Positive Speculation

How many conflicts have you seen between brothers and sisters in Christ? 

How often is it that one avoids another or just won't communicate at all because of an offense?

How about two believers, previously married, but were bitterly divorced?

What if the Lord comes to take us home and it's unresolved?

What would happen when two saints in unresolved conflict saw each other in Heaven?

A brother who thinks about these practical things in dependence on the Lord for answers pointed out recently that the Judgement Seat of Christ, among other things, is for issues just like this:
 The cleansing FOR HEAVEN from unresolved relationship tragedy.

Soul Mate

                              

The State Governor must have been quite ready to give up his marriage and the integrity of his family when he announced to everyone that he had found his soul mate, (in another country).

The famous christian singer announced that she had left her husband, (and the integrity of her family), because she was now with her soul mate.

Is this something that we, in our pride, expect that we deserve? So, hopefully, whoever we are "stuck" with is our soul mate? If not, it's OK to leave if we find our true soul mate a little bit later? The two mentioned above must have thought that they were stuck with the wrong person for some period of time.

Drilling down to the bottom of the meaning of the term "soul mate" ends with this statement, "This kind of relationship is so important to the soul that many have said there is nothing more precious in life."  The "soul mate" experience as it plays out in today's culture looks more like another chance to deify yourself.

It seems that we'd better wait patiently for our one and only true Soul Mate.  To those of us who believe in His saving grace, there is nothing more precious in life than our Lord Jesus Christ.

For those that marry, He will put us with someone who is His choice to serve His best interests, to be helpers of His glory, to help His saints and to help bring more sons to glory.  Maybe if we were with who we feel is our "soul mate", we would be absolutely useless to Him whom we are here to serve; because there would be someone more precious to us than Him.

"So kill (deaden, deprive of power) the evil desire lurking in your members [those animal impulses and all that is earthly in you that is employed in sin]: sexual vice, impurity, sensual appetites, unholy desires, and all greed and covetousness, for that is idolatry (the deifying of self and other created things instead of God)."
Colossians 3:5 Amp

Safety

I saw a sign at the plywood plant the other day.  It said:  "If you are not confronting unsafe behavior you are reinforcing it."

That reminded me of these verses:  "Deliver those who are drawn away to death, and those who totter to the slaughter, hold them back [from their doom]. If you [profess ignorance and] say, Behold, we did not know this, does not He Who weighs and ponders the heart perceive and consider it? And He Who guards your life, does not He know it? And shall not He render to [you and] every man according to his works?"  Proverbs 24:11, 12

When the Lord opens the door of opportunity, walk through it.

Combo Platter

This combination of two thoughts, that should come to mind during disappointment, discouragement and difficulty, would greatly assist us in our goal of "BEING IN HIS PRESENCE" daily. Thinking back on the history of your life, it's easy to remember the good times with family and friends. We protect the memory of those good times by forgetting the times spent in bitter disappointment, despair and anxiety. If we used these two absolutely true thoughts, we would have much less time wasted in disappointment, despair and anxiety. They are detailed in separate past posts on this web log, but can go hand-in-hand to make a helpful combination.

Train yourself to correctly think: "It's an asset" - When you are overcome with hardship that is beyond your control.

Train yourself to correctly think: "It's a mercy from Him" - When you are disappointed by betrayal, broken promises, unmet expectations or uncalled-for delays.

Joseph told his brothers, "But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive." He knew it was a mercy from Him.

King David's God-inspired words say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes." He knew it was an asset.

Fractional Food

[Bringing this old post up to the front again. We have been taught to focus on natural saturated fats and cholesterol foods as "evil" and easily lose the plot. God made foods whole - even saturated fats. We need to eat it like God made it, (in a balanced way), and focus on the foods that we refine and process as the real problem. Just like taking God's simple truth and embellishing it with some human tradition or heretical human thought.]

"The longer something is in man's hands, the more failure we see."

This is a quote from an older, highly respected brother in Christ. It is a multi-faceted truth. The statement was made in regard to our attempt to handle problems on our own. However, since it is multi-faceted, I beg your indulgence to apply it to food as well.

The digestive tract is the first component of your body to develop while you are in your mother's womb. Since this is where your body and brain get the water and nutrients that are necessary for life and normal function, the health and care of the digestive tract are of utmost importance. We, as you might expect, abuse this part of our bodies the most.

We chose long ago to purchase "dainty" foods such as breads made with refined white flour; cook with recipes that include peeled potatos, white rice, refined pastas, refined kiln-dried table salt and sweetened with white refined sugar. Some of these are "enriched" because the refining process took out the original vitamins and elements that were there when God's provided food was untouched and whole.

Each one of the above foods fails at doing anything good for your digestive tract as well as being ANY sort of benefit to any of the systems in your body. Before man got his hands on it and "made it better", it was a whole food that God made for our benefit. God made it right; we failed by "improving" it. Our food lingers too long "in man's hands".

As a result of our upside-down thinking on food, we have created a market where the more refined foods cost less. In Nebachudnezzar's time, the lower class probably ate better while the rich ate "delicate" or "dainty" food. Now, you hear the common rugged man complain about eating chewy whole-grain rice, grainy whole grain bread or tough potato peel. We're conditioned to love the delicate and dainty and are lost to the concept of whole foods and drinking the pure fuel for the body and brain: Water. Well, we "improved" that too.

We need a lot of Daniel's purpose of heart to stay away from the delicate foods that have been "in man's hands".

What Do You Know for SURE?

I was in a manufacturing plant with a customer last week. Ear plugs in, safety glasses on, lots of noise. I was following him to a place where he was going to show me an unusual piece of machinery. As we were walking he turned back to me, grinned and said, "What do you know for sure?"
He may have meant to render me speechless, (which isn't too hard to do), and that's what happened. It really wasn't a good time to try to talk but I tried to recover quickly and said, "I know a few things for sure", but don't know if he heard me or not.
That's a good checking question to ask someone when you want to take their mind toward the reality of eternity and spiritual matters. The world, the flesh and Satan use uncertainty as the foundation of their assault on man; to block us from coming to that sure Rock of Salvation.
One of the very big differences between those who are God's sons by faith in Christ Jesus and those who are lost is the SURE knowledge of the most important matters of life. We are in His hands, nothing can separate us from Him. When/if we die, we know where we are going - for SURE. His work of redeeming us to a holy God by His blood is complete, sure and thankfully has no dependence on our merits or efforts.
Thank God, I know a few things for sure!