Freedom Isn't Free

 

                                        Memorial Day. 

A day to be thankful to be Americans or a day to be ashamed of our country? And how about those that hate our country?

God has given us this country and from its almost beginnings, groups of people have tried to tear it down. To make it socialist. To make it evil. 

To make it the exact opposite of what God created it to be.

I for one am proud to be an American. I am proud of those in my extended family that went to war against the enemies that would seek to take us over. To bring their socialist ideas into our country. To destroy us.

They are still doing it today. From Russia and in our own back yards. They are seeking to destroy us in our own government. 

It doesn't matter what kind of terrorism there is here. Maybe you don't think that when someone decides to take the innocent lives of people as in New York and Texas just recently, isn't real terrorism because after all it wasn't committed in another country.

If you have that belief, I ask you to think about how those victims and their families felt. Surely there was evil intent. Surely there was terror in their lives as a gunman turned his gun on them during a horrific rampage.

Oh God, that He would work on the behalf of all who love Him. Because He is our only hope. And thank God we have Him to turn to in our hours of need.

And as we wait on his divine judgement, which will indeed come to all evil, we can thank God for those that sand up against all the injustice of an ungodly society that seeks to destroy innocent lives. No matter what form it takes. 

MEMORIAL DAY

A day to be thankful to be an American

It is our God given right.

And we should not let it be taken

Without a fight

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 

2 Chronicles 7:14

Thanks for coming by today, Friends

God bless your day today and always!

Hurry Up God...

 

They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles: they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

Why is it that we think we should have what we want right now without having to wait on God to deliver it to us on a silver platter?

Have you ever gotten tired of waiting on him and decided just to go and take it for yourselves?

If you have, I ask you: How did that work out for you?

I know what that is. To get impatient on those things that I asked God for. And so, because of that, I have jumped headlong into some fires that went on for long periods of time before finally God in all his wisdom to let me make bad decisions for myself, put them out for me.

For you see, God doesn't make us do anything we don't want to do. If we don't want to wait on his timing, he lets us go off on our own way until we get to the place that we get so sick and tired of being sick and tired and will go running back to him. 

He has our futures planned out. And because of that, we don't always know why he doesn't just answer our prayers when we think he should. We get tired of waiting a lot times. We take our lives into our own hands. And eventually, we can become weak and tired if we have turned from him.

If we wait on him. Know that he is working in our lives despite the fact that it sometimes doesn't even feel like it, we become as eagles, strong and able to get where God wants us to be. 

This is then the song we should be singing everyday:

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be wear they shall walk and not faint

Teach me Lord,

Teach me Lord, to wait!

Thanks for stopping by today, Friends. God bless!

More Like A Million Times....

 

A thousand times I have failed, still your mercy remains.

Have you ever felt that way?

I do.

More than a million times though.

More like at least that many times per day

Yesterday was an especially one of those days.

Not that anything bad happened.

It was just an off day for me. 

And I failed God in so in so many ways.

But he didn't fail me.

For his mercy endures forever. 

Why? Because he is good. 

Psalm 136:1

If you are having an off day today. 

Or if you are having them on many days, 

take this to heart:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 

Lamentations 3:22-24

For there is hope for you. 

Thanks for coming by today, Friends.

God bless!

Did You Ever Wonder....

 ....if you sinned just one too many times? If your sin was so great that God would not forgive you? If you were a bad person, not worthy of God's favor? 

If indeed God could not love you?

If you have ever felt that way Friend, I have good news for you.

Jesus did this for you!

It took 1 cross and 3 nails.

But it also reqired the death of an innocent man.

He did it for you.

And me.

Because:

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever should believe on him shall not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16.

There is nothing that we can do to earn it.

And likewise, for those of us that believe on him, there is no way that we can lose God's free gift.

His love is not conditional.

And neither is his forgiveness

It is there for the asking.

No matter what we have done.

No matter what we are doing.

Whem we go to him with a humble heart,

he is there.

Ready to forgive

Ready to forget

Thanks for coming by today, Friends.

God bless you today and always

The Anger of a Holy God (part 4)

 I have posted on anger before. There is way too much of it going around these days. The world seems to be spinning off into madness. As Christians we wonder and even ask God, 'When will all of this end?" "When will you come back and take us out of here?" "Why aren't you stopping it?"

We don't know the answer to our questions. We only know what God's Word says. And it is best if we learn to trust him.

Because some day he will come back and end it all.

In the meantime, we are left here with the madness and sometimes our own anger. Having to deal with what we ourselves don't always understand.

Anger at the stuff going on in our homes, communities and in the world. What do we do with it? Other than trusting God, I mean. Because it can pop up at the most inopportune moments.

Jesus is our example. As loving and forgiving as he was and is, he has and still does get angry.

And so can and do we. At all the injustice of what goes on around us. I don't believe that he sits on his throne in heaven and is calmly watching what goes on down here without having any emotion about it. 

The difference is, he is God. We are not. But we too can be angry. It is just that the bible teaches us to not let the sun go down on our anger. Ephesians 4:26

How do we do that and keep going. We can't just let things go Can we?

I found a good article on it that I feel really helps spell out and deal with anger. You can put the title in your search engine should you want more information about it. I think they offer some real good suggestions.

5 Practical Ways of Gaining Control of Anger As A Christian 

Anger is a strong emotion. But we can have a handle on it if we choose to. God wants us to be a joyful people because if we are angry all the time and people see only that side of us, why would they want to become Christians?

Let's face it, they wouldn't. 

It is better to be a joyful person for many reasons. And one of those is that joy in the Lord gives us strength. Nehimiah 8:10

A good way to stay ahead of anger, don't you think? Because I don't believe that joy and anger can exist in us at the same time. And one of them has to go for the other of them to be there. If only for a time moment or a time.

Not that we can't become angry, but knowing how to get deal with it and get past it, offers the hope of reuniting our spirits with God again and taking on his spirit of joy.

Thanks for coming by today, Friends. May your day be joyful and blessed

The Anger of a Holy God (part 3)

I don't know if you have ever gone to a church where someone there was doing something that was evil. Like as just an example, dipping into the offerings perhaps. Or a "teacher" that might be doing something to young children that was despicable. 

If you have, and if that person was caught, how did it make you feel? Angry no doubt. Maybe even so mad you wanted to throw something and maybe even take revenge against the ones responsible. 

Well, Jesus got angry at some people in the temples one day. They weren't doing either of the examples I suggested above. But never-the-less, what they were doing, did not make Jesus happy. That is for sure.

 And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves. Mark 11:15-17

Oh yes, Jesus was angry that day. Perhaps we can think that the comparison between that event and someone harming children today is well....no comparison at all. And yet,  the fact that it is in the Bible does show us a side of Jesus that while perhaps not seen so much, it is still there. 

Indeed, there were times that his anger did come out.

 I do not believe it is always wrong to be angry. And there are some scripture passages that prove that. Come back tomorrow and we will look at what the Bible has to say on the subject.

Thanks for coming today. God bless!

 

The Anger of a Holy God (part 2)

The anger of Jesus didn't just stop with his disciples that tried to keep the children from him. He also had it with some religious leaders of the day.

He had asked them if they believed that it was okay to heal someone on the Sabbath. He of course knew their answer and they didn't give him an answer.

And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. Mark 5:1-5

It goes on to say that the Pharisees then started plotting between themselves how they would get rid of him. (verse 6)

They were more concerned about their own laws then they were about the healing of someone that needed it.  And that had angered him. To the point of his own detriment. 

How like God that was, to go against the laws that man had come up with, to love someone that needed healing.

Yes, Jesus got angry at times. At the injustices of ungodly laws and beliefs. The kind of anger that we as Christians should have at todays injustices. that the lawmakers and groups of people try to impose on us. 

That we would be like Jesus. 

Thanks for coming today, Friends. Come back tomorrow for another post on this subject. God bless you and yours today!