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| 2nd Timothy 4: 1In the
presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the
dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this
charge: 2Preach
the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and
encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3For
the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a
great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
I so found that out to be so very true yesterday at work. I met a man that wanted a to by a Bible for a new believer. Great! The conversation went like this..."This is what we have...
"I don't want that bible - it has the sinner's prayer in it." "And there is a problem with that, why?" "Well, that's not scriptural- its just something that a some man made up!" At this point he was no longer interested in a Bible but was intent on pushing his theology on me.
Needless to say he was the epitome of the words "there is none so blind as those who refuse to see" and I now have a permanent grove across my tongue from trying to stay on task- finding him the "Perfect Bible." I still gave a small nudge, to get him out of his very tiny theological box, I could not help myself! But it was truly a battle to not say what was really on my heart!
How was it that he could trust a the study notes that is based on historical fact but not the Prayer that is based on Biblical concepts? Simple- his theology was based on limited fact and scriptural literalism and not on concept. It would be the same as if he had torn out one page of the Bible and said, "this is what I believe" and tossed the rest in the trash!
I was so shocked by what this man was saying that only wished to I had thought of what my hubby suggested to me later:
Just sell him the new believer's bible and a black magic marker and tell him any thing he doesn't like mark out! :)
I SOOOOooooo loved that idea! But as it is, I walk a fine line between doing what my overly passionate theological heart is telling to me to tell him and doing my job to company regulations (ie. keeping on task of retail only)
How is it that a person who has a Bible can only trust little bites and pieces of it and forget the rest that is in the same binding?
And worse yet...Who is teaching this crap to this pour soul? Its a probably a good thing I don't know - I'd have to fight the urge of smacking him up side the head for his stupidity! I now "get" that verse in Jeremiah 20:9 ever so much.
And I don't think it would have bothered me near so much except for the fact that he was dealing with a new believer! And Heaven only knows what he was filling that pour soul's head with! That fans the flame in me, like right now!
What is hardest for me is silencing the flame - putting that man and the one he is supposedly witnessing to into the hands of God and walk away and cool my jets. This is what I do, but is hard. (as you can tell from this post LOL!)
And at the end of my day, I'm again amazed at the Grace and tender Mercy of God. For He sees not just that one man and his "witnessee" but All those like him... and all those like me. Sometimes, I think that maybe the River of Life is formed from the tears He sheds for us all. Oh, for the day of His return so His grieving could end!
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| I've been studying again (a recipe for trouble lol) about the trinity - There 2 verses that throws a wrench in the whole works and it puzzles me no end:
Mark 13:32 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
and John 14:9 "Jesus
answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you
such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can
you say, 'Show us the Father'?"
How can both these verses be true?
How can Jesus be the "seen as the Father" and still not know the day or the hour?
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| Today, for some reason I have gone spiritually paranoid- not totally off the deep end but have you ever kinda wondered...
Can people who are in Heaven see what we are doing down here?
Do Angels really watch us all the time?
Where's the "fig leaf" when you need it? LOL
The verses that sparked this were here: 2 Chronicles 28:9 "...But you have gone too far, killing them without mercy, and all heaven is disturbed."
and Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses...
Did ya ever just wonder what goes on "up there?"
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| My son and I had a rather quiet but really nice 4th. Hubby had to work and after my son had tubes in his ears when he was younger, the sound of fireworks really hurt.
So, we did the next best thing- we googled fireworks and watched the fireworks from Walt Disney World! They were wonderful and they choreograph music (piped all over the park) to the fireworks display.
That was cool - all but this one song- this opera singer did the whole "Artistic" thing to My Country Tis' of Thee- which is hard enough to sing just as it was written! We had just 2 words for her- YIKES! and MUTE! We laughed and killed the sound till she was done. The rest was really good!
Then we made smoothies and laughed some more watching really old Warner Brothers cartoons. We even discussed the "meaning of the life & universe" LOL
We got stuck on one question though- maybe you can help us out:
Who runs faster? The Road Runner or Speedy Gonzales? We kinda thought that maybe Taz might have them both beat but that is still up for debate too!
Hope you all had a nice a 4th as we did!
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| I had a very interesting conversation with a Pastor at work today. Pastor's are wonderful story tellers- they will either preach at you or they will tell you a story. They can't help it. Its in them somewhere deep and it pours out like a river. It's part of their gift and calling.
Anyway, this one has been ministering in prisons for many years. Big bear size man with a tender, deep voice that you could easily listen to for hours and never tier of hearing. He began telling me about his work and a conversation he had with a man on death row. He told me that his job is to snatch souls back from the pit of hell before they fall in. He yanks them out the devil's grasp. And I can believe it.
He told me that he listens to the Lord's voice and he shares with them until the Lord says to stop. He says that these people can only handle so much at a time. This one that he was telling me out, he had been telling him that there was life for him and inmate said, "You don't get it. I'm on death row- there is no life for me. I'm just waiting around to die!" The pastor took a moment or so to pray before he spoke. Then he looked at the man and said,"We are all in death row. Every one of us is just waiting around to die. It's not until we let Jesus in that we find life." The inmate said, "I have so many things I don't understand and I'm running out of time- they come to get me in the morning." The pastor asked "Do you have any visitor's planed between now and then?"
The mad said no. The Pastor smiled, "And for the 1st time in a long time - neither do I. This is a divine appointment. See how the Lord has opened a path for you? Now, you just lay all those questions down and will work through each one - we got all night!"
He said with that the man broken down and cried and he took the Lord into his soul and all the scripture that Pastor was able to read to him before the morning came. He said, you can tell when its real and when its not- that one was real and it made a sleepless night worth it.
I was glad that we were not busy and that I could listen to him tell me of his work. He shared a couple more of those, like that and where the Lord had done amazing things for these "lowest of the low" to try and bring them into the kingdom before it was too late.
I told the Pastor that I didn't realize that there were that many on death row. He said that in Mansfield alone there is around 200 on any given day and its increasing all the time but there are more people going into the ministry all the time.
This Pastor has an amazing ministry and walks so close to the Lord you can see it some how when he walks by. And I had the blessing of helping purchase a book to help him in his work. Its one of the reasons why I love my job so much. If anyone wonders what the Lord is doing- just ask!
I can tell you! He is working with all my pastoral customers and family or friend customers. He is working through many people to reach so many others! And to watch how He does it in so many different ways with such deep loving passion in each one, is nothing short of awesome!
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