demons to tremble. I am including the words of the song for you to enjoy.

He Reigns

It's the song of the redeemed
Rising from the African plain

It's the song of the forgiven
Drowning out the Amazon rain

The song of Asian believers
Filled with God's holy fire
It's every tribe, every tongue, every nation
A love song born of a grateful choir

It's all God's children singin'
"Glory, glory, hallelujah"
"He reigns, he reigns"
It's all God's children singin'
"Glory, glory, hallelujah"
"He reigns, he reigns"

Let it rise above the four winds
Caught up in the heavenly sound
Let praises echo from the towers of cathedrals
To the faithful gathered underground

Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this

It's all God's children singin'
"Glory, glory, hallelujah"
"He reigns, he reigns"

And all the powers of darkness
Tremble at what they've just heard
'Cause all their powers of darkness
Can't drown out a single word

When all God's children sing out
"Glory, glory, hallelujah"
"He reigns, he reigns"
(He reigns)

Think about it.

Who Forsook Whom

I am sure there are many stories of people being hurt that we never see, even though they are right there with us. Most people don’t talk a lot about the pain they have experienced in their life.

Sadly, some of that pain comes from people in the church. That should never happen, but as long as the church is made up of human beings it will happen at times.

For me it happened when I was eighteen years old. I had just started asking myself if I really believed everything I had been taught about God, or did I just believe because my parents did. Deep down I knew the answer was yes. I really did believe. I just needed to confirm that in my own mind and heart.

We were the pastors of our church and just as I was making the decision for myself the church asked us to leave. They had decided it was time for a new pastor. I felt totally rejected.

We went to a new town and pastored a new church. Unfortunately, the girl who was basically the leader of the youth in the new church did not want another young girl in the church so she told the youth they were to have nothing to do with me. I didn’t know the reason for two years. By the time I found out what was going on I had already decided if the people in the churches didn’t want me, the people in the world did. Stupidly, I walked away from God and didn’t look back for ten years. Lucky for me, I had a wonderful family and friends who prayed for me and God took care of me.

Eventually I came back to Him but I continued to feel rejected and abandoned. I struggled with those feelings for many years. I would start to feel better and then something would happen that caused all these feelings to come crashing back. I can’t tell you how many tears I shed over the years.

Finally I was in church one Sunday morning and we were singing a song about how we have never been forsaken. I suddenly felt God speaking to me. He reminded me that no matter what anyone else did, He never forsook me but I had forsaken Him. I realized in that moment that I could no longer carry that pain around with me. I was holding God responsible for what humans had done. I was responsible for my own heartache.

To be honest, when I occasionally look back on that time it still seems a little bit sad but not painful. Mostly I just see it as a time of learning. Actually, that is pretty much a description of life in general. It is sad, however, that it took me so long to see it.

At one time, years ago, I was mourning the loss of a certain person out of my life. I was crying one afternoon and asked myself, “Why can’t I let go of this pain?’ Then I heard myself say, “Because the pain is all I have left. When the pain is gone, they will be gone too.” At that time, I realized I had to release the pain and let that person be gone from my life. I immediately felt a little better as I began my journey back toward happiness.

Are you living in pain from events that happened long ago? Do you feel like God abandoned you? Remind yourself that God never abandons us, but we often abandon Him. Remember, God cannot help us heal until we let Him.

Think about it.   

Remember Your Place

 

When you pray, do you ever feel like your prayers are hitting a glass ceiling? I think we all do. it’s only human.

I have mentioned before that I belong to a prayer group at our church. We meet every Wednesday, where we pray for each other, and for anyone needing prayer for anything.

We don’t have to worry about glass ceilings, because if one of us is having a glass ceiling moment someone else is really touching the hem of His garment. It is nearly impossible to be next to a person praying powerfully and not have it influence you. I know for a fact that I pray better than I used to. And why is that? Because I have learned so much about praying as I listen to the other prayers in the room.

There is a reason God tells us to not forsake the gathering together with our fellow Christians. It is so encouraging and uplifting. We have people standing in front of someone, or even sitting at the feet of the one we are praying for. Most are laying hands on each other as we pray. God lays thoughts and impressions on different ones as we pray. When that happens, they share it with the rest of us.

As these things are happening, we can feel God’s presence building. It boosts our confidence and we know prayers are being answered. We pray for things from salvation, to cancer, to jobs or pets. Nothing is too big or too small. God cares about what we need and what we care about. As our confidence grows so does our faith. Answered prayers give us even more faith. More faith brings about more answered prayers. It all creates a cycle. Some cycles are not good, but this kind of cycle is awesome.

The Bible says when we praise God we create an atmosphere of praise around us that God can work in.

One time my sister Diane and I were very upset about our brother Rick who had been diagnosed with cancer. As we were listening to the sermon that Sunday morning, God spoke to both of us at the same time and told us He knew about the need and for us not to worry. He told us to just praise Him and give Him a place to work, and then let Him do His job. We both felt a warm peace come over us and we gave it to God. Needless to say, our brother came through fine.

So here is the trick. Do like God says and surround yourself with your fellow Christians. Pray together and praise together and then get out of God’s way and let Him do His thing.

We sing a song in our church that says we are fighting a battle God has already won. Remember, the praising is ours to do, but the battle is His. When we try to fight God’s battles, all we end up doing is making a bigger mess for Him to clean up.

We need to remember God loves us, and He is always on our side. The lowly work, which is done on our knees, is ours. He is in charge of the higher work, which is overseeing the whole situation and winning the battles for us. We always have to remember our place, and that is on our knees. Don’t fight for the reins or God might hand them to you.

Think about it.

Jehovah Rapha

 

Jehovah Rapha is one of the names of God that we find in the Old Testament. It means God the healer.

Healing is something that God has promised us. He says that by His stripes we are healed. Sometimes it is easy to have faith, and other times we struggle with it. One thing I do know is God loves to heal His children.

When you see people being healed it gets easier to have faith and really pray for each other with conviction. I guess seeing really is believing.

We have a group of people in our church who meet for prayer every Wednesday night. Our group is growing. Tonight there were 18 of us.

There is a man in our group who has had an extremely bad back for many years. He had been wearing a back brace for months, and  had been scheduled for a very serious back surgery where they were to go in through his back and fuse part of his spine. Then the next day they would go in through the front and complete the fusion. We really started praying for him every week asking God to heal him or take him safely through the surgeries. Then he went to a men’s retreat at a campground. One night they were praying and suddenly he felt the pain go away.  He took off the back brace, ran up on the platform, grabbed the microphone, told everyone he had been healed and dropped to the floor and started doing pushups.

He hasn’t worn the back brace since then, and his back is fine.

Tonight we were at our meeting and an 85 year old lady who has been having severe back pain for months was there. She told us, once again, how bad her back was hurting. The pain was constant, 24 hours a day. We gathered around her and laid hands on her and prayed very hard. Suddenly she started rocking back and forth and saying the pain was gone. She got up, started walking all around, bending over, and telling us she was healed.

If you or someone you know needs healing just come before God about it. The Bible tells us we have not because we ask not. It also says to come boldly before the throne.

God says when we praise Him we form an atmosphere of praise around us where He can work. Does He need us to create an atmosphere so He can work. No. Of course not. But that is the way He prefers to work. He loves to partner together with us.

So, what are  you waiting for? You have access to the best partner you could ever possibly have. Don’t let that slip away.

Think about it.

Not My Will

 If you are like me you probably pray for things that aren’t what you really need. They are just what you really want. There is a huge difference between “need” and “want”. Sadly, I have spent a lot of time in my life learning that difference.

How many times have I prayed for God to give me something, or make a certain thing happen a certain way. When I didn’t get the answer to my prayer that I wanted, I just made it happen myself. Big mistake.

When I answer my own prayer I generally find out why God didn’t answer it like I wanted Him to. Then I get to spend time apologizing to God and praying for Him to fix it. I am slowly learning that is backwards, and the long way around to get to God’s will.

Have you ever heard the expression “measure twice, cut once”? That refers to making sure you are doing things the correct way so you don’t have to back up and do it again.

Unfortunately, in my life, reverse seems to be the gear I use the most. Hmmmmm. I wonder why.

The things I do in my life seem like such good ideas at the time. In the end, I always realize the only really good ideas I have are the ones I get from God.

Isaiah 55:9 says,
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

As children we are taught to listen to our elders. That is because they have been around longer, and know a lot more. So why don’t we apply that to our relationship with God? After all, He has been around a little bit longer than we have, and I think He knows a little bit more. The Bible tells us that all wisdom comes from God.

I can be a slow learner when it comes to running my life. I am gradually learning more and more that the best way I can pray to God is to admit that He knows my situation and need better than I do. I have to just give it to Him and ask for His will, not mine. God included that in the example He gave to us about how to pray. That is the Lord’s Prayer. Although I am not a proponent of repeating written prayers because I believe our prayers should come directly from our own heart to His, but I do recommend the Lord’s Prayer. After all, it was given to us directly from Him, but I believe that although it is a good place for our day and our prayers to start, it should not end there.

When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, He told God “Not My will, but Thine be done.” If Jesus needed to submit Himself to God’s will, how much more do we need to do that.

I am going to start making it a practice to end my prayers not only saying “in Jesus’ name,” but also saying “not my will but Thine be done”.

Once again I am including the link to a song. It is an old song, but many of the old songs are very deep and beautiful. This is one of them.

The name of the song is Not My Will. Please listen to it, enjoy it, and think about it.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGxTNsfJNnZdHKmjTdnZHGKwjfp?projector=1

If you enjoyed this, please feel free to leave a comment. They are greatly appreciated. Also, please pass this on to your friends. Thank you.

Janice

Face Down - Good or Bad

 

Have you ever fallen on your spiritual face? Of course you have. We all have. Actually, falling on your face is not always a bad thing.

When you have fallen on your face has it been because you messed up again? If so, did you learn from it? Unfortunately, as human beings, God sometimes has to let us fall on our face in order to get our attention. If we respond properly, when God picks us up and stands us back on our feet we will try not to fall again for the same reason.

When I worked for Coca Cola the boss used to say it was okay to make a mistake, just don’t keep making the same mistake over and over again.

That is the way God is. He doesn’t mind picking us up off our face, but He doesn’t want to have to do it over and over again for the same sin. Not because He is tired of picking us up, but because He sees us just treading water when we could be moving forward in our relationship with Him.

Personally, I have had many spiritual bloody noses, and black eyes from falling in my walk with God. I can tell you, it hurts. But, you probably already know that.

The Bible tells us about King David falling so many times. When he fell he didn’t just stub his toe. When he fell, he really crashed and burned. When God picked him up he immediately fell on his face again. However, that time it would be in tears for what he had done.

Yet, God described David as a man after His own heart. That was because when David fell he would turn back to God. He didn’t just apologize to God. He would sorrowfully repent. There is a world of difference between apologizing and repenting. God sees right through superficial apologies. You cannot fool Him. He looks at our heart.

Falling on our face in front of God is totally different than falling on our face before God. Falling on our face in front of God needs to cause us to fall on our face before God. So you see, falling on our face is not always a bad thing.

My dad was an incredible man of God. He studied his Bible and prayed all the time. He used to talk about when the Philistines took the ark of the covenant into the temple of Dagon, who was their false god. They placed the ark by the statue of Dagon. In the morning they found that the statue of Dagon had fallen on it’s face before the ark. They stood it back up, but the next morning they found it on it’s face before the ark again, and this time it’s head and hands were broken off.

Dad used to say, “I would rather serve a God who can pick me up off my face, than to serve a god who I have to pick up off his face.”

So, if you land on you face in front of God, be sure you also land on your face before God.

Think about it.