#BeneficialRewards

 Customers keep coming back because of Rewards Programs.  You make a purchase and get points for it and you can later use the points to purchase something else.  You are hooked.  You keep coming back because you get rewarded.  It is a good idea because it benefits the customer and the business.

The principle of rewards is an old one.  In fact, there is a statement in the Bible regarding rewards that perhaps some CEOs found.  God is telling people in the Book of Hebrews that He will reward anyone who seeks Him.  The eleventh chapter gives a long list of people who were rewarded for believing God.

There is one man who was rewarded in a most unusual way.  There are only five verses about Enoc in Genesis.  One verse tells of his birth.  One verse tells how long he lived before fathering a son named Methuselah.  Another verse tells a bit about his life after the birth of Methuselah, that he walked with God.  That is interesting, because we can assume that the birth of this son brought about a change in Enoc's attitude toward God.  The last verse about Enoc tells us that he walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

Hebrews 11:5 gives more light about the 'taking'.  It states that Enoc did not see death because he was pleasing to God.  Enoc obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.  Being 'taken up' had not happened before, at least to our knowledge.  When Enoc obtained the witness that he pleased God, and we do not know what that witness was, he must have gotten an idea in his head.  Maybe Enoc thought that it would be a nice thing if God would just zap him to heaven.  Maybe he talked with God about this and from that conversation developed the faith that it would happen.  It did.

There are some impossible things and God is the God of the impossible.  I believe that God wants us to think of impossible things and believe Him for it.  Mundane stuff is not God's area of expertise.  Impossible stuff God relishes in doing.  Do we limit God by leaning to our own understanding and not acknowledging Him?  Do we settle for the mundane, seemingly safe way, the world's way and not give God a chance to glorify Himself?

The list in Hebrews is long of average people who believed God for the impossible.  There were so many obstacles and giants and real problems that these people faced and, yet, they found favor with God and had impossible situations turn out for good because they believed God would do it.

"Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him."  Hebrews 11:6

#RealityCheck

 It was about 8:15 in the morning and the pharmacist came through the door with her phone in one hand and headed toward the pharmacy alarm.  She has to unset the alarm or the police will come when she opens that door.  Heading to the alarm is done every single day.  She punched in her code, while still talking and turned and started walking to get her day started.  A few seconds later is saw her turn around and head back.  When she got a few feet from me, she asked, "Did I?"  I nodded yes.  She signed and turned around again.  I understood.

Have you ever been there?  We do things over and over and over again and later we wonder, did I do that today or am I remembering yesterday?  There were a few times that I drove off to work and got a few blocks away and wondered if I had closed the garage door.  I had to turn around and drive back to make sure.  When we are distracted we can do stuff and not recall.

Charles Stanley is noted for saying "Listen" in the middle of a sentence while preaching.  He knew human nature and I am sure it had happened to him.  We can sit in the pew and look so attentive and be a thousand miles away.  We can sing and hear prayers and our minds can be like a double screen TV with two or more programs going on at the same time.  I don't think that pleases God.  He wants your full attention and He deserves it.  Jeremiah was talking to the Lord about the condition of his country in the twelfth chapter of the book by his name.  He said."You" (You being God) "You are near to their lips but far from their mind."  Doesn't that say it all?  The people of Israel were going to services and saying things by rote.  Their minds were far away.  It was all an act.  God was not impressed by their act.

If someone asks you on Thursday what the sermon your pastor preached on Sunday was about, could you tell them?  Was just an empty shell dressed like you sitting in your seat?  It has been noted that getting involved greatly increases your chances to remember something.  If you take your Bible with you to church and read along with the pastor, you have a better chance of remembering.  If you take notes while the pastor is preaching, you have an even better chance of remembering.  There are three parts involved in this action - the ear is hearing, the eye is reading and the hand is recording notes.  You have a three times better chance of remembering.  The pastor has taken hours to prepare and God is using him to speak truth to you.  Church is not a social gathering.  It is a place for believers to gather together to worship the King and hear a word from God that will challenge or encourage or comfort them.  Church is a place to be blessed if you are 'really' there.

#FaithToFight

 Is there such a thing as 'wandering arthritis'?  For several years I had pain in my right hip joint. It would last for several days and go away and then pain would occur in my neck, for several days and go away.  There would be pain developing in one or the other shoulder and then go away, but last September things changed.  There was pain in all those places and it did not go away.  My bed became a torcher chamber where I could not sleep.  In addition to the pain, I lost strength in my hands.  I carefully held my coffee cup with both hands.  All this time I had been praying asking God to heal me, but no answer.  Then, I began asking Him to guide me through to the solution.  There had to be a solution.

Aspirin came to my mind and I began taking the largest dosage prescribed every night before bed.  It did relieve a bit and some sleep happened.  Not having my own physician, I Googled arthritis and found there is more than one type.  I tried to determine which, if any, type I might have. Glucosamine and Turmeric was recommended.  It was now November and I began a regime of those two supplements.  There was some relief and I quit taking aspirin.

Then along came 2020 and the Corona Virus was doing some damage here in the U.S. with shutdowns and social distancing and such.  A few days after Easter, I had severe diarrhea.  Perhaps it was something I ate or stomach flu or, hopefully not the Covid 19 flu.  I took an anti-diarrheal medication, but the next day it happened again.  Never had I experienced such a thing and it went on for days.  I was afraid that I would not be able to go to work.  Of course, I was praying. Was God trying to tell me something?  Was He trying to teach me something?  What did God want me to do?

In June, I seriously considered seeing a doctor, but hospitals were shut down and doctor's offices were shut down and I came to the conclusion that God had timed this for this time and He wanted to be my doctor.  If Jesus could heal a woman who had been ill for years and had seen doctors, but with her touch of faith on his robe she was healed, Jesus could heal me.

I quit drinking coffee and started taking probiotics and cut out spicy foods, to no avail.  I kept praying, asking for directions.  Then, I actually read my vitamin bottles and found that my calcium tablets were to be taken three times a day.  I had been taking only one a day, but immediately started taking three.  Within a month the diarrhea disappeared and the 'arthritis' pain became a memory.  By September, one year from when health issues developed, I was pretty normal, maybe even better, stronger and a couple of pounds lighter.

This gory story is told for two reasons. One, that God get the glory.  He is faithful.  He answers prayers.  He is seeing what could be with your eyes of faith and will help you get there. Two, that perhaps someone out there needs to hear that God is faithful and that Calcium is really a necessary ingredient to the body's good health along with Vitamin D3.

#FavoritismDeployed

 The call goes out. There is a constant call going out.

Abram and his wife left Ur of the Chaldeans and traveled to Canaan and settled there Genesis 11:31 tells us.  That is when the Lord spoke to him and told him to go forth to the land He would show him and made him a promise.  Could it possibly be that a universal call had gone out and only one man responded?  That one man, Abram, by responding to the call, put himself and all his descendants into a favored position with the Lord.

"The heavens are telling of the glory of God: and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech. Psalm 19:1 and 2.  The call is constantly going out.  Does the work of God's hands make you curious?  Do the stars in heaven impress you and lead you to think that there must be a 'big' thinker out there?   Do you respond by searching for the truth?

There is no partiality with the God of the Bible (Acts 10:34). He is no respecter of persons. "He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Matthew 5:45.  As I understand the character of God from what He has told us in His Word, God does not have favorites, but there is a favorite position one can enjoy.

This first favored position was by heritage and demanded faithful hearts. The covenant keeping God remained faithful to the descendants of Abram even though they did not remain faithful to Him and there were consequences for their bad behavior.  Even while in exile, God told them that "you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with your whole heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord and I will restore your fortunes." Jeremiah 29:13 and 14.

Today, it is no longer by heritage, but by choice.  There is a new covenant and it is found in the New Testament.  The call is still going out to the whole world and we have a choice. God is no respecter of persons and has stated in the New Testament in the book of John, chapter 3, verse 16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believes on Him shall have eternal life."  It is in your hands whether you are in the favored position of being one of God's children or not.

#GarbageGuru

 We were ankle deep, literally, in leaves every autumn.  Raking and gathering bags and blisters in the process, I would take these bags and branches to the local land fill.  There always were left over ones and fallen apples from the apple trees and so, I began a compost pile. I became a garbage guru.  Compost is wonderful.  It is dirt turned into soil.  Using garbage such as potato peals and apple peals and orange peals and leaves and dirt, everything but meat and fats, time and heat and worms and regular turning will produce rich soil.

This process of using the laws God put into place working garbage into something useful just demonstrates how God can turn our personal garbage into something good.  God has plainly stated that we all are sinners.  We sin because we have a nature that is prone to sin.  This nature is not garbage.  It is worse.  This nature is worse than radio active.  It is deadly and will end us up in damnation.

But, Scripture tells us that Emanuel, God in the flesh, took care of all that radio activity on the cross where all our sins were completely paid for.  Sin is no longer our problem, but the sin nature has to be dealt with personally by each one of us.  God told us the solution in His Word.  "To as many as received Jesus" this means that we believe that Jesus as the God-man took upon himself all sin and paid for it by shedding His own innocent blood and "to them that believe, God gives the authority to become His children."           John 1:12.

As a born again child of God, we still have garbage in our lives.  We can choose to live with that stinky stuff or we can choose to deal with it.  We can place fear and gossip and worry and procrastination and pride and resentment and bitterness and selfishness and sensuality and jealousy and I could go on, into God's compost pile.  God is a garbage genius.  With the heat of God's light in His word and some aerating using prayer, God can make good out of stinky stuff.

He can and does produce good fruit using good soil that has been produced from garbage.  The fruit will replace the garbage and you will see love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.  You can really live with these and others will enjoy living with you, too.

#BringItOn

 A dollar bill was given to each of us with the intention of placing it in an envelope to be put in the offering plate at Sunday School every Sunday.  My father was making sure that we three girls got into the habit of giving.  It really wasn't teaching us how to budget our own resources, but it instilled in me the fact that God expects us to give.

When I found my church home in my new location, I began tithing from my earnings.  Something prompted me to begin rounding up about a year ago.  It was an act of faith, because I didn't have any more resources, but was concerned about the state of our world.

That is when things started happening.  Sometime in April the government sent me, along with many others, a $1200.00 check. Then, I was offered six weeks off work because of the 'plague' and with pay.  I did take advantage of that.  We had a contest at work in May and I won two $25.00 gift cards, winning two contests in a row. Within those two weeks, a friend just handed me a $50.00 gift card to a nail salon. I was being amazed at all this when I remembered God's promise - "Give, and it shall be given to you in good measure, pressed down and running over" - Luke 6:38.

Later in August while I was in Iowa for my grandson's wedding, my son and daughter-in-law presented me with a wonderful and expensive, by my standards, shopping spree.  It just doesn't stop!! You can't out give God.  He will be a debtor to no man, or woman.  He really means it when He says in Malachi 3:10 "Test Me" "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house and TEST Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for a blessing until it overflows."

This is not the kind of testing that is crossing the line of going against God's will, but it is extending faith and showing God that you trust Him and know He will provide, somehow.  It is giving Him the opportunity to bring glory to His Word.  I am having fun at this 'rounding up' and am saying, "Father God, bring it on!"

#PressureCooking101

Even a novice cook can create a great meal using The Pressure Cooker.  Just by following the instructions that come with the cooker, one can make a delicious, nutritious meal.  The principal of pressure cooking allows the heat and steam created inside the pot to force seasonings inside the meat and tenderize it at the same time, ready to serve.  Timing is important.  If you are not watching and the heat increases, the lid can blow off and that can make a mess.

Back in the history of Israel when the people were put in slavery by Egypt, it can be considered that God had put them in a pressure cooker.  He was watching over the 400 years that the pot was on the fire.  Finally, the hearts of the people had been tenderized and they reached out to their God for relief.  That was when Pharaoh was placed in the pressure cooker.  God sent nine plagues to tenderize Pharaoh's heart, but it did not work.  This man hardened his heart with each plague and became more determined to do harm to God's chosen people.  When the tenth plague of the death of the first born was sent that was when the lid blew off and those six million people left the slavery of Egypt and headed for the promised land.

You and I are often put in the pressure cooker.  Each situation is perfectly designed for each believer in order to tenderize us.  While we are busily comparing ourselves to each other and coming out looking pretty good, God knows our hearts and sees that changes need to be made. You can't, by the best intentions and the strongest will power, change your stripes. Even if you could, your standards are not as good as God's.  He has good in mind, yet, we are in the pain of the pressure cooker and cannot see what God sees.  We just want the heat to be lowered and to be taken out of the pot.

We have a choice to make.  We can resist and harden out hearts or we can relent and let God have His way. The God who sees is constantly watching and knows exactly how much heat and how long to keep the pressure on to make you ready to serve. The very act of trusting God in the hard, hot places is what faith is all about. As Job said, "Tho He slay me, yet, will I trust Him."

Are you ready to serve?