Words

                                                              
Hi Friendly People,
   This is a subject that is vital to our growth as followers of Christ. Our mouths are the the rudders that guide our lives. We hurt people, cause strife and invite some really nasty stuff in our lives by what we say about ourselves and others.... Let us yield this powerful tool to God so He won't have to put an invisible bit in our mouths. Hope some of these Scriptures will hit home. I know I need to repent and change how I use the power of words. Let us bring glory to God and encouragement to His people; that includes ourselves.

Matthew 12
V19 He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets.

Matthew 12
V35 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him,
V36 but I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgement for every careless word they have spoken
V37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

Luke 6
V45 The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.
V46 And why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say.
James 1
V26 If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless.
James1
V21 Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

   We can spend alot of time reading and hearing the words of God, but if we don't take authority over our thoughts we end up regurgitating grossness on people. Let us hold fast and bear fruit with perseverance!

Luke 8
V11 Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.
V15 And the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.

John1
V1 In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the Word was God.

Revelation 12
V11 They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they didn't love their life even until death.

   We all understand the power of God's word both spoken and written but in order to stay in freedom this is an area of our lives that must be controlled by our spirit. Our heart's desire is to have a testimony that will offer grace to others at all times.

Pastor James will be teaching on the body, soul and spirit connection this week; check it out on the web at http://www.wateroflifesummit.org/

1 Peter
V11 Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were the utterances of God, whoever serves let him do so with  the strength God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Proverbs22
V10 Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended.
V11 He who loves a pure heart and whose speech is gracious will have the king as his friend.
   
Matthew 15
V18 " But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.
V19 " For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
V20 "These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man."

    The only way to give life, speak life, is to know the life source; Jesus, the lover of your soul. He is the faithful friend, the true love of our lives, He will not loosen His embrace around you. Let him teach us new things to say about ourselves, then we can speak those same things into people around us and into circumstances!

Ephesians 4
V29 Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Psalms 34
V12 Who is the man who desires life, And loves the length of days that he may see good?
V13 Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.
V14 Depart from evil, and do good; Seek peace, and pursue it.

The power of words...

                                                       Never give up, Never give in!
                  ( Never give up fighting those negative thoughts, Never give in to speaking them)

Shine in Every Circumstance

Hi Friendly people,
    Sometimes we question the "Power of God" as the enemy circles us and whispers his foul thoughts around our heads, inputting doubts about our ability to be freed from our circumstance. The focus must change from why am I here to what do you God want me to do while I am here.

Isaiah 11
V3 And He will delight in the fear of the Lord, And  He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear.

Acts 7  Steven with boldness confronted a crowd with truth inciting them to such rage, that he was stoned to death as they hurled rocks at him. Still completely submitted to God as he takes the blows of each rock he cries out, "Don't hold this sin against them."  He was still in control of the situation and of his thoughts. He had died to himself long before.

Daniel 1  Daniel when taken into exile and forced to the customs and beliefs of a culture he considered to be unclean did not cry out, "God why have you forsaken me". He pressed in, deciding he would be God's light in the darkness of his situation. Although surrounded by evil, outnumbered spiritually in a foreign land he held his faith cherished and guarded. He denied the pleasures offered him so he could remain faithful to God. Daniel shined in darkness!

1 Kings 18   Elijah out numbered by 850 prophets, Elijah being the only prophet that hadn't been killed, is not the least bit intimidated; he goes on to prove God's magnificent power. He is so bold as to mock them openly in their belief of impotent gods. Elijah ends his display of God's power by killing the prophets! They simply refused to choose!

   People of significance are risk takers and are always looking at the motives of their directives. They are purpose driven. We must know who and who's we are. If not, we will hopelessly fail when our obedience is challenged; and it will be challenged at every level! We will have to trust God many times standing alone with absolutely no human props, stand when approval has abandoned us, and be brave when our knees are shaking with fear.
   Most will say, "Forget this!, I want love, and I need approval."
  "I want to be admired and esteemed!"

Isaiah 53
V3 He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
V4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried ; Yet, we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
   We really need to check our hearts on this one. Do we see our affliction as unfair?

James 1
V12 Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him
V13 Let no one say when he is tempted , "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.
V14 Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
V15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

 Let's bear fruit in every circumstance!!!!!

John 14
V27 "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."
John 15
V7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you."

  Makes you feel so free just like this guy.

                                                        Never give up, Never give in!

Fear of Man

Hello Friendly People
Looking at Elijah Chapter 19 today.
    Elijah is in a state of fear and depression and finds himself full of disgust as he sits under a tree and requests that he might die.
V4 He said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers."
    We have all read this and can remember a day when we were so utterly done that we were certain we wouldn't make it through another day. He looks around him, sin is rampant, evil people are in charge and he is sure the days of the Godly prophets are over. God hears him, as He does us, when we cry out in pain. God commissions Elijah to anoint Elisha as his replacement.
   Do you wonder  what your reaction would be if you are plowing away in the fields and the most respected prophet, the one everyone feared as knowing the very voice of God, approaches you and covers you with his cloak?  I don't know enough about bible history to know if they were already acquainted and if Elisha knew this was coming or not. He does say, "let me kiss my folks goodbye." Done -just like that! No questions asked. My wonder is this, didn't Elisha know that all the prophets had been killed? That he and Elijah would be next? That Jezebel had already put the word out for Elijah's assassination? What courage! No fear here.......What must God do in us to push us past fear of men, fear of failure?

   Charles Swindoll writes about a very brave soul who persevered in great discouragement and pain. See how fast you can identify him.

   "There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen....(and) now he belongs to the ages."

When he was seven, his family was forced out of their home because of a legal technicality. He had to work to help support them.
At age nine, his mother died.
At age twenty-two, he lost his job, wanted to go to law school but was not educated enough.
At twenty-three, he went into debt to become a partner in a small store.
Three years later his business partner died, leaving him a huge debt that took years to repay.
At age twenty-eight, after developing a romantic relationship with a young lady for four years, he asked her to marry him. She said no.
An earlier youthful love he shared with a lovely girl ended in heartache at her death.
At thirty-seven, on his third try, he was finally elected to Congress.
Two years later he ran again and failed to be re-elected. I should add it was about this time he had what some would call a nervous breakdown.
At forty-five, he ran for the Senate and lost.
Two years later, he was defeated for the nomination for Vice President.
At forty-nine, he ran for the Senate again....and lost.
Add to this an endless barrage of criticism, misunderstanding, ugly and false rumors, and deep periods of depression and you realize it's no wonder he was snubbed by his peers and despised by multitudes, hardly the envy of his day.
At fifty-one, however, he was elected President of the United States.......but his second term was cut short by assassination.
   By now you know it was the most inspirational and highly regarded President in American history, Abraham Lincoln.
  What a strange lot we are! Enamored by the dazzling lights, the fickle applause of the public, the splash of success, we seldom trace the lines that led to the flimsy and fleeting pinnacle. Bitter hardship. Unfair and undeserved abuses. Loneliness and loss. Humiliating failures. Debilitating disappointments. Agony beyond comprehension suffered in the valley and crevices of the climb from bottom to top. How short sighted!
   Instead of accepting the fact that no one deserves the right to lead without first perservering through pain and heartache and failure, we resent those intruders. We treat them as enemies, not friends, capricious gods. They are not hurriedly stuck onto skin like tattoos. No, those who are really worth following have paid their dues. They have come through the furnace melted, beaten, reshaped, and tempered. To use the words of the teacher from Tarsus, they bear in their bodies "the brand-marks of Jesus" (Galatians 6:17) Or, as one paraphrases it, they carry  "the scars of the whipping and wounds" which link them to all mankind.

Write down five painful times from your life which have contributed toward who you are today. Thank God for what those trials produced in you.

The Landlord

   Have you ever had the week, the year, the life from........... Let us  hear from the greatest sufferer of all time, Job. He confidently knows who his deliverer is and in Who's strength his future is held.

Chapter9
V1 Then Job answered
V2 In truth I know that this is so; But how can a man be in the right before God?
V3 If one wished to dispute with Him, He could not answer Him once in a thousand times.
V4 Wise in heart and mighty in strength, who has defied Him without harm?
V5 It is God who removes mountains, they know not how, when He overturns them in anger;
V6 Who shakes the earth out of it's place, and it's pillars to tremble.
V7 Who commands the sun not to shine, and sets a seal upon the stars.
V8 Who alone stretches out the heavens and tramples down the waves of the sea,
V9 Who makes the Bear, Orion and the Pleides, and the chambers of the south,
V10 Who does great things, unfathomable, and wondrous works without number.

   Anyone who has had problems battling in there mind for freedom and deliverance will tell you it's very difficult, until you believe Jesus really will deal with the enemy for you. I read this story and thought it worth passing on. Larry Christenson writes.
   Think of yourself as living in an apartment house. You live there under a landlord who has made you miserable. He charges you exorbitant rent. When you can't pay, he loans you money at a fearful rate of interest, to get you even further into his debt. He barges into your apartment at all hours of the day and night, wrecks and dirties the place up, then charges you extra for not maintaining the premises. Your life is miserable.
   Then comes Someone who says, "I've taken over this apartment house. I've purchased it, you can live here as long as you like, free. The rent is paid up and I am going to be living here with you, in the manager's apartment."
   What a joy! You are saved! You are delivered out of the clutches of the old landlord!
   But what happens? You hardly have time to rejoice in your new found freedom, when a knock comes at the door. And there he is the old landlord! Mean, glowering, and demanding as ever. He has come for rent, he says.
   What do you do? Do you pay him? Of course, you don't! Do you go out and pop him in the nose? No- he's bigger than you are!
   You confidently tell him. "You'll have to take that up with the new Landlord." He may bellow, threaten, and cajole. You just quietly tell him, "Take it up with the new Landlord."  If he comes back a dozen times, with all sorts of threats and arguments, waving legal-looking documents in your face, you simply tell him yet once again. "Take it up with the new Landlord." In the end he has to. He knows it, too. He just hopes that he can bluff and threaten and deceive you into doubting that the new Landlord will really take care of things.
   Now this is the situation of a Christian. Once Christ has delivered you from the power of sin and the devil, you can depend on it: that old landlord will soon come back knocking at your door. And what is your defense? How do you keep him from getting the whip hand over you again? You send him to the new Landlord. You send him to Jesus.

 Recently I hit a place in my own life that shattered my confidence, I thought surely I was finally down for the count. I spent several nights, in the wee hours, in my back yard and cried out to God . When I looked into the night sky and the expanse of His awesomeness, I could see how small my issue was in the scene of heaven. He, the master of this universe, could certainly touch my situation. He did touch me, though not my circumstance, He empowered me to walk through it.
                                                   Never give up, Never give in

Sweet Aroma

Hello, Friendly People

   Thinking about the role of the wife today. Women so struggle with this issue. We read about the perfect woman in Proverbs 31, and  the wayward woman in Proverbs 7. How we should be loving and submitted in Ephesians and James. Then we read about Abigail.  Seems confusing but it's not, read on.

1 Samuel 25
    Abigail prepares gifts and food for David and his men, without her husband's knowledge. Her husband Nabal had rejected David's request for hospitality, thus bringing certain disaster on himself and his household. David planned to destroy all the men, property and household of Nabal.

V24 She fell at his (David's) feet, "On me alone, mine alone, my lord, be the blame."
V25 "Please do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless man, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. (his name means fool).

   Abigail by her beautiful disposition wins David's favor and he relents of his plans of bloodshed. She is unable to approach her husband because he has been eating and drinking the day away. He had a feast prepared for himself while an army of men went hungry, further confirming his character. She would use discernment and wait to tell him all that had happened when he sobered up.

V37 In the morning when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him all that had happened, and his heart died within him so that he became as a stone.
V40 David asks for her hand in marriage.

Ephesians 5
V1-2 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
V21 Be subject to one another in the fear of the Lord.
V22 Wives be subject to your own husbands as unto the Lord.
V23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He himself being Savior of the body.
V24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husband's in everything.

   God asks us to be subject to others so He can bless us. God knows if the person you have to be subject to is worthy, that's not our business, obedience to Christ is. When we lay ourselves in His perfect care He will always make our situation bearable. Even Nabal respected and trusted Abigail otherwise she wouldn't have had the access to all his goods and been able to act so speedily in preparing the gifts for David; she needed the help of many servants to accomplish it. God is not asking us to do nothing, but to do it with honor and respect for God first, the rest will have God's influence and will succeed.

Ephesians 6
V5 Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ;
V6 not by way of eye service, as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.
V7 with good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men,
V8 knowing that what ever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether free or slave.
This story, "A Rap at the Door", by Henry Davenport Northrup, D.D. Shows the same charity that Abigail showed David and his men.
   Some years ago, a pious widow in our own country, who was reduced to great poverty, had just layed the last smoked herring on her table, to stave off her hunger and that of her children, when a rap was heard at the door, and a stranger solicited a lodging and a morsel of food, saying that he had not tasted bread for twenty-four hours. The widow did not hesitate, but offered a share to the stranger, saying:  "We shall not be forsaken, or suffer deeper for an act of charity."
   The traveler drew near to the table; but when he saw the scanty fare, filled with astonishment, he said:  "And is this all your store? And do you offer a share to one you do not know? Then I never saw charity before! But, madam, do you not wrong your children, by giving a part of your last morsel to a stranger."
   "Ah!" said the widow weeping, "I have a boy, a darling son, somewhere on the face of the wide world, unless heaven has taken him away; and I only act towards you as I would that others should act towards him. God, who sent manna from heaven, can provide for us as he did for Israel; and how should I this night offend him, if my son should be a wanderer, destitute as you, and he should have provided for him a home, even as poor as this, were I to turn you unreceived away!"
   The widow stopped, and the stranger springing from his seat, clasped her in his arms. "God, indeed, has provided just such a home for your wandering son, and has given him wealth to reward the goodness of his benefactress, My mother! O, my mother!"
   It was indeed her long-lost son, returned from India. He had chosen this way to surprise his family.

                                                      Never give up, Never give in

The Mourner

  
Hello Friendly People,
   This is a story about a woman (Naomi) who's life was filled with great loss. She mourned the loss of not only her husband but her sons as well, her possessions and protection too. She was also in a foreign country and with two widowed daughter-in-laws to worry about. I marvel at the brave steps she takes in believing her God. Naomi looked at loss and adversity with vigor and strength. With this kind of faith she most certainly would rise again. She was eager to be back in the land of her God, where possibility was still alive. Her daughter-in-law Ruth chooses devotion and follows Naomi to her home land. This story is a must read when your faith is being challenged. God restores her and gives her faithful love from her daughter-in-law and a protective, honorable son-in-law. God filled her loss with love and honor as He will do for anyone who sees Him as their source and refuge.

Matthew 5:4
V4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

The story ends with Ruth 4:14
V14 Then the women said to Naomi, " Blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel.
V15 May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him."
V16 Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her lap, and became his nurse.
V17 The neighbor women gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi!" So they named him Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

   I think maybe this scripture was ringing in her ears when she hit the wall of devastation.

Isaiah 43:18-19.
V18 Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder the things of the past.
V19 Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the dessert.

   This is a story about choosing life or death, the hand of God and trust it; or move into self pity and die destitute. She chose to stay faithful in prosperity and in destitute, which paved the way for her steadfastness to bear it's fruit later.

    There is an old Greek story told by Mr. Spurgeon, about a soldier under Antigonus, one of Alexander's famous generals, who had a painful disease which was likely to bring him soon to the grave. This soldier was always first in the charge, and was the bravest of the brave. His pain prompted him to fight that he might forget it, and he was not afraid of death, for he knew he had not long to live. Antigonus greatly admired the valor of this soldier, and he had his malady cured by an eminent physician. From that moment his valor was gone. He sought ease and safety; for, he said," I now have something to live for - health, home, family, etc.

   I have called Joseph (pictured below), "Obed" when he has needed great devotion and perseverance. He knows to always finish strong because the last thing you do is what people remember. It doesn't matter how much you've done previous, it's how you finish. Our flesh will always scream for relief, but God is always faithful to give us true courage and true strength. God has always helped Joe and Amanda, his wife, to finish strong even under great heartache and persecution. Keep their family in your prayers as they make many life decisions. I'll end with the words I heard from Joseph.

                                                            Never give up, Never give in.