HOW TO WALK ON WATER?

Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples was a fisherman all his life. I wonder, before he ever walked on water or had seen Jesus do it, had he even given thought to it. On that day, that seemed like, just another fishing day, Jesus was about to teach Peter one of the most important lessons about his faith. He faced an impossible task. One that Peter chose possible instead of settling for what his mind told him was rational. The only thing that could stop Jesus from working a miracle for Peter, was his unbelief.

It is our unbelief that prevents us from ever seeing the things that were possible to us, had we believed God for them. Matt.13:58 tells us that there were many things/works that Jesus did not do for people because of their unbelief. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God ….we are also told that the “Just” shall live by their faith.

George Muller, an English evangelist who founded orphanages in Bristol was a man that learned to trust God for his daily needs to feed the many orphans that were in his care. He once told the story “giving an example of his strong faith” that one foggy day, on board a ferryboat, he prayed that God would lift the fog so that he could get to the Church that he was to be speaking at on time. He prayed and as soon as he said amen and lifted his head, the fog was gone. George was the kind of man that instead of asking God to do something, his request were always in the form of a thank you. Now, that is how we should apply our faith; in the form or a prayer request, saying, “Thank you Father for what you are going to do, if it be in your will”….The Lord answered George’s many prayers in the same way that he answered Peter, when he cried out to Jesus as he was sinking….it was Peter’s faith that pulled him up and allowed him to do the unthinkable….walk on water!

How can you walk on water? By seeing Christ in your storm, by responding to what He tells you to do….and by refusing to be intimidated by your surroundings, maybe even doing what others in the boat are afraid to do, by choosing the impossible, instead of settling for the rational! Step out of your boat today, for to reach the other side you must let go of your shore….if it is walking on water that you need to do, your faith can take you there!

Loving you today!

Bren

WHEN PARENTS GO ASTRAY

We often read about children that grow up in Christian homes where there was an influence of godliness yet, when they get older, turn from what they were taught, to seek pleasures that indulge their fleshly natures. But seldom do you ever hear about parents that walk after God, but in the end, turn from what they know to be truth to seek those same pleasures that indulge their fleshly natures. The Scriptures tell us about a King who just like that. The King was Hezekiah, one of Israel’s most righteous kings. Hezekiah’s son Manasseh on the other hand, was known for seducing God’s people into doing more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed, according to 2 King 21:9 and did evil in the sight of the Lord…II King 21:2. Why Hezekiah’s righteousness did not pass on to his son has been a thought to ponder throughout the ages. While the Scripture tells us that each man must work out his own salvation with fear and trembling, we know that many never bother to work it out, they simply refuse it altogether.

First let’s talk about Hezekiah and how he worked out his salvation. We know that he was a man of prayer. Scripture reveals that in Isaiah, Chapters 37-38. His life revealed his faith and his work for God. His devotion to God was undisputed in Isa 38:2-3 and was rewarded by God in Isa. 38:4-6. His witness and testimony was seen and heard throughout the land. However, Chronicles 32:25 comments on Hezekiah’s deteriorating attitude after God granted him his prayer to be healed and extended his life for an additional 15 years.

It’s as if at some point and time Hezekiah thought himself somehow invulnerable from harm after all the divine interventions that saved him in warfare and from his almost,  fatal illness. Soon after his healing, the king of Babylon heard that Hezekiah was sick and had been divinely healed, which indicates that the news of Hezekiah’s life was spreading far and wide to other nations. Having God kill 185,000 soldiers of the feared Assyrian empire outside his city walls surely made Hezekiah very famous during that time. The king of Babylon sent gifts by way of the ambassadors to Hezekiah. At that point, Hezekiah’s fame was attracting him some friends. Naively, and very unwisely Hezekiah welcomed his new found friends into his palace and his kingdom. He showed them the house of his special treasures, all  his silver and gold, the spices and the precious ointment, all of his armors and weaponry, as well as all that was in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah did not show according to Isaiah 39:1-2. This was most foolish on Hezekiah’s part. He gave the Babylonian ambassadors a motive to come back and attack Judah.

Isaiah the prophet came to Hezekiah and told him not only were his actions foolish, but also that everything he had shown the Babylonians would be taken by the them and that his sons would become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

Hezekiah’s reaction was surprisingly selfish. His answer showed no concern either for the well-being of his nation or for his offspring. As long as the disaster was not to occur in his own lifetime, Hezekiah was unconcerned about it.. Isaiah 39:8. That verse must be one of the most blatant remarks in all scripture. There was no repentance on Hezekiah’s part. He did not fast or bother to seek the Lord’s mercy upon his nation or for his children, not even for his own foolishness. For most decent parents, when you mess with their children, you get their attention quickly. But not HeZie….no, he had reached a place in his life where it was all about him.

Now, let’s look at Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son. He began to reign when he was 12 years old II Kings 21:1. Since Hezekiah was granted 15 years of additional life by God  in Isaiah 38:5, Manasseh was born three years after Hezekiah was divinely healed and he grew up during those days and times when Hezekiah was selfishly enjoying the blessings that he had received from God, and in those 15 years, it appeared that he cared little or nothing for the future of his kingdom and children.  Manasseh would never have been born if Hezekiah had died on God’s original timetable Isaiah 38:1. There is no doubt, the stories of the his father’s deliverance of Jerusalem by God and the additional extension on his life were common stories told over and over again as Manasseh grew up. 
I’m sure that Manasseh also heard the stories about Hezekiah showing the Babylonians all the treasures of his kingdom, and about the prophet Isaiah having pronounced God’s curse on the nation and on Manasseh for Hezekiah’s foolishness. Manasseh also must have known that his father, Hezekiah, did nothing to prevent the judgment of his Father’s God upon the nation and upon Manasseh himself. Think about it. A boy growing up in a royal household and where he was repeatedly reminded that his father’s God had pronounced a divine curse upon him for his father’s sin. Manasseh was under a generational curse, and surely felt doomed and rejected by both God and his father. Realizing that God was going to punish him for his father’s sin, Manasseh likely grew to regard his father’s God as unfair and cruel. Apparently, Manasseh also saw his father, enjoying life throughout his boyhood for there is no record Hezekiah ever intervened with God in behalf of his son. It is not hard to see how Manasseh, as a boy, could grow to hate both his father and his father’s God.
One can only speculate that after becoming king, Manasseh figured that as long as he was cursed, he may as well live up to it. Anytime you tell a child over and over again that he is bad or ugly or whatever it may be….that child will do his best in most cases to live up to what he has been told he is. This young boy grew up seething at both his father and God, and at the age of 12, he immediately became King and began ruling in a manner which openly displayed his contempt and anger for both Hezekiah and God. He sought after other gods, implemented human sacrifices and dealt openly with demons in II Kings 21:2-9. Manasseh led his nation into such sins and abominations that Judah became more vile than the corrupt heathen nations which had lived in the Promised Land before the Israelites came into it. Try visualizing what could happen when a very angry and resentful 12 year-old boy is granted unlimited power over a nation. It seemed as if he was determined to show God just how angry and resentful he was of the generational curse that had been placed on him. It also appears that Manasseh never even considered repentance as an option to delay or end, the generational curse. His actions makes one wonder if Hezekiah had ever even bothered to teach his son about such an option. Manasseh’s life reflects a large amount of neglect on Hezekiah’s part. Manasseh was angry and was going to show God what pure unadulterated, open rebellion really was!
God noticed it too; for He pronounced increased judgments upon Judah and Jerusalem in II Kings 21:12-15. Manasseh then went on a cruel and massive killing spree as a result,  in verse 16. Manasseh must have watched the torture and killings of innocent people in the same  evil ways as those devised and watched by other cruel and unjust leaders. In the end, God brought an army of Assyrians who took Manasseh captive and brought him in chains to Babylon. Given Mansseh’s reign of terror, one can only think about those that were relieved as they saw the Assyrians taking him captive. It was while he was in the dungeon that Manasseh came to his senses. II Chronicles 33:12-13 we find that Manasseh humbled himself greatly before the God of this fathers and that God not only had mercy but also restored Manasseh to the throne of Judah! Manasseh’s repentance was lasting. He “knew that the Lord was God,” responsibly attended to matters of state, restored the defenses of Judah, removed all the idols, repaired God’s altar and Temple as well as other things. He reigned for 55 years, one of the longest reigns of any king mentioned in the Bible II Chronicles 33:1.
King Hezekiah started great, but ended his reign very badly. Manasseh started horribly, but ended better than his father. However, the sins of Manasseh in the beginning of his reign did lasting damage to the kingdom of Judah. His own son, Amon, was an evil king who was assassinated after two years. Josiah, Manasseh’s grandson, was a good king who obeyed the Lord, but according to Jeremiah 3:6-10 Judah only pretended to return to God’s ways. When Josiah died, the kingdom of Judah sunk fully into sin and ended a few decades later when its people were carried into captivity.
Never think for a moment that our sins do not find us out. Whatsoever we sow….that shall we also reap. Let it not be to our credit, that as parents we are led astray and leave our children spiritually helpless. But, to teach them the importance of obedience to God and to seek forgiveness and restoration over their sin by how we live.
Hold Fast to that which you have been taught and be sure to teach it to your children!
Loving you today,
Bren

TO KNOW GOD

The Word of God tells us to bring our every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, if we are in Him. We, like Samuel must hear His call (not only a call to ministry, but a call to obedience in all matters, a call to do it His way) and then we must say, “Here I am Lord!” God is always telling us to: Come after Me, Follow Me, Seek for Me, Hear Me, Search for Me, Abide in Me, Sit with Me, Be still and know Me, Ask of Me, Boldly say unto Me. He is knocking at our hearts door; but we must open the door so that He will come in…He is a not thief that will come in uninvited. It is that way in every circumstance of our lives, He will not push His way into our situation, He must be ask, and when He is ask, we must move over and make room for what He wants to do…then, once we have moved out of the way, He will in no way fail us, nor will He forsake us even up to the point of death. The words within every page of scripture echo constantly to us, “Know Me”…God is saying to us, just Know Me….for to know Him, is to love Him and to Love Him is to Obey Him. To know Him allows us the understanding that we might not otherwise have in our situtaions, but it is always our choice, we must make the effort to know Him in what we may be asking. God does not “make” us “think like Jesus” we must be willing to train our minds to how Jesus thinks; by knowing Him, and the only way to do that is to know His Word. When we spend time in His Word, we are spending time with Him. We may walk away feeling no immediate change. Yet, if our hearts are as fallow ground to receive His Word, then His Words are nourishment to our spiritual health all the way down to the bones and marrow of our spiritual fiber. Once we know Him, we are to abide in Him. Stay there! Stick to what we know from His Word. We are saved only that the Son of God be manifested in and through us, putting to death the flesh that longs to overtake us and make us impotent towards spiritual things. As God’s children, we must always be willing to rise to the occasion to make it happen.

Ephesians 1:18 tells us, “That we may know what is the hope of His calling….”. When you are searching for the will of God, simply Seek to Know Him, don’t try and rush it, He will appear to you with the answers you need in the time that He knows that you need them….

Discernment will only come through intercession….ask, but then wait for it!

Loving you today sweet Friend!

Bren

STIRRED BUT NOT CHANGED

When I was a little girl, I often times played house with old mason jars and their lids in the back yard. In my role play, I would pretend to can vegetables as I saw my mother doing it.  In my mason jar lids I would place leaves on top of the mud and after they dried would leave a beautiful impression of the leaf. I would also place dirt in a jar of water. I would stir them hard and at first they gave an appearance of change from the clear water with mud at the bottom of the jar to an almost chocolate milk consistency. When I was through playing, I would walk away and return the next day to  pick up where I had left off in my pretend play the day before. The mixture while they  may have appeared the day before to have changed from where I had stirred them, would then look exactly like they did before I mixed the water and dirt to get my chocolate milk appearance. The mud was once again at the bottom and the water at the top, separating the sediment from the water to once again be clear. As a young girl, it alway amazed me how no matter how hard I stirred that mixture up….it always settled back to the way it was before I stirred it.  Upon reminiscing of those days, I was reminded about the Apostle Paul when he had stirred the heart of King Agrippa, yet the king was never changed. There have been books written, sermons preached, songs sung and warnings given throughout time about how the power of persuasion, when it reaches its fullness can overwhelm and even bring about brokenness into an individual’s life; especially if it is God who is doing the persuading. But sometimes, no matter how much we are persuaded in a thing, it may never move us to change.  

Almost persuaded, King Agrippa II said to Paul in Acts 26 upon hearing his testimony as he defended himself for being accused of apostasy, “Almost you persuade me to be a Christian.”

Paul had turned his defense into an opportunity to preach the gospel to a group of elite political rulers who were very skeptical in what Paul had to say. In Acts 25, King Agrippa II had heard about Paul and wanted to hear his defense. Upon hearing Paul, the King uttered some of the most sorrowful words in scripture as he responded to Paul’s discourse. He told Paul that in hearing his testimony, he was almost persuaded to believe him to the point of becoming a Christian himself. Yet we know that according to scripture, he did not.

King Agrippa II came from a very sinful family. He was the seventh and last King of the Herod Family. He was a descendant of Herod the Great. His family tree was infested with an evil satanic influence. His great grandfather Herod the Great who in searching to find the Christ child, ordered a great number of babies killed in his failed attempt to kill the baby Jesus. King Agrippa II’s father was Agrippa I, also known as Herod Agrippa or simply Herod. In Acts 12 Herod Agrippa stirred the wrath of God because he allowed himself to be exalted as an equal with God. An angel struck him down and he was eaten by worms. He also had the apostle James beheaded and had tried to kill Peter. Adultery and incest rotted away at his family tree. Agrippa II’s uncle, Herod Antipas, divorced his wife to marry the former wife of his brother. It was this Herod who was responsible for the beheading of John the Baptist.

Being accused of apostasy, the Jewish leaders accused Paul of opposing their law, as well as the great Caesar himself. He was guilty of none of those charges and demanded that he be tried in Rome as a Roman citizen. King Agrippa and his sister Bernice were in Caesarea to visit Festus, the new governor. King Agrippa had no children of his own and was in an incestuous relationship with his sister Bernice at this time. Festus asked King Agrippa II what charges he should send on to Rome against Paul. King Agrippa asked that Paul be brought to him.

It is believed that Paul was small in stature, bald with thick eye brows and possibly knobby knees. Yet he stood humble and full of grace before kings and governors as he began boldly to declare Christ to them. Paul told Agrippa that he was a proud follower of this same Jesus who had been tortured, died and rose again. He pointed to his resurrection as proof that he was the Messiah. Paul was saying, that he was not an apostate Jew, but a Christian. He was not against the law. The law was fulfilled in the Christ that he preached. He revealed his experience along the road to Damascus. “I was blinded but now I see more clearly than ever before.”

Paul then looked directly into the eyes of the king and told him,  “King Agrippa, you are an expert on Jewish affairs, you know the law. You know the story of Jesus and you are aware of his death and resurrection. Will you agree with me and testify to Festus that the things I say are true?” and Agrippa’s sad and disturbing reply still echoes through the hearts of men and women throughout the ages. He responded to Paul by saying, “Almost you persuade me to be a Christian.”

Almost, but not quite. Agrippa’s heart was so stirred by the truths that Paul was laying before him yet, while Agrippa was convinced of those truths, his flesh chose to deny what he knew to be truth out of the fear of what it may cost him, should he accept it and pronounces it as truth.

That my friend is why men, women boys and girls today reject the truth when they are confronted with it. There is always a cost and for many, they are simply unwilling to pay it. While Christ paid the penalty for our sins we must pay the cost of accepting or rejecting the work that He did for us when we are confronted with it. Some may say, it does not cost us anything….but my friend it cost us to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him in whatever it may be. That is why so many are unwilling…because they understand that it will cost them something if they accept the free gift that God offers through His Son. Many are stirred, but only few will dare to be changed! Many are like the dirt in the glass, when they are confronted with truth, it moves them or stirs them for a better word, but in the end, they settle back into what they are comfortable with and say, “Whew, I was almost persuaded!”  

May we always be persuaded...

Loving you today,

Bren  

TO DELIVER AN UN-WANTED MESSAGE

In the book of Jeremiah we see the final prophecies that God sent to His precious Judah, a wayward and rebellious children. He told the prophet Jeremiah to go and take warning of the oncoming destruction if the nation did not turn and repent. Jeremiah called out for the nation to turn back to God, while at the same time Jeremiah recognized the inevitability of Judah’s destruction due to its unrepentant idolatry and immorality. Their hearts had become so hard against the truth, that they refused to neither recognize nor see the warnings as real and forthcoming. Instead, they lay blame on Jeremiah...it was just easier that way, for his message fell on deaf ears and it was unwanted.
After the death of the last righteous King Josiah, the nation of Judah had almost completely abandoned God as well as His commands and instructions as to how they were to live. They had strayed so far from God that Jeremiah compared them to a prostitute that abandon her husband and went after other men. That is a pretty strong comparison. God had in the past promised that He would always judge idolatry most severely, and Jeremiah was warning Judah that God’s judgment was at hand. God had delivered Judah from destruction on countless occasions, but His mercy was about to come to an end; by their taking it for granted. Jeremiah recorded the events where King Nebuchadnezzar would conquer Judah, making them subject to him. After further rebellion, God brought Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian armies back to destroy and desolate Judah and Jerusalem.
How sad it is when God’s people so quickly forget God and turn to things that will only bring pain and regret. I can attest to the fact that there have many times in my life as a Christian that I have suffered grief and pain by doing the right thing…for we are not immune to life, but I can promise that the one thing I never have to deal with is regret. As long as I am striving to obey what I know He has ask of me. Yet in my flesh, when I yield to it and choose the opposite of God’s plan for me, there is always regret; and that regret weighs on me far heavier than anything else that I can imagine until I repent and seek forgiveness. Even in this most severe judgment, God promised restoration to Judah, if only they would turn back to God. The Prophet Jeremiah had a most difficult message to deliver. Jeremiah loved Judah, but also trusted that God was good, just, and righteous. We too must obey God, even when it is difficult, recognize God’s will as more important than our own desires, and trust that God, in His infinite wisdom and perfect plan, will bring about the best for His children.
As Jeremiah sought to do the right thing, it seemed as though no one was happy with him. When he rebuked Judah, they thought of him as a trouble maker, one who provoked dispute and conflict within the land and the people. He felt condemned if he did tell the people the truth and he felt condemned if he didn’t. I can assure you that as you walk with God you will find the same discouragement as did Jeremiah, it often goes with the call of being used of God and can often times leave you feeling despondent and pitted against the ones that you are trying to help.
The Lord responded to Jeremiah’s discouragement assuring him that he would care for him in those times of loneliness, misunderstandings and isolation from those that were cursing him for what he was doing. God told Jeremiah that He would rescue and deliver His people from their sin, redeeming them and liberating them from their bondage if they would simply turn back to Him.
While like Jeremiah, you too may face those spiritual dry patches where no matter how much you serve, how much you give and how much you do, you sometimes will succumb to discouragement, and like Jeremiah felt, you too may wonder why it is that the very ones that you are trying to reach with truth appear to be an enemy, having no problems with how they are living or what they are doing. You must remember one thing….your job is not to bring the change, but simply to bring the message, seasoned in love and self humility. We are servants of the Most High, and it is our job to speak the truth in love, but moreover, it is our duty to live out what we are speaking to others!

Hold Fast,
Bren