Who? Now and Then

Can you think back three years, five years or even ten years? Who are you, who would you prefer to be be the person you were three, five or ten years ago or would you prefer to be the person who have become today? Have the last ten years affected you in a positive or in a negative way? Is it all by change that we have become the person we are today? or is it ordained by God that we become that people we are today. Could it be that we are who we are because we have a purpose and that we can be used just as we are. Are we willing to endure that pain that is envolved in our daily change that can occur when we allow Jesus to mold us into His creation not the creation we have become because of our selfishness. I think a good illustration of this is the story of Penichio, he was create into perfection but despite the direction of his creator he chose to do his own thing and make his own decisions. He walked away from his creator, but just as Jesus did he searched for his son.

Healing

I have heard this statement over and over "Why wont God heal me, I have prayed and asked him" or I have also heard "God doesn't really care about me if he did you would heal". I remember a time about five or six years ago when my friend Larry and I would go to a hospital in Howell, Michigan, we were witnessing to people at the ventilator wing. Most of the people were happy for company, others were appreciative for the prayers. The one person who I will always remember is the one man who asked me "If Jesus really cared about me then why wont He heal me right now" I was at a loss of words, what do you say to a person who says that. As Christians we would say that we were healed by the stripes of Jesus or that we are healed according to our faith. We see in the New Testament that our God is a merciful, but we also need to remember that God will bring judgement. There is a price to be paid for our sins, not just our issues we are dealing with but also the sin of the world. The sin of the world that I am talking about is the sin of mankind going all the way back to the garden of Eden. We can see that sin is progressively becoming worse and worse, in the book of Genesis we have people living 800 to 900 years and now if we make it to 70 to 80 we consider that a good long life. As far as the earth is considered to the effect of sin we can look around our surroundings and see how the earth is decaying. Today we are dealing with diseases that did not exist one-hundred years ago, where did they come from, they are the direct affect of sin. In John 12:31 Jesus calls the devil, the prince of this world, a prince is a first born. He is called this because he was the first to sin and he was cast onto this as a bolt of lightning, a prince is also a rank of power. The word world means the earth and everything in int; including all of its inhabitants and the things upon it. So does the devil have a certain amount of control over us like a prince of a kingdom does, I do not believe so because God is the king of this world and the prince never has total control over a kingdom the king has total control over the kingdom until he passes away. Since God will never pass away and that he has always been there he has always had total control. In the book of Job, in chapter one verse twelve God tells Satan "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger". So we see that Satan only has control if God's permission and that he has boundaries. I believe we need an intervention from God, do his will; this means pray for someone, help someone who is in need and work the great commission and go into all the world preaching the Gospel. God will take care of us, when you feel like you are not going to be healed , who do you think is telling you that? If you want your healing it can't be you, and God would not tell you that and that only leaves Satan. When he comes and tells you "God did not really heal you" or "Why is God not healing you while He is healing other" this is probably when your healing is arriving, don't lose faith cast down these imaginations and continue claim your healing and stand on His word that we were healed.

-SH

My first Blog

Today is my first blog ever, I wanted to have a place where I can share what the Lord shows me daily. Yesterday I was thinking how depressing love can make us feel sometimes as a christian. Just think about it we are born, grow up as children, work all of our lives as adult and then die when we get older, surely our lives must have more purpose than that. That is my the Lord has called us to the ministry of reconciliation. I do not want to go through my life and have it be empty as I have described above. Christian now a days say "when I have a family or have kids then I will do what God has called me to do" or they will say "when I graduate bible college then I will fulfill my calling. God has called us to be in the ministry now, in what capacity that will be, only God knows. We do not have to be the Pastor, Youth Pastor or the Worship Leader to be in ministry. We do not have to be in any fulltime ministry position, only thing Jesus has asked us to do is to go and be a witness to the world and give an account of what He did and what he has done for us. A witness is someone who is giving an account of what they saw, not what everybody else has seen or said. "Lord help me to do what you have called me to do, share what you have done to save us and share how you conquered death so that we will not have to experience eternal damnation.

-SH