Mat.24: 6...see that ye be not troubled...

 Lots of terrible things are happening in our world today, yes? But did not Jesus tell us these things in Mat. 24 and other places? He also said for us not to be troubled for all these things must come to pass, Mat. 24:6-7. But how many who claim to be Christians are fearful and worried? Didn't we learn in 2 Tim. 1:7 that the Lord didn't give us the spirit of fear? And God is not the author of confusion, 1 Cor. 14:33. 

We have to stand on his word! I'm hearing that the world leaders are stopping the farmers from producing food because supposedly, it's cows that are causing climate change?????? It's their manure. How foolish. So we aren't going to eat meat, cheese, and drink their milk, but instead we're going to eat bugs and fake meat grown on parts of aborted calves. And one very rich man in the US is buying up many acres of the best farmland in the US. Do we really think that the elites are not going to eat steak while the rest of humanity is forced to eat bugs? Wow! Do we Christians not understand that Satan is the god of this world 2 Cor. 4:4 and he has been given a certain amount of time to rule? Remember how he tempted Jesus, that if he would bow down to him, he would give Jesus all the kingdoms of this world? But the Lord has called us to come out of this world's systems, 2 Cor. 6:16-17.  

We have to believe and stand on God's word. He is the only one that can protect us and provide for us. In Psalms 91, he has given us precious promises concerning all the things that are taking place now. He also tells us in Ps. 33 and Ps. 37 that we will be satisfied in the days of famine. How? I have no idea! But God provided for Elijah and the widow during a famine. If God can cause ravens to bring Elijah meat and bread to eat, do we think that he can't provide for his kids today? He provided manna in the desert for the Israelites for 40 years. Nothing is impossible for God! After all, He created everything that we can see including ourselves, Ps. 139: 14-16. 

See that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass...They have to happen in order for Jesus to come back. Scripture cannot be broken, John 10:35. We have to do what Ps.121 says. We have to lift up our heads because our help comes from the Lord. Praise the Lord. Amen.

Grace and peace from our Lord always.

Gen. 48:21 And Israel said unto Joseph...Gen.49:1,33 And Jacob called unto his sons...

 When I was talking to my son last week, he asked me if I knew what a live funeral was. I told him no and he began to explain it to me. It's when a person knows that he's going to die, and he calls his family, friends, etc. to come and see him. What they do and where they meet is in the dying person's hands. Wow! How many times have people wished that they had gone to visit someone before they had died and felt bad because they hadn't done so. I immediately thought of Jacob. Many years ago, I said that I wanted to die like Jacob. Jacob knew that he was going to die, because the Lord had told him. Jacob called his sons together and told them what would befall them in the last days. He also told them where to bury him. After he told them, the Bible says he gathered his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost! That's a live funeral. Solomon said that there's nothing new under the sun!

I believe that a true child of God knows when they are going to die. Why do I believe this? Because the Lord prepares his children to leave this world. He told Hezekiah to put his house in order because he was going to die. But after seeking the Lord, the Lord gave Hezekiah fifteen more years. There are many people in the Bible that knew when they were going to die. Moses, Jacob, Elijah-although he didn't die physically but he knew he would be taken, Jesus, Paul, and Peter just to name a few.

Of course, we are sad when someone we love dies. And when we we cry, who are we crying for? The one that is gone or ourselves? If our loved ones belong to the Lord, we will see them again! I always say that my son is on vacation, and I will see him again when I leave this old world and go to join him.  Do I miss him? Of course! Is he forgotten? Never. And what did God say to Adam in the garden? Dust you are and to dust you will return. But our spirits don't die. Our spirit goes to be with the Lord. How do I know that? Because it was Moses and Elijah that talked to Jesus when he was transfigured on the mount. Even Jesus died physically as did Lazarus. 

So maybe this live funeral is something that we need to look into. Maybe we can be partakers of the food and beverages that are always shared by friends and family after regular funerals before we actually depart from this world. Wouldn't that be something to behold!!!! All things are possible in the Lord.

Peace and grace!

1John 4:16...God is love...

I just keep thinking about Adam and Eve, and the love that the Lord had for them. We always hear about their disobedience but not about the love that God had for them. Adam and Eve were intelligent people. You say that if they were so intelligent, then what did they eat the forbidden fruit. Why do we do what we aren't supposed to do? They were free moral agents. They were given the choice of choosing what they would do or not do. God did not create robots.

Adam was created with a perfect mind, like the mind of God. Adam gave names to all the animals that God had brought to him Gen.2:19-20. When Adam and Eve sinned, God made and gave the first blood sacrifice for sin Gen. 3:21 and made clothes from the skins of those animals for Adam and Eve. That blood sacrifice was the forgiveness of their sin just as Jesus shed his blood for our forgiveness. And when I think of what our God did, for Adam and Eve, it reminds me of when Isaac asked Abraham where was the lamb for the burnt offering, and Abraham told him that God would provide for himself a lamb Gen. 22:7-13. Abraham knew God! Hebrews 11:17-19, he believed that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead in order to keep the promise that he had given to him concerning that his seed would be through Isaac and not Ishmael. Oh the grace and mercy of God! God also provided us with a lamb for a sacrifice for our sins!

And when Cain killed Abel, God went to him and asked him about his brother. The Lord gave Cain the chance to confess his sin and the chance to be forgiven. Instead of admitting his killing of his brother, Cain argued with God and refused his chance of being forgiven and chose to walk away from the presence of God. 

We say and hear that God is love, and he is, but do we really understand this. We see his love here in the first few chapters of Genesis, but I have never heard  a sermon about this. I've only heard of the sin of Adam and Eve. In school, we always heard about the caveman, and yes, people have lived in caves for protection from weather, enemies, etc.  I've never heard about the love and intelligence that God had and gave to Adam and Eve. How to live on a cursed earth: when, where, and how to plant and harvest, how to kill and prepare meat, make clothes, etc. God was with Adam and Eve,  to help them live in this new environment, to have and raise children, etc. He taught them how to worship him and to teach their children to worship him. 

Jesus said if we keep his commandments then we love him. His commandments are not grievous and they are loaded with benefits, blessings. We forget that we have an enemy that wants to kill us. When we obey the Lord, we defeat the enemy. Many times we blame the devil for our problems and "the devil made me do it" was a saying made popular by Flip Wilson. But the Lord didn't blame the devil when he asked Adam who told him that he was naked. Each one was convicted by their own disobedience and given their own consequence. James 1:13-16 tells us that we are tempted by our own lusts, enticed, and then do whatever it is causing us to sin. The enemy isn't mentioned. When Eve saw that the fruit was good for food, good to look at, and it would make her wise, she ate it. And no one wants to be alone in their disobedience, so she gave some to her husband with her. We alone are to blame for our own disobedience. We choose whom we will serve. The Lord will correct us because he loves us. He doesn't want anyone to go to hell, John 3:16-21.

We know that Galatians 5:22-23 describes the fruit of the Spirit. This describes God. He is all these things. He doesn't just have them, he is them. And we can see these in his relationship with our first parents, Adam and Eve. And if we look at ourselves, we can see the Lord's forgiveness and goodness in our own lives. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Peace and grace.

Gen. 2: 5...and there was not a man to till the ground.

 I have heard at different times from preachers that the people in Noah's time never saw rain and especially a flood. Therefore they mocked Noah. I disagree with this teaching. In Gen. 2:5-6, it says that God had not caused it to rain upon the earth because there was not a man to till the ground and that there was a mist that came up and watered the whole face of the ground. When Adam and Eve were put out of the garden,  Gen. 3:23 says that he, Adam, was sent out of the garden to till the ground from where he had been taken. And Cain had brought as an offering to God of the fruit of the ground because he was a tiller of the ground, Gen. 4: 2-3.  Ask any farmer, and they will tell you that the things they plant has to have rain in order to grow.

When Adam and Eve left the garden, they were no more in paradise. They had to work the ground in order to grow food. Now they had to deal with thorns and thistles and sweat! Gen. 3:17-19. Their sin had consequences. Yes, they were forgiven because God killed the animal(s) for a blood sacrifice and to clothe them with the animal skins, but they still suffered the consequences of their behavior. And so do we. Did the Lord help them after they left the garden? Does he help us when we have sinned and been forgiven? Of course he does. God does not change, ever. He is the same today, yesterday, and forever.

Noah was 600 years old when he entered the ark, Gen. 7:6.  Do you really think that there was no rain in that time? I've also heard preachers say that Noah was mocked for what he was doing. However,  the Bible doesn't say that. Jesus said in Mat. 24:37-39 that the people were unaware of what was going on because they were too busy doing their own thing. And he says so it will be when he comes. Perhaps that's why he says to watch and see that you not be deceived.

We have to read what the Lord's word says, and not put our own human minds and customs to it. Not even those of the preachers. If I don't agree with something that my pastor says, I always go to him and talk with him about it. And we both come away with understanding and appreciation for God's word and each other.

Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Ps.92:14-15 They still shall bring forth fruit in their old age; they shall be fat and flourishing to shew that the LORD...

 Wow! Here we are in 2022! Amazing, because when I was ten or eleven years old, I heard my grandparents talking about the year 2000. I remember thinking that that would never happen. It was so far away that it was impossible. Well, what did that ten or eleven year old know? Absolutely nothing, because here we are beyond 2000. 

Last week I was talking to my son about this and that. How we grow up, get married, have children and grandchildren, etc. Then we get old. Now what do we older people do? He said, "Mom, they need to be doing what you're doing." What a pearl from heaven. And I realize that the Lord doesn't have the same calling or job  for everybody. We are individuals and so is our calling of the Lord. But we have a purpose here until he calls us home.

I refuse to call myself "old". I call myself older. Why? Because thinking that you're "old" will cause you to become old. It's a mind thing. Many older people use their age as an excuse to not do something. It isn't that many are too old, it's that they don't want to do whatever. I have learned, in my older years, that I can say "no." Where does God say that you always have to say "yes"? Yes to him, of course, but many things that are said to be of him are not so. If we're led by the Holy Spirit, sometimes the answer is no, don't do that. So who do we follow? The Holy Spirit, the world, or even the religious organization?

God has many things to say about we older people. We are to be a blessing to the younger people. I remember a few years ago after I came here, that a young woman had come here with another group to do whatever. She told me one day that she was in church one Sunday morning, and she looked around and asked herself what was she doing there. She was in the young people's church service, not the traditional (old) peoples group. And she realized that this group didn't know anymore than she did. She left and went to the "traditional" church service, and never looked back.

Here are some other promises for us older folks! Ps.37:25, Ps.39:5, Isa. 46;4 which says, And even to your old age I am he; an even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made and I will bear: even I will carry, and deliver you. Even as he carried Israel through the desert, so will he carry us. Carrying us doesn't necessarily mean that we can't walk.

I hope that we learn to enjoy our older age and what the Lord is doing in, with, and through us. When we look at what he did with Abraham and Sarah, Caleb, and Moses, we should be delighted with our own age and what the Lord is doing. No, we aren't going to do what they did, but if the Lord worked through them to accomplish his will then, he will also work in us to accomplish his will today. Remember, God doesn't change. He's the same today, yesterday, and forever. Hallelujah!

Grace and peace.