Praying for and loving others

Philippians 1:9-10 (NLT)

9 I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. 10 For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.

Paul often shared his prayers with those he prayed for. Here Paul tells the Philippians that he has prayed their love will overflow and they will grow in knowledge and understand of the Lord’s love for them. His desire is to see them live their lives in an honorable and blameless way.

The Apostle Paul spent roughly one-quarter of his missionary career in prisons. John McRay wrote in Christian History:

Roman imprisonment was preceded by being stripped naked and then flogged—a humiliating, painful, and bloody ordeal. The bleeding wounds went untreated as prisoners sat in painful leg or wrist chains. Mutilated, bloodstained clothing was not replaced, even in the cold of winter.

Most cells were dark, especially the inner cells of a prison, like the one Paul and Silas inhabited in Philippi. Unbearable cold, lack of water, cramped quarters, and sickening stench from few toilets made sleeping difficult and waking hours miserable. Because of the miserable conditions, many prisoners begged for a speedy death. Others simply committed suicide.

In settings like this, Paul wrote encouraging, even joyful, letters and continued to speak of Jesus.

[Elesha Coffman, Christian History Connection (6-1-02), from Christian History (issue 47)]

Imagine praying for others that their love will abound while confined to the horrible conditions of prison. It would be hard enough to find strength and desire to love under the misery Paul was exposed to, but he depended on this knowledge and understanding of Christ’s love for him to live his life and encourage others no matter what problems he faced.

We should all be like Paul, praying for people, encouraging others, motivating them to love, no matter what problems were present. Maybe if we did we would find our own burdens a little lighter knowing we helped someone else.

Worry will not add to your life

Matthew 6:27 (NKJV)

27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

No amount of worry can change a person’s height, nor change it change the years they live for these are by the providence of God. Zaccheus was a man short in stature and when he wanted to see Jesus instead of worrying he went into action to climb a tree to get a better view. There is nothing we can add to our lives by worry. We are best to stop and wisely think through the plans of the today and then tackle tomorrow when it comes for it will have its own challenges.

A 2012 article from The Atlantic observed that over the past 100 years we have often turned yesterday's luxury products into today's necessities.

In 1900, less than 10 percent of families owned a stove, or had access to electricity or phones.

In 1915, less than ten percent of families owned a car.

In 1930, less than ten percent of families owned a refrigerator or clothes washer.

In 1945, less than ten percent of families owned clothes dryer or air-conditioning.

In 1960, less than ten percent of families owned a dishwasher or color TV.

In 1975, less than ten percent of families owned a microwave.

In 1990, less than ten percent of families had a cell phone or access to the internet.

The article concluded by noting, "Today, at least 90 percent of the country has a stove, electricity, car, fridge, clothes washer, air-conditioning, color TV, microwave, and cell phone. They make our lives better. They might even make us happier. But they are [never] enough."

[Derek Thompson, "The 100-Year March of Technology in 1 Graph," The Atlantic (4-7-12)]

The true necessities of life are air, food, water, and shelter. Everything else we have are just luxuries. I look around today at all the kids with cell phones and I think that would have been cool to have as a kid. Yet I managed to make it through life until I was an adult without a cell phone. We didn’t have a clothes dryer when I was growing up. We took clothes down to the clothes line, hung them up to dry and came back later to take them back in the house. On really cold days the clothes would even freeze a little, but they would eventually dry. It was the rainy days you might have to drive to the laundry mat to use a clothes dryer or if you had a clothes rack and floor heat vent you might be able to dry them that way.

So let us all be prudent in the choices in life we make. Ensure the necessities are taken care of and everything is just something to be enjoyed. Put aside worry and make a plan for your life. Lean on God to show the direction for your life and what is important and what is not. Take each day one at a time for tomorrow will hold new issues and problems that must be addressed. Why worry about tomorrow it is not going to change the outcome of today.

Our witness and our advocate

1 John 2:1 (NKJV)

1 My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

We know God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins so we should not take advantage of such grace and mercy. Instead it should be our desire to live as Christ; for not only did Christ provide us with saving grace, Jesus Christ is also our advocate taking up for us when we do sin. So not only did Christ bear our sin on the cross, but Jesus Christ also pleads that the sin He died for will be forgiven.

Witold Pilecki was a Polish army captain, a devout Catholic and patriotic Pole who volunteered at age 39 for one of the singular missions of World War II: to get into Auschwitz. “The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery” (Aquila Polonica: 2012), documents, in his own words, Pilecki’s remarkable exploits

On Sept. 19, 1940, Pilecki left the hideout of the underground Polish Home Army, which he helped create, to deliberately enter a German roundup. He was taken to Auschwitz, where he survived vicious beatings, starvation and pneumonia, and, at the same time, set about organizing resistance units, boosting morale and documenting the murder taking place there.

Beginning in 1941, Pilecki used couriers to smuggle out detailed reports of Auschwitz atrocities, reports that reached the Polish resistance and the British government in London. In 1942, he helped organize a secret radio station, using scrap parts, that regularly broadcast the numbers of arrivals and deaths at the camp.

“The game that I was now playing at Auschwitz was dangerous,” Pilecki wrote in his report. “This sentence does not really convey the reality; in fact, I had gone far beyond what people in the real world would consider dangerous.”

Pilecki’s detailed reports of what was happening inside Auschwitz revealed the treachery of the “final solution” to a world that believed the camp only held Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. Perhaps because he wrote in factual, unemotional language, perhaps because he wasn’t a Jew, his observations continue to carry an irrefutable weight.

Pilecki eventually escaped and reported the atrocities that had taken place at Auschwitz.

[Excepts from jewishjournal.com, Rob Eshman, The Man who snuck into Auschwitz, 10/5/2012]

This is a beautiful example of how one man lived like Christ. He stepped from his world of comfort into a world where horrific things took place. He walked among the people having to live as they did and experience what they experienced so he could report firsthand the things that took place.

Jesus died for our sins and continues to be an advocate for us in heaven. He continues to give report for us and stands up for us whenever we call upon His name. May it be that we do not sin, because Jesus gave His life for the death of sin we were to bear alone.

Confident Trust in The Lord

Hebrews 10:35-36 (NLT)
35 So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! 36 Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.

The apostle encourages the people not to throw away their confidence and trust, but to hold fast to their profession of faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. Patient endurance is what they need so they will not turn away from God, but instead focus their attention on doing God’s will.

 

 

In his best-selling book The Reason for God, Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan, shares the story of a woman in his congregation who was learning how the grace extended to us through Christ's work on the cross can actually be more challenging than religion. He writes:

Some years ago I met with a woman who began coming to church at Redeemer and had never before heard a distinction drawn between the gospel and religion [i.e. the distinction between grace and what is often a works-based righteousness]. She had always heard that God accepts us only if we are good enough. She said that the new message was scary. I asked why it was scary and she replied: If I was saved by my good works then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with "rights"—I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a sinner saved by grace—then there's nothing he cannot ask of me."

She understood the dynamic of grace and gratitude. If when you have lost all fear of punishment you also lose all incentive to live a good, unselfish life, then the only incentive you ever had to live a decent life was fear. This woman could see immediately that the wonderful-beyond-belief teaching of salvation by sheer grace had an edge to it. She knew that if she was a sinner saved by grace, she was (if anything) more subject to the sovereign Lordship of God. She knew that if Jesus really had done all this for her, she would not be her own. She would joyfully, gratefully belong to Jesus, who provided all this for her at infinite cost to himself.

 

 

While it is true a Christian belongs to Christ there is no need for fear. Christ gave Himself freely for us that we could live an eternal life in heaven. It should be out of love for Christ that we do His will and minister to others in His name. Since Christ gave His life that we might live in heaven, let us give our lives that others would see Christ living in us. Let us share our confidence and trust in the Lord remembering the rewards that are to come.

Endurance develops strength

Romans 5:3-4 (NLT)

3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.

Dare say any of us enjoy running into the problems and trials of life. However when we do we have the choice to face them or run from them. Running serves no purpose other than to delay the inevitable. Facing a problem means we trust God for leadership as we press on to correct the problems and issues. Sometimes we might not find the answer we want, but we find a way to build character and strength by listening to God.

in his book The Pressure's Off, psychologist Larry Crabb uses a story from his childhood to illustrate our need to delight in God through adversity:

One Saturday afternoon, I decided I was a big boy and could use the bathroom without anyone's help. So I climbed the stairs, closed and locked the door behind me, and for the next few minutes felt very self-sufficient.

Then it was time to leave. I couldn't unlock the door. I tried with every ounce of my three-year-old strength, but I couldn't do it. I panicked. I felt again like a very little boy as the thought went through my head, "I might spend the rest of my life in this bathroom."

My parents—and likely the neighbors—heard my desperate scream.

"Are you okay?" Mother shouted through the door she couldn't open from the outside. "Did you fall? Have you hit your head?"

"I can't unlock the door!" I yelled. "Get me out of here!"

I wasn't aware of it right then, but Dad raced down the stairs, ran to the garage to find the ladder, hauled it off the hooks, and leaned it against the side of the house just beneath the bedroom window. With adult strength, he pried it open, then climbed into my prison, walked past me, and with that same strength, turned the lock and opened the door.

"Thanks, Dad," I said—and ran out to play.

That's how I thought the Christian life was supposed to work. When I get stuck in a tight place, I should do all I can to free myself. When I can't, I should pray. Then God shows up. He hears my cry—"Get me out of here! I want to play!"—and unlocks the door to the blessings I desire.

Sometimes he does. But now, no longer three years old and approaching sixty, I'm realizing the Christian life doesn't work that way. And I wonder, are any of us content with God? Do we even like him when he doesn't open the door we most want opened—when a marriage doesn't heal, when rebellious kids still rebel, when friends betray, when financial reverses threaten our comfortable way of life, when the prospect of terrorism looms, when health worsens despite much prayer, when loneliness intensifies and depression deepens, when ministries die?

God has climbed through the small window into my dark room. But he doesn't walk by me to turn the lock that I couldn't budge. Instead, he sits down on the bathroom floor and says, "Come sit with me!" He seems to think that climbing into the room to be with me matters more than letting me out to play.

I don't always see it that way. "Get me out of here!" I scream. "If you love me, unlock the door!"

Dear friend, the choice is ours. Either we can keep asking him to give us what we think will make us happy—to escape our dark room and run to the playground of blessings—or we can accept his invitation to sit with him, for now, perhaps, in darkness, and to seize the opportunity to know him better and represent him well in this difficult world.

The mockery of alcohol

Proverbs 20:1 (NLT)
Wine produces mockers; alcohol leads to brawls. Those led astray by drink cannot be wise.

When one partakes of alcohol they never know which direction their life may turn.  For it can take people and turn them into something they don’t want to be.

 

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A driver has confessed in a video posted online that he's to blame for a wrong-way car crash stemming from a night of heavy drinking that killed another man and says he's willing to take "full responsibility."

Homicide charges may be filed next week, the prosecutor's office said Friday.

The 3 1/2-minute video, posted on at least two websites on Tuesday, shows 22-year-old Matthew Cordle describing what led to the accident in which he killed the man three months ago.

"My name is Matthew Cordle, and on June 22nd, 2013, I hit and killed Vincent Canzani," he says somberly. "This video will act as my confession."

Cordle says in the video he "made a mistake" when he decided to drive his truck home after "drinking really heavily" and hit the other car, killing the 61-year-old Canzani, of suburban Columbus.

The video begins with Cordle's face blurred as he describes how he has struggled with depression and was simply trying to have a good time with friends going "from bar to bar" the night of the accident. He then describes how he ended up driving into oncoming traffic on a highway.

Cordle's face becomes clear as he reveals his name and confesses to killing Canzani.

"When I get charged I'll plead guilty and take full responsibility for everything I've done to Vincent and his family," Cordle says.

Later, he says he understands that by releasing the video he's giving prosecutors "everything they need to put me away for a very long time." [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/06/dui-video-confession/2775585/]

 

[View the video http://youtu.be/MmpK_EshSL4 ]

 

 

Matthew Cordle is facing the consequences of his actions. He was true to his word and confessed in court by pleading guilty and taking full responsibility for his actions. Matthew seems like a nice young man, wanting to share his problem so that others may not make the same mistake he did. Obviously alcohol took hold of his life and is now mocking him for his mistake. Let’s keep Matthew in our prayers that his testimony will keep others from making the same error he made.

 

Encouraging Words

Ephesians 4:29 (NLT)
29 Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on verse 29 states, “Filthy and unclean words and discourse are poisonous and infectious, as putrid rotten meat: they proceed from and prove a great deal of corruption in the heart of the speaker, and tend to corrupt the minds and manners of others who hear them; and therefore Christians should beware of all such discourse. It may be taken in general for all that which provokes the lusts and passions of others. We must not only put off corrupt communications, but put on that which is good to the use of edifying. The great use of speech is to edify those with whom we converse. Christians should endeavour to promote a useful conversation: that it may minister grace unto the hearers; that it may be good for, and acceptable to, the hearers, in the way of information, counsel, pertinent reproof, or the like.”

 

 

Words can either encourage or discourage someone. Once I was on a trip out of town and hailed down a cab. The driver seemed to be in not quite such a good mood. We had a ways to go so he started talking to me about some of his problems. I would calmly reply in an encouraging way hoping to lift his spirits. After a while he asked, “Why are you in a good mood this morning?” At first I was a little surprised by the question, but I told him I had gotten up and read The Bible for a while that morning and had found some encouraging words of wisdom. Then he said, “That’s my problem, I don’t know about me and The Lord. I always try to do what is right, but I seem to fail.” Then I shared some of the wisdom I had learned from my reading. I shared how we all fail at times, but if we place our faith in The Lord, and ask His forgiveness, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin. As we pulled up to my location the driver stopped, turned around and said, “I want that faith in The Lord you talked about. Would you pray with me?” So I prayed with Mr. Brown and encouraged him to place his faith in The Lord knowing The Lord would always forgive him and encourage him.

I thought I would never see Mr. Brown again, but a year later I was in the same city and hailed down a cab. When I got in the cab I read the taxi license that was posted and the driver was the same Mr. Brown I had spoken to before. This time his attitude was different. After we were on our way I said, “Mr. Brown do you remember me?” He looked back in his rearview mirror and said, “I sure do. You are that man that prayed with me about The Lord.” I asked, “How are you doing this morning?” His response was, “The Lord has given me a joyous heart!”

 

Sometimes all it takes is for us to listen to the problems of another, have compassion for them, and give them words of encouragement and it will lift their hopes and spirit. Our words can build them up if we use them properly. We must remember too that our words can tear down and destroy if used the wrong way. Pray The Lord will bless you with good things to say that are helpful and encouraging.