Monday, March 30, 2009

"Call to Action"


Here the just three MAIN headlines I woke up this morning..


1. "8 killed in Nursing Home shooting"


2. " 6 killed in California home shooting"


3. " Man decapitates 5 yr old, kills sister"


I thought to myself..what in the world is happening to our country?...Why on earth would anyone do such horrific acts of injustice and malice?... Has this become the norm that we just read over these articles and fancy about our day?..Does anyone feel like shaking this country back to our roots..our God centered, Christian principled way of living...versus this liberalized society that we have become that has booted God out of our lives to the degree that we are questioning whether or not God's name should ever be used in any setting due to it possibly offending someone..I have righteous anger this morning over what this country is turning into..and how we as Christians are not willing to lead by example..to show our neighbors, friends, co workers, countrymen how a life centered on God looks like..We have diluted our Faith so much that we simply blend into society..No longer do we stand out and stand for God..Well we might be called a Religious nutcase, or a fundamentalist or an intolerant person..Folks we are losing the moral battle in this country and it is centered around the exclusion of God in our lives..The further we push Him away, the further we sink into this moral cess pool we are in..If we could see ourselves from God's perspective, I am sure we look like a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah or Corinth.. Corinth...the most important city in Greece during Paul's day, was a bustling hub of worldwide commerce, degraded culture and idolatrous religion.. Does that sound at all familiar..


Folks the sounding call has been sent out for we as Christians to mobilize in this world..We need to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone in earshot and beyond..We have to take seriously our command to obey God and live our life according to His commands..not some feel good worldly type that fits into this worldly system we live in..It is time for us to take a stand..We will stand for Christ or we will bow out and retreat and allow our families, neighborhoods, towns, cities and states to be run a muck.. We need courageous battle ready Christians to assist in this warfare over our lives and stand our ground before it is ripped from underneath us..


The vocal minority has been reeking havoc in our lives..They have managed to demonize Christians and fully embrace degraded thinking..They have minimized our influence and spread their filth around parading it as the new era, or new way of thinking..the modern 21st century way of living..They have ridiculed our way of life and worked very hard to normalize idolatrous and sexually immoral behavior..


WE MUST WAKE UP AND HEED OUR CALL!!


This is the verse I was take to in the Word when reading those article mentioned above


Romans 1:28-32 (The Message)
28-32Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best


Folks..If we believe every word of the bible to be True and God breathed..(I do)..then this verse ought to scare you to action..This is exactly what is happening in our world..


The sub title of this little section on Romans Chapter 1 is "God's Wrath on Unrighteousness"..This is God's wrath.. God turning the nation loose over to their vile passions..Basically God is stepping aside and allowing us to destroy ourselves..A form of Wrath is to lift His protection from us..and let us do as we please..


EB

Thursday, March 26, 2009

On My Heart !!

I wanted to share some excerpts from the Manly Dominion Book I am reading with the 1:28 class..I read several chapters today and felt an extremely strong calling to apply this to my/our life..I am not sure why the strong tug on my heart and soul, but I certainly want to be sensitive to this type of feeling whenever I get it..

Chapter 16 - Personal Devotions - As a Christian, my heart is a well. The land of my Christian Life is teeming with hostile forces determined to do me harm by separating me from my water source. The world hourly blows in the burying sands of vanity. My flesh (indwelling sin) welcomes in unclean sights and sounds that putrefy the waters. The devil works hard with distractions to harass and dispute my every attempt to drink deeply.

My heart will be kept open, fresh and clear only by my aggressively watching, guarding and keeping the condition of my heart. Passive negligence in my devotional life will result in certain famine.

I should understand my heart is disputed territory. If I go to the prayer closet and discover that my heart is stopped up with apathy and carnality I should not be surprised or deflated. When I find my heart stopped up, it is not time to turn away from the prayer closet with a bone dry bucket. It is time for me to roll up my sleeves and get to work. It is time to do some holy digging by resolute prayer, attentive reading and purposeful meditation. We must not say with fainting dejection "I must be missing something", simply because were habitually required to work at keeping our hearts in a good condition. Heart keeping is a standard daily chore of every Christian.

JC Ryle writes " This paper may fall into the hands of someone who reads the bible much, and yet fancies he is no better for his reading. This is a crafty temptation of the devil. At one stage he says "Do not read the bible at all" and at another he says "Your reading does you no good; give it up". Are you that man? Do you think you are getting no good from the bible, merely because you do not see that good day by day.(This is me). The greatest effects are by no means those which make the most noise and are most easily observed. The greatest effects are often silent, quiet, and hard to detect at the time they are being produced. The word may be gradually producing deep impressions on your heart, of which you are not present or aware....settle it down in your mind as an established rule, that, whether you feel it at the moment or not, you are inhaling spiritual health by reading the bible, and insensibly becoming more strong.

In our personal devotional lives, we can not permit ourselves to be pushed around by our environment. We can not let ourselves be bullied by the world, the flesh and the devil..

That chapter spoke volumes to me and was exactly what I needed to hear as I felt I was getting a parched throat from my study and not the refreshing waters I thought I should..This chapter encouraged me in this area to persevere.

Chapter 17 - Family Devotions - Do you think after the famfest weekend and now this chapter that God is desperately trying to get my attention with regards to my role and spiritual leader of the home and my role and leader of family devotions..I would say emphatically YES

What father would be so uncaring as to negligently permit his family to suffer chronic dehydration of their souls? The head of the household is solemnly responsible to provide spiritual hydration for his whole household; he is the spiritual "irrigation system" for his family.

Our wives are our assigned fields whose souls were to conscientiously cultivate and irrigate with the hoe and water of the word..and each child composes an additional field that the Lord has solemnly assigned to our estates. A loving and godly man will make it a conscientious priority to spiritually nurture every soul that has been appointed to his care (Whew!!)

God fearing parents also are assigned the task of continuously communicating the words of God to their children. Deut 6:7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Soul cultivation needs to be our chief priority. It is quite easy for series of devotionless days to become devotionless weeks, then a devotionless month, then a devotionless year and ultimately a devotionless upbringing in your home

Lets liken our children's soul as an Olympic size swimming pool. If each day, you poured a large pail of water into the pool, by the end of twenty years, you would have some real depth. It would be nearly full to the brim. On the other hand, if you forgot to pour on half the days, the pool would hardly be swimmable . If you neglected pouring on most days, the pool would barely have any water. Do we want our children to have spiritual depth? or are we content for them to be spiritually shallow? Before you know it, your children will be gone an out of the house. The brief day of parenting will soon be over. Today is the day to start pouring so grab hold of your solemn chore to irrigate our families with the Word..

JW Alexendar said " There is no member of a household who individual piety is of such importance to all the rest, as the father or the head: and there is no one whose soul is so directly influenced by the exercise of family worship. Where the head of the family is lukewarm or worldly, he will send the chill through the whole house; and if any happy exception occur, and one or another surpass him in faithfulness, it will be in spite of his evil example....Where the head of a family is a man of faith, of affection and of zeal, consecrating all his works and life to Christ, it is very rare to find all his household otherwise minded"

Chapter 18 - Churchmanship - Prevailing attitudes toward church attendance are of the "I'll participate if I feel like it" variety. I'll participate as long as I feel like it and as long as it's cheap. As long as it's convenient and pleasant. I'll partake. But if your asking me to miss some of my entertainment, rearrange my weekends, weary my body, re prioritize my life or deny myself, then I am not really interested....

Many view their duty toward the church as fluctuating with their feelings. NO longer is church a sacred house where worshipers come to serve the Lord. Now the church has become an amusement park where thrill seekers come to amuse themselves. The pop culture perversion of church has conditioned many to say "What do you offer for me today?" verses the scriptures calling of "How can I serve the Lord today?

The Lord is worthy of our first fruits..the cream..of our lives

The following are guidelines for true churchmanship
1. Regarding attendance - So help me God, my family and I will be there. It will be a priority in our schedules. We would never miss work or class or soccer games because of a sniffle. Why is a sniffle an excuse to miss worship. Why should our employer get a higher priority treatment than our Savior

2. Regarding Worship - So help me God, I will not sit passively back in my pew, waiting to be entertained, but will gird up the loins of my mind, and expend concentration energy as I worship in Spirit and truth. We should be willing to isometrically press our minds against his the sermon for the full duration. If we can give our attention over for three consecutive hours to a football game, surely we can give nearly an hour to listening to God's word preached. The pagan world get well over 100 hours of our waking attention per week..Why should we begrudge the preached Word getting two or three hours of our full attention in the same span?

3. Regarding Service - So help me God, I will sacrificially give myself to serving my local church ministry. A valiant churchman willingly serves his turn in the nursery, and sometimes cheerfully fills in when somebody else forgets. He volunteers to drive the older handicapped saint to church. He is willing to burn the Saturday night midnight oil to teach a Sunday School class. He is willing to habitually go beyond the comfort zone of his familiar friends in order to greet and meet visitors and even invite them over to his home for hospitality. He receives from his Lord and Savior "Well done, thou good and faithful servant"

4. Regarding Public Praying - So help me God, I will take up my solemn duty to carry my share of the load of leading groups in prayer..

5. Regarding Financial giving - So help me God, I will give faithfully and sacrificially to the cause of the Your church and Your Kingdom - To pluck a weed from the roadside and present it to a sovereign would be no better than an insult. Yet how often is God served with that which costs men nothing! Men will lavish hundreds and thousands to gratify their own fancy, what miserable driblets they often give to the cause of God!

Chapter 19 Conversion - Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all of our righteous deeds are like filthy garments: and all of us wither like a leaf and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away

Faith is connection with Christ. Christ is on the shore, so to speak, holding the rope of faith and if we lay hold of it with the hand of our confidence, He pulls us to shore. But our good works, having no connection with Christ, are drifted along the gulf of despair. Grapple them as tightly as we may, even with hooks of steel, they can not avail us in the least degree. We can't save ourselves by our good works..but Jesus came to do what we could not do..There on His back, He bore the load of sinners

How can I know if I am really saved? If you are genuinely saved, the Holy Spirit lives in you as a down payment of your salvation. His presence will be observable as He will warm your soul to the things of God, resulting in the gradual melting away of patterns of sin. He produces a love for the Savior and a hatred for sin.

If your life is blanketed with habits and patterns of sin, if your heart is consistently hard and cold to the Bible's urgings and warnings, if your soul is a stranger to the Spirit's stirring up within you a love of Christ that desires to obey His Word, then you have good reason to doubt your salvation. 2 Corinthians 13:5 " test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail the test?

I really felt led to write this all out as it has weighed on my soul very heavy today..and having read all this one and now writing it all down again has forced me to deal with these issues head on in my own life..There are moments in our life on earth that we need to heed the words spoken to us and to apply them to our lives..and not just intellectually understand what we read..This has caused me to think about myself in all these areas and how I conduct myself..where my strengths are and exposing the areas I need serious work on and guidance and strength from God..I just know God is looking out for us and desires for us to do things His way...and if we will do things His way, the wisdom, grace, mercy and Love will runneth over in our very own lives..

EB (footnote - Manly Dominion by Mark Chanski)

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

How is Your Thought Life?


You know I promised myself that I would never just write in this blog for the sake of writing....that I would only write when felt inspired, compelled or led..and that is why I have not had an entry in a couple of days which has been a bit unusual for me.. My mind has been weighed down over the last 5-6 days with a particular subject that has finally manifested itself into this entry..

I would also like to take a mini sidebar for a moment and speak about another smaller issue that I felt led to say..Everyone has a varying degree of understanding of what the bible has to say..Now I DO NOT mean that is says something different to everyone...let's be clear..I do believe that each person has different layers in which they are able to penetrate of the Word of God..There are those people who skim the surface and spend little to no time reading the bible and as a result are just not able to see and grasp some of the concepts that flow from it...and then there are those who are steeped in the Word every single day and spend enormous amounts of time in it, meditating on it and memorizing it...taking the concept of "bible intake" to a very high level...and it is my belief that those individuals are able to peel back many more layers in order to see a deeper more eternal meaning from the text, than others with less time. My point in saying all this is to say that my entries are a direct reflection of the time I spend in God's Word and what has been revealed to me..I make no bones about the idea that I am unable to see the text the same way my pastor Jeff Long does..I am not able to gather the level of deepness that he is and therefore my perspective may often times seem shallow and simplistic to those who are much more spiritually mature than I...so please when reading this blog, take this into consideration..There may be some who will have light bulb moments when reading and some who will find some interesting nuggets that in previous experience was not seen or understood..I am simply a man who has a desire to study the word of God and try to use the Mind God has given me to understand my role as a Man, a child of His, a fellow brother, a husband, a father, a servant and a son..These are my thoughts as they unfold in my mind in this moment in life and spiritual growth..

That leads me to what I really wanted to discuss and that is "Thought Life".. Let me start at the beginning..Our church held an event this past weekend called "Famfest" where the title of the weekend was called "Different by Design: the distinct roles of men and women"..Now I knew going into this weekend that I was going to be challenged as a man and as a leader.. That was no surprise..maybe I wasn't sure about the level to which I would be challenged...but nevertheless I was certain this weekend would give me a lot to think about and certainly inspire me to blog about..but here is the twist..This blog is not about my design or my role per say..It wasn't until the last 10 minutes of the last breakout session that I heard the sentence that would ultimately lead to this and the previous several days of thinking and pondering over..The last session was titled Manhood 101: what it means to be a real man. In the last few minutes after looking at what all this entails..Jeff Watts spoke about 6 sentences he keeps with him when counseling others and it comes from Promise Keepers.. Now I know very little about Promise Keepers and what all this ministry does but I can glean from the title it has something to do with "mean what you say and say what you mean." Anyway, one of the six questions was this..."How is your thought Life?" In that instance, I was blown away..my mind begin to scramble for direction as to what this really meant and the meaning I was to take from this sort of Epiphany. Think about that question.."How is your thought life?" Have any of you really set around and pondered your thought life..The very idea of thinking about your thought life is somewhat difficult to grasp..but there is more significance in this than most would ever imagine...

So as my mind poured over this question..I begin to remember things in my past that are relevant to this..such as "GIGO"...Garbage in Garbage Out... and an author and motivational speaker I am very fond of Zig Ziglar says that your mind is like an Bank or ATM..You can only draw out of it what you deposit into it..Boy that sounds over simplistic and basic to say the least..but at the core of this statement is your thought life..Most if not all of the things we do originate from our thought life..It is said that which we say flows from our heart..so if anger is flowing from your mouth, then anger is what is inside you..ie. your heart take the anger and moves it to your mind and then your mind expresses itself with words or actions.. I am taking a class called Manly Dominion with Clay Robinson as leader also at Parkwood and in our last class we got on a discussion about the Holy Spirit and the mind...which sparked a small debate as to the role of the mind versus the role of the Holy Spirit..Clay had just gotten a new bible study software called "Logos" and this software really allows you to break down certain themes of the bible as well as analyze certain words and phrases in their frequency and use.. The day after class he sent me verses of how many times "the mind" was used..I was stunned..I literally and this is no joke had to scroll for about 20 seconds solid to get to the bottom of the email..that is how many times it was referenced..I would copy and paste them here but it is so many that it would take up way to much space..I may post in a separate blog for reference..but the point is this idea of using the mind is a very well defined position and God has given us a mind different than any other species He created for a very specific reason..TO USE IT!!!!!Here is one of the many many verses from that bible about the mind ..Jer 17:10 “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, • to give • every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

It is my position that we are not renewing our Mind with the word of God..We are allowing the world to fill our mind and therefore resulting in our beliefs and actions in life.. It is the secular music we listen to that clouds God's view..It is the TV shows that paint antagonistic views of the Bible..It is the secular books we read that alter our positions..It is corrupting our THOUGHT Life.. How can we spend 8-9 hours a day in the world and 1 hour a day in the bible and expect to think and act like Jesus..You couple this with an already sinful heart and a flesh that desires to fulfill its own desires, you are left with a very difficult road to hoe..No wonder our society is crumbling..no wonder our families are breaking down..no wonder people are leaving the faith for the world..We need to fully understand our thinking, what we spend our thought life doing, will result in the way we live and spend our time.. We are allowing our minds to be possessed by the evil one and his dark ways. Satan is not going to always place an obstacle in your way that keeps you from serving our Lord..he just intercepts our minds and we place our own obstacles..just as Adam and Eve. Satan simply placed the thought of " You can be like God".." Is God really telling you to not eat of that Tree?"..See he uses our mind against us and we allow this to happen..We are not equipped to take on Satan alone..We will lose..We need the power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit to lead us in this battle..

The battle starts in the Mind..Here is what I know..The very minute I realized this idea was the very moment I began to live a life surrendered to God and separate from this world..It is when I realized that my thoughts were obstructing my ability to truly get to know my Lord and discern His desires for me, that I was able to turn the tables on Satan and cast him out of my way..There was a book that alerted me to this and it is called "THE DIVINE DEFENSE" by Robert Jeffress..( http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Defense-Strategies-Winning-Greatest/dp/1400070902)For those of you who have never read this book or who want to understand how Satan attacks your minds, this book is an excellent supplement to the Word of God to help you..Here are a few of the chapter headings to give you a feel for what this book speaks about. 1. Demons in the world today; Satan's sidekicks are no laughing matter 2. Winning the mind games; you are what you think 3 Satan's favorite mind games; four lies that will pull you away from God 4. When satan comes knocking 5. Putting out the NOT welcome mat 6. Storming the gates of Hell; strengthen your resolve to resist..

I share this with you because it was a defining book and moment in my own personal life that revealed to me my thought life was where I had always lost the battle..that if I could capture every thought captive..2 Corinthians 10:5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ

We must fully understand this.. Many books have been written dealing with this issue in some form or fashion..One that my wife felt helped change her life was "Lies Women Believe"..See it is the lies, the distortions, the disfiguring of the Truth that keeps us in bondage to sin and Satan..What goes into your mind is a crucial as to your spiritual walk than any other component..It is our mind that we need to control with the help of Christ in order to defeat this deceptive foe..to win back our families, our culture..tolerance is just a word used today to describe TRUTH as whatever form you feel it should be..THAT IS A LIE..The Truth is absolute..There are no half truths..If something is True then the opposing view by definition has to be False..The Word of God is TRUE...2 Timothy 3:16-17 (English Standard Version)
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work
.

SO my question to you and myself..What do you spend your time on filling your minds with..Is it the things of God(His word) or the things of this world..?

Second..How is your Thought Life? really..think about that..Start there and watch your life begin to be transformed..If you have never really gotten out of your faith and beliefs what you felt you should have, or if you have consistently given in to temptation and went against the things of God, I would submit to you that this is where it broke down..Don't miss this..This is more powerful than you will ever imagine..God gave a you mind...Use it for His Glory..
The Apostle Paul says this Philippians 4:8 (The Message)
8-9Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.


EB

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Wisdom of Psalms 119


Psalm 119. This psalm celebrates the gift of God's Torah, or covenant instruction, as the perfect guide for life. It thus belongs conceptually with Psalm 19 and overlaps with such wisdom psalms as Psalms 1 and 112. It is far more extensive, and far more elaborate, than they are; it is the longest psalm (and the longest chapter in the Bible, longer than many of the books) and the most carefully structured. By singing and praying its contents, one expresses heartfelt admiration to God, who has so lovingly bestowed this great gift upon his people, and fervent yearning for one's personal life to reflect the loveliness and goodness of the Torah. The psalm's structure observes a strict acrostic pattern : there are 22 stanzas of eight verses each, following the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence. Within a stanza, the first word of each verse begins with the same letter, the letter to which the entire stanza corresponds. This pattern severely limits the author's liberty in sustaining his flow of thought, but this does not hinder the psalm from accomplishing its goal, which is to enable God's people to admire his Word so strongly that they will work and pray hard to have it shape their character and conduct. The cumulative impact of the psalm is huge.

The psalm uses a number of terms for God's covenantal revelation: “law” ; “testimonies” ; “precepts” ; “statutes” ; “commandments” ; “rules” ; “word”. Except for “precepts” (which appears only in the Psalms), all of these words can be found in Deuteronomy , and denote God's Word, focusing on its role in moral instruction for his people. The person who will “keep” God's instructions will find that his “way” (the moral quality and orientation of his life) will more and more reflect God's own character. Only a few verses in this psalm lack an explicit mention of God's Word: The psalm calls these instructions “righteous” , “true” and “sure” ,and worthy of trust, hope, and faith. All of these are attributes of God himself, and it is no surprise that God's words would partake of his character. Indeed, the law expresses God's own “steadfast love” and “faithfulness”. This psalm reflects the view that the Lord, who abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness and who therefore freely and fully forgives his people when they confess their sins , loves his people without limit, and therefore also guides the faithful in the way of life that is genuinely good and beautiful . The psalm speaks the language of one ravished with moral beauty, to which there is only one fitting response—to try to reproduce this beauty, as much as possible, in one's daily life. There is no pretense of perfection here , only yearning, and trust ,and dependence on God. To say that these commands are “true” is to confess that, with all their elements geared to a particular culture and phase of redemptive history, the principles that underlie them are founded on the very nature of things, and of God. This is why Christians can sing these words with the same yearning, trust, and dependence. The psalm does not tell who its author was, nor when it was written. Many scholars think it comes from after the Babylonian exile, but this cannot be proven. The psalmist identifies with the faithful among God's people, when they face trials , and when they suffer contempt and ill treatment for their faithfulness, even from members of God's people who reject his grace. Even when many of God's own people forsake him, there will be those who want to pursue faithfulness. This fits, e.g., the time before Ezra and Nehemiah carried out their reforms, but it fits many other times as well. The words of this psalm can enable Christians to embrace its aspiration, both when they sing it and when they use those words as prayers for illumination as they attend to God's word in public and in private.


EB

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Amazing Grace - Rendition

Monday, March 9, 2009

Jesus - Lord - Savior

YOU MAY WANT TO PAUSE THE MUSIC AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE BEFORE VIEWING THIS VIDEO..JUST SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM AND CLICK PAUSE

EB

Friday, March 6, 2009

"The Sun and the Snow"








I would like to use this forum as another opportunity to document another moment in time that I would like to be able to look back on and relive time and time again..As I mentioned in an earlier post, it is my belief that we rarely slow down long enough to appreciate the moments of life as they come our way..mostly because we are so busy doing much of nothing but in our minds there is no time to sit and think and write about what most would consider trivial..I have a made a commitment to myself to slow my life down enough to try and capture those moments that are short, sweet but extremely meaningful in the grand scheme of life..I know that writing them down allows me an opportunity to revisit them often and remember the times of our life that if we did not write them down, would be gone forever from our memory bank..lost in the thicket of stuff that takes up space in our mind..

So as you all know we just received a pretty good snow for this area and I was glad to see it come and equally glad to see it go...which leads me to this message..I was driving the girls to school this morning and as I looked around at God's creation..something dawned on me that I felt I could use to help explain to my girls about how God is..I would love to say that I never miss an opportunity to try and use the world around me to help create mental pictures and teaching moments for my girls, but sadly all to often I miss those chances, caught up in my own little world..but it is a desire of my heart to do better at this and God has been working on me in this area and peeling back the blindness to allow me to help my girls understand just who God is and how He relates to our life..

As we were driving I noticed that most of the snow has melted away but there are places where some snow exists and even fewer places where there are still lots of snow still in view..So I turned the radio down and tried to use this image to explain to CJ and Jaydin an example of how God is..See the SUN, which in this example is likened to Christ, and the snow, which is likened to SIN was the image I was trying to create( I know snow all white and pure is not a great sin example but stay with me).. The Sun has washed away and melted most of the snow...just like Christ in his Glory can wash away Sin...I exclaimed..but notice there is still some snow (sin) still existing even though the Sun is out and bright and in full effect..This snow (sin) is hidden away in darker places, where the Sun is not allowed to be..and even some that has piled up so high that even in direct sunlight is still there..and that is how we are with some of our sin..We hide it away and tuck it away, trying to keep it from Christ and not allowing Him to wash it clean from us...We hide it in the dark places of our mind and soul...or even worse we let it just pile up until it is so much that we lose Hope or we feel unworthy of God's Love...and that Sin that we don't allow the light to shine on, remains there and blocks the flow of grace from Christ and severely inhibits our relationship with Him..See when the Sun cant shine on the snow, it cant melt it away like it can the parts that are exposed directly to the Sun....In the Bible is says 2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.


Christ is the light of the world and He has come to shine His light on the darkness, to give light of the knowledge of the Glory of God...but if you do not let that light shine on you and expose the sin in your life thru knowledge, then you are essentially rejecting Christ.. You can take this example one step further and say..we as Christians are all lights of the world..Didn't God call us to be Light and Salt of this earth..What does light and Salt do to Snow (sin)..It melts it..It exposes it.. So if you think about us riding around in our cars on the roads(shining our light)...where is the first place snow melts? Not a trick question..Yes the roads and that is because we took our light and shined it in essence on the snow and caused it to melt.. If we will take God's command and share this Good News to all those who are lost, we can be like the Sun melting away Snow..or like Christ in helping people become saved and have their sin remembered no more...but as long as we sit on the sidelines in a blind self righteousness, the sin will remain, even in the midst of our Sun shining bright..but make no mistake, even the largest piles of sin (snow) can be washed away by the Sun (Christ) if exposed to it long enough or properly..


One last point, which by the way, assured me that my teaching moment was sinking in to my girls...because in the middle of this explanation..Jaydin says " Daddy, Daddy" from the back seat..That is like the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" song...and at that moment..I realized she GOT IT.. The song " Up come the Sun and dried up all the rain"....Jaydin was connecting the dots in the way that she knew how and for her to draw on another parallel example was a clue for me that she had at least vaguely understood the point that I was trying so hard to deliver...I am not sure how much of the discussion we had this morning made it thru to their understanding...but one thing is for sure...even if this event will never be remembered by them..I know at least for a few seconds, they were able to get a glimpse of the Glorious God we serve..even if it was for a brief moment in time..


Praise God for the Light thru His Son Jesus Christ He has shined on my life and for the sin that He exposed and exposes every day and Thank God that for those who Trust in Him as Lord and Savior, that He forgives that Sin that you lay at His feet and removes it as far as the East is from the West....

EB

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Faith of a Child


You know..I am absolutely certain that our kids are used by God to help communicate to us some of the concepts He wants us to understand..There have been many occasions where my kids have taught me a lesson that God was trying to get across to me and by using my kids and the relationship I have with them has been a wonderful example for me to look to in the most unexpected times...I have wrote about some others in this blog and felt compelled again to address a particular example that was shown to me by God thru my children..Paul writes to Timothy in his first letter to him in chapter 1 verse 2.."To Timothy, my true child in the Faith"..Paul was saying here that Timothy has Faith like a child..meaning he trusts the Lord and doesn't question what circumstances he finds himself in..much like a child trust what they are told...(until they get to adolescence, so I am told)..Well I have an example of this very scenario that played out in my life over the snow holiday we just experienced... It was Sunday night and snowing outside, rather hard and my girls were just all excited..They often say that it never snows around here and they are quite right but this snow would be different..As the night was winding to a close, we happened to be watching a movie that had some rather scary parts through out it...I will keep the movie name to myself to minimize the distraction to the point I desire to make..Let me give you a mental picture here..I was laying on the couch just relaxing...I was laying on my left side facing the TV with my legs bent about halfway to where it creates this little area behind the bend of my knees that Jaydin calls her favorite place to sit..So as the scary parts come and go, Jaydin jumps behind my legs and takes refuge behind my legs..as well as CJ, but she was forced to the middle, but still very close to me..As I sat there and watched them cover their eyes and make little noises as if they were truly scared...I noticed that they found great protection in me..They found SECURITY being very close to me, which enabled them to endure the scary parts without having to run to a different room..Then it hit me..out of the blue..I am their Dad and Dads are protectors and provide an overarching sense of security in the home.. I asked Jaydin..." Honey, why do you feel like you need to be in your favorite spot during those scary parts?"...and she responds " Because I am scared"..so I followed that with " can you explain why there?" and she says " because I am safe there"..I giggled but inside I was glowing with pride as I saw my child take refuge in me, because that is what made her feel safe and protected..That is How God feels when we take refuge in Him and allow Him to carry us thru..(This reminds me of a song I love called "He Will Carry Me" by Mark Schultz which is on my playlist at the bottom of this blog)Now we have never practiced being scared and what they should do when scared..It was just instinct for her to gravitate toward me...during those times where she felt vulnerable..


I asked myself..." I wonder what it is about me that she finds safe...I have never really had to protect her form anything consequential where she would learn I would protect her.."...but something inside her told her that Dad (Father) would protect her in case of harm or fear..This translated over to my relationship with my Heavenly Father...See Jaydin put all her Faith in me to protect her without question..She never once doubted that I was where she wanted to go when she faced a difficult situation.. and once she got into her position(behind my legs), she found the courage to face her fears of what she was seeing on TV.. God was saying to me LOUD and CLEAR.. Eddie, you need to place your Faith in me just like your daughter Jaydin in doing with you.. I will protect you..I will calm your fears..I will provide you a refuge..Do not doubt my desire and ability to do these things for you, just as your small child has no doubt that you will provide those for her.. I GOT IT..I could see God working in my life in those moments and just to further expound on God's glory and infinite knowledge..I have been experiencing some fear and anxiety over some issues in my life and have not placed a child like Faith in my Father..My Lord who has promised me that He would never leave me nor forsake me...and no amount of my bible study and quiet time was impacting me the way this real life example thru my own child was..It was a clear to me as a bright sunny day..I literally could feel the teaching going on and the Spirit moving in my heart.. The more I have thought about that moment, the deeper and heavier this has weighed on me..Do you ever find certain enlightenment moments will weigh on you heavier than others..? I mean there will be times when I read God's word and that study will cause a distinct change in my mood thru out the day..Sometimes Somber, sometimes joy and other times curiosity to know more..all of which, though, sit on me all day like a weight forcing me to deal with it until I gain what God has desired for me to learn..This was certainly one of those moments..God has been pressing on me with tremendous voracity to grab hold of this teaching moment and apply it to my life..Not just intellectually understand it..but apply it..Use it to grow spiritually with.. He does not want this lesson to pass me by as just another light bulb moment..He needs me to internalize it and sear it to my heart..and He means for it to have a lasting enduring impact on me...


To Trust and rely on my Lord and Savior..To take refuge in Him thru difficult and challenging times..to gain strength in Him when faced with insurmountable odds..to call on His power when being sifted by Satan and his wiles..I can't do it on my own and I need to rely on God, the sustainer, to assist me and guide me in all situations, decisions, and battles..I am grateful beyond words of His infinite wisdom and knowing exactly how to deal with me..For those who say our God is not a personal God..I say Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart


EB