When Jesus was asked how many times do we forgive He said 70 times 7, which really meant always forgive. Jesus forgave right up to the cross that they nailed Him to. He loved and forgave the ones who killed Him.
I was acquainted with a man I won't name who was convicted and sent to the electric chair for raping and mutilating two women. He was under the influence of drugs at the time, but that's no excuse. However, while he sat on death row waiting to be executed he came to know Jesus Christ as his Savior. He spent the next eight years telling many of the men he came in contact with about Christ. God used him to bring other men to Him. He eventually went to the chair, but I expect to see him when I reach heaven. He was forgiven by God, even though humanity will probably never forgive him.
God is just and fair. He will do what's right. We must obey Him and forgive one another always whether, in our eyes, they deserve it or not.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
The Boy and the Broom
I heard a little story this morning that I want to remember, so I will keep it here in my blog.
There was once a little boy who was bored with his toys, and he wondered what he could do to have some fun. He looked through his house and he spied a broom hanging on a wall. "I know!" he thought, "I'll take this broom outside and ride it around the neighborhood pretending it is a horse." And that's just what he did.
Later that evening after the boy's mother had cleaned up the dinner dishes she went to find her broom to sweep up the floor, but the broom wasn't there where she had left it.
"Son," the mother called out to the boy, "do you know where the broom is?"
"Yes," replied the young man, "I took it outside to play with it, and I forgot to bring it back in."
"Well, I need you to please go outside and get the broom and bring it back in to me so I can finish my work."
"But, Mom," the boy said. "I can't do that. It's dark outside and I'm afraid of the dark."
The mom encouraged him, "Oh, there's nothing to be afraid of. You can go out in the dark because the Lord is always out there to be with you."
The boy walked over to the door, opened it just enough to stick his head out and called out, "Lord! If you're out there, will you please bring the broom in for me?"
We, the church, need to be careful that we don't behave as this little boy did. Sometimes we huddle in our church buildings and open up the doors just enough to call out to God, "If You're out there, Lord, will you please bring in the unsaved to us? We're too afraid to go out into the world and get them ourselves."
This is the purpose of the church in this world, to go out to them and bring them in to Him. We are the nucleus. They are the outsiders, and they need us to show them the way in.
There was once a little boy who was bored with his toys, and he wondered what he could do to have some fun. He looked through his house and he spied a broom hanging on a wall. "I know!" he thought, "I'll take this broom outside and ride it around the neighborhood pretending it is a horse." And that's just what he did.
Later that evening after the boy's mother had cleaned up the dinner dishes she went to find her broom to sweep up the floor, but the broom wasn't there where she had left it.
"Son," the mother called out to the boy, "do you know where the broom is?"
"Yes," replied the young man, "I took it outside to play with it, and I forgot to bring it back in."
"Well, I need you to please go outside and get the broom and bring it back in to me so I can finish my work."
"But, Mom," the boy said. "I can't do that. It's dark outside and I'm afraid of the dark."
The mom encouraged him, "Oh, there's nothing to be afraid of. You can go out in the dark because the Lord is always out there to be with you."
The boy walked over to the door, opened it just enough to stick his head out and called out, "Lord! If you're out there, will you please bring the broom in for me?"
We, the church, need to be careful that we don't behave as this little boy did. Sometimes we huddle in our church buildings and open up the doors just enough to call out to God, "If You're out there, Lord, will you please bring in the unsaved to us? We're too afraid to go out into the world and get them ourselves."
This is the purpose of the church in this world, to go out to them and bring them in to Him. We are the nucleus. They are the outsiders, and they need us to show them the way in.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
THE ETHEREAL DOGWOOD
As we were driving home from church last Sunday I was struck again by the ethereal dogwood floating amidst the various woods we passed and all along the road side. I have no memory of dogwood before coming to Georgia, though Nebraska may have had them. But here in Georgia you cannot overlook the many, many trees sprinkled throughout the mountains and woods, and the impression is breathtaking because of their great number.
I have four or five dogwood trees in my wooded back yard, and one of them standing alone on the side of my lot is a very pretty sight indeed. But gaze out across a wooded lot and you will catch the dainty white flowers floating against the browns and greens of the sunny and fresh April Spring day. The illusion is of bits of cotton hovering amidst the new leaves, threatening to dance away at the slightest breeze.
This picture will be gone all too soon as the dogwood flowers fade and the rest of the landscape comes alive. Georgia will become lush in greens, and small colors will require a closer proximity to enjoy them. Kudzu will fill any crevice it can and nature will overwhelm the traveler with its show. The sky that had peeked through the branches will disappear. But today the photograph is of whimsey and a gentle feeling of God's subtle beauty.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
ASH WEDNESDAY 2011
Joel 2:12-13
"...it's not too late---God's personal Message---'Come back to Me and really mean it! Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!' Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to GOD, your GOD."
Today is Ash Wednesday, and I will observe for the first time in my Christian walk the next forty days of Lent. I've been praying and asking God to reveal to me what He would desire that I do to observe these days, and I really hadn't heard a definite answer. That is, until this morning.
I am beginning each day of Lent with a devotional Ashes To Fire, and this morning I began my day by reading the book of Joel. I had finished Chapter 2 when my body tensed, my eyes began to burn and I thought my nose was going to explode. These are sure signs that I am about to cry. But it was more than that. I knew in my heart exactly what I was to do over the next forty days of Lent. He was telling me what He desires of me, and I heard it loud and clear, as if He were here speaking to me.
These are the words of my heart:
"You have become lazy in praying for the salvation of your sons. You have almost given up on believing what I can do in their lives. You have prayed often and have seen no changes, and you are on the verge of despair. You don't need to see the changes. All you need to do is pray for them. That is what I want from you now. Each day during your devotional time I want you to think of them, as if you are doing it for them. Stand in the gap. Pray for them. Weep for their sins. Repent to Me for what they have done. And I will hear you, and you must begin again to believe what I will do. When you are eating, pray for them. When you are working around the house, pray for them."
He is asking me to change my pattern of prayer for the salvation of my sons and to actually mourn their present state of spiritual death for them, as if I were them. He has been preparing me for the last few weeks to be strong in Him to save my children.
Psalm 27:13-14 NASB "I would have despaired if I had not believed that I would see the loving hand of the LORD in the land of the living."
"...it's not too late---God's personal Message---'Come back to Me and really mean it! Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!' Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to GOD, your GOD."
Today is Ash Wednesday, and I will observe for the first time in my Christian walk the next forty days of Lent. I've been praying and asking God to reveal to me what He would desire that I do to observe these days, and I really hadn't heard a definite answer. That is, until this morning.
I am beginning each day of Lent with a devotional Ashes To Fire, and this morning I began my day by reading the book of Joel. I had finished Chapter 2 when my body tensed, my eyes began to burn and I thought my nose was going to explode. These are sure signs that I am about to cry. But it was more than that. I knew in my heart exactly what I was to do over the next forty days of Lent. He was telling me what He desires of me, and I heard it loud and clear, as if He were here speaking to me.
These are the words of my heart:
"You have become lazy in praying for the salvation of your sons. You have almost given up on believing what I can do in their lives. You have prayed often and have seen no changes, and you are on the verge of despair. You don't need to see the changes. All you need to do is pray for them. That is what I want from you now. Each day during your devotional time I want you to think of them, as if you are doing it for them. Stand in the gap. Pray for them. Weep for their sins. Repent to Me for what they have done. And I will hear you, and you must begin again to believe what I will do. When you are eating, pray for them. When you are working around the house, pray for them."
He is asking me to change my pattern of prayer for the salvation of my sons and to actually mourn their present state of spiritual death for them, as if I were them. He has been preparing me for the last few weeks to be strong in Him to save my children.
Psalm 27:13-14 NASB "I would have despaired if I had not believed that I would see the loving hand of the LORD in the land of the living."
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Bill Gotthard (isms)
A friend of mine attended a seminar with Bill Gotthard as speaker. These are just a few of the words of wisdom he shared, and she has shared them with me, and I will share with you.
Meekness vs. Anger
Yielding my personal rights and expectations to God. (Psalm 62:5, "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him.)
Attentiveness vs. Unconcern
Showing the worth of a person by giving undivided attention to his words and emotions. (Hebrews 2:1, "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.")
Loneliness is the anguish I feel when I sense I am being cut off from the spirit of others. (“I am full of heaviness: and I looked for someone to lament with me; but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.”-Psalm 69:20).
Loneliness is the evidence that I was expecting others to meet my needs as only God can. (“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him.” Psalm 62:5)
Loneliness means that at that very moment, God feels the same anguish toward me because my basic delight is not in Him. (“I will delight myself in the Lord and He shall give me the desires of my heart." Psalm 37:4)
Then Gothard adds, Read Psalms when lonely; quote 73;25 which says: “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.”
Meekness vs. Anger
Yielding my personal rights and expectations to God. (Psalm 62:5, "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him.)
Attentiveness vs. Unconcern
Showing the worth of a person by giving undivided attention to his words and emotions. (Hebrews 2:1, "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.")
Loneliness is the anguish I feel when I sense I am being cut off from the spirit of others. (“I am full of heaviness: and I looked for someone to lament with me; but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.”-Psalm 69:20).
Loneliness is the evidence that I was expecting others to meet my needs as only God can. (“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him.” Psalm 62:5)
Loneliness means that at that very moment, God feels the same anguish toward me because my basic delight is not in Him. (“I will delight myself in the Lord and He shall give me the desires of my heart." Psalm 37:4)
Then Gothard adds, Read Psalms when lonely; quote 73;25 which says: “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.”
IT'S NOT MY JOB!
“Worry is assuming responsibility that isn’t yours.”
Bill Gothard
A friend of mine sent this quote to me this morning by email in response to a statement I had made to her. The statement was, "I don't worry about things that I can do nothing about."
I have tried at different times to explain to some of my friends why they should not worry and why it is so easy for me to almost, one might think, forget that I even have a problem. It's not that I forget, I've just learned that the process is one I wish to forego, eliminate from my being, and not be something that consumes minutes of my day. I do this for self-preservation. But I also do it because there is no logical point to it. I have much bigger fish to fry.
Self-preservation sounds so dramatic, doesn't it? I suppose that I have been known to be somewhat dramatic, (she says with an ironic twinkle in her eye). But self-preservation is indeed, in this situation, the awareness of what is necessary, or unnecessary, in one's life. I know quite well most of the necessary and unnecessary components of my life, but worry is one of the unnecessary items that I have been blessed enough to be able to conquer. Don't speak to me of fattening foods or sales at the boutique, but, rather, notice my victory in not wearing myself to a frazzle contemplating the unreachable.
The situation is this: I woke up for years every morning wondering "what is going to happen today?" and spending the next twelve hours waiting for a bomb to drop, not knowing how or when. I went to bed each night thankful that I had made it through one more day, not necessarily unscathed, but I made it nontheless. I lay awake at night worrying about the things that had happened, the repercussions of it all, and what will happen tomorrow? In the morning I began the process again.
The bombs dropped almost daily, and I lived through them if only to go through the worry process that I had established. My little world around me was falling to pieces, and all I could do was to watch and worry and wait for the next bomb to drop. Trying to prepare myself took concentration and constant worry. And the bomb would drop, and I was never ready, never concentrated enough, not worried enough to break the fall. Watch, worry, and wait. And where did it get me?
I found myself one day waiting again, but this time in a doctor's waiting room. This was not something that I had waited for, and I certainly was not happy about the procedures that I was about to experience. And I was to experience these procedures many times for the rest of my life. These procedures are necessary to preserve my life and make it more bearable. The reason for all of this? My doctor told me that it was the stress and worry in my life. I must learn a way to calm the stress, eliminate as much as possible, and stop worrying. Right. And I'm also going to fly to Mars tomorrow.
It took some time. My circumstances weren't changing at that point, and I couldn't see any light at the end of that tunnel, though later I would. I needed a power that I did not have humanly to carry me through the storms and over the bumpy road. But I did have an unearthly Power that I knew could help, and so I tapped into that Power and learned a process of putting away in the back of my mind all my experiences with bombs and storms. When the new ones came, I dealt with them and learned to move on without the concentrated worry and rehashing of them. I didn't walk away from them, I just didn't acknowledge that they were there. My focus was on the Power that was carrying me through. He was and is my strength. He demands my full attention, which leaves little time for worry.
Today I think about God's Word and how I must apply it to my life. I concentrate on obeying Him and living a life that makes God smile. When I allow my own demands or wishes to distract me I fail Him. But rather than worry about it, I go to Him and repent. He holds me close, forgives, and I move on, and we think no more about it. You see, He has others to care for, to worry about. I only have me, and I don't worry because He is taking care of me.
Today the bombs that fall cannot concern me beyond prayer. He has padded my world with His love. To preserve my physical body I must live in that cocoon of His love and His peace. To step out of the cocoon is a danger area that I must avoid to continue. And He has prepared it for me. And meanwhile He has other jobs to attend to.
“Worry is assuming responsibility that isn’t yours.”
Bill Gothard
Bill Gothard
A friend of mine sent this quote to me this morning by email in response to a statement I had made to her. The statement was, "I don't worry about things that I can do nothing about."
I have tried at different times to explain to some of my friends why they should not worry and why it is so easy for me to almost, one might think, forget that I even have a problem. It's not that I forget, I've just learned that the process is one I wish to forego, eliminate from my being, and not be something that consumes minutes of my day. I do this for self-preservation. But I also do it because there is no logical point to it. I have much bigger fish to fry.
Self-preservation sounds so dramatic, doesn't it? I suppose that I have been known to be somewhat dramatic, (she says with an ironic twinkle in her eye). But self-preservation is indeed, in this situation, the awareness of what is necessary, or unnecessary, in one's life. I know quite well most of the necessary and unnecessary components of my life, but worry is one of the unnecessary items that I have been blessed enough to be able to conquer. Don't speak to me of fattening foods or sales at the boutique, but, rather, notice my victory in not wearing myself to a frazzle contemplating the unreachable.
The situation is this: I woke up for years every morning wondering "what is going to happen today?" and spending the next twelve hours waiting for a bomb to drop, not knowing how or when. I went to bed each night thankful that I had made it through one more day, not necessarily unscathed, but I made it nontheless. I lay awake at night worrying about the things that had happened, the repercussions of it all, and what will happen tomorrow? In the morning I began the process again.
The bombs dropped almost daily, and I lived through them if only to go through the worry process that I had established. My little world around me was falling to pieces, and all I could do was to watch and worry and wait for the next bomb to drop. Trying to prepare myself took concentration and constant worry. And the bomb would drop, and I was never ready, never concentrated enough, not worried enough to break the fall. Watch, worry, and wait. And where did it get me?
I found myself one day waiting again, but this time in a doctor's waiting room. This was not something that I had waited for, and I certainly was not happy about the procedures that I was about to experience. And I was to experience these procedures many times for the rest of my life. These procedures are necessary to preserve my life and make it more bearable. The reason for all of this? My doctor told me that it was the stress and worry in my life. I must learn a way to calm the stress, eliminate as much as possible, and stop worrying. Right. And I'm also going to fly to Mars tomorrow.
It took some time. My circumstances weren't changing at that point, and I couldn't see any light at the end of that tunnel, though later I would. I needed a power that I did not have humanly to carry me through the storms and over the bumpy road. But I did have an unearthly Power that I knew could help, and so I tapped into that Power and learned a process of putting away in the back of my mind all my experiences with bombs and storms. When the new ones came, I dealt with them and learned to move on without the concentrated worry and rehashing of them. I didn't walk away from them, I just didn't acknowledge that they were there. My focus was on the Power that was carrying me through. He was and is my strength. He demands my full attention, which leaves little time for worry.
Today I think about God's Word and how I must apply it to my life. I concentrate on obeying Him and living a life that makes God smile. When I allow my own demands or wishes to distract me I fail Him. But rather than worry about it, I go to Him and repent. He holds me close, forgives, and I move on, and we think no more about it. You see, He has others to care for, to worry about. I only have me, and I don't worry because He is taking care of me.
Today the bombs that fall cannot concern me beyond prayer. He has padded my world with His love. To preserve my physical body I must live in that cocoon of His love and His peace. To step out of the cocoon is a danger area that I must avoid to continue. And He has prepared it for me. And meanwhile He has other jobs to attend to.
“Worry is assuming responsibility that isn’t yours.”
Bill Gothard
Saturday, February 19, 2011
I See London, I See France.......
Take a look at all the comments that are being made by people on the topic of abortion. You will usually notice that those who oppose abortion do simply that, they oppose abortion, and they don't discuss it on a personal basis. Those who support abortion not only support abortion, but they attack the mentality, morality, and intelligence of those persons who disagree with them, and they accuse them of anything they can conjure up that might show them to be inconsiderate, uncompassionate, immature, women-hating morons.
I have always noted that the insecure, unintelligent, self-centered and ill-informed bullies who are afraid to be exposed as such are the ones crying the loudest about the issues they know little about, and simply want to look better than they really are. Pro-abortion proponents need to change their tactics. They're exposing their backsides.
I have always noted that the insecure, unintelligent, self-centered and ill-informed bullies who are afraid to be exposed as such are the ones crying the loudest about the issues they know little about, and simply want to look better than they really are. Pro-abortion proponents need to change their tactics. They're exposing their backsides.
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