All posts by 5Q

Lost and Found

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But he [Jesus] answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.‘”1

Some years ago Bishop Fulton Sheen was scheduled to speak at the Town Hall in an unfamiliar city. He decided to walk and, on the way, got lost. He saw some boys so asked them the way to City Hall.

“What are you going to do there?” asked one of the boys.

“I’m going to give a lecture,” replied the bishop.

“About what?”

“On how to get to heaven. Would you care to come along?”

“Are you kidding?” said the boy, “You don’t even know how to get to Town Hall!”

Wherever we’re going, it helps to know the way … especially if we want to get through life successfully and go to heaven. Clear directions are available. They’re all in the Bible. For help see the article, “Passport to Heaven” at: http://tinyurl.com/dm472.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to be sure I know the way to heaven and please give me opportunities to tell others how to get there too. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 4:4 (NKJV).

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Creative Adversity

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“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”1

In 1832, French engineer Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps was traveling on the Mediterranean Sea. One of the passengers on the ship (he was on) came down with a contagious disease and the ship was quarantined. Lesseps became very frustrated. To help kill time he read the memoirs of Charles le Pere who had considered the feasibility of building a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

In 1869 the Suez Canal was completed. It was constructed following the design by and under the leadership of de Lesseps which, thirty-seven years earlier during that quarantine, was germinated and conceived. The entire world has reaped the benefit ever since.

In my own life and work almost every major change for the good that I have made has been the result of a setback or crisis of some kind. Most of the things I write about have come out of my own struggles, setbacks, and failures and my subsequent search for answers to these issues. I turned to writing in the first place over four decades ago when I felt God had put me on the shelf and forgotten I existed. I never wanted to be a writer but God has used my writing to help many others.

Be assured that God wants to use your trials, failures, and setbacks, too, not only to help you grow, but also so you will be able to help others who are going through the same or similar trials that you have gone through.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please use the struggles in my life to help me become more Christ-like and compassionate so I can be a comfort to other fellow-strugglers. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NIV).

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The Gift of an Untroubled Mind

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“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”1

In his book, Peace of Mind, Joshua Liebman writes of an experience he had when he was still a boy. “I made a list of the supreme goods in life,” Liebman said. “I went to a wise mentor and I showed him the list expecting to be praised for my precocity. The list went something like this … health, love, talent, riches, beauty, and faith. As I shared the list with the old wise man, he reached for a stub of a pencil, and carefully scratched through all of the things that I had listed. He said, “Young man, you may have all of these—health, love, faith, riches, beauty—but they will all turn out to be enemies instead of friends unless you have the one thing you missed.” Then he wrote on the paper, “The gift of an untroubled mind.”2

From what I read and hear it appears that so many people (at least in our modern society) are plagued by depression, heartbreak, worry, anxiety, fear, and impaired relationships. And (compared to most of the world) we have just about every material benefit and human comfort we want, except so many don’t have peace of mind.

There are two kinds of peace we all need in order to fully live. First, and most important of all, is spiritual peace or peace with God knowing that our sins are forgiven, our guilt is gone, and we have God’s promise of a home in heaven for all eternity. This gift from God is absolutely free and comes from admitting our sinfulness and accepting Jesus as our Savior. For help see No.4 below: “Finding Peace with God.”

The other kind of peace we could call emotional or relational peace. This comes from resolving any and all impaired relationships, forgiving any and all who have ever hurt us, and resolving any and all negative emotions—especially super-charged repressed negative emotions which are destroyers of both emotional and physical wellbeing and extremely destructive of personal relationships. The Bible also instructs us to get rid of (not bury or deny) all feelings of hatred and all negative emotions.3

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to see and resolve anything in my life that is causing me to have a troubled mind. Please fill me with your love and help me to know and experience your eternal peace in the very center of my being. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. John 14:27 (NIV).

2. Cited in Receive the Gift of an Untroubled Mind by Robert H. Schuller.

3. See 1 Peter 2:1-3 and James 5:16.

4. “Finding Peace With God” at: http://tinyurl.com/find-peace.

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Scratch ‘Em Where They Itch

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“The Samaritan woman said to him [Jesus], ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans).”1

On one occasion Jesus and his disciples left Judea for Galilee. Jesus wanted to go through Samaria as he had some “business” to take care of there. About midday Jesus was tired so he sat down and rested at Jacob’s well. He sent all twelve disciples off to get some lunch and, while they were gone, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well.

Without doubt this woman was the reason for Jesus coming this way. But how could he approach her? For one thing she was a Samaritan and Jesus was a Jew. In those times it wasn’t socially acceptable for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan. She also had some personal issues that would make it look rather suspicious for Jesus to be talking to her alone. She had lived a colorful life and had had a few men in her day. Because of this she wasn’t accepted by the other town women, so she came to the well alone in the middle of the day. The other women came in the cool of the evening to draw their water.

Imagine the outcome had Jesus approached this woman by asking a question like this: “Excuse me, lady, my name is Jesus. May I ask you a personal question?” And then, without giving her a choice, he asked, “If you should die tonight, where would you spend eternity?”

There are times when it is right to ask such a question, but this wasn’t one of them. Had Jesus done that, she probably wouldn’t have had the faintest idea what Jesus was talking about and dismissed him as being some kind of a religious nut.

But Jesus didn’t approach her with a pat question. Being sensitive to people’s needs he knew that this woman had issues. The fact that she came to the well alone in the heat of the day was saying that. Jesus knew the kind of woman she was and that she was lonely—and had been searching for love and acceptance in all the wrong ways and places. He knew that her pressing need was for loving acceptance. And that’s what Jesus gave her before ever speaking of spiritual things.

Psychologists say that with the lives we touch we either build a bridge to that person or a wall between us. And Jesus, being a great bridge builder, bridged the great social gap between her and this stranger by simply asking, “Will you please give me a drink of water.”

This was the beginning of an interesting conversation. Following a brief discussion about living water, Jesus put his finger on both the need and problem area of her life. Without judging her in any way Jesus told her that he knew she was living with a man who wasn’t her husband and that she had already gone through five husbands.

“You have to be a prophet,” she exclaimed and then turned the conversation to spiritual things herself. She then got so excited that she left her water-pot behind, rushed back to the town and, in essence, said to the men in her life, “Come with me. I want you to meet a man who told me all about myself with all my weaknesses and he accepted me just as I am. He didn’t judge or criticize me. He must be the Christ.”2

Jesus knew this woman’s deepest need—her need for acceptance—and when he met it, she believed in him and automatically became a most enthusiastic witness.

That’s the kind of witness we who call ourselves Christians also need to be. In other words, on most occasions before speaking of spiritual things to people, we need to be sensitive to their personal needs and “scratch ‘em where they itch” just as Jesus did—and minister to their deepest need whatever it may be.3

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be sensitive to people’s needs, and be ‘as Jesus’ to them by meeting them at their point of felt need. And grant that they, seeing Jesus in me, will want you for themselves. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. John 4:9 (NIV).

2. See John 4:1-30.

3. Adapted from I Hate Witnessing by Dick Innes which can be purchased online at http://actscom.com/store.

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The Tiger Rattlesnake . . . Strikes First then Rattles

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From God’s Word, the Bible: “Now the serpent [Satan in disguise] was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”‘ ‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent [Satan] said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”1

Roberta, a Daily Encounter reader, wrote, “I enjoyed your devotional about rattlesnakes. I live in Arizona and used to be the maintenance director of an outdoor museum, so I have had plenty of experience with rattlers. There is one kind of rattlesnake, though, that doesn’t rattle to warn you of the eminent danger. It’s the Tiger Rattler. This is the most beautiful rattler created, with a soft pinkish tint and tiger stripes across its body. We had them at the museum and had to shut down one exhibit until they were eradicated because of the danger. They strike first, and then rattle, as though to laugh at the stupidity of their prey. Isn’t that much the same as Satan?”

How very true this is.

Today’s scripture is referring to the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, as they were in the Garden of Eden—a place of absolute beauty and perfection. Enter Satan, disguised in the form of a serpent. His goal was to deceive mankind into rejecting God’s plan for them. God created mankind with a free will so they could choose, or choose not, to follow God’s ways. They were given a simple test: they were free to eat the fruit of every tree in the Garden of Eden except for just one tree. If they ate this forbidden fruit, they would be choosing to defy God’s ways and, in so doing, would eat the seeds of their own death—both physical and spiritual.

Satan sowed the seed of doubt in Eve’s mind by saying, “Did God really say?” Then Satan lied saying that they wouldn’t die but become like God knowing the difference between good and evil.” This part-truth was the most deadly lie in human history. What the serpent, Satan, (like the Tiger Rattle snake) didn’t tell them was that if they ate of the forbidden fruit, while they would know the difference between good and evil, they would be forever bound in a state of evil. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, evil entered the human race and all of mankind has suffered ever since.

Satan struck first and has been “rattling his evil tail in delight” ever since. That’s the way he always operates. He deceives by either part-truths or straight out lies always tempting us to eat of life’s forbidden fruits. Furthermore, people who disregard God’s directives and promote what God forbids are Satan’s agents. They, too, strike first and then rattle their proud deceptive tails ever afterward.

The battle between good and evil began eons ago in the Garden of Eden when Satan entered mankind’s domain and it continues to rage today.

Never forget God’s warnings and directives—they are given to protect us from evil, deception, and ultimate destruction. His Word says, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil [Satan]. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”2 And again, “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”3

While Satan may appear to have won in the first book of the Bible, in the last book and in the end God triumphs. His Word says, “Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”4

Suggested Prayer: “Dear God, because you have given me a free will to choose, or choose not, to follow your ways, please help me always to see through the lies and deceptions of the “tiger rattlesnake” serpent, Satan, and the wisdom to always choose to follow your directives as found in your Holy Word, the Bible. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer—gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Genesis 3:1-5 (NIV).

2. 1 Peter 5:8 (NLT).

3. 2 Corinthians 11:14 (NLT).

4. Revelation 20:10 (NLT).

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Mindset Matters

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The Apostle Paul at the end of his life confidently said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”1

There’s an old parable that explains how three men were working hard cutting stone from large blocks of granite. When asked what they were doing, the first man said, “I’m making bricks.” The Second man said, “I’m cutting stones for the foundation of a large building,” while the third man said, “I’m building a cathedral.”

All three men were equally capable and doing the same work, so which man’s work do you think would have been the most fulfilling? What mattered was each man’s thinking about the purpose of the work he was doing. It wasn’t his aptitude that made the difference—it was his attitude—his mindset!

One’s attitude will determine the direction and purpose of one’s life. The purpose of one man might be to make lots of money, while the purpose of another might be to help build the lives of the people he is serving. One woman may see housework as a burdensome chore while another does it joyfully because she is doing it for the ones she loves. It’s their mindset that makes the difference.

The reason the Apostle Paul ended his life victoriously was because he had a noble God-given life-purpose and had dedicated his entire life to fulfilling that purpose. He had a mindset that mattered.

If we want to end our life with a sense of fulfillment, it will be our mindset now that will determine how we end.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, Please help me to discover my God-given life purpose and dedicate my life to serving you by loving and serving people. Help me to live in harmony with your will and, with your help, to fulfill my God-given life purpose by living a life that matters—not only for time but also for eternity. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer, gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Timothy 4:7 (NKJV).

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Think and Grow Peaceful

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“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”1

In his article, “Today I Will Make a Difference,” Max Lucado wrote, “Today I will make a difference. I will begin by controlling my thoughts. A person is the product of his thoughts. I want to be happy and hopeful. Therefore, I will have thoughts that are happy and hopeful. I refuse to be victimized by my circumstances. I will not let petty inconveniences such as stoplights, long lines, and traffic jams be my masters. I will avoid negativism and gossip. Optimism will be my companion, and victory will be my hallmark. Today I will make a difference.”2

The reality is that we eventually become what we constantly think about for “what the mind dwells on the body acts on.”

Admittedly, controlling our thoughts can be much easier said than done. To succeed, it not only needs consistent practice and mental discipline, but also the resolution of things that “bug” us. For instance, if we have any major unresolved personal conflicts with accompanying super-charged negative emotions, these can have a major effect on our thinking. They can be compared to having a throbbing toothache that literally controls our thinking. Because of the pain, it’s just about impossible to think about anything else until we get to the dentist and have the aching tooth taken care of.

To live a peaceful life, it is imperative that we learn to control and consistently think positive thoughts. And to control our thoughts, it is imperative that we resolve any and all personal conflicts. In other words, if we want to live peacefully we need to get all our “emotional-tooth-aches” resolved.

Suggested prayer, “Dear God, thank you that your Word teaches the importance of positive thinking ‘about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.’ Please help me to live in harmony with your will, be rid of all guilt by confessing my sins, and resolving all personal conflicts so that I will be able to fix my ‘thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.’ Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer, gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Philippians 4:8 (NLT).

2. Max Lucado, www.MaxLucado.com.

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What I See Is Who I Am

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“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”1

Ken Crockett, in his book, I Once Was Blind, But Now I Squint, shares the experience of Pastor Ed Manning who told “about a situation when a woman approached him to ask a question. As she drew closer to him, he tipped his head back to look through the bottom lenses of his bifocals to focus on her more clearly. ‘There you go again!’ the woman exploded. ‘You stick your nose up in the air every time I talk to you! Who do you think you are? I’m sick of your arrogant attitude!’

“Manning was taken aback by her outburst of anger. ‘You don’t understand,’ he explained. ‘I’m not sticking my nose up in the air at you. I just can’t see you when you get near me. I’m tilting my head back so I can see you through the bottom half of my bifocals.’”2

Sound familiar?

Blaise Pascal said, “We view things not only from different sides but with different eyes.” Or to put it another way, “We see things not the way they are, but the way we are.”

For instance, if I have unresolved anger, I will see things through angry, critical eyes. If have unresolved fears, I will view things through fearful eyes. If I have a negative attitude, I will look at things through negative eyes. If I am insecure, I will see things through insecure eyes. If I am a jealous person, I will view things through jealous eyes. If I am a cheat, I will see things through cheating eyes, and so on.

Whatever I see—the way I see it will always be twisted to match my distorted perception of reality and in so doing I will rationalize my every thought and justify my every action. A very unhealthy and self-defeating way to live.

Any wonder that Jesus said that if we are going to see things the way they are, we need to see the plank in our own eye and get rid of that. It is true, what I see is who I am. It is equally true, if I am a loving person, I will see things through loving eyes.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please open my eyes so that I will see clearly who I am—warts and all—and help me to get rid of any specks and all planks in my eye so I will see the truth as it is and not as I distort or want it to be. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 7:3 (NIV).

2. From I Once Was Blind, But Now I Squint, by Kent Crockett, AMG Publishers/Living Ink. See http://tinyurl.com/8kesa

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Faith or Fake Healers

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“Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.”1

“I don’t need to get into a recovery group and deal with my past,” my good friend Graham said, “I had special prayer and God has healed me from all that.”

However, his constant gut-level coughing bothered me, but what could I say? God had healed him—those who prayed for him told him so! However, not too long afterward Graham came down with cancer. Again he was prayed for and a year later told me how grateful to God he was because he had been totally healed—those who prayed for him told him so!

Exactly one week later he was back in the hospital. His body was riddled with cancer. The hospital did what they could but after a few weeks sent him home to die.

The reality was that Graham had a very dysfunctional upbringing. His so-called-sister was actually his mother. As a teen she had a child out of wedlock and her mother adopted this child, and brought the two of them up as brother and sister. As an adult Graham covered the pain caused by his dysfunctional family background by becoming a super workaholic. As long as he kept super busy, he didn’t feel or face the pain. However, in “deadening” the pain he very likely contributed to his own demise.

Very often it’s the buried pain from the past—supercharged repressed negative emotions such as envy, resentment, guilt (real or false), anger, hurt, grief, fear, anxiety and/or hatred and so on that make us ill. These “sins of the spirit,” if not resolved, can be lethal.

When we bury these emotions we never bury them dead but very much alive and, as John Powell says, “When we bury our emotions our stomach keeps score.” To put this another way, and pardon the language, the stuff we stuff damages up our lives—physically, emotionally, spiritually, and/or relationally. These negative emotions are like an emotional cancer and we either get the “cancer” or the “cancer” gets us.

This is why gut-level confession is absolutely essential for healing. Without which, prayer is like putting a Band-Aid over a deep wound without cleaning out the pus. It just drives the wound deeper and increases the infection.

Certainly, not all sickness is caused by unresolved personal issues, but if it is, God isn’t going to heal me any more than he will heal me if my sickness is caused by my living in sin or in an unhealthy manner and refusing to change my ways. God’s way is to deal with issues that make us sick so healing can follow. If I smoke, eat unhealthy foods, or fail to exercise, I will suffer the natural consequences. Healthy living requires a healthy lifestyle—physically, emotionally, relationally, as well as spiritually.

So beware of faith healers who ignore the principle of genuine confession which is essential for healing. As God’s word says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”2

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, about these constant ‘headaches’ (or whatever … name the specific sickness) I’m experiencing—please help me to face, deal with, and resolve any unresolved personal issue that may be causing or affecting my sickness in any way. Please lead me to the help I need to see and resolve these issues. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 John 4:1 (NLT).

2. James 5:16 (NIV).

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Are You God’s Wife?

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“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”1

According to a story reportedly written by Leo Buscaglia, “On a cold day in December, some years ago: A little boy, about 10 years old, was standing before a shoe store on the roadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with cold.

“A lady approached the young boy and said, ‘My, but you’re in such deep thought staring in that window!’

“‘I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes,’ was the boy’s reply.

“The lady took him by the hand, went into the store, and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her.

“She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with the towel.

“By this time, the clerk had returned with the socks. Placing a pair upon the boy’s feet, she then purchased a pair of shoes for him.

“She tied up the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him. She patted him on the head and said, ‘No doubt, you will be more comfortable now.’

“As she turned to go, the astonished child caught her by the hand, and looking up into her face, with tears in his eyes, asked, ‘Are you God’s wife?’”2

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, open the eyes of my heart so that wherever there is a pressing need placed across my path, I will see it—and help to meet it. And wherever there is a hurt, please help me to heal it. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. James 1:27

2. Leo Buscaglia.

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