Loving friends

Proverbs 17:17a (NIV)

A friend loves at all times.

   

This week as I kept up on Facebook I found so many of my friends are hurting in one way or another. Some are fighting the flu or other sickness. Some have financial problems. I even have a friend who was in a major accident and is unable to work. I am able as their friend to pray for them and send encouraging words.

 

Friends are so important. Not just because they are fun and enjoyable to be with but because they help you in times of need. God wants us to make good choices and pick good friends because friends are going to be there your whole life. If it’s one thing that will last, it is a really good friend.   Good friends have your back and are there for you. They are there to make you smile when you are sad. A true friend is a friend no matter what is going on around you. God wants us to remember that to have good friends we need to be a good friend too.

Are you being a good friend to someone today?

Dear God, thank you for this day. Thank You for the friends You have given us. We pray that we would treat them with love so they will see they are important. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Grace saves the day.

Ephesians 2:8-9  (NIV)

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Today my wife and I went to a Spring training game with the Detroit Tigers. As I watched them struggle to score runs it reminded me of a story I had read some time ago. As you read the story think about today's verse.

Freddy and the Lord stood by to observe a baseball game. The Lord's team was playing Satan's team. The Lord's team was at bat, the score was tied zero to zero, and it was the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs.

They continued to watch as a batter stepped up to the plate named Love. Love swung at the first pitch and hit a single, because "Love never fails."

The next batter was named Faith, who also got a single because Faith works with Love.

The next batter up was named Godly Wisdom. Satan wound up and threw the first pitch. Godly Wisdom looked it over and let it pass. Ball one. Three more pitches and Godly Wisdom walked because he never swings at what Satan throws.

The bases were now loaded. The Lord then turned to Freddy and told him He was now going to bring in His star player. Up to the plate stepped Grace.

Freddy said, "He sure doesn't look like much!"

Satan's whole team relaxed when they saw Grace. Thinking he had won the game, Satan wound up and fired his first pitch. To the shock of everyone, Grace hit the ball harder than anyone had ever seen! But Satan was not worried; his center fielder let very few get by. He went up for the ball, but it went right through his glove, hit him on the head and sent him crashing on the ground. The roaring crowds went wild as the ball continued over the fence for a home run!

The Lord's team won!

The Lord then asked Freddy if he knew why Love, Faith and Godly Wisdom could get on base but couldn't win the game. Freddy answered that he didn't know why. The Lord explained, "If your love, faith and wisdom had won the game, you would think you had done it by yourself. Love, Faith and Wisdom will get you on base but only My Grace can get you home."

Dear Lord, thank You for the grace that You give to each of us. Help us remember that it is by Your grace that we can join You in Heaven. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Hudson Taylor and prayer

Colossians 4:2 (NIV)

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

The older I get the more I am learning about the power of prayer. God continues to teach me that we need to have the faith when we pray. An example of this can be seen by Hudson Taylor’s response to the captain in the story  that follows.

Hudson Taylor was a man of great faith in God, as well as a great missionary. When he first went to China, it was in a sailing vessel. Very close to the shore of a cannibal island the ship was becalmed, and it was slowly drifting shore ward, unable to go about, and the inhabitants of the island were eagerly anticipating a feast. The captain came to Mr. Taylor and besought him to pray for the help of God.

"I will," said Taylor, "provided you set your sail to catch the breeze."

The captain declined to make himself a laughing stock by unfurling sails in a dead calm.

Taylor said, "I will not undertake to pray for the vessel unless you will prepare the sails."

And it was done. The missionary retired to his stateroom to pray. While engaged in prayer, there was a knock at his door.

"Who is there?"

The captain's voice responded, "Are you still praying for wind?"

"Yes."

"Well," said the captain, "you'd better stop praying, for we have more wind than we can well manage."

And, sure enough, when but a hundred yards from shore, a strong wind struck the sails of the boat, so that the inhabitants of the island were cheated out of their human prey.

Dear Lord, we thank You for the lesson we can learn for Hudson Taylor. Help us do our part when we pray to show our faith in You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. 

A Chicken Laid our Bibles

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I was reading through my emails today and this title caught my eye. After reading I just had to share it. 

The email was as follows: My grandfather had an amazing memory. When other members of his family came to join him in rural Gansu province, he taught us about Christ from the fragments of verses he learned from a pastor.

In 1995 my grandfather gathered us all together. He said he had bad news. "I have taught you of Christ for over fifteen years from the memory of a pastor who died so I might have faith. But I have no more to teach you. I committed about five hundred verses of the Scripture to memory from that pastor, and I have expounded each of them to you a hundred ways since then. It is time for us to find the rest of the sacred texts."

We all looked at each other. This sounded impossible. We did not even know that what we were looking for was called a "Bible." For all we knew, there may have been thousands of different scriptures. In fact, that's what we assumed, since that's what the Daoists have.

We said to him, "But who will find us these texts?"

He replied, "God will; we must pray." We prayed... and prayed... and prayed. For two years we prayed. Nothing happened. But for the faith of my grandfather, I think some of us would have moved to another faith. He was firm: "God is testing us to see if we are really His. We must keep trusting and keep faithful."

One Sunday a few of us were praying, and a chicken came into our house. She clucked and made a great noise and then promptly laid an egg. We did not know where she had come from, so my grandfather tied some money to the leg of the chicken. It was only about 10 cents. The chicken strutted off with an injured air from the whole experience. We knew she would return to her owner.

Less than an hour later there was a loud cry on the street. Someone was yelling, "Who tied money to my chicken? Who tied money to my chicken?" The voice sounded angry, but my grandfather replied without hesitation, "It was me."

The man came into our little house. A well-dressed man who had soft hands and was very well groomed followed him. He said in a cultured voice, "I am a high ranking member of the Communist party in Beijing."

Our hearts sank. What was he going to do?

"I have never heard of such honesty in all my life," he said. "This is astonishing. I have just come from Beijing to visit my brother after being betrayed and deceived. I lost lots of money."

He turned to my grandfather and said, "My government desperately needs your spirit of scrupulous honesty. If only there were more like you in China. Tell me, what makes you so honest?"

My grandfather answered him in two words: "Jesus Christ!"

The Communist official seemed to smile to himself and then asked, "Can I do anything for you?"

My grandfather, with the boldness of a long life, said, "We would like to find the sacred texts of Christ!"

The official looked at him, puzzled. "What do you mean `sacred texts'? Don't you mean a Bible?"

It was the Communist official who told us what a Bible was.

Again the boldness of my grandfather staggered me. He asked the official, "Can you help us get a copy?"

The official smiled openly now. He made no promise, but merely said, "I will see what I can do."

The official went back to Beijing, but nothing happened. Months went by. We continued to pray. Then a young man appeared in the village, asking for us. He pulled out from his tote-bag seven brand ­new Bibles.

We asked him, "How did you know to come here to us?"

He said, "I am part of a network of house churches, and one of our leaders was arrested in Beijing last year. While he was in jail, he was visited by a high ­ranking public official, who said, `If I let you go, will you promise to deliver a Bible to an old man and his family in Gansu?' Our leader said he would see to it. The next day he was released and given a piece of paper with your grandfather's address on it."

That's why we say, "A chicken laid our Bibles!"

That is such a cool story of how God worked through a chicken. I pray with each egg that we donate that my chickens lay that God will use them in a mighty way.  If you would like to find out more how you can make a donation to supply chicks for families in need click here to go to Samaritan’s purse.

Dear Lord, we thank You for Your Word. I pray that we would take the time each day to read it so that we may know You better. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

My Spiritual Birthday 46

John 3:3-7 (NIV)

3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’

Today is my spiritual birthday. Today marks the 46th anniversary of the day I gave my heart to Jesus Christ. It was promotion Sunday and after we marched together as a class to our new Sunday School department our leaders shared with us how we could be forgiven for our sins and become a child of God. As we were dismissed to go to class Mrs. Rose said if anyone was interested in talking more about having our sins forgiven and becoming a child of God to stay after.  I stayed after and on March 9, 1969 I asked Jesus to forgive me for the things I had done and wanted to be his child forever.

So today I celebrate the day that I was born of the Spirit. Today I celebrate the day I confessed Jesus as Lord. Today I celebrate my second birth. Praise God today I can celebrate that I was born again.

If you want to know more about what I am talking about I would be happy to share with you how you can know for sure that you are a child of God. 

Dear Lord, I thank You for knitting me together in my mother’s womb and for creating me so wonderfully! Thank You for the day of my birth! But more than that, Lord, I thank You for giving me a new birth through my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. I thank You Lord not only giving me life, but that my life continues on with You after I leave this earthly existence. I thank You that I can live forever in Your very presence enjoying all that You have planned for me in eternity. Today I pray for those who don’t know You and haven’t experienced that re-birth that they will give their hearts and lives to You today! In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Joy comes in the morning.

Psalm 30:5 (NIV)

For his anger lasts only a moment,

    but his favor lasts a lifetime;

weeping may stay for the night,

    but rejoicing comes in the morning.

So many people are hurting because of the poor economy, rumors of wars, facing terminal diseases and attacks of Christians around the world some people have given up hope and some even contemplating suicide.

Where is our world heading? So much pain! So much suffering! Is there really a light at the end of the tunnel?

Thinking of this brings me to remember the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. When the tide is at its lowest, it cripples businesses. Literally thousands of boats find themselves on dry land! It's at these times that we can truly become desperate and hopeless.

Six hours and 13 minutes later, however, the boats find themselves back in the seawater as incoming tides can raise boats up to 53 feet. They are back in business. They are back to the heights of the ocean.

The high tide will always come back! Of that we can be certain! As we read in our verse God promises us something even more powerful: "Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." (Ps 30:5 NIV)

We will always experience trouble on this Earth but just like the high tide in the Bay of Fundy, rejoicing will always return.

Instead of mourning, we should be rejoicing! Instead of being discouraged we should be thanking God in song! He will take care of us!

Dear Lord, we thank You that in the darkest lowest times You are still there and that Joy comes in the morning. Help us completely put our trust in You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Why do you go to church?

Hebrews 10:25 (NIV)

Not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Erik the Red, a ferocious Viking descendant living in newly established Iceland, followed in the footsteps of his dad. His father had come to Iceland after being expelled from Norway for an unjustified killing, and now Erik faced the same trouble: banishment from Iceland for 3 years.

Would we like to have friends like that?

But where do you go when you’ve been banished from the land you stand on, and all you can see is endless ocean water?

Erik was a proud man, and he decided to look for a rumored land further west. He set out in a boat, and he eventually landed on an island covered year-round with ice. He probably thought that this island was more suited to be called “Iceland” than his native home, which has a more moderate weather pattern. None-of-the-less, upon his return to Iceland, Erik enticed settlers to follow him to this new land by calling it Greenland.

Pretty deceiving, don’t you think?

Is it any wonder that Erik’s oldest son, Leif, also went looking for new lands farther West? But Leif did not follow in his father’s steps. He broke the pattern established by his ancestors, for crime did not force him to leave his land. In fact, he never caused trouble. He loved to help others. In fact, he earned the title of “Leif the Lucky” for himself by saving victims of a shipwreck.

So why was it that Leif broke the generational pattern? Why was he so “lucky”? Because Leif was a Christian. Jesus, the Christ was His Master.

Aren't we the lucky ones as well? There is hope, even with all the  patterns geared towards crime!

And for someone living in the 10th century, there was hope of finding the rumored land in the West, and Leif was the one to discover it. He called it “Vinland”, which in English means “Wine Land”, because of the abundance of wild grapes that grew there. Artifacts of Leif’s brief stay in “Vinland” can still be found in the area we now know by the name of L’Anse aux Meadows, situated on the northern tip of Canada’s Newfoundland. Leif the Lucky had discovered North America!

Being a Christian, Leif knew the importance of attending church. This is what he found out about why any believer wouldn’t want to miss such meetings.

The Bible also encourages us to not miss church!

We have all experienced times when our hope needs revival, especially now that we live in end times. Trouble is ever brewing, but hope can look beyond these difficulties, for our future as sons and daughters of the Almighty is guaranteed!

“One of the best things to do when we become discouraged is to become involved in helping others who are in need. This is one of the best ways to discover how God has really been at work! And where else but in church are we able to help others?

Dear Lord, we thank You that we can go into Your house and worship You. We pray that when we assemble together that we would be a blessing to those around us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.