BigPapaDean

In today's world we face a multitude of challenges as believers! Some are so sly as to hide within the very core of the belief system we incorporate to live by! I don't like using this but it's in the news everywhere so I feel compelled to use it as an example here. The way the extremist Muslims get children to do their most wicked deeds is they make them a promise. These young boys know what women are so this is an easy sell in a society and culture where life is not valued very high. They tell them if they wear a vest with a ton of C4 explosives into a crowd of unbelievers and blow them selves up that they will have a reward of 72 virgins waiting for them in the after life. What boy wouldn't be enamored by such a promise? They key here is it has to be non-believers! I use this to show how RELIGION pollutes any belief system. If you think for a moment this hasn't crept into the Christian faith you are sadly mistaken. I have asked many believers this question,"Why do you believe in God?" And almost unequivocally it is the following response! "I want to go to heaven." Why do you want to go to heaven? "Because the streets are paved with gold and all those other fantastic things." You see their first thought wasn't about how God loved them and saved them through the amazing precious "BLOOD" of Jesus it was about things they don't have now. I have learned that this life is so fleeting that the things we don't have are not necessary or needed! I also have sat in testimonial sessions and heard the same kinds of statements in testimonies! I am sure they love the Lord but He doesn't seem to be at the forefront of their minds. We as Christians and who believe we are nothing without Christ should take a moment each day to ask Him to help us in this change we should make to receive the fullness of His promises! We should be focusing on the re-warder and not the reward! This is an attitude of today's world we live in! They seem to always ask,"What's in it for me?" I have also heard evangelist use the reward to lure people into confessing faith in God when they were really confessing faith in the reward! You see there is a word that describes this and we don't think it has anything to do with ourselves as that is just wrong. Yet we let it slip in and corrupt us to where we take our eyes of the one that makes it all possible. Are you "GREEDY?" I dare say that there have been and still are greedy! I learned some hard lessons about this when I was out in that cold dark world among people who struggle just to survive. Some of us begin helping others when we could and the whole attitude of the ones we affected changed. We who have what we need should be able to accomplish this among us, right? I will leave you with that question and please speak your peace! God bless each and every one of you!

Any doubters now?

I have heard it said many times over that God wants us to have a thankful heart! I have wondered what that even means. After several long drawn out roads that tested my integrity with God I am now beginning to understand what it really means. I read in the Bible all those stories of the old time people like Job and Abraham and I use to wonder how they ever stayed the course. When you read those stories you can see the human side of each of them where they made mistakes. My road lead me down some of those same paths and I made some of the same mistakes but my faith didn't waver much like theirs never. While I was living that life I prayed everyday for His deliverance yet it just wasn't His time! That's when I would ask Him to help me make it through each day so when it was His time I would be ready to receive whatever blessing or blessings He had for me. The day finally came when my prayers were answered and I was delivered from my life of hardship and suffering to one of love and happiness with my family! As I look back now I am so thankful He saw fit to let me be tested in the many ways I was tested because now I know He was surely with me through it all and He was the one who gave me the strength and patience to make it through! This is what I believe that phrase, to have a "thankful heart", truly means! I have much praise because He never left and forsook me in my darkest hours and He brought me through things I didn't think I could survive but he brought me home more than conqueror! It's easy to be thankful for all the things that make our lives easy but what about those things that give us a real sense of belonging to Him? Yeah I appreciate more than you know all the comforts of life I now have but I appreciate much more the love God has for me and I KNOW without a doubt He will keep me in the palm of His hand where nothing can touch or harm me! God Bless each of you and have a wonderful weekend!

Happy Friday