The Christian Walk

If you will not believe, Surely you shall not be established Isaiah 7:9 In this particular passage of scripture God is warning the King Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah that if he doesn't believe that God is going to protect him and that his enemy will not defeat him, that will eventually be what happens!  God commanded Isaiah to say these words; Tell him to stop worrying. Tell him he doesn’t need to fear the fierce anger of those two burned-out embers,... Isaiah 7 We know that Ahaz didn't truly believe in the words that God spoke and in fact turned to man to be rescued.  So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me.” And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent it as a present to the kin...

There is a competing force within us that yearns for the things of the flesh. Its the pride of life, the worldly things, material things,  all  the things that we think are going to satisfy us.  Take inventory; What you spend most of your time doing?  Financially, where does the money go?  What are your goals ? Do they  include; winning others to Christ, deeper prayer, serving more, tithing more, etc..  W hat  are some of the things that you want?  Are any of these activities, investments, goals,  producing fruit? God will either withhold things or take away those "dead" things in our life so that we can produce fruit. God has to prune and purify us so that we will do the work that he has called each one of us to do. God says;  " Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need . Matthew 6 :33   In the Old  Testament  specific animals were ...

Yosemite National Park 2014 Two stories of faith I know most of you have heard the story of the imprisoned pastor Saeed Abedini. He is an American pastor that was arrested for his faith in Christ Jesus. He was in Iran building an orphanage when he was arrested in July of 2012. For these past two years his wife has been vocal in calling for his release. Just this past week his wife Naghmeh met with president Obama and thanked him for his efforts to help release her husband from the cruel hands of the Iranian prison. She was able to tell Obama that she had been praying and fasting for several days so that she could meet with him and that God had answered her prayer. Naghmeh left the meeting with renewed strength, refreshment, and hope. Only God could arrange this meeting! This morning I was reading the story in Matthew 15: 21-28 To summarize; A Gentile woman had a daughter that was tormented by a demon. She came to Jesus and begged him for mercy and help for her daughte...

Do you ever feel like you are in the twilight zone and wonder what is true, real, of God, and what is wrong or of the devil? As I was reflecting and writing this post I was looking for a twilight zone picture, you know the black and white spiral, when all of a sudden my Apple computer locked up and gave me a security message and number to call. It even threatened me with a fine if I left the page! I called and the tech walked me through how to unlock my computer but I immediately thought that they were going to want money for security. I was right! He said that now there is a security breach and I needed protection. So I was threatened, accused of doing some illegal activity, then I had scare tactics thrown at me! So Ill do my own research.  Crazy stuff happens all the time especially when we are Christians and working for the King. The enemy tries to get at us but sometimes its our own flesh.  DOUBT, WORRY, FEAR, UNBELIEF, STUBBORNNESS, PRIDE, ENVY, STRIFE, SELFI...

We have all made mistakes. Have you ever bought something that you later regretted buying? Have you ever said something that you later regretted saying? Did you ever waste your time watching a horrible movie? We make decisions every day. Some seem virtually insignificant. We don't want to bother God with this or that and we think that we got it handled. By nature we are strong willed, self willed, egocentric, and self reliant. We naturally don't want to wait for an answer from God we just go along merrily and make a lot of false assumptions. But God says; Do not worry  about  anything, but in  everything  by  pray er and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4:6  I was asked if I could work an extra shift at work but my mom is staying with us and I really didn't want to go but I held off on giving a quick answer of yes or no and prayed about if I should go in or not and then I responded by saying ...

After last weeks mid term elections the republicans have taken over the senate. Acknowledging the fact that Americans have voted for different leadership, the Chinese government was quoted as saying this; 'Obama always utters "Yes, we can," which led to the high expectations people had for him. But he has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters. 'U.S. society has grown tired of his banality.' So I looked up the word insipid and this is what I found; Laking flavor, "mugs of insipid coffee" tasteless, flavorless, bland, weak, wishy washy, lacking vigor or interest, unimaginative, uninspired, flat, uninteresting, lackluster, dull, drab, boring, dry, humdrum, monochrome, tedious, uneventful, run of the mill, commonplace, trite, tired stale, lame, wishy-washy, colorless, lifeless..etc.  Then I immediately thought of the word; LUKEWARM But since you are like  lukewarm  water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out ...

Faith, Hope, and Love  Have you seen the news headlines lately? They are looking pretty bleak. Here is just a small sample from this past week; Girls rapist invited to dinner then tortured to death  Mom arrested for disturbing Facebook photo   Police; Teen planned slaughter at school    Terminally ill woman ends life at 29, says "pay it forward"  50 Women and children dumped in a well and ISIS massacres 322 Sunni Tribesman  Courtesy of World Net Daily New York’s Highest Court Unanimously Rules in Favor of Incest ‘Marriage’ Between Uncle and Niece Well I could go on and on but you get the point. I actually still get shocked by some of the things that the news is reporting because its so gruesome and sick. Our country was not this way five years ago. Our society is quickly escalating into deeper wickedness, hopelessness, corruption, greed, lovelessness, and lawlessness.  But God  God is in this world and he uses people l...

So as I was researching this topic I found these words: Yield, relinquish control, to render or return, acceptance, acknowledgement, compliance, cooperation, and approval. We can consciously do all these things when we understand and know our God. We know the source of where we get our information, the word of God. We can place our trust in his word because we know that we serve a loving, merciful, all knowing God. We are living in a hostile, dangerous world and it tells us we need to do certain things to succeed, or feel better, or make more money, find a mate, or get peace. In addiction counseling the trained professionals say to practice yoga, in Buddhism to practice spiritual disciplines, some people say to get ahead in life to throw religion out the window!  In some Christian circles there are conferences that host special speakers, that aren't Christian but in the worlds eyes "successful" and they teach Christians how to succeed!? Why would we look...