Our trials with other people and our future

I wanted to share with you something the Lord reminded me about during my study time today. I was studying in 1 Samuel 21 and continuing about David and all the troubles and trials he went through.

We know that the Lord has plans for our future - both our future here in this world as well as for our eternal future. God doesn't decide, "this person's going to do this, and that person's going to do that". He chooses our futures based on the talents and desires He gives us and then He prepares us for that future. Nothing happens in our lives that is an "accident". God knows in advance what's going to happen, what choices people are going to make, both good and bad that will affect us. So He uses those things to prepare us for the wonderful future He has planned for us. This includes everything that happens to us even before we're saved, for God knows who belongs to Him and doesn't waste time waiting on us to finally make our decision. (Thank You Lord!)

We can be absolutely sure then that no matter what is happening to us, that the Lord is using it to prepare us for that wonderful future. That's partly what His Word is talking about when it says that all things will work together for our good. We can also know that everything is also being used to help us become more and more like Christ.

Then why aren't people more like Christ as they get older and go through more in their lives? Simply because most people don't realize this and they fight against it. Obviously, the unsaved don't know about it and they're not going to actively try to cooperate with what God is using the situation for. Instead they'll fight against it. Of course God know this too and will use that as well. If they are one of His children, they'll eventually be saved and will begin to grow more like Christ. They'll also develop their talents and gain desires that will lead them in the direction the Lord has planned for them.

What is amazing to me is that even though most of us fight God and refuse to cooperate with Him, even so, His Will is done and we will still eventually develop those talents, desires and characteristics needed for the future the Lord's planned for us. I imagine it takes a lot longer then it would if we had cooperated with Him, but either way, it happens.

One of the biggest things He has to teach us is of course to trust Him. That's a lesson He works with us on all our lives, over and over again in many different ways and situations, to grow our faith and trust.

What does this have to do with trials and problems in our lives? Well one of the things we tend to do constantly is to trust other people instead of God or at least in addition to God. So He is constantly having to show us and remind us that other people are going to constantly let us down, or even purposely mislead us -even those we love and those who love us. They can't help it any more then we can help letting other people down sometimes. It's all that nasty sin nature which makes it "normal" for us to do that. It's only because of God's Grace and help that we who are saved can overcome that ourselves.

Often when our problems or trials are being caused because other people have hurt us somehow, it's because the Lord is teaching us or reminding us that we can only trust Him, not ourselves and not other people. Think about it. When something "bad" happens, what's our first reaction usually? Is it to immediately go to prayer and ask the Lord how to handle it and what to do? Or is to to "figure things out for ourselves" or to ask a friend or a "professional" for advice? I have to admit that for me it's often to figure it out myself or ask someone else for advice.

But, I'm getting better! It's only taken the Lord 57 years to get me to come to Him first sometimes.  My prayer is that before I turn 58, it will be ALL the time!

Hezekiah is a wonderful example of this! The story is in 2 Kings 18 and 19 for those who'd like to read it. Hezekiah was only 29 when this trial I'm speaking of began - the King of Assyria attacked them and was very good at psychological warfare. He knew all the right things to say to cause the people and King Hezekiah to doubt God, but Hezekiah held firm to his faith. He even had one of his commanders stand up after they had Judah under siege and announce to them that God wouldn't save them and that God had even told them to come and capture them!  He sent Hezekiah a letter basically telling him the same thing and telling him what awful things would happen to him and the people if they didn't surrender right away.

What did Hezekiah do? At 29 years old, he was more spiritually mature then I am at 57! He didn't hesitate even for a second. After reading the letter, he immediately went to the Temple and spread the letter out before the Lord and prayed to Him about it, asking Him to deliver them and what he should do! Can you believe it???? What a fantastic role model for us! (In answer, the Lord sent Isaiah to him to tell him what would happen and how He would deliver them) I've got to share with you how the Lord did it too, check this out: 2 Kings 19:35 —That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! * The Lord rewarded Hezekiah for his faith and for coming to Him instead of trying to figure things out for himself or getting advice from others first.

Hezekiah didn't react to any of the verbal threats or to the letter. If you read the story, He even told the people not to react to them, to literally "say nothing" when they were taunted. He went to the Lord for directions and help and received them. The Lord absolutely loves it when we ask Him for help and He loves it even more when we trust Him to deliver us and to use the situation for our good. When we cooperate with Him, then we can move toward that wonderful future He has for us much more quickly, as we become the people He created us to be.

It's difficult for us because we tend to live by sight rather then by faith, so when we see and hear someone or many people lying about us or a loved one, or saying things that hurt us in some way, or cheating us, or whatever the situation is, we forget all about the Lord and just strike back. We "stand up for our rights", not realizing that often in the process we're negating all that the Lord is trying to teach us and show us. Forgetting that He told us to "love them" unconditionally, and sacrificially; forgetting that He tells us to put their needs before our own. Or, perhaps I should say "I do things like that" and not "we". Like I said though, little by little I'm learning and I really am getting better. While it's often still my first instinct to react in those ways, I'm now often able to prevent myself from going beyond the first thought and turn and do things God's way instead. Someday I hope to be able to always react to people who I feel are hurting me or attacking me somehow, the way He wants me to. I know from His Word that's one of the things He tries to develop in each of us so that we will become more like Jesus and be ready to fulfill the role He has for our future.

Jeremiah 29:11–13 —For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. *Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. *You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. *

God's Sufficient Spirit

God's Sufficient Spirit

The book titled I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional, by Wendy Kaminer, debunked much of the mystique of modern psychology.[1] The author did not purport to be a Christian. In fact, she described herself as “a skeptical, secular humanist, Jewish, feminist, intellectual lawyer.”[2]

Yet she wrote as a bitter critic of the marriage of religion and psychology. She noted that religion and psychology have always more or less deemed one another incompatible. Now she sees “not just a truce but a remarkable accommodation.”[3] Even from her perspective as an unbeliever, she could see that this accommodation has meant a change in the fundamental message Christians convey to the world. She wrote:

Religious writers would minimize or dismiss the effect of psychology on religion, fiercely denying that it has made doctrinal changes, but it does seem to have influenced the tone and packaging of religious appeals... Christian codependency books, like those produced by the Minirth-Meier clinic in Texas, are practically indistinguishable from codependency books published by secular writers... Religious writers justify their reliance on psychology by praising it for “catching up” to some eternal truths, but they’ve also found a way to make the temporal truths of psychology palatable.[4]

Some of the criticism Kaminer leveled against evangelicals is unwarranted or misguided, but in this respect she is right on target: Evangelicalism has been infiltrated by a worldly anthropology-psychology-theology that is diametrically opposed to the biblical doctrines of sin and sanctification. As a result of this accommodation, the church has compromised and hopelessly muddled the message it is to proclaim.

Psychology and worldly therapies have usurped the role of sanctification in some Christians’ thinking. Psychological sanctification has become a substitute for the Spirit-filled life.

But can psychotherapy possibly accomplish something that the Holy Spirit cannot? Can an earthly therapist achieve more than a heavenly Comforter? Is behavior modification more helpful than sanctification? Of course not.

The Paraclete

To understand the crucial role the Holy Spirit plays in meeting people’s inner needs, we must go back to what Jesus taught His disciples when He first promised them He would send the Holy Spirit. It happened on the night Jesus was betrayed. His crucifixion was drawing near, and the disciples were fearful and confused. When Jesus spoke to them about going away, their hearts were troubled (John 14:1). In that hour of turmoil, they feared being left alone. But Jesus assured them that they would not be left to fend for themselves. He comforted them with this wonderful promise:

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. (John 14:16–17)

“Helper” in verse 16 is the Greek word paraklētos, meaning someone called to another’s aid. First John 2:1 applies the same term to Jesus Himself: “If anyone sins, we have an Advocate [paraklētos] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The word is sometimes transliterated into English as “paraclete.”

It describes a spiritual attendant whose role is to offer assistance, succor, support, relief, advocacy, and guidance—a divine Counselor whose ministry to believers is to offer the very things that so many people vainly seek in therapy!

The promises Jesus made with regard to the Holy Spirit and His ministry are staggering in their scope. Let’s look at some of the key elements of this text.

A Divine Helper

The word translated “another” (allos) is a key to understanding the nature of the Holy Spirit. The Greek text carries a precision that is not immediately evident in English. The word means “another of the same kind,” as in, “That cookie was tasty; may I have another?”

In using this word, Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as “another [allos] Helper [of the same kind].” He was promising to send His disciples a Helper exactly like Himself—a compassionate, loving, divine Paraclete. They had grown dependent on Jesus’ ministry to them. He had been their Wonderful Counselor, Teacher, Leader, Friend, and had shown them the Father. But from now on, they would have another Paraclete, One like Jesus, to meet the same needs He had met.

Here, for the first time, Jesus gave the disciples extensive teaching about the Holy Spirit and His role. Note that our Lord spoke of the Spirit as a person, not an influence, not a mystical power, not some ethereal, impersonal, phantom force. The Spirit has all the attributes of personality (mind, Romans 8:27; emotions, Ephesians 4:30; and will, Hebrews 2:4) and all the attributes of deity (see Acts 5:3–4). He is another Paraclete of exactly the same essence as Jesus.

There was, however, a significant difference: Jesus was returning to the Father, but the Holy Spirit would “be with you forever” (John 14:16). The Holy Spirit is a constant, sure, trustworthy, divine Paraclete graciously given by Christ to His disciples to be with them forever.

A Guide to Truth

It is noteworthy that Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of truth” (v. 17). As God, He is the essence of truth; as a Paraclete, He is the One who guides us into truth. That is why apart from Him, it is impossible for sinful beings to know or understand any spiritual truth.

Jesus said, “The world cannot receive [Him], because it does not see Him or know Him” (v. 17). Echoing that truth, Paul wrote:

To us God revealed [things which the world cannot see or understand] through the Spirit... Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the things freely given to us by God... But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. (1 Cor. 2:10, 12, 14)

Believers are actually taught spiritual truth by God Himself (see John 6:45). In fact, much of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to believers involves teaching them (John 14:26; 1 Corinthians 2:13; 1 John 2:20, 27); guiding them into the truth of Christ (John 16:13–14); and illuminating the truth for them (1 Corinthians 2:12).

After Jesus ascended to heaven, one of the crucial ministries of the Holy Spirit was to bring to the disciples’ minds what Jesus had said and to teach them what He meant: “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John 14:25–26).

That means that the Holy Spirit enabled the disciples to recall the precise words Jesus had spoken to them, so that when they recorded them as Scripture, the words were perfect and error free. This assured that the gospel accounts were recorded infallibly, and that the apostolic teaching was unadulterated.

But this promise of our Lord also reveals the Holy Spirit as a supernatural Teacher who ministers truth to the hearts of those whom He indwells. The Spirit guides us into the truth of God’s Word. He teaches us, affirms the truth in our hearts, convicts us of sin, and often brings to mind specific truths and statements of Scripture that are applicable to our lives.

The Indwelling Presence

Look a little more closely at Jesus’ words at the end of John 14:17: “He abides with you and will be in you.” Our Lord was promising that the Holy Spirit would take up permanent, uninterrupted residence within His disciples. It was not only that the Spirit would be present with them; the greater truth was that He would be resident within them permanently.

This promise was not limited to the eleven apostles who were present that night. The Holy Spirit indwells every Christian. In verse 23, Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (emphasis added). Paul, writing to the Corinthians, said, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Thus each believer enjoys the permanent, continuing presence of the Holy Spirit living within.

The Holy Spirit in Biblical Counseling

The new birth is the Holy Spirit’s sovereign work (John 3:8). And every aspect of true spiritual growth in the life of the believer is prompted by the Spirit, using the truth of Scripture (17:17). The counselor who misses that point will experience failure, frustration, and discouragement.

Only the Holy Spirit can work fundamental changes in the human heart. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the necessary agent in all effective biblical counseling. The counselor, armed with biblical truth, can offer objective guidance and steps for change. But unless the Holy Spirit is working in the heart of the counselee, any apparent change will be illusory, superficial, or temporary, and the same problems or worse ones will soon appear.

Conclusion

It is futile to follow the path of psychology and look within ourselves to find answers to our problems. And it is certainly true that those who focus on themselves, their childhood traumas, their wounded feelings, their emotional cravings, or other egocentric sources will never find genuine answers to their troubles.

The true believer, however, does have a Helper who dwells within. He is the Holy Spirit, who applies the objective truth of Scripture in the process of sanctification. Yet even He does not draw our attention inward, or to Himself. Instead, He directs our focus upward, to Christ. Jesus said, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me” (15:26).

Ultimately, it is unto Christ that the counselee’s focus must be directed. “Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corithians 3:18). That is the process of sanctification. And it is the ultimate goal of all truly biblical counseling.

Posted with permission

http://www.gty.org/blog/B140917/gods-sufficient-spirit

See previous parts of this series: Contaminated Cures for Soul Care;

 Insufficient Help, Part 1;  Insufficient Help, Part 2;

God's Sufficient Word, Part 1; God's Sufficient Word, Part 2

Hell On Earth

As I read Isaiah again, I'm continually reminded of so much, including how very few people will live through the tribulation. And that again just goes to show that the pre wrath and post trib positions are false. There won't be that many people left, besides that fact that to be joyful about looking forward to a rapture at that point is ludicrous! Listen to Isaiah:

Isaiah 13:12 —I will make man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir. *

Isaiah 24:5–6 —The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. *Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left. *

Isaiah 34:2–3 —The LORD is angry with all nations; his wrath is upon all their armies. He will totally destroy them, he will give them over to slaughter. *Their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will send up a stench; the mountains will be soaked with their blood. *

Other verses in Isaiah and other books also paint this same picture, and if that's not enough, Jesus himself tells us that no one would survive without divine intervention:

Matthew 24:22 —If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. *

It is going to be hell on earth during those 7 years, not just the last 3 and a half. I'd say the only difference between the first half and the second half of the tribulation is that we can just barely imagine, barely! what the very beginning of the tribulation will be like. And that's not even really accurate because there's most likely going to be a gap between the rapture and the start of the tribulation, and it's that "gap" really, that we can imagine what it will be like. That and the first few months of the tribulation our minds can grasp, but after that....no. If you study, what every book in the bible says about that period of time, you can't help but come away from it knowing that it's going to be like nothing mankind has ever even thought of in their worst nightmares!

I think the reason so many think that only the last half is going to be really bad is because so many authors and teachers stress the point that the judgments get worse as they go along and that as far as the Jews and Christians being martyred goes, that becomes a lot worse in the 2nd half of the trib. That's all quite true, but instead of realizing that the entire tribulation is going to be quite literally like hell on earth, instead we tend to think of it as starting slow and easy so that it's not much different then now. That's not true though.

The birth pangs we're seeing now are like "mini previews", and I do mean "miniature" in every way. Compare the worst natural disaster you can think of with a world wide earthquake that's so severe it's off the scale and kills billions. That's the difference. The difference between the first half and the second half of the trib, ONLY in the way the Jew's will be treated, is that during the first half they'll be treated generally the same as the Christians- tortured and killed. During the second half though, what happens to them will make the holocaust look mild!

To start with there are going to be at least 3 major earthquakes during the tribulation and two of them will be world wide....world wide! One of the world wide earthquakes will be during the first quarter of the first half of the tribulation and another toward the end. The bible says that during these two earthquakes there will also be many volcano's erupting and that ash and debris will fill the sky. We can only attempt to imagine what will happen with the oceans...tidal waves... talk about horror! And friends, God has set the first earthquake to happen during the first quarter of the first half of the tribulation.

There are 182 weeks in 3 and a half years. If you divide them by 4 that's 45.5 weeks. As you can see then, this first earthquake will happen before the first year of the tribulation has gone by. And that's just one of the many horrors that's coming, and coming soon. It's just one of the things that our neighbors are going to go through if they're not saved beforehand. If we can't work ourselves up to being bold enough to speak up to them about Christ and His salvation because we know they will spend eternity in hell, surely knowing that they will be going through this should cause us to run over and start pleading with them to give their lives to Christ!

On the other hand, if you believe God is the kind of God who would put His Church through this - for any reason, then I guess it just doesn't matter since they'd go through it anyway. Sorry, but it's just ludicrous to me that anyone could believe such a thing, or that if they did suspect it might be true, wouldn't then grab their bibles and not take their noses out of it until they'd studied the entire book from Genesis to Revelation with God's help to determine what God really says about it.

That right there shows another reason why these kind of false teachings are being taught. Because even if people do pick up their bibles, they're just studying the "proof verses" they're given or at most the main books they think it's talked about in, like Revelation, Daniel and Isaiah. The problem is that they can't get the whole picture until they know the whole bible. God had a reason for every word He gave us and if we don't know it all, then we can't know His plans for us, the Jew's or anything else. No Christian should just accept what I say, what their pastor says, or what any famous author/teacher/pastor says. They should instead commit to obeying God and knowing His Word and finding out for themselves what's true.

The Civilized World’s Made Things Harder For Us

The civilized world has taught us that we're independent and don't need anyone but ourselves. We are taught to think of ourselves first, to love ourselves, to be ourselves, to do for ourselves. We're taught that no one can make us do anything and we can do and be anything we want to. We're told anything and everything is ok as long as it makes us feel good and that we should feel good. We're taught how great and wonderful we are. We're taught that the stars are our limit -in other words there is no limit to what we can do. (sounds an awful lot like the tower of Babel to me) It's funny, but the more I study God's Word, the more I find that the world has lied to me about many, many things and has corrupted the meaning of many things as well. As I was studying Deut 5 I came across something surprising that I'd like to share with you. It's something else that our civilized world has made it hard for us to understand and relate to.

Deuteronomy 5:6 —“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

Let's look closely at this first sentence. "I am the Lord your God". Before we can really be saved or have the fear of God or love Him or anything else, we first have to know that He is. As Hebrews 11:6 says: And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Now that may seem strange to us, because we rarely question His existence, but then again, if we really believe He exists and is aware of us and all of that, wouldn't we tend toward being obedient to Him a whole lot more? No, I'm not suggesting we don't really believe in Him, but I am suggesting that we might benefit a lot from focusing on His existence and reflecting on it until we really, really knew it. At least, that's what I determined for myself.

I've thought for many years that because we're so "blessed" to live in such a "civilized" country, that we really don't understand concepts such as "God", or "slavery" or things like that. We know the definitions of them, but we don't have any real personally emotional attachment to them. Most of us have had jobs and bosses we may not have liked at all, but we could always quit. When I dwelled on the concepts of Lord's and slaves, and tried to imagine what it would be like to wake up in the morning, knowing that another person owned me and that they could literally kill me at their whim, it was hard to do that and make it "real" to myself. Sure, I can imagine it, but it's more like a fantasy then anything possible, even though I know that there were and are slaves all around the world. When I imagine it, I think I'd "run away" or find some way out of it - I can't make it last in my mind for a lifetime.

Yet, it IS real. God is real. God created us and He sustains our very lives every moment of every day. He can wipe us out en mass, or one at a time or any way He chooses, whenever and however He chooses. The fact that He doesn't do so, doesn't mean that He can't. He can bless us or curse us, give or take away. Yet for the most part, we ignore Him and go on with our lives as though He wasn't there. If we were slaves in this world with a physical Lord over us, we couldn't do that. He'd be in our face constantly and be a constant reminder that if we don't obey Him instantly, He could and just might, have us killed. See what I mean about why I felt I needed to dwell on that and make God more "real" to me?

So first, we need to know that God IS. He is God, He is the Lord. But, there's another word in that sentence that makes a HUGE difference in it's meaning. It doesn't say, "I am the Lord God", it says, "I am the Lord your God". Out of all the other people on this earth, He is MY God and I am His. He's personal. He knows and acknowledges me and wants me to know and acknowledge Him. It's more then that though. Because He's not "my God" and no one else's. He says that to everyone. It's up to each individual to accept Him as their God or reject Him. And that means something very important for each of us and this is what kind of blew me away when I realized it.

Everyone has a "god", it's just not always the One True God. In fact, everyone generally has quite a few gods. We all serve someone/something. That may change according to what happens during the day and how we're feeling, but regardless, we all serve something. It's just that in our civilized world, we don't think of them as gods. The problem with that is that The One True God does think of them as gods and He doesn't want us to serve any one or anything but Him. See, God designed us to be in relationship with Him -with God and so we seek that constantly whether we realize it or not. That's what I've always thought of as the empty "hole" we're always seeking to fill, that will make us "happy" and "complete". It's the something missing that we all search for even when we don't know we're looking for it.

Whenever we're not in an intimate relationship with God, we will be in an intimate relationship with something/someone else, because that's who our hearts have been designed. We have to be in an intimate relationship with something/someone. Many women look for it in a man. Many men look for it in a woman. Others look for it in work or school, money, children, booze or drugs, or books, movies, porn, sex, parties, friends, food, the internet, computer or video games, our homes, gardens, etc. or for instance when we endlessly strive for the approval of others, or the love of others. The things we look for it in aren't necessarily bad in and of themselves, although they can be at times, but they become bad no matter what they are because whether we know it or not, we become slaves to them. (Rom 6:16)

So we're all slaves, all the time. We're simply slaves to different things or people or "gods". Remember too, Jesus tells us that we cannot serve 2 masters. We have to choose. Besides which, God also tells us that He will not "share" us with others. It's Him or them. That's why Jesus pleads with us and says in Matthew 11:29–30 —Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. *For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” * A yoke is what's used to join 2 cows or horses together so they can pull a plow. Jesus used that word because whoever or whatever we're slaves to, we're joined together with. We're "yoked" to them. That's again why we're told not to be "unequally yoked". If you yoke a little cow with a large horse, it won't work. They can't pull the plow evenly. Back to the point though, when we serve someone or something besides God, we are slaves to that and we're yoked to it whether we realize it or not.

And that too is something I really needed to dwell on because generally, in our day and time, we don't realize that. We think we're just hanging out with people or just eating junk food or just drinking, or just running after a man to love us, or whatever. We'd be more inclined to think of them serving us rather then the other way around. The Truth though, is that we're serving them; we're slaves to them. That's why we run to them every time we're scared, or depressed or worried or lonely, or whatever our personal triggers are.

Here's the really bad news for us who are saved. When we do that, we're not just slaves to those things, we're slaves to false gods. They are our "idols". We have put them in God's place in our lives. We can know that because if we didn't have any false gods or idols, we'd be running to the One True God, "our God", when we felt that way. All the various things we each choose as our idols and false gods, generally look pretty good to us. If they didn't, we wouldn't run to them. But in reality, they're cruel masters. For example, those of us who choose food, then must constantly worry about our weight and/or our health because our idol has messed up our cholesterol and our weight. Our false gods have made us promises to make us feel good and they can't keep those promises; worse, they lead to death. But there is a True God who will help us, if we will just choose to take His yoke on ourselves instead. Yes, we will still be yoked to someone, but this God is loving and His yoke is easy and the burden is light.

That brings us to the last part of that first line -“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery". The One True God tells us that He is our personal God and He qualifies that, even though He certainly doesn't have to. He says that He is "our" God because He brought us out of the land of slavery. He doesn't want us yoked to those false idols that lie to us and use us and throw us away. He created us to be in an intimate relationship with Him, not with them. He wants 100% of us though and He wants us 100% of the time. All day, every day. He wants us to be yoked to Him and nothing else. Can you imagine yourself literally yoked to Jesus? That's what I try to do to remind myself that no matter where I go, what I do, what I look at or who I talk to, He is with me. He's not just a passive partner that I'm dragging around with them though. No. In fact, He's bearing most of the burden for me, making my burden lighter, just because He loves me and He's "my God."

Speaking of bring us out of slavery, some folks might say, that's not talking about me, that's talking about the Jew's when He brought them out of Egypt, and so it is. But it's also talking about you and me. Well, at least me for sure, because I know without any doubt at all that He's brought me out of my slavery. He rescued me from myself, from the occult, from the new age, from depression, from loneliness, from fear and worry, and from so many other things that I've been a slave to all my life that it would take too long to list them all. And He's still doing it. He brought me out of that slavery and shows me every time I start to slip back or sneak back into one of them. He says we all are enslaved to various different things, and if He hasn't freed you from those things yet, He wants to and He will, if you will let Him.

When we do finally agree with that first sentence and can say, "He is the Lord my God, who brought me out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery", then He adds a command to it. Then He tells us, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. *“You shall have no other gods before me. * (Deut 5:6–7) Most of us don't even think twice about that statement. I know I certainly didn't used to. Not until I understood what a false god really was. When I finally understood that it could be other people, other things, and put it together with who I ran to when I was hurting, instead of running to Him and His Word, only then did I understand what a false god and an idol was. It's not necessarily some statue in a church that we kneel before, light incense to, pray to or "worship". (although that certainly can be one too). That's often what it was during the time when the Lord brought the Jew's out of Egypt, but times have changed and we worship other things now. Even they often worshiped other things besides their stone idols. Whether the idol is stone, wood, a person or thing, doesn't matter. It's still a false god and an idol and we should run away from it as fast as we can.

Why? Because He IS God. Because He is OUR God. Because He loves us and paid an awful price to bring us out of slavery and set us free from slavery to sin so we could be slaves to righteousness instead. Now our slavery doesn't lead to death, instead His yoke is easy, our burden is light and it leads to eternal life with Him.

This is now something I try to dwell on daily and reflect on it as it's important to let it really soak in. He is God and I am not. (in spite of what I often seem to think) I imagine myself literally yoked together with Jesus and try to hold that picture in my mind several times every day. I'll pick out something I do regularly, like opening the fridge or something like that, and every time I do that, I imagine myself yoked to Jesus to remind myself that He is here and He is REAL and that He is God.

Somehow we have to get past this "civilized" world's training that I'm god and make ourselves realize that we're really not and He really is, and just what that means. How can I love God with all my heart, with all my mind and all my strength if I don't really get what God is, what a Lord or Master is, or what a slave is? How can I fear God if I don't understand those things?

I've chosen the idea of imagining myself yoked to Jesus and remembering Deut 5:6-7 as well as Romans 6:16–23 and reflecting on them regularly every day.

To encourage all who are going through a difficult time

So many of us are going through such difficult times, including me, so I thought maybe I'd share what I'd studied about the following verses with everyone by sharing what Wiersbe says about it and the notes I've written on them. I'll also include some other encouraging scriptures at the end.

Philippians 4:11–13 —I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. *I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. *I can do everything through him who gives me strength. *

As he wrote Phil 4:11–12, every movement of his hand clanked the chain with which he was linked to a soldier. The pillars of Christian character

Paul is quick to let his friends know that he is not complaining! His happiness does not depend on circumstances or things; his joy comes from something deeper, something apart from either poverty or prosperity. Most of us have learned how to “be abased,” because when difficulties come we immediately run to the Lord! But few have learned how “to abound.” Prosperity has done more damage to believers than has adversity. “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing” (Rev. 3:17).
The word “instructed” in Philippians 4:12 is not the same as “learned” in Philippians 4:11. “Instructed” means “initiated into the secret.” This word was used by the pagan religions with reference to their “inner secrets.” Through trial and testing, Paul was “initiated” into the wonderful secret of contentment in spite of poverty or prosperity. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13). It was the power of Christ within him that gave him spiritual contentment.

Fog had moved into O’Hare Field, the airport that serves Chicago, and my departure had been delayed. I was sitting in the terminal reading a book and quietly asking God to work out His plans for the trip. Near me was a gentleman waiting for the same plane, but he was pacing up and down like a caged lion, and the language he was using to describe the fog was making the atmosphere more dense! I thought to myself, “Here is a man without any inner resources.” Later, he asked me how I could be so calm when the planes were all late, and I had the opportunity to share the Gospel with him.

While flying back to Chicago from upper New York via New York City, we had to stay in our holding pattern over Kennedy Airport for more than an hour. When the stewardess announced that we would be landing an hour late, a man across the aisle shouted, “Bring out the booze!” This was his only resource when things were going against him.

All of nature depends on hidden resources. The great trees send their roots down into the earth to draw up water and minerals. Rivers have their sources in the snow-capped mountains. The most important part of a tree is the part you cannot see, the root system, and the most important part of the Christian’s life is the part that only God sees. Unless we draw on the deep resources of God by faith, we fail against the pressures of life. Paul depended on the power of Christ at work in his life (see Phil. 1:6, 21; 2:12–13; 3:10). “I can—through Christ!” was Paul’s motto, and it can be our motto too.

“I am ready for anything through the strength of the One who lives within me,” is the way J.B. Phillips translates Philippians 4:13. The Living Bible puts it this way: “I can do everything God asks me to with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power.” No matter which translation you prefer, they all say the same thing: the Christian has all the power within that he needs to be adequate for the demands of life. We need only release this power by faith.

Jesus teaches this same lesson in the sermon on the vine and branches in John 15. He is the Vine; we are the branches. A branch is good only for bearing fruit; otherwise you may as well burn it. The branch does not bear fruit through its own self-effort, but by drawing on the life of the Vine. “Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). As the believer maintains his communion with Christ, the power of God is there to see him through. “I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency” (Phil. 4:13, AMP).

The overruling providence of God and the unfailing power of God are two spiritual resources on which we can draw that we might be adequate for the tasks of life. But there is a third resource-The Unchanging Promise of God (Phil. 4:14–20).

Contentment comes from adequate resources. Our resources are the providence of God, the power of God, and the promises of God. These resources made Paul sufficient for every demand of life, and they can make us sufficient too. Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Php 4:11–13).

These words show us that contentment isn't a natural propensity of man. ‎Covetousness, discontent, & murmuring are as natural to man as thorns are to the soil. We need not sow thistles & brambles; they come up naturally enough, because they are indigenous to earth: & so, we need not teach men to complain; they complain fast enough without any education. But the precious things of the earth must be cultivated. ‎Paul says, “I have learned … to be content;” as much as to say, he did not know how at one time. It cost him some pains to attain to the mystery of that great truth. No doubt he sometimes thought he had learned, & then broke down. Don't indulge the notion that you can be contented with learning, or learn without discipline. It's not a power that may be exercised naturally, but a science to be acquired gradually. We know this from experience. Hush that murmur, natural though it be, (take that thought captive!) & continue a diligent pupil in the College of Content. Morning and evening

‎Discontent & ingratitude will steal your joy. True joy is God’s gift to every believer, & yet many Christians seem to lack it. As with peace, assurance, & other benefits of salvation, joy can be forfeited for many reasons. Willful sin, prayerlessness, fear, self-centeredness, focusing on circumstances, & lack of forgiveness are the main culprits. Two of the most common joy-thieves are dissatisfaction & ingratitude. Paul ‎made no demands on God but simply trusted in His gracious provision. Whether he received little or much made no difference to him. In either case he was satisfied & thankful. Don’t be victimized by the spirit of our age. See God’s blessings for what they are, & continually praise Him for His goodness. In doing so you will guard your heart from dissatisfaction & ingratitude. More important, you will bring joy to the One who is worthy of all praise. Drawing Near—

The words I have learned the secret was a technical term meaning “to initiate into the mysteries.” Paul used it here to suggest a kind of initiation by his experiences into being content when either well fed or hungry, & either in plenty or in want. The Bible Knowledge Commentary

‎Existentialism, the dominant mindset of contemporary psychology implies that every man has the right to do whatever makes him feel good. Wrong thinking like that stems from self–centered pride. Some deceive themselves by thinking their sin doesn’t hurt anyone, but sin always ends up hurting. In contrast to self–love, Scripture says we’re to be humble & unselfish, love those who mistreat us, & extend mercy toward those who stumble repeatedly. Those qualities enabled Paul to be content in any circumstances. In contrast, some take all that they hear & see & filter it to see if it wounds them in any way, which will result in instability & anxiety. When others mistreat you, humility will help you keep your balance. Truth for today
‎
"The Lord's my shepherd...I shall not want." Is that the testimony of your heart? The Lord's my shepherd, I have no needs, I have enough. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Christian people really gave that kind of testimony to the watching world? That we'd found in our God & in the salvation that He provides & in the spiritual resources at our disposal total satisfaction, that we were absolutely content. A satisfied heart should be the experience of every single Christian. Contentment is a spiritual virtue & discontent is a sin. Instead of manifesting to the world satisfaction & contentment that shows our true trust in God & our true heavenly perspective, we get all caught up in the materialistic surge of our society. 7 Keys to Contented Living

“My self–sufficiency, my level of contentment, lies in the sufficiency of Christ to meet my every need. I can endure rain or shine, darkness or light, sorrow or joy, because through Him, I am equipped and sustained.” ‎Despite circumstances, you can enjoy true contentment when you accept the truth that Christ is adequate for your every need—in good times and bad. Help me be content despite the circumstances of my life. O God, my sufficiency is in Your ability to meet my needs. In You, I am equipped to face the challenges of this day. Enter His gates

‎The word content does not mean “complacent.” Paul was anything but complacent! ‎Contentment is actually containment—having the spiritual resources within to face life courageously & handle it successfully. Contentment is divine adequacy. Contentment is having that spiritual artesian well within so that you don’t have to run to the broken cisterns of the world to get what you need. The power of Christ in the inner man is all we need for the demands of life. Resources on the outside, such as friends, counselors & encouragements, are only helpful as they strengthen our resources on the inside.

‎We fight change & rob ourselves of the contentment God can give us if we'll but yield to Him. Those difficulties that you're fighting, & complaining about, may be the very tools God wants to use to give you inner peace & sufficiency. Stop fighting; yield to Christ & you'll learn how to be content. Paul knew that real joy doesn't come from comfortable circumstances on the outside, but from spiritual adequacy on the inside. ‎How does this inner contentment reveal itself? We have a peace that keeps us from falling apart & doing impulsive things; a patience that sustains us when all around us seems to be disintegrating. There's an inner peace & poise that makes us master of the situation—victors, not victims. The bumps are what you climb on.

Apart from Him we can do nothing. While we're abiding in Him nothing's impossible. The 1 purpose of our life should be to remain in living & intense union with Christ, guarding against everything that would break it, employing every means of cementing & enlarging it.. In proportion as we do so, we'll find His strength flowing into us for every possible emergency. We may not feel its presence; but we'll find it present whenever we begin to draw on it. There's no temptation we can't master; no privation we can't patiently bear; no difficulty we can't cope with; no work we can't perform; no confession or testimony we can't make, if our souls are living in healthy union with Christ; for as our day or hour, so shall our strength be. Thoughts for the quiet hour

‎He will not impose upon you one needless burden. He will not exact more than He knows your strength will bear. He will ask no Peter to come to Him on the water, unless He impart at the same time strength and support on the unstable waves. He will not ask you to draw water if the well is too deep, or to withdraw the stone if too heavy. But neither at the same time will He admit as an impossibility that which, as a free and responsible agent, it is in your power to avert. He will not regard as your misfortune what is your crime. Macduff Thoughts for the quiet hour.

The Gr. word for strengthen means “to put power in.” Because believers are in Christ (Gal 2:20), He infuses them with His strength to sustain them until they receive some provision (Eph 3:16–20; 2Co 12:10). The MacArthur study Bible


Ephesians 3:14–21 —For this reason I kneel before the Father, *from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. *I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, *so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, *may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, *and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. *Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, *to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. *

2 Corinthians 12:7–10 —To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. *Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. *But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. *That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. *

Philippians 1:6 —being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. *

Philippians 2:12–13 —Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, *for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. *

John 15:5 —“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. *

Philippians 4:19 —And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. *

Psalm 68:19 —Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Selah *

Psalm 31:19 —How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you. *

Feeling Frustrated?

We’ve been studying Job and wanted to share what we've learned in Job 37 today with you. If you recall, Job had had some really awful things happen to him suddenly. Quite literally, his whole life fell apart. His friends come to comfort him and do a terrible job and Job finds himself having to defend himself to them as they've decided that the only possible reason for these things to have happened is if Job had been knowingly sinning, (which he hadn't) and God was judging Him. Then a bystander named Elihu joins in. Needless to say, Job was feeling pretty frustrated by then. Here, Elihu is at the end of his speech. A mighty storm has begun and Elihu has been describing how he views God in the storm to the listeners.

One of the main points of the scriptures describing the storm is to show that God is sovereign, that nothing happens by chance, because God is in control. While Elihu is using the weather and seasons to illustrate this, it's true about everything that happens in our lives. No, that doesn't mean that God causes every bad thing that happens to us, but it does mean that He at least allows it to happen, and when He does, it's always for His glory and our good. It is never to harm us. Verse 7 especially points out that people instinctively know that the weather is God's Work. Interestingly, even the unbelieving world calls the weather, "acts of God"  showing how true this is.

The problem is that although Job was upright and blameless when the tragedies struck, as time went on, and he dwelled on what had happened to him and all he'd lost, he became more and more negative. Before long, it seemed like everything he saw was negative and bad, quite the reverse of the way he'd been before. This is an example of another thing the Lord tells us in His Word. That when we dwell on negative things, then we'll start seeing the negative in everyone and everything else around us, but if we dwell on the Truth, or on good things, then we'll see the good in everyone and everything around us. We see the Truth of this all the time in ourselves or others when we get down or depressed about something.

In verses 11-13 we are told that sometimes God does send storms (trials) into our lives as discipline, but mainly they're sent because of His love and mercy. Although Job didn't have this knowledge yet, we know that even God's discipline is due to His love and is something we should cherish, as He only disciplines His children, so if in fact that's the cause of our trial, it's a sure sign that we're saved and being made more like Jesus all the time!

Starting in verse 14, Elihu asks Job to "listen to this." He's painted a picture of a storm raging outside as they talk, and he's obviously so totally overwhelmed by the wonder and awe of seeing God's power and majesty in it, that he wants Job to see God's wonders in it too (as well as us). He then asks, can Job explain them or control the clouds or lightening? Of course the answer is no; only God can.

Then Elihu makes his other point in verse 20: if Job can't explain it or control it, then how in the world can he think that he's capable of preparing a court case to defend himself before God! If a man were to try to do so, surely they'd wind up under God's judgment for being so presumptuous! Because if we can't comprehend the things of God that we can actually see, like the weather, then how can we possibly comprehend things we can't see? (like why something is happening to us) Elihu was sure that God wasn't trying to oppress or oppose Job, even thought that's how Job had been seeing it all this time (verse 23)

So even though Elihu had gotten pretty full of pride in himself earlier and had gotten some things wrong, most of what he had to say to Job were things that Job really needed to hear and remember. They're things we all need to hear and remember.

Things like, God is just and merciful, and good. That's what Job had forgotten. The Holy Spirit kept slipping it in once in awhile to try and remind Him, but Job kept ignoring it and instead dwelling on the bad things that had happened to him. He was looking for bad, and therefore that's exactly what he found. Now Elihu comes along and finally gets him to see the good in God again; reminds him of God's love and mercy and that He's not out to get us, but instead wants to help us. Exactly the opposite of what Job's 3 friends had been saying, because they too had been focusing on the negative since they were so sure that Job was being judged as a sinner.

Elihu was quite right in how he viewed Job's problem by this point. He was saying that Job's actions may have been right, that he wasn't the sinner that his friends kept saying he was, but that his attitude was wrong. Because he got involved defending himself as not being a sinner, he wound up pretty much considering himself a "saint", as he continued to explain to his friends how good he'd been all his life. He conveniently refused to think of all the times he'd failed, even if they were small failures. So, listening and then replying to his 3 friends, Job's attitude slowly but surely became a know it all attitude; an attitude of defiant self righteousness, saying he was right and everyone else, including God, was wrong.

Whenever we start thinking we're right and everyone else is wrong, it should be a red flag warning us to look a little deeper into our hearts with the Lord's help. For those are often times we're deceiving ourselves and refusing to look at things honestly.

This is why Elihu's last remark was that Job should fear God (or revere Him, depending on the translation). In order to fear or revere God, we must first do away with our own self righteousness and conceit or pride; or thinking of our self as wise in heart, because to fear God we have to first recognize that we're very much inferior to Him. Remember, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom! Once we or Job realize that, then we also can realize that God's ways are beyond our understanding, because He is God. If we could understand Him and His ways, then He'd be no wiser then we are and wouldn't be God.

However, Elihu went further then that. He insisted that even though God's ways were beyond our understanding, that we shouldn't question or challenge Him or His ways. First, because we already know that God is good, loving, and full of mercy and compassion, therefore although we may not understand what's happening or why, we can be sure it's because of those things and not worry about it. Secondly, the very act of challenging or questioning them was the same thing as saying that we don't believe that God is good, loving, righteous, merciful and full of compassion. We're calling Him a liar! And that's not a good place to be! Besides all of that, Elihu insisted that tragedies and trials served to remove pride and protect people from even worse problems. So he reminds Job to worship God, instead of challenging Him. That's very, very good advice for us as well!

We need to remember that complaining is a sin and it's one that God hates. Actually, I think most of us do remember that part. The part we tend to forget is that when we complain about the weather, or about how someone is treating us, our physical illness or pain, or anything else at all, that we're actually complaining about how God is treating us. We're saying we don't like or appreciate what He's allowing to go on in our lives, that we think his judgment is a bit off and that he's made a mistake somewhere down the line, because surely we don't deserve this! At times like this, we generally start to feel angry and hateful toward whatever it is that's happening. We fight it, because we don't think it should be happening; we think it's wrong. We think God is wrong to allow it. That's exactly what Job did too and we're seeing where it's gotten him and just how wrong he was to do this. So what is our attitude to be? We're told it's to be the same as our Lord's was, which is to say to entrust ourselves to God who judges justly, knowing that good will come from whatever we're going through. He didn't retaliate or try to stop his torture or impending death, he allowed it all to happen, leaving it in God's hands. This is what Job forgot as he dwelled on the bad things that had happened to him. And that was the start of his downhill slide, allowing those kind of thoughts to stay in his mind instead of taking them captive (stopping them) and replacing them with the Truth. If he'd done that at the start, he never would have gotten to this point or gone through the emotional pain he put himself through because of it. This too is one of our biggest downfalls today. We don't take God's Word seriously and do what it says, even though we know it's for our own good!

Some relevant scriptures:
Philippians 2:3-5; 1 Peter 2:23; Ephesians 4:31–5:2; John 3:27; Exodus 16:8; 2 Corinthians 10:5 & Philippians 4:8

You won't believe my experience with obamacare!

So, how do my fellow American's feel about being blackmailed by their own government now? Fun, huh? We weren't going to sign up just because we don't like being blackmailed, but I caved at the last minute, and you won't believe what happened! Let me preface what happened to me, with what various friends from my area have told me about the insurance they were forced to get through obamacare first though, and you'll see other reasons why we didn't want anything to do with it.

Most of the people we know don't have a lot of money. They live in NH as we do and live pay check to pay check or are on fixed incomes due to disability. Since we don't have hardly any money at all coming in anymore as Bruce still has been unable to find a job and NH cut everyone's unemployment, we assumed our experience would be similar to theirs.

1. All but one person was forced to pay ridiculous amounts for their insurance - amounts they not only couldn't afford, but were way more then they could afford.

2. Everyone that had insurance beforehand, of course lost their insurance, even though obama promised that we could keep our insurance if we liked it.

3. Most are unable to see their doctors they had before...many which have gone to the same doctor all their lives, but can't any longer. Nor can they use our local hospital any longer, but instead will have to drive long distances if they need to go to one.

4. Quite a few of these folks are on meds that can't be suddenly stopped and if not taken could be life threatening. Of course these meds are also very expensive. Due to obama's insurance though, they've had a great deal of trouble refilling their meds or in some cases getting a new prescription for them since they had to change doctors and the new doctor knew nothing about them. Some went several weeks without their meds due to this. NOT good!!!

5. All but one (again lol) now has to pay a HUGE deductible before they'll get any help at all from their wonderful new obamacare insurance. I'm talking HUGE, like $4000 or $5000 dollars and more! Until that's paid they get 0 help with doctor visits, prescriptions, or anything else. So what good is it?

6. The same folks I spoke about in #5 who have those huge deductibles, for some of them, the ONLY thing the insurance would cover even once that deductible was paid, was hospitalization. No help at all with anything else.

Since I know you guys all have good heads on your shoulders, even though our president doesn't seem to be smart enough to figure this out, I'm sure you can see by the above that these things create very big problems for a great many of the seniors, the elderly, those on disability, or with serious medical problems. (aren't those the ones it was supposed to help though?)

So I'm sure you can see why we weren't all that crazy about signing up for it. But good old obama didn't give anyone much of a choice did he? As a matter of fact it reminds me a great deal of the Mark of the Beast. The antichrist will force folks to take that mark or they won't be able to buy or sell anything. Today, we're forced to have this insurance or we'll have to pay a penalty. So, if you're too poor to pay for insurance, then you'll have to pay the penalty, right? Yeah...makes a lot of sense to me too.... But I can see it's preparing the way for the Mark. People in America are getting more and more used to being told what they must do.

So, I go to the marketplace and of course the site was down. I go back later and am then told that they're too busy but I can leave my email address and they'll let me know when they can help me. So I do. I never got a reply. So I called them the next day, April 1st and explain what happened. First lady tells me "tough, you'll have to pay the penalty". I admit, I got rude... I said, "Oh, so Obama lied when he said if we had problems getting through that we could have an extension and still get it?"She didn't have a comeback for that but simply kept repeating verbatim, an obviously typed out statement that I'd have to pay the penalty. I told her I wanted to speak to a supervisor. She got a little snotty then, but finally did connect me to one.

I told the supervisor the same story and she immediately said, "no problem, I'll sign you up!" Supervisors are great So I spend the next hour with her giving her all the facts and figures and swearing I wasn't lying etc. She puts it all through her little computer and comes back and tells me she has "good news and bad news". The bad news was that I couldn't get any insurance at all unless I paid full price for it. Now, you're all probably thinking that she's going to say it's because we make too much money so they're tables say we can afford to pay, right? Wrong!!!! She said we'd have to pay full price because we didn't make enough money!!!! She quoted the bottom figure for getting help paying for health insurance and then told me that with our income, we'd literally have to make twice as much as we did, plus a couple of dollars, in order to get help.

Well, I couldn't help it. By then I was laughing and couldn't stop! (she started laughing too) When I could get the words out, I finally asked her what the "good news" was. She said that because of the situation, we wouldn't have to pay the penalty. So the bottom line is that we're too poor to get insurance of any kind, but that obama will at least let us off the hook so we won't have to pay the penalty. Isn't that nice of him????

Of course, because of obamacare, we can't see any of the specialist doctors we go to, like Bruce's cardiologist, or our rheumatologist, because the hospitals they work out of no longer will help people who have little or no income. But, at least since we don’t have obama’s insurance yet, we can still see our primary care doctor, who we've both known forever, (yeah, we're that old ) and go to our local hospital. So that's better then nothing, but it's only because they're not effected by obamacare since our hospital isn't part of the obamacare plan in NH.  Next year will be a different story however.  We’ll have to again decide if we’re going to allow ourselves to be blackmailed by our government into getting their health insurance.

So, how did the rest of you fare with obamacare? I sure wish I still lived in America...the way it used to be.....

The Word and Joy

I'd like to share my personal notes from  with you.

Joy is linked to the indwelling of the HS which we receive when we're saved. (John 17:7) So our joy is found by being filled with the Spirit & living by His guidance and power. A Spirit filled life is the only way to experience the abundant joy Christ has for us & comes from being in harmony with Him. Since He's no longer with us, He sent His Spirit & gave us His Word so we could be in harmony with Him. The more we abide in His Spirit & Word, the more the world loses it's attractiveness & the more committed to Him we become. This causes the world to hate us as we expose it's lies, false values,folly & take away their excuses. We're a constant reminder of this to them, so they hate us.

Our joy doesn't replace or remove sorrow but comes in the midst of it. If we didn't experience sorrow we wouldn't grow. Jesus shares His joy, John 17:13, love John 15:9 & peace John 14:27 with us. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy & peace... Gal 5:22. Our joy deepens as our relationship with Jesus does; as we learn more about Him and ourselves. As we learn about ourselves, we see more & more of our needs, & as we learn more about Him, we see how only He can fill those needs. We learn more about Jesus through His Word, which also reveals to us what this world is really like. It exposes all it's lies & illusions. His Word gives us His love, joy, peace, & power so we too can overcome the world.

His joy gives us the inward strength we need to overcome the world (Neh 8:10) & we get it through His Word. We receive all He has for us through His Word, prayer, & His Spirit. We never get our joy in the world but only from His Word. His joy isn't fleeting, but is abiding. It's what gave Him the strength to go to the cross for us. (Heb 12:2) It doesn't depend on circumstances, but on the spiritual resources He gives us in His Word.

John 17:14 tells us that we're different because Jesus gave us His Word and that's why the world hates us. The Word teaches us about ourselves and sin and convicts us of sin through the HS, and we in turn convict the world of it's sin, exposing it's lies, illusions and excuses. We are constant reminders of this to them which is why they hate us. (that's illogical to hate whats in your best interest. John 17:15 shows that Satan is behind this which helps explain why it's so illogical.) We are left on the earth to be in it, but not part of it. We're to be above them, representing our World to them, and not allow ourselves to become soiled by the world, even though we're in it and touching it. (just like Jesus who was surrounded by sinners, demons etc and touched people to help them, but was never sullied by any of it). The only way we can do this is by abiding in Him & His Word.

Jesus gives us joy through transformation, while the world offers it through substitution. For example, when a child cries because they broke their toy, the mother gives the child another toy to play with and the child is happy again. She's replacing the pain of the broken toy with another toy to bring the child pleasure or joy. We do the same thing as adults, it's just that our toys are different. We replace our sorrow, anxiety, fear, worry etc, with a few drinks, some TV or a book, sex, spending money, doing drugs, cleaning house, etc. That's all joy through substitution which is what the world has always taught us. This in turn teaches us to be self centered and immature because we never learn how to really deal with sorrow, pain and disappointment.

Jesus on the other hand, teaches us to have joy in the midst of our sorrow, pain and problems. In John 16:20–22 Jesus shows us what joy through transformation looks like in every day life. He gives the example of a woman having a baby. When she's in labor, she's in a great deal of pain and no one enjoys that. When the baby is born however, her pain changes to joy, as she sees the results of her hard labor.  It's transformed to joy by the same baby that caused her pain. 

Jesus never tells us that our sorrow and problems will be replaced by joy, He says they'll be turned to joy. When the apostles suffered beatings and being whipped, it hurt and nothing replaced that hurt, but their pain was turned to joy because they chose to focus on the fact that they'd been chosen to suffer for Christ. (Acts 5:41)  All through the bible we see instances of people choosing to turn their sorrow or pain to joy by focusing on the things of God instead of their pain or problems. In the NT, they also constantly reminded themselves that soon they would see Jesus again, and focused on the joy they knew that would bring. They knew that one day God would literally transform their pain & sorrow into joy. They didn't know if it would be in this life or at the start of their real life, but knowing it will happen, gave them hope and joy.  (just like knowing that Christmas is coming gives children joy)

As we learn to transform our sorrow or pain into joy we grow in faith and also in our character.  Neither our faith nor our character can ever be taken away from us.  Since the Joy of the Lord is our strength, the more we grow, the stronger we get.

Satan is very active in our lives right now

We all know we're living in the last days of the end times right now, and that means of course, that Satan is very active. I know there's often been a general tendency to blame Satan for just about everything instead of realizing that it's simply our flesh or the world that's been causing us the problems in our lives, but right now, in one area especially, I think Satan and his demons are to blame. It's our families.

It seems like just about every Christian family I know has or is experiencing severe relationship problems within it. Family members are fighting with each other, some are walking away from their faith, others haven't been saved yet, there's affairs, divorces, anger, malice, rage, bitterness, grudges, slander, gossip, deceit, hatred, jealously, selfishness, self pity, self-righteousness, vindictiveness, and a whole lot of unforgiveness.

All those characteristics are often shown together in God's Word as the characteristics of the unsaved, and that we're to rid ourselves of. These characteristics are part of our sin nature, so they show up naturally in all of us. At our salvation, the Lord gave us a new nature, but we have to choose to walk in it constantly, otherwise we'll simply revert to acting out of our old nature. And we all know how easy it is to fall back into old habits.

We know that Satan is out only to steal, kill and destroy. We've seen in the news how he's been attacking the family for a long time now. We've seen him do that through the homosexual activists, and before that through the women's lib movement, as well as things like abortion, no fault divorces, etc. I never looked at it as "personal" before, but saw his scheme as trying to destroy the foundation of marriage and family, not individual families. Now I realize however, that he's doing both.

While those things can certainly affect our individual families, he's also attacking us each individually by another of his standard modes of operation: strife and division. When I say Satan's attacking us individually, I don't mean that Satan himself is personally attacking each of us. His demons simply plant the seeds and our sin nature takes it from there. Plus he has the help of the secular worldview (how we see and interpret the world and our lives) which he's always been behind as backup. (It's yet another reason why the Lord says we need to be in His Word daily so our minds can be renewed with His Truth, and we won't fall back into the way the world sees things.)

Knowing the cause of the problems made me realize that we had been duped by Satan; he loves putting evil thoughts and ideas in our minds, and encouraging those thoughts and resultant feelings, causing all the strife and division. That made me angry! Real angry! How dare he! Then it made me ashamed. For years I'd tried to figure out the cause and gone from blaming myself to this person, to another. To finally discover that it was one of Satan's schemes that we're to be aware of, made me ashamed because I hadn't seen it before and I should have. But I was too busy blaming everything else and nursing my feelings of rejection. It was a relief also to know that all the garbage was from Satan and not really from my children at all.

Most importantly though, knowing the cause of the problem, I finally knew how to "fix" it with the Lord's help and guidance. To overcome Satan's scheme, all we really need are 3 things; and they're the 3 most basic and most important things that the Lord tells us about over and over again in His Word: love, forgiveness and humility. That's it. Loving God and others, forgiving, and being humble, are the three main things that God tells us to do from Genesis to Revelation and they're what Satan hates more then anything else, and that will beat him every single time! God pours His love into our hearts for the very purpose of loving Him and others and forgiving. Obviously, we can't do this without His help, but with His help, we can.

If you take another look at the list I wrote, all but the "affairs and divorces" are feelings, and the affairs and divorces happen because of "feelings", right? God's Word tells us not to trust our feelings in the first place, but instead to trust only in what His Word tells us. He also tells us that we're to be in control of our thoughts, because it's our thoughts that produce our feelings, which in turn produce our actions. We need to replace the thoughts that lead to those kind of feelings with thoughts that lead to the kind of feelings He wants us to cultivate, and dwell on those instead.

The "trick" however is in the forgiveness, because we have to forgive the way God does, not the way the world does. We have to forgive, promising to never bring up the matter to the person or anyone else, including ourselves, ever again. That's what "forgetting" means, when God says He forgets our sins. You can read more about that in Forgiving and Forgetting, the Lord's way if you want to (it's very short!).

When we bring love, forgiveness, and humility into the cycle of broken relationships, under the covering of prayer, they begin to heal. When the others push our buttons and get nothing back from us except for more love, they have nothing to continue their fight with. Oh, they'll keep trying for awhile, but you'll be amazed how it will change the whole dynamics of the situation. And it's when they push our buttons that humility comes into play too, for humble person will serve others, and put others before themselves, submitting themselves to God and others the way the Lord tells us to.

There's another very important aspect to all of this though. We need God's help to do this, for only with His help can we really pull it off. His Word tells us that there are two basic necessities for getting His help: constant prayer and being in His Word daily. We need to keep talking to the Lord about what we're doing and why asking for His help and guidance, expecting answers. His answers come through His Word. So we need to alert, and ready to apply what He shows us, and He will show us! We need to remember too though to always put the Lord first...even before the family we love. If we do, then the Lord says He will grant us the desires of our heart. I know my desire is to see each of my family members reconciled to the Lord, to each other, and to me and Bruce. Knowing God's promise if I'm obedient, I know that He will reconcile my family and is even now working in each of us to bring it about; and doing it for His glory and our good. Satan may have gotten a running start on us, and it may be his hay day, but our God always wins!

John 10:10 —The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. *
2 Corinthians 2:11 —in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. *
1 Peter 5:8–9 —Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. *Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. *