NARROW IS THE WAY

Boys Need Work

2012-01-28T13:44:00.000-06:00

Boys need work. They need fresh air, sunshine, and plenty of physical activity. I am so thankful my boys get all of these things and so much more here within our fellowship. Most of the work they do is outside in the country - so many opportunities to see God's creation away from the city. There's just something about working out in the country ... getting all dirty and sweaty, stinky and tired ... and feeling so good! Praise the Lord!

Today they helped a brother who is out of town (they fed cattle). Brianna was along to take a few pictures.

Corban in the tractor.

Tylor in the Nissan

Cows gone astray; a gate was left open the other day and these cows were in the wrong place. The boys put them back where they belonged.

David's charges.

Corban moving hay.

Sometimes hay gets put into a pen like this one.

A view from the north side of Hemphill's. The boys enter into the south gate where the barn is ... you can see it way back there if you look hard!

Sometimes hay is released right on the field. The boys unwrap it and then push it down the hill with the tractor (it spreads as it rolls).

Hay that has been pushed/rolled.

Since Brianna was taking the pictures, the artistic side of her had to get a few nice shots of the scenery :)

Henry And The Great Society

2012-01-27T09:55:00.003-06:00

Ever heard of this book?

It is somewhat sad and very sobering. I am almost done with it but highly recommend all to read it. I found it in pdf free online. Of course I cannot vouch for the site it is on, but here is a link to the pdf for you to read (it is an easy read, so please take the time to do it). Henry And The Great Society.

It would be nice to have a discussion about this book; if you read it, let me know your thoughts. I'll post mine at a later date ... if I have time.

LATER (edit):
Well, I had time to finish the book and for now I'll only touch on the few things I did NOT agree with.
First, I do not want to give the impression that I agreed with everything about their seemingly happy life before all the changes started happening. And second, I do not agree 100% with all the doctrinal stuff he puts at the end (though much of what he said at the end was a blessing and I hope to go back through and quote some of it at a later time).
The biggest doctrinal thing that stuck out to me is his few comments that suggest he believes in OSAS.
Another thing that stuck out is that he talked about food, clothing and shelter and the pursuit of that as our basic needs and being content with the basics (well, it seemed he was saying that that is where contentment comes - from having the simple things in life) ... I assume he is speaking of what Paul said about "having food and raiment let us therewith be content." But what bothered me is that he never (that I saw anyway?) mentioned what CHRIST said about "seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness" and how if we do this "all these things shall be added unto you." What things was Christ speaking of? Food and raiment. My thoughts are that anyone in the U.S. and most other countries can provide the bare minimum for themselves and get by. But if we are a follower of Christ and we seek first his kingdom and righteousness, then the LORD will make sure we have the basics. This is where TRUE contentment comes from. Walking in the will of the Lord and knowing that he will take care of us no matter the circumstances. There is great peace in that.
There was one more doctrinal thing that I thought good to bring up and that is his thoughts or beliefs on the rapture. I don't understand it all myself so I wont get into it, but I did want to say that he might be off. I have only read it through one time so maybe I missed something.

Taken with the right mindset, this book was a great blessing. Like I said, I hope to post some quotes at a later time ... either here on this post or I'll make a new one and link them together.

Do you CONFESS or DENY?

2012-01-20T08:53:00.000-06:00

Matthew 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

To 'confess' goes way beyond words. In fact, the Lord was very clear to warn us that: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

Is there something in your life that you are doing that you know is wrong? Is there something you are NOT doing that you know you SHOULD BE doing?

If you are not walking in the light that you have, you are DENYING Christ. If this is you, the Lord will say to you in that last day: DEPART FROM ME. It is only when we are walking in the light that we receive cleansing for our sins.

How Rich Are You?

2012-01-07T20:51:00.000-06:00

I recently read this quote from Economist Robert Heilbrone in an article. The writer of the article was trying to help us put ourselves in someone else's shoes (the poorest billion or so in the world).

We begin by invading the house of (the) imaginary American family to strip it of its furniture. Everything goes: beds, chairs, tables, television set, lamps. We will leave the family with a few old blankets, a kitchen table, a wooden chair. Along with the bureaus go the clothes. Each member of the family may keep in his “wardrobe” his oldest suit or dress, a shirt or blouse. We will permit a pair of shoes for the head of the family, but none for the wife or children.
We move to the kitchen. The appliances have already been taken out, so we turn to the cupboards … The box of matches may stay, a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt. A few moldy potatoes, already in the garbage can, must be hastily rescued, for they will provide much of tonight’s meal. We will leave a handful of onions, and a dish of dried beans. All the rest we take away: the meat, the fresh vegetables, the canned goods, the crackers, the candy.
Now we have stripped the house: the bathroom has been dismantled, the running water shut off, the electric wires taken out. Next we take away the house. The family can live in the tool shed …

I'm not sure the man was harsh enough here. Even if you make only 2,500 a year, you are still richer than most people in the world. And this is just stuff. A song the children and I like to sing on the streets talks about how man heaps up treasures mixed with woe, and then dies and leaves it all behind. What's it all for anyway if it does not have eternal value?
I pray this causes all to stop and think before complaining about not having 'enough'.

Wisdom

2012-01-02T18:45:00.005-06:00

Last sunday's message was a great blessing. Here it is transcribed, but you can listen to it &/or download it online as well.

Greetings in Jesus' name; I'm glad to be here this morning. Let's turn to Proverbs 1 where we just sang (Lo, Wisdom Crieth In The Streets).

Proverbs 1:20 Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: 21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, 22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? 23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

God, his spirit is crying in the streets. He is speaking to us, trying to teach us and show us a better way. In Titus 2 it talks about how the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. And then in James …

James 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. 2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

If you had a list of the things that you want out of this life, what would be at the top of that list? If you could have whatever you want, what would it be? Just imagine – let your mind wonder – what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Maybe you want a new truck. You are thinking, “Wow, if I could have a wish, what would I want? If I could have anything … a nice farm with a nice house; a nice husband or wife with a nice family...” Maybe you want something a little lower than that. Maybe you want a new toy to play with. A new cell phone – maybe that's what you thought of. Or a nice computer? Or a new horse or something. “Maybe if I just had a new saddle ...” What is on your list? What did you think of when I said, “If you could have whatever you want”? What is it you find yourself longing for whenever you are daydreaming about something? What do you want? Do you know what ought to be at the top of your list? King Solomon was made the king of Israel and God basically told him to ask for whatever he wanted and he would give it to him. He went and offered sacrifices and prayed, and you know what he asked for? Wisdom. Wisdom to do God's will. Do you know what ought to be at the top of our list? What is God trying to give us? Wisdom. He is trying to give us wisdom. That ought to be the top thing that you think of. “Lord, give me wisdom.” Is it something you have to beg for? Does God say, “If you beg me for wisdom long enough, I might share a little bit of it with you.” No, he does not. “ASK and I will give it to you liberally. I will freely give you all you want of it, if you will but ask.”

You know, people say (I am so sick of this …), “Oh, I'll pray about it”. You know how when there is a decision to be made and they say, “I'll pray about it.” Forget about that – ask the Lord for wisdom! “Lord, I need wisdom. Help me make the choices I need to make in my life. Guide me the way you want me to go.” When people say, “Well, I'll pray about it,” a lot of times they just end up with the wrong decision. If they would have asked for wisdom … Lord guide us, give us wisdom … instead of looking for a loophole, they would have seen the Lord's will. That's what most people are looking for whenever they say, 'Oh, I'll pray about it:' a loophole. What they are really saying is, 'I see what's right in front of me, I see what the bible says, but we'll pray about it and see.' You are going about it backwards. If any of you lack wisdom, ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and he doesn't complain about it one bit. He is not going to scold you for asking for wisdom. He is not going to upbraid you or rebuke you or argue with you – he is going to give it to you. “But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” It goes on and talks about a double-minded man; a man that is driven to and fro. That man that is just looking for the right situation. Ask God for wisdom.

What is wisdom going to teach us? Wisdom is crying in the street waiting for someone to hear it, and we are off daydreaming about something else. The some we sang that someone called out this morning (it's pretty neat how things fall together): “Young men in all your revelry” just having a good time … young men in having your good time, enjoying your youth. “Young ladies, proud and thoughtless” Proud and thoughtless. Boy, how often you see that. When children are left to themselves and unrestrained, what happens? Young men grow up wanting to have a party. Wanting to have a good time. The young ladies think they are real pretty, and are thoughtless. They don't even think. “Proud and thoughtless.” “Will you be saved eternally?” There is wisdom. It gives you something to think about. “Or die forever hopeless?” What are you thinking about? “Toward hell you hasten in conceit; you plunge in sin's perdition. Yet wisdom cries upon the streets 'in God there is redemption!'” Praise the Lord! If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. That's not just for young people.

Do you want wisdom? Fathers and mothers – you are training up children; do you ask for wisdom in how to handle each situation? Whenever you come up to a problem with your children, is your goal just to fix the situation, or is your goal to instill some wisdom into the child? The bible says train up a child in the way it should go and when it is old it will not depart from it. I've said often that child training first begins with adult training. If you do not have enough courage and enough wisdom yourself, how are you going to pass that along to your children? It takes discipline. Children really are pretty easy to train, the problem is the parents being diligent in training. God has given you children; train them the way they should go.

There are so many things that are so easy to fall in to. It's hard to say this right: to be able to train someone, often we have to just be honest enough with ourselves to first seek that wisdom and apply it to our own lives. I want to be a better man. I want to be a better man. Do you want to be a better man? A better woman? A better wife? A better son? A better daughter? Do you want to be better? We need to train ourselves to be better; to find out what is wrong and correct it now. Many of the habits or the things we do in our lives reflect on how we were trained and brought up. And it is a lot easier to catch those things whenever the person is a child than an adult. The deeper the groove or rut you have traveled in, the deeper it gets and the harder it is to climb out of. Whenever we are feeding cattle and working in the mud, we drive the same path every day and begin to make ruts. All winter long those ruts get deeper and deeper and deeper, and then it freezes and you get in that rut and try to turn out of it, it is almost impossible. When you first make that path through there, you can stir out of it easily; but as you continually go down that same path every day, the rut gets deeper and deeper and deeper.

Whenever we are training children and we train them to act like a little fool and then we laugh at them, do you know what we are training them to do? We are training them to grow up to be a clown because they love that attention. We spend the first two or three years of their life laughing at them because they are doing something stupid, and then we spend the next 16 years (or how many are left under our care) trying to take that stupidness out of them, and wonder why they are so foolish. We wonder why they always are causing trouble and trying to get attention. The bible says foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. We do not have to train them to be foolish, yet we encourage it. We need to drive it from them when they are little. A lot of the time it is just little things like that; ask God for wisdom with your child. How are you training them when they are little? Are you training them to follow? Are you training them to be careful? How are you training them – are you training them to be a little monkey?

The bible says in Titus that we ought to teach young men to be sober minded; in all things showing thyself a pattern of good works. That does not mean to never laugh and just be 'sober'' or what we would consider 'serious' all the time, but it does mean we ought to think about reality. To be sober – to be serious enough to consider our situation.

We do not have to train our children to be children; we are trying to train them to be adults. They have enough free time of their own to be children. We need to be working on them, whenever we have the opportunity, to be adults; to grow them up - not only to just keep throwing food in front of them so they get big and tall. We don't feed them baby food; we get them to where they will eat so they will grow and move up into adulthood. That's how we ought to be feeding them whenever we are feeding their minds. I don't think we should have a different language when we speak to babies. If we want them to talk properly, we need to talk properly to them. We need to show them how to do it; show them how to learn.

We try to improve their situation when what we ought to be doing is teaching them how to deal with hardships. That's what makes people strong and builds their character. You do not build character without some tribulation. Do you think Job came out of his tribulation a better man or worse? He came out of it a better man. It was hard to go through it! Training children ought to be hard on them; it is life! Whenever we have them so sheltered and protect them from anything difficult, we are not helping them at all. That is why when they get out of all their schooling that the world teaches them is going to solve all their problems and then they get out into the real world and hit life, all they can do is whine and cry. It's no wonder they turn to drugs, or alcohol or some bad habit. It's no wonder they fall into lust, they've had things handed to them all their life and when they have to face reality they cannot.

This idea that the world teaches, that there is no real loser, and they give everyone a ribbon, or whether they have a passing score or not they pass them anyway, because they don't want them to feel bad … all you are doing is training them that there are no consequences for their wrong actions or failures. There are consequences and struggles and hard times. The trying of your faith works patience. You don't make a knife sharp by keeping it wrapped in a little cotton box. You sharpen a knife when you take the edge of it and grind it up against a hard rock. It bites into that metal and tears little pieces off of it and makes it sharp. What are we trying to train them for? So they can live in a little cotton box all of their life? Or are we trying to train them to be useful? To be able to cope?

Face your problems. Face your problems. Face your angers. Listen to that wisdom that God is trying to tell you. We gave these older boys an assignment last week to each pick a Proverb and share how they have applied it to their lives. Two of them picked the same verse and one picked another verse about the same topic. It was a blessing. That is wisdom crying out: “Here is one of your main problems, learn how to deal with it.” Do you know how you are going to learn how to deal with it? Your brothers are probably going to be twice as ornery to you now. Do you know how you are going to learn how to deal with it? When someone says something about you, you are going to hear it more. You can run away like a little sissy, or you can deal with it; you can learn how to give that soft answer. You can learn how to control that spirit. A man that can control his spirit is like a man who can control a city. Learn that wisdom now when you are young. You need some of that temper, but let it make you strong. Control it. Turn it to make you a better man.

I thought about how a lot of times we are pretty easy to confess. “Oh, I'm kind of proud.” We hang our head a little and act real humble and say [in a kind of shy or quiet way], “I'm sorry, I'm so proud” or “I'm sorry, I'm no good.” And we can say that about ourselves, but you let someone else jump up and say it against you and we'll see what happens. “Yeah, you are proud. You are no good. Boy, you sure did not handle that good, that was dumb!” And we have this “ARRGH!!” feeling. That didn't work out, did it? That's how you tell whether there is anything there or not – whenever others say it against you and you can accept it with meekness and respond in kindness. I've heard men say whenever you tell them something, “Well they are a better man than I am. They are a better man than I am.” But what if the other man said, “I am a better man than you are.” How would you accept it then? Nothing wrong with saying 'yes he is a better man than I am and I want to learn from him,' but how do you respond when they say it? “I'm a better man than you are and you ought to learn from me.” We don't want to hear that, do we?

Look into the word of God. A man that won't look to something higher than himself will soon be a servant to something lower than himself. Look to the word of God – not to just be able to spout off doctrine or answer questions. If you will let the word of God make you a better person, you will have answers to questions. If you let the word of God shape your life, you will have the answers to questions and you will be able to say it with authority that will leave them with their mouths hanging wide open. That is the difference between just studying to improve your situation and studying to be a better man. Whenever you pick up the bible, do you read it just because you have to? Do you read it because you want to learn more, or do you read it to let it improve you?

Let's learn to be better. Let's ask God for wisdom. Let's ask God for patience. You know I've been taught all my life, “Don't ask for patience, God will give you trouble!” But that's exactly why he is giving it to you – so you will get some patience; and you ought to want it! Do you want to be long-suffering? Get ready for somebody to aggravate you or be trouble to you. Do you want to learn how to be kind? Get ready for someone to be unkind to you so you can learn to be kind. What is wrong with that? Are we trying to just improve our situation, or are we trying to be better men, better women, better children? That is what's wrong with this world – they are trying to work on their situation, trying to fix things through the government or education. They are trying to fix everything instead of making people better men. You are not going to fix anything until people become better people. The church isn't going to fix anything until the church has people in it that are determined to be better people. Better humans. Better servants.

Train your children to be honest, faithful, dependable. Train yourself to be faithful, honest, dependable, kind, gentle, meek.

James 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, ...

Do you see how that all fits together? Do you want wisdom? Then you are going to have to go through situations where you just don't know what to do. That's pretty uncomfortable isn't it? Do you want patience? You are going to have to be under trial for a while. Do you want to grow good fruit in your life? We look at fruit just the way most people were taught – fruit is like pretend faith: you have it and God will start growing it. That is not the way it works. God grows his fruit just like you would grow fruit in a garden. It gets tilled. It gets manure slung on it. It gets wet. It gets tore up and a seed put in it. It starts to grow and it might get pruned. It gets more manure thrown on it. It gets more water and then it stands out in the hot sun. It gets the area all around it tore up once in a while to keep the weeds from growing, and then it can grow some fruit. And that is the way it is going to happen in your life. There is a price-tag for it, but it is what you ought to be seeking after. It will make you a better man. It will make you a better woman. It will make you a better young man or young woman. What is all that other stuff matter? What does all of it matter if we can't leave here a better person? That ought to be our goal every day – to wake up with a desire to be a better man today that we were yesterday. A better mother. A better father. Every day. Better than I was the day before.

Amen.

Comments/additions (many of the comments were hard to hear):

Marcus – how true that is about being excited about accepting something that we thought was wrong but let someone else point it out first and there is the real proof of whether or not we really accept it.

Steve – I say 'yea' and 'amen'. As I grew up I did not have a dad and I don't know if all boys are this way but to a certain extent I think they are – they just want their dad to tell them when they have done something wrong (even if they say they don't want him to). And when I came to the beginning or the starting point of my walk with the Lord, there were not any men who were man enough to tell me when I was wrong. I remember looking back through all my life, even in elementary school, and the only person was my grandfather. He only taught me a little, but he expressly took the time to do it and everything that he taught me stuck. I want to encourage all of us dads that some that have had dads might take it a little for granted and might not see how absolutely important it is to diligently train your sons because you had a dad. But so often, the boys that come after the dad, the dads don't even teach them. That is a shame. The boys want to know, even if they get knocked around a little and taught how to be tough. “Dig this hole. Dig it again. Sweep the floor. Sweep it again. Sweep it again. Sweep it again.” Whatever it is to train them to be a man and to train them to learn how to listen to their leaders. Even when I got married I still wanted men to say, “Steve, you are wrong, just do what is right.” And whenever I (accidentally!) got put into a teaching roll and started telling people, “You are wrong”, everyone flips out because no one is telling them when they are wrong. It's not that I was outside of my roll by telling them they were wrong and do what's right; I was the teacher. As men, we have to be willing to hear that we are wrong. We have to be willing and able to do that to our boys also and not just think “Oh, I need to be sensitive. I don't want them to think I don't love them.” That's a lie from hell. It says in Hebrews that if we do not train them we do not love them. It takes time. Maybe time away from the things we want to do, but I think these boys want it and they need to hear that stuff.

Wilbur – When we ask for wisdom it's like asking for patience. We are going to have to face tough things that we are not sure how to handle. When we pray for wisdom, we need to learn how to recognize it when the Lord is giving us these tough situations in which we can learn more wisdom - and thank the Lord for them. We can ask a brother how to get through it and make it happen.

Tylor – When you were preaching I had a thought about how if we do not want to apply the bible to our lives but just read it because we enjoy reading it, then we have no business reading it. If we do not read it and see the examples in there and apply them to our lives and start walking it and obeying it, then we should not read it. That is something I have found a lot in my life – that I will read the bible for enjoyment and it makes me feel good and then I pass up other things that are more important.

David – Amen. Knowledge puffeth up.

Kevn – I like what Marcus said about us confessing a wrong. Sometimes we hurry up and confess it because it's a lot easier for us to confess it than to hear someone else say it about us instead. I've seen myself do that so many times and that is so wrong. When I do that, I am probably missing a lot of correctiveness I could have gotten if I would have just let someone else tell me, and take it, and grow by it. (can't hear much of this part) I don't know how all of that works out, but I've prayed for wisdom as a father pretty seriously for the past four or five years and I think that is why things have turned out like they have. If I hadn't stood as a father when I did, I might have lost all of my children instead of the ones I did lose. (cannot hear the rest)

Steve – one other thing from a vantage point of brother to brother: So often we pray for wisdom and we know within ourselves the weak points and we say within ourselves something like “Oh, I know this is a weak point and I have to work on this” and we do a little bit but then we slip. It seems that it's not until a brother comes along and points it out to us (what we already know) that we have the ability to really work on those weak points. I appreciate Brian for this so much – his honesty and no guile. We were street preaching once and he, just matter-of-factly, said to me, “Well you know sometimes you just talk too much to people when preaching.” And I know that! But it's not until a brother points it out that it's like, “Yes!” that we really [are able] to work on things. We have to have the right attitude. When I heard that I thought, “Yes, I want to stop talking so much” and then when we are out preaching again I am able to say to him, “Do you think I talked too much that time?” and it keeps it in my mind to do what is right. We must be willing to hear stuff and not be offended at it – even if someone is misunderstanding us, we can still take that as an opportunity to learn. Most of us know what our weaknesses are. What does the bible say? Something like “Faithful are the wounds of a brother.” A good friend is closer than a [blood] brother. Praise the Lord.

David – Amen.

The Hallelujah Chorus

2012-01-01T14:36:00.003-06:00

I was really blessed by this version of the Hallelujah Chorus but for some reason they disabled the embed feature ... so I'll just give you the link: Choir Of King's College, Cambridge - Hallelujah. Be sure to have good speakers or headphones for this one.

Women Tennis 'then and now' comparison

2011-12-24T15:38:00.005-06:00

We got an interesting history time-line book the other day and it's been fun going through it. The other day I was reading in the early 1900s and there was a photograph of a woman tennis player. WOW. I was a bit surprised at her outfit (in a good way). I read what they had to say and then checked it out for myself before posting it here. I'm not advocating that women be tennis champions, so don't miss my point.

Here is a picture of the ladies' Wimbledon Champion for 1904 (Dorothea Chambers):

In 1905, May Sutton took the title; she became the first American and first non-British woman to win the Wimbledon singles. Here is a picture of her ... look at this and then read the scandal associated with it below:

She won the title while shocking the British audience by rolling up her sleeves to bare her elbows and wearing a skirt that showed her ankles.

Hmmm. Most of the professing christian women I know bare a lot more than their elbows and ankles.

I'll leave out the picture of what women wear today while playing tennis. We don't need to go there. But sadly, it is the same way I see many professing christians dressing.

The Law Of Kindness (the tongue/gossip/love)

2011-12-20T10:07:00.005-06:00

A dear sister shared this article with me; she had it in print form so I typed it up to share with others. She said it was written by a woman and directed towards women (the latter being clear in the article). I have included a few thoughts at the end; their numbers correspond with the numbers you will see in (#) throughout the article.

I pray it blesses others like it has blessed me.

THE LAW OF KINDNESS
“She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.” (Proverbs 31:26)

Love
Hasn't it all been said, and written, and read about that evil little monster, the tongue? It is a fire, a world of iniquity, and defiles the whole body; it sets on fire the coarse of nature, is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison, and no man can tame it. These are some of the things James says about the tongue (James 3:5-8). A Proverbs study of the capacities our tongues have for good and evil teaches us that our concern with its use is two-fold: using it wrongly and using it rightly. The godly woman of Proverbs is our model for the right use of the tongue, for her tongue is ruled by kindness.

Sins of the Tongue
One of the greatest temptations to the misuse of the tongue among women is what we call gossip, and we need not try to call it anything else. To gossip is to discuss the affairs of others, concentrating on their faults and weaknesses and their consequences. It is an unwritten rule of the gossip game that we do not discuss any faults of others that we ourselves also have, if we do have any. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” says Proverbs 18:21, and in 11:9 we read that “An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbor.” Gossip has destroyed reputations, the emotional, mental and even the physical health of its victims. Many have committed suicide in a state of mental and physical deterioration indirectly caused by unkind tongues.

Gossip is a habit (1). We should beware of “Christian” gossip, or sharing information about another under the guise of asking for prayer. This is despicable, but it does happen. Very rarely need we reveal personal and private information about another, and never if it has been told us in confidence. Sometimes we may not be specifically told that certain information is confidential, but we should be discerning enough to understand that it should not be repeated. If, when we share information with another, we have to ask that it not be repeated, we'd best not tell it at all, but re-double our praying about it.

Often we hear someone say (perhaps we say it ourselves), “Now I just love Sally to pieces, but ...” then we know Sally is about to be cut to pieces. If we are going to say something unkind about someone at least let's not be a hypocrite. Sometimes we don't really love Sally at all, and we are hiding hatred with lying lips (Proverbs 10:18). To be a little more kind to ourselves usually what we are really saying is, “Sally is a dear person, but she has many faults. However, I'm so charitable that I love her anyway.” The next time we have an impulse to say, “I-just-love-her-but...” about someone, what if we change “but” to “because”, tell why we love her and let it go at that? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we spoke about the living persons the way we do about the ones who have just died – nothing but praise and kindness!

Picture a law at the gate of your mouth which says, “No unkind word shall pass these portals,” for that is what is meant by, “In her tongue is the law of kindness.” A law is something that must be obeyed. If it is broken, there are consequences – broken spirits (Proverbs 18:14), broken hearts (Proverbs 18:8), broken relationships (Proverbs 16:28; 17:9), and miserable feelings of guilt in the offender. If we truly fear God we need have no shame as we talk with one another, knowing that He hears, for our speech will be gracious and kind and loving (Malachi 3:16).

“I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress,” says the Psalmist (Psalm 17:3). We have discussed ways that our mouth can transgress by speaking unkindly. Is it a transgression to fail to speak a cheerful word to a discouraged person? Our failure to do so is usually a result of lack of thoughtfulness, or laziness, or no real interest in the welfare of others. And this lack is a result of what? It is painful to admit, but a preoccupation with our own needs and desires, which keep us from noticing the needs of others.

Recently I had occasion to commend someone for a beautifully executed task, and I shall never forget he response. “My dear,” she said with tears in her voice, “I needed that encouragement.” With a convicted heart I thought of many scripture passages that instruct us to lift up one another with kind words, and of how seldom I think to do it. “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones.” (Proverbs 16:24)

“Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop, but a good word maketh it glad” (Proverbs 12:25). “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary … He wakeneth my ear to hear as the learned.” (Isaiah 50:4). If we would have the tongue of the learned we must learn something about those to whom we would minister. We must have our ears wakened. In other words, we need to talk less and listen more.

The natural companion of a kind tongue is a kind ear, and a person of true charm is first of all an expert listener. There is a vast difference between listening and simply keeping silent. A listener records, analyzes and devises intelligent and interesting ways to respond to what he hears. To be a good listener one must have a genuine interest in others. A godly women knows how to listen lovingly, patiently and attentively, and her response will be thoughtful and concerned, demonstrating genuine interest. “The heart of the righteous studieth to answer” (Proverbs 15:28). Many of us only study to say whatever we can about what interests us most, and we listen by maintaining a polite silence until we can get the floor again to continue our me-myself-and-I monologue. Usually we are sadly unaware of the one way nature of our communications.

It is important to distinguish between sincere praise and flattery, the determining difference being in the motive behind each. Flattery has a self-seeking goal which is to ultimately work for the good of the one employing it, sometimes to the detriment of its object. Flattering praise is usually insincere and frequently exaggerated to the point of inaccuracy. The purpose of a true compliment is to strengthen and encourage the one complimented. There is such a clean feeling in knowing that our praise of another flows from a sincere heart's desire for that persons good, and that our compliments are true and honest without a tinge of flattery.

We should remember when we are tempted to flatter someone that there is usually an ulterior motive lurking somewhere. It may be that we only want the other person's approval of ourselves, but this is seeking to meet our own needs, not the other person's. We should guard against trapping others or ourselves with flattery (Proverbs 29:5). And we should be warned about those who entice and flatter us, and who tell us tales about others. They will amuse others with tales about us (Proverbs 20:19).

Remedies for the Tongue
If we desire to have our tongues obey the law of kindness, God's word has several suggestions as to how we might do this. We should begin by asking God daily to prepare our hearts so that the answers or responses of our tongue would honor His name and do good to those we encounter through the day (Proverbs 16:1). We should pray for a spirit of acceptance of others and their ways in order to avoid the temptation to be critical (2).

Enthusiasm is such good medicine for the soul! Nothing is more enhancing to self-esteem than a hearty endorsement of one's ideas. A friend of my mother-in-law said on the day of her funeral, “One thing I shall always remember about Dorthy is the enthusiastic way she responded to ideas. Her characteristic response was, 'Yes, let's'” A congenial companion to enthusiasm is unqualified praise. A compliment with no “if's”, “and's” or “but's” is a rare jewel, and we should practice bestowing them more often.

A Spirit sensitive to the needs or particular circumstances of others is so important. In other words don't sing merry songs to a person with a breaking heart (Proverbs 25:20). And albeit very commendable to count one's blessings, we should never do it in the company of a person who is obviously undergoing great trial or testing.

It is not easy to accept criticism or advice, but a true friend is willing to hurt us, if in the end we will be helped. It is only his faithfulness as a friend that causes him to inflict these necessary wounds (Proverbs 28:23). Each of us has the possibility of two applications here. If we sense a necessity to administer such wounds we must be sure that God has directed it and our motives are pure. We must pray for a meek spirit, using Galatians 6:1 as our guide and authority. Or if a friend sees needs in our lives and attempts to help us by first having to hurt us, we shall have to ask for special grace and humility from God, for a teachable spirit, and for objectivity sufficient to see our faults. These situations are often victory grounds for Satan.

The Royal Law
Up to here we have only dealt with the superficial meaning of our text. Have you ever heard of The Royal Law of LOVE? Read James 2:8. The basic truth of this lesson is that the law of kindness cannot be present in the tongue unless the law of love exists in the heart. “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good … for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6;45). Whatever is in our heart will determine what will come out of our mouth.

Love is the watershed of life – everything falls on one side of it or the other. Either a person possesses love – the capacity to love – or he doesn't. And he either has the world's flimsy facsimile, or he has the shining pure gold of God's love, working for, and in, and through him. We are speaking here of Divine love, as it has redeemed the souls of those who will receive it, and as it flows freely through them, warming and blessing the lives of those around the redeemed ones.

God's Love
Love is too deep and broad and complex a subject to try to confine to a few pages or brief minutes of study. But we should recognize that love is the essence of God, and that it is his will that it should be manifested in the lives of his children. The common denominator of all expressions of love is sacrifice,. The prototype of this is God's gracious expression of love for us in the sacrificial death of Christ. Every manifestation of real love involves giving, or the giving up of something. Loving others doesn't merely mean to put up with them, to refrain from criticizing them, or doing them any harm. “She will do him good, and not evil” teaches us that we must attempt to do those things that would be good for and helpful and pleasing to those we love. Often this means giving up something, or some of ourselves – of our energy, our time, or material resources.

Love's Loved Ones
Sometimes we think that in the area of love our greatest difficulty is in loving the unlovely, or those people we don't particularly even like. This is a problem. But many of us don't love those nearest and dearest to us as we should. This lack shows itself in two ways. First, we don't truly love them deeply and unselfishly and with hearts full of gratitude to God for them. Second, we tend to take for granted the quality and quantity of the love we do have, and assume that they do also, so we rarely express it. What should we do about this? If we recognize that this is true in our lives, we should confess it to God. Next, we can begin to ask Him daily to strengthen and increase our love for our husbands, children, parents, and others close to us, thanking Him for them. And then we can ask Him to help us discover fresh, creative ways to show our love.

Love must be learned. It is easy to love some people – they are so winsome and gracious that we can't help loving them (3). But in the case of others, it is a strain. We recognize the need for an exercise of grace, and exercise is a good word, for it is something like work. If you believe there is a lack of real love for others in your life, why not try this:
1. Recognize that love is not an emotion; it is an act of will.
2. Recognize that love is not optional for the Christian. Christ commanded it. Read John 15:12, Matthew 22:39 and Matthew 5:44 and list three categories of people we are required to love. Now list any categories this leaves out. (clue: there are none.)
3. Pray, specifically and generally, for love, God's love, to pour through you to others. Name those whom you do not love, confess this as sin, and ask God to enable you to love them, to see and appreciate their good qualities; to be blind to their faults. Name those whom you do love. Ask God to enable you to love them more; to find new and creative ways to express this love. (Note: there are very few wives who love and appreciate their husbands as they should.) Expect God to answer this prayer because he commanded it therefore you know it is his will. He has promised to supply those things we ask in his will (1 John 5:14-15).
4. Act. Do loving, thoughtful things for others. Express appreciation and admiration for them. Tell them you love them. You will be surprised to discover within yourself a little floweret of love where you thought none could grow.

No man can tame the tongue. But the Holy Spirit of God can, and only he can. Every believer has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him (4), and the fruit of the spirit is love. But this love must be nurtured and cultivated and allowed to grow into something strong and useful and beautiful, as we surrender ourselves day by day, moment by moment, to the control of the Holy Spirit.

Applications:
Read Proverbs 10:11-21, 31, 32. What do these passages have to say about the mouth, lips, and tongue of the righteous, just or wise man? What do they say about the mouth or lips of the foolish man?
[end of article]

My thoughts:
(1) Not only is gossip a habit, it is a sin.
(2) Yes, we should pray for a spirit of acceptance, but only so far as what another is doing is not clearly against the word of God. We must never accept what is clearly not pleasing to the Lord. If we know another is doing something that is obviously not pleasing to the Lord, then our prayer for them should not be one of acceptance; rather, our prayers should be that somehow their eyes would be opened and they would come to true repentance. Maybe we have a physical part in that … or maybe our part is 'only' to pray. We should also pray for discernment and wisdom.
(3) I agree it is easier to love someone that is 'winsome and gracious', however I also think it is easy (if not even easier) to love someone we 'click' with &/or someone that is a godly person. It seems that with some, spirits connect instantly, while with others, it takes more work. We must be careful to be sure and reach out to those we do not instantly connect with. In doing so, I guarantee that you and the other soul will be blessed.
(4) Every true believer has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him. The scriptures are clear that only those who OBEY have the Spirit. (Acts 5:32)

Works-based salvation?

2011-12-17T14:59:00.004-06:00

When my daughter encouraged other young women to be holy and pure, a young man wrote in and had this to say:

"This highly suggests works-righteousness, which is a form of Christianity that is severely demented. This implies that what we do in our lives can impact our eternal salvation."

Huh? You mean regardless of what I do in my life, I can still have eternal salvation? Hmmm. I wish I would have known this before I got out of my adulterous relationship. I also wish I would have known this before I stopped drinking and doing drugs. Well, I guess I can always go back to it and still be right with God. [NOT]

The way this young man talks, I would have been just fine staying in my adulterous state. Yet the BIBLE says no adulterer will enter into the kingdom of heaven. We have a CHOICE; we can either choose to live in sin or choose to quit sinning.

Christ expects us to live lives that are self-denying, sober, righteous and godly. I cannot believe people actually believe like this young man believes; it really grieves me. Reminds me of a cartoon I saw:

(for those who cannot read the book title, it says: "How to do your own thing ... in the center of God's will." and if you cannot read the caption, it says: "God sees Jesus ... not my sin." and he is hiding behind a cardboard Jesus, holding a bottle of alcohol.)

Girl/Boy relationships / Purity

2011-12-14T20:25:00.004-06:00

(written by my daughter)
I want to warn you girls that your relationship with boys goes way beyond “not touching” them. In fact, holding hands, daring glances, hugging, kissing, and so on, should not even have to be mentioned; those are the more obvious wrongs. I want to warn you about the more subtle wrongs. For example: talking to or playing with boys may be something you never thought of as wrong, however this can quickly lead to dangerous relationships, including difficult marriages.

Why do you like to talk to boys? Are you talking to boys because you wish to be noticed and thought of by them? Are you trying to make them think of you as a funny, witty or a pretty girl? How would you feel if the boys ignored you? Usually when girls try to impress boys in that way, they do attract boys who like to hang around them, but they are not godly ones.

Sometimes these things can be done out of ignorance. Maybe you have never taken the time to really think about how your actions affect those around you? If you want to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord, then you will desire and strive to stay pure and separate or distant from the boys. One way to promote that distance is by letting the boys feel a reserve (a cold one if necessary) between yourself and them. The godly ones will respect that. Acting light and flirty will only make you look like a fool to true Christian young men. Worse yet, you could become a stumbling block to a weak brother. The bible warns many times to avoid a “strange woman that flatters with her lips.” We need to make sure our hearts are right or else we might become one of them.

An honest, godly boy will appreciate a girl who is meek, quiet & humble. He will not admire a girl’s endless, unprofitable talking, laugh, or play. Likewise, a girl who is a true follower of Christ will not want to be forward or bossy, and would be ashamed to be “well known” among the youth in any un-Christ-like way.

In general, talking with boys should not be a practice of yours. The same goes with playing. Playing games with boys develops a looseness between the genders, which is very dangerous. Sitting around and laughing together while playing a game, or chasing each other around in som form of tagging game is very unchaste and can cause a comfortableness that is quite inappropriate. Don’t you see the danger?

Beware, dear girls, of which seeds you are sowing,

You’re feeding them, and quickly they are growing!

One of the biggest dangers such looseness can cause is a relationship between two youth that is not pleasing to the Lord. Courtship and marriage are very serious. So many homes have been ruined by a hasty choice, lust, un-chastity between genders and/or foolishness. It is not good and it certainly is not pleasing to the Lord.

The next time you feel like laughing at a joke about boyfriends think twice - it is NOT funny. Do you think it’s fun to joke about how so-and-so is cute/handsome? “Flee also youthful lusts; but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” “But shun vain and profane babblings for they will increase unto more ungodliness.” “Abstain from all appearances of evil.” If you don’t heed these warnings you will end up in Satan’s trap, heartbroken with a heartbroken family, or no longer serving God and walking after your own lusts.

Recently a girl said to me, “If you never talk to the other gender how are you going to relate when courting and then into marriage?” You don’t need to learn how to talk to boys and relate with them, you need to learn how to relate to and serve your dad (how to be submissive to him). For those of you without a dad at home, learn to be submissive to your mom and to Christ. A big brother and/or a mature brother or elder in the church could be helpful in this area too. Also, if you do get married, it will only be to one man, not several teen boys; when and if the time comes to marry, he is the only man you will need to know how relate to.

Instead of focusing on their relationship with the Lord and their father and mother, so many young girls are nearly obsessed with courtship and marriage. I’ve heard many girls say, “When I get married…”or, “I’m going to have lots of children…” and similar thoughts. That is the WRONG focus. What if God doesn’t intend for you to marry or for you to have children? Will you be disappointed? Think seriously, is that your focus/dream? Is your focus [romantic dream] becoming your god? Your focus should be on serving Christ, not when or who you want to marry.

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews12:1&2)

Sisters and young women, let us, “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” We need to strive to be holy and pure in everything! If we don’t, we will be hell-bound.

God bless you on your journey towards purity and holiness.

In Christ, Brianna Ekstedt (age 16)

Phobeō / φοβέω

2011-12-02T13:24:00.009-06:00

This is me, thinking out loud. Just thought I'd share it with others this time.

The Greek word Phobeō / φοβέω (Strong's #5399) is pronounced fo-be'-ō and is in the New Testament nearly 100 times. Here is the breakdown [for the KJV]:

62 times it is translated into the English word 'fear' 'feared' 'feareth' 'fearing'
23 times it is translated into 'be afraid'
5 times it is translated into 'be afraid of'
1 time it is translated into 'reverence'

Then there is also #5401 phobos / φόβος pronounced fo'-bos which is in the NT nearly 50 times: 41 times as 'fear' and three times as 'terror'. It is also coupled with 5399 once as 'afraid'.

And there is #5400 phobētron / φόβητρον pronounced fo'-bā-tron which is in the NT once as 'fearful sights'.

So ... what is my point?

Many months ago I was writing an article about wives submitting to their husbands. This word 'reverence' came up in one of the verses to women, so I looked it up in the Strong's. The English word 'reverence' is used in the NT 6 times ... in 3 different gospels accounting the same parable (the parable of the husbandmen and vineyard 'they will reverence my son'). In Hebrews it's used twice, both in chapter 12 ... and then of course it's used in Ephesians 5:33 - let the wife see that she reverence her husband.

I noticed that the word 'reverence' here was a different Greek word than the others. I am no Greek scholar and I do not trust in Strong's definitions entirely, so when I look up a particular word, I do not just assume Strong's has the right definition of the word. Instead, I like to see how that SAME Greek word is used in other parts of the bible - I think this gives a better picture of the use of the word in question. The word 'reverence' here in Ephesians is the Greek word "phobeo" ... and yes ... this is the ONLY time this word is translated as 'reverence' instead of 'fear' or 'be afraid' or 'terror'. Another thing I like to do is interchange the words and see if any or all of the English words used for one Greek word will fit in the different verses the word is used in context ... in almost every case, the word reverence did not make sense if it was used to replace 'fear', 'afraid' or 'terror'.

So here is the Greek word used almost 150 times in the NT. Each time it is the English word 'fear' or something very similar. One time it is the English word 'reverence' and conveniently that one time is in regards to the husband/wife relationship. Why is that? My personal thought - our modern day perverted ways of thinking cannot fathom the thought of a wife fearing her husband in that way. Sarah feared Abraham and called him lord. She submitted to him in everything. She trusted in the Lord for the one He put over her and she is the only woman specifically pointed out as an example for us in the NT.

I cannot imagine very many wives calling their husband 'lord' or even submitting to them as the scriptures say they are supposed to.

Well, those are my thoughts.

Family Time? Entertainment Media and Modern Technology

2011-11-27T19:48:00.008-06:00

This may seem kind of strange, but I don't usually realize how different we are from others. These differences however really stick out whenever I go visit family and friends. The first thing that always strikes me is the television. Yes, I grew up watching it, however we have not had one in use in our home for several years. It seems that many do not know how to just simply turn off the television and visit. It is near impossible for me to hold a thought or have a decent conversation when a television is on. There it is ... blaring out all sorts of advertisements and programs promoting fornication, adultery, drunkenness, rebellion, perversion, pride, hypocrisy, witchcraft, worldliness, pornography, consumerism, and so on. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. It's all there in huge quantities and the occupants in these homes get a steady dose each day. The Lord is very grieved.

And now there are other things like hi-tech video games, cell phones with full internet access and texting, ipods, etc.

It seems there are so many living their lives in the same home but are completely detached from each other. Children are 'zoned-out' playing a video game, in their own world on the ipod or other mp3 player, off by themselves watching a movie or show, or surfing the internet and participating in social networking on facebook while parents are busy watching a show or movie of their own or maybe are on the internet themselves. All the while, each member of the home could be carrying on text conversations with friends.

We see it when we go preaching on the college campuses too. When students switch classes, there are more of them walking alone with either their headphones on or carrying on a text conversation instead of having a real conversation with the hundreds of potential friends all around them.

Parallel lives. Can't you see the great danger in this? We as a society are being sucked in by the machine!! We think we have so many choices and such freedoms now with all of this great technology, but the fact is, our choices are smaller now then ever. We are held in bondage to the machine. Our limits and walls are set by whatever machine we are attached to. Reality is fading away into virtual reality.

I recently read a study with the headline: DAILY MEDIA USE AMONG CHILDREN AND TEENS UP DRAMATICALLY FROM FIVE YEARS AGO - it included these alarming figures:

- Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.
- Heavy users are the 21% of young people who consume more than 16 hours of media a day, and light users are the 17% of young people who consume less than 3 hours of media a day.
- 7th-12th graders report spending an average of 1:35 a day sending or receiving texts. (Time spent texting is not counted as media use in this study.)

WOW! First off, I cannot believe youth are spending an AVERAGE of 7 1/2 hours using this stuff each day!! and that does not even include texting, which I think it should. Secondly, the "HEAVY USERS" use MORE THAN 16 hours of entertainment media a day. What??? So that would mean that anything under 16 hours would be considered what ... average? medium? "LIGHT" use is less than 3 hours ... and I would have considered that HEAVY use!! I am so sad by all of this. It is a true picture of the state of our society and we see it all around us each day.

Putting entertainment aside for a minute, many are duped into thinking that computers and internet have made their lives so much easier. I appreciate an article I read by Franklin Saige called "The Drive To Consume". In one part he talks of how people defend their use of technology because it can be used "for good too. It just depends on what we do with it." To that he says, "Since people appear to be more enslaved in their work and home lives than ever before, we could instead ask ourselves whether the problems computers and electronic media seem to alleviate can be traced to the advent of computers themselves. Haven't computers and television speeded up economic life and increased social chaos? The fact is, these technologies wouldn't exist if not for their utility as pillars of the consuming society." At the end of the article he closes with this: "And I am going to tell anyone who will listen that the Here of real life, in real community, in real reality, is better than the virtual Here of the information superhighway any day of the week. That real and virtual are in fact speeding along in entirely opposite directions." (emphasis mine)

I see it happening. Young people no longer know how to communicate properly. They have blank faces. They always look 'zoned out' like no one is home in their brains. I think their brains got stuck in virtual reality and that has become their reality. Real reality is now fake and unimportant to them. Whenever they are actually pulled away from their entertainment virtual realities for a time, they think of almost noting except when they can return to their reality. If they are away from it for too long, they begin to get cranky and have attitudes. They experience violent withdrawals and need to get back to the machine as soon as possible. Adults too are effected the same way. It is idolatry. It is wickedness. It is ruining our children and adults as well. Satan is very happy.

I encourage you to evaluate your use of modern technology. Seriously sit down and think about how it is tearing families and homes apart. What are you allowing into your children's lives? You will be held accountable you know. How much time do you spend using these devices? What could you be doing instead of using them? Is it taking time away from your husband? Your wife? Your children? Others? THE LORD?

Isaiah 55:6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

My 'babies'

2011-11-16T09:05:00.002-06:00

I took this picture yesterday - Tylor is on the left (he is 18), Corban is in the front (14) and Brianna is on the right (16). If I were in the picture as well, I would be a little shorter than Brianna but a little taller than Corban.

They grow so fast.

Titus 2:4 That they may teach the young women ... to love their children …

2011-11-08T15:13:00.004-06:00

This is the third and final post for today ... so if you have not visited my blog today, you will want to also read the two posts before this one.

There are so many different ways we can show love to our children – one of the biggest ways I believe is through proper child training and discipline. A great mistake I see in raising children is inconsistency; this happens in a few different ways. One would be that the parents simply are not following through every time they should. Parents will actually reason or argue with their children to try to get them to do what is right. I'll give a simple example. Let's say your younger child leaves a toy out. You've told them already (probably several times) that they must put the toy away when they are done with it. You tell them again, “Son, please put the toy away. You know mommy wants you to pick up the toys when you are done with them.” (this would be reasoning with them … but stop and think … how many times have you already done this with them in the past? Do they really need to be told again?) I've seen many children then get an attitude about it or just do a half-hearted job about picking the toy up. You see it written all over their faces. REBELLION. This child needs some discipline and so does the parent. If you have already told them (probably several times) what you expect, DO NOT GIVE THEM ANOTHER WARNING or try to reason with them! Just discipline them right away. What kind of discipline? A good spanking maybe? Or you could take the toy away for a set amount of time? Or … something I have done when mine were younger and this worked real well with my daughter … I'd come in her room and start picking things up off the floor and throwing them away. I didn't care what it was. She already knew she was to keep her room clean, so she was just being lazy and rebellious. I told her “well, I figure if it's on the floor, it's trash, so that's how I'm going to treat it.” This only happened a few times before she was trained properly to put her stuff away.

Empty threats. I've come upon this scene literally hundreds of times and it goes something like this: “If you don't stop doing that, I'm going to ______ [spank you, take away your candy, send you to bed early, whatever]. I'll give you to the count of three. ONNNEEEE, TWWWOOOO, stop doing that! You know mommy does not want you to do that. ONNEEE, TTWWOOO, mommy is very upset! ...” and it just goes on and on. If the number 'three' is actually said, the consequence is still not followed through with. Parents, if this is you, please stop and consider what you are doing to your child. This is very confusing. They KNOW you are flinging out an empty threat. They will take advantage of it every chance they can. And sometimes … once in a great while … you might actually follow through with a threat. But then the very next time they get away with it again.

Set your limits and STICK TO THEM. Be stable, steady, consistent. Be Christ-like.

Another form of inconsistency (and maybe this is less thought of?) would be that the mother and father are not on the 'same page' with what they think is right in regards to discipline and training, and each do things their own way. Often times the child will know how to use this to his advantage. He knows that if he asks dad if he can do ______ dad will say 'No'. But if he asks mom, she'll say 'Yes'. Or, dad will expect mom to discipline in a certain way but mom does not think that is right so she will not respect her husband's authority and instead will choose to do things her own way. This is SO WRONG. What kind of example are you setting for your children? Woman, the husband is the head of the home. If you cannot come to an agreement on how the children should be raised, you are to submit to his will. Arguing, complaining, or going behind his back and doing your own thing anyway will only cause strife and division. Worse yet, you are setting a pattern of rebellion for your children to follow. Love your husband. Love your children. Be in your place.

A few more things I'd like to share.

We had some little helpers for several hours today; I think they are ages 5 and 8 and they are both girls. We spent the whole time in the kitchen. First Brianna worked with them making pancakes while I made bread. We have a small kitchen so it was fun to work around each other. The girls helped me when they could too. I was blessed to listen and watch as Brianna worked with the girls. She is so patient and encouraging. I was thinking about how our pancakes always turn out about the same size, shape and we know that if we use the new griddle it will make 8 pancakes and the old one will make 6. Not so with the little girls :) Their pancakes were all different sizes and shapes, and some were falling off the griddle and going places they should not be going. But, who cares?! They did a great job. It's been a LONG TIME since we've had little helpers in the kitchen like that; it brought back so many memories.

Mothers, cherish these times with your young children … before you know it, they will be 16 and helping other little children. It might take longer and things might not turn out as 'perfect' as YOU want them to be, but really … with eternity in mind … does it really matter? So often we are tempted to do things ourselves because we want them done 'just so' and we do not want to take the time to train our children properly. This is selfish and unloving. Take the time right now. Your children are worth it.

And one more point. Children are capable of SO MUCH MORE than most people give them credit for. These little girls know how to work. They LOVE to help. Right after we did the pancakes and ate, they helped Brianna clean up and then got right to work on the large tote box of pears. They each had a job … and they were an asset to our production line. That big box of pears was taken care of in a few hours and we had a nice time talking in the mean time. What a blessing to work WITH the younger children. You know, if I had a television and a vcr, I could have just put in a video and let them be baby-sat by the tv while I did the pears myself. NO, NO, NO!!!! Throw that thing away!!! Children love to help … and they love it when they are actually NEEDED … when they are actually a contributing member of the family. Teach them the importance of this now. Don't foster selfishness and laziness.

OK, that's all the time I have for right now.

Titus 2:4 That they may teach the young women to ... to love their husbands,

2011-11-08T14:58:00.001-06:00

1 Peter 3:1Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; 2While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. 3Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; 4But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. 5For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: 6Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.

Ephesians 5:22Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 33 …and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Col. 3:18Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

1 Timothy 2:9In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. 10But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.11Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.12But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.13For Adam was first formed, then Eve.14And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

1 Cor. 11:3But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

1 Cor. 14: 34Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. 35And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

I am so sad by the way I see some / many women treat their husbands. We are to LOVE THEM. There is no condition attached here ... nothing that says, "Love them only if ...." or "You don't have to love them if ..."

The two greatest commandments are: love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Your closest 'neighbor' is your husband, right?!

I am an observer. I just can't help it and I don't even realize I am doing it. The two things I observe by far the most are 1) how parents are disciplining (or not disciplining) their children and 2) how women treat their husbands. This status is about loving our husbands, so I wont get into the children part right now.

A woman has so much power over the man. It breaks my heart when I see women manipulating their husbands and treating them with such disrespect. It's usually not a straight out, blunt 'smack in the face'; rather it is subtle and nearly discreet. A look, a few words, a tone, a sigh, a roll of the eyes. Sometimes it's complaining to a friend .... sometimes it's complaining to a friend but it's cloaked in a 'prayer request'.

Women, check yourselves. Evaluate how your treat your husband vs. how you would treat Christ. If your husband were Christ, would you treat him any different? I can hear it now (because I've heard it so many times before) "Well, he's NOT Christ" and some will even go on to call him names ... lazy, unloving, a loser, etc. Read 1 Peter 3:1-6. This is telling women to submit to their husbands that are NOT obeying the word. Women are to be chaste, meek, quiet. They can actually WIN their husbands to the truth by the way they ACT. So I ask you again ... would you treat Christ the way you treat your husband?

A comment worth sharing:
Joanne, it is kind of ironic, what you said about a woman having so much power over a man. Many women do not realize the "power" they have when they are simply being the wife that God has called them to be. When we are loving and submissive to our husbands, when we put their needs and desires before our own (and of course, spending time in prayer for them)--our husbands are happier, our marriages are stronger.
Oh, and not only praying for our husbands, but praying for ourselves as wives too!

Titus 2:4 That they [aged women] may teach the young women to be SOBER

2011-11-08T14:53:00.002-06:00

I put this on facebook but decided it was blog worthy. I have already done 'sober' and 'love their husbands' ... and I just now have 'love their children' ready too. So, I will be posting THREE posts in a row. This was originally a discussion on facebook, so it will come out odd on here ... I don't want to take the time to change it!

~~~

When I first started reading the bible, I thought 'sober' meant not drunk and not silly. Well ... it does mean those things, but I do think having a few silly moments is acceptable :) in the right situations.

Sober does NOT mean sitting around all somber-faced and never smiling. I agree with what everyone else said and especially with the thought that it means to be on guard or aware of our surroundings.

Maybe we can share some things or actions that would NOT be sober? Something that comes to my mind are things that are diversions or distractions. Things that might not necessarily be wrong in and of themselves, but they cause your mind to lose focus, to relax, to forget to be 'circumspect' etc. This could be different for everyone but of course some could have the same struggles.

Well, that's all I have time for right now. Thank you all for your comments and thoughts.

Yes - FB was one thing on my mind. We must be very careful how we are spending our time on the internet in general. The verse about wandering about from house to house comes to mind. These days we don't have to leave our home to be 'wandering about'. I am so sad when I see women spending so much time on the internet and saying "I'll be there in a minute" to their children so many times throughout the day. All for what? What is so important on the internet that your child cannot have your undivided attention? And it's not just the children that suffer. Something for everyone to think about.

Reading books comes to mind as well. I know some that will read and read and read ... and ignore other responsibilities that are pressing. Some read at night after their children go to bed, but then they stay up late (this can happen on the internet as well) and are tired the next morning. Groggy and not as perky and bright and attentive as they should or could be.

Television and movies ... the same above applies to these and so many other things.

The beginnings of the Assemblies of God movement - their stance on marriage

2011-11-03T09:01:00.001-06:00

A brother sent this to me. I wonder how many AoG churches still hold to this??

From William J Seymour's - 'The Doctrines and Disciplines of the Azusa Street Apostolic Faith Mission of Los Angeles' 1915

We the ministers, must be the husband of one wife (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:6-9). We do not believe in unscriptural marriage (Rom. 7:2-4; 1 Cor. 7:39).

In Matt. 19:3-9, Matt. 5:32 and Mark 10:5-11, Jesus restored marriage back to the Edenic standard. Many are confused over the meaning of these passages. If either the husband or wife have defied themselves in the sins mentioned, Jesus does not give either recognition as being legally married, while the first husband or wife is still living. They must repent to God and be reconciled to each other “for as Christ forgives so must we forgive” (1 Cor. 7:11). If a man or woman marry and either one has a living husband or wife their continuing to live together is a committing of fornication or adultery, and the party who has a living husband or wife should be put away by the other, leaving the man or woman who has no living companion free to marry again, to someone who is also free (1 Cor. 7:2; Matt. 19:9).

We do not believe in making a hobby of this doctrine of divorce, but we believe in the truth by comparing scripture with scripture, that no one in this work can marry the second husband or the second wife, while the first one is living (Rom. 7:2,3,4; 1 Cor. 7:10,11; 1 Cor. 7:39; 1 Tim. 3:9; Matt. 5:32; Luke 16:18; Mark 2-12).

Here I am.

2011-11-02T08:10:00.001-06:00

A dear sister wrote this; I pray it blesses someone.

Here I am not of my own will, but I was born, I breath & grow.

Here I am, I’ve grown, not of my own will, I’ve seen, I’ve learned. People come & people go, not of their own will; I have seen this, so I questioned, if not their own will, who’s?

I sought, I searched.

Here I am, of my own will, I choose fun & games, feasting & drunkenness.

Here I am, due to my own will, & these things have not filled the empty space within. While I feast & play others continue to come & go, not of their own will, (death) why?

Why do they come, (birth) & where do they go (death)?

Here I am, I’m searching, I’m seeking, I’m stopping & thinking.

Here I am, I’m watching the coming & going, the feasting & playing. I see empty laughter, I’ve heard & told plenty a lie, I’ve been & do see plenty hypocrisy; empty dreams all around, cries & endless complaints, consuming desires without end.

Here I am, not of my own will, still empty within.

So I stop & consider the voice that said, “No, this is wrong!”

Why did I not hearken?

I continued with the multitude to feast & play.

Here I am, I know I went the wrong way!

Here I am, I hunger & thirst, where’s the right way? The way that fills our empty place, The way that gives us peace without end. Is there a way? Can the empty be full?

I just stopped, & questioned with all my heart.

Here I am, the question was heard, & the answer too.

Here I Am, of My own will, I Am the Truth, the Way, & the Life.

So there He was not of my own will, but His own, His life He gave, our iniquity bore.

I died that day, not of my own will; yet anew I am born, & breath & grow.

Here I am, washed & clean, bright & free, now I see & understand, the purpose is clear.

Here I am, I’ve been born to do His will & not my own.

So I sing, & shout & jump, I am so full His way!

Yes, I know, there’s not many who go this way.

Here I am, the multitude is now against me, “come & play” they say.

Here I am, not of my own will; but His grace, it’s sufficient for me, I answer & say, “to feast & to play is no longer for me, you see,

I’ve given my life that I might be rich & full & free.

(PART 2)

Here I am, sought & longed for,

Here I am, of my own will not desiring to be found.

Yet, you search & you seek for that which can not fill.

So I share my joy that you too might be full.

Here I am, by His grace, I live & I breath by faith.

Here I am, each day comes with blessings according to His will.

So I have become a light to the world, that there is a way.

A right way, it can be hard to see with the multitude blocking the view.

Here I am, I see it, crystal clear; today you have a choice.

Here I am, hoping & praying you’d seek the grace. So what keeps you, Why do you tarry? Has the multitude deceived you; are you full of fears & emotional tears?

Here I am of my own will, there’s only One we must fear.

Here I am, with or without you, I must go on. The judgment is sealed, only one way will save. So I serve Him, & seek Him, by His grace with all my heart, mind & soul.

Here I am, knowing His tender mercy & loving kindness, of His own will.

Here I am, obeying His Word, following them that seek after righteousness, of my own will. So we continue in the way that has brought us life & fullness of joy. His Word is true, not all have faith, so they keep their own way; dark & empty without knowledge of Truth.

Here I AM, us in Him, we stand as a light, too bright for their dark ways.

Here I AM, mocked & reviled, yet I revile not again; As His Word says, persecuted & tried I’ve been, but hope I’ve been given that this has its end.

Here I am, hoping in an eternally righteous land.

Here I am, writing to let you know there’s no place I’d rather be. So fret not for me, but consider my ways & the grace I’ve been given. Look not to yourselves or others, but to the One who gives such power.

Here I am, encouraging you in His way.

Here I am, letting you know He must be first in your heart, before me, or any other; it takes a sincere desire to let go & willingness to learn a whole new way; the flesh will put up a fight, but if your spirit is willing…

Here I am, an example to you, it’s not as hard as it seems.

Here I am, I want you to know His grace is available to all, just don’t doubt, trust & believe. His way has been proven, He’s rose from the dead. So you have a choice to listen to them who live dead in their sins, or to the I Am, Yah, Yahveh, Y’shua (God is Salvation) whom death could not conquer.

(PART 3) (10/25/11)

Here I am, a weary, worn pilgrim.

Here I am, through heat & cold, for Y’shua I’ve had to be bold; and the half I’ll leave untold.

Here I am, patience has worked experience, & experience a hope that I am not ashamed of.

Here I am knowing too well the heart of the Psalmist, as he cried out, “Oh that I had wings like a dove!”

Here I am, not of my own will, knowing also very well the rest of the Psalm. For it was not an enemy that reproached me. Evening, morning & at noon have I prayed & cried aloud.

Here I am, for I have learned, to be content in what so ever state; low to the ground or high as the clouds.

Here I am, His faithfulness to me He has proven; in the valley of the shadow of death.

Here I am, not of my own will for man would had swallowed me up, yet His love constrained me to take another breath.

Here I am, still breathing;

Although I am knowing, tomorrow is never promised,

I am not here to live in bliss.

Here I am, fully knowing a work I have to accomplish according to His will.

Here I am willing to fulfill;

All that He asks I must do,

Through thick & thin, through health or with the flu;

His will is for me to live as He lived, to love as He loves.

Here I am, at times it seems my head is below & the waters above;

Yet some how I am still breathing, still loving.

Here I am by His grace alone, I am forgiving,

All that has ever hurt me,

It doesn’t matter.

Who am I? should I be above my Master?

The I Am was hated without a cause, reproach broke His heart,

& that was barely the start,

For there was none to take pity; & for comforters none

Here I am stunned.

Shall I fear, if what was done to Him, is done to me?

Here I am, in Thee,

Do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.

Here I am, with my willing mind & earnest prayers He has made an infusion

In which a way to escape has been manifested

Here I am knowing with every temptation He makes a way out; & now I am rested.

Here I am, I have cast my burden upon Him, His Word enlightens my darkness

If I slip, or if I fall,

I will do as the righteous, & rise again to His call.

For He is my all; all I’ve ever needed I’ve found in Him: Husband, Brother, Father, friend,

The I Am is faithful ‘til the End. Amen.

Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

2011-10-29T16:18:00.004-06:00

Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

I've been thinking about this ... if the things in this list will cause separation from God, do you think he wants professing followers of Christ to ACT like they are participating in these things? If these things will separate you from God, I think it is very, very safe to assume that if you act like you are doing these things that too will separate you from God. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Why would you even want to PRETEND to be something on this list???

Everyone should know by now that I am very much against halloween. I honestly cannot see how any professing follower of Christ would want to participate in this dark, wicked holiday. BUT what baffles me even more - far more - is when professing christians participate in halloween AND dress up as something wicked ... like a witch, a vampire, a zombie, a whore, or a witch, vampire, or zombie that looks like a whore. I could give more examples but you get my point.

How can you do this and think that you are all right in your walk with the Lord? How could you do this and think that it is pleasing to the Lord?? Why would you want to have fellowship with darkness? Why would you want to be friends with the world and Satan??

If you do this and claim to be a follower of Christ, instead of getting offended at me why not examine yourself and see if what you are doing is pleasing or offending to the Lord? Ask yourself a simple question like, "If Jesus were here, would he participate in halloween?" or, "If Jesus were here, would he dress up like a witch?" Seriously. Do you think he would? If you do, I am very grieved for your soul.

Jesus was busy going about his Father's business. I'm sure that did not include dressing up like a whore or some other disgusting thing (or even something 'cute') and participating in Satan's holiday.

Phil. 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Light CANNOT abide with darkness. Don't be deceived. The Narrow Path has NO ROOM for halloween or anything associated with it.

Our city trying to stop street preaching ...

2011-10-23T20:02:00.003-06:00

The city we live in is not very happy with our street preaching. There is more to the story than what they put in the paper ... but here is what they are doing to try and stop us from preaching; they try to make it seem like it's not all our fault ... but it is ... and they are trying to blame it on the MoDOT ... but they are not telling the truth:

Another new section to the city code was introduced under the title of "Interference with Traffic Flow." Mayor Orr said the ordinance would put an end to boot blocks or other fundraisers in city streets.

Under the ordinance, "It shall be unlawful for any person to stand or remain idle either alone or in consort with others on a traffic island, within the actual roadway or on any street corner in such a manner so as to: 1) Obstruct any street, highway, sidewalk or any place or building by hindering or impeding or tending to hinder or impede the free and uninterrupted passage of vehicles, traffic or pedestrians; or 2) Commit in or upon any street, highway, sidewalk, traffic island or street corner any act obstructing or interfering with the free and uninterrupted passage of vehicles."

Orr said the issue arose at the request of the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT). Pedestrians holding signs on corners had been challenged by police, only to ask for city ordinances restricting their activity. Because the city had no such ordinances, their activity could not be limited.

Public discussion was scheduled for the Nov. 21 meeting.

More on gluttony and poverty

2011-10-19T13:17:00.005-06:00

As a continuing thought on my last post titled "The Sin of Gluttony" - how about hanging this photo on your refrigerator as a daily reminder to be temperate with your eating choices? Or to remind you of all the STUFF you have the next time you are tempted to complain about something that really does not matter?

I cried when I saw this. We all need to see things like this to help keep us in touch with what is going on in the world right now at this very moment. As we sit in our comfortable homes with all our comfortable surroundings and stuff our faces and bellies full of rich food, there are children and adults all over the world literally starving to death. How can any of us justify such extremes?

I hear many complain of not having money ... they are 'so broke'. And after they say this they get a call on their ipod phone (is that what it's called?) that costs $100 a month to maintain. They have a nice car. A nice house. They go out to eat regularly. They have the latest electronic gadgets. They go on vacation. They have a/c in the summer and heat in the winter. They are overweight from eating too much food. And so much more. And they are 'so broke'.

The soul in the picture above is 'broke'.

Do you expect me to feel sorry for you because you might lose your house due to foreclosure? Do you expect the soul in this picture to feel sorry for you? Do you expect me to feel sorry for you because your electric bill was a few hundred dollars in august because you had the a/c running? Do you expect the soul in this picture to feel sorry for you? Do you expect me to feel sorry for you because you could only afford to eat out a few times this month instead of several? Do you expect the soul in this picture to feel sorry for you? Do you expect me to feel sorry for you because you had to take a smaller vacation this year than in years past? Do you expect the soul in this picture to feel sorry for you?

Don't tell me you are 'broke'. I have no sympathy for you.

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

Woe unto us if we think we can continue living such selfish, greedy lives. Woe unto us if we think it is perfectly fine to live in such luxury and turn our heads away from those who are truly in need.

The Sin of Gluttony

2011-10-15T07:34:00.005-06:00

Recently some brethren and I were talking about gluttony. I believe this is a sin that is winked at or overlooked because we don't want to offend anyone who might have issues with self control. The fruit of course is unhealthy weight which leads to other fruit like health problems, mobility problems, etc. Other sins like greed and covetousness can fit here as well. And too, it carries into our children ... which I believe is a form of child abuse or neglect. There are probably more things I could list here, but let me get on with what I'd like to say.

We preach against all sorts of sin on the streets and at the pulpit ... but why not against gluttony too? Drinking, smoking, fornicating, adultery, homosexuality, lust, greed, covetousness, and so on ... if these things were in the church, they would be properly dealt with quickly. But gluttony? For some reason it's an 'acceptable sin.' In fact, it's often laughed at or joked about. And if some in a group are trying to eat in a way that is pleasing to the Lord, they get picked on or pressured to have dessert or other items that are not healthy. Instead of picking on them or pressuring them, why not support them in their efforts to eat healthy? Some of them might actually have a hard time with desserts or sweet foods ... and if you pick on or pressure them, what you are really doing is enticing them to sin. Maybe you have never thought of it in this way? I pray you do from here on out. Support your brothers and sisters who are trying to eat healthy, don't make fun of them, pick on them, or try to convince them that it's alright if they eat a little of this or that ... because maybe it is not alright?

Speaking personally here - sweet foods do not have a pull on me like some salty foods do. For example, I really really really like Lay's plain potato chips and there was a time in my life that if I'd buy a bag of them I'd eat the whole thing at once. So guess what? I stopped buying them. Even still today I must be very careful what foods I allow in my house. Yes, thin people can fall into the sin of gluttony too.

If something in your life is causing you to SIN, and if you really believe SIN WILL SEPARATE YOU FROM GOD, then you should DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO STOP SINNING. If something is a stumbling block for you ... remove it from your path.

The next time you reach for something to eat, ask yourself a few questions. Here are some ideas:
- Am I really hungry?
- Will this nourish my body or harm it?
- Is there a healthier option?

These last two questions can be asked while shopping at the grocery store as well.

When you are out and about and need a snack and did not pack one, do you have to go to the fast food place or gas station? YUCK ... and what a waste of money. Why not stop at the grocery store and get a bag of apples or a bunch of bananas? A typical example: Brianna and I were out in Springfield yesterday running some errands. Lunch time rolled around so we went to the grocery store and got fruit (yummy gala apples were on a good sale!), a package of 100% whole wheat tortilla shells (on sale), and a can of tuna (on sale). We could have bought the tuna in the easy open package, but it was twice as much for half as much food (so it was four times more expensive). I took the can to the deli and they opened it for me, and we grabbed a little sample spoon to help us serve the tuna. Our lunch on the road was about $1 each, it filled us up and left us feeling good because it was nourishing to our bodies.

Think of portion control too. So often we eat much more than what we actually need. Serve yourself a little less than usual, take your time eating, chew your food properly, and before you go for more, sit a while and let the food you already ate settle a bit. You might realize that you really did not need more after all. When I had a foster child living with me, I noticed something that I never really thought of before. In all, she was an excellent eater ... she would eat what was put in front of her [because I did not give her an option and if she did not eat it all I saved it for the next meal or snack], but if I served her something she LIKED, she would overeat. If I served her something she did NOT like, she ate only enough to satisfy her hunger and then stopped eating. I believe we do the same thing if we are not paying attention. It's SO EASY to overeat something we enjoy eating. We must be very careful to stop eating when our hunger is satisfied instead of when our flesh is satisfied [and is the flesh every really satisfied?].

If you have a problem with gluttony, you are living in sin and must repent. This is very serious; self-control must be exercised. Pray for strength. Ask your brothers or sisters for help and support. If you know someone else who is trying to overcome this, team up and support each other. Maybe there is something they are already doing that would be a good help to you as well? Evaluate your eating habits and replace the unhealthy ones with healthy. Wake each day with the mind-set that you are going to spend that day in a way that is pleasing to the Lord ... and remind yourself of it throughout the day.

Jesus says in Luke 21: "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares." I encourage you to look up the word SURFEITING, write down what it means and hang it on your fridge. Christ is telling us that these things can distract or divert us and make it to where we are not prepared for his return. WE MUST TAKE HEED.

Entertainment / Amusement in the church

2011-10-01T10:45:00.003-06:00

This goes along with my last post. I have posted this before, but it's worth re-posting now.

An evil resides in the professed camp of the Lord so gross in its impudence that the most shortsighted can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years it has developed at an abnormal rate even for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out as the Puritans did, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses.

My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. If it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’ That is clear enough. So it would have been if He has added, ‘and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.’ No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to Him. Then again, ‘He gave some apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers, for the work of the ministry.’ Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr roll. “Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the Church to the world? ‘Ye are the salt,’ not sugar candy — something the world will spite out, not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance, ‘Let the dead bury their dead.’ He was in awful earnestness!

Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into His mission, He would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear Him say, ‘Run after these people, Peter, and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick, Peter, we must get the people somehow!’ Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of the gospel amusement. Their message is, ‘Come out, keep out, keep clean out!’ Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.

After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the Church had a prayer meeting, but they did not pray, ‘Lord grant Thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.’ If they ceased not for preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They ‘turned the world upside down.’ That is the difference! Lord, clear the Church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her and bring us back to apostolic methods. Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the Church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy-laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God’s link in the chain of their conversion, stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today’s ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.

-Charles Spurgeon (1887)

Gospel Clowns?

2011-09-29T09:20:00.004-06:00

For some reason I got a magazine from "Christian Aid Mission" (not to be confused with Christian Aid Ministries or CAM). I have no idea who these people are, but they are pretty proud of the fact that they are "providing financial support for indigenous missions" and are "preaching the gospel and planting churches among unreached people." I found this picture on page 10; it was part of an article that said "Indigenous Missions at work in Islamic Lands." This particular picture had a caption that read "There are times and places where native missionaries are able to conduct outdoor meetings without being attacked by hostile Muslims. They attract local residents through music and testimonies, then preach the gospel and give invitations for hearers to accept Christ."

I guess I missed the part in my bible that said Jesus, Paul and the others used gospel clowns? I'm pretty sure these people are preaching and following the fake Jesus.

Entertainment = humanism = false gospel

Judging (could also be titled "love your enemies")

2011-09-23T14:00:00.003-06:00

So often I or others at our church get accused of being judgmental, passing judgment, judging others, etc. when we share the teachings in the New Testament; and this by professing Christians. Here is an example of what I think of when I hear that accusation …

On September 11th, 2001, approximately 3,000 American citizens were killed when two planes hit the towers in NYC. America took vengeance on the ones who supposedly were behind the attacks and in the process has lost nearly twice as many soldiers with many thousands more than that crippled for life either physically, mentally or both.

It is estimated that well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the war began in 2003.

And WE are the ones judging others by holding up the Truth for others to see??? How sick and twisted is that? OPEN YOUR EYES! It’s NOT judgmental to hold up signs with the teachings of Christ and the New Testament on them … God’s word is a mirror … if you feel judged or condemned by his words, then you need to seek the Lord and figure out why his truths are offending you. But usually the same people that call us judgmental for holding up signs with the words of our Lord on them totally promote this war in Iraq and other wars around the world. They promote the murder of hundreds of thousands of people and many of their sons have personally pulled the trigger that has sent someone to hell for eternity … and WE are the ones judging others by peacefully holding up signs of teaching and warning? How does that fit? I don’t understand. I cannot think of anything more judgmental than killing someone out of vengeance. Who are we to make that kind of judgment on another soul? We are to love them, which would include trying to teach them and warn them of the truths found in the word of God … but would certainly not include blowing their brains out … or blowing their whole family or neighborhood or town up into tiny pieces.

Many of these same people (and yes, I’m still speaking about professing Christians) that are pro-war would fight vehemently for pro-life, anti-abortion causes, yet see nothing wrong with dropping a bomb on a town in another country and murdering untold numbers of babies, children, pregnant women, and so on. That’s just hypocritical. I cannot wrap my mind around how people can justify such things.

We will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Am I being judgmental for warning you of that truth? Jesus is coming back “In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;” am I being judgmental for warning you of this truth? Am I being judgmental for sharing other truths in the New Testament that must be followed? Afterall, this verse specifically says that Jesus Christ will take vengeance on them that 1) KNOW NOT GOD and those who 2) OBEY NOT THE GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Why is it considered ‘unloving’ and ‘judgmental’ to warn others of judgment to come or to share teachings found in the bible? Because this is coming to pass right before our eyes: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” And you know what it says right before that? “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” Yes … REPROVE, REBUKE and EXHORT.

If you are a professing follower of Christ and promote and/or participate in war, you will find it judgmental of me to quote the words of Christ that say: LOVE YOUR ENEMIES because you cannot love your enemies while blowing their heads off. There is a contradiction going on in your mind and in your soul, whether you want to admit it or not.

If you are a professing follower of Christ and promote and/or participate in war, you will find it judgmental of me to quote the words of Paul (who was also quoting God) that say: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” because you cannot honestly say that you are not avenging yourself or that you are trying to overcome evil with good. You are paying back evil with evil … which is anti-Christ. And no, offering a drink of water or some food to your thirsty or hungry enemy right before blowing his head off does not count. You are to LOVE them. PRAY for them. DO GOOD to them. Leave the judging to GOD. He has told YOU what to do: LOVE.

If you are a professing follower of Christ and promote and/or participate in war, you will find it judgmental of me to quote the words in Hebrews that say: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” because you cannot say that you have followed peace with ALL men; you have put an exception in there that perfectly suits your needs and beliefs.

If you are a professing follower of Christ and promote and/or participate in war, you will find it judgmental of me to quote the words of Jesus when he said: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” and “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” because you cannot say that you have been merciful or a peacemaker. Jesus put a few conditions in there: you will obtain mercy if you are merciful. You will be called a child of God if you are a peacemaker. Is that judgmental of me? Am I the one that said those words? Or was it CHRIST that said those words? He said the same thing later on in the same chapter … when you love your enemies you will, “be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”

What you are really doing is proving your unbelief of the words of God. So here is another warning for you … and yes, it is once again from the word of God … and yes, you will probably see it as me being judgmental … but please take it up with GOD, not with me – these are his words, not mine. I am here to declare the truth, not defend it. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. Those who believed not were destroyed. If you are in that camp, you too will be destroyed. Did I say that or was it a warning in the New Testament given as an example directed towards followers of Christ? Are you a professing follower of Christ? Take heed.

Just like Paul, we are to reason with others of “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come” … is that judgmental or simply sharing the truth? Polycarp, a personal disciple of John, said this to Marcion the heretic when he met him: “Yes indeed, I recognize the firstborn of Satan.” When he met Marcion he straight up called him the firstborn of Satan! I can hear all sorts of professing Christians today screaming: THAT’S JUDGMENTAL! Is it though? Or is he just simply just being sober? In touch with reality? He was the Bishop of Smyrna, and hear what Jesus had to say about the church Polycarp was overseeing: “And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." Polycarp was faithful unto death … he was martyred for Christ. This man walked with John, was the bishop of a faithful church, and he spoke the straight truth. I’m sure he offended many in his day, but he did not care because he was standing for the TRUTH. He did not fear men, he feared God.

We get our examples from Christ and the faithful in Christ. They did not sugar coat things or try to smooth things over. They were not afraid to offend others, and yes many were offended (as evidenced by the martyrdom of most of the earliest Christians and the faithful few in the centuries following the death of Christ). They knew that the word of God would cut, divide, offend, tear houses apart, and so much more. They knew that if they faithfully followed the teachings of Christ, it would probably cost them their death, or at the very least it would cost them nearly everything in their lives.

Most who get a glimpse of the truth turn away from Christ because they do not want to deny themselves and carry their cross … and then they lash out at others who are holding up a mirror of truth that they do not want to look into or deal with. Instead of honestly and earnestly looking into that mirror, the word of God, and examining themselves, they call the bearers of the truth judgmental or worse. I’ve heard it said before that it is near impossible to offend a true follower of Christ by sharing the truth with them. I think that is because when truth is shared with them, no matter how hard it is, they examine themselves and see if they are walking in that truth or not. If they find that they are not, if they really do love the Lord they will conform their lives to the new truth they received, not reject and fight against it with all their might.

Blessed be ye poor in GPA

2011-09-19T13:33:00.002-06:00

Blessed be ye poor in GPA, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who desire righteousness rather than achieving their academic goals, for their desire will be fulfilled.

Blessed are the pure in heart who despise the world’s pleasures and entertainments, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the meek who despise the competition in education, business, sports and other aspects of this world, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are ye when your fellow students and professors shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their classrooms and college campuses for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy: for behold your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner did their faculty unto the street preachers.

Woe unto you who are successful and have a high GPA, for you have received your education.

Woe unto you that laugh at the preachers who come to your campus and preach truth, for you shall mourn and weep.

Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of your academic achievements and enroll you as an honor student, for so did their fathers to the professors of lies who taught you.

Woe unto you who pay large sums of money to university professors who are ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. I say unto you that unless your knowledge of Truth exceeds that of your professors and teachers, you shall in no way enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Quit listening to your professor and academic counselor’s words and start listening to Jesus’ words; you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free from your goals and career.

Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, “Do good in school so you can be successful out there in the world.” But I say unto you: what is a man profited if he should gain the whole world but lose his own soul? Or what kind of education and career would a man give in exchange for his soul?

Ye have also heard that it hath said by them of time of old, “Study hard to achieve your academic goals so you can have a career that suits your interests and be happy in life.” But I say unto you: he that loves his life shall lose it and he that hates his life in this world shall save it for life eternal.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, “A high GPA is good because it will help you to stand out among the competition.” But I say unto you: that which is highly esteemed by man is an abomination in the sight of God.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, “You should prepare to be able to compete for the esteemed jobs out there.” But I say unto you: if someone will take the position that you are applying for, give him your retirement benefits as well. For ye know that the chief executives among employees exercise dominion over them, and they that have ascended the corporate ladder have rule over them. But it shall not be so among you; for whosoever will be great among you let him be your minister, and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your servant.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, “A stable career will allow you a secure retirement plan.” But I say unto you: lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, for where your treasure is there your heart will be also. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will hold to one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve both God and the University.

Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life - what your career will be. Behold the birds of the air: for they do not study and prepare for exams to fill their bird brains with useless knowledge, and yet your heavenly Father has taught them how to survive. And why take ye thought for how the world will see you, to be competitive, and how your résumé will stand out? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they do not compete for the better GPA or the best positions in the pastures and in the parks, yet not even the CEO of the big company whose job offer you applied for is arrayed like one of these. Therefore take no thought saying, “Where shall I go to school?” Or, “What shall I study?” Or, “Where shall I be employed?” For after all these things do the Gentiles seek, but your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of none of these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, learn to be content with food and clothing, and it will be added unto you; for godliness with contentment is the greatest education.

Fear not, O undergraduate of little faith! It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom of heaven. Drop out of school and give your money to the poor rather than the greedy university professor who makes his living off of turning you into twofold more the child of hell than he is himself.

When you see your parents’ disappointment because the goals and expectations they had for you are shattered, remember that if you love father or mother more than Him you are not worthy of Him. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth Him is not worthy of Him. He that findeth his career shall lose it and he that forsakes his career for Jesus’ sake shall find his life. When your friends and family try to persuade you and discourage you from following Jesus in this radical narrow way, remember that a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

Listen to the words of Jesus saying, “Come follow me,” and say not “Lord I will follow, but first let me finish my bachelor’s degree.” Let the world have the world; you go and preach the kingdom of God.

-Brian Gray

I'm still here!

2011-09-08T13:55:00.002-06:00

I see it's been a while since I've said anything. I'm still around ... I just have higher priorities right now. I have a LOT on my mind, but not much time to get it down on 'paper'.

I should be posting something soon though :)

Daily Truth for Godly Youth by Howard Bean (a book review)

2011-08-16T15:22:00.002-06:00

Someone handed this book to me and asked if I would let them know what I thought. I had seen it advertised in a Mennonite curriculum catalog and was interested to look at it, so of course I was thankful to have the chance to look at it for free. My thoughts in a nutshell: This book is poison. It is shameful. It is worldly and carnal. It is humanistic. There is no way it is pleasing to the Lord. It is fit for the wood stove.

The first day I had it was November 30th of last year (2010) … so naturally I turned to the page set for that day. Here is what I read:

Giving and Receiving Advice

“Marie, listen to me! Your room looks like a disaster area! Why can’t you look after your things? A sixteen-year-old girl should know by now how to hang up clothes. And your dresser ….!” Marie’s mother rolled her eyes in despair.
“Aw, Mom. I know where to find things. You’re always crabbing at me about something.”
“Charlotte Martin’s room isn’t like yours. It’s spotless! Charlotte’s mother gave me a quick tour of their house since they moved. I wish you could be as neat as Charlotte.” Marie’s mother glared at her reproachfully. “She’s popular with the boys too,” she added significantly.
“I don’t care what that Charlotte Martin does! I’ll keep my things the way I want to. And that’s all there is to it.” And Marie flounced out the door, slamming it for extra emphasis.
Giving and getting such advice is a common experience. I hope the above conversation isn’t typical in your home.
I think you would agree that Marie’s mother could have improved the way she gave her advice. And, for that matter, Marie could have received it better.

I will not go on to post the rest of the devotional – but I assure you it had nothing to do with explaining why the above scenario was ALL WRONG. The girl is allowed to treat her mother in such a way. Arguing. Slamming doors. Back talking. Flouncing out the door. And why is the room such a mess to begin with? Bad habits like this do not all the sudden pop up over night. And the mother – what a shameful way to act and what a terrible example for her daughter. Is it any wonder the daughter is acting as she does? The mother is rolling her eyes, glaring, etc. And SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on the mother for wanting her daughter to be popular with the boys. This just made me sick inside. How disgusting. As a Brother here said, “A girl that is popular with the boys will not all the sudden stop being popular with the boys once she gets married.” We want our boys to stay far away from the girls that are popular with the boys.

This book is filled with such disgusting things and seems to have a heavy emphasis on dating, courtship, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. but all in a worldly sort of way. For instance, June 15 talks about ways to get on your perspective father-in-law’s good side and it starts with a sickening story about a young man trying to talk with a girl he had a crush on in highschool. This whole devotional entry could have been done away with and simply said instead, “Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” If a young man has a heart for the Lord, he does not have to worry about impressing his perspective father-in-law. Trying to so is carnal. The focus on obtaining a girl you like is just gross and carnal. Young people need to focus on serving the Lord, not getting hitched up with the one they have a crush on. If their focus is on the Lord, all things will fall into place as they should, at the Lord's timing. Maybe the Lord's will for them is to serve him as a single man or woman?

January 10 starts off with a story that is promoting superstition … and they do not even rebuke it or say that obviously that is not the way God guides us.

November 19 tells us all about mashed potatoes. I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out their point on this one. There are many others that left me scratching my head too.

There are so many examples but I want to keep this short. This book is FILLED with worldliness; certainly NOT something for a Christian who is striving to walk on the Narrow Way. It’s almost like they are trying to use worldly things to make it appealing to their youth because their youth are slipping away. The stories they start off with often times do not fit into their point later on and (in general) are worldly in nature. If something is obviously unbiblical in a story (like the few listed above) they do not rebuke it or explain why it is not pleasing to the Lord. But … WHY are they even using these examples to begin with? They are so full of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

I fear for the plain churches. If this really is what they see as 'daily truth for godly youth' I fear they are on the broad road to destruction. I could not imagine the anabaptists in the early 1500s writing such trash as this.

I could say so much more.

I believe ...

2011-08-07T12:52:00.003-06:00

A few thoughts real quick:

- I believe we all have the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2) And in case anyone was wondering what I mean by "all" ... those who are of the age of understanding. What age is that? I don't know, but the Lord does.

- I believe that the grace that brings salvation has appeared to ALL men. This is not the 'cheap grace' that allows us to live in sin and 'be saved' at the same time. This is the grace that teaches us how to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and shows us how to live righteously, godly and soberly in this world. (Titus 2) Now in case anyone was wondering what I meant by "all" ... those who are past the age of understanding. Also, I believe we can reject that grace.

- I believe that John the Baptist came to prepare the way. I believe his first message to the people was REPENT. I believe he came BEFORE Jesus came.To me, this means that John was telling people to REPENT (CHANGE) before they even met Jesus.

- I believe Jesus came after John the Baptist. I believe Jesus said the same thing the first time he talked to the people. Repent.

- I do not believe John the Baptist or Jesus told anyone to say a prayer and accept Jesus into their hearts. I believe they told the people to change. I believe the "ball is in our court" so to speak. The way is laid before us. Now we must choose this day whom we will serve. Ourselves and Satan or Christ.

- I believe following Jesus comes with a cross. I believe that cross could be different for each one of us. I believe that cross looks and seems too heavy to bear until one steps out in faith.

- I believe one must Come, Hear AND Do the words of Christ. This is the one that will have a solid foundation. I believe that if one comes to Christ and hears his words but does not do them, they are the ones that have a shaky foundation ... and when it falls, the fall will be great. (Matthew 7:24-27; Luke 6:47-49)

- I believe that to be married to the divorced is adultery. (Matthew 5:31, 32; 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18)

- I believe a man and a woman who have a legitimate marriage are bond to each other till death parts them. (same verses as above plus Romans 7:1-3 and 1 Corinthians 7:39) Any relationship outside of the marriage covenant is adultery. I believe that no adulterer will enter into the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6:9, 10)

- I believe that we must love our enemies. (Matthew 5 and Luke 6)

- I believe that we must obey to receive the Holy Ghost. (acts 5:32)

- I believe we must obey Christ to have salvation (Hebrews 5:9)

- I believe we must walk in the light to be cleansed (1 John 1:7)

- I believe sin is a choice.

- I believe that if we really truly believe that Jesus is the Christ, it will change our whole lives and we will never be the same.

- I believe a woman is to submit to her husband (Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18) even if he does not obey God (1 Peter 3:1-6). She is to be meek, quiet and covered. (1 Peter 3:4; 1 Cor. 11) She knows this is of great value to the Lord. She is to dress modestly in such a way as to not entice a man to look on her with lust in his heart (doing so would be committing adultery with him). She does not adorn herself with outward things such as gold, pearls, or costly array. (1 Peter 3; 1 Timothy 2)

- I believe a woman is to be quiet in church. She is not to lead or preach. I believe an elder, bishop, deacon, etc. must be the husband of one wife. A woman cannot be the husband of one wife. (1 Timothy 2; 1 Timothy 3; Titus 1; 1 Cor. 14)

- I believe that we MUST fear God and work righteousness to be accepted of him (Acts 10:34 and 35).

- I believe that without holiness and peace, no man will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

- I believe the Lord expects us to obey him. If we do not obey him, we do not love him. (John 14:15)

- I believe that we must endure to the end. If we do not endure to the end, we will not be saved eternally. (Matt 10:22)

- I believe that ALL who will godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. (2 Timothy 3:12)

- I believe we have the ability to be free from sin. I believe the Lord will not give us more than we can handle but will give us a way out of temptations we face … but we must choose that way out. (Romans 8:2; 1 John 3; 1 Cor. 10:13)

- I believe the way is narrow and only a FEW will find it. I pray I am part of the few ... but if I'm not, so be it. The Lord is still worthy to be served. He will judge me justly. (Rev. 4:11; Matthew 7:13, 14)

- I believe there are TWO KINGDOMS. We either belong to one or the other - either the kingdom of this world or the kingdom of God. We cannot abide in both kingdoms at the same time. Light cannot abide with darkness. (John 18:36; John 8:12; etc.)

‎- I believe that if one is part of the kingdom of God, they are no longer citizens of this world. They are foreigners and strangers. Pilgrims just passing through. Ambassadors for Christ. As a pilgrim and a stranger, they are not involved in the affairs or politics of this world's kingdom. The weapons of their warfare are spiritual, not carnal. They are harmless as doves; as sheep to the slaughter. Sheep do not kill wolves. Doves are gentle. (Matt 10:16; 1 Peter 2:11; 2 Cor. 10:4; John 18:36; etc.)

I'm sure there's more, but that's what came to my mind quick. I will edit as I think of more.

Edit:
- I believe a Christian is to live in voluntary poverty. Not that they cannot make money, but that they are to live as frugally as they can and give the rest away to those in need. I believe this is part of loving your neighbor as yourself. Along with this, I believe it is wrong to store up treasures on earth and take thought for tomorrow. Retirement plans, life insurance, etc. do not fit a follower of Christ. How can one store up for their uncertain future when there are people all around them with needs RIGHT NOW? (the NT has much to be said about riches, taking no thought, etc.)

- I believe if we do not forgive, neither will we be forgiven. (Matt 18)

The Radicalization of Nominalism - Thoughts from the Norway tragedy

2011-07-30T20:21:00.003-06:00

Matthew shared this on facebook ... I appreciate his thoughts so I thought I'd share them here.

The Radicalization of Nominalism - Thoughts from the Norway tragedy
by Matthew Milioni

Every Bible believing Christian is to a certain degree a conspiracy theorist. We all believe that there was a conspiracy by the Jewish elite that conscripted the might of the Roman sword to destroy Jesus, and that this plot had at its ultimate head in the Devil who moved Judas and other players into action. We also believe that for all the efforts by the kingdom of darkness, Jesus through his willingness to suffer and his radical obedience turned the whole plot, to accomplish the Father's greatest exploit in human history; namely the Resurrection and institution of the Church. This is also the model that all of us, in spite of our eschatalogical differences, believe will be played out again at the end of the age regarding the second advent of the living Christ, when he claims his bride and judges all men.

We are experiencing dramatic events in our day. The earth is quite literally groaning in anticipation of all things being set right. World governments and nations are perpetually teetering on the verge of annihilation. I have been observant of world events since my pre-teen years. I remember the Iran Contra hearings in detail from when I was a boy. In my own short life the increase of incidence of potential world changing importance have swelled to mind numbing proportions. In the words of scripture we are inundated with “wars and rumors of wars”. North Korea, China, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the new middle eastern discontent of Yemen, Egypt and Syria all have potential to radically change all of our lives in a fortnight. Not to mention our own domestic difficulties. What I have watched with interest in the last decade is the developing cultural perspective of fundamentalism. By fundamentalism, I mean the belief in any system that supersedes loyalty to geo-political institutions. Needless to say, we should not find it surprising that fundamentalism by this definition is threatening to geo-political institutions.

Perhaps too much of an introduction to make my point, but I feel like it is necessary groundwork in order to make the case that much of the professing church is playing into a satanic ruse, and helping to set the stage for the persecution of the Church in the West. The horrors perpetrated in Norway, allegedly by Anders Breivik, are a major potential link in the coming agenda against the Church. I have felt for a long time that the current conflicts with terrorists, and the suspension of Western idealism regarding intolerance of torture and assassination, implied privacy, Habeas Corpus, and implied innocence, have much less to do with the middle east, than they do with the coming conflict between the world and the church. It is the opinion of many of us, that the present conflicts between East (“Islam”) and West (“christianity”), the neo-crusades if you will, are part of a larger plan to set the stage for a time when anyone considered a “threat to society” can and will be ruthlessly and summarily dispatched (or decapitated).

I watched with interest after the Oklahoma City bombing as the collective psyche wrapped its mind around the idea of white, home grown terrorism. I also watched with interest the ensuing legislation that opened a door to the state to pursue alleged threats to the public well being. Then I watched with even more interest at the hysteria in the aftermath of 9-11. The legislation that followed that particular event, and is still following that event, can be considered a carte blanche for chasing the public’s perceived enemies. “Christian” America has not only been silent in these actions, but complicit, in the name of preserving our precious and ostentatious “way of life”. The validity of our “way of life” is the subject of an entirely different essay. For our current concerns, “Christian” America has had the fortitude of will to endorse the expense of trillions of dollars and thousands of her sons and a slashing of privacy in order to feel like the Jihadist boogey man will not spring out of the closet, or out from under the bed. I was horrified as I read of the Pew poll that showed a correlation between regular church attendance and endorsement of torture. (view poll data here) Let me express very clearly that it is nothing short of blasphemy to call oneself by the name of the prince of peace and endorse torture. This sentiment from the false church is playing exactly into the hands of the enemy of all men. Which leads me to ask, “who is the boogeyman of the future?” That has been my primary interest. This brings us full circle to the intent of this essay. With the developments emerging from the attacks in Norway, we are learning that Anders is a new breed, a “Christian” terrorist. In what has become available from his own online posts, Anders has capitalized on the imagery of the Knights Templar, and the rest of the Crusader's. I have been predicting this development since 9-11. I knew soon the day would come when we would tune in to news of “Christian” extremists blowing things up and shooting innocent people. Not to say that any organization or conglomeration of powerful men was orchestrating this, but that logically the next step in the diabolical agenda, orchestrated by Satan, would be to reclassify fundamental 'Christianity' as a danger to society on par with fundamentalist Islam.

The response at large for the last decade in response to radicalism has been what I have termed “radicalized nominalism”. This is the term for the cultural position that any belief or thought is tolerable or condoned, only to the extent, and so long as, no one offers their full allegiance to it. As long as people nominally believe in a thing it is virtue. When people vaunt a belief to the exclusion of other thoughts, that belief will become quite literally an enemy of the state. When a person espouses a loyalty higher than loyalty to the “society” (as defined by the majority, I suppose), that person, regardless of the danger of his beliefs, will be declared an enemy of the state. This snare was laid in place, and christian America stepped right in it. It is pervasive in culture that we can believe what ever we want, as long as we don't believe it too much. So what shall we be labeled, when we reject their schools, or their vaccines, or their political creeds, their normalization or sodomy and adultery? What else can they call us but radicals, and with the radicalization of nominalism, what can we be considered but a threat to the very fabric of society.

I don't suppose that this cultural tide can be changed. We can however brace ourselves for the impact. We dare not give in to isolationism. Now is the time for us to be loudly proclaiming our rightful place in the world, as peacemakers and lovers of all men, even our enemies; as ambassadors from a heavenly kingdom, calling men to repent and join the Truth. This is in my mind, becoming the defining line between the false professors of gutless cultural humanist christendom, and the real dynamic, Holy Ghost inspired, salt of the earth, that is the true church of Jesus Christ. I can assure you, as the last days approach, christendom itself as expressed by the mainstream churches will not be the object of hatred and persecution; but committed, radical consecration, that supersedes anything like nationalism will be. I personally feel obliged to tell whoever will listen that Christianity has everything to do with the life of Jesus being lived through his people to the world, and nothing to do with endorsing one worldly system above another worldly system. I appreciate the words of one brother who said that you can no more have a Christian Nation, than you can have a Christian Asparagus. The rules of Christianity are diametrically opposed to the rules of nations. The command to the Church is to forgive and love its enemies, the command to the state is to punish evil, as an example. The Church needs to be reminded that in the last days, the whole world unites in their hatred for God and His church. Do some believe America, or Democratic Western Civilization has no part in that number? They too, will openly declare their hatred of God and opposition to His Church. They already are even this day, albeit in a whisper, if you have ears to hear. Judgment must begin at the Church of God, and I am loathe to watch professing saints hew their own crosses. If we are to be hated and persecuted, let it not be because of our nationalism or our desire to live and protect the American dream; but, let it be because we are so unlike the world, so like our Lord that men hate us for His sake.

THE PARTY ENDS IN HELL

2011-07-29T08:41:00.003-06:00

An article from our church website:

The Party Ends in Hell
Here's why One of the signs we carry preaching on the street says. "The Party Ends in Hell"

"Now the works of the flesh are seen. They are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousy, out bursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murderers, drunkenness, revelries (partying), and the like, of which I tell you before hand just also as I have told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Galatians 5.

It seems today that there is this idea that once you get saved all of your sins are covered and forgiven so that you can live any way you desire. We often hold the party ends in hell sign on South St. in Springfield, Missouri, or on Dickson St. in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Both of these places are known for their party atmosphere, and nearly every night that we preach with this sign someone drunk walks by and says, "I'm a Christian. I believe in Gods grace - He will forgive me".

In the book of Jude we are told that in the latter times certain men will turn God's grace into lasciviousness, or lawlessness. It seems this scripture is so relevant today. The modern church teaches a message of grace that gives sinners a license to sin by consoling them with the assurance of forgiveness without repenting first. You might ask: "Isn't grace unmerited favor?" Yes. However, grace is not simply a forgiving of sin, it is the chance for a sinner to live righteously. Titus Chapter 2 tells us that the Grace that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should soberly, righteously, and godly. Grace is not God overlooking our sin, rather it is God reproving man for his sin and showing him how to live righteously. Grace is God offering us a second chance, that even though we fell away from God He is offering us a chance to be reconciled with Him. This is something that God does not offer the Devil, Grace is only offered to mankind.

The Apostle Paul asked: "Shall we continue in sin that Grace may abound? God Forbid!". If we ignore God's grace it may not appear to us anymore. However, if we turn God's grace into a license to sin we are doing more than ignoring God's calling. We are deceiving ourselves and believing a lie. "Know ye not that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Don't be deceived. Neither fornicators, idolators, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetousness, drunkards, revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6.

“My husband said…”

2011-07-20T13:12:00.001-06:00

So often I hear women using this phrase in such a way that makes it seem like they are trying to honor their husband but what they are really doing is letting you know that they do not agree with him. They will not come right out and say they do not agree, but they cannot just say “no” (or whatever the case) and leave it at that because then the person they were talking to would think that the woman agreed with her husband.

This is not biblical submission.

The truly submissive wife obeys her husband because she trusts the Lord. She obeys and does not offer subtle hints or excuses to those around her to let them know she does not agree. She certainly does not offer sympathy to her children when they do not agree with their father or when they do not want to do something he has asked them to do [which probably stems from a seed planted by the mother in the first place].

A biblically submissive woman faithfully stands behind her husband’s word. He can trust her to follow through in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.

We must each examine our hearts to see if this applies to us. How deep and real is your submission?

Personal savior; personal relationship with Jesus

2011-07-13T07:56:00.003-06:00

Here are some notes and thoughts from last Sunday’s message titled YOU! (ME):

So often we hear people saying that Jesus is their ‘personal Savior.’ We also hear many say that we must have a ‘personal relationship with Jesus.’ More often than not, while they are ready to claim Jesus as their own and claim his promises, they are not ready to pick up their cross and follow him. They want to have all the ‘good stuff’ and still do their own thing too.

Jesus said, “Except YE repent, YE shall all likewise perish.” He’s talking to each one of us, not just those ‘really bad people’ who are stuck in obvious sin. Think of the tax collector. When he heard the call of Jesus, he left ALL, rose up and FOLLOWED Jesus. David K. asked the question: Where are you in all of that? Do you hear Him calling, or is that for somebody else? “I don’t care who you are – unless YOU hear Christ, you are going to die in your sin and go to hell! You! Me! Hear that. Forget about ‘you’ looking out at others; look at ‘me’ – look inward. Except YE repent, YE shall all likewise perish.”

“I don’t know how many times we’ve been accused of being a cult or something of the sort, like we think we are the only ones saved. No, no, no. Except I repent, except I hear the voice of the Lord, except you hear the voice of the Lord and follow Him, you are going to parish too. If you are just deadly walking through the motions, if you know there are things you are not doing right, you know there is a cross in front of you and you are not going to pick it up and take it, you are going to split hell right open and Jesus is going to look at you and say, “I presented the way to you and you chose not to take it.” And I’m not talking to anyone outside of this room; I’m looking at each one of you and if I had a mirror I’d look at myself because this message is a personal message.”

“That’s why you can’t hardly offend a true Christian because he is more worried about ‘me’ (himself), and I don’t mean worried like we are sitting on the edge of our seats. I have confidence that I have heard His call and I am following it and if He shows me something else, I’m going to do it. And there is rest in that. There is peace in that. The turmoil comes when we are facing that cross and we don’t want it! But when you get on it and die, there is peace. There is peace there. I found it! And I want to walk in it.”

David cautioned us about what he calls ‘religious bulimia.’ So often we know of people (or have been there ourselves) who study all the theology and gather a whole bunch of knowledge. Pretty soon, our knowledge or theology outruns our walk – the walk of just simply hearing what Jesus has to say and putting it into practice. ‘Religious bulimia’ would be those who fill their heads all full of (religious) knowledge and the go puke it up on someone. They can talk the talk, and might even have it all correct, but they are not walking the walk. “We can argue theology and have it straight as a gun barrel and, as Tozer used to say, just as empty. It won’t mean a thing if you didn’t take this personal.” People come up to us when we are on the streets and try to argue theology over a simple teaching of Christ that we have written on our signs. It’s easy to want to get into a debate with them but really we must be careful not to do that. Debating theology misses the whole point. Jesus says what He says. Either we believe it and follow it or we don’t.

Atheists love to come up and argue – whether on the streets when you are preaching, or even just someone you know, like a friend or family member. You do not have to defend or argue the word of God. It is simple: “He that believeth not shall be damned.” Paul warned us to not use reasoning words with this world’s wisdom. We have the word of God! All we are required to do is apply it to each person that is in front of us. “You might change their mind in an argument, but all you are going to do is convert one to your way of thinking, and they are on their way to hell thinking they are saved because unless THEY hear the word of God preached …” He that believeth not shall be damned. Period.

Preaching the gospel can be hard. It’s a hostile word, especial against the truth. All through the bible (prophets, disciples, etc.) men went out “not to try to smooth things over for people – they went out as ambassadors for Christ representing God, calling men to repent! We have two kingdoms at war and it isn’t too fun getting ready to go battle when you know that you are going to step out and everyone there is going to be against you because you have a message for them that they do not want to hear. They are not going to like it and will say, ‘why do you come here and tell us those things’ because we don’t belong there. There are two worlds and YOU are either on one side or the other. There are no in-betweens. When you step up to that cross and pass through to the other side, you leave the old life behind. You die. You can’t drag the old through; you have to leave it.”

“When Jesus speaks, He is not talking about an idealistic gospel out there, a beautiful little church out there … he’s saying, “You listen!” And the man who says, “Me?” and does it, is like a man who builds his house on a rock and when the storms come, it can just rage. He’s heard the Voice. He’s heard the call, and whatever the world throws at him it can just beat all day long and rage against him. He is standing on a rock! He’s heard it and is putting it into practice. He’s going to follow it. He believes it and wants to live it out.”

And then to those who hear but do not heed: “They heard it but thought, “Oh, that must be for so-and-so over there.” This message is for YOU – listen up. When the storm beats, your house is going to fall. YOUR house is going to fall. It’s a real message and it’s to YOU. It’s just amazing how many times He says, “YOU” or “YE”. How many times do we HEAR that “you” in a personal way? Are we seeing it? Or have we just got our theology figured out, ‘boy they are sure wrong in what they are teaching. They are all messed up in what they are teaching.’ Woe unto me if that’s all my religion is. Woe unto me if I haven’t come to the place where Jesus said, “Rise up and follow Me. Forsake everything and follow Me.””

It’s a personal message. Look through the teachings of Christ – when he says YE or YOU point the finger at yourself and see how it applies to your life. Don’t think what he said was for another time or another culture. Except YE repent, YE shall all likewise perish. YOU must change for Christ to accept you.

EDIT:
I had to edit this and add something a sister shared on her blog. It fits well here I think:

Personal Responsibility OR no one can choose for you

Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. 1 Cor. 3:8

You have a charge to keep
You have a soul to save
Now is the day
No one can do it for you
No one can take your place on Judgment Day

I must haste, procrastination waits till time has flown.

He who runs his chance aground
Forfeits life, reward, and crown.

Child Training - Allowance and more

2011-06-28T13:15:00.005-06:00

I have seen so many children feel like they are entitled to something. The attitude of 'if I do this then I should get that' or 'if I do this then you should do that for me' or something along those lines. This makes me ill. What about just being a servant? What about just taking care of what is right in front of you and not expecting payment or some sort of compensation for it?

I think parents (possibly unknowingly) are the ones that train their children to think this way. One way is when they use bribing to get them to do something. For instance - 'if you eat all of your food I'll give you dessert' or 'if you go to bed like a good little boy then I'll buy you a new toy' or 'if you are good at the store I'll buy you a special treat'. Why not just train them to behave and do the right thing? What is happening here is you are actually giving them an option to choose the wrong thing. They are children and you are the adult. They are to learn how to submit and to obey. A more proper 'bribe' (consequence) would be more like 'if you are not good in the store I will spank you when we get home' or 'if you do not eat all of your food you will get it again at the next meal until it's gone' etc. And then FOLLOW THROUGH with what you have said. A child does NOT need a treat for eating all of their food, for being good in the store, and so on. You are training them to think they are entitled to a treat or some other special thing if they do the right thing.

"If you don't stop that I'm going to give you to the count of 3 before I ______." Or "If you do that again I'm going to _______." Why even give them a chance? (On a side note, I hardly ever hear anyone actually get to '3' and take action ... these parents are hypocrites and liars and they are acting this way towards their children.) If they already know it's wrong, then discipline them THE FIRST TIME ... right when they do whatever it is they are not supposed to do. For example - if you have already told them that back-talking is not allowed then DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO GET AWAY WITH IT EVEN ONCE. If they back-talk, don't give them a chance! Just discipline them right away. By giving them chances you are training them to count on being able to be bad at least once or twice before suffering a consequence for it. Get what I mean?

Well, that was a rabbit trail. Back to my point of entitlement and compensation ...

Allowance is another example. I hear of so many children getting an allowance for cleaning their room and doing other every-day household chores. Why? I never have given my children an allowance and never will. I have never paid them for anything they have done around the house. It is their house too and they are just as much a part of it as I am; we are in this together. They are all very willing helpers and expect nothing in return. Doing work for others outside of the home is different and that is normal to expect pay for that ... but getting paid for doing things in your own home? Well, that's not reality for most of us adults so why should it be for children?

Now that my sons are working, most of their money goes to me to support the family. The money is spent on the basics: food, clothing, shelter, gas. Anything beyond the basics is given away. Corban will keep some of his money but he spends it on stuff like gas for the mowers, garden items, tools, things for the house that need repaired, and so on. They all know that the money is not really theirs, it's the Lord's.

Last sunday Brother Brian shared a message on Acts 10. He was speaking of Cornelius and how his prayers and alms went up for a memorial before God. Isn't that something of great value? Well, godliness with contentment is of great value ... so he made a little phrase that went something like this: godliness with contentment = almsgiving. Why? Because if we are content with the basics (and the Lord only promises us food and clothing; Paul too says 'having food and clothing let us therewith be content') then we will have money to give to others. Even if we lack, we still have the faith in knowing that if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness he will provide for our needs. Brian went on further to say the opposite: worldliness with discontentment = debt. Why do we acquire debt? Usually because we are not content with food and clothing. We want more. We want a house. We want land. We want a car. We want other things that we do not need. We are discontent with the simple things and get drawn into the ways of this world. This is not pleasing to the Lord.

What are we doing with the Lord's money? What are we teaching our children to do with the Lord's money? Let us do all we can to be an example of Christ - a humble servant willing to lay down our lives for others. Being content with food and clothing ... so much of our money, time and resources could be used in a way that would bless others. But being discontent with the basics and thus obtaining debt ... now our money, time and resources have to go mostly towards paying off that debt and others are suffering because of it. And someone who expects some sort of payment or compensation for the little things they do - I have little hope for them being content with food and clothing.

These are a few rambling thoughts; I hope it all makes sense. I wanted to spend a little more time on this but ... maybe some day.

In your patience possess ye your souls

2011-06-17T05:59:00.003-06:00

In your patience possess ye your souls.

The children and I read this verse yesterday morning during our little time around the table. This verse always blesses me whenever I read past it. It comforts me and brings such peace in the stormiest times. I shared it with a friend yesterday morning and then my oldest son and I talked quite a bit about it when I was taking him to work. It stuck with me all day. I thought it would be good to share it with everyone else too.

Other verses that come to mind are, “Run with patience” and “in whatsoever state I am in, therewith to be content”.

I used to enjoy running. Usually I’d run 2-4 miles at a time but sometimes I’d run 8-10 miles (the longer runs were maybe once a week). There was usually the same pattern with the longer runs: The first few miles always seemed the hardest but then I'd fall into a good pace. Before long however I'd start thinking again about how it was such a long way, I was tired, my legs were hurting, etc, etc. But then I'd get another burst of energy and keep pressing on. In the end I was pleased to be done, refreshed, feeling good, etc. It happened that way nearly every time. If I would have just 'ran with patience' I could have saved myself so much stress.

Tylor shared with me an example too – often times when he is working he does not have time to stop and eat at the time he’d like to stop and eat. Sometimes he does not eat his lunch till 2 or 3 or even later. He said that if he does not control his attitude, those few hours of waiting can be miserable and tough. He knows he is going to be able to eat soon. He knows he has food or will have food. He knows he will not go without. Yet sometimes he still struggles to keep a good attitude while waiting to eat. He knows too that when he does keep a good attitude, everything goes fine and he even feels less hungry.

Another example we talked about. Right now we are watching a few extra children for a while. We’ve noticed how they complain about nearly everything. If there is work to be done, they complain pretty much the whole time, before, during and after the work. Why? The work has to be done, so we might as well do it with a good attitude and a smile on our face, right? I believe many are in this same bondage – having a bad attitude about work. As David says, learn to love what you hate. We do not have to grumble and complain! We can actually learn to enjoy what is put in front of us and be a blessing to those around us too (Tylor is really good at this - he has encouraged us all so many times, though I don't think he knows it). Sometimes a job is hard. Roofing for instance. When Corban first started roofing with Brother Olen he came home that day and told me a story. He said something like, “Mom, it was so hot today [it was very hot that day – upper 90's and they were up on a metal roof in the direct sun]. There were bees and wasps flying all around our heads, the sun was beating off the metal roof into our faces [he was burnt], I was sweating constantly [his clothing was soaked through], my back was hurting, etc. and do you know what Olen was doing? He was whistling and singing!” Praise the Lord - what a good example for my son to learn from. (hope you don’t mind me sharing this Olen?!) We can have good attitudes, be thankful, be cheerful, etc. even in extremely uncomfortable situations.

We don’t have to grumble, complain, etc. And when the job is done, we will feel so much better that our hearts and our consciences are clean.

Ok, back to the verse "in your patience possess ye your souls." Tylor and I talked a lot about how this applies to our walk with the Lord. There will be storms. There will be trials. There will be ‘ups and downs’. We must patiently bear them and go through them … and yes, praise the Lord for them. Maybe we can even whistle and sing through them. I’ve been through some really dark times. Looking back now it’s so easy to see that they were for my own good. Even at the time I KNEW the Lord had my good in mind, but it’s so hard to be joyful and content during those times of trials and darkness. I believe the Lord will give me plenty of opportunities to practice patience and contentment. I pray as each new storm or trial comes, I learn more completely what it means to run with patience.

Praise the Lord.

What's the first thing that comes to your mind?

2011-06-09T12:35:00.001-06:00

What do you think this is advertising?

Tears of the Rain ... but who are the tears for?

2011-06-03T15:18:00.003-06:00

Who are the tears for? A book review I guess …

A few years back I learned of a book that several of my friends liked called Tears of the Rain by Ruth Ann Stelfox. The cover says, “The moving story of a missionary family struggling to help some of the poorest people in the world – the men, women, and children of war-torn Liberia. Vividly descriptive and poignantly honest, this story will have you laughing on one page and crying on the next.” I did not have the time then to borrow it and soon forgot about it … but then last fall I was able to borrow it from a brother here in MO. I was looking forward to reading about the lives of the missionaries and the work they were doing in Liberia. I thought maybe this book would be a good teaching aid for me … and it was … but certainly not in the way I expected at all.

The book is published by CAM [Christian Aid Ministries]; from the back pages of the book, “…[CAM] was founded in 1981 as a nonprofit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization. Our primary purpose is to provide a trustworthy, efficient channel for Amish, Mennonite, and other conservative Anabaptist groups and individuals to minister to physical and spiritual needs around the world.” It goes on to describe how they distribute millions of pounds of food as well as clothing, medicines, seeds, Bibles, story books and other Christian literature to those in need. They also have disaster relief and medical clinics around the world as well as warehouses in various places and other things too. The purpose of this article/review is NOT to discredit the good work they ARE doing, but to bring to light some inconsistencies that I cannot ignore and feel moved to share … a brother here summed my thoughts up very well when he said, “Who are the tears for?”

I nearly stopped reading this book right after the first few chapters … however, like I said, I felt lead to share my observations and knew that I could not base my observations on the first 2-3 chapters alone. So, I endured through some of the book and took notes along the way. Each time I picked up the book I would get mad. I made it through a little over half and just cannot bring myself to read any more of it.

First, I don’t understand all the hoops and red tape it took to get this family to Liberia. Everything was so official. What for? I don’t know. What is wrong with seeing a need and fulfilling it? Everything has become so sterile. I highly doubt the apostle Paul had to go through all of this confusion before heading out on a journey. It just makes no sense.

They have expensive cars. This bothers me. Does everyone in Liberia have expensive cars, or just the few who are rich in this world’s goods? I assume most people do not have cars, so I am left to wonder, “Why couldn’t the CAM staff get around the way most of the locals do?”

Their new home is inside a CAM compound that is surrounded by a high black and white stone wall for protection. Over the wall you could see “… a stately old two-story mansion with a large patio on the second floor.” A security guard was there to open the gate of the compound so they could get to their new home in Liberia. More about their new home on page 19: “three nice bedrooms, a large living room and dining room, and a dear little kitchen with white cupboards and a walk-in pantry. There’s even a covered patio in front with a clothesline for rainy days. The laundry room is just outside the kitchen, and it’s equipped with a nice wringer washer.” The writer of the book said about all of this, “I’m so thrilled!” And I would be too! WOW! I think I need to sign up with CAM to be a missionary in a poverty stricken country … it sure would beat the way we are living here. There was even food waiting for them … which is nothing like what the locals have, I’m sure [ok, I’m assuming again].

Hired security guards ... taking close note of anything that is out of place and might have been stolen, even if it's a dirty old bucket. This is not Christ-like.

The writer complains a bit about no curtains and no screens, but her husband is quick to say not to worry, he’ll have screens put on right away. I couldn’t help but wonder how the majority of the other women in the city live? She also complains a lot throughout the book about the various critters and the dirty people. Yes … she straight up complains about the dirty people. By complaining I mean she talks about them with obvious disgust. Once she gets past the disgust, she warms up to them.

At the end of chapter two she hires a young woman to help her around the house. I cannot help but wonder what her 19 and 18 year old daughters are doing? Not to mention the 3 younger ones (ages 15, 13 and 10). These children are all well old enough to help around the house; why does she need to hire someone? And where is this money coming from to pay this hired woman? Donations?

Finally in chapter three I read a little about some work that CAM does there (but still am in the dark about what this family is doing there?). On the way to the ‘displaced persons camp in Bellafoni’, they enjoyed a packed lunch of spam, buns and soda (this was almost modest compared to other packed lunches they have). Shortly after that they saw long lines of people waiting in front of an old run-down building for the clothing and food parcels the CAM personnel were handing out. She describes these people as, “hungry, bloodshot eyes and ragged clothing and worn-out flip-flops – a restless throng of desperate faces and protruding stomachs and skinny, scabby legs … a heavy odor of many unwashed bodies …”.

They hand out the bare basics while snacking on spam and soda and complaining about the dirty, skinny, scabby, starving people.

Throughout the book I am so saddened by the way this family, and other CAM staff, eats. In one entry (the book is set up like a journal with entries in order by date) the writer will tell of some person she met that was starving, had sores on them, was dirty, etc. and then a day or two later she’ll tell of the meal they ate with guests (CAM staff &/or people from the church) … regular American food complete with desserts and soda. The menu is often mentioned, which is very strange to me. Why all the focus on food? Here are a few examples:

- Hamburger soup, oatmeal cookies, peach cobbler
- Beef barley soup, brown rolls, strawberry jam, tapioca pudding
- Pizza, jello, potato salad, cake [right after this on the next page the writer tells of men dying while trying to break into the CAM containers for food]
- Hot dogs, cake, ice cream, caramel corn, finger jello, slushy kool-aid. [this was a birthday party for one of the writer’s children]
- This is not a meal, but here is what was in the personal boxes that came for them: pg 110 milk chocolate, caramels, licorice, pie filling, poppy seed, cookies, flax seed, velveeta cheese, tea, etc. Wayne made the comment: “Missionary barrels sure aren’t what they used to be … In those Uncle Arthur stories, it was just used clothing or old dolls that were sent. Children, we are spoiled. Look at this!”
- A fellowship meal example: chicken and beef enchiladas, rice, refried beans, lettuce salad, iced tea and peanut butter pie.

Look at all that food!! Sadly, that’s not the only examples in the book and I hardly read half of it. Keep in mind that they are living in a poor country. At one point in the book the writer made the comment that only the rich could afford a “teaspoon or two of ‘sugar to taste’” to use in their rice-pulp balls. They [the missionaries] must be way beyond rich, because they have sugary things all through the book.

A few other things about food in this book that I do not understand:
- CAM hires a cook to make lunch for the staff “every day except Sundays and holidays.” Why?
- They provide their workers [missionary families and singles] with “canned hamburger, sausage, chicken, and beef chunks, plus flour, sugar, oatmeal, canned vegetables, and all the basics…” Of course they need food, but this is beyond basic. The main population of Liberia eats mostly rice every day.
- The CAM staff had a meal at a fancy restaurant (I looked it up online and it’s in an expensive hotel). The writer says “The menu was printed very stylishly and the wording was perfect, but the prices were exorbitant.” Was this also funded by donations??? How often is stuff like this done?
- They hand out candy to the orphans. Couldn’t that money for candy be spent on something more needful??

BUT … the most pathetic example of them all comes on pages 81 and 82. This is very sad to me … maybe someone can tell me why they [CAM staff] might think this is acceptable? Maybe there is someone who has worked under CAM and can fill me in?? Here is the exact quotes from the book:

Back at the farm [Tony, the CAM ‘mediator’s’ house], a feast was being prepared. Beef kabobs an dchicken franks were dripping juices and smelling like the American Golden Corral. French fries crisped in the frying pan and chicken sizzled on the grill. On the worktable lay a heap of chopped greens, sliced onions, minced garlic, and squeezed-out lime shells. The men [servants/cooks] had arranged round white plastic tables and matching chairs on the big patio for us. Tony ripped open bags of cheese balls, mixed nuts, and Pringles, poured them into the small bowls, and set them on the tables. Two coolers were loaded with soft drinks and fruit juices submerged in crushed ice.
“Would you please say grace for us, Mr. Yoder?” asked Tony.
There was laughter and visiting as we gnawed the chicken and ribs from the bones, dipped the Lebanese flat bread into the humus and the French fries into the ketchup, swigged our drinks, and licked our fingers.
“Mom, look at those little boys!” Larry exclaimed, drawing our attention to the small, ragged beggars creeping along the wall behind us. They were grabbing every bone and scrap we tossed away, tucking them into their pockets. They moved silently and swiftly, their watchful eyes darting here and there. Not a morsel did they miss. Their eyes looked hollow and too big for their faces, and their bellies protruded above their shabby trousers.
Suddenly they all disappeared like frighted deer as one of the cooks came toward us with MORE TRAYS OF FOOD. The cook didn’t notice – or didn’t want to – and minutes later the little beggars glided around the corner once more.
“I’m gonna leave some meat on these bones from now on,” Larry declared, voicing my intentions. “but just imagine chewing someone’s leftover bones and picking up those dry crusts. It’s like eating from the slop bucket!”
“It’s a good reminder of HOW RICHLY GOD HAS BLESSED US,” I reminded him. “I’m sure He hates it when we grumble.”
[*emphasis mine]

Well, I’m sure God wont mind if I grumble right now … rather, if I speak out against this horrible event. That is were it stops. I cannot believe it. They did not offer them food. They did not invite them in. They just left them out there to pick up LEFTOVER SCRAPS they tossed over the wall. How sick. How blind. Is that what Jesus would do??? Why didn’t anyone at the party do something other than leave extra meat on the bones??? Here they are having a nice party with all this food, and more coming out of the kitchen, while starving children are eating their scraps. Sick. Shame on them. I pray the scales are removed from their eyes and they repent.
Luke 14: 12Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. 13But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: 14And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.
And that’s all I’ll say about the food in this book.

Another story is shared that confuses me. Some of the staff were doing repair work on the CAM building there (the admin building I guess??). The work was sort of dirty, so the men dressed a little differently. “Many of the men wore ill-fitting clothing from the clothing bags at the warehouse, and they looked hilarious. Usually they dress immaculately for work, and this was such a change.” The spirit of this really disturbs me. I understand that they do not want to get their nice clothes messed up, but that raises a few questions … for one, why do they have such nice clothes to begin with? I can outfit a man in nice clothes from the thrift store for two dollars, and this is exactly what I do for my boys. While they do their best to not ruin their clothes, it’s not a huge deal if they work and get them messed up. The second thing that bothers me is that they took clothing from the donated clothes bags. The third thing that bothers me … and this is the worst of it all … the writer got a good laugh at how dumb they looked in these shabby clothes. I guess these clothes are good enough to give to the poor people in Liberia, but not good enough for the CAM staff to wear (except to ruin them &/or get a good laugh).

I recently heard that the Africans call this type of clothing ‘dead white man clothing’ or something like that. Why? Because they cannot imagine why anyone still alive would give away such nice clothes.

Well … that’s all I have to say, though I could say so much more.

“On to Witness”

2011-05-20T13:49:00.002-06:00

Some quotes from a chapter called "On to Witness" in "The Secret of the Strength" by Peter Hoover.

Peter starts off the chapter telling of Joost Joosten who was martyred in 1560 at the age of 18. He was put inside a little house of straw and burned alive … all the while the spectators could hear his (well known) beautiful voice singing praises to the Lord. “Oh Lord Christ, in my mind I see you standing always before me!”

Peter then tells of what ‘witnessing’ means to many of us today … going out once a month to the city with a stack of tracts and handing them out. Maybe you have a few good conversations. Maybe not. But “witnessing” to the Anabaptists (and many early christians) was to give one’s life for what one believed. [This makes me think of Stephen in the bible – he was a faithful witness (a.k.a. martyr). But be thou faithful unto death!]

Menno Simons wrote:
The heavy cross of Christ is the mark of the true church, the cross which is carried for the sake of his Word. Christ said to his disciples, “You will be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.” Paul wrote, “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution ….”
All who wish to go in by the right door, Christ Jesus, must sacrifice all they have. They must take upon themselves the heavy cross of poverty, of distress, of disdain and sorrow and sadness. They must follow the rejected, the outcast, and bleeding Christ … until through great tribulation they enter the kingdom of God.

Menno Simons again:
Do not hope that the time will come when the Word can be preached without the cross. Oh no! It is the Word of the cross and it will remain that to the end. The Word has to be preached with much suffering and sealed with blood…. If the head had to suffer torture and pain, how shall his members expect peace? If they called the master of the house a devil, will they not do so to those of his household? Christ said, “You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake.”

Conrad Grebel wrote:
Christians who believe right are sheep in the midst of wolves – sheep for butchering.

Menno Simons speaking of the children of believers:
Believing parents are minded like this about their children: they would a hundred times rather see them in a deep dark dungeon for the sake of Christ, than sitting with deceptive priests in an idol church, or in the company of drunken dolts in a tavern. A hundred times rather would they see them bound and dragged before the court, than to see them marry rich companions who do not fear God – feted in dances, song and play, pomp and splendour and musical instruments. A hundred times rather would they see their children scourged from head to foot for the sake of the Lord than to see them dressed in silks, jewelry, or costly trimmed and tailored clothes. Yes, a hundred times rather would they see them exiled, burning at the stake, drowned, or being pulled apart on the rack for righteousness’ sake than to see them live apart from God – than to see them be emperors or kings only to end up in hell.

The flame of God
Martin Luther and his colleagues met at Speyer on the Rhein in 1529. They gathered to define the evangelical liberties of the new Protestant states of Germany, and to establish the Protestant church in “peace, liberty, and the blessing of God.” At the same meeting they passed a resolution: “Every Anabaptist, both male and female, shall be put to death by fire, sword, or in some other way.”

In 1570 Kaspar Braimichel tells of the arrest of around 450 believers: “Of these believers, not one recanted. They all went joyfully to their death. While some were being drowned and beheaded, the rest sang while they waited their turn. They stood strong in the truth they professed and sure in the faith they had received from God. A few of them whom they did not want to kill right away they tortured by chopping off their fingers, by burning crosses into their foreheads, and through many other evil means. But the Lord von Schönberg finally asked in despair: “What shall I do? The more I sentence to death the more there are!””

Johannes Faber, Dominican friar of Heilbronn in Baden- Württemberg wrote: How does it happen that the Anabaptists so joyfully and confidently suffer the pain of death? They dance and jump into the flames. They see the flashing sword without dismay, and speak and preach to the spectators with big smiles on their faces. They sing psalms and hymns until their soul departs. They die with joy, as if they were in a merry company, and remain strong, confident, and steadfast until their death. Persisting defiantly in their intention, they also defy all pain and torture. (1550)

Johannes Faber concluded that the Anabaptists’ courage must be the result of “a powerful deception from hell’s dragon.” But the Anabaptists knew better. Gotthard (an follower of Christ who was martyred (beheaded) in 1558) said, “We do not die. Death just leads us to heaven … Therefore we enter the gates of death with joy!”

The History of Susanna

2011-05-17T20:04:00.001-06:00

The History of Susanna
Chapter 1

1: There dwelt a man in Babylon, called Joacim:
2: And he took a wife, whose name was Susanna, the daughter of Chelcias, a very fair woman, and one that feared the Lord.
3: Her parents also were righteous, and taught their daughter according to the law of Moses.
4: Now Joacim was a great rich man, and had a fair garden joining unto his house: and to him resorted the Jews; because he was more honourable than all others.
5: The same year were appointed two of the ancients of the people to be judges, such as the Lord spake of, that wickedness came from Babylon from ancient judges, who seemed to govern the people.
6: These kept much at Joacim's house: and all that had any suits in law came unto them.
7: Now when the people departed away at noon, Susanna went into her husband's garden to walk.
8: And the two elders saw her going in every day, and walking; so that their lust was inflamed toward her.
9: And they perverted their own mind, and turned away their eyes, that they might not look unto heaven, nor remember just judgments.
10: And albeit they both were wounded with her love, yet durst not one shew another his grief.
11: For they were ashamed to declare their lust, that they desired to have to do with her.
12: Yet they watched diligently from day to day to see her.
13: And the one said to the other, Let us now go home: for it is dinner time.
14: So when they were gone out, they parted the one from the other, and turning back again they came to the same place; and after that they had asked one another the cause, they acknowledged their lust: then appointed they a time both together, when they might find her alone.
15: And it fell out, as they watched a fit time, she went in as before with two maids only, and she was desirous to wash herself in the garden: for it was hot.
16: And there was no body there save the two elders, that had hid themselves, and watched her.
17: Then she said to her maids, Bring me oil and washing balls, and shut the garden doors, that I may wash me.
18: And they did as she bade them, and shut the garden doors, and went out themselves at privy doors to fetch the things that she had commanded them: but they saw not the elders, because they were hid.
19: Now when the maids were gone forth, the two elders rose up, and ran unto her, saying,
20: Behold, the garden doors are shut, that no man can see us, and we are in love with thee; therefore consent unto us, and lie with us.
21: If thou wilt not, we will bear witness against thee, that a young man was with thee: and therefore thou didst send away thy maids from thee.
22: Then Susanna sighed, and said, I am straitened on every side: for if I do this thing, it is death unto me: and if I do it not I cannot escape your hands.
23: It is better for me to fall into your hands, and not do it, than to sin in the sight of the Lord.
24: With that Susanna cried with a loud voice: and the two elders cried out against her.
25: Then ran the one, and opened the garden door.
26: So when the servants of the house heard the cry in the garden, they rushed in at the privy door, to see what was done unto her.
27: But when the elders had declared their matter, the servants were greatly ashamed: for there was never such a report made of Susanna.
28: And it came to pass the next day, when the people were assembled to her husband Joacim, the two elders came also full of mischievous imagination against Susanna to put her to death;
29: And said before the people, Send for Susanna, the daughter of Chelcias, Joacim's wife. And so they sent.
30: So she came with her father and mother, her children, and all her kindred.
31: Now Susanna was a very delicate woman, and beauteous to behold.
32: And these wicked men commanded to uncover her face, (for she was covered) that they might be filled with her beauty.
33: Therefore her friends and all that saw her wept.
34: Then the two elders stood up in the midst of the people, and laid their hands upon her head.
35: And she weeping looked up toward heaven: for her heart trusted in the Lord.
36: And the elders said, As we walked in the garden alone, this woman came in with two maids, and shut the garden doors, and sent the maids away.
37: Then a young man, who there was hid, came unto her, and lay with her.
38: Then we that stood in a corner of the garden, seeing this wickedness, ran unto them.
39: And when we saw them together, the man we could not hold: for he was stronger than we, and opened the door, and leaped out.
40: But having taken this woman, we asked who the young man was, but she would not tell us: these things do we testify.
41: Then the assembly believed them as those that were the elders and judges of the people: so they condemned her to death.
42: Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice, and said, O everlasting God, that knowest the secrets, and knowest all things before they be:
43: Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me, and, behold, I must die; whereas I never did such things as these men have maliciously invented against me.
44: And the Lord heard her voice.
45: Therefore when she was led to be put to death, the Lord raised up the holy spirit of a young youth whose name was Daniel:
46: Who cried with a loud voice, I am clear from the blood of this woman.
47: Then all the people turned them toward him, and said, What mean these words that thou hast spoken?
48: So he standing in the midst of them said, Are ye such fools, ye sons of Israel, that without examination or knowledge of the truth ye have condemned a daughter of Israel?
49: Return again to the place of judgment: for they have borne false witness against her.
50: Wherefore all the people turned again in haste, and the elders said unto him, Come, sit down among us, and shew it us, seeing God hath given thee the honour of an elder.
51: Then said Daniel unto them, Put these two aside one far from another, and I will examine them.
52: So when they were put asunder one from another, he called one of them, and said unto him, O thou that art waxen old in wickedness, now thy sins which thou hast committed aforetime are come to light.
53: For thou hast pronounced false judgment and hast condemned the innocent and hast let the guilty go free; albeit the Lord saith, The innocent and righteous shalt thou not slay.
54: Now then, if thou hast seen her, tell me, Under what tree sawest thou them companying together? Who answered, Under a mastick tree.
55: And Daniel said, Very well; thou hast lied against thine own head; for even now the angel of God hath received the sentence of God to cut thee in two.
56: So he put him aside, and commanded to bring the other, and said unto him, O thou seed of Chanaan, and not of Juda, beauty hath deceived thee, and lust hath perverted thine heart.
57: Thus have ye dealt with the daughters of Israel, and they for fear companied with you: but the daughter of Juda would not abide your wickedness.
58: Now therefore tell me, Under what tree didst thou take them companying together? Who answered, Under an holm tree.
59: Then said Daniel unto him, Well; thou hast also lied against thine own head: for the angel of God waiteth with the sword to cut thee in two, that he may destroy you.
60: With that all the assembly cried out with a loud voice, and praised God, who saveth them that trust in him.
61: And they arose against the two elders, for Daniel had convicted them of false witness by their own mouth:
62: And according to the law of Moses they did unto them in such sort as they maliciously intended to do to their neighbour: and they put them to death. Thus the innocent blood was saved the same day.
63: Therefore Chelcias and his wife praised God for their daughter Susanna, with Joacim her husband, and all the kindred, because there was no dishonesty found in her.
64: From that day forth was Daniel had in great reputation in the sight of the people.

This account really blesses me. I find it interesting that she was totally covered up.

Divorce and Remarriage

2011-05-10T07:29:00.003-06:00

Most people in divorce and remarriage situations (or divorced and thinking of remarrying) think that all they have to do is be really, really sorry for their divorce and remarriage. They see it as Jesus saying that the act was adultery but once they are actually remarried and really sorry, it is somehow magically no longer adultery. They do not believe the Lord when He says a man and woman become one flesh and are married till death parts them. They do not believe the Lord when He says that if a woman leaves her husband she is to remain single or be reconciled to her husband.

Consider the following.
Someone steals your car. You are standing on the street corner waiting to cross the road and all the sudden here comes your car driving up to the stop sign. The man inside rolls down the window and says, "I am SO SORRY for stealing your car. I really, really am!" and then he rolls back up the window and drives away.

Is he really sorry?

Consider the following.
A gay couple who were married in the eyes of the government (they had a piece of paper that said so and also civil laws to back it up) decided to start following the Lord. They saw how the word of God spoke directly against being gay and they were really, really sorry. They begged the Lord for forgiveness. They really were sorry. But then they stayed in the gay marriage.

Were they really sorry?

Now consider this.
A couple who were married in the eyes of the government (they had a piece of paper that said so and also civil laws to back it up) decided to start following the Lord. They saw how the word of God spoke directly against living in adultery and they realized that since one of them had a previous marriage and their spouse was still living, they were committing adultery. They were really, really sorry. They begged the Lord for forgiveness. They really were storry. But then they stayed in the adulterous marriage.

Were they really sorry?

I am so sorry for committing adultery ... but I'm going to go ahead and stay in the adulterous relationship.

WAKE UP! DON'T BE DECEIVED! THIS IS A LIE FROM SATAN!

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9,10

What’s your 2:30 feeling like?

2011-05-09T15:20:00.002-06:00

What’s your 2:30 feeling like?

I recently spent several days with my dad … he watches television and I do not, so when I do happen to be around it I have a tendency to pick everything apart. I guess I have always done that, but moreso ever since I stopped watching it. One thing I noticed right away is how much make-up the news people put on (men too). Another thing I notice is that the news ladies often times look like they are about to go to a night club. They used to dress fairly decent when I was little, but now most of them dress disgustingly. Well, the point of this post is not that, so I’ll be quiet about it. While my dad was watching the news, a commercial came on that drew me away from the book I was reading. So many thoughts went through my mind when I saw this quick commercial and I knew right away it was blog post material. I tried to find a clip of it to put here but I was unable to. I was however able to view it on their website.

So, the scene opens with a woman coming in the front door of her house and a voice says, “What’s your 2:30 feeling like?” She comes in the door with two over-flowing grocery bags (the stuff inside is obviously empty props but they are trying to make it look like she is really struggling to carry that big load of stuff all by herself), her coat over her arm and a purse too. As she comes in, a few children run past her, playing loudly with some toys (they are heard in the background the whole time). She says that sometimes her whole day has a ‘2:30 feeling’ … I guess meaning she’s dragged down because of all the things she has to do. She’s talking fast like she’s in a hurry and slightly aggravated. She just got home from one job (and then of course she stopped at the store to get groceries on the way home) and now she is on the way to her second job. She needs a little energy boost … her husband kept telling her about how great this product was – no sugar grams, low calorie (she says this with an annoyed, sarcastic, “Yeah right” kind of tone – implying that he was usually wrong so why would she listen to him?). She finally decided to try it (at this point she’s starting to sit down next to him – he’s on the couch reading a magazine with his feet kicked up). She says, “For once he was right” (her voice is still hurried and annoyed.) He says, “I told you so” kind of sarcastic yet playfully as he takes the product from her and looks at it. For some reason she sits much higher on the couch than he does – he’s slouched down I guess. She quickly takes it back from him and says, “For both my jobs, I count on ______ [product name].” He tries to take the product back from her but she holds on to it and it cuts to a picture of the product.

So … what’s so wrong with this scene? After it was over I said, “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!” Here’s the sissy, girly man sitting at home being lazy with his feet up reading a magazine while the children run around the house, are loud and clearly left to do whatever they want. Here’s the woman wearing the pants (literally and figuratively) … stopping in real quick between her two jobs to drop off the groceries.

If I could make the sound of puking, I would. PUKE PUKE PUKE. This is SO WRONG. The woman is so far out of her place it makes me sick. But this is how it usually goes on television shows … the man is usually portrayed as half stupid and he does all he can to keep the woman happy. I guess this is how it is in the world too (including much of professing Christianity).

MEN – BE A MAN!!! Lead the family. Be the head of the house. Don’t let your woman walk all over you. If she gets an attitude with you, don’t do all you can to appease her and smooth things over. More likely than not, she is trying to manipulate you into doing what she wants you to do.

WOMEN – BE IN YOUR PLACE!! The scriptures are so clear that the man is the head of the woman. This is how God has made it and this is the way it works. Anything other than this is wickedness. Don’t nag at your husband. Don’t run the show. Don’t manipulate. These things are straight from Satan. Be in your place. This is well pleasing to the Lord. (a meek and quiet spirit is of GREAT VALUE to God! So the opposite would be worthless and fit for the dung hill)

As usual, there is so much more I can say but I don’t have time.

template change

2011-05-03T08:41:00.002-06:00

Well ... I've had several people ask me if I could please change the colors on my blog. I guess it is really hard for some to read - especially on their cell phones. Here is the new look - simple. Please let me know if this is easy or hard or somewhere in between. If it's not easy to read, please give suggestions on what changes I could make.

The good thing about this design is the rest of the stuff shows up at the bottom of the post ... I guess it was there all along but hidden.

Quick and Easy Divorce

2011-05-01T13:46:00.002-06:00

Well ... what can I say? This makes me so sad ... and I see these kinds of signs in every bigger city I've been in.

I'll let the Lord speak:
Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 10 And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. 11 And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. 12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.

1 Cor. 7:10 And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: 11 But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.

And Paul:
Romans 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

Re-thinking facebook

2011-04-25T12:56:00.003-06:00

Facebook and I have had a love-hate relationship ever since I joined up with it about a year or so ago.

I have met many people on fb and even had the chance to meet some in person. One specifically has proven to be a dear sister and I am so thankful she is in my life (Connie!). Facebook has also been a neat way to meet up with friends from the past ... some I never thought I'd hear from again. And too, it has been a way to keep in touch with some family. I don't think I would ever talk to some of my cousins if it were not for facebook! (I love you all so much!) The Lord has even brought some people into my life that I can minister to in private conversations over fb, email, and the telephone. This has been a real blessing and a faith-builder for me. Sometimes I have edifying conversations with fb friends even if we do not totally agree on every little detail. I especially appreciate the way my sister-in-law, Becky, asks thought-provoking questions and gives thought-provoking answers. We may not always agree, but it's a blessing to just be able to be real with each other. This is all the 'love' part of my relationship with fb.

I originally joined facebook with one main intention - to share the TRUTH with people. And here is where the 'hate' part of the relationship comes in with facebook. I have had some family 'un-friend' me because they do not like what I have to say. This hurts, but what can I do about it? It would be nice if we could just be real with each other. Why do we have to agree to be 'friends' on facebook? Some people just want to argue ... but maybe not all of them are arguing in a bad way? Maybe they are discussing just like I am? I don't know. It's hard telling because this is writing. You cannot see my facial expressions, you cannot hear my voice, you cannot see my body language, and so on. If you could, you would see a consistently relaxed, peaceful, happy, and somewhat quiet person. Sometimes I am deep in thought with a blank look on my face :) I certainly do not yell or even raise my voice. That's me. All the time. I love to talk about the Lord and the scriptures. It has been a burden of mine lately that I am not putting out the true impression of who I really am. I know who I am and some others know who I am, but most of you on facebook only know me in writing. I have been called prideful, a heretic, an idiot, and all sorts of other names on facebook. I understand being called a heretic ... so was Jesus ... but the other names I've been called honestly do not fit. For the ones that accuse me of bad things, I have tried to have meaningful conversations with them and even offered my phone number so we could talk over the phone and get a real idea of what's going on. Those people never take me up on it though. What are you trying to hide? What are you afraid of? I just want to be as real as possible. The offer for my number always stands ... just ask for it.

Like I said, I've been thinking about this for a while. I go 'up and down' in my mind with thoughts of it being right or wrong to keep on with fb. I believe I am sharing the TRUTH and get the same arguments on fb as I do on the streets. That's one reason why I thought it would be ok to keep on with fb. HOWEVER the negative side of fb is what I said above ... although the arguments are all the same, at least the people on the streets can see and hear me. They can see I am peaceful and loving, while the ones of fb cannot. I hope this all makes sense?

Because of this, I think I might change the way I do things on fb. I'm not quite sure exactly HOW I'm going to do this yet though. Believe it or not, I have learned a lot on fb. One thing I appreciate about fb is that it can really be a challenge sometimes!! Things on my wall, things in private messages, etc. It's such a blessing. So ... how do I find a way to keep that without compromising the truth? I understand that I will always be misunderstood and falsely accused, but I also want to make sure I'm doing all I can to keep things straight and right.

We'll see.

The Real Reason For Christ's Death

2011-04-24T08:13:00.003-06:00

Here is a transcribed copy of last sunday's message, The Real Reason For Christ's Death. To listen online or to download to your computer or mp3, click on the message title.

The Real Reason For Christ’s Death 04-19-11
By David Keeling
www.earlychurchtruth.com
keelingdavid@hotmail.com

Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This day that we are celebrating – the resurrection of the Lord – we praise Him that He overcame sin and death so that we also could overcome sin and death. That’s what I want to talk a little bit about this morning.

This morning I want to clarify a few things about the resurrection and the purpose of Jesus coming to this earth. I was reading this morning about David after he fell with Bathsheba. There are a lot of teachings in the world concerning the atonement – that God could not forgive sins until he saw Jesus suffering on the cross. If you ask people why Jesus came, they say it’s so that God could forgive sins. That is just not the case. I was reading in 2 Samuel where David had fallen with Bathsheba and Nathan came and rebuked him of his sin.

2 Samuel 12:13 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.

The sin David had committed was a sin worthy of death, but here without any sacrifice, David confessed his sin to Nathan and owned up to his sin, and Nathan declared: “The LORD also hath put away thy sin”. Also the men that had broken up the tiles and lowered the quadriplegic man (that could not walk or use his body) down into the midst of the room where Jesus was … Jesus said, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” The Pharisees were amazed that there was someone that said they could forgive sins on the earth. This was all before Jesus died. Supposedly before God’s wrath was turned away from man. But here Jesus said, “Is it easier for me to say thy sins be forgiven or rise up and walk?” He then turned to the man and told him to rise up and walk – and he did. So people, when they hear that idea, often ask, “Well, why did Jesus come then? What was the purpose of Jesus coming if it wasn’t to appease God’s wrath or justice on sin?” The reason Jesus came is because whenever man yielded himself to Satan, man, in the garden, died to God. Died to his relationship with God.

One of the greatest misconceptions is that death is the end of life. Death is separation; life goes on in one way or another, but the fellowship or communion that people have is what death is. Whenever someone dies, they are separated from. When man died in the garden, he became separated from God because he became the possession of God’s enemy. Romans, Acts, all the things that Paul teaches bear this out – we were separated from God. When you read that in Genesis it says, “the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die.” But Adam went on to live 900 some years after that. So, it was not a ‘ceasing to exist,’ it was a ceasing to have communion or fellowship with God. God went on later in the day and said, “Adam, Adam, where art thou?” He came and even talked to him, but they still did not have that fellowship or relationship. He did not belong to God anymore; he yielded himself to Satan.

So when man lived after death or his separation of God, he was the possession of the king of this world; he belonged to the prince of the world and became his servant. And men have been and were since then, the servants of Satan. Satan is deceitful and tries to hide that servant hood under ‘pleasing yourself.’ He says to man, “Do whatever you like. Be your own boss.” And all the while we are yielding ourselves more and more into bondage to him. God sent messengers calling men to repentance – to turn them away from Satan and his kingdom and his world. The bible tells that those messengers came and were treated bad; were rejected. One place they said, “We will not have this man to rule over us. We don’t want to be ruled by God anymore.” Finally God sent his own son into the world to call men back to repentance. When Jesus came into the world, the very first message after he was tempted was, “Repent.” He called men to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” You’ll notice that is right after the temptation – the trial that Jesus went through in the desert. For forty days he was tempted and tried. We recognize the time Satan came and lifted Him up on the pinnacle and said, “If you will just bow down to me,” and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world. “If you will just bow down to me, I will give you all these kingdoms.” Another time He was hungry and had not eaten for forty days. Satan said, “Just make some bread out of that stone. You can easily command those stones to become bread.” But Jesus did not listen. He never yielded to Satan. Had He listened to Satan one time, He would have yielded himself to Satan’s control, and there would have been no deliverer from Satan. No one could have done that but Jesus. He overcame all the temptations – everything that Satan threw at Him – He did not yield to his control.

Jesus went on into the ministry – He began to teach men how to overcome Satan’s control, how to overcome the evil in Satan’s kingdom, and it was the opposite of how Satan would do it. Jesus taught that you overcome evil with good. He was not talking about how to get an upper hand on your enemy, but how you (we) could overcome this world. The way you overcome trespasses against you – forgive! The way you overcome someone taking something away from you – give them more! The way you win is by giving away. We are not here to set everything straight – this is Satan’s kingdom. God is calling us to His kingdom. That is the purpose of His teachings: to show us a way to be a part of His kingdom on this earth.

Jesus overcame Satan so that Satan had no power over Him. So that when Jesus came to this cross – when this world had all of Jesus they could stand – Satan chose his people to rise up and kill Jesus. They did it in a cruel and vicious way. It was not to satisfy God’s anger or His justice. Jesus had to die to overcome death; He had to be tempted in all of these ways to show that He would never yield to Satan and He could overcome. The death that Jesus went through was a death so that He could taste death for us. He went into this death, and when he went through it (entered the vale of death), Satan came to claim Him like he did all the rest, but Satan had no claim on Him. His seal was not on him. People read about the seals or the marks that people have in the Bible. They take that to mean that you are sealed up in an envelope instead of having that seal upon your life. They take the word ‘seal’ to mean like ‘preserved’ – that’s where the false idea or teaching about being sealed with the Holy Spirit came from … like you are sealed in a Ziploc back and no one can get you out. But that is not the ‘sealed’ that God is talking about. We have His seal or stamp on our life, and when we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, we have that seal or mark of God upon us instead of the mark of the kingdom of this world upon us. So when Jesus passed through death, Satan had no mark or seal on Him – it was only the holy seal of God that Satan had no control over. Jesus was able to overcome sin and death and take the keys of death and hell away from Satan. It wasn’t to change God’s mind about our standing, it was about Him actually overcoming death so that the resurrection was proof and evidence that Jesus had conquered the king and prince of this world.

John 16:8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 Of sin, because they believe not on me; 10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; 11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

Jesus overcame him (the prince of this world). In Revelation, Jesus says that He has the keys of death and hell. Why? Because He overcame death and hell and sin, and He defeated Satan because Satan had no hold on Him. When it talks about Satan and his angels being judged, that’s talking about all who follow Satan. Hell was not created for man, but for the Devil and his angels (those who follow him). If man follows Satan, he goes to hell … not so much because of what he has done, but because he wants to follow the loser; he wants to follow Satan. Man has put his strength and power behind the king of this world; the prince of this earth; the king of the flesh. Man has yielded to him because that’s who he wants to be his king.

When we become a part of the kingdom of God, it’s because we choose to change kings. We choose to be faithful to the King. When Jesus went down to Hades to preach to Abraham – remember in Luke 19 it talks about Abraham and those in the bosom of Abraham – they were still in Hades, in bondage. They were in a better part of it, but they were still in bondage. Jesus went and set the captives free from that bondage. They were being held there until the judgment to see whose side they were going to be on. Jesus overcame and took those that chose righteousness and chose to come out of this world even though they were still bound. Jesus came and delivered them from that and set them free from death and hell. That is why Jesus came. It was not to change God’s mind. God is merciful and willing to forgive, but it’s not just about His forgiveness. Man chose and has chosen to follow and become a slave of the king of this world, and by doing that he became the heir of death and hell – the fruit of yielding to this world. Jesus overcame that, and the evidence that He overcame that was the resurrection; so now we can follow our King with the confidence that death has no hold on us. That when we die, it is nothing to fear – death is the entrance into being united with our King.

That is why we celebrate the resurrection … that is the importance and the blessing of the resurrection. It’s not the death that we celebrate; we are thankful for the death and remember the death, but Jesus is not dead. It was not the death that set us free. It was not because He was beat up and tortured that we were set free from our sin. It was Him passing through that – the door that he had to go through to overcome death. He had to be tempted so that He could prove that He was worthy to overcome death … and He did it. You and I will be tempted the same way to see if we are going to be worthy to overcome death so that we can fit into the Father’s kingdom. He gave His life’s blood, He shed it on this world. He went into the battlefield and sacrificed Himself on the battlefield so that we could be free, but not from God and His anger towards us as commonly taught and believed. God is angry with those who reject His Son – He is angry with the wicked. The way to turn from that is to turn back to Him. Any father who has a son knows that what he wants is obedience; he wants his son to return. The story of the prodigal son – the man took his inheritance off to a far country and wasted it. It wouldn’t have mattered what he did, the point is he left the presence of his father and the safety of his father’s home. He could have went out and made himself a king, but he still would have been apart from his father. He found himself in a pigpen. He thought to himself, “I could just be servant – the servants in my father’s house are much better off than I am.” So he returned to his father, and his father saw him coming and met him – he went running to be reconciled to him. But as long as he was out and away form his father, there was no help there. The father could not help him because he had chosen to go his own way and b ea part of the world. The father let him go, and then the man came to himself and returned to the father.

That’s all a father wants is to have his son, his children, to return back to him. To repent. To come home. But if they are out there and sold to a slave master and are bound in chains and can’t come home even though they long to, they need a deliverer. Jesus came as that deliverer, and He set us free from Satan. He broke the power of sin. He healed; there is great evidence of the healing power of God. I believe that anyone who gets healed today, whether a believer or unbeliever, is healed because Jesus overcame death. They are healed and able to be set free because Jesus overcame Satan. People can be forgiven and healed and can overcome dangerous habits because Jesus died and overcame and broke those bonds. That does NOT make a person a servant of Jesus. They should be thankful and gladly return to Him, but many times though it just makes them shift from having a self-destructive life to having a self-preserving life. But the focus is still on themselves.

Often times people who are bound by sin and death become very religious when they are healed. They go the other way … they used live a very self-destructive life, living in pleasures, and then whenever they are delivered from that, they do everything they can to preserve their life. That is one of the big things behind a lot of the religious movements – ‘we’ deliver people out of drugs and alcohol and sinful behavior, and deliver them from their self-destructive lives. There is a real deliverance from those things and I believe all of that comes from Jesus because He died for the sins of the whole world. Jesus rose and overcame it. But instead of pointing those people to becoming a part of the kingdom of God and a servant of the King, they shift that selfish nature from being self-destructive, full of pleasure and fun, to one of self-preservation and promise prosperity, goodness, health, and all these things that sound good to someone wanting to preserve themselves, but they go right past the commandment of Jesus that says, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.” Not only must he deny the self-destructive behavior, but also the self-preserving behavior of trying to make everything in their life just wonderful now. The focus is still on self. Jesus said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” That is who the promise of eternal life is to, and it all happened because Jesus was willing to come into this world, face the temptations – all the Devil had to throw at Him – and then yield Himself to death so He could pass through that death, overcome Satan (because Satan had no claim on Him), take the keys of death and hell away from Him, and set us free from that captive. The captivity of the Devil and of death and of hell, and deliver us so that we could choose freely to yield ourselves to the King of glory, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. Be His bond servants and yield ourselves into His kingdom.

The resurrection is what is important about Christianity. The death was just a vehicle that Jesus had to go through so that He could rise and overcome death. We do not glory in how He was punished. Jesus went through what He had to so that He could overcome it. I believe that is why, on the cross, that God turned His back from Him. It was not because He saw all these sins piled on Jesus. It was because this world was murdering His Son. This world was murdering its Creator, and in order for God not to have a desire to step in, He turned His back so He did not have to watch. (Brian said, “Just the exact opposite.”) Just the exact opposite of what the world teaches – to let Him go ahead and pass through that death so that He could rise again. That’s the glory! That’s why Jesus came. That’s the glory of the resurrection. That is why the early Christians put the emphasis on the resurrection instead of the image of Him hanging on the cross. We do not celebrate or glorify that wicked cross! We glorify the fact that Jesus rose from it and overcame.
Praise the Lord.

Questions / comments?

Brian: A couple of weeks ago I was discussing all of this with a pastor at a Charity church in Ohio. We were talking about the atonement. I just asked him if he saw Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as a way of dealing with God’s inability to forgive us of our sins and appease His wrath so that He could forgive us from our sins. He basically said, “Yes, that is pretty much how I see Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.” So we just started talking about the implications of that. So if this is the view, how we should understand Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as a way to get God to forgive us of our sins, then what are the implications of that and how is it going to affect the way we see Jesus’ teachings and commandments? How is it going to affect the way we live our Christian life? As we were looking at some of these things, I don’t know if it was becoming very clear to him or not, but about part way through as we were looking at the examples of people Jesus taught salvation to in His teachings, we compared that to how Jesus should have taught that salvation if He came just to get God to forgives us our sins. We spoke about Zacchaeus who invited Jesus to his house and declared that he would give half his goods to the poor and make restitution to those he had defrauded. Jesus then declared salvation to him. Then there was a lawyer I think that asked Jesus what he must do to be saved and Jesus taught about the good Samaritan. Then He told him to “go and do likewise.” And then we got to the rich young ruler, and that was what we were discussing half way through actually – talking about what Jesus should have said this rich young ruler when he went away sad IF his purpose was to come and get God to forgive him of his sins by dying on the cross. That’s when the pastor said just what you are talking about. He said, “Well, this was before Jesus died on the cross.” I said, “This is exactly what we are getting to. Don’t you see that your understand of what Jesus did on the cross has affected how Christ’s teachings apply to salvation or being reconciled to the Father? They just don’t hardly apply because of the way you see.” And that is the way the world’s Christianity is today – the New Testament really doesn’t start until Jesus died on the cross, and that’s why Paul’s teachings are so important to them, even though they won’t say it. (David said, “That excludes the teachings of Jesus.”) Everything else before Jesus died on the cross, even though they might put a lot of value to it, it just takes the edge off everything that Jesus taught. That is the easiest way for me to look at it. It’s important and it might bring a little conviction to your heart, but it just dulls it and takes the edge off anything He says that has any relevance to us being reconciled to the Father because he did it all after He taught these things. And then, this pastor actually brought up, “Well they why when Jesus died did Jesus say that God forsook Him?” I didn’t think of what you (David) were just saying. He was looking at it the exact opposite of what you were saying – He was looking at it as God getting so much satisfaction of His son dying on the cross to be able to forgive us for our sins. It was His wrath being poured out on Jesus and God, instead of wanting to embrace His Son and be with Him in that, was actually so angry with Him that Jesus was forsaken by His Father on the cross. Instead of being with His Son, God was turning His wrath on His son and turning away from Him so that Jesus could be able to forgive us. What you explained is just the exact opposite.

The other verse he brought out (this is all coming to my mind now) was about having an advocate before the Father. I just thought that right now too, how that could be looked at the exact opposite too depending on how you see it. 1 John 2:1 says we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: - they are looking at it like Jesus is trying to (David said, “Keep the Father’s wrath cooled”) Yeah. The opposite of that is that our advisory is Satan, and Jesus is there dealing with that as an advocate before the Father over who has a claim over us. (David said, “Yes, amen.”) I didn’t think of those two things when I was talking to this man, but there was a enough said.

Kevn: (I could not hear his comment well enough)

Olen: Something else you were saying that made me think – people always ask, “How could God be so cruel, sending someone to hell.” They think that God is a cruel God, but it’s not that God is sending people to hell, it’s that people are following Satan.

Steve: (basically; I could not hear him real well) And it’s not that God wants anyone to go to hell. God did everything in His power to give people life. More than would be imagined that He would leave glory to come down and teach people how to live so that when He would pass through death and hell, they could take it up and do exactly as He did. The power was broken and they can do all these things – if they would, like Paul says, reckon themselves dead. We tell people all the time when we are on the streets, it’s not that God is just angry, vengeful, hateful, sadistic, etc. He is the exact opposite. He is loving and merciful so much that He would come down Himself and give up glory. We can’t even begin to imagine what that was like – to come down and be the poorest among the Israelites? If someone goes to hell, it’s not because God desires them to go there – they are choosing to be in an army that is fighting in rebellion against God. He is doing all He can … “Don’t join Satan’s army! Leave Satan’s army! I’m giving you a chance. There is going to be a day when I battle against Satan, and if you are on his team, there is nothing you can do then. But I’m giving you grace now. Come.” This is quite opposite of what the world thinks. Even the pagans; so much of the Calvinistic philosophy runs through the thoughts of even the atheists. It’s just in our culture that they even imagine that if there were a God He would have to make everything that is bad. [Not because man chose to follow Satan but because God is at fault.]

Brian: I just had one other thought – before Christianity was introduced into the world, Satan was deceiving all the pagans and gentiles into believing that they had to offer sacrifices to appease the wrath of gods so they could have a good harvest or good success and prosperity or whatever. In Peru they would even offer human sacrifices each year I think to appease the gods wrath and have a good harvest and ward off evil spirits or whatever. Satan has taken that concept and contaminated Christianity with it so now people believe that instead of offering human sacrifices to appease gods, Jesus was that human sacrifice to appease God. It’s kind of like how Catholicism meshes right in with the pagan religions. They have a mix of it … that is what is happening. (David said: “The anti-Christ Christianity has taken Christ and mixed him all up with the world and brought him back.”)

Marcus: Along with Olen’s thought – they all say, “Can you imagine an earthly father sending his children to burn in hell?” I say, “That’s exactly right! He would never do that. The problem is, they are not his children and he is not their father; they have another one. Another king or ruler.”

Wilbur: I wanted to comment on that too, how the modern gospel just makes God out to be the bad guy every time. It’s not God’s fault. Who you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are. If you are obeying Satan, you are his servant. He will take you with him to hell forever. That is how mean he is. He is evil beyond belief, but God is good and merciful beyond what we can understand.

Desmond: (I could not understand him well enough but he talked a lot about how man takes the scriptures and turns them completely the wrong way. He says this happened a lot during the reformation.)

"I KNOW THY WORKS"

2011-04-22T13:55:00.001-06:00

I know thy works … Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. … To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

I know thy works … be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. … He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

I know thy works … Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. … To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.

I know thy works … thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. … Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. … But that which ye have already hold fast till I come. … And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:

I know thy works … for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. … He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. … Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. … Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

I know thy works … because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. … As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. … To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what

Street Preaching ... again ...

2011-04-08T13:58:00.005-06:00

Brian Gray (a brother at our church) has been preaching on Universities in WV, PA and OH the last month or so. Yesterday he was caught on film and in the newspaper ... here is a little of that. You can also watch a quick interview here - but you have to first click on the right side - the one that says: "TV2 News 4-7-2011" and then go to the 3:40 mark.

Brian Grey of Lisbon, Ohio, sits with his signs in protest in front of the University Library yesterday afternoon. Grey said he was in Kent because he “wanted to show people the moral standard Jesus taught.” Many conversations between students happened around him as he sat mostly quiet unless he was asked a question. Photo by Philip

Ryan O'Connor, sophomore zoology major, yells at Brian Gray, 31, of Lisbon, during Gray's protest against gay rights and divorce outside of the University Library on Thursday. Photo by Anthony Vence.

Peaceful expression of moral values written by Brian Gray, April 08, 2011 Please feel free to visit our website at www.earlychurchtruth.com for a more detailed discription of our beliefs.

From the sign holder Brian Gray written by Brian Gray, April 08, 2011

Greetings,
As the man responsible for holding the signs I would like to clarify that I was unaware of any gay rights issues taking place at KSU prior to my coming to campus that day. I was not actually protesting gay rights, nor focusing solely on the issue of homosexuality. As a follower of Christ's teachings I actually consider myself very anti political. I've never voted in my life and never intend to, therefore I pose no threat to the rights of homosexuals on KSU or this country. I don't believe that the teachings of Christ can or should be up held by the force of law. My only purpose is to bring people’s awareness to the fact that our lives will be judged by these teachings after we die.

Thank you, Brian Gray

On the streets again ...

2011-04-02T13:11:00.003-06:00

Last night was pretty busy ... really busy. A few times the same accusation was pointed at me; it went something like this:

"You just believe this way because that man is teaching it to you and brainwashing you!"

They went on to say more than that too ... accusing me of all sorts of things and not even letting me say a word. The second time this happened I tried to talk a few times but then just shut up. When they were done I said nicely and matter-of-factly, "Well I guess you have it all figured out so what's the point of talking?" Because there is no point. They don't want to listen; all they want to do is yell and fight and argue. I have better things to do than that. (I did have a few good conversations with some different people throughout the night, praise the Lord.)

They cannot even begin to understand that I spent most of my walk with the Lord outside of a church building and a church fellowship. I started reading the Bible ... thankfully with the words of Christ first ... and that is where I formulated my beliefs. Sure, I visited several churches of various denominations, but if they did not line up with what Christ was saying, I left.

They [those on the streets] look at the brothers preaching and then look at me and assume I and the children are "brainwashed" into believing what we believe. I have heard it several times, "OH those POOR CHILDREN!" I guess they think the smiles on their faces and the obvious peace they have is just an act? Or maybe they think I force the children to come? They'd go every weekend if they could.

Professing christians getting upset with me because I tell them they must follow Christ. Some even say they don't have to follow Christ, they follow Paul. I'm sure there's a theological term for that belief, but I'll just call it 'stupid' and heretical because that's just what it is. One sign the brothers hold up sometimes says, "Modern Christianity Is Anti-Christ." I believe that if Jesus were here today most professing christians would label him a heretic.

Jesus is THE WAY, THE TRUTH and THE LIFE. There is no other way but through HIM. Period. Follow (obey) Jesus.

The Rich Familiy In Church

2011-03-31T10:37:00.003-06:00

This article was in the current issue of The Remnant magazine ... I really appreciated it. Please read it all - I'm sure it will bless you.

The Rich Family in Church
By Eddie (Smith) Ogan

I’ll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise, and no money.

By 1946 my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn’t listen to the radio, we’d save money on that month’s electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1.

We made $20 on pot holders. That month was one of the best of our lives.

Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we’d sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change.

We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before.

That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn’t care that we wouldn’t have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering.

We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn’t own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn’t seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.

But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn’t say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10, and seventeen $1 bills.

Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn’t talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn’t have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night.

We had two knives that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn’t have a lot of things that other people had, but I’d never thought we were poor.

That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn’t like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed—I didn’t even want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor!

I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn’t know. We’d never known we were poor. We didn’t want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn’t talk on the way.

Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, “Can’t we all sacrifice to help these poor people?” We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering.

When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn’t expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, “You must have some rich people in this church.”

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that “little over $100.”

We were the rich family in the church! Hadn’t the missionary said so? From that day on I’ve never been poor again. I’ve always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus! ~

This story is used by permission of the author. Edna (Smith) Ogan has been called “Eddie” ever since she can remember. She is a lady, despite what we usually think of “Eddie” as being a male name. Eddie and her husband Phil live near Colville, Washington. They had 13 children, 12 of them adopted (several handicapped), and were foster parents to 77 others until they let their foster license expire in 2002. The purpose of publishing this testimony is to remind us as to just exactly what true “riches” are.

Contemporary Christian Music again ... BUT ... HEAR ME OUT!

2011-03-24T14:21:00.006-06:00

Ok, I know what you are thinking ... "Here she goes again bashing the contemporary christian music industry." Well ... not exactly this time.

I was driving last evening to pick up the boys from work; I had a little ways to go, so I flipped through the radio stations. Usually I end up turning it off soon after unless I find a classical song I like or run into the news on NPR. I still do not know the stations here (been here for 1 1/2 years now but hardly listen to the radio), so it's a big guess. This time I heard a song and just knew it was a CCM station. I nearly turned it right away but for some reason I decided to listen instead. I was pleasantly surprised when I did not hear some humanistic, me, me, me, fluffy, foo-fooey, make-you [me]-want-to-puke, could be singing to your lover kind of song. I immediately could relate to what the woman was saying (singing), and yes, I was blessed by it.

When I got home I looked it up online and found the lyrics. I don't care much for the part I missed, but the part I did get in was pretty good; I heard it from the part that talks about praying for wisdom ...

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not our home

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

Laura Story, “Blessings” – I watched a short interview she gave in regards to the meaning of this song and it seems she has discovered something that has been a blessing and reality to me for 3 or 4 years. She said her and her husband had been having a rough few years due to his health. They kept praying the Lord would heal him but wondered why the Lord was not doing what they prayed for. Then she said, “Could God possibly be blessing us through NOT giving us the things we are praying for? I don’t know if that sounds too confusing, but that’s what we are trying to think through now even though we do have more questions than answers at this point in time.” She went on to say a few other things, but basically - there is a blessedness that comes through relying on His word … just going through the valley and knowing He is there even when no one else is. I'll add that THAT is faith. Just going through it ... even when it seems the Lord is not even there (because He really is there).

While I do not agree with everything she said in the song (for instance, I do not pray for prosperity [I think that is totally anti-Christ] and I do not believe the Lord “loves us way too much to give us lesser things”), I must be honest and say I appreciated the point of the song and it seems this woman is on the right track in this area. The Lord knows what we need, when we need it, and He also knows what we do not need. We can pray and pray all we want, but it must be with the same heart as Jesus, "Not my will but thine be done." The Lord has us where He has us for a reason. We can fight and kick against it all we want, but that will not change His will. We must surrender to His will and "just be" where He has us. We must be at peace, "napping with Jesus," even [especially] in the midst of the biggest storms of our lives.

I'll leave out all the rest of the negative stuff on my mind; if you all have been following me for a while, you know how I feel about making a merchandise of Jesus, following the world, etc. If you have not been following my blog for a while, just click on the label at the end of this post that says, "contemporary christian music" or "the world".

The doctrine of nonaccumulation, part 2

2011-03-22T15:11:00.003-06:00

This is a post in response to a comment on my other post titled, "The doctrine of nonaccumulation" - a post about the doctrine as well as a book titled, "Through the Eye of a Needle."

The commenter said:

"We own the book that you refer too here,and appreciate much of it. Kingdom Focused Finances published by TGS a subsidary of Chistian Aid Ministries is another -perhaps more balanced book written alng the same ideas.
We are blessed to be a part of a group that lives this out.

In our own lives, we find it is much better to live this way in athird world country. In the US we decieve ourselves often by thinking we are "living simply." The US standards are s high that we can be blinded. Also, in a third world life money stetches much farther ths enabling you o help more.
Blessings!"

I wondered in what way this other book was more balanced because I thought Roger's book could have been more radical. If the commenter has thoughts on that, I would appreciate it.

I have some issues with CAM and have actually had a blog post in mind for several months now to explain some of those issues, but just have not gotten around to doing it yet (maybe I'll do that one next?); so naturally since the book mentioned is connected with CAM, I am honestly a bit skeptical. But ... if I got my hands on a copy, I would read it and decide from there.

Since I have not read the book, I did a little research. It turns out Mike Atnip did a review on the book, but that Remnant issue has not yet been posted to their website. Besides Mike, I also emailed the brothers here and Roger, the author of the book I mentioned. I have had many good discussions, but really it just comes down to what I (and others I know) call ‘voluntary poverty.’ Mike called it ‘apostolic poverty.’ Yes, this way of living is not a new one; in fact, it’s a very old one. It’s only been recently that ‘we’ have changed our thoughts on what nonaccumulation really means.

I tend to take a more radical, or ‘narrow’ approach to this doctrine. It is clear from the scriptures that our actual needs are very small. Like the commenter said, the U.S. standard of living is so high and that can cause us to become blinded. We may THINK we are living simply and frugally when we compare ourselves to others around us, however if we compare ourselves the others around the world and especially to the examples given in the New Testament and that of the early christians, how simple really are we living?

I’ll admit my thoughts at firs were just on our present state and I did not think about how others may have the same beliefs but be in a bit of a bind due to previous sinful spending and bad choices. Roger helped me to see the use of such a book like the commenter mentioned if it is for extreme cases such as these. Here’s what Roger had to say:

“Yes, I have read Kingdom-Focused Finances and appreciate it very much. Compared to my book, it is more of a broad look at every area of personal finances, covering a lot of subjects that my book doesn't even address, such as budgeting, controlling spending, and avoiding consumer debt. It would be very helpful to someone whose finances are in trouble because of overspending, laziness, poor recordkeeping, credit card debt, etc. There are many other books on the market that address these things as well, but while most of them do not really acknowledge what Jesus said about nonaccumulation, this book does. I'm sure I would probably be able to find a few statements in it that I would have written somewhat differently, but for the most part it is an excellent book written in a way that will keep your attention and change your life.”

Yes, some do have debt because of past decisions, and that debt must be dealt with in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. Once that debt is taken care of though, the person is free to dedicate all his living to the Lord.

For those who are not in such dire situations though, think about it … did Jesus really mean all He said? Then why don’t ‘we’ live like we believe that? “Take no thought for tomorrow” “store not up” “seek ye first” “give to them that ask” “love your neighbor as yourself” “sell what you have, give to the poor and follow Me,” and so on. What does all of this mean to you?

Mike had this to say:

“Neither Roger's book nor the Kingdom Focused book come straight out with the idea of apostolic poverty, i.e. giving all your wealth away and living more on a day by day sharing with everyone who has need. On the other hand, sometimes a person may need to save up a little to do a project, like save for a plane ticket to take a mission trip, etc, so I am not talking about having only a couple of dollars in the pocket.”

I agree … but I would go further and say [I’ll take liberty here and say that I think Mike would agree …] that if you are saving to go on a mission trip and then become aware of a need, you must be willing to give to that need that is right in front of you. If the Lord wants you to go on the mission trip, He will provide.
It all comes down to serving and bringing glory to the Lord and truly loving others as yourself. A few brothers at our church had some things to say as well, however only one was in email form, so that’s the one I will share. I’m sure his thoughts echo the thoughts of most of the brethren here.

“I liked Roger's book a lot when I read it, except for the organizations he suggested giving to. Why did he have to suggest giving to organizations? And then, after talking it over with Bro. David, he helped me to see that the focus of the book is still too much on money. The idea is, invest, invest, invest MONEY in the kingdom of heaven, and cash in big someday. Our focus should be more on pleasing the Lord, instead of seeing how much money we can give to supposed kingdom causes. And when we do give money, don't do it because of a reward. I wholeheartedly agreed, so in the last three years I no longer have actively recommended the book.”

He brought up a few excellent points. Our main focus is on pleasing the Lord. And too, when we do give money, we are to not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. We do not give to get a reward or a pat on the back. This brother echoed my thoughts and concerns with the other book mentioned because of its connection with CAM, and he also mentioned one part of Roger’s book that I did not appreciate – and that was his suggestions on organizations to give to (this at the end of chapter 6).

Well … maybe this post will clear things up? But then again, maybe it will make them worse?! I plan to post more from Roger’s book as time allows.

the burning down

2011-03-21T09:37:00.003-06:00

This is an old song from days gone by. I don't know what the intentions of the writer were when he wrote it, but it's been on my mind and in my heart for the last few days now. This is not normal for me (usually old songs are not on my mind for more than a few minutes), but I thought I would share it. The one thing I would change is where it says "I won't put up a fight" because that's not my heart. My heart is to put up a fight in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.

where are you tonight
i don't seem to know you
no i'm not all right
where are you tonight
and my heart is nearly gone
there's not much left to offer
if i could somehow know
i could stop the burning down

where are you tonight
are you even really out there
i won't put up a fight
where are you tonight
and the world keeps spinning round
a vicious cycle turning
some of them know love
some of us know the burning down

The Crime of Following Through

2011-03-21T09:19:00.002-06:00

Here are some quotes from the message, "The Crime of Following Through".

If you want to get into trouble with people in the world or people within the church world, find out what you are supposed to be doing and start doing it. Whenever everyone else is just talking about it, you start putting into practice and you'll soon find yourself in trouble.

When we first started preaching out on the streets, we just went out with the message that we thought everybody needed to hear. Then when we got out there we found out everybody already ‘believed’ the message that Jesus died and rose again. Through the years we have come to understand that there is a problem with men imagining themselves to be saved because they supposedly 'believe.' We have come to understand that unless you act on what you say you believe, you do not really believe at all.

People think they can be a Christian just because of their belief and their theology. We have told people before that on the judgment day we will not be given a theology test; every man will be judged by his works, whether he has done the will of God. Not because he can explain it or write a thesis about a specific doctrine of the day, but how he put into practice following Jesus. That is what we are going to be judged by. It's cut and dry. There is nothing else. It is not because we can understand or explain it better than someone else; it’s because we are following through and putting it into practice.

We live in a time where we are all theologians; we know how to talk it and how to find all the books that can explain everything and tell us everything and teach us all the ins and outs and where it all fits together, but God is looking for men that not only understand the message but who put it into practice. [or just put it into practice even if they don’t understand it all right now.] One of the titles of the books by the early Christians is: We Don't Speak Great Things, We Live Them. A lot of the plain churches say that they are living as a testimony, but if you are not putting things into practice, you are not living as a testimony. You may live within a certain confined set of rules or something like that, but if you aren't performing what you know to do, you are not living great things and you are not doing great things. You are only living in a little safety or comfort zone. Christ calls us out of those comfort zones to live and to put into practice the things you know to do.

We have gotten into quite a bit of trouble over the covering. If a man tells his wife he doesn't want her to wear a covering, should we accept that woman as being a Christian if she is obeying her husband, or should she rebel against him and wear that covering anyway? What is it? What is the true meaning of righteousness in that case? Righteousness is doing what is right; it isn't about a piece of cloth on your head. You are supposed to have a covering, but if that cloth on your head doesn't represent what is supposed to - allowing your husband to be your head - then that cloth means nothing at all. We can obey rules to the letter and miss righteousness a mile away. Following through with what is right is righteousness.

Do what is right; anyone can float along. You start putting into practice what is right and you'll start to learn what a cross is. The battle is relentless. The devil will never give up fighting for your soul. Battle after battle after battle, and you only have to surrender once to lose it. He never stops coming, and all it takes is you surrendering once and you've lost. Thank God that’s not the whole war. You can take it up again but you'll have to regain that ground, and he’ll keep coming and keep coming and keep coming, and when you surrender, guess what? He’ll start coming with something else … until you surrender on that. You allow the camel’s nose in the tent and before long you'll have the whole camel inside your tent.

I just thought about looking up the word “preach” after that letter we received. They talked about how we said some things in a ‘high-handed’ manner. Look up preaching; the definition is to go to a place and tell someone, who does not necessarily ask (in fact, in most cases you are unwelcome there and it’s to a people who don’t want to hear it) and you do it in an officious manner. If you look up the word ‘officious’ it says, “In a high-handed, bold fashion.” (Basically; that’s not an exact quote, but that’s what it means.) Saying stuff that would bring a comment like, “Who do you think you are, saying something like that?” Well, I’m no body, but the Word of God says it, and I don’t have to make any apologies for saying it just like it says it. If that sounds high-handed to you, you have to take it up with God; that’s your problem.

Real churches are made up of people who have committed themselves to following Jesus. Everywhere we go people want us to start a church so they can just join it. I tell them we are not starting churches, we are looking for people who want to be the church. We will help you, but unless you do the standing on your own, you'll never be the church; you'll always just be a mission or outreach. God is looking for men and women who are going to follow Jesus and they find fellowship with others who are going to follow Jesus; that are going to follow through and endure to the end. That are going to commit themselves to being faithful. We live in perilous times where it is so easy to go along or wait for someone to come along and be a leader because there are so few of them.

Just be. Just do what you know to do. It is that simple.

The doctrine of nonaccumulation

2011-03-18T16:59:00.004-06:00

Ever heard of this doctrine? Did you know it is taught in the Bible? I have made a few posts about what I would call 'voluntary poverty' ... no, not living like a bum, but working hard to the glory of God, living on as little as you can and giving the rest away to whoever is in need. I've been reading Roger Hertzler's book called, "Through the Eye of a Needle" - it is free online (click on the title for a link) but someone let me borrow their copy. It's short and easy to read ... and worth reading. Here are a few quotes from chapter 15, "Has Anyone Else Taught This Doctrine?":

Here is a quote from Leonhard Schiemer’s “Letter to the
Church of God at Rattenburg” written in the year 1527:

How the heathen or nominal Christian pray. . . .They pray,
“Give us today our daily bread.” But as soon as God gives
it to them it is no longer ours, but mine. And today is not
enough but they worry about the next day against God's
command when he commanded not to be concerned about
the next day. They, however, are worried not only about
the next day but about the whole year, and not only about
one year but about ten, twenty, or thirty years. They are
anxious not only for themselves, but for their children, not
only as youth, but as adults.… [Snyder, pp. 77, 78]

Menno Simons, in his “Humble and Christian Defense” wrote
this:

It is not customary that an intelligent person clothes and
cares for one part of his body and leaves the rest destitute
and naked. Oh, no. The intelligent person is solicitous for
all his members. Thus it should be with those who are the
Lord’s church and body. All those who are born of God,
who are gifted with the Spirit of the Lord, and who,
according to the Scriptures, are called into one body of
love in Christ Jesus, are prepared by such love to serve
their neighbors, not only with money and goods, but also
after the example of their Lord and Head, Jesus Christ, in
an evangelical manner, with life and blood. They show
mercy and love, as much as they can; suffer no beggars
amongst them; take to heart the need of the saints; receive
the miserable; take the stranger into their houses; console
the afflicted; assist the needy; clothe the naked; feed the
hungry; do not turn their face from the poor, and do not
despise their own flesh. [Simons, II:309]

Anna of Rotterdam, who was put to death for her faith in the
year 1539, wrote a letter to her son Isaiah before she died. In
this letter she gave him this counsel:

Honor the Lord in the works of your hands, and let the
light of the Gospel shine through you. Love your
neighbor. Deal with an open, warm heart thy bread to the
hungry, clothe the naked, and suffer not to have anything
twofold; for there are always some who lack. Whatever the
Lord grants you from the sweat of your face above what
you need, communicate to those of whom you know that
they love the Lord; and suffer nothing to remain in your
possession until the morrow, and the Lord shall bless the
work of your hands, and give you his blessing for an
inheritance. O my son, let your life be conformed to the
Gospel. [Martyrs Mirror, pp. 453, 454]

As Jonathan Huddleston observed:

Wesley used his own life as an example: “I gain all I can”
in profitable labor; “I save all I can” by frugal living; and
“by giving all I can, I am effectually secured from ‘laying
up treasures on earth.’” These were no idle boasts: As
Wesley’s royalty earnings grew, his self-imposed annual
personal budget stayed at 30 pounds, until 98% of his
income was given away. He lived up to his promise that
“If I leave behind me ten pounds . . . you and all mankind
bear witness against me that ‘I lived and died a thief and a
robber.’” [Harvey, pp. 78, 79]

During an interview with Charles Parsons in which Mueller
related many of the miraculous answers to prayer he had
experienced, he was asked whether he had ever contemplated
establishing a reserve fund. He responded:

To do so would be an act of greatest folly. How could I
pray if I had reserves? God would say, “Bring out those
reserves, George Mueller.” Oh no, I never thought of such
a thing. Our reserve fund is in Heaven. The living God is
our sufficiency. I have trusted Him for one dollar; I have
trusted Him for thousands, and never trusted in vain. “Blessed
is the man that trusteth in Him.” (Psalm 34:8) [Sims, p. 3;
emphasis in the original]

Next he was asked whether he had ever thought of saving for
himself. In reply, he handed a small purse to Pastor Parsons
and said:

All I am possessed of is in the purse—every penny! Save
for myself? Never! When money is sent to me for my own
use, I pass it on to God. As much as five thousand dollars
has thus been sent at one time, but I do not regard such
gifts as belonging to me; they belong to Him, whose I am,
and whom I serve. Save for myself? I dare not save; it
would dishonor my loving, gracious, all-bountiful Father.
[Sims, p. 4]

Anthony Norris Groves
Anthony Groves, a contemporary of George Mueller, was a
wealthy dentist who, after becoming convicted about what the
Bible says about wealth, sold his possessions, gave away most
of the proceeds, and took his family to India as missionaries.
The following quotes are from Groves’ book Christian
Devotedness:

I still believe that He means simply what He says in “Lay
not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” etc. There is
an eye-salve in this doctrine, when received by faith, that
wonderfully clears the field of our spiritual perceptions.
[p. 5]

Can we with any truth be said to love that neighbor as
ourselves when we allow him to starve while we have
enough and to spare? [p. 26]

All our misconceptions on this subject seem to arise from
one deeply rooted opinion, learnt of Satan and the world
over which he presides, that riches and comforts are better
for our children than poverty and dependence. The whole
tenor of the New Testament, however, pronounces the
opinion to be false. [p. 28]

William MacDonald
The following quotes are taken from MacDonald’s book True
Discipleship:

It’s wrong to stockpile money because it is callous to the
enormous physical needs of the world. . . . The rich man in
Luke 16 was quite unconcerned about the beggar at his
gate. If he had just gone to his window and pulled aside
the drape, he would have seen a genuine case of need, a
worthy object on which to spend some of his money. But
he didn’t care.

The world is full of Lazaruses. They are lying at our
gates. And Jesus is saying to us, “You shall love your
neighbor as yourself” (Mt. 22:39). If we refuse to hear Him
now, perhaps one day we will hear Him say to us, “I was
hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you
gave Me no drink. . . . Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as
you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not
do it to Me (Mt. 25:42, 45). [p. 112]

Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats?

2011-03-16T13:25:00.003-06:00

Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats?
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
(1834-1892)

An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted can hardly fail to notice it during the past few years. It has developed at an abnormal rate, even for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them.

From speaking out as the Puritans did, the church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses.

My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the church. If it is a Christian work, why did not Christ speak of it? "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). That is clear enough. So it would have been if He had added, "and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel." No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to him.

Then again, "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers .., for the work of the ministry" (Eph. 4:11-12). Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr roll.

Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all his apostles. What was the attitude of the church to the world? Ye are the salt" (Matt. 5:13), not the sugar candy---something the world will spit out not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance, "Let the dead bury their dead" (Matt. 8:22) He was in awful earnestness.

Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into his mission, he would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear him say, "Run after these people Peter and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick Peter, we must get the people somehow." Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them.

In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of this gospel of amusement! Their message is, "Come out, keep out, keep clean out!" Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.

After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the church had a prayer meeting but they did not pray, "Lord grant unto thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are." If they ceased not from preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). That is the only difference! Lord, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her, and bring us back to apostolic methods.

Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to effect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God's link in the chain of the conversion, stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts.

What would he say today?

Real Faith Presses On And Overcomes

2011-03-11T16:43:00.003-06:00

Often times whenever you are living by faith, that means there is nothing else there; I mean nothing. In fact, living by faith is having to go against everything that you might know and see and believe that is happening right in front of you. Real faith presses on, no matter what. Real faith goes right on past all of those things and presses on, because our faith is not in feeling; our faith is not in our emotions; our faith is not in the idea that we have God dwelling in our heart all the time and we are just bubbling all over. Faith happens whenever everything else is gone. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord will endure forever. This gospel that we have received – this message from God, a message of being able to be reconciled to God – goes against all that is in the world. The faith that we have in God is putting our trust that there is a God in heaven and that he has given us instructions in His word, and we are going to take the instructions He has given us in His word and follow them, no matter what else has or is happening. We believe in God. We have faith in His word; not that we would just worship this book (the Bible) but we have faith in God that what He says in this Book will lead us to the Lord. That what He says in this Book is the truth and we can go right on past what we see and hear and feel and touch, and press on to the Lord.

-dk

This is part of the message from a few weeks ago; it was a blessing. Real Faith Presses On And Overcomes (click on the title to listen to, download, or read the message)

Milton Friedman

2011-03-09T10:12:00.002-06:00

I never understood this kind of stuff ... until now. Please take the time to watch this show; it's in 5 parts, lasts about 50 minutes total, and is well worth the time spent to watch it. If you are interested in more, there was also a show done a year later and youtube has that as well. This is from 1979.

Part One

Two

Three

Four

Five

False Submission = Disaster

2011-03-08T08:00:00.005-06:00

I was really blessed this weekend when a sister shared her testimony with me about false and true submission. You see, up until recently, this sister had been submitting to her husband "in everything" ... except _____. There were a few areas she felt she could not submit to him in because she felt it was against the Word of God. However, as I have shared before, the Word is very clear that a woman is to submit to her husband in everything.

1 Peter 3:1 IN LIKE manner, you married women, be submissive to your own husbands [subordinate yourselves as being secondary to and dependent on them, and adapt yourselves to them], so that even if any do not obey the Word [of God], they may be won over not by discussion but by the [godly] lives of their wives,

Col. 3:18 Wives, be subject to your husbands [subordinate and adapt yourselves to them], as is right and fitting and your proper duty in the Lord.

Eph. 5:22 Wives, be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a service] to the Lord.

When this sister realized her error, she repented and began obeying the Word of God ... she began to submit to her husband in everything - this time with no exceptions. She said that for the past several years she had been in false submission and it was like a disaster everywhere she went ... things just always seemed to go wrong. She compared it to Pigpen ... for those of you who know who Pigpen is. Just a cloud of dirt and flies wherever she went. Now however, by the grace of God, she is submitting to him in everything ... and she says it has been such a blessing. Praise the Lord!!

Wives, submit to your husbands in everything.

This made me laugh ...

2011-02-27T17:21:00.002-06:00

This was in one of the html books I borrowed from the library :) I think they did a pretty good job, but I'd change a few things. One, I'd have the guy on the left in bibs instead of the funky outfit ... and a big beard. Two, there would be much more flies on the fly tapes. Three, the grammar would be wrong and it would include improper pronunciation of a few words. (for example, "yer" instead of "your", "wanna" instead of "want to", "da" instead of "the", "warshing" instead of "washing", etc.)

Warning

2011-02-21T13:35:00.002-06:00

"The way of Christ is found by few, and walked by fewer yet;"
If you, my friend, wrong paths do choose, someday you will regret.

If you the world, its dainties taste, with its deceitful ease,
Then want for more will o'er you spread, a coveting disease.

You reach and climb to riches' height, selfish coveting hoard,
And spend your life a sinful way, with no thought for the Lord.

But look ahead when you are dead, and see back where you've trod;
Now that you're at the Judgment seat - WHAT WILL YOU SAY TO GOD?

-B. R. Ekstedt

I have yielded myself ...

2011-02-13T09:35:00.003-06:00

Please read these words:

I have yielded myself to Thy service,
Any Thy presence my bosom doth fill;
O my Saviour, I haste to obey Thee,
And my heart says amen to Thy will.

All the heart ties of earth may be sundered,
So that I may Thy purpose fulfill;
Help me gladly submit and not murmur,
Ever saying "Amen" to Thy will.

Though my plans and my hopes may seem blighted,
I will love Thee and trust in Thee still,
For I know all is well that Thou doest,
And my heart says "Amen" to Thy will.

This song has been such a blessing to me. I am human. Sometimes I let things bother me ... things I have no control over. Sometimes I get caught up in "what if ..." or "if only ...". These thoughts cause discouragement and discontentment. Often times this song will come into my mind - and it's true. My heart really does say AMEN to the Lord's will. I have yielded myself to the Lord's service. Heart ties have been sundered. Some of my 'hopes and dreams' seem to have been 'blighted'. But, ALL IS WELL that the Lord does!! Amen! This is such a blessing. I quickly change from being discouraged to being encouraged. The Lord has me where He has me for a reason. I do not understand it all, but I do know that He knows what He is doing. I am so blessed and thankful for what I do have ... a godly fellowship. Godly men all around to help raise up my boys. Godly men and women for my daughter to look to as examples.

Love.
Support.
Fellowship.
Peace that passes all understanding.
Joy unspeakable.
Even when it's hard.
Especially when it's hard.

God is good. He is worthy of all that I have and so much more.

What manner of persons ought we to be?

2011-02-10T17:03:00.004-06:00

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

Do we believe this? I mean, do we REALLY believe this? If everyone that claimed to be a christian actually BELIEVED this, this world would be quite a different place.

Some day (soon?) this world will burn up. Suddenly, life as we know it will be GONE. DONE. OVER. THE END.

That vacation you want to take. That job you were hoping to get. The new car you got a big loan on. The house that is above your means. The vast collection of shoes and purses. The expensive nights out on the town. The weekends at the bar. The new electronic gadget. Gone.

The time you never spent with your children. The regrets you never took care of. The 'sorrys' you never said. The sins you did not repent of. The pride you held on to. The ones you left so you could do your own thing. The God you turned your back on. Gone.

DONE. OVER. THE END.

The Lord is coming soon. You never know when the end might be. Are you ready? Your deeds are recorded, don't you know it? Can you face that record today ... as it stands?

Do you really BELIEVE? Get right with the Lord. NOW. TODAY IS THE DAY OF SALVATION. Tomorrow may very well be too late. Surrender. DIE to yourself and live for the Lord. NOW.

"Protection"

2011-02-07T18:03:00.003-06:00

In Daughter's of Sarah, there is a chapter called, "Protection". I appreciate what she says here after quoting 2 Tim. 3:6-7 and saying a few other things:

"Women are looking to pastors and spiritual leaders for counsel and advice when they should be looking to their husbands. Godly women are standing in prayer lines praying for their husbands who don't want them in church in the first place. Their husbands in many cases are sitting at home wondering what is wrong with their wives who seem to be bitten with some kind of "religious bug." Your husband will never understand your relationship with God until you live it in your life with him."

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. 1 Peter 3:1

"Webster's 1828 Dictionary says - subjection is the act of subduing; act of vanquishing and bringing under the dominion of another - state of being under the power, control and government of another. The safety of life, liberty and property depends on our subjection to the laws."

(for other posts from this book, click on the label, "Daughters of Sarah" at the bottom of this post, or on the right side-bar)

Daughters of Sarah

2011-02-02T17:12:00.005-06:00

A dear sister in Christ sent me this book, "Daughters of Sarah" by Genevieve White. I really appreciate it so far and am thankful she mailed it to me. I have ordered two used copies from amazon so I can let others here at our fellowship read it too.

I will be sharing a few quotes from the book whenever I have time and think of it; here is a quote from the chapter titled, "False Submission".

"Sometimes when women hear about submission, they think, "That sounds good! I think I'll try it!" Dangerous and deceptive thinking. You can't try submission any more than you can try God. Anyone who says, "I tried submitting and it didn't work" never understood submission. Anyone who says "I tried God and He didn't work" never committed her life to the Lord. God never fails and His Word never fails. If you try to submit to your husband, you will fail. Your submission has to be abandonment to God."

Amen!

"All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags"

2011-01-30T09:20:00.003-06:00

Greetings in Jesus’ Name. I want to thank Him for all he’s done for us – given us the privilege to become the sons of God. The Bible says as many as received Him to them gives he the power to become the sons of God. Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us that we might be called the sons of God. What a privilege and a blessing to be a son of the holy, righteous God/Father.

I’ve been contemplating all week about some things that are common teachings in the professing Christian world. Because of a verse or two taken here or there, there are things that have just become established creeds or established doctrines that the Christian world just blanketly accepts, and yet there is scripture after scripture that would prove those doctrines otherwise. I just thought about them as myths in the Christian world today. It’s so bewildering; so many people naming the name and Christ and yet refusing to allow Christ to be the Lord of their life.

One of the things that has really been on my heart this morning and I’m sure it’s a very common phrase or common verse and I’m sure many of you can quote at least part of it. It’s found in Isaiah 64 – I’ll begin by reading that and then I want to look at the rest of the scriptures to see if the doctrine that is built on this verse lines up with the rest of the scriptures.

One of the things I’ve learned in studying the Bible is that there are difficult passages – there are things that we just do not understand. There are some things that DO seem to contradict each other when they are compared together. And I’ve also learned that the most important thing that I can do to understand those things is simply obey and follow that which is clearly taught, and God will give light later to those things that are a little hard to understand. We will look at one of these things this morning – it sounds very simple, but the whole foundation of modern Christianity basically stands on this one verse; well, it’s one of the verses. When we look at modern Christianity and see how far they are from following Jesus and truly being His disciple, we see that something might be wrong with the foundation – and this is one of those verses we want to look at and then see what the rest of the scripture says.

Isaiah 64:6But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; …

Have you heard that verse before? I’m sure you have. It is taught that this is God saying that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags in his eyes. In other words, no matter what we do is just a bunch of trash. In fact the word filthy rags is a very filthy rag – a dirty rag that we would avoid and despise. And this verse is used to say that there is no righteousness in us and we are not capable of being righteous and that any attempt we would have at righteousness would be counted as worse than nothing and something that would be despised by God. But if you read the whole context of this verse in this chapter, you will see that this is not God talking here. It is the prophet Isaiah bemoaning the sinfulness of the nation of Israel and many times in the Bible when someone has sinned grievously, they over-estimate their sinfulness or use words to degrade themselves – so that they are exalting God and humbling themselves. And when Isaiah is crying out and praying to the Lord he said, “Lord we are all as an unclean thing and anything that we could do cannot obtain to your righteousness”. This is a repentant prayer – the man that prayed and smote upon his breast and he dared not even lift up his eyes and he said, “I am a sinner” – he was humbling himself; but this verse is taken that this is like a commandment or a voice from God that is saying: “You cannot be acceptable by anything that you do; your righteousness is of no value to me” and that is not what this verse is saying. This verse is saying, whenever we’ve sinned we want to humble ourselves and bow ourselves to God and exalt him and his holiness and let him see/reveal how sinful we truly can be. But it does not imply that we can’t get up! The Bible says a just man falleth seven times and rises up again. Today the teaching that is implied by this verse teaches us that there is no use in even trying to be right with God. There’s no use in being holy. They use this verse to imply that it is only by another’s righteousness imputed in heaven that we can ever please God. We’ll look and see what the Scriptures say about that.

The teaching today has people living like ambassadors from hell saying that somehow, because they have a belief in God, that God does not see anymore how they live – no matter how vile or wicked they live – God just looks upon them as holy because Jesus died for them. That is a lie that worldly Christianity is propagating. It is a myth. And we’ll see that here in just a few minutes with the scriptures we will go to.

First of all, let’s turn to Romans 10:3 – sometimes we get some of these thoughts or teachings in our mind and they are explained and drilled to us in such a way that it is pretty hard for us to overcome. We talk about it here often how many of us were taught and brought up; whenever we began to truly look and see God’s will for our lives to see what the Bible says, we had to unlearn some things. It’s much more difficult to unlearn things than it is to start with fresh ground. It’s been a blessing to see people coming from sinful situations that haven’t been through church after church after church for years – to be staring on fresh ground and just take what the Bible says and go. What a blessing it is that they do not have to wrestle and get out of the rut that their brains have been programmed to believe just because of a few statements out of the Bible.

Romans 10:3For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Righteousness is used 3 times in this verse – he’s talking about the men of Israel, who, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, began going about to establish their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves yet to the righteousness of God. Whenever Isaiah speaks of “all MY righteousness is as filthy rags” it is like the second mention of righteousness in this verse here (Romans 10:3). Going about to establish our OWN righteousness – our OWN righteousness is truly as filthy rags. The people of Israel began having their own form of righteousness. Many times we used to hear (you don’t hardly hear it anymore though) of people that were trying to live holy – often times the world would accuse them of being self-righteous and self-righteous hypocrites whenever they felt condemned of their sins. Today no one dares speak out against sin and so very few people have to say anything like that now because no one is a hypocrite – we are just all sinners and can live however we want to. But when they speak about self-righteousness they are thinking that someone trying to obtain to God’s righteousness are somehow trying to be self-righteous. Self-righteousness is when I have my own standard and I try to obtain to it. The Bible called it in the Old Testament ‘men doing that which is right in their own eyes.’ Israel had added things to the word of God until they had become ignorant of God’s righteousness and began to establish their own righteousness. That is filthy rags to God. Today in the world, men lower His righteousness and they establish their own – “I don’t have to do those things, I don’t have to obey God, I don’t have to seek after His righteousness. I’m righteous because Jesus is just going to make me righteous in the ledgers of heaven. It does not matter how I live – I’m going to be righteous because He was righteous.” They are going about to establish their own righteousness, and that is self-righteousness.

We think of the term “self-righteousness” to mean someone is trying to be higher than everyone else. But today, self-righteousness is actually turned to being lower than God’s righteousness but still calling that good enough. It’s still the righteousness that we think we need to have in our own eyes. But they have failed to submit themselves to God’s righteousness. There’s many different righteousnesses in the world today.

In Matthew 15:8This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

This paints a picture of both sides today – men establishing a higher righteousness of what God establishes and those having a lower righteousness than what God establishes for men. They’ve gone about to establish their own righteousness, following the commandments of men. This righteousness today that people are using, that they can live however they want and still be righteous with God, teaches men not to even try to live holy but to remain in sin. That’s exactly what we see today – the fruit of modern Christianity following and producing just exactly what this kind of teaching produces. Men don’t even try to live holy anymore – they don’t care because somehow it’s just all going to be taken care of. They lose before they even begin.

Let’s look at what God says about man’s righteousness. We’ll basically stay in the New Testament but will include a few from Ezekiel because they are so clear.

Matthew 25:31When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 32And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: 33And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Does this sound like their righteousness was just something written down in the books of heaven that they had nothing to do with? Jesus says to these people – He called some men righteous and it was because of the acts that they were doing. But yet today we are taught that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags and it’s useless in God’s eyes. That is a direct contradiction to what Jesus just said right here. He said to these righteous: ‘because you have done these things unto me, you are righteous.’ And he divided men on that account. He didn’t say anything about how because there’s been a transaction in heaven, all your righteousness is as my righteousness no matter how you act. He said because you have done these things, you are righteous.

Matthew 25:41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: 42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: 43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. 44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

You see how big a contradiction that is with the teachings that are going on in the world today I the name of Christianity? It’s no wonder that things are such a mess – we’ve deceived ourselves into thinking that ‘we will be judged according to Christ’s righteousness. We are going to receive Christ’s reward because he was righteous and anything that I can do is of no value.’ That is in opposition to what Jesus is teaching.

Luke 1:5There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. 6And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

They were doing something! They weren’t trying to establish their own righteousness, they were walking in the righteousness of God – the Bible calls them righteous.

Hebrews 11:4By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

He offered a more excellent sacrifice than his brother, and he obtained a witness that he was righteous. His righteousness was because he did what was right in God’s eyes – that’s what righteousness is: doing that which is right in God’s eyes. If we have our own righteousness, it is doing what’s right in our own eyes. If we have God’s righteousness we are doing what’s right in God’s eyes. That’s how Abel obtained a witness that he was righteous – because he offered a sacrifice that was acceptable to God … he walked in God’s righteousness. This was done by faith, because he believed God.

James 5:16Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. …

He’s telling that to us! Our prayers can avail much if we are a righteous man.

…17Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

He was a righteous man. The Bible speaks of Job and Noah that they were perfect men, righteous in all their generations. But yet modern Christianity today tells us that righteousness is nothing … it is as filthy rags to God. Somebody is wrong. Somebody is building on a wrong foundation. Somebody is teaching people how to avoid responsibility for their actions and justifying their sin. Somebody is wrong.

1 Peter 3:10For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: 11Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. 12For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. 13And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? 14But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;

There’s a righteousness there that we are choosing to be a part of – not just some mystical dream in heaven that’s just going to be accounted to us no matter how we live, but a reality of how we are living. That is a fairy tale – a myth. It’s deeper than that – it’s a lie to entrap men’s souls to keep them from obtaining the righteousness of God.

2 Peter 2:6And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; 7And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: 8(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) …

By seeing and hearing the wickedness, not even partaking of it, he vexed his righteous soul from day to day seeing their unlawful deeds.

…9The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

1 John 3:7Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous…

Let no man deceive you! The man that does righteousness is righteous! Even as He [Christ] is righteous! Don’t be deceived to think you have no responsibility. If you do righteousness, God will account you righteous like He accounts Jesus righteous.

…8He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

Destroy the works of the Devil! Whenever we begin to turn from sin and begin to do righteousness because Christ has give us that opportunity in being reconciled to God … to turn from our sin and do righteousness … we are destroying the works of the devil. It’s something that actually happens, not just a dream we have about how in heaven it will just be taken care of. It is something that God actually is able to do in a man. Praise the Lord!

Matthew 16:27For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

Everyone of us are going to be judged by our own works – that’s what Jesus said. That’s not the implication we get whenever we read Isaiah 64 the way it’s commonly taught (or interpreted or presented) today. They are saying we are not going to receive a reward by the works done in our body, but that we are going to receive from the works that someone else has done for us. But that’s not what Jesus taught us. Jesus said very plainly that every man will give an account to God for the works that were done. We are taught so many times today that ‘works’ is just a bad word (almost). But what Jesus just said about it, we will be judged by our works.

Romans 2:5But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; [judging rightly - God is going to judge us rightly!] 6Who will render to every man according to his deeds:

Righteousness to God is giving everyone exactly according to their deeds. Praise God that He is merciful and will forgive sins. That we won’t give an account to the sins that are confessed and forsaken because they have been forgiven. Blessed is the man that he has not imputed sin, but after those sins are forgiven, we are going to be judged by our works – by what we have done with our life … how we responded … how responsible we were to Him.

2 Cor. 5:9Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. 10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad…

We are going to stand before God and give an account to the way we lived – not according to how someone else lived. We will not receive punishment for sins that someone else did, nor will we receive reward for someone else’s righteousness. We will receive for our own sins, our own lives, whether it was good or bad.

…11Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.

Our lives are made manifest to God WHO we are serving. We are either following Christ and His way and it’s being manifested, or we are living in a dream world. Our ways are made manifest – not only to God, but to our own consciences. We can see people who are living righteously. Don’t be deceived! He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as He is righteous, and that is made manifest.

1 Peter 1:14As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: 15But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. 17And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:

This doctrine that is commonly taught today makes God a respecter of persons. That somehow because ‘I’ve said a prayer and asked Jesus to forgive me and save me, in heaven the ledgers have been changed and now I have only Christ’s righteousness and I live however I like and God is overlooking my deeds because I’ve said this prayer. That person is a sinner because he does not have this belief that God died for sin.’ But the Bible said God is not a respecter of persons. If there’s a man living in sin, he will be judged by his sin – without respect of persons according to every man’s work – we will give an account to God by things we do in the body.

Revelation 22:11He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

If we’re unjust when we die, we are going to die unjust. If we are filthy with sin when we die, we are going to die filthy in our sin. But if we die righteous, we are going to be righteous. If we die holy, we’re going to be holy. It’s real. It’s manifest in our lives.

Romans 4:6Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, 7Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. 8Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

Vs. 6 is one of the verses given to try and hold this doctrine up. Our sins have been forgiven; nothing we can do can cause our sins to be forgiven. God is good! And He will forgive us our sins. And if we try to establish, by our own merits or our own righteousness, a way to please God, we are living in ignorance. But if, when we hear God’s voice and begin to follow the Lord, John says, “If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of his son Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins.” There is nothing we can do to merit this forgiveness – it is there because God has given it. But if you continue in your sin, you will be judged by your sin. Everyone of us are still going to give an account of our lives to God, and those sins that are not under the blood and not forgiven, that are not confessed and forsaken, we will give an account of. But this does not say anywhere that we will obtain a righteousness by anyone else’s merits; nor does it say that we will be faced or charged with sins of someone else. Everyone of us will give an account to God for the things that we have done. But blessed is the man who has seen the sinfulness of his ways and has turned to follow Jesus and have had those sins forgive. They wont be imputed to him because they have been forgiven – because of God’s goodness. You wont go to hell for anyone else’s sin, nor will you go to heaven because of anyone else’s righteousness. We will either choose to do righteous or to do sin, one or the other. Praise God that we can be forgiven and our own sins, if we will own up to them and face them, Christ will cleanse us from them. “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all expectations – Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

Ezekiel 3:17Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. 18When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. 19Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul…

Here’s a responsibility that God has placed upon the watchmen (us) – if we warn the wicked and they turn from it, God will forgive them. God is good; he forgives sin. It’s no merit of our own that does that, it’s his own goodness that does that. But we have a responsibility to turn from it or we will die in it. But if the man will not turn, he will die in his iniquity but we have delivered our soul.

…20Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling-block before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. 21Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.

The emphasis here is Ezekiel’s responsibility, but we can see clearly that the man was either wicked or righteous; either he heard God and did righteousness or he refused to hear God and continued in his sin. Many times (this is a whole message in itself) we blame death or Adam’s sin – we think we will pay for his sin. We’ve inherited a sinful nature through him, but we will not pay for his sin. Adam will pay for his sin, just like you and I pay for our sins. We sin because we choose to sin. Our nature leads us that way, we inherited that nature towards sin from Adam, but we will not pay for his sins. Every man will give an account to God for his own deeds. Adam opened the door for man to fall into sin, and we have inherited his nature and some of the curses that came with that, but we are not going to pay for Adam’s sin nor our father’s sin. In Ezekiel 18 it says the grapes that the father’s ate have set the children’s teeth on edge. And the Bible makes it very clear there that the father will pay for the father’s sin and the children will pay for their own sin. Now, the father has brought hardship on the children and made it more difficult for them to do right, but they will be judged according to their sin. God is righteous!

I want to close with Revelation 22:11 again; it doesn‘t get any clearly than this:
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

If we build on a wrong foundation, our building isn’t very strong and until man realizes his responsibility for his own actions, there’s nothing to build on. We are living in a dream world. God is merciful and when we’ve realized we’ve failed or chosen the wrong path, God is good to allow us to turn around and forgive us for our sins. But if we refuse to turn around and follow Christ and his way and be accepted of him on his terms, we are going to be judged for our sins and will be called wicked, and unjust, and filthy. But if we hear his voice and allow him to make us righteous, yielding ourselves to God’s righteousness and put that into practice in our lives, he will call us righteous and there wont be a mention of filthy rags about that. And if we submit ourselves to him and allow him to control our lives, he’ll call us holy because we have chosen to live that way. God sees reality; God knows we are dust, there’s no desire in us to seek after him, but he calls us and we choose which path we are going to take and it is just as real as anything in this world. If we are sinners, God sees us as sinners. If we are righteous, God sees us as righteous.

May the Lord add His blessings.

FILTHY RAGS 7-10-05
By David Keeling
www.earlychurchtruth.com
keelingdavid@hotmail.com

YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE!

2011-01-28T15:14:00.004-06:00

About 2 or 3 years ago (??) I had a friend share an analogy with me about sharing God's Word. She set the whole thing up so well and it really had an impact on me. I'm sure it's probably more popular than what I realized at the time, but it was the first time I'd ever heard it. I was not doing much about sharing the Truth with others, and when she shared the analogy with me, I was convicted that I really must be all about sharing the Truth; the Lord has been helping me ever since.

The analogy goes something like this:
Let's say there's a house that's on fire and you KNOW there is someone in there that is in great danger of dying. Maybe this person is a really hard sleeper. You rush in and do all you can to wake that person up ... because ... if you don't, they will surely die. You are even willing to die trying, or get hurt, or be inconvenienced, etc. So, you do ALL YOU CAN to get this person to WAKE UP and GET OUT of that burning house before it's too late.

This is how we should be with sharing the Truth. There are "houses burning" EVERYWHERE ... ALL AROUND US ... EVERY DAY. What are we going to do about? You just never know when someone will take their last breath. And of course when they do, we cannot help but wonder (well, I cannot help but wonder), "Did I really do all I could?" We will have to stand before a mighty Judge some day and give an account.

Over the last few years, I've come to understand a lot more about sharing the Truth with others ... what works better, what does not work as good, that there are different ways of sharing, etc. (of course I am still learning too - it never ends) I've also learned that most people prefer not to be so invasive about sharing the Truth. Maybe they don't want to offend someone? Maybe they don't want to lose a friend? Maybe they don't want to lose a client? Maybe they are ashamed? There are several "maybes" but I'm sure you get the point. Basically, I've come to learn that while I believe 100% that the above analogy fits really well with how we should be as Christians trying WAKE PEOPLE UP and help them escape their burning houses, more often than not, that's not how most professing christians go about it.

(You'll have to imagine a very friendly &/or somewhat timid person trying to help someone in a burning house)
Um, excuse me ... Sir ... Um, I'm so sorry to bother you. I hope I'm not interrupting your sleep too much? Can I get you a cup of coffee? How about a little snack? Did you sleep well? Did you have a lot to do last evening? Oh yeah? How did that go? Wow, really? That's very interesting! You know, I was thinking of going fishing this weekend, did you happen to see what the weather was going to be like? Do you like to fish? Oh really? Wow, that's quite the fish story there!! I'm sure that was delicious to eat too; how did your wife prepare it? Hmmm, I never thought to do it like that, maybe I'll try that next time. What kind of bait did you use? Oh? Did that seem to work better? I use strawberry dough balls and that seems to work well, however the dye tends to make my hands red for a while and I don't care much for that. Maybe you have a better way of making it? Oh yes, I'd love the recipe, thank you!! Whenever you have time. Say, did you happen to catch what happened on the ball game yesterday? You know, I really like football. I played a lot of it when I was in highschool and even got a scholarship to college, however I had a bad injury that stopped all those plans. Oh well ... I can still watch it on tv with my kids. Go Packers! What's that you say? you like the Vikings instead? Well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree there! Maybe we can get together some time and watch the big game? Maybe have some snacks and games for the children? Yeah, that would be real nice. Oh and by the way, your house is on fire ...

If a blind man were about to walk over a cliff, would you stop him? If a deaf man were about to get hit in the back by a car, wouldn't you try to warn and help him somehow? If a drunk man were about to get into a car and drive it, would you stop him? If a house were on fire, would you not try to warn and help the people inside? I'm sure you would. Well, I hope you would ... and I'm pretty sure you would not be afraid of hurting the person's feelings or offending them because you are trying to help them wake up ... trying to help them get out of a life-threatening situation. Why is it then that "we" are so afraid to be BOLD when sharing the Truth? The New Testament mentions several times about preaching the word with boldness. Yes, you may look like a fool (afterall, the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that parish!), you may be misunderstood. You might offend someone. But that's all right. The Word of God is a sword ... it cuts and divides.

Why not just die to yourself and put all your life into serving the Lord and sharing His Word with others? This would be well pleasing to the Lord.

What was that picture about?

2011-01-28T15:12:00.000-06:00

Now you know.

What do you think?

2011-01-23T14:52:00.002-06:00

I'd like to know what you think this picture represents. If you know what it is, PLEASE DO NOT say anything yet.

NEW EMAIL ADDRESS

2011-01-22T22:27:00.002-06:00

To all my friends and family and those I have been in touch with over email. Please EMAIL ME at this new address so I can save your address ... I do not have access to my current email account and (of course) that is where all of your email addresses are saved.

joannesmith6819 @ gmail.com

You'll have to take out the spaces!! Thank you.

My "Year In Review" (finally)

2011-01-22T17:03:00.004-06:00

A YEAR IN REVIEW.

As you probably know by now, we moved to Monett, MO about one year ago – sometime at the very end of October, 2009. If you do not know how we got here, the short answer is, “The Lord”. The long answer, well, read my testimony that’s posted in the “ABOUT ME” section at the top of my blog http://www.fewtherebethatfindit.blogspot.com/. Or, CLICK HERE.

So much has happened to our family over the past year – it’s hard to know what to share and what to leave out. I’ll try to keep it as short as possible and just stick to what I see as major milestones. Also, the children are writing their own reviews, so I will not say much about what all has been going on in their lives this past year.

Recently I was sitting at supper one evening during fellowship meal with the Graybill family. Wilbur said something like how us being here is a ‘feather in his hat’ … if it were not for him, we wouldn’t be here! Well, we all know that he was really just following the promptings of the Lord to offer to pay our gas and house us to visit the first time back in August of 2009, so really the glory goes to God … but we praise the Lord for Wilbur’s sensitivity and willingness to freely share what the Lord has given him. He mentioned how we must have learned a lot this year [doctrinally]. No, I honestly cannot think of one thing I see differently in the scriptures after being here, though I do see some things more clearly than before. So what has changed over the last year? A lot!

Something I always knew I needed to do a lot more of was visit widows, elderly & shut-ins. I had done some of this in the past, but it was always with a group of people or, at the very least, with another family. You see, I am very shy and just don’t know what to say. I grew up in such a self-centered environment and just do not know how to relate to others in that way. David has gently pushed me out of my shell and I have been very blessed by it. We now visit several widows and elderly people each week. We are especially close to Christine; she has become like a grandma to us. We are with her several times a week helping with cooking, cleaning and just visiting. We also visit many others as well, including one woman who cannot move much at all nor talk. After the first time I visited her I realized how we just take for granted that we can get up in the morning, swing our legs over the bed, and go about our day. Before meeting this woman, when was the last time I thanked the Lord for that ability? Never. Now I am so humbled and thankful for the health I have – and yes, I remember to thank the Lord for it. Each person we visit is so special to us and all have really been a blessing in our lives. I joke sometimes how we are supposed to be a blessing to them, but I really think WE get more out of it than they do. There’s so much wisdom, history, etc. and they love to share their stories!! I could say so much more, but I’m trying to keep this on the short side! Let’s move on to another topic …

Ever since I met David, he has taught me several little ‘nuggets of truth’ (??? don’t know what else to call them) that have really encouraged and challenged me. I’ll share them with you and maybe they will become a blessing to you as well? Each one has come in the form of advice, so I’ll put each in quotes.

1) “Just go through it” - this is the first thing David said to me one time before we even came here to visit for the first time (or maybe it was right after we visited the first time?). I was so desperate at that point - just feeling like I could not handle ANYMORE and if God put even one more little thing on top I was just going to die, or at least want to die. Seriously, I really was in a desperate situation. And then he called one evening to check up on me … it happened to be the lowest of the lowest point so far (well, it seemed that way) … and I laid it all out on him. When I was done sharing, all he had to say was, "Just go through it." And I knew exactly what he meant. We talked a little more about that, but just that little phrase was all I needed to hear and it has really stuck with me. “Just go through it” Don’t try to go around it, don’t turn around and run from it, just go through it – if it is for the Lord, He will be with you. You see, these trials that we face as followers of Christ can all be such a beautiful blessing – things we can learn so much from and benefit from the rest of our lives. Personally speaking, I did NOT want to have to go through all I went through the last year before we came here. I thought it would be so much easier to just get from “A” to “B” in a way that I thought was right. But, God knows best! I have learned so much “just going through it” that I never would have learned had I chosen to turn around or go over it some other way. I think the most important thing I have learned is that the Lord will provide. While we know this, it’s so hard to BELIEVE it when at such low places. The Lord has always provided – and always right when we needed it the most. He knows exactly what we need and, more importantly, how much we can handle; we just have to trust Him and ‘go through it’.

2) “You chose this path, you don't have to stay on it if you do not want to” - this is something David said to me one night when he was downstairs talking to the children. I didn't know he was there at the time and I came out of the room with the intention of sitting outside by myself to pretty much have a 'pity party'. He looked at me and knew something was up ... he said, "what's going on?" I said, "I'M FRUSTRATED!" and then I shared a little of why I was frustrated. After I shared I said, "I know what you are going to say, "Quit your whining", right?" His reply, “Yeap.” But then he said, “You chose this path, you don't have to stay on it if you don't want to. Read the bottom of your email.” HA! He's so right. The bottom of my email says, “Some choose their road and accept its destination, others choose their destination and accept the road.” So, anytime now that I am tempted to have a pity party, that phrase comes to mind and you know what? ALL THOUGHTS of self pity go away in a snap. How could any pitiful thought stay with that phrase going through your mind?! I CHOSE this path! Praise the Lord. And I have every intention of enduring to the end. Jesus does not promise us happiness here on earth … he promises us a cross. We must faithfully pick it up daily and follow Him, no matter where He takes us or what we have to go through. He is worthy of all we have and so much more.

3) “Just be” - he said this to me a months weeks ago. I was somewhat discouraged about a few things and we talked for a while. At the end, I was a little confused about what he was getting at, but I did not say anything... I figured it would make sense eventually. Well, it didn't, so I asked him the next day if he could clarify a little. His response? Just be. So now that has been going through my head for the last few months and it's been such a blessing! Just be. Just be in the moment, doing all you can RIGHT NOW for the Lord. Whether you are 'just being' a mother, a wife, a cook, a taxi driver to get your boys to work, or whatever else you can fill in the blank with. Each moment you can just be serving the Lord in whatever it is He has you to do. So often times we are tempted to get caught up in thoughts about the future … all sorts of ‘what ifs’ and things of that nature can crowd our mind and cause us to lose focus on what is more important. We can focus so much on the future that we lose time in the present that we could be spending serving the Lord RIGHT NOW. Instead of focusing on the future, look for all the ways you can serve the Lord RIGHT NOW … RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE.

4) “Wait” – We want results. We want answers. We what everything to all make sense. We do not want to wait; we want it RIGHT NOW. I have been learning how to WAIT; praise the Lord. This covers so many areas, but I will not get into all of that.

Something else that has been a real blessing to me over the last year is simply being a part of the body of Christ. You see, this is the first church we have ever really been ‘plugged in to’ … we’ve been regular visitors to other churches, even for a year or more, but have never truly been a part of the local body. It’s neat to look back and know that one thing I really appreciated the first time I ever visited here was the diversity of people … and yet it turned out to be the hardest thing for me to overcome!! Strange how that works! The Lord has used this to teach me so many things. A few months ago I listened to an older message of David’s called, “The Perfect Church” – it really summed up well all that I went through this past year while being here. Is there such a thing as “The Perfect Church”? I’ll try to get that message on the website soon.

Another thing about being a part of the church body is the blessing of being able to help and serve others. While living in Omaha, I thought I was so busy … however after moving here I realized [to my shame] I was only busy serving myself first. I did do a lot for others, however I know now that I could and should have done so much more. Here I am able to help out in so many ways and it has been really good for me – not only helping the church body, but also others in the community. Learning how to put others before yourself is such an invaluable lesson; I pray as time goes on I will learn even more fully what all it means to show love in this way.

One of the biggest blessings this past year has been the ability to go out on the streets once in a while with the brothers. I would go more often if I could, however for now I’ve only been going once or twice a month. While we do run into some that are out getting drunk and just want to be mean (this has only happened a few times), most of the people we talk to on the streets are professing Christians, so we deal a lot with helping them see that you must be following Christ in order to be considered a Christian. It’s still amazing to me each time I go out with the brothers and watch them talk to these people. Most are Bible school students (Springfield has a lot of Bible colleges) and they KNOW so much … yet do not put what they know into practice. Many of them will even argue and say “that’s not in the Bible” … especially the verses about women and their role at home or in the church. If you try to show them the scriptures, they’ll try to tell you why it does not mean what it really says. Sometimes they curse and yell – this is very shameful and sad. Sometimes we deal with people who are seeking Truth but don’t know where to start. We counsel them to start with Jesus – because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. There is NO OTHER WAY. Jesus said if we love Him we will keep His commandments and we are His friends if we do whatsoever He has commanded us – we must abide in Him. Hebrews 5:9 says Jesus is the author of salvation to all who obey Him. For these reasons and more, we must know Who Christ is and what He taught … and that is why Matthew 5, 6 and 7 is such a great place to start. I have also had many opportunities to counsel women while on the streets with the brothers – mostly I talk about their role as women, wives and also about dressing modestly so as not to be a stumbling block to men. This has been a great blessing and encouragement to me. The brothers preach each week in several places – the main ones being Springfield, MO and Fayetteville, AR every Friday and Saturday night. At least one brother goes to Eureka Springs, AR each Sunday afternoon too, and then scattered, miscellaneous places throughout the week. A few also go to college campuses when they can; I’ve been there twice so far and it’s quite a different crowd than the one on Friday and Saturday night. Not different in the way they dress though … immodesty abounds in both places equally (in all places really, because the local stores, etc. are the same way … you cannot escape from it!). No matter which place we go to, I’ve been so blessed to witness the same scene several times: someone will initially be upset by what the brothers are saying to them. They try to argue and fight against it. But, if they are a seeker of the Truth, eventually they thank the brothers. Some will be upset and leave, but then come back a while later to say thank you. Some even come back and say they are sorry for the way they acted. Wow. I’ve seen it happen more than a few times as well that someone will come back and hug the brothers and bless them. For those who have never tried reaching people in this way (holding up signs in various places) I strongly urge you to give it a try. I’ve seen the fruit, and it is very good. Of course this is not the only thing the brothers and sisters do here to reach out, but this is just the thing that’s new to me. We hand out tracts, leave sermons and books sitting around in various places, help those in need, etc.

Many have wondered about our little church; I’ll do the best I can to describe it. It’s a small group of believers striving to follow the Lord. Something I really appreciate about this group is that they are quick to admit they do not have it all figured out. For that reason, there is no ‘doctrinal statement’. Of course there are basic core beliefs, but not a long definite list of all the beliefs. And yes, some things have changed over the years. The biggest belief that will not change is that we must follow Christ. His teachings are taken very seriously, as are the other commands and teachings in the New Testament. There are about 45 people who come here regularly and a few that come when they can. Also, there is a family of nine that just moved back to Mexico to be with the brethren there; we are not sure yet whether or not they are going to live there for a while or come back home ... they are praying for the Lord’s will. [it seems they will be back next week, Lord willing!] Two brothers are in Peru with the brethren there, and there are other groups in Columbia, a few in Mexico, India (along with an orphanage there), and the Philippines. This church does not believe in ‘church planting’. If anyone in the world is trying to follow Jesus and has a desire for fellowship, someone here tries to go and help them along. The idea is to let the local people start their own church and be their own leaders … we are just here for help and encouragement whenever needed. There is so much more I could say here.

So, exactly where do we live? Monett is a little town in the corner of SW Missouri. It is in between Springfield and Joplin – about an hour from either place. There are about 10,000 people here, mostly whites and Mexicans. We are trying our best to learn Spanish … so it’s nice to have a lot of opportunities to practice if we want to. I’m still pretty shy in this area and need a lot more studying first, but Tylor is getting along pretty well … better than the rest of us anyway. There are hardly any blacks here, which is so odd to me considering where we came from. We just recently visited my long-time penpal and one of Brianna’s penpals in St. Louis and we met them at a very large farmer’s market in the city. I was SO HAPPY to see black people. Ok, maybe that sounds really strange?? But, for those of you who understand, I’m sure you can feel my excitement. I am very thankful for the environment I grew up in – such diversity of people. I miss the diversity but get a taste of it each time we visit bigger cities. Monett is a quiet town – lots of farmers and other hard working people here. Very friendly and pretty much everyone knows everyone. Life sure is different here ‘in the country’ than it was in the city! Having lived most my life in Omaha and then also in Phoenix, San Antonio and Tacoma, Monett, MO sure is small! Sometime soon I’ll do a post about ‘life in the country’ … be looking for it.

Many have wondered how I get by. We lived in the church house for over a year, but recently moved into the house next door that the brothers bought. I’ve had a lot of help over this past year from the brethren here at the church and also from a few more brothers and sisters in other places. I really appreciate the way this church views money – it is the Lord’s! Of course it is … but how they live that out is such a blessing to me. It’s humbling to know that many who have helped us are in need of help themselves … some in great need of help. The Lord provides and no one has ever gone hungry or without other basic care when needed. Brianna and I have a few small jobs cleaning for people and places, but that does not make me much. Tylor has been working some and even Corban has made some money working this past year … I’m sure they’ll tell you all about it in their own letters though. A few times I’ve even been able to help others that have come into the church and asked for help – it is more blessed to give than to receive – and I think that when you’ve been on the receiving end for so long, this statement rings so much more true than it ever could if you’ve never been in need.

Since we’ve lived here, we’ve been back to Omaha several times. We were going as often as we could so we could visit my grandma who was not doing too well. She was such a big part of my life all growing up and even up until the time we moved. It was so hard to leave her like that, but we visited as much as we could. We have many loving memories with Grandma and now I am sad to say that she has passed on. She died last September 19th, but I am so thankful we were there by her side when she passed. Now our need to go to Omaha more often is not as pressing … so it might be a while before anyone ‘up there’ sees us again in person. Of course anyone is more than welcome to come here and visit us … there’s plenty of room.

Well, I think that’s all I am going to share … except … Jesus is coming soon. Are you ready to meet Him?

Rev. 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

Are you a disciple of Christ? Hear what He says in Luke 14:

26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. 27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. … 33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

Because We Believe It ...

2011-01-19T09:45:00.004-06:00

Our church has a few simple tracts we hand out ... David was telling me a story the other day of what happened one time after he handed out a tract in Branson, and then this morning while I was driving home from dropping Brianna off somewhere, I put an old sermon in. The sermon was titled "Because We Believe It...". A few minutes into it David started telling a story of what happened over the weekend - yes, the same story. Here it is:

A young lady said, "Last night I as working at Wendy's and someone gave me a little paper ... who are you? who sent you?"
"Well, the Lord Jesus has sent us."
"Am I going to die?"
"We are all going to die."
"I mean, today or tomorrow?"
"I don't know, we are not promised today or tomorrow. We don't know."
"This is pretty scary; this paper is very straight forward and blunt. I've never heard this message like this. No one is saying this message like this. Why? Why are you telling people this message like this? Warning people about the judgment?"
"Because we believe it."
"Well, thank you, God bless you."

Why do we do what we do? Because we believe it. If we truly believe it, it causes action. He that believeth on the Son has everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Why do we pass out tracts to try to warn people? Why do we talk to people? Why do we get out of our comfort zones and preach to people, hold up signs or whatever we do? Because we believe it.

If we truly believe that we are going to stand before an Almighty God and give an account of our lives, how different our lives would be here and now. That's what believing is. It's not a feeling, an emotion, or an experience we have. It's believing God. That's where the promise is: He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. It's not praying till he hopes he is saved ... it's he that believeth on the Son that has eternal life. Belief causes action.

Here is the whole tract spoken of in this message; it is on a small card a little bigger than a business card. The back says, "Jesus will judge this world," here is the front:

We have been sent by the Lord Jesus Christ to warn you that he will return in flaming fire taking vengeance on all who do not know God and will not obey him. Jesus will be the Judge and the New Testament will be the law we will be judged by. All who reject will be counted as his enemies at death or upon his return.

The Church of Monett
www.earlychurchtruth.com
(417) 493-1358

Separation From The World

2011-01-11T13:49:00.003-06:00

Here are a few quotes taken from the Early Christian Dictionary about separation from the world:

But the Lord said, No servant can serve two masters. If we desire to serve both God and mammon, it is unprofitable for us: For what advantage is it, if a man gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Now this age and the future are two enemies. The one speaks of adultery and defilement and avarice and deceit, but the other bids farewell to these. We cannot therefore be friends of the two, but must bid farewell to the one and hold companionship with the other. Second Clement (A.D. 100) ch.6

These are men who have been believers, but grew rich and became renowned among the Gentiles. They clothed themselves with great pride and became high-minded, and abandoned the truth and did not cleave to the righteous, but lived together after the manner of the Gentiles… Others at the last living with the Gentiles, and being corrupted by the vain opinions of the Gentiles, departed from God, and worked the works of the Gentiles. These therefore were numbered with the Gentiles. Hermas (A.D. 150) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.1 pg.42

We cannot sit down in fellowship with them, as neither can they with us. Things in this matter go by their turns. Now they have gladness and we are troubled. "The world," says Jesus, "shall rejoice; you shall be sorrowful." Let us mourn, then, while the heathen are merry, that in the day of their sorrow we may rejoice; lest, sharing now in their gladness, we share then also in their grief. You are too dainty, Christian, if you wouldst have pleasure in this life as well as in the next; nay, a fool you are, if you think this life's pleasures to be really pleasures. Tertullian (A.D. 198) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.3 pg. 90

Patriotism (An Early Christian Quote)

2011-01-07T09:39:00.002-06:00

(Lucilius, a Pagan writes) "It is a virtue to give that which is really due to honor… That is, we should consider the interests of our country first, those of our parents should come next and our own interests should be in the third and last place.…"
(Christian Reply) "However, we will presently see how false these things are… It is a virtue to restrain anger to control desire, and to curb lust. For this is to flee from vice. … Also, if desire is restrained, no one will use violence by land or sea. Nor will anyone lean an army off and lay waste to the property of others. For what are the interests of our country but the hardships of another state or nation? To extend the boundaries that are violently taken from others, to increase the power of the state to improve revenues - all these things are not virtues, but the overthrowing of virtues."
-Lactantius, early 300AD

The anointing of the Holy Spirit can be purchased!

2011-01-05T15:48:00.004-06:00

Someone recently told me that one can attend (online or in person) the Richard Roberts School of the Spirit. From his website ...

"As a student in the Richard Roberts School of the Spirit, you will:
Experience the healing ministry of Jesus and the anointing of the Holy
Spirit for yourself;"

Yes! That's right ... for only $75-$179 you can experience "the anointing of the Holy Spirit for yourself"!

Acts 8:18 And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, 19 Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. 20 But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. 21 Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. 22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. 23 For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.

Beware of false prophets.