Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Be careful

Be careful in the thinking that if someone’s life is going well that God is blessing them. Or if someone’s life if going bad that God is cursing them. The Pharisees believed this, remember how popular they were with Christ. Sliver is refined in the fire, and so is our character.

Tim

Sunday, May 16, 2010

A proclamation we could use today

Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day
March 30, 1863

“But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness”

-Abraham Lincoln

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Moms

As far back into my child as I can remember, I knew God. I may not have understood who He was or what He truly meant in my life, but thanks to my mother I knew about Him and that He loved me. As I grew my mother would read me more of the scriptures and teach me His ways. I can’t tell you how influential these teachings were to me. They built the foundation of my life. As I grew into my teens there were a couple of stages I went through. One stage I went through was actually forming what you might call a teen church. Nothing big mind you, just a group of friends that would get together and talk about the Lord. Nothing to serious, after all we were still early teens. After a few years into my teens I began to fall into the world. Some of my friends that I had known since kindergarten were falling into the peer pressure trap and doing things that they might not have normally done. So what happened was we ended up slipping into what is now known as American Christianity. You know, where you go to church on Sunday then the rest of the week you live just like the rest of the world. I was as guilty as the rest of them. But in the back of my mind and in my heart I knew this was not the way… not His way. But I continued in that life style for years. It’s only been about the last ten years or so that I no longer play that game.

I’m sharing this with you because what I know what my mother taught me at such an early age built this foundation of truth. I know, God chooses us, but He also chooses the families we will be raised in. It’s because of my mom’s faithfulness in Him and sharing His truth that I am the man I am today. I’ve been through many highs and lows in life. Many days living by the river that flows from heaven, and many days in the desert. Of course the desert times in our lives are the hardest. In those times I’ve often wondered where God was or even if He existed. That was always my mind thinking, my heart always knew the truth, and it was because of the foundation in my life put in place years earlier.

We can never under estimate the value of a mother. They have the power to raise up the next Billy Graham, or the next Hitler. My mom is no longer in this world, but I know where she is. So take this special day to honor moms everywhere and thank your mom in every way possible.

Thank you mom, see you again one day.

Tim