Matthew 6:32

For the New Year I want to give you a special gift in this writing!  I feel the urgency that someone needs to hear this!  Maybe you or someone you send this on to is in great need!

Many years ago I had a thought about the Judgment.  You know, that time when we will give account of our lives to our maker.  I wanted to know what he was going to ask me about my life.  My reasoning is that when I went to school and took a test, the test was over the material that has been presented to me.  Since this “test” will come at the end of our lives, it must be about the things that we learned and applied to our lives.  It will be measured alongside the life of our Lord, Jesus Christ!  Being “Christ like” is the command of scripture and I’m sure that He is not kidding!

So I began to pray for the Lord to give me revelation in this area and wanted Him to let me know what to expect on that Day.  I want to be ready when judgment day comes.  The first thing He showed me was that I will only be judged for what is my responsibility.  I will not be responsible for what you do or any other person does.  Just what I do with what has been given to me.

I am responsible to glorify the Lord at all times, good or bad.  I am responsible for who I put my trust in.  I am responsible for how I treat other people, whether they are friends or enemies.  I am responsible for my prayer life, etc.  To make it simple for me, I drew a square about 5x5 and began to write in that square the things that the Lord was showing me, was to be my responsibility.  The 5x5 was larger than it needed to be because a lot of things I carried were not in the scope of my responsibility!

I sat down with my wife and we agreed what would be my responsibility in the home and what was her responsibility.  I referred to the items in the “square,” until I learned what they were.  Every once in a while I have to go back and check my “square” to make sure I stay within the confines of my responsibility. (This also bring harmony at home.)

The second thing The Lord showed me was that God only gives grace for one day, a moment at a time.  I do not have “dying Grace” for tomorrow because I am not facing death.  Matthew says in: 6:34 ³⁴ Take therefore no thought for tomorrow: for tomorrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.  If I use my daily “grace supply” to worry about tomorrow then I rob myself of God’s grace today! No peace! I am not responsible for tomorrow because tomorrow hasn’t gotten here yet.

I was having my secret pray and devotions one day in the early ‘70’s.  I don’t remember what the crisis was that day, I just remember that it was an urgent matter, but no matter, I remember the Lord speaking to me almost in an audible voice.  It was so plain and loud in my thoughts that I “heard what He said!”  He said, “1 Corinthians 4:5!”  I got my bible and opened it to 1 Corinthians 4:5, and I have never before felt such a relief from the problem of that day as I felt at that moment.  The heaviness on my heart was gone and there was joy and I felt the world had been lifted off my shoulders.  PEACE at last!

No theories, no guessing, just plain practical application of God’s Word has sustained me all these years.  When I become frustrated or anxious or depressed in spirit, I check to see if I have taken on something that is not my responsibility.  It always is something that I took on, as my responsibility that did not and does not belong to me.  It has taken the peace that I crave.  I immediately resign that issue to God and get back in my square.

Seeking and letting God define my responsibility (what I will be accountable for at Judgment) and accepting that God gives GRACE for only one day at a time, (I will not use that Grace to worry about tomorrow) and dealing with the facts, has been the most stabilizing influence on my Christian life.

If you seek Him, you will find Him!!

Just a thought.

Matthew 1:20-21

Sometimes I am amazed at what scripture tells me! After Joseph got the shock of his life that his “intended” (Mary) was with child, no doubt he experienced every emotion possible to a man that has been betrayed big time.  The emotional roller-coaster went all the way from surprise to anger to frustration to revenge, etc.  I think that when he went to sleep that night he didn’t get the rest that he usually did.

He tossed and turned on his bed for hours that night wrestling with his emotions until he fell into a fitful sleep.  He had a dream, or maybe it was a half-awake vision when the Angel came to visit him. (Matthew 1:20-21) The Angel told him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, even told him it would be a boy, gave him a name to name Him, Jesus. And even told him what His occupation would be, saving His people from their sins.  What a plan!!  Nothing was left to chance.  God had all the details worked out long before this event, even to the minutest detail.

Here’s what I learned: Joseph's behavior shows that he accepted Jesus as his son. According to the oral set of laws of the Jews of that day, “If one says, ‘This is my son,’ he is to be believed.”  The written Jewish law explains that he is believed “as regards the right of inheritance.”  Thus Jesus, as a legally acknowledged son, and is entitled to inherit the throne of King David from Joseph, a descendant of David.

But here is the fascinating thing: Joseph ended the “betrothal” and made it a marriage, but did not consummate the marriage until after Jesus was born!  Joseph was “whole heartedly” behind this plan.  There was no reluctance; there were no doubts, no hesitations!  No trying to rationalize it out in his mind.  No getting the elders together for a conference.  No need to check with the “folks.” No need for a psychologist or psychiatrist.  In today’s vernacular Joseph said, “LET’S GET ‘ER DID!!!!!!!

Wouldn’t it be great if all people who call themselves Christian would get behind God’s plan “whole-heartedly” this way?

Just a thought.

Christmas: Reason for the Season

I remember one person in my college days that said to me, “If you really want to do something worthwhile on this campus, just find the loneliest classmate and work at becoming their best friend.” “Let them know they are really important to you!” I never forgot that and I have put it into practice all these many years, where ever I can.  It really works!  The sense of accomplishment is very satisfying.  Besides you find out many things about yourself that you have to deal with, both good and bad.

I have been reminded of late that the best place to practice this kind of “difference making” is in my own home.  Starting with my mate, I try to help her/him to become the best at what they want to be.  If we make them feel good about themselves they seem to achieve to a greater degree than if they had to climb the hill alone.  They will appreciate the encouragement that came from someone whose opinion they value.


I know a true story of two people who were both studying the ministry to become missionaries.  They took classes together and were assigned to the same mission station after graduation.  They decided that they should get married and that it would be better for both of them.  A few years later they came home on furlough.  The wife went to their local Pastor for counseling and admitted that she really didn’t love her husband and didn’t know what to do about it.  The very wise pastor began to let her see the side of her husband that she had never seen before.  He used this same method of asking her if she was really interested in making him a better person than she thought he was. He laid out things for her to do to encourage her husband in what he wanted to accomplish in his life.

She wrote her pastor from the mission station, about a year later, and it was the most precious letter he had ever gotten.  She had began to be the best friend he had ever had and she worked at it so hard that see fell deeply, deeply in love with him!!


When I think of Our Heavenly Father, who sent is Only Son to earth for the purpose of wanting to become our best friend. . . . . .

Don’t you think that this is the real “REASON FOR THE SEASON!!!!”


Just a thought.

1 Thess 5:18 --give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. NIV

Now that Thanksgiving Day is past we are all ready to get back to the routine of our habitual lives.  The things we did before, we now go back to and the thoughts of real Thanksgiving seems to fade.  I’m afraid that we all remember the feeling of being too full of food instead of feeling the deep thankfulness that we should.  Now we are obsessed with the idea that we need to be on a diet.

Isn’t it amazing that we forget thankfulness so quickly?  It is very possible for us to become say-ers and not do-ers of thanks-giving.  When we say “THANK YOU” is there any feeling from the heart that we really are thankful?  I remember telling someone “thank you,” just the other day.  It was a shallow “thank you” and was only intended to be polite.  There was no real feeling of being thankful.  I was made painfully aware of my own shallowness in this thankfulness department.

I wonder if we’ve let the shallowness of thanksgiving creep into our spiritual life as well.  We began to see that thankfulness is as fleeting as that look in the mirror this morning.  Scripture tells about this: James 1:23-24

²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. _NIV

Is this scripture really talking about, among other things, THANKSGIVING? Are we going away from Thanksgiving Day and forgetting to be thankful?

I met a missionary once who poured water from the faucet into a glass and then bowed his head and gave thanks.  It was not a shallow thankfulness like we always do at meal time, it was a prayer that caused the eyes to well up with tears. As he gave thanks you could almost see his heart pumping out the real, genuine thankfulness. That sight has stayed with me for over 50 years. You see, he was a missionary to Haiti.

The missionary told us of the difficulty to get clean fresh water in Haiti.

If I am thankful for only the good things that happen in my life then I am shallow, indeed!  The scripture says to -give thanks in all circumstances!

Have you ever been truly thankful in the down time, in the discouraging time, in the time of loneliness, in the time of depression, in the time of family turmoil? Or when you are misunderstood, or made fun of, or when the money doesn’t stretch far enough, when some dear one passes away. I have an empty bread box of “thank-you’s,” when it comes to the really heavy problems. 

How then do we give thanks in ALL circumstances? It would help if we could understand that God is not Santa Clause.  When things go good we can be thankful and when trouble comes, God seems to go into hiding, or on another assignment.  In any case we feel that he is not available when we need Him most.  Why do we feel this way?  Has he not promised to be with us until the end of the age?

I really do want to be thankful in ALL circumstances.  But, I find that the thankfulness in bad times comes only if I have practiced heartfelt deep thankfulness long before the bad times come!  I do that by reminding myself that Jesus suffered far more for me than I will ever suffer for Him.  I have not shed my blood because of Him.  He did for me! Anything we go through, Jesus went through before us and he was still thankful to His Heavenly Father! 

Start by thanking God for the drink of water.  How about being thankful that we have a sound mind and are able to get out of bed in the morning? Thank Him for finding the lost keys.  Thank Him that we can speak, and hopefully we can be kind in that speaking.  Thank Him for the day, the air, the moisture, the birds, the trees, the ability to do the work that you do.  Be thankful for the people in your lives that make you strong and those who you make strong by your encouragement.  Be thankful that the world is made up, chiefly of, other people, not just “me and my problems.”

Is this not the beginning of faith?  We may not feel thankful in the bad times but we can BE thankful.  We must get our feelings out of the way and let our hearts flow with thankfulness to HIM!  My salvation is by faith and my thankfulness is also by faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Even in the bad times!

Just a thought.