Truth Telling – Bad Times are Coming….
Wow!. Not what you wanted to hear , huh? Well, I have to be blunt today. Bad times are coming. Death, disappointment, sickness, stress. These things are coming. If you are enjoying a calm time in your life right now, thank God for it. But all us have the bad times to deal with.
Are you preparing? Sure God will comfort you, but how well do you know Him? Can you imagine reaching out to a stranger for help during the bad times?
I always say this, ( and I always need to hear it myself) but seek God while your life is calm. Get to know the man called Jesus. He is alive and well. He can be found. He can be real in your life. He gave his word the Bible for us to read and “get to know Him”. Make Him a priority now, while you are resting on a calm sea.
When the storms come, it is much harder to trust someone you barely know. Don’t let Him be a stranger to you.
On listening to people instead of listening to God
What follows is a chapter from “The Imitation of Christ”, by Thomas a Kempis.. A very good book!
Chapter 39
How Truth Instructs us in Silence
THE DISCIPLE. `Speak, Lord, for Your servant listens.’(I Sam 3:9) `I am Your servant; grant me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies.’(Ps.119:125) `Incline my heart to the words of Your mouth;(Ps. 128:1) let Your speech descend on me like the dew.’(Deut.32:2) The people of Israel of old time said to Moses, `Speak with us and we will hear: let not God speak with us, lest we die.’( Ex. 20:19) But I do not pray thus, O Lord; but with the Prophet Samuel, I humbly and earnestly beg, `Speak, Lord, for your servant listens.’ Let not Moses or any of the Prophets speak to me, but rather do You speak, O Lord God, who inspire and enlighten the Prophets. You alone can perfectly instruct me without their aid, but without You they can do nothing.
The Prophets can preach the word, but they cannot bestow the Spirit. They speak most eloquently, but if You are silent, they cannot fire the heart. They instruct in the letter, but You open the understanding. They set forth the mysteries, but You reveal the meaning of all secrets. They teach your commandments, but You help us to observe them. They point the way, but You grant us strength to follow it. Their action is external; You instruct and enlighten the heart. They water the seed; You make it fruitful.(I Cor. 3:7) They proclaim the words, but You impart understanding to the mind.
Therefore, let not Moses speak to me, but You, O Lord my God, the Everlasting Truth, lest I die and bear no fruit if I am but warned in word, and not kindled at heart; lest it turn to my condemnation, if I hear Your word, but do no obey it; know it, but do not love it; believe it, but do not keep it.
Therefore, Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening. `You have the words of eternal life.’(John 6:68) Speak to me, Lord, and comfort my soul: order my life to Your praise, glory, and eternal honour.
Do you Sing?
See it and Seize It!
How many times have we passed a person with car trouble and thought, “I should stop and help”. Hopefully we haven’t gotten too numb to at least “think” this. But most times we just keep going justifying our actions by saying, ‘well they have a cell phone, probably already called for help”, and ” I’ll be late if I stop”, and so on. A while back, (last winter), I finally stopped making excuses. I saw a man walking a few hundred yards ahead of an old pickup truck along side the road. He was carrying a can ( obviously for gas). I went by, and thought ‘it’s 8 degrees outside, I hope he stays warm’. I then realized there was no gas station for miles. I turned around. I picked him up and took him to get gas, brought him back and waited till he was on his way. His name was Greg and he was a crane operator.
We have to fight the urge to be closed and stop thinking that ‘someone else’ will be the hands of Jesus.
I only tell this story from shame. I have passed by 95% of the chances I have had to help someone. We have to stop hoping they’ll be warm, and start giving them our coat.
Seeing the opportunity is only halfway there. Seize it!
Everything Glorious
Just listening to a song by David Crowder, “You Make Everything Glorious”.. In that song he says ‘you make everything glorious and I am yours..so what does that make me?’
We don’t use the word glorious much in our conversations, so it seems a little odd when you hear it. One definition of glorious is “Characterized by great beauty and splendor; magnificent.”
God is glorious. And God makes everything glorious, and I am His… so what does that make me?
Valuable is His sight.
You are a Child of the King, Now Act Like It!
Remember who you are, and Who you belong to. Those words ring in my mind. Maybe because so many times in my life , I have not acted like that was true. The video above is Dave Robinson, who was my son’s youth leader and this was at a high school graduation lunch. The key little phrase he says is, “now act like it”. You could miss that if you weren’t really paying attention. But to me, that phrase is so powerful. If you are a child of God, you are eternal.. Now act like it!. You are a royal priesthood, now act like it! You are more that a conqueror, now act like it!….Don’t let the cares of this temporary world get a hold on you. You are an eternal being. You will live out eternity somewhere. If that somewhere is heaven for you, act like it!
Everybody wants to go to heaven
Have ever heard the song? “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die”. If you haven’t look it up on the net. It is an old song. There are scary and contemplative things in that thought. If I truly believe what God says and I am a child of God, and I believe going to be with Jesus, then that is what I should want, why are we scared to die? I don’t know. I think it’s our old nature, begging us to hold on to this life with all we have.
Another thought occurs to me that is even more true. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to make Jesus Lord. Oh, we want Him to be our Saviour, and we cry out, “Save us, God”. But be our Lord? Does that mean I have to get off the throne of my life and let you sit there? What will you want me to do, if you are king of me?
We don’t want that.. Do you know what that would look like? We would no longer be able to fuss with the guy who cuts us off in traffic. We would no longer be acquiring wealth, we would be giving it all away. We would no longer be buying cars that cost $20,000.00 dollars when a $10,000 car would do , and we would give the other $10,000 to God.
Wow, that would be different. If God was our Lord, not just our Saviour.
What leaves you broken — makes you better
But in the end, what leaves you broken — In the end, makes you better.
I was just hearing that song by Plumb, over and over in my mind.. There is a lot of truth in those words. What breaks us, usually leaves us better. Makes us stronger. If we determine to use it that way.
Mother Teresa
It seems people are rushing to say that Mother Teresa was a hypocrite, while everyone else is rushing to defend her. I can’t do either. Only God knows the true condition of her heart when she died.
I do not agree that we should so adamantly propose that she was a true Christian, by the standard God set.
I believe there is quiet a lot of data that shows that she was a great woman, full of compassion, but may not have been redeemed, only God knows.
She often prayed the Rosary and encouraged others to do so. That is largely praying to Mary.
She often spoke of praying to Mary such as
“So let us ask the help of our Lady! She is a Mother full of grace, full of God, full of Jesus. Let us ask her to be our Mother, guiding us and protecting us. … It is true that we are already being helped by our tremendous devotion to Mary. She is our patroness and our Mother, and she is always leading us to Jesus. She has shown us so many beautiful ways of bringing Jesus into the hearts even of Hindus and Moslems and Buddhists by bringing her presence and her love into their lives” (Mother Teresa, Be Holy, p. 75).
So what can we say about her? She was human. She had doubts. She was a sinner. Like me.
Was she a sinner saved by Grace, like me? I don’t know.
She was a great humanitarian, deserving of great thanks for all she did. She helped so many people and gave so much of her life to the poor. We could all learn a lot from that.
You can research her life on the web, and certainly there are many lies told about her on the web as well. But the evidence to her true beliefs seems there to me.
One such place is http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/motherteresa.html
The question still remains for you and me. What will we do with Jesus?
Anniversary Time
