In Good Times And In Bad, Give Praise

Those of us that are married or have been married are very familiar with those words. They were part of a vow we made before God and all of our friends and family. We said that we would love each other in good times and in bad times, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, all the day's of our lives. I think it's safe to say that most of us miss the mark on some of these and it's time we start working on fixing the areas that we come up short in. Do those of you that are married, have patience with one another when financial troubles arise? Do you treat each other the same during bad times as you do in the good times? (This one is for the MEN) Do you give your wife the support and help she needs when she is fighting illness in the same way she cares for you without complaining? Do you have the patience with her and take care of the kids as she would, again without complaining?

See, I found a parallel between our love for each other and Gods love for us. He does love us in both good times and in bad. He does love us in sickness and in health. He does love us for richer and for poorer. However there are some people that only love Him when things are going great. As soon as trouble hits the first one they complain about or to is God. Why this God? Why that God? It is so easy to love when things are going well, but it's an effort to love when things aren't going so well. This is when you have to push through. This is the test that must be passed. In the book of Job, we find a man that went through many tests for the purpose of seeing if he would turn away from God when everything went horribly wrong.

Job 2:3-10 Then the LORD asked Satan, "Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth--a man of complete integrity. He fears God and will have nothing to do with evil. And he has maintained his integrity, even though you persuaded me to harm him without cause." Satan replied to the LORD, "Skin for skin--he blesses you only because you bless him. A man will give up everything he has to save his life. But take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!" "All right, do with him as you please," the LORD said to Satan. "But spare his life." So Satan left the LORD's presence, and he struck Job with a terrible case of boils from head to foot. Then Job scraped his skin with a piece of broken pottery as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, "Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die." But Job replied, "You talk like a godless woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?" So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.

Job cursed the day he was born, because life as it was, just didn’t seem to be worth living. Then Eliphaz the Temanite spoke to Job. Job 4:3-7 "In the past you have encouraged many a troubled soul to trust in God; you have supported those who were weak. Your words have strengthened the fallen; you steadied those who wavered. But now when trouble strikes, you faint and are broken. Does your reverence for God give you no confidence? Shouldn't you believe that God will care for those who are upright? Stop and think! Does the innocent person perish? When has the upright person been destroyed? They were trying to say that Job must have done something terribly wrong for this to have happened to him. They were wrong.

Job had so many things done to him and he could not understand why these things were being allowed to happen. We can all relate to that very feeling. When things aren't going right and we have a few days where everything seems to go wrong, we don't just complain, often times we'll go as far as to use the Lords name in vain. Job, complained to God but he never blamed God for anything that was happening to him. He was a man looking for answers because he didn't understand. None of us ever understand why things happen to us that are bad yet we never question why something good happened. We never understand why people that are bad were put in our lives, but we never question what we did to deserve a good person that was put in our paths. Rest assured that our Heavenly Father knows the reasons. It's not for us to understand everything that happens to us for the good or the bad.

The Lord finally spoke to Job after long suffering and having Job complaining and questioning while defending his innocence. He asked Job many questions and insisted that job answer them. They had to do with things only the Lord knew to show Job that he did not know as much as he thought he did. Then Job replied to the LORD: Job 42:2-3 "I know that you can do anything and no one can stop you. You ask, `Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?' It is I. And I was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful for me.

Like Job, we say and do things against God because we don’t understand. We need to be very careful to not ever get to the point where we blame God for something bad that has happened in our lives. Give him praise throughout the good times and the bad. Through your sickness and your health, when you are rich and when you are poor. Blessings come through being true to God. He will not bless someone that is not standing on his promises and has a wavering trust in Him. Let us never make that mistake.

Please pray this with me

Father God, first we thank you for your grace. In the book of Job we learn that we don't have hardly any of the answers let alone all of them. Father, I pray for wisdom that would enable us to never confuse the fact that you are the one with all the answers and for us to even second guess your way is a big mistake. You want us to prove worthy of your blessings and that means at all times, not just when things are going well. Lord I pray that you would bless all who read this and that you would shroud them all with your Holy Spirit to be the comforter when times are tough, and to guide our thoughts at all times, so that we never forget that you are God and we are your people. We bless you and we thank you for all that your doing in our lives.

In Jesus Name

Amen

God Bless You All








“The Sharpshooter”

Life Does Not End At The Grave

1 Corinthians 15:35-44 (MSG)
Some skeptic is sure to ask, "Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this 'resurrection body' look like?" If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a "dead" seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it doesn’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.

You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there are different kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies—humans, animals, birds, fish—each unprecedented in its form. You get a hint at the diversity of resurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth but in the skies—sun, moon, stars—all these varieties of beauty and brightness. And we're only looking at pre-resurrection "seeds"—who can imagine what the resurrection "plants" will be like!

This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we're raised, we're raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that's planted is no beauty, but when it's raised, it's glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!

Because Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and was resurrected again, we are assured that life will not end at the grave. The mortal bodies we wear are temporary; they will wear out and die. Our souls, our Spirit’s are what are alive inside these bodies and the Spirit cannot die. We will all have eternal life, which is a certainty. If we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and lived as he instructed us too, we will be acknowledged by him to the Father in Heaven.

Our works, what we achieved in life and how much money we made won’t matter at all. The Lord is interested in where are hearts were. With the money we had, what did we do with it? Did we horde it away selfishly or did we give it to those that needed it. If we live selfishly and don’t accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, living as he instructed us to, we will not be acknowledged by him to the Father in Heaven, therefore our eternal life would be in hell. So it cannot be stressed enough for us to turn from the evil in this world, and turn to Jesus.

It is not our bodies that live, it is our spirits/souls that give life to these bodies and that spirit cannot die. When our bodies wear out or are damaged to badly to live they will die, but the spirit lives on forever. When our bodies are formed in the womb, they are lifeless until God breathes the breath of life into them. So we are to have hope not sorrow, we are to look at the light and not the darkness. For when we die, our lives do not end at the grave. We will be reunited with those that have gone before us.

When someone we know passes away in this life, the typical response to this is sorrow and a great feeling of loss. The battlefield of the mind kicks in to high gear at this very time, because Satan wants to deceive us and we’re in a weakened state during these times so we can become vulnerable to attack. The enemy of our souls wants us to not have faith in God, and believe that the person that died is just in the ground. We need to be very careful here because this is where many get tripped up. Don’t buy the lie, don’t call a psychic friend, and don’t get a crystal ball. Every one of those things is a deception from the enemy. We either trust God’s word on this or we don’t, you can’t have it both ways.

Let us pray

Heavenly Father, we thank you that your promises are Yea and Amen. Your word tells us Lord God that when we die to ourselves here we gain life and if we cling to life we will lose it. Father help this word get deep into the hearts and minds of the readers that are living in this place right now. Help them to put full trust in your word God and not the words of the enemy, be it on purpose or by being deceived. Cover them with a shroud of protection that the battlefield of the mind regarding death and the resurrection would be conquered and that path to you would become that much clearer.

In Jesus Name I Pray

Amen

God Bless You All








“The Sharpshooter”

The Opportunity To Know Jesus

Acts 2:38-42 (NIV) Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call." With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Today, the Holy Spirit still urges us to "get out of this sick and fallen world while we can" because the time is drawing near that it will be too late for those that did not listen. Those that do not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior will not see Heaven, Jesus will not acknowledge them and eternal torment will be theirs. John 14:21 "The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that's who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him."

God wants all of us to be saved, but it's a choice that only we can make. Many people know about Jesus but a much lower number ever come to accept him as their lord and Savior. There are many people that do great works, are very generous with their time and money. Many people that live righteously feel that because they have lived this way that they will enter into Heaven with full honors. On the contrary, regardless of our works on earth, if we have not accepted Jesus, he will not accept us. They would be no better off then someone who had not done any good works. I don't know anyone that would want to be left out, but it is so hard for some to believe. There are so many forces in this world that make it hard for the non believer. The mainstream media, film makers, activist Judges, all act as negatives. The non believer sees that these forces appear to be gaining ground, so one would figure that if they're gaining ground then they must be right in what they're saying.

They can't understand something they know nothing about. If they don't know Jesus Christ in the form of a personal relationship, they cannot understand who Jesus was, why He came and what he commanded us to do. This is where Mark 16:15 is so important. It says, "He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." This is what we are supposed to do. Any opportunity we get to share the Gospels with a friend, a family member or a coworker should be taken. Sometimes we need to search hard for the opportunity and sometimes God will prepare a situation for you where someone might begin to talk about themselves and give you an opening to share the fact that Jesus loves them and that He dies for our sins so that we could be forgiven.

We are getting what Jesus deserved and He took the punishment that humanity deserved. More than speaking this though we have to be sure that our actions align with our message, because people will watch us closely to see if we are living what we are preaching. We become the message by living out the message we share. Actions speak louder than words and people watch a lot more than they hear. Another thing we need to remember when sharing Jesus is that we cannot prejudge someone before we speak to them. I have read of many instances when someone had the opportunity to share the gospel and prejudged someone by the way they looked or acted and ended up not sharing. This person may have been in the perfect place to receive but was deprived the opportunity to here the gospel because someone felt that they wouldn’t receive it.

We need to be very careful as told in John 7:24. Be honest in your judgment and do not decide at a glance (superficially and by appearances); but judge fairly and righteously. Give everyone the opportunity to come to know Jesus. This is what we’ve talked about so much, going into our marketplace and having an effect on it and changing the face of that marketplace with the word of God, which is sharper than any two edged sword. Now is the time, this is the place and we have a great opportunity to see a great harvest from a seed that we never planted but the Holy Spirit planted. In order to be the complete body of Christ, we need to go and find the missing parts. Let the Holy Spirit be your guide, be sensitive to what he is telling you and you will know what the right words for the right time.

Please pray this with me.

Father God, it is a privilege for us to have the opportunity to bring the message of your son Jesus to this lost and dying world. I pray Lord God that you would increase our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, so that we would hear clearly the direction we are supposed to go, to find the ones who need to here about Jesus. Father I also pray that you would put a burden on the hearts of those that don’t know Jesus as their savior, that they would just get a curiosity and a hunger to have questions answered, so that this would create an opportunity to preach the gospel to them. Guide us and give us wisdom Lord God, so that we would know the right thing to say in any situation. So that we have the best chance to bring the lost back to you.

In Jesus Name I Pray

Amen

God Bless You All








“The Sharpshooter”

Everything Must Go

Galatians 2:20 (AMP) I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Every now and then when we take an inventory of ourselves, we find things in ourselves that we expected and sometimes things we didn't expect to find. Over a period of years each of us has tried to improve ourselves where we thought we needed improving, similar to pruning the healthy tree to keep it producing good fruit. The thing we miss sometimes though and most of the time we are not aware of it is this. There are things that we in the natural think are wrong, and then there is a whole different standard of what God thinks is wrong. The two are never close by comparison. We give ourselves way too much grace when we know we've done something wrong and in sin.

How many times I've heard people say ("Jesus is very forgiving, so I can keep on doing things wrong and he'll keep on forgiving me"). It can no longer be measured by what we think is right and wrong. We're either doing it Gods way or we're in sin. It's that simple. That said it's time to have a spiritual cleansing, and (Everything Must Go). We have to keep on dying to self. Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me."

Romans 8:13-14. For if you keep on following it you will perish, but if through the power of the Holy Spirit you turn from it and its evil deeds, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

In order for God to use us fully He needs to remove things from our lives. We also have to be willing to let these things go. In order to be used by God it is necessary for us to be an empty vessel. We need to be empty of ourselves so that God can fill us up with Him. Our thoughts need to become His thoughts. Our opinions need to become His opinions. Dying-to-self is a never-ending process. We have to continually ask God to show us what needs to be removed in our lives. We want to be used by Him. In order to be used we need to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. It has to be acceptable to Him.

We have to come face to face with the fact that we must decrease so He can increase. We need to learn how to deal with the fact that our feelings and wants are not the most important things if we are to be used by God. The more serious we get about our relationships with God the more He expects from us. Ultimately, He expects us to live for Him and not at all for ourselves.

We can't possibly do Gods will on earth unless we are fully yielding to Him. Before we can be effective in sharing Jesus with others we need to first be sure that we are letting Him share Himself with us, without any obstructions. Many times people without knowing it keep God in a box and limit what he can or will do. That stuns many people because they say "how can we limit God if he is so powerful?" He is omnipotent but he is also a gentleman and will never force his way in to our lives.

He knocks quietly at the doors of our soul. If we are tuned in to God, we will answer the door and let him have his way in our lives. That is what he wants us to do. However there are many that feel they want to retain some form of control. Saying things like, (I'll let God change this or that) but they don’t yield completely. God does not need our help to change us or the world around us. We just need to yield our Spirits to him and say Yes God. We need to seek out the deepest darkest things within us and we need to confess it to God and ask for His forgiveness and then let it go.

Then and only then will we be able to be in that place where we are able to receive what God has for us. We're human and we’re far from perfect. Sin will try to work it's way back in and we may fall prey to it again and again, but each time it happens we have to squash whatever it was, whether it be temptation, addiction, anger, offensiveness, or profanity. It's all SIN and it's all got to go.

Romans 12:1(AMP) I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.

A Prayer from me for you.

Heavenly Father I first want to thank you for all of the wisdom you’ve given me recently. It is with this wisdom that I have found things that need to be addressed, that would have otherwise gone unknown to me. Thank you for the Holy Spirit guiding me each day to close the gap between where I am and where you want for me to be.

Father I ask a special blessing on all of the men and women of God that read this. Lord, I pray that you would seek them out and show them any areas that are sinful in your eyes. Give them the strength God to conquer any sin that is in them. Reveal to them all of the things that are not of you Lord God, so that they can get rid of those things, repent and receive your forgiveness. So that they would be able to be in that place you want them to be in, to receive the blessings that you have for them.

In Jesus Name I Pray

May God Bless You All








“The Sharpshooter”