Month: November 2023

If you tried to access my blog over the Thanksgiving weekend, I’m sorry for your inconvenience. Without going into detail, there was a communication problem concerning my domain name renewal and i’m back up and blogging as of noon today (Monday).

The timing of this problem is not coincidental. The enemy always attacks me on a weekend or holiday when I can’t respond immediately. While I was fretting Sunday about what happened to my website, my caregiver ended her shift at noon and someone knocked on my door five minutes later. When I went to the front door in my power chair, the bolt lock was jammed and I couldn’t open the door to see who it was. I called my dear friends and they came over to see if they could get it open and working again. I opened the overhead door to the garage so they could come in that way, but a caregiver had locked the door to the garage so they couldn’t get in that way either. I had to squeeze my power chair through my tiny laundry room to unlock the door for them. Jim finally got the lock off and it appears to be working fine again. We found no reason for the lock to jam like that. I’m sure Satan was continuing to harass me and distract me from serving the Lord with my blog.

As I’ve written before, instead of letting the enemy succeed in distracting and upsetting you, pray for help and let God handle things. You can be sure your work for God is having a big impact or the enemy wouldn’t waste his time with you. It is a validation of your calling and gifts. Overcoming his resistance will only make you stronger. I am living proof of that.

When my wife passed away, I was on my own with our two old dogs, Fritz and Missy. As you can imagine, I talked to them a lot. They were good listeners; with ears cocked and tails wagging, hanging on my every word. The problem was, except for a few words they related to food, walks or rides, they had no clue what I was talking about. Both of the dogs have also died and now my attention has turned to God even more than before.

Like Fritz and Missy, my Master provides my every need and speaks to me through Scripture and the promptings of His Holy Spirit within me. I hang intently on His every word. The older I get, the more my thoughts turn to heaven and that is where Fritz, Missy and I have the same problem.

Will the six dogs I have loved in this life be in heaven to greet me? What kind of food will we eat? Will our new bodies require toilets in heaven? Will I have a job or duties to perform there? What will the “mansion” God has prepared for me look like? I have no clue and neither does anyone else in this life.  John Wesley once said, “Asking me to describe Heaven, is like asking a baby in the womb to describe creation.” A preacher responded to a little girl’s questions about Heaven, “Honey you just imagine the most wonderful heaven you can and I promise you it will be better than that.” 1 Corinthians 2:9 tells us, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and it has not entered the mind of man what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

This is what I do know about Heaven. My Master will be there to greet me along with all of my Christian relatives and friends who have died before me. Heaven will be my eternal home. For now, that’s all I need to know.

When I was very young, my parents’ favorite question was, “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” By the time I was 15, I not only knew the meaning of “no” – I thought I knew everything worth knowing and I was quick to share what I knew with anyone who would listen. At the age of 80, the list of things I don’t know grows longer each day. Not because of faulty memory (thank God), but because I am now quick to admit that there are things I simply cannot wrap my brain around. As one of the wisest of the Greek philosophers, Socrates understood the irony that true wisdom and knowledge begin when we realize how little we know and understand.

A young brother in Christ told me yesterday that he is struggling to understand the things going on in his life right now and how they relate to God’s plan for his life. I told him our finite minds cannot handle the infinite power, mercy and love of God. God told Isaiah, “‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘And my ways are far above anything you can imagine. For just as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.'” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

My wife and I struggled for over 50 years with the fact that we were unable to have children. The words to one of her favorite songs told her, “Farther along we’ll know all about it. Farther along we’ll understand why.” She has had all of the answers for nine years now and I’m still in the dark. until I join her and she can fill me in.

I have quoted C.S. Lewis many times. His perspective as an atheist turned outspoken follower of Christ gave him a clarity much like that of the Apostle Paul. This quote describes his conversion from rebel to child of God. “Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over from the ground floor – that is the only way out of our hole. This process of surrender – this turning full speed astern – is what Christians call repentance.”

Starting life over from the ground floor is just another way of describing the spiritual rebirth Jesus describes in the third chapter of the Gospel of John. It is the beginning of our eternal, Christian life. It is good to look back at that beginning once in a while to see how far we have come on the right track. Life is not a competition. The only comparison that matters is how I compare today to how I used to be yesterday.

Every true Christian believer has experienced the new life that comes through our repentance. However, each of us is a unique original – traveling at our own pace and in our own way with God guiding us.

If you are reading this and have not experienced the new spiritual birth that comes with repentance, now is your chance. Cease rebelling against God, surrender to Him, tell Him you are sorry, ask Him to turn you around and start you on a new road that leads to Him and eternal life. He will answer your sincere prayer and you will never regret that decision.

A dear sister in Christ shared this message on FB today. “A young man mockingly said to a preacher, ‘You say without Christ a person is carrying a heavy load of sin.  I don’t feel anything. How heavy is sin? Five pounds? Fifty pounds? A hundred pounds?’ After pondering for a moment, the preacher gently replied with a question of his own. ‘If you place a 400 pound weight on a corpse, do they feel it?’ The young man quickly replied, ‘Of course not, they are dead.’ The preacher then explained ‘Without Christ, a person is equally dead. They can’t feel the weight of sin until they are brought back to life by faith in Jesus Christ. Then, he or she will briefly feel the full weight of sin until Jesus takes that weight off of them and they are set free from it.'”

At age eleven, I had not accumulated a large load of personal sin, but when I was reborn spiritually I realized the heavy load of human nature we inherited from Adam and Eve, which Christ immediately lifted from me and set me free. Have I been sin free ever since? Of course not. This is not heaven and I am not perfect yet, but I have avoided more pitfalls than I can count due to the promptings of the Holy Spirit within me and even when it felt like I have strayed way off course, I’ve never been more than one prayer from returning to God and his plan for my life.

My brother or sister in Christ, remain as close to God as you can through prayer, Bible study, worship and Christian fellowship here on earth. I will see you in heaven where all things will be made new. I’ll be looking for you.

A Catholic friend on FaceBook posted about the long history and traditions of the Catholic church. He compared it to Protestant history and doctrine. The conclusion drawn from his post is that the longer doctrines, ceremonies, rites and beliefs are held onto, the truer and better they must be.

I will state once again that Christian faith is not a religion, but is a relationship with God through the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and obedience to the promptings of God’s Holy Spirit within us. There is nothing wrong with tradition, ceremony or doctrine unless they distract us from that personal relationship. The Church universal, which is referred to in scripture as the bride of Christ, is made up of individual believers regardless of which church they attend here. Even one of the two thieves crucified next to Jesus joined that church before he died and Jesus took him to Paradise with him.

I have had that relationship with Jesus, my Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit for 69 of my 80 years of life on this earth and Jesus has promised me that I will soon join Him and that former thief and all other believers in His kingdom.

One last warning; beware of false doctrine, run everything (including my blog) past the Holy Spirit and God’s word. Those are the sources of eternal truth. Satan’s lies will not become truth even if everyone believes them and God’s truths will remain true even if no one believes them.

My long life with Christ has never been about me. It did not begin with my  self-confidence; it does not run on my self-control; and it certainly will not end with my self-determination. As a matter of fact, thanks to Jesus, it will never end, just relocate from Earth to His kingdom in Heaven.

It began in humility and gratitude at age eleven, when John 3:16 became personal to me. He paid the price for my sins on the cross and rose again to prove His promise of eternal life. I was not worthy of such a wonderful gift of love. All I could do was accept it with joy.

My journey all of these years as a Christian has not been under my own will-power. It has simply been a matter of trusting His power and obeying His will. He has shown me to appreciate the gifts and blessings He gives me and  He taught me the joy of sharing them with others. In old age, I can no longer lift people physically or financially, but I can lift them in my prayers and with this blog and I will do so until God calls me home to be with Him, my wife, my parents and my countless Christian brothers and sisters who are waiting to welcome me home when my tour of duty here has ended.