From my youth up I have believed that people who have never accepted Jesus as their Savior and have had their sins forgiven by God, according to God’s Word, the Bible, will be lost and without hope for all eternity. Because of this belief I have done my best to do something about this calamity. Every year during my teenage years our small church had a week of “revival meetings,” the purpose of which was to reach our community with the gospel. But we didn’t spend any money on advertising to make these meetings known to the community. Furthermore, one of the pastor’s teenage sons and myself (also a teenager) were the only ones who would ever go house to house to invite our neighbors to attend our special meetings. One year I was the only one to do this.

So many Christians say that we are concerned about winning the lost to the Savior but, in reality, how many of us do anything about it? I agree with the Buddhist monk who said, “To know and not to do is not yet to know.” To translate this into our Christian terminology it could be stated this way: “To believe and not to act is not yet to believe because I only truly believe that which motivates me to action.”

According to Mickey Anders, “Someone suggested that we imagine this fishing club where the members merely sit around swapping fish stories about the big one they landed, the whopper that broke away, but they never stepped into a boat or cast their line in the water. What kind of a fishing club would it be whose members were content to admire the trophies on the wall, but never go out and actually go fishing?

“A lot of churches are like that. They sit around bragging about the days when their boat was full of fresh fish. They look nostalgically to the days when the main purpose of their church was to go fishing, to reach others for Christ. But they never actually go fishing; they merely talk about going fishing. That’s not what we’re [supposed to be] about as a church.”²

As Jesus said to his followers, “You are to go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere.”³

For a very simple and attractive way to actually do what Jesus told his followers to do, please go to the ACTS “People Power for Jesus” website at https://learning.actsweb.org/people_power/

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you that when I go and tell others about you and your saving gospel message, you have promised to always be with me.⁴ I admit that I am afraid but I am available for you to use me to share the gospel with others and to be ‘as Jesus’ in some way to every life I touch. I cannot do this of myself so please fill me with your Holy Spirit to empower me to do this. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Mark 16:15 (TLB)(NLT).

2. Mickey Anders, “Go Fish.”

3. Mark 16:15 (NLT).

4. See Matthew 28:19-20.

Today is Good Friday, the day we remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ who died on an excruciatingly painful Roman cross two thousand years ago. I am sure that many people today ask the same question that a Daily Encounter reader asked: “I understand Jesus died for our sins. I believe it but I just can’t understand why he had to do it. Didn’t God have power over everything? I have looked for the answer to this question for a long time. Please help.”

I’m sure that many people struggle with this same issue so let me explain. Because God is a God of infinite justice, he cannot forgive sin without justice being served. Otherwise he wouldn’t be God. This means that all sin must be judged according to the moral law of God and the universe. We can no more defy this law and live than we can defy the law of gravity by jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. The end result will be death unless—unless we apply another law, the law of aerodynamics. This law makes it possible for an airplane to fly and a parachute to lower us to the earth gradually and thereby save us.

There is another universal law that we cannot defy and live. It is “the law of sin and death,” which means that the judgment and penalty of all sin is death and eternal separation from God. That is, unless we apply a higher law which is “the law of the Spirit of Life,” which is a God-given “spiritual parachute” to save us from eternal death. God provided this law through the death of Jesus who died in our place to pay the penalty for our sin.

Furthermore, because God is also a God of absolute holiness, no sin or unforgiven sinners can survive in his presence. As some bacteria are not able to survive in the light and die if they are exposed to it, so it is with us. In our sinful state if we were exposed to God and his incredible light, we would be destroyed instantaneously. And herein lies our dilemma.

However, God’s answer to our dilemma lies in the fact that God is not only a God of infinite justice and absolute holiness, but also a God of eternal love. Because of his love, God gave his very own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins to meet the automatic demands of his (God’s) justice and holiness. Christ’s death made possible God’s “law of the Spirit of Life”—our God-given “spiritual parachute”—to save us from eternal death.

Not to accept and use God’s “parachute” means certain death from which there is no other escape. In other words, anyone who doesn’t accept God’s pardon will automatically die for him/herself—which means eternal separation from God, the author of all love and life, in the place or condition the Bible calls hell. All we need to do is confess our sinfulness, believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died in our place for our sins, and ask God for, and accept, his forgiveness and pardon. If you have never done this, you can do so right now by praying the following prayer.

“Dear God, I confess that I am a sinner and am sorry for all the wrongs that I have done. I believe that your Son, Jesus Christ, died on the cross for my sins. Please forgive me. I invite you, Jesus, to come into my heart and life as Lord and Savior. I commit and trust my life to you. Please give me the desire to be what you want me to be and to do what you want me to do. Thank you for dying for my sins, for your free pardon, for your gift of eternal life, and for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

If you prayed this prayer and truly meant it, please let us know by clicking on the “My Decision” link at http://tinyurl.com/pgntm and we will send you a free copy of the e-leaflet, “How to Grow” to help you in your new spiritual life.

For further help, click on the “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian” link at http://tinyurl.com/8glq9

1. Romans 8:1–3(NIV).

If you haven’t already read the following “prophetic” statements by leaders of their day, they are fascinating to hear:

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” – Western Union internal memo, 1876

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” – David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” – Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come and work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.’” – Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” – Drillers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist in his project to drill for oil in 1859.

“No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.” – Orville Wright

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” – Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.²

How wrong all these people were. And what opportunities they lost.

When Jesus came to his people as their promised Messiah (Savior), they refused to believe in him. In spite of all the evidence when he healed the sick, made the dumb to speak, the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and raised Lazarus from the dead—and rose from the grave himself—they still as a nation wouldn’t believe and continued to reject him and his teachings.

Our world today is still filled with skeptics who refuse to believe the evidence they see in that the “heavens declare the glory of God.” They also refuse to believe in and accept the teachings of Jesus, and reject the incomparable opportunity to accept God’s offer of forgiveness for all their sins and the gift of eternal life in heaven forever.

The price of rejecting God and his offer of salvation is unthinkable.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, open the eyes of my understanding so that I will see the evidence of your presence in all of life. And deliver me from any spiritual blindness so I will see, understand, and accept your full and free pardon for all my sins and receive your gift of eternal life. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

For help see the article, “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian” at: http://tinyurl.com/real-christian

1. John 1:10-12 (NIV).

2. Cited on www.goodquotes.com

Without doubt, God still provides miraculous healings. I believe there is sufficient evidence to validate this. However, if the cause or causes of my illnesses are within myself, it is irresponsible of me to expect God to heal my sickness symptoms and allow me to avoid facing and dealing with the issues that are causing my ills. God simply will not do this. And when we ask him so to do, it is praying amiss. As Dr. Cecil Osborne said, “Only the immature, the childish expect instantaneous, miraculous answers to life’s problems.”

We now know that emotional stress is a major factor behind many of our sicknesses. We also now know that much of our emotional stress and anxiety is caused by unconfessed and unresolved, super-charged, repressed, negative emotions. In other words, as John Powell puts it, “When I repress my emotions, my stomach keeps score.”

Considerable healing is available if we are prepared to follow God’s divine principles for physical and mental health. Cleanliness of body and mind, upright living, a tranquil mind, and confession of our sins and our negative emotions are the great therapeutic tools for health and divine healing. When we follow these laws or principles, God has guaranteed that if we pray correctly, healthier living will follow.

How do I know this is true? I’ve tried it. It works. For one thing, when I learned to get honest with my true feelings and resolved my buried feelings of hurt, grief and anger, I was healed of miserable hay fever and painful bursitis in my shoulders. Sure my body is growing older but in many ways I am healthier than when I was in my mid-thirties. We simply can’t improve on God’s plans. It’s best to get in on them.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you again for your Word that gives us wonderful principles for living healthier, happier, and more fulfilling lives. Help me to live accordingly. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. James 4:3 (NKJV).

In our series on “Healing Beyond the Test Tube” we said that the first law of health and healing was clean living—that is, physical hygiene, sanitation, and moral living. The second law is being free from stress and worry.

The writer of the Proverbs stated, “A tranquil mind gives life to the body.”² And as Jesus said in today’s Scripture verse: “Don’t worry about things—food, drink, and clothes … don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow, too. Live one day at a time.”

Dr. William Saddler once remarked, “No one can appreciate as fully as a doctor the amazingly large percentage of human disease and suffering which is directly traceable to worry, fear, conflict, immorality, dissipation, and ignorance—to unwholesome thinking and unclean living. The sincere acceptance of the principles and teachings of Christ with respect to the life of mental peace and joy, the life of unselfish thought and clean living, would at once wipe out more than half the difficulties, diseases, and sorrows of the human race. In other words, more than one-half of the present afflictions of mankind could be prevented by the tremendous prophylactic power of actually living up to the personal and practical spirit of the real teachings of Christ.”³

A Sure Cure

The third law for health and healing is confession and prayer. The modern or medical word for old-fashioned confession is “catharsis.” It means an emptying out. And it is now known that one of the most powerful tools for healing is an emptying out of our supercharged repressed negative emotions of anger, hostility, guilt, fear, anxieties, and all the things that worry and bother us. As someone has wisely said, it is not so much what we eat that upsets us, but what eats us.

But this principle of emptying out or confession is as old as the Bible. Two thousand years ago, James, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, wrote, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.”⁴

But the important point to note in finding healing is that the Scriptures didn’t stop at that point. James went on to say, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.”⁵

Before prayer can be effective, genuine confession, or an emptying out is needed to both God and at least one other person. This confession of sins includes our emotional sins and faults such as repressed negative emotions of fear, anxiety, hostility, resentment, etc. as well as our guilt for wrongdoing. These are killers and need to be confessed and emptied out before healing can take place.

To be continued….

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to get in touch with all of my negative emotions and everything in my life that is hindering or blocking my healing. And help me to find a safe and trusted person to whom I can confess all my emotions, my failures, and my sins so that I can and will be healed. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 6:25, 34 (Living Bible)(NIV).
2. Proverbs 14:30.
3. McMillen, S.I, None of These Diseases, (c) 1963. Fleming H. Revell, Co., Westwood, NJ. Used by permission. P 67. (Note: this book has since been updated).
4. James 5:14-15.
5. James 5:16.

Yesterday we talked about how an upset mind affects the body physically. Today we continue with the following:

Pain: the Great Motivator

Pain is not only a powerful motivator, but is also a gift of God. Pain or sickness can be a type of “red danger light” to warn us that something is amiss and needs attention. One of the tragedies with the disease of leprosy is that it causes a loss of feeling and pain is not felt. This disease does not cause the loss of limbs. It destroys the feeling in those limbs, and when a limb gets hurt, the leper, because he feels no pain, fails to protect and take care of that member. Eventually, he loses it. So, if we are going to be healthy, we need to allow some of our pains and sicknesses to motivate us to deal with the real cause of our problems, and not merely the symptoms.

Finding a Cure

According to the greatest handbook ever written on principles for daily living, the Bible, the first law of health and healing is clean living—that is, physical hygiene, sanitation, and moral living.

Over three thousand years ago Israel was a young nation and had been held captive in Egypt where there was considerable disease. When God through Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, he promised them a health program yet to be equaled by modern science. God said, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.”²

Ron Vince in Channels magazine quoted the eminent English doctor, Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, who said, “The law of Moses is largely a law of good health. Its practice has made the Jews the healthiest, the most industrious, the richest among the races of mankind.”³

Sir James Cantile, a famous London surgeon, once stated, “We have never yet upset one of Moses’ laws in regard to hygiene, sanitation, or medical teaching. All that the scientists of today with their microscopes and textbooks did was to prove the ancient lawgiver to be right.”⁴

And Dr. Paul Dudley White, the American heart specialist, said, “It is conceivable that a few years from now we medical men may repeat to the citizens of the United States the advice that Moses was asked by God to present to the children of Israel 3,000 years ago.”⁵ And that is, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes….”¹

To be continued ….

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me a listening heart so that I will carefully hear what your Word teaches, and give me the good sense and courage to always do what is right in your eyes. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Exodus 15:26 (NIV).
2. Exodus 15:26 (NIV).
3. Channels, August 1975.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Some years ago when I was working in the summer as a CTA passenger bus driver in Chicago to help pay my way through college, an elderly lady, as she was about to alight from my bus, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Young man, you’re a millionaire.” That was news to me, but then after a pause, she added, “You’ve got your health.”

How right she was. Good health is worth much more than a million dollars and is something many of us can have more of if we really want to. Not everybody, however, really wants to be well. As Dr. Parker points out, some people fashion “imaginary illnesses or disorders in an unconscious attempt to get attention or to escape responsibility.”

Another wise doctor said, “Peace doesn’t come in capsules.” In other words, while we are extremely grateful for modern medical science with all its help and alleviation of human suffering, the greatest source of health and healing still doesn’t come out of test tubes or the pill bottle.

Upset Mind—Upset Body

According to Dr. S. I. McMillen, author of the book, None of These Diseases, one of the major causes of sickness in our society is emotional stress. Dr. McMillen stated, “Medical science recognizes that emotions such as fear, sorrow, envy, resentment and hatred are responsible for the majority of our sicknesses. Estimates vary from 60 percent to nearly 100 percent.”²

“Fatal heart attacks can be triggered by ‘anger in all degrees, depression, and anxiety,’ according to Dr. Roy R. Grinker, [formerly] one of the medical directors of Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. This doctor states that anxiety places more stress on the heart than any other stimulus, including physical exercise and fatigue.”³

Stress in small amounts is often necessary and helpful, but continued stress is damaging. If, for example, you were being chased by a tiger, your God-given emotion of fear would trigger your adrenal glands releasing sudden energy into your blood stream to help you escape. Your hurried escape would also burn up any excess adrenalin. If, however, the “tiger of stress” keeps on chasing you and you can’t get away, the chemical balance of your body is upset and trouble results. Too much adrenalin for too long can cause “high blood pressure, arthritis, kidney disease, and hardening of the arteries.”⁴

“Other glands are also affected. Simple nervousness in speaking before a public audience is sufficient to cause the salivary glands not to function properly and one’s mouth can become very dry.

“Emotional stress can influence the amount of blood that flows to an organ. Embarrassment can cause the blood vessels of the face and neck to open up to produce blushing, and the emotions of anxiety or hate can so increase the amount of blood within the rigid skull that headaches and vomiting result.”⁵

I have read, too, that emotional stress can also cause ulcers, rheumatic fever, coronary thrombosis, frigidity and impotence, alcoholism, epilepsy, diabetes, obesity, constipation, diarrhea, hives, hay fever, asthma, back trouble, rheumatic arthritis, polio, many infections, glaucoma, skin diseases, hemorrhoids and many other sicknesses. It also affects the tension of muscles, which can cause severe headaches and muscular pain.

To be continued ….

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for the wellness principles found in your Word, the Bible. Help me to live in harmony with these so that I can be a more peaceful and healthier person. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Proverbs 14:30 (NLT).
2. McMillen, S.I, None of These Diseases. (c) 1963. Fleming H. Revell, Co., Westwood, NJ. Used by permission. (Note: this book has since been updated), p 7.
3. Ibid, p 61.
4. Ibid, p 62.
5. Ibid, p 67.

A man who flew his own plane, or so the story goes, got tired of the long automobile trip from the airport to his country cottage which was situated on a lovely lake. So he equipped his plane with pontoons so he could land on the lake in front of his home. However, on his first trip with his newly equipped plane, he headed for the airport as he had always done. As he was going in for the landing his terrified wife yelled, “What are you doing? You can’t land on the runway … you don’t have any wheels!”

“Fortunately, he was able to swing his plane around and head for the lake. After he landed safely, he heaved a big sigh of relief and turned to his wife and said, ‘That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever done!’ Then he opened the door, stepped out of his plane—and fell directly into the lake!”²

I doubt very much the validity of this story but it does illustrate how easily and foolishly we forget.

How quickly the ancient Israelites forgot how God miraculously delivered them from slavery in Egypt, how he parted the Red Sea for them to cross safely, and how the pursuing Egyptian army was drowned … and as soon as things got tough en route to the Promised Land, they grumbled, they doubted God, and they criticized and blamed Moses.

And how quickly so many who live in the U.S. forget—forget the basis of our incredible blessings of freedom, liberty, and opportunities; how our nation was founded on biblical principles; how Western law is based on the Judeo-Christian ethic and the Ten Commandments; and the reason “In God we trust” is engraved on our money!

Furthermore, when we get too comfortable, we easily forget that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We criticize and blame even good leaders when things don’t go the way we want. And to our peril we are seeking to throw out the Bible, the Ten Commandments, and anything that resembles God and Christianity. And how quickly we forget that “blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”³

And how quickly I forget the blessings of God when things go wrong in my life—and even when things go well.

Suggested prayer “Dear God, in the words of the hymn-writer Robert Robinson: ‘O to grace how greater a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for thy courts above.’ Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Jude 1:17-18;20-21 (NIV).
2. From Illustrations Unlimited. Cited in Encounter magazine (Australian edition). www.actsweb.org/au.
3. Psalm 33:12.

Have you ever noticed that, when someone works real hard to build a group, a class, or an organization from scratch, and when it is up and running successfully, how someone wants to take it over and run it—and sometimes ends up killing it?

I’ve seen it happen in churches more than once. I’ve had it happen to a support group I had started. When I returned after a six-week summer mission trip, it had been taken over by one of the members . . . and soon died.

“An admirer once asked Leonard Bernstein, celebrated orchestra conductor, what was the hardest instrument to play. He replied without hesitation: ‘Second fiddle. I can always get plenty of first violinists, but to find one who plays second violin with as much enthusiasm, now that’s a problem. And yet if no one plays second, we have no harmony.’”²

In King David’s day some of those who went to battle wanted to keep for themselves all the spoils of that which was conquered. They didn’t want to share the glory or the spoils with those who stayed behind the front lines and took care of the “stuff” (supplies and equipment).

In God’s economy, Christians will not be rewarded on the basis of his/her rank or position. Whether one is a church leader, Sunday school teacher, or janitor; the president of a company or the new kid working in the mail room—each will be rewarded on the basis of their being a faithful steward of the gifts and abilities with which he/she has been entrusted. What God is looking for to do his work on earth are second, third, and fourth fiddlers who are not seeking to glorify themselves but to serve God by serving others and thereby bring glory to God.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, whether I am a fifth or a first fiddler, I thank you for gift/s and the abilities you have entrusted to me, knowing that all have been given by you. Help me to be a faithful steward and use me to help extend your Kingdom and bring glory to your name. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Samuel 30:24 (KJV).
2. “Chapel Talk” by Adrian Dieleman www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/jn03v30a.html

A Daily Encounter reader asks, “How can you tell if a preacher is a fake-healer, or if a Christian is not for real?

Les Nixon shares how “at one time there was a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest being held and, always the practical joker, the real Chaplin decided he would enter. After deliberating long and hard, the judges unwittingly awarded Chaplin the third prize behind two impostors.” So you often can’t tell the fake from the real by outward appearances.

Pharisees were the religious elite of Jesus’ day. They knew the Bible cover to cover; that is, the Law and the Prophets (the Old Testament) as the New Testament hadn’t been written then. They knew their doctrinal teachings by heart. They had all the outward trappings of religiosity . . . but for many of them it was an outward show. Furthermore, they loved their doctrines more than they loved people and used them to control people. Jesus not only knew the same Scriptures, but he was real and saw through these religious play-actors—and didn’t mince words with them regarding their phoniness.

Sad to say, there is no shortage today of play-acting teachers, phony religious leaders, counterfeit Christians, and those who love their religion more than they love people—and use their religion to control people. In some countries some even use their religion to force people to convert to their religion and torture or kill those who fail to convert.

So how can we tell the false from the real?

Mary Jackson-Medrek, another Daily Encounter reader, said, “I work in a bank and one time I was reading about counterfeit bills (notes). The story said that FBI agents don’t study counterfeit bills to learn how to spot one. They study real bills and know them so well that they can spot a phony a mile away. That’s what we should do as Christians. Study God’s word so that if we hear something that isn’t right we can spot it immediately!”

Like Jesus, we also need to be real ourselves, know the Scriptures, and know what a real Christian is so well that we will also be able to spot a phony a mile away.

“Beware of false prophets,’ Jesus warned, “who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”²

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me a love for and an understanding of your Word so that I will learn and always know your Truth. Also, please help me to be real and so like Jesus that I will be able to ‘spot a phony a mile away’—and never become one. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 John 4:1 (NIV).
2. Matthew 7:15 (NKJV).