Recommended Reading
The FAQs: Coronavirus Explained by an Infectious Disease Expert and Pastor
To read this article, click HERE
C. S. Lewis on the Coronavirus
To read this article, click HERE.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Tumbling and Rumbling
Is it hard to keep trusting that GOD is always good and we are always loved especially when what is today does not look like what you prayed for? Is it hard to keep a countenance of faith when you see the walls cracking and crumbling and you can do nothing to stop the tumbling and rumbling – in your stomach or their walls?
YES!
But you do. By GOD’s grace you do.
1 Peter 5:7 (AMP) 7 casting all your cares [all your anxieties, all your worries, and all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, and watches over you very carefully]. source
While We Can
A few words. The same words. Again and again they present themselves for my consideration. They challenge me. They interest me. And they beg to be shared.
While you can flood your world with every word exalting JESUS (YESHUA) that you can. Tell your friends. Urge your friends to do the same (the reason for this post). With whatever media within your sphere of influence saturate it with all things honoring the LORD. Saturate your world with His Truth in all the ways available to you. While you can, flood your world with Scripture, Messages of hope and laughter and goodness and kindness, Songs and Music that Honors The LORD, Hero Stories, Blog posts encouraging holy living, forgiveness, mercy, grace, ALL things to tell your world that GOD is and He is good! While we can, Folks. While we can make Him known!
For Now ~ ~ ~ Kathie
Father, Forgive Them . . .
I’ve been watching movies today while I iron shirts and blouses. As I sat up the board and poured water into my iron, I caught the last few minutes of a Christmas movie – I don’t recall the name. It was a familiar theme: a court room, a youngster on the witness stand, a kindly judge, a heartless lawyer and a benevolent lawyer proving to the courtroom and to us the viewing audience that Santa Claus is the heart of Christmas. He is the hero of the season; he is someone for children to believe in; someone to remind us and inspire us all to remember that Christmas is about love, forgiveness and family. And I thought how clever! Wonder whose idea it was to take a fictitious character give him supernatural powers to know what gift every boy and girl on planet earth wants, to know which child has been good and which child has not but then what does it matter because all children get gifts from Santa on Christmas; but that’s not all Santa delivers these gifts to every house in the world in one night with the help of 8 reindeer who can fly! Wow! How fantastic is that?!
How much better would it have been just to have told the truth to the children? That the REAL GOD sent His only Son into the world as a human baby who grew from infant to man. He really and truly has supernatural powers. He healed the sick, caused the lame to walk, gave sight to the blind, even raised the dead; did the right thing even when humans did the wrong thing to Him. He laughed, He cried, He learned to walk and talk, read and write, played with friends, loved His Mother, His foster-father, His brothers and sisters, and that barely even begins to tell how He demonstrated to the world that He loves us, that He desires for us to be His family, that He Himself came to enable us to love, forgive others, do good for one another and be a family. And then added to all that He died our substitutionary eternal death and after three days arose from the dead, never to die again and made the way for us to live eternally and today He is STILL healing and still bringing the dead to life – that beats Santa Claus hands down, if you ask me!
But GOD just wasn’t good enough, was He? He just was not quite Christmas-y enough was He? He just didn’t give us the warm fuzzies, did He? He just wasn’t reason enough for the children to dash off to bed with so much excitement they could hardly sleep waiting to see what wonderful gifts they would be getting in the morning, was He?
Can you imagine the bewilderment of the angels who gave the GOOD NEWS to the Shepherds as they hear us tell our little white lies to the children? Can you imagine their faces as they watch the madness of the Season: Black Friday shoppers storming the door of a Wal-Mart leaving one man dead this year as they trampled him under the door; businesses vying for every Christmas buying dollar yet refusing to acknowledge that JESUS even came? What else? What other ‘Christmas’ goings on are you privy to that have nothing to do with JESUS? How do the angels feel about that? How does JESUS feel about that? Perhaps He is saying, ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’
This I know: I am forever grateful that He has said, ‘Father, forgive her.’ I too have had some Christmas celebrations that gave little remembrance and not much resemblance to JESUS. I pray to learn better.
Holy Christmas my friends,
Kathie
I Think (again)
IDOK Devotion for Thursday, March 11, 2010
I Think
I am admitting to you that I am a poor speller. Often words that I should know escape me. Today was one of those days and sovereign was the word. It won’t escape me any more though. As I keyed into my browser window the beginning of the word, it gave me choices and reign was cast in bold type and a light bulb came on! Sove reign. Bear with me now. I’ll admit my mental computing is often a stretch, and I am strangely wired, but it works for me – and quite honestly, I like it. SO! Sove for some reason reminded me of the word ‘solve’ and I said: ‘uh hu if I allow the Holy Spirit of God to REIGN in me, all my issues, problems, conflicts, all the bits I am dealing with will be SOLVED’. And might I add, spelling the word sovereign is solved too! Just a little trivia. I’ll get back to my study now. Catch ya’ll later.
Matthew 14has been a portion of my reading today. Please share it with me.
22 Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.
23 And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there.
24 But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.
25 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.
26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.
27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”
I am assuming Jesus sent the multitude away before dusk so they could make their way home and then He went to pray and His disciples as He instructed them got in a boat to make their way across the Sea of Galilee. (Their next appointment with the people was in the Land of Gennesaret. Here’s a link to a map if you liked to visualize this better. http://www.bible-history.com/geography/ancient-israel/lake-gennesaret.html )
If I understand this correctly, the ‘Boys’ had made it to the middle of the Sea by evening and they were getting tossed around pretty good by a severe storm and about 4 AM, I believe, Jesus decided to take a walk. (He and ABBA must have been having a really good time there on the mountain since dusk.)
Let me tell you something else I really like about this Text. Jesus walked to them, not around the sea but across it and don’t forget – it was not a calm sea. As the God-Man don’t you think He could have just popped in on them rather than walking? But He didn’t. But He did start walking toward them in plenty of time to reach them at just the right time. I think He still does that. I think He still takes the shortest distance to us (not going around the storm but through it). I think He does not cause us to wait in our storms any longer than is absolutely necessary for us to KNOW Him best. And I think that storm scared the daylights out of those Guys on that boat, but I think they would not have missed the Presence of Jesus in the storm for anything in the world. I think Jesus wants us to love Him so much that His Manifested Presence with us in the storm makes the storm worth it to us. What do you think?
Holy Spirit, thank You that more and more You are making Your Word alive to us. I am loving it! And I pray our IDOKs and Readers are too. I pray meeting You on the pages of Scripture will be so special to us that going a day without reading Your Word will be unthinkable and unbearable to us. And for all names spoken here, we pray for Your will to be done for each of them. We pray each one will sense You coming to them; we pray their faith will not fail. We pray they will count their storms worth it just to see You present with them. Please continue to protect our IDOK Troops, watch over them and keep them from harm spiritually, physically and emotionally. Help their families be strong and trust You. And we are still mindful of the political climate and still rejoicing that people are waking up and I ask that our awareness of what is right and wrong will continue to grow and that we will be determined to do what is right regardless who says its wrong or politically incorrect. Please keep on raising up prayer warriors and evangelists until every one hears and has the opportunity to exchange their sins for Your righteousness, Jesus. Amen and amen.
Kathie
