Tag Archive | God

What’s being hidden?

Jan29

Oh my goodness, what a question! The paradox here is that so much is being hidden we can’t even recognize what it is that is being concealed!

But we have to start somewhere so let’s start with a clue from the world of literature. Every epic saga contains a protagonist and an antagonist. The antagonist, who is clever, deceitful, manipulative, and enticing is typically engaged in battle against the protagonist. After many failed attempts at directly assaulting the protagonist, the antagonist will modify his methods. If he can’t hurt the protagonist, then he will hurt those who the protagonist loves.

Well, my dear readers, this is the point at which we can begin our investigation in exposing what is being hidden. For the book that exposes this epic saga is the Bible. In the Bible the epic battle between good and evil or God, the protagonist, and Satan, the antagonist, is disclosed. Stands to reason then Satan’s first plan of attack would be to conceal the truths of Scripture. Why?

The further removed humanity is from God and His plans for them, the more room Satan has to work. By being unaware of the Truth revealed in the Bible, mankind will discard the existence of God. Therefore, when belief in God is discarded, who’s going to believe in the existence of Satan?

Deception and manipulation are his primary tools to destroy individuals and thus in turn hurt God. For mankind is not Satan’s main target. God is! He hurts God by hiding the Truth from individuals and making them unaware of what is Truth.

So what about those who have been somewhat exposed to the Truths in the Bible? What is Satan’s line of attack with them? Keep them confused about who God, Jesus, Jesus’s death on the cross to pay for our sins, and the Holy Spirit is. All is hidden, if Satan can distance us from God’s word.

So what does Satan want to hide from those of us who are believers?

Well, mainly the Truth contained in the Bible. For the more familiar we are with God’s Truth, the less likely Satan will be able to hide Truth. And as believers, who have had the Truth unveiled, we understand that the more time we spend in God’s word and in prayer, the stronger we will become. We will gain insight into what is a lie and what is Truth. We will know the Truth and Satan’s attempts to hide it from us will utterly fail.

The Gift of Serving…

Dec15

While caring for elderly parents, life gets put on somewhat of a hold for the caregivers. With their parent’s passing, a caregiver may feel a sense of release from the demanding requirements of caregiving as life returns to a more normal pace. Yet, all of this mixed in with feelings of venturing into life without that parent’s sustaining presence can be a rough and challenging road. 

Mother was an anchor for me. Caring for her opened a volume of opportunities that affirmed my faith in God. Though there were some really tough moments, especially toward the end, with every situation, I gained a closer understanding of what it meant to serve God. For through the years He taught me that in serving my mom, I was serving Him. To be honest, I failed more times than I care to admit. So let’s just say, over time I grew in awareness of what God was expecting from me as I cared for Mother. And that’s important. 

Our first Thanksgiving without Mother and now with Christmas approaching presents a void to be dealt with. Everywhere I look I am reminded of her. I stand on my front porch and crowning the nearby hill stands the house that she lived and died in. The place where I said my final goodbye. And all throughout my house and yard, are physical reminders of her loving care. Her life and the impact she had on mine, is now a store of memories. But I’m learning it is those very reflections that will fill the void . 

As I sort through all the abundance of memories, I have so much to be grateful for. For something beautiful happened in those final days that will continue to be my focus and sustain me. 

I have watched as my children and grandchildren spent time with their grandmother and great grandmother. I listened as my children taught their children about what honoring Granma looked like and meant. The impressions they made took their source from what God had to say about honoring our mother and our father. 

They learned that it wasn’t always convenient or easy to care for a parent. They were taught that sacrifices had to be made to their choices of how to use their time and in making their schedules. And all along they were bolstered by the earlier memories of Grandmother’s spunky and loving ways in caring for them. I could not be more grateful that my children and grandchildren were able to form a perspective of caring that was shaped by what they learned as family pulled together to take care of Granma. 

And as we gather for the holidays, those memories are a sustaining source of thankfulness and joy. His promise that one day we will be reunited because we have accepted God’s gift of Jesus, replenishes me daily. 

Because God has overcome this world, we are the recipients of gifts more valuable than anything we could possibly find under our Christmas tree. And for me, this particular lessons on showing my love through serving those I love is a gift I pray I will continue to unwrap. 

What does it mean To Live as a Christian? Be a map reader!

Sep8

If we are traveling to an unfamiliar area, a GPS, or a map are excellent sources to turn to. Just think of the wrong turns that would be made, if we had little or no understanding of the direction we should take? Imagine the pitfalls we would avoid if we just read the map?

I think therein lies the problem for many Christians today.

For example, perhaps we attend church regularly, or even irregularly. But have we asked ourselves why we go to church? Is it because in our circles it’s the expected thing to do? Is it no more than a social event for us? I recall a question posed to me years ago that clarifies this question. “Would you go to church if no one saw you were there?” That’s a question that needs to be pondered, right?

Believe me, the enemy has no problem with our attending church! He can deceive us just as easily while we are sitting in a pew. How, we might ask? It’s quite simple actually. By averting our attention away from the counsel of God as to why we need to go to church.

Here’s what the Bible says about attending church,

25 Let us not neglect our church meetings, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near. Hebrews 10:25, TLB

Now that’s a motivation that will send us to church whether anybody sees or knows we are attending or not!

What’s the urgency here?

Satan, KNOWS that within the pages of our Bible, we possess all the guidance we need to live the Christian life successfully. He also KNOWS that if we delve into the Bible too much, we will discover not only who God is, we will also discover who Satan is. Satan’s schemes and game plans for our destruction will be exposed. Do we ever stop to think that a lack of interest in reading our Bible is a manipulative tactic of our enemy?

The Bible is our true North for direction. Depending on anything else for spiritual direction, to the exclusion of digging into God’s word and spending time with Him in prayer, will only lead us to a dead end, literally!

A Christian unfamiliar with the life map of God’s word, can easily lose their way. Without God’s unchangeable Truths laid out for us in Scripture, we have no true guidance.

Feel like you are loosing your way? I suggest reading the Map! There’s no other way, Christians!

Unmasking our Idols

Jun7

Please fill in the blanks below:

_______________ comes first in my life.

_______________ influences the choices I make

______________ forms my perspective, attitudes, & beliefs

______________determines how I spend my time.

Whatever we write in the above blanks, is the force that rules our lives. It is what we worship, bow down to. It is our idol!

Next give the following some deep thought.

Can whatever we wrote in those blanks offer us eternal life? Can they offer peace in the midst of a storm? Can they offer solutions that just seemed beyond our understanding? Can they offer forgiveness. Can they offer guidance or light in our darkness? Can they put the broken pieces of our lives back together? Can they faithfully fulfill our needs?

Yet they do offer something. They can offer us eternal death. And existence forever separated from God.

Have we stopped to think that we have made other people, our jobs, seeking after money or pleasure, or even just pursuing our own will, the things we bow down to instead of God? If we give more consideration to these than we do to God, we have made them idols.

That may be shocking to us. Yet, hopefully this realization will shock us into making God first in our lives. That God’s word will influence the choices we make. That His Truths will form our perspectives and attitudes. That we will seek to follow God’s in how we spend our time.

These are not what they seem!

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry, 1 Corinthians 10:14,ESV

Who is our enemy?

Feb25

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When we fail to identify our enemy!

     His manipulation and deception go forth unhindered. He is able to move incognito throughout the world and mess with people’s lives.  His efforts to turn humankind away from God meets with little resistance.

     Even Christians are susceptible to his deception and manipulation.  By ignoring those tactics, our attitude toward those who reject God and are living in rebellion towards Him can take on a condemning nature.  Thereby painting Christians as enemies. The enemy’s temptations can influence us to treat those who live contrary to God’s word in a less than loving way.  Our misconception is by showing love towards those who have rejected God and His ways then we are condoning their sin. However, when we fail to exhibit love and forgiveness, we take on the characteristics of the true enemy. 

     The world doesn’t understand how a person can be accepted, while their sin can be rejected. Christians understand by acknowledging and forsaking our sin and receiving Christ’s forgiveness, we are accepted. 

     The true enemy of our souls shoots lies towards us with the intention of destroying us. Why? He hates God. Therefore he will steal, kill, and destroy every aspect of God in our lives. 

     The enemy is exposed by the light of God’s word. But if we haven’t given our lives to Christ, we will remain blind to this fact. Apart from God’s truth, we won’t recognize thoughts, feelings, or actions that are being influenced by our enemy. We won’t recognize when our faith is being compromised to believe things contrary to God’s Truth. 

 

 

 

 

     

Spoiling our Perspective

Jan30

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It’s all in how we look at it!

For example:

     My eyes watch as delicate snowflakes accomplish the task of blanketing the landscape outside my window. Winter birds flit and flutter around the birdfeeders grasping for the sunflower seeds, now that food is in short supply. A lone little squirrel scampers to and fro searching for hidden acorns. From within, the fireplace offers an accent of crackling burning wood. 

     Such a scene has the power to call forth a variety of emotions. Positive flavored emotions of peace, calmness, serenity, thankfulness, or a sense of well-being may settle upon us. On the other hand, such a scene can bring forth negative flavored emotions of unrest, sadness, loneliness, or a sense of despondency.

     If the recent circumstances of our days have been troubling, don’t be surprised if our emotions default to the negative. If that’s the case, it’s not an easy matter to suppress such emotions. Satan, remember, comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Therefore, he will design fiery darts meant to manipulate and deceive how we perceive our world.  

      But we have but to remember that our loving God has come to give us life more abundantly. Therefore, when fiery darts assail us we have but to call upon our shield of faith to extinguish all those fiery darts.

    Something our enemy doesn’t want us to realize is that we can choose to embrace a positive perspective or a negative one. Yep, we don’t have to be victimized by fiery darts. It may take a lot of meditation on God’s Truths to send Satan packing, but it can be done. We don’t have to allow him to spoil our perspective. 

Even when the answers don’t come

May3

     Somedays, I feel my dreams are slipping away.  Somedays, I feel I am a solitary soldier. Somedays, I feel abandoned. Somedays, I feel overwhelmed. And no matter how much I pray and attack these fiery dart thoughts, relief and/or victory just doesn’t happen.

So what does one do at times like these?

     Well, I’m going to keep fighting and resisting those fiery dart thoughts. I’m going to replace every fiery dart thought with verses of hope. Verses that remind me of who God is and how much He loves me. I’m going to remind myself of the abundance of God’s blessings and answers to prayers from my past.

     Satan’s fiery darts are unrelenting at times like these. Therefore, I must be persistent in my resistance. Like Winston Churchill reminds us

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     So, even though the relief, victory, the answers haven’t arrived, I won’t forget that each and everyone of my problems is something God cares about. And that

It won’t always be like this! 

 

The Fiery Darts of Abortion

Feb4

     I hardly know where to begin with this post. How can the purposeful death of an unborn child be justified? Yet as we recently witnessed in the news, abortion is  not only justified, it is celebrated. (bringing to mind visions of ancient rituals of offering up children to death, while people dance in mindless celebrations)

     But this can’t be. We are civilized. We are America! We would never be a part of or condone such barbaric behavior! Yet several states allow, by law, abortions up to 9 months! Since Roe vs Wade over 60 millions babies have had their chance at life brutally eliminated. 

And for what reasons was their chance at life snuffed out?            

Here’s a few: ( I call them fiery darts)

The reasons most frequently cited were that 

having a child would interfere with a woman’s education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); 

that she could not afford a baby now (73%); 

and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). 

Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. 

Fewer than 1% said their parents’ or partners’ desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. 

Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, 

while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.

 

Here’s what God has to say about life

  13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:13-16)

     Our culture is being deceived and manipulated. We have been desensitized to God’s Truth about unborn life. Even in the womb God has plans for that yet to be born child. 

      Before a woman will turn aside from hearing the truth (based on 2 Timothy 4:3-4) and exchange the truth of God for a lie (based on Romans 1:25), she must be desensitized to the truth.

in order for us to be desensitized toward the lies of fiery darts, we must first have our understanding of the Truth of Scripture diminished. By tempting us not to spend time in God’s Word, our ability to recognize the lies of fiery darts is equally diminished, if we give in to that temptation. In the place of God’s Truth, the world’s concept of truth (which is no truth at all) begins to define our thinking. p 35-36 FD’s 3rd edition

 

Believing lies (fiery darts) that justifies abortion, prohibits a woman from acknowledging and accepting the hope, love, forgiveness, and peace God offers her when she chooses life for her unborn child. 

 

Positive power vs negative power

Aug31

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Positive thinking has positive power. Negative thinking has negative power!

     I bet you knew that! “That’s just logical,” you might say. But there’s a vast difference between knowing about this power and feeling the impact of such power.  

     I know all too well the effect of negative thinking. I wrote a book, entitled: Fiery Darts: Satan’s Weapon of Choice, based on  my first hand experience of this destructive force. Regretfully, it took me many years before my eyes were opened.   Thankfully, I didn’t live my whole life ignorant of the enemy’s power. 

Positive power at work

     Recently, while in a low mood (prime time to get attacked by fiery darts) my mind strayed to the recent departure of two of my children. Both lived relatively close to me. And with a son living in Africa, their closeness was a constant source of comfort. Then a few months ago, two of my three daughters, moved in opposite directions about 11 hours away. The negative power of sadness began to claim my thoughts. 

     Yet, in these moments, the following thoughts began rising to the surface: “During the times your children and grandchildren lived nearby you made a ton of wonderful memories. Why don’t you focus on those instead? Start thanking God for those memories.” So I did. As I filled my mind with one blessed memory after another, the negative power fueled by negative thoughts diminished. The more I praised God for those sweet memories, the better I felt. 

     But not one to give up easily, Satan sent me another fiery dart. My thoughts were redirected towards another situation in my life that has the potential to create burdensome thoughts. On the tails of my recent reminder, I was prompted to find the good that came out of that burdensome situation. A bit harder perhaps, (Satan’s is clever like that) because the burden is something I continue to wrestle with. Yet, the good is there! Once again, the negative was drained away and the positive began to soothe me.

     As a Christian, I live by the God’s Truth and not the lies of fiery darts. My mind is being renewed every time I spend time with God in prayer and His Word (the Bible). 

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2 NIV

     So, think about it. A mind not experiencing renewal by God’s Truth, is a mind subject to negative power. The negative power of Satan’s lies and manipulation. A decision to take to heart John 3:16, allows us the resources to expose Satan’s negative power. A power that is no match for the positive power of God’s Truth. 

 

Be prepared!

Nov22

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Yahweh is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the whole earth.
He never grows faint or weary;
there is no limit to His understanding.
 He gives strength to the weary
and strengthens the powerless. Isaiah 40:28-29, HCSB

   Isaiah was writing to the Israelites who were in captivity in Babylon. God through Isaiah meant to encourage them as they looked forward to returning to Israel. And as they waited for the promised hope, thoughts (of a fiery dart nature) would tempt their minds with discouragement. They would grow faint and become weary. 

   But God had promised them they would return to their beloved homeland. And because He is everlasting, the Creator of the whole earth, He had a ready supply for their weariness. They knew that His strength could be their strength from the promise of His Word. Therefore, each temptation to despair could be extinguished by these true and powerful words from their Creator God. 

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   We live our lives with the hope of John 3:16. And like the Israelites, we must wait for that hope to be fulfilled. In the meantime, things can get pretty rough can’t they. And if we are not on our guard, those trials can overwhelm us. Especially, if our minds are not saturated with the words of God. With every trial, our strength can be worn down and our power can be depleted. In such a state we become vulnerable to the destructive force of fiery dart thinking. Ill prepared to receive the promised hope.

   You see, as we wait for the sure hope of heaven, Satan is working on a plan to impair our witness. He tempts us with thoughts of doubt concerning God. He secures the success of this plan by tempting us to ignore God’s word. Ever felt too busy to read the Bible and pray? We put it off till later but often later doesn’t come. 

   But if our minds are saturated with God’s words, fiery darts get exposed pretty quickly. Verses like Isaiah 40:28-29, remind us that God is our strength and source of power to defeat the enemy’s fiery darts.

   As we encounter weariness and become weak from the trials we face, it would be helpful to remember Isaiah 40:28-29. Yes, the reality concerning our life here on earth is that it is fraught with trials and temptations. Yet, those very trials can make us stronger and more prepared to receive God’s promise. God’s strength will become our strength and we will have more power to resist temptations. 

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