#Lifestyles

The free enterprise system of our government has enabled many people to attain riches.  The life styles of the rich and famous has led TV to produce shows featuring these people, showing off their palatial homes and toys and fashionable clothing.  We find out what they eat and how they keep fit, what they drive and where they go on vacations.  Then we learn of divorces and addictions because some of these blessed people weren't ready for the riches that came their way.

We hardly ever hear about the average person that goes to work five days a week and lives in a modest home and is faithful to their spouse and loves their kids and goes to church and just keeps on keeping on.  Most of our population is made up of these people and they are the bedrock of our country.  There is something special about this average person, but no TV show today will feature them.  Their story isn't exciting.

What is really valuable in life?  You may be surprised to hear what God says, "Contentment with Godliness is great gain." 1 Timothy 6:6  These six words are pretty complete.  Contentment is being satisfied no matter what state you may find yourself in.  When riches come enjoy them. When things get financially tight, know that your will learn something as you adjust and change your priorities and be thankful for it always could be worse.

Godliness is the inner you loving God more each day and making time to listen to Him through His Word and talking to Him over all things.  It is trusting Him implicitly and bringing all your concerns to Him and just worshiping Him and loving Him.

Great gain is just that.  You get the benefits from contentment and Godliness.  You come out richer in the things that matter the most.

#Investments

It pays to be careful when you are considering investing your hard earned money.  Anyone who does find the right thing  to invest in, does so in order to reap a return.  The stock market is a gamble and even buying land can prove to your undoing.  A farmer not only has bought the land and all the machinery it takes to prepare and reap the harvest, but he has invested in seed and fertilizer and bug killers plus all the time it takes to get the crop growing.  The weather can be his worst enemy - no rain, storms with wind and hail and cold coming too soon.  All that has been invested might be lost.

God has invested an immeasurable amount in this planet for the sake of the human race and He has the right to expect a good return.  Explorers have discovered iron and gold and diamonds and more and scientists have put God's laws to work and developed electricity and X-ray and microwaves and more and all this has benefited mankind.  God is constantly working bless us, but does He get a return?

God planted His Son in a grave two thousand years ago.  His perfect Son had done no wrong, yet paid the full price for all, yes, all the wrongs done by the human race till the end of time by His death on a cross.  God accepted Jesus' payment and proved that He did by resurrecting Him on the third day.  God expects a return for this investment. 

What does He want?  His word tells us that He is not willing that any should perish.  That means that He does not want any person to spend eternity in Hell.  He wants Jesus' payment to be utilized by every one of us.  He wants everyone to understand their condition as condemned until, and if they see Jesus as the answer and claim their right to eternal life by trusting in His death and resurrection.

Do you understand that heaven is a perfect place and only perfection is allowed there?  Are you perfect?   There is a solution.  When you admit your condition and just believe that Jesus died for you, you then receive His perfection and Father God sees you as perfect.  You have become a good return for the payment Jesus made.

#HomeImprovements

Kneeling at the front pew of my church, I prayed and asked Jesus to be my Savior.  I was ten years old.

Forward twenty plus years and I was a mother of five and attending a small church in Wisconsin.  One day two ladies from the church came to visit me.  There were some concerns between the two of them that involved the pastor's wife.  She was a substitute teacher in the public schools and both of these ladies complained to me about the gossiping they had heard coming from the pastor's wife in school.  We prayed and hoped it would stop.  It didn't.  The pastor's wife was then invited to come and with these two ladies to have a talk.  It still didn't stop.  We, then, took it to church and they asked me to present the problem at a business meeting.  I did not prepare as I should have and just blurted out the request for the pastor's wife to 'shut up'.  The pastor resigned after much back and forth talking.  It was not what I intended or expected.

Some months later, two different ladies came to my front door.  I knew neither of them, but they came to ask me to accept the chairmanship of the new Christian Women's Club that was forming in our town.  I had never heard of that organization.  I don't know how they knew me or why I was considered.  What I do know is that God knew what I needed.  One might think that I had done much damage to our church and needed to be chastised or punished, but God is so kind and loving and keeps giving chances to failures and stumblers and the slow of learning that He redeems instead of rebuking.

All those years between 10 and 20 plus, the home my Savior lived in had pretty much remained a ten year old's habitat, spiritually.   A father can have a wonderful relationship with his ten year old child, but he does not want that child to remain mentally, physically or spiritually ten years old.  My Father God wanted a more intimate and mature relationship with me and the wonderful Bible studies that CWC offered was used to make me aware of the man Jesus in such a way that I fell in love with Him.  Then began many improvements in the Lord's home in my life. 

As I look back over all the years of my life, I can see real changes, real improvements.  It is definitely not finished, yet, but I know my Father God enjoys the relationship we have today.  I know I do.

#LiberalisnVsConservatism

It is very confusing.  The terms liberalism and conservatism, when applied to politics, do not convey the attitudes of liberals or conservatives.  The meaning of liberal, according to my dictionary, is generous, relating to a freeman, tolerant, marked by generosity, open minded.  The meaning of conservative is careful to preserve or maintain established traditions or institutions such as the Constitution or the Bible, one who preserves or guards or saves.

The liberals I know are not tolerant or open minded.  The conservatives I know are very open and want all men to be free to live their own lives.  This is the attitude prevalent today.  Democrats say they are progressive, yet what they advocate is very regressive.  Republicans claim to be conservative, yet they are more tolerant of others ideas even if very different from their own.

Liberals want us to see the Constitution as a living document that can and does change with the changes in our society or changes in the understanding of different words.  Conservatives view the Constitution as meaning what it says, period.  The same with the Bible.  It is not a living document. It means what it says, period.

Where the term is true is when it says conservatives want to preserve and guard the traditions and institutions.  Conservatives should always be on guard and protect the Constitution and the Bible.  Liberal is a misleading term because there is nothing generous or tolerant about a political agenda that does not allow the opposing views to be expressed and tolerates riots and harming others.

This world is upside down where good is considered bad and evil is considered good.  Murdering the unborn is considered a 'right' and having open borders is considered 'good' and tax money  is given to aliens and taxpayers are deprived, where policemen and women are disdained and those who dishonor the American flag are applauded.

It is very confusing!!! 

Does history repeat itself?  What happened to Rome or Greece or Babylon?  Is America's time coming for judgement?

#Education

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days; reading and writing and 'rithmatic... There are years and dollars spent on getting an education.  Learning to listen and reason and memorize and put it all together is a good part of all the time spent going to school.  There are quizzes and tests and exams.  These are to be expected in order for you and the teacher to find out how much you have learned.

All this is not just to make groves in your brain, but that knowledge is to be put to use.  A doctor needs to know math besides anatomy and physiology.   An engineer needs to know chemistry as well as physics.  Acquiring knowledge is a life-long exercise to be put to use, not stored in a briefcase.

There may be times when you think, "Boy, I have got it." Those algebra formulas were a mystery, then you finally saw the light and knew you were going to get an 'A' on the upcoming exam, but the problem was worded just a bit differently and you missed it.  Time to go back to the book!

There have been so, so many times that I have thought I had it when it came to understanding myself or God's way, but when it came to 'where the rubber meets the road', I failed.  In the spiritual realm there is more required that putting book learning in your head. You can memorize the whole Bible and it do you not one whit of good.  You can read the Bible every day and still come out a looser.  It is to be used not just known.  The basic requirement for using it is a willingness to obey it.  Jesus said, in John 17:7 "If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God..."  If Jesus' teaching is of God, it needs to be obeyed. Jesus was chiding Jewish leaders for not having obeyed Moses' law.  They had this law for more than a thousand years and supposedly revered it, but they had not taken it personally and obeyed it.  They had not gotten it.  They just thought they had.  They failed the test.  They did not recognize Jesus as the one God had promised  to send in those books they had read and studied for years.

It is time to take God seriously. He reveals Himself in the Bible and discloses His way to us.  It is up to us to take it in and take it personally and put it to work.

#Immunity

The human body is an amazing thing.  From the time a baby is separated from it's mother, it is on it's own. Nourishment comes through it's mouth and not the umbilical cord.  It breathes through it's nose.  It's immune system has received  a good start from it's mother, but now has to build on to that foundation.

It is so natural for babies to crawl before they walk and the floor is the place where that happens and floors are not always clean.  Babies put everything they can into their mouths, dirty or not, and sometimes unwashed  thumbs.  Try as they can, mothers cannot keep everything clean all the time, but perhaps that is a good thing.  A body gradually builds resistance to germs as it becomes exposed to them over time.  If all things were sanitized there would be no opportunity to build a strong immune system.  So, playing in the dirt and making mud pies and eating finger food is really doing a beneficial thing for the body.

It has been said that 'nail-bitters' may have a healthier immunity because of all the germs occupying space under the nails.  Exposing the skin to moderate amounts of sun creates Vitamin D on the skin and taking Vitamin D3 and C strengthens the immune system. The body has resources built in itself to fight invaders.  Physically speaking we are in good shape in this world, but then, there is the spiritual world and we need resources to survive in good health.

Jesus told his followers that they were to 'be in the world, but not of it' which means that while we live on this planet we are not to absorb the world's system into our lives. We are not to play in the mud.  We do have a spiritual immune system; "Christ in you, the hope of Glory" and resources to strengthen it.  The Word of God is better than Vitamin D3 to the soul.  A daily dose of God's Word will do wonders to give you the ability to fight invaders and shore up your faith and keep you healthy.

#INDEPENDENCE

Some mama birds have to push their little fledglings out of the nest when they are ready to fly on their on, but something is holding them back.  I was not one of those.  I was so ready to be on my own and be independent.  After graduating from high school and working just three months in a hospital as a lab technician, I decided to leave home and go to college.  There was no fear or worry, just great anticipation for life.  I don't remember seeking counsel from my parents or receiving any. I just bombarded ahead.

That was my style, full speed ahead.  It was my style with God, too.  I had become a child of God's at the age of 10 and knew He was my Heavenly Father, yet I kind of ignored Him. Growing up going to church twice one Sunday and once or more in the middle of the week had given me lots of sermons and memorizing of scripture and '"knowledge".  I was an independent believer.  But, God didn't want that kind of relationship.  He want a close, intimate, father-child relationship and after 15 years of waiting, He began a serious campaign to get me to want a closer relationship with Him.  It worked and I agreed with Him about what He was convicting me about and took steps to solve the problem, but the bad habits of independence are hard to break.

Some ten years later, I realized that I did not have that intimacy other Christians had with God and took a big leap and sought counsel from another Christian.  She recognized the problem immediately and told me that what I had done with God earlier wasn't to be just a one time thing, but was something that needed to be done daily,  This father-child relationship required frequent talking with one another and getting to know each other.  Of course, God already knows everything about me, but He is infinite and there are not enough hours on earth to get to know Him fully, so every little minute I spend reading His word and telling Him how I feel and asking Him to elaborate only helps me to understand this marvelous Father-God a little bit more.  The independent spirit has developed into a dependent spirit that acknowledges a great need know Him better and better and to love Him more and more and to obey and honor my Father-God.

"I need Thee, O, I need Thee.  Every hour I need Thee."  This is my theme now.