JUST WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO IMPRESS?

March 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Parents?

Siblings?

Elders?

Peers?

Posterity?

Employers?

Spouse?

Church Leaders?

Readers?

God?

Yourself?

In my lifetime I’ve tried to impress all of the above.  I suppose each has its time and place for us to please.  Then, we find that pleasing others is not as fulfilling as expected.  Even pleasing ourselves does not satisfy.

Surely trying to impress God is right.  Well, the truth is that we can’t impress Him—at least not favorably.  People through all history have tried, doing every imaginable thing to please the gods of their imagination.  It doesn’t do a bit of good.

The brightest spot in all human history is that the true God did something about this for us.  He did the pleasing—He did the impressing—so we don’t have to.  Now we can be free to please Him because we want to, not because we have to.

We weren’t fit to please God, so Jesus pleased Him for us while He was here on earth.  When the job of pleasing God for us was done, He said, “It is finished.”  He defeated death for us, came back to life, and went back to heaven.

He gives us power—He gives us His Spirit—He gives us the choice to accept His finished work—He gives us abundant life—and He is pleased with us.  And that is how we impress God.  And that is how we are free to serve others, not impress them.

This weekend, starting today, and the next three days, will you remember what Jesus did for you, and accept it, and invite Jesus into your heart and in charge of your life?

Wouldn’t it be great to please God for the first time?

Now that would be impressive!

Filed Under: Educational, Faith Based, Inspirational

MARRIAGE—WHOSE IDEA?—WHOSE DEFINITION?

March 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I’m sharing a letter here that I sent today to the pastor of a solid Bible church where I went for nineteen years.

 

Today, as the Supreme Court reviews DOMA and PROP 8, I think of your message about 4 1/2 years ago on persecution.  You spoke of people you ministered to around the world who lived with severe, direct persecution and who lost loved ones.  You made it very real, at least to me.

You also said we did not have persecution in our country.  Yes, we had a lot to be thankful for.  But while you were speaking that Sunday morning, I was thinking of Jim Garlow and many others in California who were experiencing persecution first-hand, because they were publicly defending Biblical marriage (PROP 8).  I cannot see God calling Christian leaders to anything less.

I do not know what is happening next, but one of my greatest concerns is that pastors are not preparing Christians for persecution.  If we are not wrestling with the issues that burdened Bonhoeffer, we may have people asking us questions we can’t answer.

If you will, turn to    AWordforThought.com    and read 3-9-13,   then do a search for all articles on   “persecution.”   I just re-read them myself, for the first time.

In case you get involved reading, there are two articles on the   “remnant.”

It is my goal that something I say or write may save one or two of the remnant from falling away when persecution comes.

God Bless You.  Stand.

Larry Michalk

Filed Under: Educational, Faith Based, Family, Inspirational, Political---Cultural

WHAT IF . . . AMERICA?

March 25, 2013 By Leave a Comment

What if there was one ingredient that could make the difference in turning this country around and saving America?

What if there was one group of people that held the secret for success in returning the U.S. to her former glory?

What if there was one thing this group of people could change, to change the direction of the country?

What if God had something to say about this?

What if God already wrote down this one ingredient, specifically?

What if no one is telling what it is?

What if that one group doesn’t want to hear it?

What if that one group won’t change?

What if history shows this article is correct?

What if it is too late very soon?

 

What is the “WHAT IF?”

God said, to His people (and He wrote it down, word for word):

“You shall have no other gods before Me.”

“You cannot serve God and mammon.”

“Do not lay up treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break in and steal.”

“Do lay up treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not corrupt, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

“Seek first (seek only) the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you.”

“Therefore, take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow will take thought for the things of itself.  Each day’s troubles are sufficient for that day.”

“You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.”

Because America’s church people have their money stashed in this world, they cannot lead the culture out of decay (salt) and darkness (light).

America will change if God’s people change.  If they take their money out of the world’s kingdom and put it into God’s Kingdom—only then will their hearts be in the right place to influence change.

 

Related articles   3-17-13,   3-4-13,   2-6-13

Filed Under: Educational, Faith Based, Financial, Inspirational, Political---Cultural, Time

THOUGHT OF – – – OR THOUGHT UP

March 23, 2013 By Leave a Comment

When Newton observed gravity, he did not invent gravity or create it.  He “thought of” gravity, not “thought up” gravity.

When science describes the world, it cannot explain everything it describes.  Science discovers new stuff in this phenomenal world all the time, and science explains how some of it works.  But one thing is constant about scientific advancement—ever-increasing complexity observed, ever-increasingly unexplainable.

Science describes.  Science cannot explain.

spiritual

moral

thought

God

origin

As knowledge and technology multiply by leaps and bounds, we vainly imagine that we can come up with answers to everything.  And we have seven billion different answers.

Something is missing.  But no, it is not missing.  It is just ignored.

Instead of continuing the futile search for the missing link to prove evolution (biggest failure of “science”), we have the Missing Link clearly written in three places for all to see, regardless of intelligence, fame, or fortune.

God explained everything we need to know—written in the grandeur of the universe, written in the heart of every human, and written in the Bible.

First, God is thrilled when man discovers all kinds of amazing new stuff, with more guaranteed to be found.  He put it all together with just enough secrecy to keep us searching—from the gold prospector to the psychiatrist to the physicist.

To put the second in human terms, God has a clear conscience because He put into our conscience a clear awareness of right and wrong and His sovereignty.

Third, the Bible explains very clearly how this whole world got made, how it got messed up, how it gets fixed, and how it ends.

Check it out—now, while you have time.

 

Filed Under: Education, Faith Based, Inspirational

SOMETIMES A BREAK IS GOOD

March 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Plenty to say—Plenty to write.

I’ll start with this:

“What God ordains is always good;

His Will abideth holy.

As He directs my life for me,

I follow meek and lowly.

My God, indeed,

In ev’ry need

Does well know how to shield me;

To Him then I will yield me.”

 

I want to encourage you to look at my friend’s site    StrongStableLives.com

You will be glad you did.  Solid encouragement, commitment, and truth, from a life of sacrifice, testing, and miracles.

Filed Under: Faith Based, Inspirational

COMFORT – – – COMPROMISE – – – COOKED

March 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Christians in America have been quite comfortable for a long time.  The country was founded on Christian principles, and because of that both the church and the culture were blessed beyond measure.

Too much comfort for too long has brought compromise.  Church leaders have not spoken out against the encroachment of materialism and immorality. And so, Christians have let down their guard, following the culture and its economic system rather than leading on “the narrow way.”

Christians are not supposed to fit in, but be “salt and light” in contrast to the decay and darkness around us.

In America, the culture water pot we are in has gradually heated up without notice or action by the church.  Now, the heat is turned up quickly, and the water is boiling.  Churches and Christians that did not jump out of the pot, find themselves cooked by the culture and unable/unwilling to stand against it.

If you put your money into promises the world offers rather than investing in the Kingdom of God, you lose.  It’s just a matter of time for everyone to see it—to see that God did really say, and He did really mean it:

“Do not lay up treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break in and steal.

But do lay up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Filed Under: Faith Based, Financial, Political---Cultural

ATTRACTION – ACTION – RIGHTS – DEMANDS – DOMINANCE

March 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

The militant homosexual agenda is not about health, happiness, love, and equality, because it never stops there.  It is about power and control, and it destroys anyone and anything that is not supportive.

But the individual who is sincerely struggling with same-sex attraction, needs people who care enough to make a meaningful difference in his/her life, outside of sex.  That is the ingredient in success stories—identity as a person, not as gay.

Feelings—emotions—are not a stable basis for actions that endanger life and health and true love and blessed marriage with children.

Facts—truth—are clearly the foundation for stable families and cultures.

The benefit of any movement is whether it can stand up to reason and history and the well-being of righteous people.

Filed Under: Educational, Faith Based, Family, Financial, Inspirational, Political---Cultural

FUN WITH BIBLE VERSES AND . . . (edited with permission, i hope)

March 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I choose to believe that humor is part of the image of God that we were made in before the fall, rather than part of the consequences we were cursed with after the fall.

“A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.”  (you can take that to the bank, and skip the doctor most of the time)

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”  Reflection on growing up on the farm—“Whatever your dad’s hand finds for you to do, do it with all your might.”

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother-in-law, and shall cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one.”  (I added the  “-in-law” part—true, true, true)

Now, the risky one about an ox falling into a ditch on the Sabbath, and of course you pull it out even if it means working on the Sabbath.  I take it to the edge when I work on Sunday on rare occasions, and say that someone has to make the ditch for the ox to fall into.  (I drive a bobcat loader that can dig ditches among other things)  No theology here, please, just humor.

And what about the animals, like giraffes, and ostriches, and platypuses—you can’t tell me God didn’t have some extracurricular fun coming up with those.

And for the fairy tale believers in unicorns—they were real, in the Bible.

And for the dinosaur lovers (those who are sincere and those who think dinosaurs were gone before man—that is, believers in the invention of the evolution religion)—dinosaurs were real, in the Bible, with man.  Check out the leviathan and behemoth in the book of Job.

It’s real fun to discover and believe the accuracy of the Bible, especially when you know the Author, personally.

Fools say there is no God—obvious when they substitute evolution for God.  I just discovered that Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 repeat this truth nearly word for word verse after verse.  That tells us something, twice, underlined, exclamation point.

Let me end with some ‘serious laughter’—just one more of the divine oxymorons that show we’re not God.

“He who sits in the heavens will laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.”  (check the context of that one—Psalm 2)

“A time to weep, and a time to laugh.”

Indeed.

Filed Under: Educational, Faith Based, Fun, Inspirational

COMPUTERIZED ACCOUNTABILITY

March 12, 2013 By Leave a Comment

We’ve all heard the analogy between computers and humans that says simply “Garbage In—Garbage Out.”

Can the computer be used to control garbage coming into our mind and garbage going out through our words?

We have filters that monitor and limit what comes into our computer—to protect the computer from viruses, and to protect the user from some of the bad stuff for humans.

But filters are voluntary, unless you are a child with conscientious parents.  So we’re back to self-control to guard ourselves.

But wait a minute.  We can learn a profoundly sobering lesson on accountability from our “super” computers of today.

Computers record and remember everything, including everything we do on the internet.  We know that someone could review all of it.  Add to that the potential of the government tracking our entire life, unseen and unknown to us.

Now consider computerized accountability that is perfect, thorough, and includes all our thoughts as well as our words and actions.  If we stop and think about it, we have a sense that this is true and real for each of us.

We have no control over the recording.  But we do have control over what we choose to do and say and live—and get recorded.

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

“It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment.”

“Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account for it in the day of judgment.”

 

There is a song that says,

“One day every knee will bow,

One day every tongue will confess,

‘You Are Lord.’

Still the greatest treasure remains

For those who gladly choose You now.”

 

How about you?  How about now?  How about choosing Jesus?

Absolute Accountability.

It’s just a matter of when.

Filed Under: Educational, Faith Based, Inspirational, Political---Cultural, Time

LEADERSHIP FOR THE RESISTANCE

March 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

“It’s time for pastors to stop preaching about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and start acting like Bonhoeffer.”     —–Jim Garlow (Skyline Church, La Mesa, CA)

 

Filed Under: Faith Based, Inspirational, Political---Cultural
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