DAILY BLESSING PACT

Use the following list as your daily prayer guide. Think of a brother, sister or situation that applies and lift them up in prayer. I am agreeing in prayer with you for God's blessings to overtake you! PERSONAL Marital harmony Family unity Children saved Faithful pastor Spirit-filled church Real friendships Relatives redeemed Educational benefits Recreational time Fulfilling career Favor with God and man Be in God's will FINANCIAL Better Jobs Raises or bonuses Benefits Sales & commissions Business Growth Settlements Estates & inheritances Investment increase Rebates & returns Checks in the mail Gifts & surprises Money to be found Bills decrease while blessings increase "And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God" (Deut. 28:2). [As you travel on business or vacation, let me know if you'd like us to pray for your safety and spiritual effectiveness. I'll add your name to our prayer list for the time you'll be away.]

Prayer For Today Lord God, allow us to keep our eyes on You and in so doing, keep our eyes on Your precious creation. When we pray for others we open the doors of blessings toward them as well as to ourselves. Thank You for a heart for Your people today. AMEN.

HOW TO LEAD A MAN TO CHRIST

"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

Act 1:8

Jesus' last set of commands to us before He ascended unto heaven included our commission to evangelize the world. We abdicated our individual responsibility to the "Titled" ministers (Pastors, Evangelists, Teachers, etc...) and have overlooked who that command was given...US.

Evangelism is man-to-man, woman-to-woman, child-to-child.

We need to put the "three foot rule" into effect: whoever is within three feet of you strike up a conversation and look for opportunity to share Christ with them. Now, we will get many objections to that, including, "I am a professional, you can't expect me to shove my beliefs on people" or "My relationship with God is a private matter, I can't go around talking about Jesus all the time", etc. etc. etc.

Read The entire chapter of Acts and imagine where the church would be if they used excuses like those above.

Do we believe the Word of God or are we just looking for convenience in our "walk with God?" The true "walk" is the example given to us in Acts.

I offer the following article as an additional resource for your evangelism arsenal.


HOW TO LEAD A MAN TO CHRIST

by Patrick Morley

If you are not sure a man has already come to Christ, ask him, "(Name), has there ever been a time in your life when you have personally put your faith in Christ to forgive your sins and receive the gift of eternal life?"

If 'yes,' ask him to describe it. If he can give a clear testimony, congratulate him. If not, proceed as though he answered 'no.'

If 'no,' say, "May I take a few minutes and explain what Christians believe about who Jesus is, why He came, and what believing in Him means?"

Then, look up the following verses and read them together. Make sure he reads the words for himself, whether silently or out loud. (Idea: Mark Bible pages with Post Its. Number them 1, 2, 3, and so on. Idea: Leave out or add verses as you are led. Idea: Write these verses on the inside cover of your Bible.)

1. Who is Jesus? He is the Savior, John 4:25-26 He is God, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15, Colossians 2:9, John 14:9, John 10:30 He is the only way to the Father, John 14:6
2. Why did Jesus come? To seek the lost, Luke 19:10 To save sinners, 1 Timothy 1:15 To demonstrate God's love, Romans 5:6-8 To atone for our sins, 1 John 4:9-10 To become the source of eternal salvation, Hebrews 5:8-9
3. What does belief in Jesus mean? We receive eternal life, John 3:16, John 11:25-27, Romans 6:23 We receive forgiveness of sins, 1 John 1:8-9 We become children of God, John 1:12
4. How do you become a follower of Jesus? We become Christians through repentance and faith, Ephesians 2:8-9.

Tell your man, "Nothing we do can ever make us good enough for God to love us. Instead, He loves us because He made us and Jesus died for our sins. We become a Christian by confessing that we are sinful and putting faith in Jesus to forgive our sins and give us the gift of eternal life. Prayer is the way we talk to God. Here's a suggested prayer

"Lord Jesus, I need you in my life. I confess that I am sinful and that I need a Savior. Thank you for dying for my sins. Thank you for offering me the gift of eternal life. By faith I now put my trust in you to forgive my sins and give me the gift of eternal salvation. I invite you to change me and make me the man you want me to be. Amen."

After reading the prayer out loud, ask him if this prayer expresses the desire of his heart. If he says, "Yes," then ask him to pray it out loud after you one phrase at a time. Congratulate him. Offer to help him grow. Invite him to church. Encourage him to share what he has done with loved ones. See if he'd feel comfortable sharing it right away with someone in your presence. Make it a celebratory moment -- on earth as it is in heaven.

http://www.maninthemirror.org

God's Love Changes Lives

"All of us alike are God's instruments. By no setting of our hearts on wickedness or doing evil with both our hands can we prevent God from using us. Our folly will serve Him, when our wisdom fails; our wrath praise Him, though our wills rebel. Yet, as God's instruments without intention and in our own despite, we generally serve God's ends only as we defeat our own. To be God's agent is quite another matter. This we are only as we learn God's will, respond to His call, work faithfully together with Him, and find our highest ends in fulfilling His." -- John Oman

Did you know that God is willing to go both to heaven and to the so-called hell because He loves you? He is not willing to lose you, nor will He let you find a hiding place which He cannot find. You cannot escape from His Spirit, you cannot flee from His presence. You cannot ascend to a height where God is not, you cannot dig to a depth where God is not. Even if you take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, God is there. If you hide in your false darkness, He Who is light will drive away the darkness in which you seek to hide. If you seek to shelter yourself under your false light in the night, He for Whom no darkness is too dark, will make the night light up as the day. Are not light and darkness both alike before God's eyes? (Psalm 139:7-12)

[Note: It is important that the Scripture references be read, in conjunction with your reading of this post.]

Today God pursues to plead, not to punish. In Him you find wrath averted, offenses forgiven, sins forgotten, shelter provided, and Love personified. "God is Love" may sound trite, but it is true. He doesn't admire all you do, but He does love you. This fact carries power of prodigious proportions, as we shall see (1 John 4:8).

God stands willing and able to fashion you into the likeness of the Man Christ Jesus Who loves you. This is an offer with no strings attached. This is an offer with no prior commitments exacted. This is an offer with no cancellations mortgaging the future. This is an offer with no penalties for failures incurred while trying. Growth in grace is a slow process, and often a painful one. Creative conflict is part and parcel of this conformation to Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:28, 29).

Thus the future is secure. Oh, to be sure, it will be different. You can count on that, for this future will be a partnership with your Lord. You need never again feel estranged. You need never again feel alienated. You need never again walk alone in this world. God, Who is the un-lying God, the un-false One, guarantees it. He is never false, even though you should prove faithless. He never lets you down, even though you renounce him (2 Timothy 2:13; Titus 1:2).

God promises to finish what He began in you, for He has the wisdom to plan and He has the power to perform. God's limitless resources are devoted to saving and using your personality with its dispositions, not splitting it.

The only way Christ could publicly portray God's love for you was to be delivered for your offenses and raised for your justification. Now these may be merely words to you, yet they are much more than just semantics and symbols. They are dynamic truth. To those enslaved to all from which they long to be emancipated, God's declaration delivers. This is God's emancipation proclamation to all who are slaves of self and sin and society (Romans 4:25).

God speaks to the world in the language of facts. What has He done that makes His declaration good news to you? God's love is good news, God's grace is good news, and His grace and love are His power for salvation to all those who go on believing. The Gospel is God's power for salvation (Romans 1:16, 17).

You see, you are two Adams: one actual and the other potential. In the first Adam you are a slave to sin: this is actual and a fact that is true altogether apart from your disbelieving. In the last Adam you are free to become righteous: this is potential and a fact that becomes true when you believe (Romans 5:12-21).

In the first Adam you are constituted a sinner and stand condemned: this is actual and is true altogether apart from your disbelieving. In the last Adam you are uncondemned: this is potential and becomes true when you believe (1 Corinthians 15:45).

In the first Adam you are dead; in the last Adam you are alive. In the first Adam you are decreated; in the last Adam you are recreated. In the first Adam you are a sinner; in the last Adam you are a saint. In the first Adam you are estranged; in the last Adam you are reconciled. In the first Adam you are an enemy; in the last Adam you are a friend. In the first Adam you are weak; in the last Adam you are strong. In the first Adam you are far off; in the last Adam you are made near (Ephesians 1:7; 4:17-19).

Does all this sound like double-talk to you? Does it sound like a paradox? Does this offend you, does this scandalize you, does this provoke you, does this seem to insult your intelligence and make wisdom stupidity? Does this seem to present power as weakness? Does this demolish your world of values and rearrange your list of priorities? If it does, this is understandable, but the fact remains that God has done something for you that can mean your freedom from sin, that can mean your load of sin is banished, that can set forces in motion which are capable of making you over entirely -- emotionally, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually. This cure is so radical that there is no New Testament Greek word which now can be properly translated "guilt." Guilt is gone by the grace of God.

Paul does not say that you cannot understand the things of God. But Paul does say that man does not approve of what he hears since it is foolishness and a stumbling block to him (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). Man loves darkness rather than light. Man rejects truth rather than lies. Man does not want to be wrong so he protects himself by refusing what is false. But there is another way to be wrong -- by rejecting what is true (John 3:17-21).

Man does not want to see and hear and know because he can be held accountable for acting in accord with what he sees and hears and knows. In this manner man attempts to make a defense of his ignorance and a virtue out of his refusal to know. Yet candor compels him to confess that he can be held responsible for refusing to see, for refusing to hear, for refusing to respond to God's overtures of peace (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

All we are asked to do, is to herald God's good news -- to announce it as the Fact that it is. To this Fact you have an account-ability and a response-ability. No appeal to hereditary defects avails, no pleas that you are crippled by being deprived of a cultural milieu in which you would otherwise be good avails. No, it is man who is at fault, not heredity and environment, though these do play their parts. But they are not man's scapegoats, and this to man is a tragedy. Isn't it a fact on which to ponder that the word "tragedy" is to be traced to the Greek tragos, which means goat? Man feels that he is made to be the goat in a tragedy not of his own making -- everything else and everyone else is at fault, but not the man whose image is reflected in his mirror.

But bad news about you is not good news about God. Let us look at God's message: Christ died for all, consequently all died. And He died for all and was raised for the very same all so that He could use this Fact, as a lever to move you into wanting to live for the sake of the One Who could love you this much (2 Corinthians 5:14).

God's love is the lever which motivates you to change the aim of your life from serving yourself to serving your Savior. His love is the lever which will change your center from ec-centric to Christo-centric, from out-of-center to right-on-center. His love is a lever to completely change your pattern of behavior because the former authoritarian pressure from the outside is being displaced by the new expulsive power from the inside. His love is a lever to change the quality of your disposition from soulish to spiritual, from law to love, from flesh to spirit, from I-got-to to I-want-to.

If you have now believed God, do you feel different? If your answer is "No", the fact still remains that He has accepted you. If you have now believed God, do you feel afraid to face the future lest you fail again? If your answer is "Yes", the fact still remains that He empowers you. It is not your No and Yes that counts; but rather it is God's Yes, for all His promises have received their Divine Yes in Christ. His great and precious promises are for the purpose of making you a partaker of His Divine nature (2 Corinthians 1:20; 2 Peter 1:4).

You begin by believing God. You continue your faith by believing God, and you will get new life for yourself out of your faith in His faithfulness. Faithful is He Who is calling you, Who will be doing it also (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

He accepts you as you are -- weak, irreverent, a rebel, a sinner, and an enemy (Romans 5:6-10).

Accept Him for what He is -- your re-Creator, your Peace, your Forgiver, you Deliverer, your Enabler, your Wisdom, your Righteousness, your All.

God is all these actually. He stands ready to be all these to you potentially. Unbelief alone keeps you from experiencing all these blessings. Believing Him makes them to be yours actually.

God will take you at your word when you take Him at His word. Accept the fact that you are acceptable to God and will be accepted by God.

God loves you. What more can He say to you than what He has already said?

Sowing & Reaping

With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful, and with the upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright.
With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself unsavoury.
And the afflicted people thou wilt save: but thine eyes are upon the haughty, that thou mayest bring them down.

2 Samuel 22:26-28

When we see the words "sowing & reaping," our minds quickly go to the area of finances. Although financial blessings are promised to the believer, our constant desire for "more & more" in the financial arena has created an atmosphere devoid of spiritual awakening.

There is a spiritual sowing & reaping that needs attention in this day and age. Take 2 Samuel 22:26-28 for instance; these verses give a quick glimpse of how God will deal with us. God's conduct toward us is regulated according to our conduct towards God.

What you sow spiritually, you will also reap spiritually; sow mercy, reap mercy; live upright, your life will be seen as upright; desire purity and God will reap purity upon you. To the contrary, a froward person will get an unsavory reaction from God as well as the haughty being brought down.

In all this, God will surely save the afflicted.

As we go about our day, be sure not to neglect the spiritual implications of our actions. Life is so much more than money & things.

Min. Frank Coleman

A WAY TO ESCAPE

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
1 Corinthians 10:13

Many of us remember the part of this verse that says, God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape." But we forget the first part of the verse which is tremendously important: "There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man."

There is nothing wrong with you when you feel tempted. Never let the devil accuse you with that lie. The temptation you face is not new and different. Others are battling the same problem. And God has given you the measure of faith (Romans 12:3) to overcome.

"But," you say, "there have been times when I've experienced a temptation and I gave in to it. Where was the way of escape then? Where was this promise that God would not allow me to be tempted beyond what I could bear?"

God didn't allow you to be tempted more than you could bear; He did make a way for you to escape your temptations. The reason you or I give in is because down deep inside we DESIRE what the temptation offers; and second, we have not rooted and grounded ourselves, by our faith, in Christ. Also, we do not use God's Word. Jesus said to the devil who tempted Him, "Devil, it is written!"

God does provide a way of escape. That is His part. Our part is to cultivate DESIRING His will, making our way and words agree with His way and Word, and putting our faith in the Lord to help us overcome it.

DISLOCATED LIMBS

"Now the God of Peace, make you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ."
-- Heb 13:20-21.

THE GREEK word here rendered perfect really means "to put in joint, to complete." At creation man's will was intended to discern the Will of God, to say Yes to it, and to pass the divine impulses and commandments to the rest of our humanity. In the past, on board a ship, before phones and radios made it possible for the captain to speak to every part of the ocean-liner, He would quietly utter his orders to a subordinate officer beside him, who in turn repeated them in a loud voice through a speaking-trumpet or tube. That intermediary may represent the will which was intended to receive its directions from the Will of God, and pass them throughout our being. Such was our Lord's attitude throughout His earthly life. He said: "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me"; "I seek not My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me"; "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt."

But in the Fall, the dominance of God's Will and the loyal response of man's will became disorganized; and the human will, instead of functioning in harmony with the Will of God, began to obey the will of the flesh in its grosser or more refined forms. Not what God Wills, but what "I" will, has become the working principle of the great majority. As a result it has come about that the will, by constant misuse, has become dislocated, warped, "out of joint." Tennyson says: "Our wills are ours to make them Thine!" Just so, but they are too stubborn for some of us to manage. Hence the suggestion that we should pass the matter over to the "God of Peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus."

Sometimes when playing football, or on the ice, a player may lose his balance, or be tripped up, and in the fall his shoulder may become dislocated. His arm is still in the body, but out of joint, so that it hangs useless by his side, until the trainer by one strong wrench forces the bone back into its proper place. Is not that true of us? We are in the Body of Christ by redeeming grace, but we need to be set, i.e., to be brought into articulated union with the Will of God in Christ Jesus. Let us humbly ask the great Trainer of souls, by the pressure of His strong and gentle hands, here and now, to joint our wayward wills with the Will of God, and then to work in us and through us that which is well-pleasing in His sight!

PRAYER
Gracious Father! I yield to You my will and desires, my members and faculties, the life of my body, the thoughts of my heart, and the aspirations of my spirit--perfect that which concerns me. AMEN.

RENEWED?

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
Ephesians 4:23

In 1 Corinthians 14:15, Paul says he prays both "with the spirit AND with the understanding." This shows us the absolute necessity of joining our spirit and mind as one. The mind is the most difficult part of man to bring into harmony with Christ. The mind has been subject to all kinds of information since childhood and constantly feeds on that information. Even when converted, it is usually the first to lapse away from the spiritual, and therefore must be constantly RENEWED in the spirit by the Holy Ghost and the Word of God. Praying in tongues and the interpreting back to the mind what God's response is (1Corinthians 14:13), and living in the Word of God so that it lives in us, are the two greatest forces I know to be continually "renewed in our mind."

WHOLE PERSON HEALING

And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.
And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.
And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.
After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.
Mar 8:22-25

This story illustrates whole man healing. At the first touch of Jesus the blind man's eyes were opened, but inwardly he had the same old vision. He saw people as TREES walking . . . as objects, meaningless. You can't shake hands with a tree. You can't build a marriage when people look like trees to you. You can't establish right relationships with people when you reduce them to things. With Christ's SECOND touch, the blind man was completely healed in his inner man AND in his eyes. Now he saw MEN clearly. He received whole man healing.

It is possible to feel better in your body and yet not feel better toward people, those you live with everyday. From time to time we all need the second touch of Jesus so that our relationships can be healed, for we are not living with trees (or things). We are living with PEOPLE. The second touch may also be many "second touches," on the general principle that God wants to do the whole job in us--and through us.

TWO NATURES

Everyone born into the human race has the nature or personality they inherited from Adam.

It is a nature that is in total rebellion to the things of God. Romans 8 calls it an enemy of God. It is subject to the ruler of this world, Satan (II Corinthians 4:4).

Even though many good people have refined this old sin nature and kept it under control, it is still the personality that Paul describes in Romans 1 and Ephesians 2. But, that personality has to die the death of crucifixion (Galatians 2:20 and Romans 6).

Though God reckons it as dead, in our experience, he, the old Adam, is still alive and operates opposite the New Divine nature of new person God created in us the moment we believe the Gospel. Hence, the Christian is in a constant battle. The old nature leading us into rebellion and the new nature leading us into obedience to Christ.

The old nature can do nothing good, and the new nature cannot sin. So, which one has the upper hand in our daily life? The one we feed the best. Feed the old Adam and you will be a defeated, miserable Christian. Feed the new, or Spiritual, and you will be victorious and joyful.

A DELIGHT IN GOD

"Delight thyself also in the Lord." Psalm 37:4

The teaching of these words must seem very surprising to those who are strangers to vital godliness, but to the sincere believer it is only the inculcation of a recognized truth. The life of the believer is here described as a _delight_ in God, and we are thus certified of the great fact that true religion overflows with happiness and joy. Ungodly persons and mere professors never look upon religion as a joyful thing; to them it is service, duty, or necessity, but never pleasure or delight. If they attend to religion at all, it is either that they may gain thereby, or else because they dare not do otherwise. The thought of delight in religion is so strange to most men, that no two words in their language stand further apart than "holiness" and "delight." But believers who know Christ, understand that delight and faith are so blessedly united, that the gates of hell cannot prevail to separate them. They who love God with all their hearts, find that His ways are ways of pleasantness, and all His paths are peace. Such joys, such brimful delights, such overflowing blessednesses, do the saints discover in their Lord, that so far from serving Him from custom, they would follow Him though all the world cast out His name as evil. We fear not God because of any compulsion; our faith is no fetter, our profession is no bondage, we are not dragged to holiness, nor driven to duty. No, our piety is our pleasure, our hope is our happiness, our duty is our delight. Delight and true religion are as allied as root and flower; as indivisible as truth and certainty; they are, in fact, two precious jewels glittering side by side in a setting of gold. "'Tis when we taste Thy love, Our joys divinely grow, Unspeakable like those above, And heaven begins below."

Morning and Evening by C. H. Spurgeon

A Word from God

Of late I have had feelings of a lack of purpose and emptiness. However, God has touched me anew with a vision and purpose.
The thing is, it's the same vision & purpose He gave me years ago.

One of the difficulties we have as Christians is this desire to constantly look for a "Word from God." We will go from ministry to ministry, Pastor to Bishop, seminar to seminar, conference to conference TeeVee show to website looking for that "new word."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I am sure that God has already given most of us THE WORD we need to fulfill His purpose in our lives. I feel that God is greived when we ignore His guidance in favor of our own desires.

The next time you look for that "Word" ask yourself; "what did I do with that last Word I was given?"

CONSIDER

"The Bible tells us very clearly that to "know" God is not an affair of the mind only, but an act in which our whole being -- heart, mind, and will -- is vitally engaged; so that sheer intellectual speculation would enable us to form certain ideas about God but never to know Him. To be grasped, God's will must be met with a readiness to obey." Suzanne de Diétrich (1891-1981), Discovering the Bible

BE STRONG IN THE LORD

"Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might" (Eph. 6:10).

Continuing my study of Ephesians we find that Paul is talking to the Ephesian brothers and exhorting them to ever be empowered in the might of His strength (Eph. 6:10). Most translations use the word strong, which might even be viewed as a noun. The word strong in the Greek text is the verb endunamousthe, which means in+powered ? hence, empowered. The verb is in the present tense, which means it is ever happening with continuous action. Also, the verb is in the passive voice, which means the subject (we) only receives action, but does not produce it. This declares that the empowerment ever comes from and is ever produced from the Lord Himself. Again, Paul is clearly speaking to brothers, who are in the body of believers.

You will never be able to fully handle the devil, the world, or circumstances and situations that you face with physical or fleshly means. Our Father never intended that it would be that way. Our Father placed Christ in you when you accepted Him into your life, so that He would be our life, righteousness, strength and empowerment for every thing that we face in life. Paul was clear in his declaration that, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:13). Christ is the divine source and expression of Spiritual strength and empowerment in us. If we really understood the reality of that truth, we would never attempt to do anything without the Christ within us. Our Father raised Christ up as our justification and savior. Our Father has put the Person and Spirit of Christ in us to be our eternal life and expression in this world. Paul declares, "It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). This statement of revealed and liberating truth also declares, that it is no longer by my strength or power that I live, but by Christ who is my power and strength lives through me as me. That is the reality of the Christ-life.

When we have the source of the empowerment of Christ flowing in us, we will have the might or the manifested power of His strength expressed through us. This is His continuous Spiritual life and expression in us because of the finished work of the cross. The revelation truth of the cross in a renewed mind speaks that Adam and everything about flesh was dealt with on the cross. Now Christ lives in us to be the dynamo, reservoir, and the Spirit energy-producing source within me for doing the Father's will. Christ in us will manifest dominion, strength, and power to meet every circumstance and situation that we face. We just need to focus and know to be strong in the Lord!!

VERSE TO PONDER

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Ephesians 6:10-11 (KJV)

In the previous verses Paul gave instructions to the Church at Ephesus that could be accomplished through their own strength. Verses 10 and 11 begin the transition from doing things in our strength to what we can do "in the Lord." Putting on the whole armor of God presupposes that we have that armor in the first place. Vs. 13 says we already have our armor and to "take it" into battle. As we read, we find that soldiers don't wait until the battle starts to assemble their armor; it's available to them through use and in prayer and supplication. Paul is giving us the warfare strategy of each item of the armor we should already have as believers. We are to trust in God to perform the work because we have already prepared to withstand and to stand.

FORGIVE

"I'm convinced that we can't go through life harboring grudges against people; it's pointless. The Lord's Prayer, which is the prayer that Jesus taught his followers, says, "Forgive us our sins" -- and this is from the Greek -- "as we have already forgiven those who sin against us." Not "as we forgive those who sin against us," but "as we have already forgiven them." So we can't go to God until we have forgiven those who sin against us. I remember the night when I could finally pray, "Lord Jesus, I forgive them for what they did to me." Then I started saying, "In the name of Jesus, please forgive me for harboring murderous thoughts against them." When I did that, I started to feel free from the hatred I was carrying towards them. It didn't have a hold over me anymore." Graham Taylor, (Sin, Salvation and Shadowmancer)

CONSIDER

"It is no longer the fashion to suffer for the sake of God, and to bear the Cross for Him; for the diligence and real earnestness, that perchance were found in man, have been extinguished and have grown cold; and now no one is willing any longer to suffer distress for the sake of God." Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361)

VERSE TO PONDER

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9 (NIV)

I just wanted to drop a line letting you guys know that I appreciate this forum.

I was reflecting this morning and thought about relationships in the church.

I tried to start a message board at my church with no success. Partly because there is a low number of members online and partly because many relationships seem to be on the surface instead of deep.

I wondered if there is a lack of trust in sharing.

As I write this I think I have a partial explanation; there is a level of anonymity in a message board with members that only know each other online vs. seeing people face to face on a weekly, almost daily basis.

No matter how much time you spend with some folk, there seems to be a mask that we wear to protect ourselves (o how I pray the masks be removed!).

I want to be transparent in my relationships and when you encounter masks, phoniness, etc. it is hard to resist throwing up a mask yourself.

I am praying that 2007 become a year of openness; a year of fellowship; a year of selfless devotion to our family, friends and God's people in general.

Thank you for the ear.

Rev. Frank