Getting the Blessing

Deuteronomy 30 was my reading portion of the Word today.  This is a very powerful passage.  Have you ever questioned what is necessary to receive God’s blessing?  Do you think simply believing in Jesus will do it for you?  Will all the good things you do get it for you?  The answer is quite simply…

GOD, your God, will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children’s hearts, freeing you to love God, your Whole heart and soul and live really live.  God, your God, will put all these curses on your enemies who hated you and were out to get you.  (See Chapter 27)

And you will make a new start, listening obediently to GOD, keeping all His commandments that I’m commanding you today.  GOD, your God, will outdo Himself in making things go well for you: you’ll have babies, get calves, grow crops, and enjoy an all-around good life.  Yes, God will start enjoying you again, making things go well for you just as He enjoyed doing it for your ancestors.

But only if you listen obediently to GOD, your God, and keep the commandments and regulations written in this Book of Revelation.  Nothing half-hearted here: you must return to GOD, your God, totally, heart and soul, holding nothing back.

This commandment that I’m commanding you today isn’t too much for you, it’s not out of your reach.  It’s not on a high mountain–you don’t have to get mountaineers to climb the peak and bring it down to your level and explain it before you can live it.  And it’s not across the ocean–you don’t have to send sailors out to get it, bring it back, and then explain it before you can live it.  No.  The word is right here and now–as near as the tongue in your mouth, as near as the heart in your chest.  Just do it!

Look at what I’ve done for you today: I’ve place in front of you

Resurrection

Life and Good                                       

                                         Death and Evil

                              Cross+bridge+christ-e1328133861855

                                            

And I command you today: Love GOD, your God.  Walk in His ways.  Keep His commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by GOD, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess.

If you’ve gotten to this point you’ve read through these verses from The Message and know the secret to receiving the blessings.  It’s simply love God and know His word so that you can walk in total harmony and obedience with Him.

I’m choosing life, abundant, exuberant, joyous, thrilling, delightful life!  How about you?

Heavenly Father, I love Your Word.  Thank You for breathing onto paper so I would know Your desires.  I am so blessed.  Oh, GOD, You are my God!  Because of Jesus I lift these praises before the Throne.  Amen and amen!

Garden Thoughts

The flowers you see below are from my day-lily garden.  God has overdone Himself this year…with plenty of rain and sunshine.  Enjoy the beauty and the poetry.  Blessings to you!      Marie

Kiss of the sun

In the Garden

Yellow lily

Do Unto Others…

You are different than me…I am different than you.  Some of you are older, some younger.  Some taller, some shorter.  Some richer, some poorer.  It is the way God designed us.  Yet to often we let the differences dictate our actions.

The poem that follows is very meaningful to me.  As we tried to find a really good retirement center for my mother’s last days we moved her several times. Mom’s dementia made her a very difficult patient.  She was sometimes a sobbing blob and sometimes an angry monster.  And everything in between. We three expected her to be treated with love, dignity and respect and that did not always happen.  We found very few caregivers who were able to put those in their care first.  When we finally found the ideal residence for her she had very few days left but those days were lived with loving caregivers who truly cared about her.

old man

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.

One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old man’s sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and appearing in mags for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.

And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this ‘anonymous’ poem winging across the Internet.

Cranky Old Man

What do you see nurses? . . .. . .What do you see?
What are you thinking .. . when you’re looking at me?
A cranky old man, . . . . . .not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .. . . . . . . .. with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food .. . … . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . .’I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice . . .the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . .. . . A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not . . . … lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . .The long day to fill?
Is that what you’re thinking?. .Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse .you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am . . . . .. As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, .. . . . as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of Ten . .with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .. . . .. . who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen . . . .. with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . .. . . a lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . ..my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows .. .. .that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now . . . . .I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . .. . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . .. With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons .. .have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me . . to see I don’t mourn.
At Fifty, once more, .. …Babies play ’round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me . . . . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future … . . . . I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing .. . . young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . And the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man . . . . . . .. and nature is cruel.
It’s jest to make old age . . . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. .. . grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone . . . where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . A young man still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . my battered heart swells
I remember the joys . . . . .. . I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living . . . . . . . life over again.
I think of the years, all too few . . .. gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people .. . . . .. . . open and see.
Not a cranky old man .
Look closer . . . . see .. .. . .. …. . ME!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within. We will all, one day, be there, too!

PLEASE SHARE THIS POEM!
The best and most beautiful things of this world can’t be seen or touched. They must be felt by the heart!

We are told to love one another…can we at least try?  John 13:34-35

Heavenly Father help us…to forget our differences…to honor and respect everyone…to love one another…  Make it so!

I Love You BUT I Don’t Like You

houseWhen God says I love you He is saying just that.  Where did we come up with the I don’t like you part?  Perhaps, we want to say I don’t like what you’ve said/done but I have to love you because God says so.  Hmmmmm  I really don’t think the intent of the command to love others has anything to do with a qualification (but I don’t like you).

There are 3 basic commands in the New Testament…Love God and love others!  (Matthew 22:35-40)  Go and Tell! (Matthew 28:19)  Do any of those say BUT I don’t have to like you, your actions, your opinions, your stuff…?

"These 15 (crash!).... er, 10 Commandment...

When God says love me that’s exactly what it means.  The first 4 commandments of the 10 are about loving God.  He says I AM God!  You can have no other gods in any form whether spiritual or physical.  Honor My Name.  Worship me on the Sabbath and rest from all else.  How do those equal love?  Think about this.  When we are with those we love we focus totally on them, we honor them, we let nothing get in the way of our relationship with them, we set aside time to be totally with them.  That is how we are to love God!

How we are to love others is commanded in the next 6.   Honor your parents!  Do not murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or want what belongs to someone else.   This is where the ‘but I don’t like you’ comes into play.  We get ourselves into a self-righteous attitude and say I don’t like you because you…  We have to get over ourselves!  Doesn’t God say I AM God and you’re not?  Stop separating the two.  I love you, period.

Fish hook loveLove is wanting what is best for another.  It is not wanting what is best when we say, but I don’t like you.  When a person hears, I don’t like what you are doing or saying, they immediately equate it to I don’t love you.  Oh, dear friends, take these words out of your vocabulary!  They are not God-like.  If we truly want to become more like Him we cannot allow our human attitudes to have a part in how we love.  Let nothing get in the way of simply loving!

Oh, How He Loves Us!

Oh, Heavenly Father, let me simply show love.  Keep me constantly aware of Your example.  Let me show love in Jesus’ Precious and Holy name.  Make it so!

Happy Birthday, America!

220px-Spirit_of_'76“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

26 of the original signers of the Constitution were ordained ministers and it is likely the rest were Believers in Christ.  They all took an oath to the effect that if they did not uphold the document they were signing into law they would be hanged.  Words in this document attest to the Creator who gave man life and “certain unalienable rights”.   They would have rather died than be at the mercy of a government that did not have their best interests at heart!

For many, prayer in any place but the privacy of home or church, is not allowed.  That was not the intent of the founding fathers.  Part of the reason for the Revolutionary War, in addition to the taxation issue, was that England wanted the colonists to recognize the Church of England as the only Church of America.  Prayer, worship, and the Bible were a huge part of the Revolutionary American’s life.  The Founding Fathers would have rather been hanged than deny their oath…   Our current government would like us to believe that prayer is not acceptable in public…pretty much not at all, anywhere.  Yet belief in the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and the desire to respect and glorify Him in this new country is very evident in the first prayer uttered at the first meeting of Congress.

September 7th, 1774
Carpenters Hall, Philadelphia

O Lord, our Heavenly Father, High and mighty King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, who dost from Thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms, Empires and Governments:

Look down in mercy we beseech Thee, on these American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of oppression, and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring henceforth to be dependent only on Thee, they have appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support which Thou alone canst give; take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care; give them wisdom in Council and valor in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries; convince them of the unrighteousness of their cause; and if they persist in their sanguinary purpose, O, Let the voice of Thy own enerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle! 

Be Thou present, O God of wisdom and direct the councils of this honorable assembly; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. That the scene of blood may be speedily closed; the order, harmony and peace may be effectively restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety prevail and flourish among Thy people. Preserve the health of their bodies and vigor of their minds; shower down on them, and the millions they here represent, such temporal blessings as Thou seeth expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of JESUS CHRIST, THY SON, OUR SAVIOR.

AMEN

-Rev. Jacob Duché

Dear, dear friends, pray for this country, it’s people and it’s leaders.  God clearly said, “…if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”  2 Chronicles 7:14

This should be our humble and fervent prayer...IF MY PEOPLE…

Heavenly Father, 237 years later, we are still oppressed by our government, yet You have said if we will pray, You will heal our land.  Well right now I’m asking that You hear that prayer from me.  Forgive us, give us strength and courage to stand as Daniel did against a modern Babylon.  Help us all seek your face and forgiveness.  Give us strength and courage to stand for YOU!  I lift this prayer in Jesus’ most Holy and Precious Name.  Make it so!!!