Foul Satan! Your roam would abruptly end,
If God decreed! Angel legions on hold
By His constraint would pour forth if He send;
O, how fast would heaven void of beings bold,
If the tether loosed! Thus does Satan rend
All men who do not ask the Lord for aid;
Alas, poor lost, all alone you must fend,
For God insists your choice be freely made.
To receive the hand that quells your lifestorm,
You must ask Him first; His aid can't be bought;
If so, heaven would fill with the lukewarm,
Men who pled not, for God's help to be wrought!
Look not to Him, mortal, in futile hope,
That absent your choosing He'll help you cope!
The question often asked, with implied criticism, by unbelievers is, Why does a loving God let bad things happen to people? I assure you that God is just and fair; He allows bad things to happen to everybody, bad or good alike. Yes, He loves everybody, but He is under no obligation to help people who reject Him, and the same disaster that strikes unbelievers also strikes believers.
"He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous." (Matthew 5:45)
If an earthquake kills 25,000 Turks, there are good men and evil men among the casualities. But He promises special care to those who choose to follow the commands of Jesus to love others. This does not mean that He protects believers from the same troubles that fall on others, but He might; this is because some might have special missions yet to accomplish, and it is in His will that they be saved in order to complete their assignments. Sometimes an angel is assigned to assist a follower; some Bible passages are: Psalm 34:7; 91:9-12; Daniel 10:15-19; Matthew 4:6; 18:10; Acts 5:17-20; 12:4-14; and there are many others.
God loves all people, but He loses patience with those who continually reject and criticize Him. Sometimes He sends a greater delusion so that they will believe it and be more fit to be lost than they were at first (See 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12). For His faithful followers He is more protective and often provides them healing and extensions of life. I have been the recipient of several miracles, such as that the doctors predicted I would surely die 15 years ago, but here I am; if I live until midnight tonight, it will be 16 extra years. I was blind for 4 months this year; opthamologists told me it was for good; but at 2 p.m. on August 18, my eyesight returned, given back to me after much prayer by many. That is why I write this blog; I must use every precious minute hoping to bear fruit for Him. Yes, God is much more protective of those who love Him.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Your Own Angel
No one there could detect the angel host
Surrounding Golgatha where Jesus hung
Suspended with thieves on a Roman post,
His blood the wages of sin o'erflung;
He knew not his peril, who drove the nail,
Nor did he who speared heaven's sinless Lamb,
How those acts angered, so the hosts turned pale!
Their charade had ceased, if the great I AM
The unseen furies an attack allow;
No "Charge!" was given, the shame to avenge;
The farce went on, so Grace to men endow;
So men could live, His death did Death unhinge!
Jesus for love did His rescue forbid,
When He pled God, they knew not what they did!
"Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some people have entertained angels without knowing it." (Hebrews 13:2)
There is no doubt that hundreds, maybe thousands of angels hovered about the cross when Jesus was crucified. Yes, there are angels among us humans that we do not know or see. There are fallen angels, who are called demons; they are trying to get us to commit sin. There are good angels, guarding believers and carrying out specific missions for God. There are curious angels, who freely go and come from heaven to earth, and who want to check curiosities out for themselves.
"The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them." (Psalm 34:7)
God is not alone. One place in the Bible says there are 10,000 X 10,000 angels around the throne in heaven. There are more than 200 scripture passages about angels mixing with humans. This may be the biggest obstacle for a person sincerely trying to believe the Bible and follow Jesus---to believe in a supernatural world that mixes with our world all the time, and yet is not detected by any of our 5 senses. It is there, though, and it is just as real as our physical world. You can have your own angel, by believing in Jesus as Lord, and loving others.
Surrounding Golgatha where Jesus hung
Suspended with thieves on a Roman post,
His blood the wages of sin o'erflung;
He knew not his peril, who drove the nail,
Nor did he who speared heaven's sinless Lamb,
How those acts angered, so the hosts turned pale!
Their charade had ceased, if the great I AM
The unseen furies an attack allow;
No "Charge!" was given, the shame to avenge;
The farce went on, so Grace to men endow;
So men could live, His death did Death unhinge!
Jesus for love did His rescue forbid,
When He pled God, they knew not what they did!
"Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some people have entertained angels without knowing it." (Hebrews 13:2)
There is no doubt that hundreds, maybe thousands of angels hovered about the cross when Jesus was crucified. Yes, there are angels among us humans that we do not know or see. There are fallen angels, who are called demons; they are trying to get us to commit sin. There are good angels, guarding believers and carrying out specific missions for God. There are curious angels, who freely go and come from heaven to earth, and who want to check curiosities out for themselves.
"The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them." (Psalm 34:7)
God is not alone. One place in the Bible says there are 10,000 X 10,000 angels around the throne in heaven. There are more than 200 scripture passages about angels mixing with humans. This may be the biggest obstacle for a person sincerely trying to believe the Bible and follow Jesus---to believe in a supernatural world that mixes with our world all the time, and yet is not detected by any of our 5 senses. It is there, though, and it is just as real as our physical world. You can have your own angel, by believing in Jesus as Lord, and loving others.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Ode To Grace
Had sin remained unborn, its evil chill
Ne'er allowed, the forces of good dismay;
The Angel of Light, fair Lucifer still;
Then there would be no need for Judgment Day;
No fallen ones or Lake of Fire ablaze;
Men would not live, been never created;
No labor; no sweat; no Time marking days;
God's great gift of Grace fore'er awaited!
Woe to the world! Without God's sublime Grace,
His answer to evil's Gordian* riddle,
Death defeated to rescue human's race,
Leaving not one jot**, or missing tittle***!
Man, you must know, it was Lucifer's deed,
That provoked God with Grace to intercede!
*Gordian Knot, difficult to untie
**dotted i
***crossed t
Men have longed for a world without evil. They say, If God is so great and powerful, He could just as easily have created this world without evil in it. He need not have created Lucifer, the traitor angel who rebelled against Him in heaven (Revelation 12), and persuaded a third of all angels to join him. As a general rule, angels do not disobey God, or cause trouble. Lucifer's sin was the first one committed, because man had not yet been created.
Neither did God, they say, have to put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9), so that Adam and Eve would not have been tempted to sin by disobeying God and eating of it, which was man's original sin.
Why? The answer is that God wanted a being with Him in heaven who had a completely free will; He wanted a creature that loved His Son Jesus enough to choose the narrow path of righteousness instead of the easy path of living without any moral restraint. He would rather have no one in heaven than robots who were bribed to come there.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith---and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God..." (Ephesians 2:8)
The intricate theology that explains grace does not have to be understood by us in order to take advantage of God's offer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
Ne'er allowed, the forces of good dismay;
The Angel of Light, fair Lucifer still;
Then there would be no need for Judgment Day;
No fallen ones or Lake of Fire ablaze;
Men would not live, been never created;
No labor; no sweat; no Time marking days;
God's great gift of Grace fore'er awaited!
Woe to the world! Without God's sublime Grace,
His answer to evil's Gordian* riddle,
Death defeated to rescue human's race,
Leaving not one jot**, or missing tittle***!
Man, you must know, it was Lucifer's deed,
That provoked God with Grace to intercede!
*Gordian Knot, difficult to untie
**dotted i
***crossed t
Men have longed for a world without evil. They say, If God is so great and powerful, He could just as easily have created this world without evil in it. He need not have created Lucifer, the traitor angel who rebelled against Him in heaven (Revelation 12), and persuaded a third of all angels to join him. As a general rule, angels do not disobey God, or cause trouble. Lucifer's sin was the first one committed, because man had not yet been created.
Neither did God, they say, have to put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9), so that Adam and Eve would not have been tempted to sin by disobeying God and eating of it, which was man's original sin.
Why? The answer is that God wanted a being with Him in heaven who had a completely free will; He wanted a creature that loved His Son Jesus enough to choose the narrow path of righteousness instead of the easy path of living without any moral restraint. He would rather have no one in heaven than robots who were bribed to come there.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith---and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God..." (Ephesians 2:8)
The intricate theology that explains grace does not have to be understood by us in order to take advantage of God's offer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Believers Stray. Too
Why does the believer continue to sin?
He knows, of all men, that God will chastise.
The Christian knows well that his God made men,
How Christ was travailed their souls to reprise,
And scriptures which teach him how best to hew;
That wages of sin mean death for the lost,
Distress in their lives for the redeemed few!
He knows that his sin incurs massive cost;
They serve only to nail Jesus anew,
And, seen by the lost, helps them to resist;
Gives new strength to Satan, men to pursue,
Plus, his future reward, less will consist!
Knowing all this, he trespasses anyway,
By will and intent, determined to stray!
When a Christian tries to persuade a friend to join him in the quest to follow Jesus, he is often considered as a person who thinks he is better than his friend. Would that it was true! No, he's no better; he sins, too; as much or more than his friend. In fact, observing the two of them as God can, it would be difficult to tell which is the Christian, and which is the unsaved friend! If the only observable difference between them is that the Christian is seen in church at times, maybe holding a Bible, there is no guarantee that the believer is a believer.
However, there would be one positive sign: He is trying to save his friend from an eternity in hell by trying to persuade him to join him on the trail of the saved! That is an act of love, and love for your friend is the best way to win God's approval. There are many other ways to win His approbation, also. Jesus emphasized dramatically some of the ways in teaching about judgment day. When every dead person has been resurrected at the end of time, they will be separated like sheep from goats in front of King Jesus.
"Then the King will say to those on the right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'" (Matthew 25:34-36)
Love alone is not enough, though; you must believe in Jesus.
He knows, of all men, that God will chastise.
The Christian knows well that his God made men,
How Christ was travailed their souls to reprise,
And scriptures which teach him how best to hew;
That wages of sin mean death for the lost,
Distress in their lives for the redeemed few!
He knows that his sin incurs massive cost;
They serve only to nail Jesus anew,
And, seen by the lost, helps them to resist;
Gives new strength to Satan, men to pursue,
Plus, his future reward, less will consist!
Knowing all this, he trespasses anyway,
By will and intent, determined to stray!
When a Christian tries to persuade a friend to join him in the quest to follow Jesus, he is often considered as a person who thinks he is better than his friend. Would that it was true! No, he's no better; he sins, too; as much or more than his friend. In fact, observing the two of them as God can, it would be difficult to tell which is the Christian, and which is the unsaved friend! If the only observable difference between them is that the Christian is seen in church at times, maybe holding a Bible, there is no guarantee that the believer is a believer.
However, there would be one positive sign: He is trying to save his friend from an eternity in hell by trying to persuade him to join him on the trail of the saved! That is an act of love, and love for your friend is the best way to win God's approval. There are many other ways to win His approbation, also. Jesus emphasized dramatically some of the ways in teaching about judgment day. When every dead person has been resurrected at the end of time, they will be separated like sheep from goats in front of King Jesus.
"Then the King will say to those on the right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'" (Matthew 25:34-36)
Love alone is not enough, though; you must believe in Jesus.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
The Deer Hunter And God
How oft the virgin light of breaking day
Have God and I watched silent from our perch;
Stygian darkness first shows a twinge of gray,
Night's curtain rises like a crescent church;
Its stage in the east glows ever brighter,
Pushed up and up by the sun's red aura;
Behind us a bird's call hails the brighter!
Burst then golden rays, like a queen's tiara,
Fill the east quadrant; a new day is born!
Such a thrill for me is enough---nay, more,
For joy to outweigh my life's greatest mourn,
And we've shared this great thrill uncounted score!
Shed no tears for me; I've seen many crowns;
Nothing matches it, when day darkness gowns!
I might as well confess it; I am an early riser, which is not the most popular role at our house. Dawn usually breaks after I have read the newspaper, prepared and eaten breakfast. My most sought-after blog thus far is The Deer Hunter's Prayer, which pleased me to have so many lookers, until I looked more closely and found there is a web page called The Deer Hunter's Prayer for Michigan deer hunters. That explains the numerous Google searches for my poem by name. At first I thought I had become a great poet.
Nevertheless, my commentary for The Deer Hunter's Prayer is appropriate for the many early risers who use the extra time as a wonderful quiet period to spend with God, by reading and meditating on His word, and for prayer. You can actually make a companion of God. The poem above is an attempt to describe the wonder of breaking day experienced after sitting alone in a deerhouse for an hour or more in the darkness of night. Such times, I have found, are wonderful for communing with, and thinking about God.
Yes, a human person, like you and me, can become intimate with God and feel His presence sitting in the stand with you. It won't happen that way for most people; it could, but most won't take the time, or love their sleep too much. Why not drop the deer hunting; just get up at 5 o'clock, walk out on your patio, and look at the stars. Turn the porch light off. Let it get pitch-black dark. Watch the sun rise. That would be easier if your patio is facing eastward. Think about God; He made all this, and you, too.
Have God and I watched silent from our perch;
Stygian darkness first shows a twinge of gray,
Night's curtain rises like a crescent church;
Its stage in the east glows ever brighter,
Pushed up and up by the sun's red aura;
Behind us a bird's call hails the brighter!
Burst then golden rays, like a queen's tiara,
Fill the east quadrant; a new day is born!
Such a thrill for me is enough---nay, more,
For joy to outweigh my life's greatest mourn,
And we've shared this great thrill uncounted score!
Shed no tears for me; I've seen many crowns;
Nothing matches it, when day darkness gowns!
I might as well confess it; I am an early riser, which is not the most popular role at our house. Dawn usually breaks after I have read the newspaper, prepared and eaten breakfast. My most sought-after blog thus far is The Deer Hunter's Prayer, which pleased me to have so many lookers, until I looked more closely and found there is a web page called The Deer Hunter's Prayer for Michigan deer hunters. That explains the numerous Google searches for my poem by name. At first I thought I had become a great poet.
Nevertheless, my commentary for The Deer Hunter's Prayer is appropriate for the many early risers who use the extra time as a wonderful quiet period to spend with God, by reading and meditating on His word, and for prayer. You can actually make a companion of God. The poem above is an attempt to describe the wonder of breaking day experienced after sitting alone in a deerhouse for an hour or more in the darkness of night. Such times, I have found, are wonderful for communing with, and thinking about God.
Yes, a human person, like you and me, can become intimate with God and feel His presence sitting in the stand with you. It won't happen that way for most people; it could, but most won't take the time, or love their sleep too much. Why not drop the deer hunting; just get up at 5 o'clock, walk out on your patio, and look at the stars. Turn the porch light off. Let it get pitch-black dark. Watch the sun rise. That would be easier if your patio is facing eastward. Think about God; He made all this, and you, too.
Friday, December 26, 2008
The Prayer Of One Learning To Love
"Dear Lord, help me subdue my baser parts,
That endless strive my actions control;
Forever seal impotent anger's darts;
Slay ego in solitude's hidden hold;
May greed wither away on spartan vines.
Teach my tongue never to utter complaint,
Have my ears reject tales of others' crimes.
Give no place to hate, or voice to cruel spite,
Nor life to evil's sway by hell's creatures;
Keep my mind from dwelling on lusts of night;
Banish from my life all demon teachers.
Dear Lord, please come back to us very soon;
I will sing only Yours, no other tune.
Prayer is talking to God, or thinking, giving Him praise and making requests. He receives all our words, and it pleases Him, especially when we ask for help in improving ourselves. The most important gift we can make to Him is to love others, and you can see in the poem above a few of the ways we can love others. Pride, ego, angry words, greed, gossip, revenge, lust, and many other such negatives from us to others is the opposite of love. These are natural reactions of our human natures; it takes a lot of determination to rid ourselves of these evils. Becoming a believer in Jesus requires us to hate these things and to work hard to eliminate them.
Perhaps the most difficult of all is to show love for those who despise us as Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount. No one in the world had ever taught such things, or heard them, especially the Jews, who had been taught from childhood the creed of an 'eye for an eye'. They were astonished when Jesus said,
"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery'. But I tell you that any one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:27-28)
It is easy to see why most people find it difficult to follow Jesus' commands. This is one of them. By the way, if you read the Qur'an, the 'bible' of Islam, you will easily see that Jehovah God and the god called Allah, are not the same being. God is a God of love, as the Bible testifies; but the Qur'an shows that Islam is based on fear.
That endless strive my actions control;
Forever seal impotent anger's darts;
Slay ego in solitude's hidden hold;
May greed wither away on spartan vines.
Teach my tongue never to utter complaint,
Have my ears reject tales of others' crimes.
Give no place to hate, or voice to cruel spite,
Nor life to evil's sway by hell's creatures;
Keep my mind from dwelling on lusts of night;
Banish from my life all demon teachers.
Dear Lord, please come back to us very soon;
I will sing only Yours, no other tune.
Prayer is talking to God, or thinking, giving Him praise and making requests. He receives all our words, and it pleases Him, especially when we ask for help in improving ourselves. The most important gift we can make to Him is to love others, and you can see in the poem above a few of the ways we can love others. Pride, ego, angry words, greed, gossip, revenge, lust, and many other such negatives from us to others is the opposite of love. These are natural reactions of our human natures; it takes a lot of determination to rid ourselves of these evils. Becoming a believer in Jesus requires us to hate these things and to work hard to eliminate them.
Perhaps the most difficult of all is to show love for those who despise us as Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount. No one in the world had ever taught such things, or heard them, especially the Jews, who had been taught from childhood the creed of an 'eye for an eye'. They were astonished when Jesus said,
"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery'. But I tell you that any one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:27-28)
It is easy to see why most people find it difficult to follow Jesus' commands. This is one of them. By the way, if you read the Qur'an, the 'bible' of Islam, you will easily see that Jehovah God and the god called Allah, are not the same being. God is a God of love, as the Bible testifies; but the Qur'an shows that Islam is based on fear.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
God's Heart Aches From Your Sins
You can offend men, but you sin to God;
Slaying the Hittite, David cursed the Lord.
How higher the heights might David have trod,
Greater deeds would greater acclaim afford,
Had the shepherd boy lived in perfect faith!
Each of us, in dire straits, in envy said,
"If I could be an angel, one trial face,
Not tried so much by sin, that furnace dread."
But you can earn God's David-favor,
By sinning less, and by loving Him more;
Requite your past wrongs; repent, for His savor,
As David, on his knees, wept tears galore.
Give His heart rest from its pain unending,
By your less sinning, your heart more bending.
The angels were tempted once, when Lucifer rebelled against God; one-third chose to betray, too; but no other angel has sinned, or is tempted to sin. Mohammad said that Gabriel told him about a god named Allah, but that was not the angel Gabriel. It might have been Lucifer.
Psalm 51 portrays the repentance of David for his terrible sin of having Uriah killed, because he lusted after his wife. That's how every Christian should repent after sinning, and Christians do commit sins, many misdeeds. People ask me, What is sin? A sin, by definition is only to God; it is breaking one of His commands, or failing to follow His command. Non-believers and believers all sin. In the case of the non-believer, it is a sin not to believe in Jesus as Lord; a non-believer does not repent, which means to be sorry for sinning. God hates sin; He remembers every sin a non-believer commits in his life, and on Judgment Day, the person will be reminded of each of his sins.
When any person accepts Jesus as Lord, he must repent of past sins and make a sincere effort to sin less in the future. When he repents by confessing his sins in secret to God and asking forgiveness, God forgives Him and erases the sins from His memory. Any sin that a believer commits after that is like nailing Christ anew to the cross; God hurts for those sins more than those of the non-believer. Those sins, too, must be confessed and repented for; not that the believer will lose his chance for heaven, but that God aches for his follower's misdeeds.
Slaying the Hittite, David cursed the Lord.
How higher the heights might David have trod,
Greater deeds would greater acclaim afford,
Had the shepherd boy lived in perfect faith!
Each of us, in dire straits, in envy said,
"If I could be an angel, one trial face,
Not tried so much by sin, that furnace dread."
But you can earn God's David-favor,
By sinning less, and by loving Him more;
Requite your past wrongs; repent, for His savor,
As David, on his knees, wept tears galore.
Give His heart rest from its pain unending,
By your less sinning, your heart more bending.
The angels were tempted once, when Lucifer rebelled against God; one-third chose to betray, too; but no other angel has sinned, or is tempted to sin. Mohammad said that Gabriel told him about a god named Allah, but that was not the angel Gabriel. It might have been Lucifer.
Psalm 51 portrays the repentance of David for his terrible sin of having Uriah killed, because he lusted after his wife. That's how every Christian should repent after sinning, and Christians do commit sins, many misdeeds. People ask me, What is sin? A sin, by definition is only to God; it is breaking one of His commands, or failing to follow His command. Non-believers and believers all sin. In the case of the non-believer, it is a sin not to believe in Jesus as Lord; a non-believer does not repent, which means to be sorry for sinning. God hates sin; He remembers every sin a non-believer commits in his life, and on Judgment Day, the person will be reminded of each of his sins.
When any person accepts Jesus as Lord, he must repent of past sins and make a sincere effort to sin less in the future. When he repents by confessing his sins in secret to God and asking forgiveness, God forgives Him and erases the sins from His memory. Any sin that a believer commits after that is like nailing Christ anew to the cross; God hurts for those sins more than those of the non-believer. Those sins, too, must be confessed and repented for; not that the believer will lose his chance for heaven, but that God aches for his follower's misdeeds.
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