Do You Wonder What to Make of the Differences Between Believers?

 

There can be quite a number of differing beliefs among Christians about various things.  Is it okay to dance?  David Danced before the Lord.  Further study indicates this was a leaping and skipping, like a happy excited kid on the playground.  He was celebrating the Ark of God.  Is it wrong to speak in tongues?  Is it wrong not to speak in tongues? 1 Corinthians 14:39 says to forbid it not.

It matters, what is right and what isn’t.

Romans 14:5 says: One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.  The Lord looketh upon the heart 1 Sam. 16:7

I believe God created all things, that God always was, He had no beginning, and will have no end.  He is all powerful and all-knowing, and omnipresent.  I believe in a triune Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  I believe Jesus, the took the form of a man, lived a sinless life, laid down his own life in death, shedding innocent blood to atone for the sins of you and me.  I believe He rose up from the grave on the third day and is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come soon to remove the body of believers from this world and then a period of tribulation will occur such as the world has never seen.

God, His ways, His thoughts, are so above us, and beyond our comprehension, that even the most diligent student of Scripture will fall far short in this life, of ever understanding it all.  Just like God gives different gifts to different believers, I believe often God gives different ones a greater grasp of some small portion of His Word, while giving more of a mastery of some other portion to another.  Look at it like this: Medicine has become an enormous body of knowledge.  Specialists must devote a great deal of time to learning the specifics that relate to their area of expertise, and must continually study and train to remain on the cutting edge of advances in his specialty. That doesn’t leave him time to know everything about every specialty.  There is just too much “knowledge” for him to master.  In the same way, a medicinal chemist is not likely to be also a foremost specialist in atomic energy.

We are limited by our own capacity.  The Bible tells us that we see  and understand only “in part”.  The body of knowledge contained in Scripture alone, is so vast and enormous that one could spend a lifetime digging into it, and still be gaining new understanding in his 90′s and beyond, should he live that long.

I often use this description that I read someplace years back, which describes differing perspectives in general:  A group of blind people who have never encountered an elephant, are brought to a village where an elephant is kept.  They are assisted near the elephant, and allowed to feel the enormous animal, standing only where they have been led, not walking all the way around.   Afterwards, they are asked to describe this foreign beast.   One who had stood by the leg, described it like a large tree trunk, rough to the touch like bark.   One who had felt the ear described it like a tent flap.  One who felt the flank described it like a solid wall.

They were all perceiving only “in part”, not the whole.  Even if they had been allowed to palpate all the way around this enormous animal, being blind they could still not have fully apprehended or appreciated the elephant in the fullest sense.  Our “vision” and understanding are like that now.  And that is why you can find differences in perspective among Christians who love the Lord and study His Word diligently.   That does not mean “anything goes”.  The Bible is clear in 2 Peter 1:20 that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation”.  Prophecy either foretells, or forth-tells. So this principle applies to all scripture.  It doesn’t mean whatever someone decides it means.  It means what God meant when HE inspired its writing, and it is up to us, with the Holy Spirit’s help and our own diligence, to continue to study the scripture until we are “fully persuaded in our own minds”.   Every passage in scripture has at least one other passage in scripture that helps explain it.   Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.  Isaiah 34:16.  One good way to study the Bible, is to use a program like e-Sword, (free to download online) and search out every instance of a certain word, looking at it in the context of various passages.  E-sword also includes Strong’s Concordance, for the original languages.

The Bible says in Psalms 12:6 that The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. ⁷ Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

Are there poor versions and perversions of the Bible floating around out there? Surely there are,  however, I believe God knows how to (and has) preserved His Word intact, and that it will not return unto Him void (Isaiah 55:11) but will accomplish what He pleases, and prosper in the thing whereto He sent it.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was  with God and the Word was God.  (John 1:1).  For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 1 John 5:7.  The Word is quick (living), and active (Hebrews 4:12) and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  Do you realize what that means?  That even as you “scan the Word” the Word is scanning you! 

Do you know what is even more amazing?  If you are in the Word regularly, it is not only scanning you and detecting what is wrong, but it is also “recalibrating” you, righting that which is wrong within you, and cleaning you up, because it washes like water (Ephesians 5:25-27), and if you are believing what you are reading, then you will become a doer (James 1:22) of what you read.  If you do not become a doer, then you are deceiving yourself.  The Bible was “interactive” long before there was an app for it!

So, we can trust that though our understanding now is incomplete, some day that which is “in part” will be made perfect (complete). (1 Cor. 13:9-12)

-S.T. Lloyd

All scripture from KJV

 

 

 

 

The most down-to-earth, comprehensive and crucial post you’ll read today!

The world is a pretty big place, but it grows smaller by the day.  Not because of overpopulation, but because of increasing accessibility through travel, and real-time satellite internet.  Cultures may seem very different, and I will admit that I have not had the blessed privilege of being immersed in a culture vastly different from my own.  But I believe that people who do spend time in different cultures would tell you that in essence, people all over the world have many basics in common.  Most people want to be loved, have family, be able to provide for themselves and their family, live in peace and freedom.  Most people pursue some recreation, but are fulfilled in productivity, enjoy some fellowship, appreciate nature and beauty, music and art of some form, and most people still believe in some higher power.

The Bible claims to be the Word of God, and I believe that it is.  I believe that God, our Creator and the Creator of all that is, who had no beginning and has no end, who is Himself the Alpha and the Omega, gave this Word to mankind by divine inspiration to men of old, prophets, who wrote it down as they were instructed by God, and that God Himself has preserved it.  I believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing and omnipresent.

I believe that Lucifer, otherwise known as Satan, the anointed cherub that covereth, is the most cunning, most powerful created being among the order of angelic beings, who coveted God’s place, led rebellion in heaven in his pride, in a foolish doomed ambition to ascend above God.

I do not believe the Earth or universe are “millions of years old” as science (so-called) claims, but closer to 6000.  I believe that everyone, from the most remote and isolated tribe on distant continents, to the Native Americans, to all past civilizations, carried/do carry among their civilization, remnants of knowledge of God and history that included dinosaurs/great lizards, a world-wide flood, and beings from outside this world.

I believe that like anything that is handled by humans, the knowledge gets distorted, added to, subtracted from, and where there is or has been conflict, different sides have taken different perspectives, not always honest, but as to the victor goes the spoils, also the victor writes the history books.

We humans have been created in God’s image, and thus, similar to Him, we have a vast capacity of imagination.  But that has often been to our detriment, since He gave us each a will of our own as well.

I have come to believe that absolutely nothing in life is random.  Despite the fact that I jokingly insist hat my mind itself is pretty random.

Here’s the thing.  Lets say you used your own hard-earned resources, and invested your own efforts and time, to write some great novel, or create some great city.  Was it not solely Dickens’ prerogative to write the characters in “A Christmas Carol” just as he so choose, and give them the adventures he pleased to give them?   Wouldn’t a man who was building a city, owned the property, supplied all the materials, be the rightful one to decide the plans for that city?  Where does our sense of “prerogative” come from?

Many people disagree on questions of morality, death penalty, gun ownership, homosexuality, but even the most hardened criminal has been known to beat a child-molester to a bloody pulp, in “righteous indignation” over the abuse of power and tormenting the innocent and weak.  We like the idea of self-determining what is right and wrong, but where does our universal sense that there is such a thing even come from?

It comes from the fact that there is a God, and quite simply, He said so.  He was quite specific about it, but beginning with the fall of Satan, and the subsequent temptation of Eve, mankind has been compromising and redefining it ever since.

The thing is, God never changes.  And His Word is full disclosure, He has warned us to that effect.  Just because mankind has chosen not to believe Him, doesn’t alter the fact one iota.

God will do what He will do.

He inspired the writing of His book, the Holy Bible, for our edification, for our good.  God created humankind for one reason.  He desired fellowship.  God is not subject to time.  Like a story in a book, from ancient history to future yet-to-be, He stands outside and above, and sees it all at a glance.  He knew who would obey, preserve His Word, pass it on to future generations, and He knew who would rebel and reject it.  This is what is meant by “the sins of the father being visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations”.  One patriarch’s disobedience, could doom many generations of that family line to blindness to God’s truth.  God has told  us in His Book that a day of judgment is coming.  Science says “matter is neither created nor destroyed”.  But science is wrong. God created everything from nothing.  God breathed all that there is, into existence by commanding it to be, by the Word of His mouth.  The same body of science, claims in blatant contradiction of the first principle mentioned above, that essentially, in the beginning, there was nothing, and nothing “exploded” and then all manner of rudimentary life forms or building blocks suddenly were, and that with the addition of the passage of time, these unintelligent life forms “evolved” all on their own, into more advanced life forms.

It takes a lot more “faith” to believe that everything came from nothing, than to believe an intelligent pre-existent being created it all.  Yet that is what rejection of truth will buy you.  Blindness.  The problem is not that people “can’t believe the Bible”.  It’s that they don’t like what the Bible tells them, so they won’t believe it.  Every person who comes of age makes that decision, whether it is done thoughtfully and consciously, or carelessly and not-so-consciously.

I submit for your consideration that if you landed on this post, on this particular blog today, there just may be a Divine reason for that.

There is a dis-integration taking place in this world.

Through out history, empires and nations have risen and have fallen.  Some have  had impressive staying power.  Governments too, can be quite different one from another, but underneath it boils down to certain leaders, parties or factions, having power and dominance over other ones.  They may be benign, or malevolent, they may promote freedom, or forbid it.  We are all subject to some form of governmental entity.  But there is a whole other realm of principality.  The Bible calls them “principalities and powers”; these are the rebellious ones, and they are your enemy.  Then there is God and the tens of thousands and thousands of thousands of angels who do His bidding.

At any given time in history, in any location on this earth, the “powers that be” may have attained their power by conquest, but only because God granted it.  Here in America, where men who worshiped God, who had been oppressed in that worship in England, came and established a new nation based upon Biblical truths.  Obedience to God affords the protection of God to the obedient.  It promotes access to the blessings of God.  Disobedience and rebellion do the opposite.  God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob, is the only “god” known to man, who does not require for you to make your way to him.  Krishna, Buddah, Allah, the god of Mormans (which is not the same God but an imagined god with different attributes and requirements) the god of Jehovah’s Witnesses (their doctrine, like that of the Mormans, Muslims, Hindus, etc, were imparted by “angels” (of darkness) but God says in His Words, that if even an angel came giving a gospel other than that found in His Word, as preached by the Apostle Paul, it must be rejected.

God’s Word says in His Book, that many deceivers would come, and many false Christs.  Christ is not a name, it is a title for the Messiah, the Savior of the world.

Over 300 prophecies were spoken in the old Testament about Jesus, the Christ and Messiah, and all of them were fulfilled.  (More here)

It is Friday of the week, and often times I try to “lighten up” the mood on Friday, but the truth is, time is swiftly running out.

For those of you who came to this site as a source of news only,  it is about much more.  It is my hearts sincere desire to share with you the gospel of Jesus Christ, that you might be saved from the wrath that is to come upon this earth very shortly.  Without the gospel, the news can only engender despair.  The economy through out the world, is in serious trouble.  Many new diseases, viruses, and bacterial infections are cropping up, as well as resurgence and mutations of old ones previously nearly eradicated.  There are mass animal deaths the world over.  There have been unexplained sounds and sights for several years, that have people puzzled, alarmed, scratching their heads in bewilderment.  Wars are being threatened on every side, and there are thousands of ongoing conflicts, some stretching back a century, that are in progress now.  Basic human compassion, civility, and morality is eroding at an alarming rate.  Science and technology have ventured into areas that should make anyone nervous; A replacement living ear is about three years away from reality, nano body parts can be reproduced the same way using a newly announced microscopic 3D printer, brain scans can tell what a person is thinking, fetuses with the DNA of 3 instead of 2 “parents”.  Governance and order are breaking down, and Police State tactics are rising in even the free-est of nations, while dictatorships have fallen in more oppressed areas of the world only to be replaced by regimes more evil than the previous ones.  There are water shortages, famines, bizarre, extreme and out-of-season weather conditions, sinkholes all over the world, volcanoes waking up and erupting, fault-lines becoming active that had been quiet, and increase of “U.F.O” sightings, and reports of demonic encounters, including and most disturbingly, in children.  Suicide is up.  Corruption is spreading.

There is one absolute certainty in the life of every human being:  Death!

God created us with an eternal soul.  It is a lie that life ends at the grave.  It is a lie that souls re-incarnate into new bodies and live multiple lifetimes until they attain heaven.  It is a lie that there is no hell or that hell is a temporary place you can eventually earn your way out of.

God who made you, does not want you to go to hell.  He didn’t create hell for humans.  Hell was designed as a place of eternal punishment for Satan and the 1/3 of the angels who joined him in his revolt.  But Satan is determined to take you with him.  He knows God pretty well.  He had plenty of time to observe and witness all God did when he held his anointed cherub position.  He knows human nature pretty well too.  He knows that we have an innate “knowledge” that we were made for something more than this existence.  He knows God wrote His law on man’s heart, which is why we have a sense of justice and right and wrong at all in the first place.  So Satan works within the confines God has subjected him to, using the knowledge he has, and he creates customized counterfeits according to your propensities.  He perpetuates the particular falsehoods of a given culture.  He offers the particular temptations that suit your personal proclivities.  He lures you in and traps you, either with false religion, or with distortions of the good things God created, rather than the marriage bed and satisfaction with your mate, he offers you a “banquet” of options which promise fulfillment but only feed your lust and reinforce the chains of your addiction.  He caters to your desire to be righteous in your own right, and feeds you reams of requirements to strive towards, to “earn” salvation, or penance to suffer.

When in reality, the way to reconciliation with God is so simple it seems almost to good to be true, and it cannot be earned.  One must merely believe Jesus is the Son of God, who while equal with God, became a man in the flesh, and having never sinned, took the punishment for our sins, satisfying God’s wrath paying the fine, so to speak, that we owe for our transgressions of the law, which cannot save us, but can only show forth our guilt.  We must repent, (that is, make a 180 degree turn from, and go in the opposite direction) of our sins and rebellion and transgression of God’s law, and ask forgiveness and ask for the atonement bought by Christ, to be applied to our “account”, for God is keeping account.

I know that time is short before  Christ removes all who are saved from this Earth, (to be followed by 7 years of the most horrific conditions Earth has ever known, and then the return of Christ to establish His Kingdom) because Jesus told us in Matthew 24 what the signs would be, and Daniel and Isaiah, Ezekiel and other prophecy books of the Bible, including of course, Revelation, tell us some of the events that will happen just before, and during that period of the very end.

1. False Christs and false teachers/prophets
2. The “fig tree” will put forth leaves this is a reference to the Nation of Israel reborn and a regathering of Jews of each of the 12 tribes into Israel (in progress)
3. False Christs and false teachers will show false (lying) signs and wonders (miracles)
4. Many wars and rumors of wars with nations rising against nations
5. Famines (and drought) in diverse (different from usual) places
6. Pestilences in diverse places
7. Earthquakes in diverse places
8. Many shall be offended, shall betray one another, and hate one another
9. Iniquity shall abound (as the days of Noah and Lot)
10. Mankind’s love for one another will grow cold
11. Many shall run to and fro about the Earth and knowledge shall increase. (This speaks to population numbers, ease of travel, and huge advances in science and technology)
12. The gospel of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world
13. Israel will stand alone without ally, a burdensome stone in the world
14. Jewish temple worship will be reinstated (which requires the rebuilding of their temple)
15. Mankind’s weapons capability will be so advanced that if God did not set limits on this period of global warfare and tribulation, no human flesh would survive
16. Revelation and Daniel predict the rise of a global order of government on the order of ancient Rome (will require the collapse or conquering of all current sovereign states)
17. A great false influential religious leader will arise
18. The Jewish temple will be desecrated for the final time.
19. Faith will be a matter of life and death, mandatory allegiance will be required to a false messiah.

____________________________________

Isaiah 17 news:

Brennan Makes Surprise Visit to Israel over Syria

Syria Begins to Break Apart Under Pressure From War

Note: The Isaiah 17 battle which destroys Damascus could happen any day now, but it also could happen after the snatching away of the church of blood-bought born again believers.

Increase in lawlessness:

$625,000 Gold Shipment Vanishes

Hundreds of Illegal Immigrants with Criminal Records of Federal Offenses, Released

Brazilians Fight Back as Regulatory Agency Tries to Impose “Homosexual Marriage” on Entire Country

Religion a matter of Life and Death:

Saudi Arabia Sentences Men to Lashings for helping woman convert to Christianity

Blasphemy Charges Becoming New Weapon against Egyptian Christians

Militants Kill Nigerian Christian Leader

Growing Military State:
National Guard Air Exercise over Myrtle Beach next week(Should be interesting as it overlaps with Bike Week!)

Florida Garbage Truck Drivers Trained to Snitch on Citizens (It was only a matter of time)

Like the Days of Noah And Lot/Iniquity abounds:

Teachers vote to make everything LBGTTQ-friendly

Wars/Rumors of Wars:

Hezbollah Pledges to Boot Israel from Golan

Russia Provides Assad with Ship-killing missile

Assad Plans to Retaliate Next Time Israel strikes Syria

Russia sends at least 12 war ships to Syria

IAF Planes Circling Above Lebanon

Syria-Israeli War of Words via Putin, edges into Syrian-Hezbollah war of attrition

CIA to Israel; “Syria Making us Nervous”

Israel stands alone:

Israel’s one real ally, the U.S. is unreliable at best under Obama

Expect Israeli strike against Russian Arms shipments to Syria-Hezbollah

Iran Doesn’t recognize Israel’s red line

Breakdown of current order of governments/corruption/economies:

BREAKING: Obama White House Just Caught In HUGE Lie/Contradiction – See Proof Here.

Cashless Society Arrives in Africa with National ID Card

François Hollande calls for ‘European political union’ within two years

Earthquakes in Diverse Places:

Is a Massive Canada Quake on the Horizon?

Surprise New Zealand Quake a 4.2

New Sinkhole:

16-foot sinkhole swallows part of I-80 near Wyoming border

Will There Be Christians Saved After the Rapture?

Re-blogged from The End Time

Written By Elizabeth Prata

What Resurrection Sunday Means to Me

Every pain that you or I ever suffered, multiplied by all of mankind through out all of time.

Every sin, every crime, every wrong.  All of that was poured onto Him on that cross.  We ask “why do evil men get away with evil things?”  They do not.  God will deal with their sins.  All sin.  How about yours?

It is no wonder God had to look away.  And Jesus who had never been separated from His Father, cried out “Why hast thou forsaken me?”  God cannot look upon sin.  And in that instant, Jesus was covered in it.  He took it into His body and by submitting to it, He conquered it.

They mocked Him, they beat Him, they whipped Him, they spat upon Him, but they did not kill Him.  No one could take His life from Him.  Though He was fully human in that moment, He was still fully God, having chosen to refrain from exercising His Godly ability to come down off that cross, just like the mockers challenged Him to do, He remained there, held not by the nails, but by His love for you and me, He was the willing sacrifice, the lamb that was slain for the sine of the world.

When all of it had been paid for.  Every last sin.  Every last injustice, HE said “It is finished”.  He commended His Spirit unto the Father.  There are a good 44 prophecies in the old Testament that I know of (probably more) about the birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.  And every one was fulfilled to the letter.

They laid his body in a borrowed tomb, and rolled a stone in front of it, and set guards around it so that His followers could not steal the body and “stage” a resurrection.   But death could not keep Him.  He rose up from that grave on the third day, and appeared to hundreds of people over several days before He ascended up to Heaven from the Mount of Olives, with a promise to his followers that He would some day return to that very spot, just in the way they were watching Him go.  Oh yes, I do believe it.

His resurrection is called the “firstfruits”.   It is a promise that we all will be resurrected some day from death.  There will be a “first resurrection” unto life, for those who have Him as their Savior and have already been judged in Christ Jesus, and a second resurrection unto judgment for those who have rejected Him.  (Revelation 20:4-6)

What Resurrection Sunday means to me, is that my sins are held against me no more by God.  I who am guilty, stand as innocent because Christ already paid the price for me.  It means one day an angel of the Lord will sound a trumpet, and give a shout, and those whom Jesus has redeemed, will go to be where Jesus is. No more sickness.  No more sorrow.  No more pain.  The former things will have passed away, and all things will become new.

I have been around the block a few times in this old world.  I’ve had my share of troubles, as everyone has.  There is nothing this world has to offer that I would trade my life with Jesus for.  It has been an awesome ride, hardships and all!  And His resurrection encompasses the promise of a whole other life ahead to look forward to.

A baby in the womb does not know it has not even been born yet.  It likes it where it has been, safe and warm, floating in it’s familiar surroundings.  When the contractions start, that baby gets active.  A pre-determined course of events follows God’s design, and with or without help, that baby makes it’s way out into the world, kicking, screaming, not happy for the rude introduction.

He didn’t know that all those days and hours were in preparation for “real life” that was yet to come.

God created us to glorify Him.  This life actually is a dress rehearsal.  We are not bodies that have a soul.  We are souls temporarily residing in defective earthly bodies for a relatively few short years.  There is more to life than this! Yes, a million times yes!

But only in Jesus.

Do you know Him today?

Children of hell and sons of heaven, part 1 ~ Elizabeth Prata

Children of hell and sons of heaven, part 1

I was reading Matthew the other day and I read Matthew 23 with a new eye. A verse jumped out at me. Don’t you love when that happens? Then the verse that jumps out stays in my mind and heart for a long time, rolling around like a holy marble.

Here is the verse:

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:13-15).

Then the next day I received something in the mail that was really good. I was humbled by it and touched by it, and I began thinking about the global church body.

Since then, I’ve been pondering three things- pastors, elders, and leaders of the faith that shut the door of heaven in people’s faces (Matthew 23:13); second, children of hell that emerge from a false system Matthew 23:15), and third, what it means to be a child of God in the global body. (1 Corinthians 12:12). Children of hell vs. sons of God.

This is where the “deep and wide” comes in

Words are sWords that cut both ways

Words: rubber maid containers that corral and contain the chaos and clutter of life.  Words have grown tricky and sticky in today’s relative world, and stripped of all nuance and cues, by layers of electronic barriers such as e-mail and text messaging.  Now even the most carefully selected and censored words can somehow mysteriously mutate between your lips and someone else’s ear, into something wholly other than what you intended, never mind the careless ones.

Words are my oar in the rapids, my life-jacket in the overwhelming flood.

So what was I to do when words failed me?

I grew silent.  Even inside my own head, I lost the will, the nerve, the ability to bring order to the churning and tumbling and shaking of my world.

I had no choice than to just let things just “be”.  No measuring, no sorting, no classifying, no reconciliation, no resolution.

Just sit in my dingy in a tumbling ocean of upheaval, hanging on for dear life, and perhaps occasionally vomiting over the side, as my one means of relief from the turbulence and inner discombobulation.  Funny thing though, about vomit.  Doesn’t inspire examination.  Just release the poison, and good riddance!

Artists express things wordlessly all the time.  Doesn’t matter the medium; music, dance, paint, pencil, wood, metal, garbage.

I used to paint.  My medium was acrylics, most often on stone. It was the one thing I ever did that transcended the drudgery of regimented thought, expressing things without all that processing, a state of abandon that rendered me unaware of even the passage of time.

In recent years, my eyesight has grown poor, my dexterity has been greatly hampered, my stamina has been poor and faltering, and as life is wont to do, my creativity has suffered significant dehydration.

But I still had the medium of words which I could count on.  It served me well in resolving conflict, ministering comfort, maintaining relationships, handling matters of business, as well as self-expression for the sake of itself.  It served me well, that is, until…

First a misunderstanding snowballed into a catastrophe, and a years-long friendship became a casualty.

Then a ministry went an unplanned, unanticipated way, and though God’s intent prevailed, the living of the experience was personally costly on a daily basis for 13 months with a fiery crash and burn at the end.

And then came our stroll along the edge of the “valley of the shadow of death”.

And for the first time in my life, words failed me.

Words are like the air my own personal spirit breathes.  So it was as if my spirit, that essence of me, had suffered a stroke or something.   Words were no longer at my beck and call.  They just wouldn’t fall in line.  It was possibly the most decimated I ever felt, and that is saying a lot, considering some of the things I’ve been through.

Words being no longer at my disposal, I went and dug out the words I’d saved on paper. My poems, my personal devotional notes, and what journal pages I’d held onto.  I took those words and like bread, cast them upon the water as an offering to God.  I didn’t have a design in mind for them, no plan or agenda.  But I know that only what is consecrated to God can have any real worth, I mean the eternal kind, not the passing-away kind.

You know, God sends the storms.  Not some storms.  All of them.  The storms and the waves do His bidding.  He doesn’t dispatch them from a distance.  He’s in them when the come.

Just because I can’t trace His hand, doesn’t mean I can’t trust His plan.

It all comes down to settling a single question.  Just one; Is God who He claims to be, or isn’t He?  You settle that in your mind, once and for all time, and buddy you will have simplified your life in one stroke.  Very simple, but far from easy.

If He is who He says He is, then let God be true and let every man, every circumstance, every thought, every pain, every wound bow down to Him and be revealed as the lie that they are.  For faithful are the wounds of a friend.

You say “Cruel is the God who would snatch the newborn child from it’s mother’s arms”

That is a LIE!

“I’m so depressed I just want to die!”

That is a LIE!

Your earthly father abandoned you, your marriage fell apart, there is no peace to be had.

That, also, is a lie.

When a child is young and tends to whine, we sometimes have to remind that child to “use your words, please, so Mommy or Daddy can know what you need and can help you get it so you will feel better”.

Putting things into words requires effort.  It’s not always easy.  For me, the nearer my heart the subject matter, the harder it is to articulate.  But otherwise, words have generally come pretty easily.

Words can be mundane, they can be tedious, they can be inspiring, beautiful, hurtful, and indeed quite harmful. In short, words are power.

Power entails responsibility.  To whom much is given, much is required.

I have been “on the bench” for a while.  Not only in terms of administering my words, but a time-out in general.  I’ve taken some blows, had some injuries that needed to be babied for a time.  It is not good for the long-haul, for us to stay in the game injured.  Though it is often necessary, (unlike soccer and baseball, the game of life isn’t condusive to prolonged side-lining), but eventually it will be to your own detriment to “suck it up and continue playing” on a bum knee, wounded shoulder, or broken heart.

As my dear friend Snerdley pointed out a couple of days ago, long-term pain and strain literally alters the structure of the brain.

I “played inured” for  lot of years.  And as a result, I’ve spent a lot of years rehabilitating.  Extensive recouperation often must happen piecemeal, you push a while, then you rest a while, push some more, rest some more.

Why bother?  Because life lived less than fully just isn’t worth as much.

What do you do when you are a “skinless” person, a whole-heart kind of   person whose heart is battered?  Live life without heart?  Offer up what is left, at the risk of having it fully consumed?  I think living a heartless life is what most people choose.  I might have chosen it too if I had never experienced “whole-heart-living” by virtue of nothing other than the fact it is the way God originally designed me.  When my heart and soul and spirit took a pretty big hit in my 20′s, I tried living the safer way.  I tucked my heart way inside and constructed an external shield so foreign to me that family and friends were baffled by it.

But it was no use.  Once you have lived with your heart wide-open, though you know the inherent pain, you find that living any other way is not really an option, and there is no such thing as a middle ground of compromise.  Living any other way has never been an option, no matter how much I might have wished it could be.

I am not sure how that sounds to the reader.  Arrogant? Self-promoting and prideful in some back-handed way?  An attempt to seem more virtuous than I am?  Or just sincere.

The truth is, I wouldn’t mind having a tougher heart.  I would dearly love a skin.  A nice, thick one.

I once heard the story of a 4th grader in a Christian school, when defining “skin” on his science test, wrote “It’s that thing God gave you so people when they have to look at you, they won’t throw up”.  I guess he had seen the muscle diagrams, I don’t know, but kids have a way of shedding insight.

Skin is great as a cover-up for hiding the unpalatable “innards”, but it’s real purpose is for protecting the delicate and vulnerable things that lie underneath.  It is the first line of defense against germs and viruses and other invaders.  It is probably one of our must indispensable, under-appreciated organs.

My heart is not pure, but I do recognize that God has a standard of purity that surpasses our concept of pure and of good, by a dozen country miles, and I don’t want our version of clean and good.  I want His.

A lot of people, if they were to peer into my life, would likely say “that’s not what I call living”.  Living life to the fullest to most folks is “going full tilt” from sun-up to sun-down, taking risks, tasting the entire smorgasbord that life has to offer.  And sure, there is a lot to be said for living life fearlessly.  I joke about the unnecessary stress some people seem to go looking for, the stunt-riders and base-jumpers and those guys in squirrel suits who jump off of cliffs and ride the thermal currents like Eagles with nothing else between them and certain death, except a stiff breeze, their knowledge of aerodynamics, and an irrepressible passion for adventure.

When I was strong and healthy,, my bucket list included buying a motorcycle, parachuting, and traveling to see the world.

Da bucket got a hole in it!

What happens to dreams like that?  There are a whole lot of people who would have you believe that letting anything stand in the way of achieving your dreams is blasphemous.  That we owe it to ourselves, the world, the universe, and whatever God we believe in, to “discover and meet our full potential”.

Hogwash!

I don’t care what anybody says, if life doesn’t hurt, you ain’t doing it right.  If you haven’t failed you haven’t been trying, but if you haven’t realized there are walls and ceilings, and boundaries and limits, well, just keep on.  You’ll find out eventually and then where will that leave you?  Crushed? Broken? Disillusioned? Angry?

The world applauds those who are brave and daring with their body, their money their mind, and even their eternal soul, while simultaneously disdaining the offering up of one’s heart as a fools errand.

But I say, the bravest thing anyone can do is give of your heart.  In my book, real living means living real.  It means accepting the boundaries, acknowledging your insufficiency, admitting you need others, that you are not invincible, not infallible.  But you don’t quit.  You keep trying, aiming for that higher calling, even when you know it is not attainable in this life.  Even when you know you’ll be hurt again, will fall again.

Success in life doesn’t come in looking around, finding the tallest mountain, and conquering it.  It comes in making the best of what life hands you, learning to be content whether you abase or abound.  Learning how to find your way back to abiding peace even when some “earthquake” rattles your world and flings you far away from any semblance of peace.  Knowing where, or more accurately, in Whom, that peace remains, unshaken, always available.

I spoke of the friendship that became a casualty of misunderstanding.  The following poem was an attempt, even as words themselves seemed to have betrayed me, to still use them to express my bewilderment and grief, that words themselves can be so damaging, turning lethal even when the intent is anything but, because a “wounded” receiver receiving a message from a wounded “sender” leaves much room for misinterpretation, and particularly in a world where real communication grows increasingly rare.  It is an expression of broken-ness in a broken world from a broken heart, over a broken friendship.

On Grapes and Apples

Posted on March 3, 2012 by shekinah419

The grape sits under the glare of the sun. Exposed. With prolonged heat it ripens to sweetness.  But the sweetness comes forth only in the crushing.  If the grape remains hard it will elude that reducing process and it’s juice remain bitter.  Redemption comes only in the yielding.

The Word is alive and sharper than a two-edged sword.  Created in His image, He gave us all the gift of the word, written and spoken.  Sharp.  Able to penetrate deep unto healing or destruction.  The more finely-honed that edge, the more intricate places it can reach.  Words can sever things delicate and tenuous.

Under the guardianship of human nature, the administration of bestowed gifts results in Adam, Eve, an apple and death.  Laid on the alter and death’s stinger removed, the gift can be anointed and used for its’ proper purpose.

Words are a precious gift.

From childhood we anticipate the long-awaited day we will make our own choices, only to one day discover that we have been making them all along.

© S.T.Lloyd 2010

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Matthew 7: ¹⁶Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?¹⁷Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.¹⁸A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.¹⁹Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down,and cast into the fire. ²⁰Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Amos 9:¹³Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

Proverbs 25:¹¹A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

Proverbs 7:²Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye

Examine Yourself

 

Bits of news and interesting views, bracketed by more delving into the significance of numbers and movie premiers.

I don’t have a curvy couch, and I don’t aspire to emulate Fox News anyway, but I do try to come up with ways to make absorbing the news a little less tedious and more like sitting on the front porch on a sunny day, catching up on the goings-on in the neighborhood, only our neighborhood is global.  So, with that, I continue with my 101 ways to bring you the news, lol………

It used to be, that when a new movie was about to be released, we would see the trailer played in the theater previews and commercials, along with a banner that proclaimed “coming soon”.  My husband pointed out this morning how that as of late, the release dates are routinely specified, and I find that significant, due to the occult meanings of certain numbers and how those numbers are used in the occult to invoke spirits or spiritual power or “blessings”.

You may recall reading my post a this week on the upcoming movie ” Olympus Has Fallen”. (Read HERE)  This really is a trend that bears watching, as it has often turned out to be the case, that hints of things which did take place, were subtly placed within the imagery and titles of Hollywood movies which preceded the actual event.

This morning I ran across this post at the Blogspot blog News Doors:

Obama Death Fears Grow As US Military Takeover Nears

I accessed the article at the cited source, to find that it comes from the very dubious website of Sorcha Faal, entitled WhatDoesItMean.com .  According to Wiki,

Sorcha Faal claims to be a female Russian Scientist but might actually be an American man named David Booth, who has an apparent reputation for internet hoaxes.

In this case, a military plot to do away with Obama might just be a matter of wishful thinking on the part of David Booth.  All I can say is, were this to actually play out, that would mean Crazy Uncle Joe becomes our president.  I shudder to think about it.

It’s not that I think such a possibility on behalf of our military is unthinkable. On the contrary, why do you think Obama is so keen on disarming and vilifying military veterans?  Their hatred and resentment of him is about as obvious as is his for them.

God help this nation.   Obama is a dangerous man because he is blind and deluded and has been handed everything on a platter from his degrees, to his autobiographies, to the extreme power and authority of the position of U. S. President, and has not yet suffered any consequences. This defies spiritual law, which tells me that supernatural forces are at play.  Not just evil ones, but God Himself, the arbiter of justice, has allowed him latitude to do these things.

I would rather see Pastor Manning rise up like David against Goliath and face Obama like a man of God, to take him down in the name of our God with a slingshot and a stone.

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In other news today, WND is asking “Is Hugo Chavez Already Dead?”

(Apparently this “already dead” business is going around!)

And how about those Iran Talks, eh?  Apparently the United States does negotiate with terrorists, and very generously, I might add.

The “ObamaCare Survival Guide” By journalistt Nick Tate

You probably shouldn’t bother.  This book is written by a journalist.  A bigwig at NewsMax (which, not surprisingly, gave it a glowing endorsement).  In other words, written by someone who knows spin and knows publishers that are familiar with his writing and who are willing to publish based on his name; a book you can cobble together quickly and be guaranteed people will buy out of desperation.  The reviews aren’t very flattering from GoodReads or Amazon. The most common refrain is the injection of author’s own opinions rather than fact, and that most of the content is repetitious.

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Iran’s government is ELECTED? Yeah, (wink wink, nudge).  What a couple of maroons!

Ahmadinejad, having the dubious distinction of being former mayor of Tehran, wins the presidency with 64% of the vote, both in 05 and 09, said vote having been totally tallied within one hour of the closing of polls the first time around.  (And America was impressed with Obama’s meteoric rise!)

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Re-blog worthy links:

From Durable Faith: Fukushima – Out of Sight, Out of Mind, but Far From Out-of-Danger

And as if that weren’t enough, now this: 125,000 lethal doses of cyanide spilled in Japan

  What is UP with Texas lately? First Birkas, now this:

American Student (in Texas) Punished for Refusing to Recite the Mexican Pledge of Alliegance

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So now, lets talk about another movie:

Or, miniseries, “The Bible”.  First off, I see red flags in the fact it will be presented by the History Channel.  But secondly, look at this list of endorsements:

• Rick Warren – Pastor, Saddleback
• Joel Osteen – Pastor, Lakewood Church
• Erwin McManus – Pastor, Mosaic
• Jim Daly – Focus on the Family
• Sam Rodriguez – National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
• Paul Eshleman – Campus Crusade for Christ
• Bobby Gruenewald – YouVersion Bible
• Brad Lomenick – Catalyst
• Leith Anderson – National Association of Evangelicals
• Frank Wright – National Religious Broadcasters
• Tom Peterson – Catholics Come Home
• Geoff Tunnicliffe – World Evangelical Alliance
• Gabe Lyons – Q
• Luis Palau
• George Wood – Assemblies of God
• Craig Groeschel – Life Church
• Denny Rydberg – Young Life
• Andrew Benton – Pepperdine University
• *Source for list*

 

I would like to point out the Premier date:

3.3.13.  Lets take a look at that number.  First of all, in the occult realm, 3 represents teh fusion of opposites into one, complete whole, resulting in complete knowledge.  Numerology has a rather graphic word-picture for it.  If one represents a force, and 2 represents an opening, then 3 represents the birth of enlightenment or wisdom.  Any multiple use or multiplication of a power-number simply represents degree, or ultimation of that power.  13 is the “divine number” of occultism and it, too represents illumination, in that 6 is the number of man, and is the number of perfection so the two added together, is the perfected or enlightened man.

So, I find it interesting that here is the Bible being taken “mainstream” on a date (remember these dates are chosen on purpose to invoke a “spiritual blessing” in the occult realm) that is so “sacred” to occultists.

In Bible numerics (the study of certain themes and topics coinciding with certain numbers having an established pattern in scripture) 3 also represents completion and divinity.  (Satan counterfeits everything God does).  God Himself is a trinity, three persons in one Godhead.  He dwells in the Third Heaven.  He established 3 Feasts in Deuteronomy (Weeks, Unlevened Bread a.k.a.. Passover,  and Tabernacles).  In resurrection we see it as Jesus raised Lazarus with 3 words; “Lazarus, come forth” and in baptism, the symbol of resurrection when we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and of course Jesus resurrected on the third day.

Now the number 13 in the Bible, is very interesting and gives a telling contrast to the satanic take on the number.  Considering where we are in history, I find it hard to dismiss these points about the meanings of numbers.  Thirteen in Scripture is always associated with rebellion and with drunkenness and depravity,  the beast, false prophet, false gods and Babylon the Great.  (Story of Sodom, Genesis 13:13, Jeremiah 13;13 drunkenness, King Saul’s foolishness I Sam. 13:13, Revelation 13 the beast rises up from the sea, thirteen words describe Satan’s fall in Isaiah 14:12-14 and there are thirteen evils that reside in the heart of man in Mark 7:21-23) (For your own study on these numbers in Scripture, download free E-Sword software, and do a search on “13:13″ or in “3″ to see if you find other incidences of recurrent themes associated with these numbers.  A great resource is The King James Code by Pastor Mike Hoggard and a fun blog to visit is The Divine Word for all you math-ie types out there.

Remember Grace

As Christians we are called to live an examined life.  We are to be set apart, in the world and not of it.  In our conversation, in our character, in our convictions, in our conduct, we should be a reflection of God.  The Christian life is designed to purify us, through trials and tribulations, struggles and losses.

And then there is GRACE.  Yes, we strive.  Yes we have a standard.  But when we compare ourselves to that standard, we will always fall woefully short.  Because the standard is Jesus and we are human, still subject to and limited by the flesh.  When we falter, when we are tired, when we have been scooped out and hollowed by the demands of Earthly life, God understands.  He is not so much of a taskmaster that He doesn’t understand the need to pull aside once in a while and just be still.

We are driven too hard by compulsory pressures.  We have to take stock once in a while and ask ourselves what the benefit is of all the ways we spend our time.  Even in terms of our jobs, or the kid’s activities, and yes, even church.  Sure, people are counting on us because we said we would go/do/be this, that or the other.  But how’s your marriage?  Is your spouse getting the time with you they deserve?  Are your kids?  How about the Lord? I mean, just sitting still, reading His Word and chatting with Him about what you have going on and saying thank you as you enumerate your blessings?

We ask more of ourselves than God does sometimes, I do believe.  We forget that God’s approval and love for us is not performance-based.  Our own confidence and self-approval may fluctuate wildly from one moment to the next, but God never changes.

Now, I know we live in a world where self-esteem has become the ultimate achievement.

I am not really talking to those of you who are “fine the way you are”, but rather to those who really live each moment conscientiously, striving to be a good steward of all your resources, whether internal or external.  People who put others first.  Moms who aspire to be a Proverbs 31 woman, teens who diligently aspire to rise above the cesspool of secular school and be a witness.  Businessmen who “finish last” for being honest, but are honest anyway.  Dads who work 65 hours a week, pay child support and still have to deal with a vindictive ex-wife who talks them down in front of their kids.  Those people who are doing the best they can, but never get ahead.  God sees.  He is taking note.  It is not wasted.  He is pleased with you.  And in a world where there are no standards anymore other than to be as rich and as hard and as invincible as possible, you still are willing to submit to God’s measure of value, though it is utter foolishness to the world.

My friend, we are almost there.  You can do it.  Keep caring even when it feels like you are the last.  Keep being honest, even if it costs you everything.  Keep obeying the Lord, even if they mock you.  Stand firm, and while others lift their heads in defiance, bow yours in humility and ask God for Grace for one more day.  Do not give sway to fear or to flesh.  Hang on until you can’t and then trust the Lord’s hand to catch you.

It’s okay. We aren’t all we hoped to be, but God has been working in ways we didn’t even know, and some day soon, we will understand it all.  God will unroll the tapestry and show us the upper side.

“Walk On” by Sandra T. Lloyd©

Underneath the overshadowing of my greatest fears

You walk with me while I struggle to see through the blur of my tears

You hold my hand and help me to walk on

When I knew I had nothing more to give, You made me put one foot in front of the other, promising you would take care of the rest, if I’d only do that.

“Just hold my hand, my child.  Never let go”, You said.  “That’s all I ask of you.  I will see to the rest”.

Somewhere out there tonight, while I am resting peacefully, there is a light on in a house in these wee hours.  A man is suffering, and holding Your hand in his own private darkness, while his wife lovingly does what she promised to do, on their wedding day.

And they walk on.

And somewhere tonight, in a poor neighborhood a woman falls into bed, exhausted, heartbroken as her husband slips away, leaving her in her grief, to hold it all together while no one seems to share her burdens.

You ask her to walk on.

“But we can’t, Lord”, we cry.

“Why should we?”, we ask.

“Because I have a plan”, You answer.

“But I just don’t see how all things work together for good!”

“My child, nothing touches you without my permission.  I will not call upon you to endure anything that I will not also provide a way for you to bear it.  Do not concern yourself with the details.  Some things you do not need to know.  Do you trust Me?”

“Yes, Lord, but it is so hard”.

“I know””, the Savior said, as a great drop of blood fell from His brow and mingled with the tears He cried for me………………..

“But walk on”

Copyright STLloyd 10.27.95

Hebrews 4:16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Image Source

There remaineth therefore a rest, for the people of God.  Hebrews 4:9

It’s been a hard “week”, but the Sabbath is coming!

He restoreth my soul!

 

Pastor Mike Hoggard’s Watchman Video series on ’7 The Sacred Number’

I realize not everyone has time to watch all of these lengthy vids, but I like to offer them so that you know they exist.  Pastor Hoggard’s own website on WordPress carries these.  His site is http://www.PastorMikeHoggard.com for those who enjoy his in-depth studies on these very interesting subjects to help your understanding of the Word.