Never Stop Trusting God

When I was sixteen, my parents, my twin brother, and I were summer-holidaying in Salmon Arm near Shuswap Lake, where my family owned a piece of property. My godmother and godfather, who were my aunt and uncle, lived further up the street from my family's property. My aunt and uncle also had two sets of twins, like my parents, and one set, a male and female, were close to the age of my twin brother and me.

My godmother was a dedicated Christian with a servant heart. She had a beautiful singing voice, loved pansies, enjoyed the sound of the waves crashing against the lake shore, and adored animals, especially dogs.

One warm summer day, I remember being alone with my godmother in her vehicle. We had just come from town when we passed a truck with two teenage males in it. The young men smiled at me as we drove by. I foolishly smiled back and waved. That was a mistake! I knew it the moment I did it. The truck with the teenagers suddenly picked up speed and began to follow us.

My godmother was not happy to say the least. She immediately lectured me on the dangers of flirting with strange men. As I slinked down into my seat, my godmother tried to lose them. I was amazed at her confident driving skills! I also felt very guilty and scared for both of us, not because of her driving, but because of those determined young men and us females alone in a car — my godmother was still a very pretty woman.

Thankfully my godmother lost the strangers in the truck. I was ashamed at my foolishness and promised that I would never do that again. I learned my lesson about flirting with danger, and it's one I haven't forgotten.

It is even more dangerous today when women flirt on the Internet by posting provocative pictures of themselves and attracting strange men to meet with them.

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Sadly my godmother died in her early middle age with cancer. I still miss her to this day. I grieved very hard when my mother phoned to tell me that my godmother finally died. It was a shock that I wasn't emotionally prepared for because I had been believing in my heart that God would heal her.

Have you ever wondered why God sometimes heals some but not others? This question is something I have pondered for years. I don't know the answer to it. All I know is that God still heals today. We are to never stop having faith in God's healing power no matter what past disappointments we have experienced. We are always to trust God to heal, and also to continue to trust God even when He doesn't.

The Bible says God heals all our diseases — not some, but all.

"Let all that I am praise the Lord;

may I never forget the good things He does for me.

He forgives all my sins

and heals all my diseases.

Psalm 103:2-3 (NLT)

Certain things must then prevent God from healing, but never are we to blame a person who wasn't healed. Only God knows the reason why. Sometimes the future of a person here on earth is too distressing for them to bear. Now that I can look back and see the heartaches my godmother would have had to endure, I am glad she is in Heaven in the loving arms of her Heavenly Father.

Here is a picture of me, Brian, and my godmother on my wedding day, as Brian and I leave the church to go on our honeymoon. She loved Brian. Everyone in my family did! My godmother sang a beautiful song for us at our reception and my mother-in-law played the piano for her.

God's Understanding Has No Limits

Tuesday is my Garbage day. Every Tuesday morning, I open my garage door and roll out my city-leased garbage bin onto the curb.

Last Tuesday, I put out my garbage as always. Later on in the day, I heard the garbage truck come by, but I was busy at the time. It was almost an hour later before I was free to retrieve my garbage bin and bring it back inside my garage. However, when I looked out the window, I saw no garbage bin. At least, there was no garbage bin anywhere near where I had placed mine. But it was windy and I saw a bin sitting out in the middle of the street near my neighbour's driveway. When my sons came home, I told them to bring in the garbage bin from the middle of the street. They told me that they thought it was the neighbours. I told them the bin was mine, and to go bring it in. So they did.

The evening before last, the man next door came knocking on my door and asked me if I had seen his garbage bin. I explained to him what happened and said honestly, "I have no idea. I might have it. I just don't know."

Each garbage bin has a number on it, so I told my neighbour that I would phone the town hall the next morning and ask for my number. If my assigned number doesn't match the number on the garbage bin, then we would know that it's his. Truthfully, I suspected that the garbage bin sitting in my garage was really his because I didn't think mine was quite so dirty.

While I was waiting for town hall to open so I could phone, I decided to do some detective work to try and figure out what happened to my bin. After all, I didn't want to sound like a dimwit on the phone.

First of all, I decided that no one stole it — at least not on purpose. Who would steal a garbage bin? It's gross to touch your own, let alone someone else's.

Therefore I rationally concluded that my other neighbour must have two garbage bins. He must have brought one in and his live-in girlfriend must have brought another in, not realizing that they now have two.

"OK, that probably doesn't make any sense either," I thought. "How do you not notice that you have two garbage bins in your garage? They are colossal-sized and take up an irritating amount of valuable garage space.

"There has to be another explanation." As I looked out my bedroom window to see if I could gain some insight, I noticed that, five houses down the road, there was a lonely garbage bin sitting on the curb. Either the owners have for three days forgotten to bring in their garbage bin, or that one must be mine.

"Wow! That reasoning is even more ludicrous! How can a garbage bin travel on its own that far away?" As I looked out the window again, I saw that the owner finally noticed his garbage bin and brought it in.

"Well, I give up," I thought. "I guess I am just going to have phone the town hall and admit I don't know where my garbage bin is. Boy! That sounds dumb."

I humbled myself and dialed the number. I ended up talking to a very nice, but very crazy man who confirmed that the garbage bin in my garage wasn't mine. He said that the wind probably blew mine away.

I knew that the right thing at that moment was to keep my mouth shut, but I just couldn't. I had to ask. "How in the world can the wind, unless it's a tornado, blow my garbage bin out of sight?"

His response was — you are not going to believe this, but it's the truth — "Oh sure, it can."

I immediately decided not to encourage any further conversation. The man was obviously delusional, or perhaps he had seen "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" one too many times. But he was still very nice. He told me that I would receive a brand new, I-don't-have-to-clean-in-the-spring garbage bin next Tuesday free of charge.

I am happy now, but it still bugs me that I don't know what happened to my garbage bin.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever had something you really wanted to know but couldn't find the answer to?

Of course, when I studied mathematics, I would always get excited when this happened. If I had a challenging question, I would work gloriously at it until I found the answer.

But unfortunately life isn't always like that. Sometimes you have to accept that you just don't know, and may never know on earth, the answer to life's perplexities. However, we can have faith that God knows everything and that one day we will have the answers to our questions.

"Great is our Lord and mighty in power;

His understanding has no limit."

Psalm 147:5

It is too bad our understanding has limits because I sure wish I knew what happened to my garbage bin.

Amongst A Sea Of Business Cards

A few years ago, just after I moved here, a newly appointed pastor handed me a dozen business cards, which had his name printed on it, as well as the title, address, and phone number of his church. I just stared at the cards in disbelief. When the shock wore off, I looked up at him and asked him what he wanted me to do with them. He was annoyed with my question. "I don't know," he said. "Leave them at the police station when you and your sons go to request a criminal record check."

I didn't leave them at the police station. I was disgusted. When I got home, I tossed the cards into the garbage and asked myself these questions: Does this pastor think people are like potential customers to whom you hand out business cards? Does he view people as a source of revenue for his church? What would Jesus think of those cards? After all, His name wasn't located anywhere on them.

When I told my oldest son about the business cards, he told me that it was quite common for pastors to have them these days. I was even more shocked.

It is God's burning desire for His Church to gather together and support each other with the sole purpose of doing the will of God and that is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Church is to be a place where God and His Word reign supreme.

Today's churches, however, largely consist of chain-of-command pastors, thrown-together sermons that leave people bewildered, theatrical stage shows, clips of ungodly TV shows or movies, references to ungodly celebrities, musical concerts, Broadway-like drama productions, and a variety of programs to satisfy the believers. All the while outside of the church the sick are dying, the depressed are suicidal, the drug and alcohol addicts are homeless, the abused children are suffering, the married couples are divorcing, the lost are wandering, the poor are starving, and the dying are going to hell.

The Church needs to wake up because the world needs Jesus, and the churches today do very little to help reach those souls that are crying out for answers, looking for a miracle, and longing for a Heavenly Father to love them.

The Bible says that God is to be the head of everything that goes on in the Church. The members of the Church are parts of Christ's body, all of equal importance. The Church is the extension of Jesus to others, and it is the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. God's power and God's glory is to fill the Church. It is not the pastors or the Church itself that is to be glorified, only Christ Himself.

"And God placed all things under His feet

and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church,

which is His body,

the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way."

Ephesians 1:22-23 (NIV)

When I was in Bible college, a group of us students used to go street-witnessing every Friday night. We would go out on the streets and bring people out of the cold into a warm shelter where coffee and cookies were served. We would read to them Bible verses and share with them the love of Christ. Afterwards we would pray with them. None of us had business cards to give them — just Jesus and His Word.

Christianity is just that simple and it doesn't cost much. All that is required is a servant's heart and a love for God's Word. Over the years though, Christianity has gotten so complicated and expensive that the simplicity of it has been lost and, in the process, Jesus went missing.

Rubber Tires Or Souls?

Are you catching valuable souls for Jesus Christ, or are you catching things of no value in God's sight?

A popular catchphrase that is being used by many famous celebrities and becoming adopted by people all over the world is: "I'm not religious — I'm spiritual." In other words, "My faith in God is a personality trait that is all about me."

To say, "I'm a Christian," means you are a follower of Christ, and that's all about Him, not about you. If you are a follower of Christ, you study His Word daily so that your faith doesn't become a fuzzy set of values and beliefs. You have a full desire to please God in everything you say and do, so that God will be glorified in your life because He is the only One who is deserving of man's worship. You would never use your gifts and talents to glorify yourself and become an idol to others. Your foremost desire in life is that, when you die, God's Name will be remembered, not yours.

It is also important for a follower of Christ to go to a Bible-believing church that is outward in its faith and not inward; in other words, a church with a heart for reaching out to the lost souls in the community and the world around.

In the Bible, Jesus called out to a group of fishermen and told them to come to Him — Jesus wanted the men to draw near to His presence and be close to His heart. Then Jesus told them to follow Him — it was His heart's desire that they become like Him and obey His Word. Thirdly, Jesus told the men that He would teach them how to bring other people into a saving knowledge of Him.

"Jesus called out to them,

'Come,

follow me,

and I will show you how to fish for people!'"

Matthew 4:19 (NLT)

Looking at this verse, we see that a Christ-filled walk is divided into three steps:

1. Come.
2. Obey.
3. Evangelize.

Celebrities and other people who say, "I'm spiritual and not religious," don't even make it past step one. They may be cool in the world's eyes, but they aren't cool in God's eyes.

No Longer Will The Moon Give It's Light

One day God is going to reign over the Church in all of His glory. There will be no need for the sun to shine during the day nor the moon to give its light during the night because the glory of of the Lord will shine eternal and brighter than any of these sources.

"No longer will you need the sun to shine by day,

nor the moon to give its light by night,

for the Lord your God will be your everlasting light,

and your God will be your glory."

Isaiah 60:19

The glory of the Church will not be her physical beauty, her riches, or her architectural designs. Neither will it be how mega the congregation is. The glory of the Church will not be its name, the titles of her ministers, or the talents of her members. Instead, the glory of the Church will be Jesus Christ, and all that He represents in His character. He will be the One who will be exulted, and it will be His Being that will permeate every part of the church.

All With One Mind

If a church wants a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit such as that which is recorded in the book of Acts, it needs to be unified. It's just that, plain and simple.

The Bible says in Acts 1:14 that before God sent the outpouring of His Holy Spirit upon the believers, "they were all with one mind."

All the fasting and prayer in a church won't bring the power of God unless that church is of one mind. Most people in churches today, however, are confused and divided because their church has become nothing more than an organized religious institution rather than a unified body of believers with one mindset, which is to extend the Kingdom of God — not the other little kingdoms that exist in churches today.

Modern churches mainly operate under human control through positions, ministries, and honourable titles rather than under God's control. As a result, pastors and leaders in the church use their authority to dominate the congregation through spiritual manipulation. They use prayer and sermons to coerce the people to do their will, not God's will.

Churches today need to focus on unity where everyone is of one mind and where God has absolute authority. All the members of the Church are to be one body, not several bodies. And there should be no hierarchy, just servants with God as Ruler.

God's perfect will for the Church is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But when I look in most of the church bulletins, all the retreats an adult or child may want to attend and invite an unsaved friend to have prices attached, usually twenty to thirty dollars. Is the main objective of these retreats to reach the lost in the community? No. If churches would decrease their expenses and paid staff members, and encourage volunteers, they could use the people's donations to pay for those retreats so they could become outreaches instead of social events for Christian adults and venues of entertainment for the children of saved parents. It is offensive to God when special speakers and Christian bands ask for money to do God's will in spreading the message of Jesus Christ.

Churches wouldn't have the division, strife, and murmurings they have today if all the people had one mindset: to touch the hurting, lost, desperate, and dying souls of the world with the healing power and the love of Jesus Christ.

Never Be Ashamed

"So never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord.

And don't be ashamed of me, either, even though I'm in prison for him.

With the strength God gives you,

be ready to suffer with me for the sake of the Good News."

2 Timothy 1:8 (NLT)

The Bible says we are never to be embarrassed to tell others about Jesus Christ, even if we are ridiculed or persecuted for our faith and Biblical beliefs. Likewise, we are to not to be embarrassed of other Christians who fearlessly stand up in the secular world for their faith in God.

Many times Christians shy away from publicly announcing their belief in God because they see other Christians in the news media being harshly criticized, harassed, or otherwise oppressed for their beliefs. But God says we are to never be ashamed of the Gospel. Instead we are to be bold and courageous in Christ.

If all the Christians in the world were unafraid to be spokespeople for God, then the atheists, the immoral, the ungodly, the idolators, and the antichrists wouldn't dominate so much the world's media, where they constantly dishonour the Name of God. When Christians are afraid to speak out, it hinders the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and prevents the salvation of many.

For example, there are famous TV evangelists and preachers who stir away from the unpleasantries in the Bible and preach only messages that are sweet-sounding to people's ears. These evangelists easily become famous, honoured, rich, and idolized by others, but most of them eventually fall into deep corruption and moral sin, disgracing further the Name of God. They fall into the trap of wanting to please others more than pleasing God, of desiring fame, popularity, and money over obedience and sacrifice.

There will be suffering in living our Christian lives as we are obedient to God's Word and tell others about Jesus Christ. But God has promised to give us His strength and endurance along the way.

Let's never be ashamed to tell others about Jesus Christ and let's never be ashamed of each other as we suffer for spreading the Gospel, which is the Good News. Instead, let's support and encourage each other with our prayers and words, and pray that God will open up more doors of opportunities for us to tell others about Him.