A GOOD CHUCKLE

I had to chuckle, even though at the time it really wasn't funny.  One of our grand daughters, when she was three years old, stood with her hands on her hips announcing to the whole family,"I don't want anyone telling me what to do!"

 I thought to myself, "What was that all about.?" It came out of nowhere. I wish you could have seen the expression on my daughter and son-in-law's face. In moments like this, I love being a grandmother.   I removed myself into another room, while the parents dealt with it.

Why am I chuckling. That same rebellious and independent spirit in her, was also birthed in me. 

 My little grand daughter  became a major prayer request. When she was a teenager, she was born again. Later she attended college, received her associate degree, married, and today she has three little sinners of her own being carried in her heart to the cross.

As a parent, grandparent and now a great grandparent, I walk daily on my knees, grateful for the prayers of the many saints who prayed me into the Kingdom.  

The world is ugly and getting very evil. Will you join me and pray for our Nation's children, grandchildren and great grandchildren across this land?  The Lord Jesus Christ is our only hope for the coming days and we need to prepare. 

 Remember the word of the Lord in 2 Chronicles "If My people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land" 

This is the Lord's conditional promise for any Nation, if His church will pray.  Let us walk together on our knees before our Holy God and bring glory to the Name of His Son ,Jesus. 

WHERE IS YOUR IDENTITY?

When I was a young Christian, it took me many years to understand true repentance.  I was taught to confess my sins, because I was a sinner and that Jesus had forgiven me. But, why did I still feel like I was going around and around in a circles and never free? It seemed like the same sins were always rearing their ugly head. Where was the FREEDOM and POWER of the cross to change me more and more into the image of Christ? (Romans 8:29) Something was missing

It wasn't until I understood this truth.  I SINNED because I was a SINNER. Sin was natural for me.  I had to identify with Adam's sin before I could identify with Christ resurrection. ADAM'S SIN was MY OWN ALSO. It was called the Original Sin.  Without true repentance of the the Original Sin of Adam (including Eve), I was like a dog chasing his own tail, Satan loved me confessing sin over and over again, but he sure did not want me to know the power of the cross that crucified Adam!  As I continued to ask God for more revelation of Adam's sin as my own, He gave me analogy to helped me to understand the POWER OF THE CROSS and what happened when I was born again.

"I was living in a house all alone, back in the hills of West Virginia.  Down in my basement was a machine making 'moonshine' by the gallons,and I was storing it in quart bottles, hiding them in closets, drawers and under beds throughout my house. No one would ever have known that I was making and selling moonshine, so I thought.  Then one morning the door bell rang.  I answered it. It was the law.  The officer entered, rushed by me and headed  for the basement.door. He went down the cellar stairs and quickly went right  to the distillery. He took a huge sledge hammer and totally smashed  it to pieces," It is finished." He declared. " That machine will never produce an ounce of alcohol  again.  I know that you have bottles hidden away, but the choice is now yours to drink or not to drink. As you hand  bottles over to me, I will smash each one of them and will continue to smash every bottle, because I know you have a many hidden .  This house has been sold and it has a new owner.  He said that you can still live here, but first he has to destroy the distillery. He said that He would help you to get rid of the bottles and replace them with a healthier drink."

For the first time I understood salvation.  The house was me, and the distillery was my Adamic sin nature. The bottles were my hidden SINS (plural) that I was trying to keep hidden to look religious. I was supposed to be a Christian, but it was so hard.  For the first time I realized that I needed to repent of the sin of Adam as my very own sin.  It was the Adamic nature that was producing all the sins in me and now I was beginning to understand the POWER OF THE CROSS.  The cross was the sledge hammer that crushed the Adamic nature. I was free from  the  power of sin and I knew what I had to repent of!  It was my identity in Adam.  I was conceived in sin in my mother's womb  (Psalm 51:7) and born into this world a sinner.  Then I was BORN AGAIN by faith into Christ became a saint. (One set apart to God)

I am forever grateful for Jesus, I now have a new identity. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus and all things have become new. Positionally,  I am no longer in Adam,(1 Cor 5:17) . The only difference is that when I sin as a believer, and I still do,  I DON'T WANT TO SIN.  Now I can go to Calvary and by faith receive God's unconditional forgiveness without any condemnation.  What wonderful grace and mercy has been extended to me and to whosoever will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They too will be saved and made new.

Simple faith of a Child

In 1978, my youngest daughter and I were having lunch in a Deli, when we met Barbara. She was at the counter, buying a pack of cigarettes. She was wearing short shorts, high heels, with a T shirt tucked up under her bra, and a bandanna around her cropped curly hair. She had a cigar hanging out of her mouth. 

Earlier that morning, I had prayed to experience loving the unlovable with unconditional love. This was the moment!  I loved her.  My heart saw beyond her appearance, and I felt only the Lord's unconditional acceptance for her. I asked her to our table, bought her lunch and invited her home with us. I shared the gospel with her and she received salvation.  That was the beginning of a friendship that went on for the next five years.

 A month after we met Barbara, my husband and I got a telephone call at 1:00 am. in the morning  from the police. "We have a young 14 year old girl at the station who says that she knows you. Do you? " We answered that we did and asked "What did she do?"  The police described a very serious situation.  Barbara had thrown her grandmother down the stairs and out the front door. The police were called and Barbara was headed for the Juvenile Detention Center, unless we took her in.

As long as we were willing to house her, the police released the warrant for her arrest. However,the police were not clear as to how long!   We had no idea what we were getting into, but as a family we all felt a love for Barbara and wanted to help her where we could.  Our three daughters received Barbara as a sister. Our middle daughter graciously gave up her bedroom and dared to move in with her older sister.  It proved to be good for both of them. We all were impressed with Barbara's singing.  She did have a beautiful voice. Oh, how she loved to sing praises to the Lord. We had Christian music on most of the time, and I think Barbara learned just about very song on the record. Her favorite song was "To God be the Glory".  She would sing that song time and time again throughout the day.

For the rest of the school year, Barbara had been suspended. As a result, Barbara and I had more time to talk about Jesus.  As I began to work with her, I soon realized that she had a VERY SIMPLE FAITH.  It blessed me so much to see how uncomplicated she was. If the bible said it, she believed it!   She didn't need to understand THE WHY'S OR THE WHY NOT. She just believed God for the His word.  It was refreshing to share with her. I had a set of bible picture books, the kind you might find in a doctor's office, before 'political correctness' took hold. She particularly loved the picture of Jesus on the cross.  We would talk about how He died for her sins, was buried and raised from the dead and how His blood brought healing to her, body, soul and spirit.

Every night when I would go into her room to say goodnight, I noticed that she would sleep with the bible book under her pillow with  Jesus on the cross.  I asked why she slept this way and she told me that she wanted Jesus to heal her mouth.  At first I thought she meant inappropriate words, but she really meant the abscesses on her gums.  One morning after my husband had left for work and the girls had gone to school, Barbara was upstairs taking a bath.  She preferred the tub to the shower.  All of a sudden I heard this tremendous cry from the bathroom, "Mom Mom," that is what she liked to call me, "Come quick, I am healed."  I raced up stairs to see what she was talking about.  With blood running down her cheeks, Barbara kept repeating, "See the blood, see the blood, Jesus healed me."  I didn't know what to think. I knew that I had to quickly get her to a dentist. I helped to clean her up and called  for an emergency appointment.  Gratefully, I could get her in and to my surprise, everyone of her abscesses had been broken and she was amazingly healed. The dentist and I were in shock! Her simple faith in the healing power of the blood of Jesus had healed her.  Barbara stayed with us for the next three months,  until she was able to return to her family again.

Shortly after she returned home, we were suspicious that Barbara had more than just a violent temper. Our suspicions were verified when her mother had to place her into a mental hospital.   Her parents were alcoholics.  The mother had abdicated her place in the family to the grandmother, while the father was relegated to the basement. As a little girl, Barbara had been mentally and emotionally abused by her grandmother and she hated her. The hospital proved to be a safe place for her. Her behavior, however, was calm and controlled around our family. As a family, we would bring her out of the hospital for the holidays. Between visits to our home,we visited her at the hospital at least once or twice a month. The State of Pennsylvania  released her after five years, and she quickly disappeared into the streets of  Philadelphia. We lost contact with her, when we moved out of the area. However, we still remember the young girl we knew, who moved mountains with her simply faith.

MY WILL VS. HIS WILL

Many years ago, at a family gathering,  our three year old grand daughter, with her hands on her hips, stood in the middle of the living room floor announced to the world  "I don't want anyone telling me what to do!" Where did that come from?  All the adults were stunned, accept her embarrassed parents. They looked at each others, took their little lady by the hand and said, "God will tell you what to do and you will listen to your mother and father and obey.  Now you go to your room and we will talk about this later."  She left the room with her little head hanging low.  Her self-will pride had just been crushed .  It would not be the last time!

Self-will pride, is it NOT in every human soul?  Our little grand daughter was only acting out what was in her sinful heart.  Our rebellious pride dies hard in all of us, at least it has in me. It will still fight to control  for its right, its opinion, its will, insisting on its own way.   The only power against this pride is to reckon it dead in Christ and walk with humility totally dependent upon our Holy God. Jesus demonstrates this humility to us  as a believer in the garden, when He said to His Father,.  "Not my will, but thy WILL be done." It is not as easy as you think. Jesus sweated blood to do the WILL of the Father.

When I was first born again, I didn't honestly understand the importance of surrendering my will to the Lord.  I wanted to, but, truthfully, it was a bit scary to feel out of control, especially, because I had trusted in own self rule so long.  It took time to grow in the spirit, to know the Lord personally, and to trust Him with my life. Just as when I was a  child, I had to learn to trust and obey my parents.  It didn't happen overnight.  Of course, my parents were not perfect. But the truth is, that my heavenly Father is PERFECT and that there is no one like my "daddy".  His forgiveness, wrapped in His love, is forever engraved in my heart for the Lord Jesus. 

Recently I was in prayer discussing "my will". I was so blessed with His response. "My daughter, I will never break your SPIRIT, but your WILL I must continue to break.  Why do you think that your will is any better than my WILL for you?"  He left me with that question and I have mediated on it for days.  He is right. Why would I ever want my own will, when His WILL is always the best. Now, in the mornings it is so much easier to surrender my will, and to ask Him for His WILL to be done that day.  It is an unmovable peace, eternally placed in the my heart.