"When I am Alone"

When I am Alone

“Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress.” Psalm 25:16

Young or old, man or woman, rich or poor; one of the worse feelings you can have is to be lonely.  It isn’t only the fact of a person being physically alone, it can be that you feel deserted or have no friends.  Loneliness is the epitome of hopelessness.  Immediately this throws word pictures in your mind; an elderly person sitting in their chair with no friends or family, or a man sitting in a prison cell; a child left alone by a parent.  I’m sure you get the picture. 

I, myself have felt that loneliness, although there were people around me. I recall a time when I was in my twenties, I suffered nervous breakdown and was put in a rest home.  I felt everyone deserted me and because of the treatment I received there, I experienced great loneliness and hopelessness.  I wanted to give up, but something inside of me wouldn’t let me.  I know now that God was protecting me.  I can say today, as it says in James 1:2 “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials”.  Because of that experience I have been able to minister to countless people who felt lonely and hopeless.

I think of many teens who experience these feelings and they think that no one understands them.  It may come from a poor relationship with parents, or it may come from feeling insecure with their peers.  Or it may come from feeling melancholy about life because of physical problems like hormones.  What really matters is the feelings and what can be done about it.

I often think of my mother when she was elderly.  My father passed away years before and when she was active she was happy.  Then as the years went by she became more and more homebound.  My siblings and I lived in another city and couldn’t always be there. I worked full time and was very active in our church and had four children and grandchildren.  However, all of us were there a lot, even the grandchildren.  We took her on trips and spent all the holidays with her, but she always told me that Sunday was the loneliest time for her.  She was always active in church, but eventually could no longer attend and most of her close friends had passed away.  I know she had it better than so many elderly, but she still experienced loneliness. 

How many are in nursing homes and do not have any visitors.  Some have children that just don’t visit them.  It is so sad that many who are put in homes just give up; they are lonely and many of them feel hopelessness.  Those that feel that way generally don’t have a relationship with Jesus. They may not know that Jesus says, “I will never leave you or forsake you”.  [Hebrew 13:5]   They may not know that God says in Isaiah 54:5, “For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is His name”.

I like what the Bible tells us in I Timothy 5:5, “A woman who is truly alone in this world, has placed her hope in God, asking God for his help.”  She has hope and knows her future with Jesus and has peace within her. 

I am reminded of earlier times when men and women were brought to this country as slaves.  Taken away from their homelands and family, never to see them again.  I can’t imagine the hopelessness and loneliness they endured. They had no one to stand up for them or rescue them from terrible standards of living.  There was no one to protect them from the terrible beatings and torture they endured.  Yet, they endured because they learned about a loving God who would be with them and give them hope. Some of my favorite songs are Negro spirituals which were filled with the hope of God’s glory.

You are never really alone when you know Jesus.  You are never without hope when you know Jesus.  When I go through troubling times or can’t sleep, I sing this song.  It gives me immediate comfort and peace and helps connect me to the Lord, himself.

Give me Jesus

By Jeremy Camp

Verses

When I come to rise, O when I come to rise

And when I come to rise, give me Jesus.

When I am alone, and when I am alone,

And when I am alone, give me Jesus.

When I come to die, and when I come to die

And when I come to die, give me Jesus.

Chorus:

Give me Jesus, Give me Jesus

You can have all this world

But give me Jesus.

"A Heart of Obedience"

“A Heart of Obedience”

1 Samuel 15:22 (NLT)

“But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams” (the best you have).

Whether you believe in tithing, giving 10%, to the church for the Lord’s work, is not the issue of this Bible teaching.  I strongly believe in tithing because I have tested what the Word says about it and I’ve been blessed for it many times over.  However, I give because God has shown that’s what we need to do, so I’ve been obedient to the Word of God.  Even then that’s not the major point of giving; my heart wants to give because I love God.  It’s that simple.

Whatever you give do it with a joyful heart or it is meaningless to God.  Any way you look at it, the word ‘obedience’ is part of the word ‘heart’.  Have you ever given gifts or money to someone because you felt you had to, but in your heart you resented it?  Is there any joy in that?  You may later think about what you could have done with it if you had kept it. 

Look at this formula:   God + Heart + Obedience + Giving = Great Rewards.  Here are some of the rewards:  a joyful heart, helping others, blessings of all kinds, returns on your giving.  Almost everyone can quote this scripture in Acts 20:35, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”  The question is, “do you believe it?”  What you may not realize is that the first part of this verse is this, “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus,  that He said this.  This is what Jesus is telling believers that this is what we should do. 

The reasoning behind this is that the Lord wants the best for you!  Look at this verse that the Lord shows us what he wants for us, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” [3 John 1:2] He calls us His Beloved which shows us how much he cares for us.  Then he follows with such a great blessing; prospering in all things and having good health and that our soul will prosper. How can this be?  It will happen if we are obedient to Him.

There is more assurance in Luke 6:38 where he gives us a command and the results of obedience.  Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."   If you ae waiting for God to prosper you first and then you will start giving, you have it all backwards.  It’s kind of like what came first, the chicken or the egg?  If you believe in God, the Creator, you will understand that the chicken was created first and the egg followed.  So it is with being obedient to the Lord and begin giving from your heart.

Let me tell you my testimony.  When we first received Christ as our Savior, there was a lot we needed to learn and we were anxious to know how to serve God to the fullest.  We heard people talk about tithing and didn’t quite understand it because we had very little money at the time.  One day I received a magazine and the next day I looked through it and read an article about giving from Malachi 3:10, the last book in the Old Testament.   I didn’t think too much about it; it was time to leave for work.  I got in my car and turned on the radio as I usually did.  Instead of my Christian music, a short message came on with the scripture of Malachi 3:10 and if we need financial help, we should give first.

I really started seriously thinking about what I had read and heard.  Was this God speaking to me?  That night when I returned home and we were eating dinner, I mentioned it to my husband.  The television was on in the living room and we could see it from the dining table.  Just then someone began preaching on the television and it was about (you guessed it) Malachi 3:10.  Three times in a row was enough for me and for my family.  God was speaking to us!

The only problem was that we didn’t have any money.  We had paid our bills, but had little left for the next week.  Both cars were near empty and no groceries were bought and Sunday was two days away.  Several times we read Malachi 3:10, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this," Says the LORD of hosts, "If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.”  We talked it over and thought maybe we could start tithing next payday, but then we read verse 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings.”

We agreed that we would give the remainder of our cash, which would have amounted to 10% of our income and trust God.  We did give on Sunday and then came Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Both gas tanks were almost on empty, which we prayed for when we left for work on Wednesday.  The milk and bread were both gone and I wasn’t sure what we would have for dinner.  I grabbed the mail on the way in and there was a check for $200 from a realtor for an earlier house deal that we didn’t know we had coming. 

From that day to this we have never stopped tithing and God has always provided for us and blessed us in uncountable ways. 

You may still think this is about tithing, but it isn’t.  It’s a matter of a ‘Heart of Obedience’; of a loving God and wanting to please Him.  He will never fail you.  God says, “Try Me” and I say Amen!

"Hearers and Doers"

Hearers and Doers

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” James 1:22 (NKJV)

It’s funny how so many people hear words that are said, but don’t really hear them.  Sometimes it’s called ‘selective hearing’.  It reminds me of a joke I heard:

 The wife says to her husband, who sat reading the newspaper, “Will you please lay down that paper and take the rest of your junk off the floor?”  He says, “Okay” and went over and lay down on the sofa. What her husband heard was “lay down and take a rest.”  That’s called, “Selective Hearing”.

Look around you some Sunday in church and its obvious some people’s minds are elsewhere than on the serman.  We’ve all done it at times and aren’t listening to what is being said to us.  At times my mind is a long way from the present. This is what James 1:22 is explaining to us; you can hear the Word of God, but when you are thinking something else, you don’t know what youv’e heard, so you can’t do anything about it.

In 1 Timothy 4:15, we are to, “Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.”  What things?  He is talking about the Word of God.  Anyone can read the Word of God, but only those who want to be ‘sold out’ to Christ will meditate on the Word.  If we focus and absorb the words of the Bible, then we will begin to notice the wisdom and truths that lie on each page.

How do we know how to live a Godly life? It is clearly laid out in the Bible.  Then what?  Make the decision to follow the directions. When you begin to follow the directions, you will find in isn’t all about you, but it’s about the people around you as well.  The Bible tells us to be ‘Doers of the Word’, and that means being an example of Jesus to others.

What does it mean to be an example of Jesus to others?  It means loving others (even when they are unlovable), caring for their needs, being a friend to them and slowly introduce them to Jesus and His Word.  It’s important to be real with others, because if your heart isn’t in it they will find you out and you will be deceiving yourself. 

As a very small child I heard this song, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” It took me many, many years to understand what that really meant.  I have loved the Lord and studied the Bible for 37 years and am still learning.  God continues to teach me to not just read his directions, but to act on them.  It doesn’t always come easy.

Many people are into memorizing the Bible and I agree it is very important.  In Psalm 119:1, King David wrote, “Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You!”  This means that you need to know the Word of God and remember it, because there may be a time where you need to bring it up so you won’t allow sin to creep into your life again. However, you can memorize the whole Bible and still not know how to apply it to your own life.  It is the combination of ‘hearing and doing’ that God wants you to use for your benefit and others.

I suggest you take a verse from the Bible and really start thinking about it.  For example, read Jesus parable about the sower. Mark 4:3-8 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow, and it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

Now most of you have heard this parable many times, but try reading it again in phrases.  The first sentence, “Listen” tells you that this was very important and Jesus wanted to be sure you were paying attention.  The second part isn’t just about a farmer going out to plant some seeds, but it’s about a person who wants to share the Gospel to others. Then they tell another person about Jesus and but that person didn’t want anything to do with it.  Jesus even had to explain to the disciples the meaning of the parable in verses 13-20. It boils down to this, some will hear and believe and they will share with others and those who believe will share with others.  This is how the Gospel has grown from the beginning and is still growing today. 

You see how much more is in the Word of God than just glancing through it.  After studying this over the years, I have come to the opinion that only one out of four will make it into heaven just as it says that only one seed out of four planted, yielded a crop and produced more.

This is only an example, but the fact remains there is more than just reading the Bible and studying it.  Become a ‘Doer’ and God will guide you through a life that is full, peaceful, joyful and rich in wisdom and most of all leading others to Christ.

"2016 - The Year of Wonders"

2016 – The Year of Wonders

 “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan,                                          with all power, signs, and lying wonders.”  2 Thessalonians 2:9 (NKJV)

Looking back on 2015 reminds me of so many prophecies in the Bible.  In Matthew 24 Jesus is telling his disciples about things that will happen in the end times.  These are things we don’t usually think about or connect with the days we live in and so I begin with facts recorded from 2015.

Only 1/3^rd of Americans believe the Bible is the actual Word of God to be taken literally. About 1 in 5 Americans believe the Bible is an ancient book of “fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man.”  Yet many call themselves “Christians” although they do not believe in the virgin birth or that there is a Satan or Hell.

There were 1.06 Million recorded abortions in the U.S. in 2014.

There are about 9 Million gay, transgender and bisexual [LGBT], or 3.8% of US citizens in America.

There are 42 wars world-wide and the U.S. is involved in 4 of them.

In 2014 over 32,727 people killed by Terrorists in the world.

Over 570,000 Americans die each years by drug addictions.

There are about 11 Million children that will face famine, disease and lack of water throughout the world in 2016.

National announcement: “A year of extremes: severe snow storms, drought and floods ravaged US in 2015”.

Muslims literally Hate America and Israel and according to their Koran we are infidels that should be put to death. 

We have many ‘false prophets’ within our churches who preach a false gospel.  Our enemy is not only outside, but inside as well.  Grace has been turned into Hyper Grace, that no matter what you do, God’s grace has you covered and there is no need for repentance.  The Word of God can be watered down to the point that everything is okay. For more information on these churches, some very popular, go to Charismanews.com and look up “Confronting the Errors of Hyper Grace”.  

As for signs in the heavens, there were 4 Blood Moons in 2015 which are called a ‘Tetrad’. These rarely occur, but the thing that is so strange is that each of them occurred on a Jewish feast day.  When it does happen a major event regarding Israel follows such as on June 7, 1967 the Jordanians launched an attack against Israel and west Jerusalem. Israel counter-attacked driving Jordan out of east Jerusalem, out of Judea-Samaria, and back into its own land across the Jordan River. Jerusalem was undivided and under Jewish control for the first time since the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD.

Many of the things I have shared with you relate to Matthew 24 of which Jesus explained to the disciples.  So what we can expect in 2016?  We are going to be living in a new American concept where morals will continue to disappear and sin will be stricken from teaching of many churches.  In fact that is already taking place.  Some church will be closed because the Pastors will have preached the truth.

Politically correct will become law for many phases of our lives.  Prisons and jails will be emptied and thousands of predators and thieves will roam our streets free, putting our loved ones in great danger. Many more terrorist attacks will continue in larger numbers in this country and other parts of the free world.

Sharia law will continue to grow in Muslim populations and will affect our laws and way of life.

Our country has been feeding and babying these Arab countries such as Iran and it will come back to bite us.  We are so indebted to China that they will own more of our country than the US does. 

We look forward to new leadership which may change the course of our history.  If Hillary Clinton becomes president, we will continue on the same path as Obama, but if a republican wins the presidency, don’t expect a quick fix.  The last 8 years have dug us into a deep hole and it takes a long time to fill it, if ever. 

2016 does not look like a bright future and the only thing we can do is Stand.  We must remain strong as Christians and let no one change our belief in an Almighty God who is our Savior and Deliverer.  The wonder of 2016 is what it will take to bring people’s hearts back to Jesus.  Much of what we can expect will be ‘lying wonders’.  The enemy of your soul wants to use his power to deceive Believers and he has been doing it for a long time.

May God go before us and be our rear guard as we enter into the battle.