Joined Together

Mk 10:9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

There is a song with the words, “The greatest thing in all my life is loving You.”  Loving God is the greatest thing in my life.  The second greatest thing is loving my husband.  Today we celebrate our 46^th anniversary.  It was quite a challenge for both of us the first decade.  After 10 years of marriage we committed our lives to God through His Son, Jesus and made Him the head of our marriage.  We learned to pray together at least once a day.  We don’t make a decision until both of us have God’s peace about the decision.  So many marriages consist of two individuals trying to join themselves together.  Unless God does the joining, there is no real union.  Human love ebbs and flows. Only God’s love is consistent.  It is God’s Holy Spirit in us that stabilizes our marriage.  Happy Anniversary, Richard.  Thank you for being who God has made you to be.

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Our Lord’s Supper

1Pe 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,

This next Sunday is communion Sunday in our church.  I would prefer to celebrate the Lord’s Supper (communion) every Sunday.  To many this is just another ritual of the church.  To me it is a time of remembrance of the great cost my salvation had for God the Father and God the Son.  It is also a time for renewal for confession and a time for thanksgiving.  It is a time regularly set aside to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to me unconfessed sins I may have forgotten to confess in any of the previous days.  It is not only a personal time at the alter, it is a time of feeling connected to other members of God’s family who are with me at that time.  In addition I find it a time of refreshing of God’s Spirit within me.  We can never celebrate through communion too much.

Using God’s Promises

2Sa 7:21 For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant.

All God’s promises and statutes are contained in His written Word, The Holy Bible.  Are you familiar with His promises?  They are there for the taking, for the fulfilling.  When the lack the fulfillment of one of His promises, it is because we are not aware it is there, we don’t believe it is for us, we have not asked for the fulfillment of that promise in our lives.  It is His will to give us all we need to worship Him, to serve Him, to be pleasing unto Him.  It is so important to not only read His Word daily, but to study it and make it part of our everyday thinking.  We need to hide His Word in our hearts (believe it) and in our minds (accept it and apply it).  Only by receiving and applying the promise God made can we truly be pleasing to Him.

The Universe

Ps 102:25 In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands

We went to the planetarium the other night to see a program on Black Holes. It was beautiful, inspirering and very interesting.  In addition to black holes we learned of the possibility of white holes and a combination of lack and white holes, which might provide a link between universes.  Watching this it is hard to believe how anyone can doubt the existence of God.  No matter how you rationalize it, Someone or something had to start everything off.  We tend to put God into a box that only contains what fits in our finite minds of understanding.  I believe God is much bigger than all the knowledge of man in all generations combined.  Someone of that bigness and power can see, know, understand and hear whatever that “someone” wants and when that “someone” wants.  I believe God gave the creatures on this planet we call earth, what we call the Holy Scriptures as a guide book to guide us through our existence on this planet into an existence of eternity with Him.  He is the One Who sets the rules in motion.  He is the One Who requires blood sacrifice, which He provided through His only Son Who was with Him in the very beginning.  I looked forward to having my eyes and mind opened in eternity.   From what I’ve seen and learned in this life in this time and space, I am excited about His loving me enough to do all He has done.  In comparison of His creation I am merely a speck of dust passing in an instant, yet, He loves me enough to pay such a cost so I can remain with Him throughout eternity.  What an awesome God.

Interference

II Corinthians 12:9-10 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong

How much help is too much?  That is a hard question to answer.  Whether it be helping your adult children or anyone else, when does your help become an interference with what God is trying to teach them.  It is through our trials we learn to depend on God, His wisdom, His power and His provision.  The only answer I can find is to pray for discernment and be sure the Holy Spirit is giving you peace as you reach out to help.  Even then, it is sometimes hard to know for sure when to step back and watch.  It is especially hard when watching your adult children struggle.  More than provision or comfort, I desire my children and my friends to have close and intimate relationships with God.  I can remember some of my trials that brought me where I am and, though I would not ever want to repeat any of them, I would give none of them up for where they have brought me.  I pray daily for God to keep me from interfering in any of His working in another.

Ready for Eternity

Lk 23:42-43 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, and today you will be with me in paradise.”

 So many people think they can wait to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior until the last minute on this earth.  That is true, but we have no ability to know when that last minute will be.  The thief knew he was dying but so often people have no warning of the exact time of their death.  Then there are the people who think their actions are what “earns” them a place before the throne of God.  Jesus said there are those who call Him “Lord” and who do miracles in His name but He doesn’t know them.  The key is faith and grace.  Only through faith may we receive the grace of God’s forgiveness of our sin and enter into His Presence.  True, those who wait for the last minute and manage to come into that faith in time are just as welcomed as those who receive God’s grace earlier in their lives on this earth, but they miss out on a life of learning to know the love and power of God.  What an empty walk that is.  Be sure you are prepared to stand in judgment before God before it is too late.  All of us will be judge.  The difference is, the ones who have faith in Jesus as God’s only Son and have received His grace through His Holy Spirit, will be represented by Jesus and pronounced covered by His shed blood.  Are you ready?

Help in Prayer

Ro 8:26-27 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will

Without the help of God’s Holy Spirit we cannot pray within God’s will.  We don’t know the right words, we don’t know the right things to ask, we don’t know the timing and we don’t really know the real needs.  Many times we find we can’t even give voice to what is inside us.  In those times I just whisper the prayer of the name of Jesus.  Then I ask His Holy Spirit to pray on my behalf or I name the person I am concerned about and lift that name up before God’s throne of grace.  David gives voice to his difficulties in praying in many of his psalms.  Even Jesus struggled in prayer in Gethsemane on the night before His crucifixion.  I am so thankful to have the Holy Spirit interceding for my loved ones and me.  Sometimes, as I am working through my day I become aware of prayer going on deep inside me.  That is God’s Holy Spirit.

Jumping to Conclussions

Ps 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path

 When my laptop came back from warranty repair we were surprised at the quickness.  I opened the box, plugged it up and turned it on.  Windows came up then everything went blank.  I repeated the process and the same thing happened.  The timing of the black screen was 45 seconds.  That is how long it takes a CPU to heat up and shut down automatically if it’s too hot.  We concluded they didn’t put the new part in correctly.  I left it plugged in all night long and rechecked it in the morning.  It works perfectly.  We had jumped to conclusions.  We humans are very good at jumping to conclusions.  We take one verse out of scripture and jump to a conclusion about it’s meaning.  The Holy Bible is also called “The Word of God.”  Notice there is no “s” on the end of the word, “Word”.  It means the entire collection of books and letters is to be taken in its entirety.  We cannot separate one statement from the other statements.  We cannot pick out one law over others.  We must read and become familiar with all that comes before and follows after any verse in God’s Word.  Let us quit jumping and really study God’s Word, allowing His Holy Spirit to truly write His Word on our hearts.

Down for Repairs

My computer is going in for repairs so there will not be any new postings for about 3 weeks.  Please feel free to read some of the archives you might have missed.

Desires of Our Hearts

 Ps 37:4-7  Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

 So many people just read the end of the 4^th verse, “He will give you the desires of your heart.”  They omit that there are requirements to receive the desires of our hearts.  First, we must delight ourselves in the Lord.  When we delight in something we take pleasure in spending time with it, we want to know all about it.  People delight themselves in a specific sport, or craft or job and spend most of their time in it, practicing it and learning all about it.  How much time do we spend studying God’s written word, the Bible, and learning about Him.  How much time do we spend in communion with Him.  Do we really delight in Him? 

 Second, we must commit our way to the Lord.  To commit means to put our time and effort in something.  That, too, takes study and communion.

 Third, we must trust in Him.  I used to go to a church alter and pray then spend the rest of the week working and conniving to make sure my prayers were answered.  I did not trust God to show me the right doors to open.  I did not trust Him to walk according to His laws.

 When we don’t have the desires of our hearts we need to check our relationship with God.  When that relationship is right, our desires will be in line with God’s will for us.