Quote for the day

Heaven is not here, it's There. If we were given all we wanted
here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the
next. God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing
us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will
certainly find what we so keenly long for.

      -- Elisabeth Elliot

Neat Trivia

33 miners were discovered on the 33 week of the year. It took 33 days to drill down to them. They were brought back up to the surface on 10-13-10 which equals 33. They say Jesus, who was crucified at the age of 33 was there with them the entire time. Very cool don't you think?

 

"History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid" Gen Dwright D Eisenhower IN GOD WE TRUST!! ---    I AM HONORED TO DO THIS!!  ACLU has filed a suit to end prayer from the military completely. They're making great progress. The Navy Chaplains can no longer mention Jesus' name in prayer thanks to the  ACLU and others. I'm not breaking this one.  If I get it a 1000 times, I'll forward it a 1000 times!  Let us pray...  Prayer chain for our Military... Don't break it!  Please send this on after a short prayer. Pray for our soldiers Don't break it!  Prayer:  'Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands Protect them as they protect us Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. in Jesus name, Amen.'  Prayer Request: When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our troops around the world.  There is nothing attached. Just send this to people in your address book. Do not let it stop with you. Of all the gifts you could give a Marine, Soldier, Sailor, Airman, & others deployed in harm's way, prayer is the very best one.

Fable of the porcupine

It was the coldest winter ever -  many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together.  This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions even though they gave off heat to each other. After awhile they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth. Wisely, they decided to go back to being together. This way they learned to live with the little wounds that were caused by the close relationship with their companion, but the most important part of it, was the heat that came from the others. This way they were able to survive

Moral of the story:

The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but the best is when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities.

Gods Power at Work

I received the following quote from an unknown author via email today:

If you want to see God's power at work, you must get out of the

church and into the world. Watch the extravagant lengths which

God will go to reveal Himself to people who don't know Him. Then

you will learn how truly awesome our God is.

     -- Author Unknown

It made me sit back and think for a moment.  How do non believers see the world?  Where do they think the trees and the flowers came from?  How about the birds and animals?  We won’t even get into the people that walk the earth, that’s a whole other can of worms for a later discussion.  After some time spent on Google, I have found a variety of thoughts on the subject.  Some were so non biblical it was scary, like this one from a blogger who posted on the answers.yahoo.com site.  He stated the following: 

There is a model called Grimes' triangle which is useful when considering this. It divides all plants into 3 groups. One of those groups is 'competitive'. Trees are in the competitive group. They are successful because they can grow taller than other plants and block out the light. In a stable environment they are the most effective at dominating the natural resources...

        This response was from a Botany student.  The second respondent from the same site was just as scary as the first.  She stated that:

They evolved from cells that were able to photosynthesis. Like animals there is a succession of plant groups, with newer ones being more dominant for periods of time ( eg carboniferous ear when coal was laid down was the age of fern)....we are currently in the age of angiosperms.  The first plants were mosses, liverworts and hornworts which do not have an internal vascular system so rely on water... So trees came about by slowly evolving over time from small plants to some pretty big mobsters of today with a better vascular system, development of wood and other little tricks to keep the plant stable ( when its tall).......

If we are not careful, we will lose an entire generation to the evolutionary teachers that are in our schools.  They are teaching our children that the world and its contents just appeared and we all came from some kind of primordial ooze.  There is no thought or mention to The Creator, or any tolerance of such “nonsense” as my daughter was told by her teacher during her science class in seventh grade.  At the time we lived in the Bay Area of California where God wasn’t allowed to be mentioned in any public venue, especially at a school.  Thankfully my daughter was already strong in her faith and in God the Creator. She also had the courage to stand up to her teacher and politely, yet firmly, tell him how mistaken he was.  Of course, I was then called and asked to come down to the school for a “meeting”.  During this “meeting” I was told of my daughter’s poor judgment and lack of insight as to how the world worked.  I was told that she would need to apologize in front of the teacher as well as the principle for the statements that she made to that teacher while I was there.  I could see where this was leading and could hardly wait to see how my daughter would respond.  Knowing in my heart God was totally orchestrating this “apology”.

The teacher was called into the office for her apology.  He waited all high and mighty for her to tell him he was right, and that she was sorry.  I can’t remember the exact words she used for this apology, but it boiled down to “I’m so sorry that you have been deceived by the world.  That you haven’t found the love of Jesus and are so lost that you are grasping at anything someone else has written or told you for answers.  I will pray for your salvation, and that God will ultimately be the Lord of your life and not the world.”  She then smiled and asked if she could return to her class.  The principal was so surprised by her apology she just nodded and my daughter went back to class.  I just smiled at both the principal and the teacher, and asked if they had any further questions.  Neither could think of anything to say and just shook their heads no.  I left the school that day feeling both at peace and extremely proud of my daughter.  God had won that debate.  He had instilled into my daughter His truth and the courage to stand up for that Truth.  

According to Romans 1:19-21 which says
“Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

God has been there from the beginning.  In fact, He is the beginning and the end.

Revelations 22:13
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

We need to be diligent in our walk so the world can see the Truth and the Love that God offers us everyday.  The beauty he makes for our pleasure, like the beautiful sunrises from the East and the glorious sunsets in the West.  I pray that next time you are out walking in this world you take time to appreciate the things of God, the things that He has made for our enjoyment.  Everything from the Redwood trees in Northern California to the smallest little bug that may cross your path.  God made them all.  He made everything.  He is the Creator of the Universe.

I Believe

If you have ever had any question as to the existence of God please watch this video.  Enjoy the majesty of God's creations.  He Is the Great I AM.  The creator of the Universe and what a fine job He has done.

http://www.andiesisle.com/creation/magnificent.html

Stay the Course

“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1)

The definition of strength, what is it really. Real strength has nothing to do with physical strength.

God expects us to be strong as we read in 2 Timothy 2:1. “Be Strong in the Grace that is in Christ Jesus. We each have a “Grace Tank”. This tank is like a bank account of sorts. We make “deposits” into our tank by being humble in Him. The more we rely on Him and depend on Him to help us make godly decisions whether in business or at home the more your grace account fills. Conversely, the more we act self-centered, selfish and do things our way, the more we deplete that account. As most of us know, it is much easier to spend than it is to save. The more we deposit into our Grace Tank the stronger our walk is with God.

There is a principle that as a Christ follower we need to live by. It is referred to as the Paradox Principle. It is defined as follows: You have to die to live (Philippians 1:21) and you have to be last to be first (Matthew 19:30). As a Christ follower, consider the example of our stewardship of the truth of the Gospel. As a soldier of Christ, we need to be sold on the cause. Yes, I said soldier for a reason. Think about it this way, everyday as a Christ follower the enemy is after you. It might be with big things or small things, but he is not happy that we have Jesus as our Lord and Savior and that he can no longer rule over us. We are in a constant battle for our lives. Not our spiritual lives, but our lives just the same. The enemy is the master of deception and lies. The enemy wants nothing more than to get between you and Jesus, to cause you to stumble and pull away from God. We need to be sold on the cause. What cause you might ask? I know I did when I first heard this. The cause is the Gospel. You have been left here on earth to share the Good News of Jesus. That is our number one job as a Christ follower. This does not mean when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior you need to be going door to door or standing on street corners yelling at the top of your lungs. It does however, mean we need to spread the Gospel whether through speech and writing or just by our actions. Our actions say more about us, the real us, what’s in our hearts, than anything else. Our actions will show others whether they want to be a Christ follower or stay unsaved. Unfortunately, there are some who profess to be “Christians”, but if you talk to them or watch them away from church they look no different than anyone of the world.

We are to be in the world, but not of the world. (John 8:23) We have been set apart. We are to act different from the unsaved. We are to show the love of Christ through our actions as well as our speech. If we say all the right things, but still do the wrong things, we are doing more harm to the world than good. To be spiritually weak is very risky, for not only you, but to the world around you.

I pray that you will stay in God’s Word, be in the world but not of the world. I pray you are blessed by reading this as much as I have been blesses by writing it. With all the Love of Christ have a Blessed and abundant day