Tag: answer

Ever feel like God is silent?

Ever feel like God is silent? Jesus said the fateful words on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?“, Psalms 22:1, a prophetic picture of Jesus’ crucifixion, but the very next verse says this, “My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer…” Even the Son of God experienced the Silence of God. Take heart, then, because ‘we have a High Priest, Jesus Christ, who has been tempted in every way, just as we are and yet did not sin‘ (Hebrews 4:15b), and now, because of this and through the Cross, ‘Jesus lives forever and has a permanent priesthood – so He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them’ (Hebrews 7:24-25). Selah.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Misericordia, Soli Deo Gloria

Is Christmas a Pagan holiday?

Many people often ask if a given holiday, traditionally Christian, are actually originally from Pagan holidays. Christmas is one of those. If you’re wondering and carry some uneasy feelings, put your mind to rest. Take heart with an answer from the book The Bible has the Answer. It’s a great book on all kinds of questions about Christianity. Here’s an excerpt of the full answer…

Continue reading “Is Christmas a Pagan holiday?”

New Year’s Day 2012

Happy New Year! May your heart warm again to hope by the very sunshine shone forth only from the trust put in Jesus Christ, Saviour of your soul, God, Who knows the good plans He has for you!

Allow me to open 2012 with an old stand by, for the “old school Sanctus Real fans…”

Things were better last year. Things will be better this year.

Thank you, God, for blessing me, thank you for helping me be a blessing, thank you for changing me. You have shown your faithfulness in spite of my unfaithfulness. You have answered my prayers, you have carried me through, you have lead me and guided me according to your Will for me, revealing to me day by day your plans to bless me so incredibly. I am amazed that you care for the things that I care about. Forgive me for having such little faith. I believe, help my unbelief! Thank you for the sacrifice of Your Son on the cross for me, a sinner. May I ever more and ever better be Your servant.

Lord, you know my heart’s desire. Please bless me with opportunities to be a blessing, please bless me with courage and confidence to seize those opportunities, please bless me with Your creativity to create opportunities! I believe your best for me is yet in my future. This I know because I have seen Your great hand at work! I will wait on You, I will trust in You.

The Lord, God, He is Good. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Selah.

New Year’s Eve 2011

Truly, the light of the Son has shone on each day more wonderfully than the last! These words, penned New Year’s Day 2011 echo back to me from distant memory and remind me of the immediate flood of blessings I have had each day of this year!

Twenty-Eleven began with a running start. In the Fall of 2010 I made a commitment before the Lord, which I am still working through, and hope to do so for the rest of my life. As New Year’s 2011 commenced, my faith, my life, and my hopes were placed in God’s able hands. My commitment was to someone special, my aim to be a blessing to her and her family, my promise before God to remain steadfast to them, my request before God that he bless me so I could be a blessing, and my plea before God to change me – that I would be a better servant to him day by day.

The Lord has answered so many prayers. I am amazed that He hears and not only hears but answers! One of my constant prayers this past year has been that I would be able to see opportunities arising where I could be a blessing, that I would have the courage and confidence to seize those opportunities, and that I would be granted God’s own creativity to create opportunities to be a blessing. God has overflowed me with amazing opportunities and, more surprising still, He has used these opportunities to other ends than I had intended so that I ended up being more incredibly blessed than I would have thought. I am blown away by the way He works. I love His ways!

I have also been learning not simply to hope for good things but to trust God who has planned for our good, if we would only have faith and trust Him and follow Him so that he can carry out in our life something more wonderful than we could ever have dreamed up on our own!

Praise Him, all creatures here below! Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host! The Lord God, “majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders,” this God, His hand has been on my days, His plans for me from everlasting have been revealed day by day and I am laid low that I have gripped so tightly to fantasies when God’s workings are so much better, so surprisingly delightful, so unexpected and joy abounding!

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow!

I don’t know about becoming a Cannonball this past year but the Lord has lifted my head, lead me, and carried me forward. I have continued to read His Word on my phone, now using AcroBible NIV. I have abandoned cable television and, with it, The Light, a cable radio station which broadcasts quality Christian music. I have moved to iTunes, mostly, and have found I can get most of the music I want to find. As I talked about in my New Year’s Eve 2010 post, I have stayed with my “christian” playlist and I find there is truth and wisdom and peace in immersing one’s self completely in things good, and pure, and noble.

This year I have been trying to keep a habit of reading a few key, biblical promises, that I first heard from James MacDonald’s series Always True. Listen to the audio series yourself and I think you’ll experience the same uplifting joy I felt coming to understand God’s intention for our blessing! I would read one promise per day, Monday through Friday, in the hope that I’d never forget God’s love and care for me. This year has taught me fully that God is always watching over us, waiting for us to come back to Him, that He could bless all the more being within His Will.

One of my most feared understandings of God is His sovereign Will to humble anyone He so chooses. I have often prayed that He would humble me before I needed to be humbled. One weekend, in particular, turned into such a humbling for me, but the night lasted only so long and joy came with the morning. I understand better, now, what is being said in the beautiful song, Blessed Be Your Name. God is good!

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

God is so good!

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s ‘all as it should be’
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Selah.

Prayers and Promises

Did you know your prayers are already promised to you? Jesus says, in John 14:13-14, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” Why, then, have we grown up, from childhood, with the belief that “all we can do is pray about it and leave it up to God,” as if this were some thing to do with a little shame and as a last resort?

Hebrews 4:16 reads, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” The King James reads “Let us therefore come boldly.” Jeremiah 32:27 reads, “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” Again, in Malachi 3:10, God says,  “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.” Why, then, do we approach God in prayer as if we were troubling Him, pardoning our interruption, and begging for a meager sustenance of small things, as if small and large to us were of any consequence to God Almighty?

I know why we do this. We do this because we have rarely and perhaps never experienced  God’s answer to prayer for the things He seems to want us to pray for and about and to fully expect from Him.

We have never experienced the extent of God’s power, as it is written, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20) But not that only, “let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:6-8) And, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” (James 4:3)

God’s gift of prayer is not some weak kneed comfort. It is a voice with God Most High, your King, who has promised to act on your behalf,  and to comfort you, to strengthen you, to uphold you with His righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10).

Selah.

Post-Script: I owe James MacDonald’s Walk in the Word podcast for sparking my interest on God’s promises and our prayers. The podcast, part of a series, was called Promise #1 – God Is Always With Me.

Post-Post-Script: You may find this further reading of value for more clarity: Why aren’t my prayers answered? I’m sure a google of the same question will yield great results.

The answer’s a google away

The answer’s a google away.

I always encourage people to look up info for themselves.

So often we simply take as truth what the popular perception is on a given topic.

But popular thought is just that: what is popular at any given moment in history.

And rarely has the truth been popular.

So lately I’ve been telling people something, not in so many words but it’s this: The answer’s a google away.

Therfore, go forth and google. ;)