Are We There Yet?    

Heaven is not here, it's There. If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next. God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we so keenly long for.  Elisabeth Elliot

When we were kids we would go on trips in the summer and one of the things I am sure my parents got tired of hearing was those little voices from the back seat, (after we had only been on the road for an hour), “Are we there yet?”  We were bored sitting in the car on a long drive and we were anxious to get to our destination.  We had been listening all week to our parents tell us how much fun we were going to have once we got there. 
 
I started thinking about Heaven today.  We are just passing through this life on earth.  It is not our final resting place.  Too many times I lose focus when I get caught up in the things of this life.  I have to continuously remind myself that I am not home because home is not here.

I wonder if it would make a difference to a child’s life it they heard more about heaven.  Most of the time we are so focused on the things they are doing wrong and we talk so much about the sin they are committing here, that we forget to tell them about a much better place where there will be no sorrow, no pain, no tears.  A place where our heavenly Father joyously looks forward to our homecoming. 

Yesterday I was struggling with an incident that occurred with one of our farmer’s markets where we participate.  On behalf of my parents and their business and myself, I was angered over what one of the organizers had done.  The thing is if I believe in the Heavenly Father and understand that he wants what is best for me and nothing happens on this earth without it going through Him first, then I can be at peace with whatever happens on this earth because this “is not my home”.   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, in answer to the question, “Are We There Yet”?, no we are not.  I am just a traveler passing through a strange land.  This is not my home and I praise You for creating a better one for me.  I look forward to the day when I can walk through those gates and see the place you have prepared for me.  Thank you for giving me a path to Your door.  Remind me I am not home yet.    

Scripture:   Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.  And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” And He said to me, “It is done!  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.  Revelation 21:1-7

Stolen Identity    

Identity – 1. The state of having unique identifying characteristics held by no other person or thing.  The individual characteristics by which a person or thing is recognized.  The state of being the same as a person or thing described or claimed.

The major strategy of Satan is to distort the character of God and the truth of who we are. He can't change God and he can't do anything to change our identity and position in Christ. If, however, he can get us to believe a lie, we will live as though our identity in Christ isn't true.  Neil T. Anderson

Have you ever had your identity stolen?  I am dealing with one of the credit reporting agencies right now on some things on my credit report that are not mine.  I guess you have figured out by now that I do a lot of thinking.  Today I started thinking about identity theft.  Maybe it was because I saw where several celebrities and famous people had their social security information posted online opening them up to identity theft.

I decided to look at this from the perspective of “would I want my identity stolen from God’s perspective?”  Your identity is what makes you unique or allows people to recognize and identify who you are. If my identity in Christ was stolen would the perpetrator be getting a good deal?  I mean, most people steal from someone else because they want whatever the other person has, so there would have to be some value in me for someone to want to steal it.  The thing is the value God places on us is not the same as what the world looks for or would want to steal.

Most of the time I don’t think they would be getting a good deal from a heavenly perspective.  So if we run through the list of pros and cons, what would I come up with about me that would make me a good steal?  I sin, I’ve lied, I don’t always stand up for God in worldly situations, I spend too much on myself sometimes, I often try to control situations instead of letting God be in control.  Man this isn’t sounding so good is it.  On the pro side, I love God, I pray often, I love others sometimes and I try to forgive others, I love my neighbors except those who irritate me.  This is getting worse and worse.

I think I need to go back and clean up some stuff on my credit report.  I don’t think my heavenly identity is worth stealing. The beauty if this credit report is that God does and will redeem. 

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I want an identity in Christ that is worth stealing.  If I become what you call me to be, others will come to know You.  That is the ultimate goal in the life I live on earth.  Please help me to correct some of the errors on my heavenly credit report. 

Scripture:  “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.  For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left.  Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.  Matthew 24:36-44

How Does Your Garden Grow?    

Christians are like the several flowers in a garden that have each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other's roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other.  John Bunyan

We always had a garden when I was growing up.  Mom and Dad would plant vegetables and they would always give each of us a row that would be just for us.  When spring came we weren’t home watching TV.  We were out in the yard planting our row. 

I always loved flowers so I would plant zinnias in my row.  They were kind of hard to mess up.   I mean it didn’t take any great gardening skills or green thumb to grow zinnias and they lasted throughout the summer.  We would go out each week and weed and water the garden.

My brother liked watermelon so that is what he chose to plant in his row.  I am not sure if watermelon was just not something that grew well in Louisiana because his plants looked beautiful but they didn’t produce the size of watermelon we expected. 

So my parents decided to help him along and bought a watermelon and put it in the garden on his row.  Back then when you bought a watermelon at the store they would take a marks-a-lot and write the price right on the melon.  The day we went out to the garden and saw that watermelon was pretty funny.  We all gathered around to look at and admire it.  The problem was one of us looked down and saw the price written on it.  Being kids we all were astounded how that watermelon grew with the price written right on it. 

When I thought of this long ago story it made me think of how each of us is a gardener.  God gives us seeds to plant.  The soil is the foundation that we plant the seeds in that help others come to know Him.  If we don’t add nutrients (our support) to the soil (those who don’t know Him) our seeds will not produce.  God also gives us tools to plant with (the Bible) and Living Water to nourish the plants.  

If we don’t fertilize the soil, plant the seeds, remove the weeds and water the plants they will not produce.  In other words if we don’t plant the seed of salvation in the sinner, encourage and show them who God is, walk beside them when trials and tragedies occur, and fill them with Living Water we will never produce the kind of fruit God cherishes.    

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I want to be a gardener of souls for Your Kingdom.  I don’t always have the right words to say or the right actions but I know with Your help I can plant seeds of salvation in others.  Thank you for giving me the tools I need to sow seeds that may one day produce in abundance. 

Scripture:  On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.  Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.  Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth.  But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.  And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Matthew 13:1-9

 

Egg Toss    

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.  C.S. Lewis

I have told many stories of my childhood and I thought today would be a good day to share another of those stories.  I love this saying by C.S. Lewis.  We can either be a decent ordinary egg our entire lives, or as I say we can be an extraordinary egg.

My brother and I were out in the woods behind our house with my Dad.  I am sure Dad was working or cutting wood or something productive but my brother and I were mostly goofing off.  We had gone to the barn earlier that morning and gathered eggs.  Unbeknownst to me, my brother had held onto one of the eggs. 

So I am walking through the woods, minding my own business, when something comes sailing through the trees.  The problem with this was my brother knew it was headed for me but I didn’t and he really didn’t give me a heads up or in this case head duck.  The reason he knew it was because he is the one who threw the egg.  So I am walking along and all of a sudden I get smacked upside, (I don’t think that is a word but it sounds right for this story), the head with a raw egg. 

Since my brother played baseball when he was younger, I guess he was a better pitcher than he thought because his aim was good that day.  He missed every tree branch so the egg had nothing to stop its momentum.  So here I am standing in the woods with egg running down the side of my head.  I think it surprised me more than anything but I am sure I cried because it shocked me.  It wasn’t like I got a goose egg from it or in this case a chicken egg.  He got in trouble of course, but I don’t quite remember the punishment since there is not anything in the Kid Manual about what punishment is required for hitting your sister upside the head with a raw egg. That was a new one for my Dad and he had lots of practice with four kids.       

We had an incubator when I was young and it always fascinated me that you could place eggs in this thing and later the chicks would hatch.  The thing is you had to make sure the light source stayed on continuously and you had to go out every day and turn the eggs.  That is what God is to us.  He is our light source and He turns us every day.  In the turning process He may give us challenges or trials that help us mature so that one day we too will hatch.  It is up to us whether we will be a decent egg or an extraordinary one.

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I thank you for the daily challenges in my life.  When I am in the middle of them I often don’t see the benefit but You know what is best for me and I am forever thankful that You are in control.         

Scripture:    Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,  as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.  You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. 2 Peter 3:14-18

Just As I Am   

When God accepts a sinner, He is, in fact, only accepting Christ. He looks into the sinner's eyes, and He sees His own dear Son's image there, and He takes him in.  Charles Spurgeon

I was working a Farmer’s Market this weekend with my parents and I saw a dog.  Seeing a dog is not unusual at this particular market because Farmer’s Markets are great places for people to get out and shop while still being able to bring your dog for a little retail therapy and interaction with other pooches.  There is Tripod who only has three legs and he gets around really well for a three legger.  Then there are the greyhounds who always come to our booth and fall asleep in the middle of the booth.  I mean we do sell lavender so it makes sense.  There is Winston the overly large bulldog who just had back surgery.

There was a young woman there with this dog and just looking at him made me smile.  He was not your typical purebred pooch.  He had the face of a chihuahua, the body and tail of a beagle and he had an under bite.  When you looked at his face his canine teeth curled up on either side of his face over his top teeth.  He was just so cute.

One of the things I love about this market is the people and their pets. Most of the animals you see are all rescue dogs.  Most of the time rescue dogs are the ones that no one else wants.  They are the unadoptable.  The sad thing is most often these are the ones who are the most loving but because they aren’t registered purebreds, most people won’t look at them twice, let alone adopt them. 

I started thinking about how God looks at us.  You could say none of us are purebreds either, but God loves each of us as if we were the only one.  Sometimes all we look at is the outer shell and we forget about the very heart of the person.  God looks at us and says “you are a child of mine”.  When we look at it from the perspective that God loved each of us enough to sacrifice His only Son for us, that is an amazing love.  We were created in God’s image.  That means every person you see is God’s creation.  It doesn’t matter if I have one leg or two, an over bite or under bite, straight teeth or crooked.  He loves me anyway.   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, sometimes we look at other people and find them unworthy of our time based on just how a person looks.  Help me to see others from Your eyes.  If I am too busy looking at what the world considers perfect or beautiful, I just may miss one of your hidden treasures.  I praise You for loving me just as I am.          

Scripture:  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.  Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:31-39

Our Protector    

We must learn to live on the heavenly side and look at things from above. To contemplate all things as God sees them, as Christ beholds them, overcomes sin, defies Satan, dissolves perplexities, lifts us above trials, separates us from the world and conquers fear of death.  A.B. Simpson

I have told many stories of my childhood and I thought today would be a good day to share another of those stories.  When we were kids we always had dogs, cats, chickens, cows, horses and ducks and at one time we even had guinea pigs. 

Puppies and dogs were always my favorites.  We had a German shepherd huskie named Penny who had puppies.  We each got to pick our puppy and name them.  There was Macy, Tippy, Flip and Geraldine.  There was never a time when we didn’t have a dog.  When I was a little older Mom and Dad gave me a puppy.  I named her Khaki because she was that color.  She was a German shepherd huskie.  At the time we also had a pit bull named BJ. 

BJ was a tough character.  He had muscles on top of muscles.  We all loved BJ.  Because he was such a tough character, we had to keep him on a chain in the back yard for the safety of the neighbors.  We had a state trooper neighbor who would come over every so often and he always gave BJ a wide berth so to speak.  In other words he never got too close to BJ. 

Khaki was still a puppy and she was able to run all over the yard.  One day the neighbors full grown 70lb German shepherd started chasing Khaki across the yard.  Khaki took off running and raced around the house toward the barn.  As far as we knew she never went near BJ or his house.  On this particular day we were near the barn when we saw her come running around the house with the neighbor’s dog hot on her heels. 

She was making a beeline for BJ and his house.  I took off running after her because I didn’t know what BJ would do to her when she got in his territory.  She shot past BJ and ran into his house and sat down.  As soon as the neighbor’s dog got a look at BJ he skidded to a halt.  At this point BJ is lunging at the end of his chain trying to get to the German shepherd.  Khaki is calmly sitting in BJ’s house watching the fireworks.

I could just imagine Khaki’s puppy thoughts.  “Come get me now you big bruiser.  I dare you.”  We never worried about her after that because BJ was her lifelong protector after that day.  He would let her sit in his house and eat his food and he never bothered her. 

When I think about this story I think about God our Father.  He is our Protector when life gets tough.  When Satan is knocking at our door we have a Protector who never fails.  The thing is we don’t have to worry whether He will be there or not.  He is always available and we have nothing to fear.  I want to be like my long ago puppy who knew exactly where safety could be found.  Our safety is found in the Father.   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I find You in the simplest of things.  I see You in the stories of my childhood and in the everyday circumstances of life.  You are the place I go to when I need rest.  I praise You for being my Protector and Savior.  There is no one who can separate me from Your love.         

Scripture:    Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:37-39

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  2 Corinthians 1:3-4

The Fine Print   

The gospel is so simple that small children can understand it, and it is so profound that studies by the wisest theologians will never exhaust its riches.  Charles Hodge

Salvation comes through a cross and a crucified Christ. Andrew Murray

Do you ever get tired of the fine print?  Just about everything you purchase has it.  Yesterday I was reading the fine print for internet access.  The plan I chose allows unlimited downloading and uploading, “but” in order to ensure consistent performance for all users there is a Fair Access Policy but to make this simple to understand we will call it FAP for short.  You are also allowed an Anytime Data Allowance or ADA each month. This is the time you are allowed to download at full speed during the month.  If you exceed the “ADA” for the month your “throughput” speed is reduced.  There is also a Data Allowance Cycle or DAC.  At the end of each DAC you will get a refill overnight.

Here is the kicker.  If you don’t use your ADA during the DAC you lose it.  You are also allotted Bonus Bytes so to make this easier to understand we’ll call these BB’s for short.  There is only a certain time of day that you are allowed to use your BB’s and if it is not the right time of day your usage is deducted from your ADA.  In other words, “Your BB’s provide a special pool which is used automatically during the BP or Bonus Period." 

I hope I haven’t lost you yet.  Stay with me.  The BP is 2:00am to 8:00am.  The time my BP is available makes me tired just thinking about it.  When you go outside the BP your service performance is reduced.  If this happens you do have options.  You can upgrade your plan or you can purchase “Anytime Bytes” or AB’s but they are really called Restore Tokens or RT’s.  The RT’s will immediately remove your speed restrictions and add back to your ADA.  The beauty of this is if you have unused RT’s you lose them.  You can’t carry them with you to the next BC or Billing Cycle.

As you can see I had plenty of time to read the FAP since I was on the phone for several hours, the majority of it spent on hold.  Here is another example of technology at work.  I think I may need to go back to college so that I can understand the difference in a DAC and my ADA. 

I praise our Heavenly Father for making salvation simple.  There is no fine print to get past and the cost stays the same.  Jesus’ life was the cost and that will never change.  It won’t go up and you can’t lose it.   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, when I start to think the Bible is difficult to understand, remind me about our human capacity to make things complicated.  Most of the time this complication is just another way to increase the bottom line.  I praise you for making salvation easy enough to understand that it doesn’t take a degree in rocket science for me to understand.         

Scripture:      But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.  For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.  1 Thessalonians 5:8-10