In His Time

Struggling with something right now? To consider: are you praying with faith or doubt? Or maybe even fear?

Are you trusting in God's timing, or are you trying to control the outcome yourself?

Maybe, like I do sometimes, you are, even as you are praying, working on Plan B in your mind, just in case He isn't ready to act yet or is tied up and can't respond right now.

Here's what to do:

1. Take a real step of faith. Choose to seek Him often throughout the day, not just for answers, but to establish a closer relationship with Him. And wait. 

2. Write down some of His promises -- start with 8 or 10 -- declare your confidence in His faithfulness, that you know He is working even if you don't see it.

3. Wait while He works. The waiting season is not wasted -- it is critical preparation as He is getting you ready for what's coming next!

4. Repeat out loud several times today: Courage is not the absence of fear -- it is the presence of faith!

So, today, whatever your are facing, seek the Lord and His presence. He hears you. He loves you, In His perfect time He will answer. Remember all His promises!

Grand Illuminations - Past and Future

Celebrating great events with nighttime displays of sparkling bursts of light have been around for hundreds of years.

"Fireworks" have been around well over a thousand years, with special colors and effects that brightened the skies over China as early as 700 AD.

Neon was discovered in 1898 and now there are about 100 different colors that can be produced in that distinctive tube lighting.

Some resorts and vacation spots are always associated with alluring lighting -- the Las Vegas Strip, the Lights of Broadway, the City that Never Sleeps, the City of Lights.

Jesus  reminds us that "men loved darkness because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19).

That's true. But isn't it amazing how much sin we can accomplish in brightly lighted streets and buildings? And homes? We have become very proficient in our pursuit of evil --day and night!

Great public displays of fire works and creative lighting have been popular in the United States since our first 4th of July celebration.

Sometimes these events were called Grand Illuminations, and perhaps the most famous was in Washington, D.C.,  April 13, 1865. It was Thursday.

Lee had surrendered to Grant on the 9th of April. The war was over. (Abraham Lincoln's fateful visit to Ford's Theater would not come until the next night, on Good Friday, April 14.)

It was the best time to celebrate the best news people had heard for many years!

The War was over. The Union was saved. The American dream was still going to come true!

Bring out the LIGHTS!

The biggest Grand Illumination ever -- a mass lighting of every candle, gas lamp, and firework in the city!

Thousands of people streamed into the nation's capital to witness the attempt to turn night into day.
To officially declare that the long dark gloom of the war was over. A bright new day was dawning.

On the roof of the Willard Hotel workers installed gas jets  to spell out the word "Union." Bon fires would be lit all over the city.

Government buildings had competitions to see which one could be the most brilliantly lighted and decorated.

The war department building featured 5000 (yes, five thousand) candles glowing from its windows.

Bursts and bangs  of fireworks sounded all over the city -- (I wonder, did the returning soldiers, and especially General Grant really appreciate that noise and flashing lights? Hadn't they had enough of that on the battle fields for the past four years?)

 The celebration continued all Thursday night and resumed the next evening, Friday, until the word began to reach the revelers that the President had been shot while out celebrating with his wife and friends at Ford's Theater.

Then turn out the lights. The party's over.

Selah.

There was another grand illumination recorded in Exodus 13.

After leaving Succoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and a pillar of fire by night so they could travel day or night. Neither the pillar by day or the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

That pillar of fire was bright enough to enable the Israelites, with their carts and oxen and families of elderly and small children to safely travel the rough wilderness pathway.

It had to be as light as noontime.

There was no night there.


But the greatest and grandest illumination is still to come. It, too, is revealed to us in sacred text.
And it will be in a capital city. But not Washington, D.C.

We call that city the New Jerusalem, a city that...

 does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its light and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.On no day will its gates be shut, for there will be no night there. Revelation 21.

There will be no night there.

And the party will never be over.

Praise God for His unspeakable gift.

Selah.

God's Masterpiece

 

                                                        

                                                             God's Masterpiece

"For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we could do the good things He planned for us long ago." (Ephesians 2:10)

During construction a house can look like a real messy and disorganized place. Hard to imagine it to ever be a real home.

But the architect had a plan and then one day -- there it is: finished, beautiful and a palace!

Father, thank You that You have a perfect plan for my life and You are at work right now, detailing me to accomplish the good things You have for me to do for Your glory.

You will not leave me incomplete --You will continue to shape and mold me for Your glory.

When Satan tells me I am a mess and no good, help me remind him that I am a work in progress -- You are not finished with me yet!

And I am anxiously awaiting that day when I will be like You -- that day I see You face to face! 

Amen

Prayers God Hears - Charles Spurgeon

From Charles Spurgeon.....

  "But wherever there is a heart enlarged with sorrow, or a lip quivering with agony, or a deep groan or a penitential sigh, the heart of Jehovah is open. 
   "He marks them down in the registry of His memory. He puts our prayers, like rose petals, between the pages of His Book of Remembrance, and when at last the volume is opened, there will be a precious fragrance springing from it. "

I just love these precious words and even more the truth behind them.

Remember the old song - "Does Jesus Care?":

Oh, yes, He cares, I know He cares,

His heart is touched with my grief.

When the days are weary

The long nights dreary,

I know my Savior cares!

Jesus, when Lazarus died, visited the town of Mary and Martha,

and the scripture tells us that He wept (John 11:35).

The Jews around commented, "See how he loved him!"

But why would Jesus weep for Lazarus? Did He not know He would be performing a miracle and that Lazarus would walk forth from the grave fully alive?

In verse 33 we read, "When Jesus saw her [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit..."

It seems clear to me that Jesus was weeping with them because He was was touched by their grief.  He was weeping for and with them, not for Lazarus.

He was "weeping with them that weep" as we are admonished later in Romans 12:15.

                  O, yes, He cares! I know He cares....

                         I know my Savior cares....

US: National Days of Prayer

During the colonial days, preparing for the Revolutionary War, and during the progress of the War, the colonial leaders called often for days of fasting and prayer, for days of appealing for God's help in their endeavors.

In June of 1778, Congress, who had fled Philadelphia because of the British control of that city and were meeting secretly in York, heard that the British troops had evacuated Philadelphia in order to send troops to fight the French in the West Indies.

So Congress returned to Philadelphia and they were able to celebrate the second anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, just where they had celebrated it in 1777 and 1776.

It caused great celebration to be able to return to the birthplace of the Revolution.

There were several days of fasting and prayer designated in September and October. By November it seemed that the French would likely come into the War as our ally. More encouraging news.

A thanksgiving resolution drafted by Samuel Adams was adopted by Congress on November 3, 1778, recommending Wednesday, December 30, as a day of public thanksgiving and praise, "it having pleased Almighty God through the course of the present year, to bestow great and manifold mercies on the people of these United States."

Samuel Adams and others in New England conceived of a God above us who was willing to intervene for the American cause, but only if the Americans themselves did their share by acting with virtue. He wrote from Philadelphia on December 21, 1778, "Our independence, I think, is secured. Whether America shall long preserve her freedom or not, will depend on her virtue."

To many colonial leaders happiness, liberty and virtue are always connected concepts.

I can't find a single reference to liberty in the writings of Samuel Adams that did not link it with virtue. The "pursuit of happiness" phrase of Jefferson meant, "pursuit of a life of virtue."

We define "happiness" nowadays mostly as possession of things, material objects we can touch and secure for ourselves. Jefferson first wrote in the Declaration the original phrase, popularized by philosophers of his day, "life, liberty and the pursuit of property." He didn't want to make our aims quite that materialistic, and so he changed property to happiness, meaning to pursue a virtuous life.

Now we have come full circle and interpret happiness as material goods! I wonder if he would shake his head now and wonder if we knew what we were saying? or thinking?

It all seems to be related to the Old Testament, so often quoted by our early leaders. Israel was saved (brought out of Egypt) before the law was given. So that is grace, right? But God also warned them repeatedly that they would not be able to keep their national liberty unless the nation honored God through obedience to His laws. Their political freedom was related directly to their obedience to His commands. (This is concerning their national freedom, not the godly individuals who daily walked with Jehovah in their often ungodly culture.)

"I am afraid the cry of too many," Samuel Adams said, "is get money, money, and then let virtue follow if she will.

"The inordinate love of gain will make a shameful alteration in the character of those who have heretofore sacrificed every enjoyment to the love of their country. He is the best patriot who stems the torrent of vice, because that is the most destructive enemy of his country."

Adams and his colleagues felt the American colonies were the "new Israel" that God was calling to be a lighthouse for the world. They often compared the ships bringing colonists over to America to Noah and his ark. As God saved a remnant of people from the devastating flood, intending them to start a new civilization in an unspoiled new world, so God brought a remnant of people over from the evil and darkness of Europe to found a new world, one that worshiped and obeyed Him.

Our earliest National Days of Prayer were proclaimed to restore that sense of virtue.