Questions

When You Don’t Feel Blessed

2 Comments / Bible, Finances, Hardships, Healing, Laughter, Prayer, Questions, Relationship, Salvation, Scriptures, Spirit Filled Believers, Success, The Victorious Mind /

Two thousand years ago God’s people felt unblessed.  Sure, they repeatedly read the promises God pronounced upon their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but where were the blessings?  A foreign government manipulated their lives and ruthlessly repressed all yearnings for independence.  Poverty afflicted almost everyone and religious leaders used their influence for self-gratification. …

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Seeing the Cure Without Understanding the Cause

4 Comments / Bible, Hardships, Questions, The Victorious Mind /

“If you understand the problem, you’re halfway to solving it.” Ever hear that before?  Such beliefs teach us to rack our brains so we can understand the cause of problems.  We expect that understanding the cause automatically leads to the solution.

It doesn’t always work that way!  Striving to mentally grasp the cause of life’s problems often intensifies the problem’s adverse effect on us.

True, when repairing an automobile we must first discover what’s broken.  Replace the defective part and, presto, it works again.

What must we do when the cause of life’s problems defies human understanding?Open Bible

Quit depending on your ability to understand causes.  You may think, “That suggestion is crazy!  How do you expect me to not depend upon on my own understanding?” Start depending on God’s superior, infinite understanding.  He knows everything about everything including all the hidden causes of each problem in the entire universe.  So, when all our worry and anxious thoughts fail to understand causes, it’s time to obey Proverbs 3:5: “Do not lean on your own understanding.” “Well,” you may wonder, “what should I do with my human understanding?”  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”

No one event constitutes a lifetime.  Therefore, we should move on with life and not dwell on individual events.  Don’t fear events or they grow out of proportion to their actual importance.

Depending wholly upon God’s understanding redirects your attention from causes to cure.  The cure is a Person we call Heavenly Father.  Don’t we call on him during life’s difficulties and frustrations?  Why not call upon him when you can’t comprehend causes of struggles, difficulties and heartaches?  Let him figure it out!  He is more than willing to help humans who admit their inability to understand causes.  Don’t be distracted by “impossible to understand” causes.  Just look up to your heavenly Cure.

Please remember, “Those who hope in Me will not be disappointed,” Isaiah 49:23. God is the cure which annihilates incomprehensible causes.

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God Sends Four Trains and One Plane

Bible, Laughter, Questions, The Victorious Mind /

 

One dark evening in 1991, I sat on a park bench atop Prayer Mountain.  No, not Pastor Cho’s Prayer Mountain in Seoul, Korea, but a 20-foot high mound located in a tiny Japanese garden near our home in Tokyo.  The pine and oak trees that towered overhead made the evening appear even gloomier.

But the worst gloom was inside me.  I felt so shattered.  The focusing muscles around my eyes filled my days with pain and fatigue.  Office work was torture and writing, impossible.  I simply didn’t know what to do.  So I decided to give up my missionary assignment and return to the USA.

Back to the Tokyo version of Prayer Mountain.  About eighty feet to my right lay a train track for diesel-powered engines.  Two hundred feet to my left lay tracks for electric-powered trains.  Well, God decided to exert his almighty sense of humor to perk me up.

I heard in the distance the distinct whistle of a diesel freight train.  Then a clattering electric passenger train approached; a second passenger train came from the opposite direction on another track, and, believe it or not, a third passenger train showed up.  A diesel freight train about eighty feet to my right and three electric passenger trains on my left!  The noise level soared.  But that’s not all.  A large twin engine U.S. Navy plane roared overhead.  I hadn’t heard such noise in all my life.

“God, time out!  Even you can’t hear me over this noise!”  I began laughing at the circumstances orchestrated by the Lord.  Only a supreme Creator could synchronize the arrival of four trains and an airplane at a tiny Japanese garden in Tokyo.

As the noise subsided and the evening calm returned, his presence visited me.  My inner gloom evaporated as I considered the great love of the Lord who sent four trains and an airplane to remind me of his control.  Is God good or what!

The One who always gives me the best of everything also  equips me to give the best of myself to him!

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Your Other Atmosphere

6 Comments / Bible, Finances, Hardships, Healing, Laughter, Prayer, Questions, Relationship, Salvation, Scriptures, Spirit Filled Believers, Success, The Victorious Mind /

Our Creator chose to envelop earth in an atmosphere we call “air.” Air surrounds and sustains us, refreshes us and protects us from harmful sun rays.  Air makes life possible.  Two gases comprise the bulk of our atmosphere: nitrogen, about 79% and oxygen, a little more than 20%. …

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Our Gigantic Opportunity

Bible, Questions, Scriptures /

How big is your God?

“He builds his lofty palace in the heavens and sets its foundation on the earth; he calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land,” Amos 9:6.

He sustains “all things by his powerful word,” Hebrews 1:3.

How big is God?

Well, he “fills everything in every way,” Ephesians 1:23. …

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Catch Another Dream

Questions, Scriptures, Spirit Filled Believers, Success, The Victorious Mind /

The Apostle Paul began his preaching ministry by proclaiming Jesus to his people, the Jews. In return for Paul’s kindness, the Jews beat him, stoned him, rejected him, stirred up riots against him and labeled him an agitator, a villain, an impostor and a false prophet.

Things didn’t turn out the way Paul expected. He so ardently dreamed of bringing the gospel to his people, but his dreams evaporated. …

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Hold On, Your Day is Coming!

2 Comments / Bible, Hardships, Questions, Scriptures, Spirit Filled Believers, The Victorious Mind /

Recently, I switched our television from one major network to another. I probably spent three to five minutes listening and seeing what ABC, CBS and NBC broadcasted at that time. That’s all it took; I was angry! These network programs were all together ungodly, anti-Christian and immoral.

The anger I felt toward sin and this sinful world then turned into grief. I found myself actually mourning over the sin all around us. I read the words of an earlier child of God, “Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed,” Psalm 119:136. To those who arrested him, Jesus pointed out, “This is your hour when darkness reigns,” Luke 22:53. Sin will dominate the earth until Jesus returns. We must accept this and not be overly upset, discouraged or disheartened by sin’s control of the world in which we now live. …

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Hold On, Your Day is Coming! Read More »

Your Global Positioner

2 Comments / Bible, Questions, Scriptures /

Beautiful turquoise Caribbean water surrounded the one hundred and ten-foot-long boat.  Several lushly forested Honduran Islands lay scattered around us.

As I stood on the top deck of our little boat, a friend requested, “look at my GPS monitor.”  He handed me a rectangular device about the size of a television remote control “The global positioning system monitor shows me my exact longitude, latitude, elevation and distance from my home in Texas. Twenty-two satellites in orbit around earth electronically communicate with this device.  I always know where I am,” he said.  Remarkable technology! …

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When You Want Out of the Perfecting Process

1 Comment / Hardships, Prayer, Questions, Scriptures /

Overcome and sticky notesHave you ever wondered why God tested Adam’s and Eve’s obedience?  He tested them because he wanted something more than innocent people; he wanted perfected people.

Innocence clothed the first humans.  They were guiltless of any wrong doing.  They were like naive military recruits: genuinely a part of the military, but certainly not battle tested.  The first humans’ love for God was real, but imperfect because it was untested. …

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Living by God’s Promises

1 Comment / Finances, Hardships, Questions, Scriptures, Success, The Victorious Mind /

messengers feetDelores and I always wanted to serve as missionaries.  We planned on going to the mission field early in our career, but that didn’t work out.  So, after pastoring eighteen years, we decided to move to Singapore, Southeast Asia.  On the other hand, the missions department had earlier turned down our application to serve as missionaries because of my legal blindness.  Well, we decided that we had to go to the mission field because we were in our early 40’s.  We couldn’t wait any longer. …

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