THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP

Two are better than one, because they have a  good return for their work; if one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together they will keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

These verses reveal to us the importance of having others in our lives to help us in our daily task... in our tribulations... in our comfort as well as our defense against our enemies. They assure us that there is power in relationships and friends that we do not possess within ourselves alone.

We are also reminded in the New Testament that where two or three are gathered in Christ name He is there in the midst with them. Jesus has told us that He would never leave us nor forsake us...so we are never to feel like we are ever alone. You see sweet friend, if you are in Christ, you can be assured that you are never alone. He is a faithful companion. He is the other side of that relationship... Pursue Him, look for Him, seek Him as a hidden treasure....you will find Him...He is there waiting for you to come....

Friends will come into your life and they will go....and blessed is the one who has friends.... but, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends....John 15:13....and this is what Jesus did for you!

Loving on you this Valentine's Day!
Bren

THE ONE I DESIRE

How does one get to know God? How can we understand His ways? How can our hearts be completely His? Those are questions that many people would love to have an answer to, yet in the simplicity of the question lies the truth in what we seek. To know Him.. to understand Him and be so totally in love with Him is to DESIRE HIM!

The more we seek Him, the more we know Him, the more we know Him, the more we want Him, and the more we want Him, the more we love Him! It is that simple. Sadly however, many people will never desire God on the level of knowing Him personally as their Savior…their Friend or their Lord.

You see we can not love God merely on circumstances. For our circumstances can never be trusted to indicate with certainty what our actions should be or what God’s purposes are in how He chooses to move in our lives. In Ecc. 8:14-9:1 Solomon wrote about the futility in trying to determine God’s will on the basis of circumstances. Scripture only permits the child of God to be Shadrach’s, Meshach’s and Abednego’s… who’s life responses says to the world that our faith is great enough that we will trust God no matter what happens…for we know Him, and although we may not understand all His way, we trust Him, and our hearts are turned toward Him no matter the situation or outcome.

I once read a story about a young coal miner who because of his injuries in a mine accident became an invalid. Over the course of his life he watched as his friends raised their families, prospered and enjoyed life’s recreations. Many days passed as the young man watched others enjoy the rewards of having families, being able bodied to take care of their homes and provide for their loved ones and playing with grandchildren in which he knew that he would never have. He sat and watched as his body withered away, his house crumbled and the missed joy of having a family to comfort him in his old age.

One day a young man came to visit the old man. He had heard that the man was a lover of God and showed his strong faith by never wavering in all his tribulations. As he asks the old man, “How can you believe in God through such things, with all that has happened to you? Don’t you sometimes doubt God’s love for you?”

With that the old man smiled and then replied, “Yes, it is true. Sometimes satan comes calling on me in this old fallen down house of mine. He pulls up a chair and sits down beside me and begins his questions….he points out my window to the strong, still active men that I once worked with, and says, “Does Jesus love you? Then the devil will cast a jeering glance around my tattered room as he points to the fine homes that my friends across the street have and will say to me, “Does Jesus love you?”.  Finally, satan points to the grandchild of a friend of mine, a man who has everything that I do not, and after I have shed a tear or two, satan will say, “Does Jesus really love you?”.

And what do you say when satan speaks to you like that, ask the young man. Said the old miner, “In my mind, I take satan by the hand and lead him to a hill called Calvary. There I point to the thorn tortured brow, to the nail pierced hands and feet, and to the spear wound in His side….then I ask satan, “Doesn’t Jesus love me?”

You see the cross is our confidence in God in spite of lifelong heartaches. Had any of us ever stood at the foot of the cross and seen the physical and spiritual horror; we would have cried out to God to stop the suffering that His Son undertook on our behalf. Knowing that we could not nor would we be able to bear it, He deserves our continued longevity in our faith and commitment and devotion out of His great love for us.  Your faith will find it’s true focus as you look to the cross, and you do that by knowing God through His Word, giving your life over completely to what He ask of you, and trusting the outcomes for every life’s circumstance. This is how you will know if you are “Desiring Him”….for to love Him is to know Him, to know Him is to love Him!

Loving you and praying that you too will know the One I Desire....
Bren

LOOK... FOR WHAT GOD IS ABOUT TO DO!

Do you remember the story of "Three Princes of Serendipity? It is an old classic about three rulers who set out to find treasure and while they were looking, found something even better than what they had expected. The word serendipity means to, “live expecting surprises”. As a child of God that is exactly what we should be doing....living, expecting God to work on our behalf far beyond our expectations! One day, God surprised a young shepherd boy named David, by calling him to be one of the greatest kings the world has ever known. From a burning bush God also called a forgiven murderer to lead His people into the Promise Land and free them from their burdens and bondages that they had gotten themselves into. As one door had shut and other doors slammed, Paul, upon receiving a vision or call you might say in Acts 16:9 responded by going over to Macedonia to help a man crying out to him....and the result was that a non-Jewish world heard the gospel message for the first time. All through the ages God keeps showing up in your life and in the life of others. He is showing up unexpectedly and He is changing things! He is still the God of surprise and says to you and I....."See, I am doing a new thing!" Perhaps you may be saying, "if you only knew my situation, you'd understand that nothing is ever going to change.....the scriptures tell us that, "Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you..." Oh sweet friend, did you hear that? I said, the scriptures tell us that, "Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you..."Isa. 30:18.He is just waiting to show what He can do for you! Talk to Him, find out what His plans may be....if He doesn't tell you right away, be still and wait.....BUT, trust Him and start looking for His surprises.... "See, I am doing a new thing....do you not perceive it?..." Isa 43:19 God longs to be good to us.....but He demands obedience....and if he says to us, Look, See, Do....then we need to listen and obey! Loving on you today, Bren

WHERE ARE YOUR AFFLICTIONS TURNING YOU?

Oh the lessons that can be learned from the Bible. Every book and every chapter is full of knowledge and wisdom to be gained... if we will simply read it, study on it, giving some thought to it and obey what God reveals to us through the pages.

In the book of Job we learn that man can trust God even when explanations are missing. Like Job, we can learn that God's silence does not mean His absence. His control over nature and creation assures us, of His all sufficient ability to care for us. 2Cor. 12:9 even tells us that His grace is sufficient for us. That means we need not worry about anything, but simply and quietly accept God's designs, knowing that all things work together for those that love the Lord.

While we can go to God and ask Him why, so that we may better understand His ways for our benefits....we should never question His wisdom or reasons as to why He does what He does or allows things through His own Sovereignty. For God does not report to man and man must learn to remain content in the things that he can not understand; and that because we are but mere men and women, we are finite and that keeps us from having eternity's perspective, which only God possesses.

God has reasons for everything He does or allows and they are all to better His children because of them and through them. The scripture tells us that God knows the plans that He has for us, and they are to prosper us not to harm us.....Whereas satan intended to use Job's afflictions to move Job away from God, God's intentions were that those afflicitons open the way for Job to experience God in a deeper way comprehending His person and Character in a more surreal way than before his afflictions.

The story began with satan's charge that Job was serving God for the profit motive and that his affections was payment for blessings only. If God removed or withheld His blessing form Job satan accused... then Job would curse God and therefor both God and man would be belittled and mocked. The reputations of both God and man were at stake. God bribes no man to worship Him, like the angles in heaven they freely want and desire true worship of their own free wills. God does not dangle rewards in front of us to entice us to serve Him, but blesses the humble and shows mercy and grace to all out of His great love.

Like Job, we have the honor every time we are slandered by satan to be used by God to refute satan's accusations that we too serve God for only the good that He allots us and that we will curse Him when He withholds a blessing or two. As Job questioned his wife, we too must ask ourselves the same thing: will we receive good from God but not bad?

Jesus told Peter that the devil had ask permission to sift him.....and that is what he ask of us as well. God allows the sifting to show us our true commitment lever for Him. Jesus told Peter...."but I have prayed for you"....and he does the same for us....His Spirit intercedes on our behalf to help us stand. Job had it in him...after he had been sifted by satan he had what it took to honor God with his life, even when he had nothing but his life left to give God....he chose to keep on honoring and serving no matter what he lost.

Let us search our own hearts to see what is in us. Don't wait to be sifted by the devil. Start today searching and cleaning house.....God is searching for those whose hearts are really turned toward Him...

Remember, Never let your afflictions turn you away from God.....but always turn you to God!
Praying for your steadfastness today and loving on you as well!
Bren

GOD DEMANDS RIGHTEOUSNESS

Whether dealing with the individual or the nation, the prophet Amos always called for a steadfast pattern for right living and he refused to accept any substitution which might be offered in God’s name by men. His prophecies never compartmentalized life into the secular and the sacred... because, he viewed religion and righteousness in daily living as inseparable from one another....and this is how we should view our lives if we are God's Children.

While there is a special sense in which we are accounted righteous through Christ now for those that belong to Him, seeking God’s righteousness must be our ultimate goal as a Christian. That was what Jesus meant when He said “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect…” Matt 5:48.

Every moral judgment that we make must be made in the light of God’s moral character.

God demands righteousness in every area of our personal and corporate life, not in the areas that we choose to be or allow Him to work.  His Word tells us to be Holy even as He is Holy!

God never ask more of us than we are able to give, He has made us overcomers; and that is why we need His power to overcome the things in our lives that seperate us from His best for us. Sin always seperates us from God. While we may no longer be seperated spiritaully from Him, if we belong to Him, we can break fellowship with Him by our sin. So, we must always be ready to confess the moment we realize that we have sinned and make every opportunity to correct, stop, and prevent those sins from happeing again.

If we love Him....we will obey Him!

We are mighty in His Power and in His Strength! Put on His full Armour....and be strong to endure and withstand whatever may come your way!

Loving you today!

Bren

RESISTING GOD'S WILL FOR YOUR LIFE

In spite of the work that we know God does in and through us, we still resist and doubt Him at times. That resistance comes from unbelief. Despite all the answered prayer and work around us that we see Him doing and know that only He can make happen, one would think that we could never doubt or not trust His timing or judgment for our lives, yet we do; and time and time again we demonstrate that resistance toward Him through our disobedience and lack of trust.

We first and foremost resist God willfully, by closing our hearts to what He may be saying to us…and do what we want instead of what He may want for us. Maybe God has not come through for us on our time line. We shrink back from what seems hard to us by fearing both the real and unreal difficulties that our minds present and picture before us. We resist Him by our unbelief.

Many people thwart God’s will and plans by simply neglecting to know it. They may think that as long as they don’t pursue to know it, then they will not be held accountable for it…. but in the end we will all be held accountable for neglecting to know and pursuing His will.

When we resist what we ought to know from God… we thwart what His will and way should be for us. The scripture gives us many stories about how the children of Israel thwarted God’s will for them time after time. It also tells of the great consequences that followed after they stubbornly disobeyed Him. There may have been times, after they had turned away from God, that they seemed to have prospered for a time…but in the end, their very prosperity led to their undoing.
In the times that they served God and walked in His ways, He provided them protection from their enemies, granted them deliverances and when they turned away from Him, they found themselves no longer under His umbrella of protection; therefore, their territories were laid waste, and they were brought into the greatest misery.

Many of the evils that came upon the children of Israel had their root in their refusal to obey God. In one account, had they followed God’s plan, the Israelites would have gone directly into the Promised Land; but, they resisted what God had told them, listened to the fearsome tales of the ten spies, disbelieving God, and refused to obey Him….. and consequently, they had to take the long, dangerous, and distressing route by way of the of Sinai… with its burning desert sand, blistering hot winds, the shortness of water, the feared serpents and scorpions and the constant dealing with sand in their water, their food, their belongings.

There was no other way for them to reach the Promised Land when they refused to go by the way God would have led them. Like the Hebrew Children, there are many people today in their own Sinai Deserts, because of their resisting the will of God, and unwillingness to be led in the shortest way to peace and happiness but have opted to go the directions of their own choosing. There are many people however, that looking back over their lives, can now see where by resisting God’s will they brought upon themselves unhappiness and weary toils, and had to travel in a desert way, when they might have had a fair and pleasant way had they been content to submit to God.

Many of the evils that came upon the children of Israel had their root in this one refusal... to obey God. Oddly we are all as the scriptures says we are....we are but sheep that have gone astray, each to his own way. As we go our own way, we need to remember this....we go without the protection of the Father. While God never forces His way on us....His absence alone will always drive us to our knees in the end.

So, it is far better that we obey at the beginning of what He may ask of us and not resist His will or direction for us. For the road through the dessert, is very dry, and holds no rest for us!Psalm 143:10 "Teach me to do Thy will; for thou art my God; Thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of rightness."
Loving you and praying God will work in and through your life in a very REAL way today!
Bren

THE SECRET CODE OF A CHRISTIAN

One of my favorite verses in the Bible and there are many….is found in John 13:4…”He…laid aside His garments; and took a towel…” This was the secret…the code that the disciples were to live by.  Not the kind of towel that you see on the back of a golf cart, nor a sports towel with a favorite sports team on it signifying who you support or stand for….but a simple hand towel, use to dry the feet and help wipe the dirt off another who needs to be washed.

This is also the secret to personal ministry and service. The Lord not only washed His disciples feet to show part of the real meaning as to why He came….to seek, to serve and to save all those that would come….but He does this for all those that belong to Him. Every time we sin, He says come, sit down let me minister to you and wipe off that old in you and love on you a while. You will feel better once you are clean.

Recall with me when Jesus was about to wash Peter’s feet and remember how he responded to Jesus….the God of the universe bending down to wash his old dirty stinky, calloused feet.

NO!…you shall never wash my feet, Peter said… in verse 8 of John 13! Jesus responded to Peter by saying….”Unless I wash you, you have no part of me.” Then Peter said….uh….Lord, not only my feet but my hands and my head as well.

Jesus went on to tell Peter that “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean, though not every one of you…”… in verse 10…and of course he was replying to the one who would betray Him as he ended that statement….so I’m sure Judas heard that part as well….

In verse 12 after Jesus had completed washing all the disciples feet He said to them…”Do you understand what I have done for you?...He said in verse 15 “I have set you an example and that you should do for others as I have done for you”…..going on to say in verse 16 that “no servant is greater than his master.

You see what Jesus was saying to the disciples, Paul himself learned through his own walk with Christ “……all the things that I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant….I’ve dumped it all in the trash….I gave up all that inferior stuff, so that I could know Christ…” Phil.3:7-10

We must all reach the same place that Peter and Paul reached….to know Christ on that level. Yet many will never know Him, for they unlike Paul will not be willing to dump it all in order to know the high privilege of knowing Christ and serving Him at that level.

We all must be willing to serve no matter where, no matter the cost, no matter who it may be. We are not called to help everybody, but we are called to help somebody. Jesus is asking us... what are we willing to lay aside to serve Him….for Peter, he laid aside his pride….many times to serve….he allowed God’s love to break through in those areas needed to take him to the places that he thought he could not go….to feed God’s sheep….to win the lost...to wash some dirty old stinky feet!

When it says that Jesus laid aside His garment to take up a (lowly) towel…that my friend is some powerful stuff right there….He laid aside a Heavenly and Royal Garment that heaven revered as costly, to pick up that little towel, bend down lower than the person he was serving to do one of the dirtiest jobs there was in those days….to wash the feet of another.

Let’s think about what we may need to lay aside to go and love on somebody today!

I love you and am praying that your joy may be full as you serve the Master of Servants!

Bren