Storms are beautiful!

Am sure you beheld the title of today's post with disbelief and you may have asked yourself how can storms be beautiful? Before you think long about it, imagine yourself in a boat, tossed to and fro, heart beating wild, adrenaline surging through your veins as you hear the sound of wild winds, throwing every unsecured item here and there, as a wall of water rises, rises, far above your head, your eyes tracking the movement upwards and in a moment of absolute silence, you can hear a pin drop, then hearts gripping in fear as the wall comes crashing but you shout out " Jesus help" and someone throws you a lifeline that secures you to the boat. You did not go over, but the lifeline held you secure till the storm blows away, whew, that was close! Taking a deep breathe, you smell air so fresh, more fresh than  newly baked bread from the oven, the gentle breeze and the slow rocking of the boat as the heavens open up and down comes upon you rain, that refreshes and sweeps away all the dirt that littered about. That moment of peace that you cannot bottle up but basks in, is beautiful!

It is a sure fact that storms of life will come but what is your lifeline in that storm? What do you hold onto? Is it possible to outrun a storm?, maybe, but only one thing is needed in such situations. That is, knowing with absolute fact that God is greater, mightier and more powerful than that storm. Call upon the name of Jesus like the disciples did in the bible and let Jesus say "Peace be still". Let the storms of life redirect your life into God's plan and purposes, let the storm wash away everything that prevents you from fully committing to God, let the storm reveal the rotten foundation that needs to be rebuilt. God has promised beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Him who promised is ever faithful and never failing, hold on your miracle is a step away! I know because I just got mine. Glory be to God. Can you join me in worship with the song below?

{Unchanging God by Sinach}

"Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by." Psalm 57:1


Safety and Storms

“I was disappointed to learn it was a Christian event.”

                                                                                                                     by Paul C. Johnson

I was raised in a loving but non-religious home. My mother was raised going to church. But, my father’s father didn’t attend. Therefore, my father didn’t attend and our family slept in on Sunday mornings.
We thought our neighbors who went to church were wasting their time. Religion was for losers.

When I went to college, I took a Western religion course to round out my humanities studies. The professor confirmed my mistrust of the Bible. He taught us that the Bible was good literature, like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, but it was outdated and irrelevant to today’s world.

In my mid 20’s, the family business was doing well and I was making far more income as a partner than I had expected. Sue, my wife, and I were happily married. We met all the world’s standards of success but I wasn’t satisfied. There was emptiness in my life and I had no clue how to fill it.

Two years into our marriage we accepted an invitation to an elegant business banquet. When we arrived, I was disappointed to learn it was a Christian event. I decided to stay and see what it was all about only because the meeting was populated with top leaders from my community. That night I heard the gospel message for the first time in my life. The “safe” setting of a business event hosted by my professional peers was disarming.
That night, a Boston entrepreneur spoke about his story of faith. To my surprise, I was interested in the topic for the first time in my life. Checking a box on a comment card, I indicated that I wanted to learn more about a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. That step alone would have been inconceivable just 3 hours earlier!
My wife, Sue, had a different reaction. The man’s message and the prayer to receive Christ that night reminded her of a youth retreat she attended 8 years earlier. Sue had committed her life to Christ at that retreat but had never grown in her faith. At the dinner, she immediately resolved to follow Christ and began reading her Bible the very next day.

A week later, I received a phone call from a man who had been at the dinner. He invited me to meet with him and another man who had been at that dinner to discuss what we thought about the message we had heard that evening. The aim of this follow-up appointment was to challenge us to take the next step in our spiritual journey in life. Once again, to my surprise, I agreed to take that step.

Soon after, we began participating in a Bible discussion group. I was shocked to find that this ancient book was not a bunch of outdated fables but that it was relevant to my current situation.

God added a little drama to our story and finally got my full attention a short time later, through a storm in the middle of the night.
Sue and I were alone on a small sailboat in Long Island Sound. A harsh storm came on that night. At 1:30 am I realized my grip on life wasn’t nearly as strong as I thought. I was helpless and I couldn’t do a thing to save myself. I needed a Savior.

Hours later, safe and dry in the living room of the couple with whom we were studying the Bible, I accepted God’s provision of forgiveness and salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.
The truth is, I was a selfish, prideful man whose illusion of being in control of my life had been washed away in that storm. The message that Jesus’ love provided full payment for my sin – past, present and future – coupled with the genuine caring I had encountered from these Christians, led me to yield control of my life over to Christ.

The emptiness that used to plague me has been replaced by a wonderful new purpose. We now live our lives of gratitude to God by sharing Christ’s love with working professionals in the United States and in Eastern Europe.


I was privileged to get to know and participate in activities of Campus Crusade for Christ international while in college. The above testimony was shared on their website: www.cru.org

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus"
                                                                                                        Philippians 4:17 

'Believing in His name'

I BELIEVE
This past week, I needed to ask myself if I indeed believe in the name of Jesus. Yes, I believe in Jesus as my savior and redeemer, but do I really believe in his name? I feel that there is a distinction between the two. It lies in believing that there is power in that name. The first recorded miracle in the book of Acts happened at the temple gate called ‘Beautiful’, Peter and Silas met a man born blind begging for alms and their response was ;

“Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Acts 3:6 (underline mine)

It was a single command “walk”. Two things that gave Peter such boldness was firstly, his belief that at the mention of the name of Jesus, there will be a change in that man’s circumstances and indeed there was. There is great power in the name of Jesus and we have been given the authority to ask for anything in that name, but the onus lies on us to believe and call on that name when we need to do so. The name of Jesus is greater and higher than all names.

“Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place, and gave Him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” Philippians 2:9-11.

Another thing that gave Peter boldness was the power of the Holy Spirit. Apostle Paul knew the importance of having that power and he prayed for the church at Ephesus “I pray that out of the riches of His glory, He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being,” Ephesians 3:16. One of the scriptures we often quote is verse 20, I found myself meditating on that verse recently and my eyes were opened to the fact that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all I ask, think or imagine according to the power that works in me. So I asked myself ‘what type of power is at work within me?’ Am I grieving the Holy Spirit? There is a need to reconnect to the power of the Holy Spirit. Enjoy the song below and call the name of Jesus, and be encouraged by the testimony below.

My Mom's Kind of Faith

by Bianca Juarez Olthoff
August 30, 2016


I am the reflection of my people, those émigrés who believed in the intrinsic right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My mother’s family moved to the United States from Puerto Rico. An immigrant herself, my mother fell in love with an immigrant from Mexico, and they committed to creating a life in the concrete jungles of East Los Angeles.
My father supported our family by working multiple jobs. Whether it was laying tile, cutting down trees, or working as a cook in the cafeteria of Azusa Pacific University, he did everything he could to provide. But feeding a family of six on a single income—especially one as meager as my father’s—was hard, and we often needed a straight-up miracle to make ends meet, a Jesus-feeding-the-masses-with-five-loaves-and-two-fishes type of miracle.
The call to ministry runs deep in our family, and when my father planted a church in Los Angeles, the whole family pitched in. His dream became our dream, and we committed to loving people in our community. Most people avoid the ghetto, but my parents desired to create an oasis of hope amid the streets of East L.A. It was difficult and burdensome, but my parents served the church well. I watched them juggle the responsibilities of leading people, providing for their family, teaching God’s Word, and raising their children (and all the other crazy kids who attended the church).
In those early years of church planting, God provided in amazing ways. We didn’t own a house, we didn’t even have a car, but we were in the presence and fullness of God, and knew that what we had was far greater than three gourmet meals a day in a mansion with a Bentley in the garage but without God.

Amidst the tension of want and need, we knew God would provide. Life was beautiful, but difficult; beautifully difficult, I suppose you could say. I was often mocked and marginalized for my lack of stylish clothes. (We were po’. So poor we couldn’t afford a second O, much less the R. Yes, just po’.) I remember being in Sunday school seeing all the cool kids were decked out in their L.A. Gear shoes and trendy clothes. (Let’s pause for a moment of solidarity over how cool L.A. Gear was and mourn the fact that triple-laced shoes no longer exist.) I dreamed of being popular and cool enough to sit with the L.A. Gear crew. I begged my mom for a pair of the stylish sneakers, but I was told time and time again we could not afford them.
I kept hope alive for those shoes, and one magical day at Pic ‘n Save, a discount clearance store, I spotted a pair of white, studded, triple-laced Michael Jackson L.A. Gear shoes on an otherwise empty shelf. These shoes were the living dream of what I imagined cool people wore, and they were my size. It was as though the celestials opened and Michael the archangel moonwalked down from heaven to place the coolest shoes on the clearance rack just for me.
I ran to my mother and told her I would never ask for anything else as long as I lived if she bought the shoes for me. Holding my breath, I silently prayed she would say the shoes were within our budget. That day, I walked out of Pic ‘n Save carrying a white plastic bag and feeling as rich as Michael Jackson himself.
On Sunday, I wore my brand-new shoes and walked over to where all the cool kids hung out. I thought they would accept me, that I’d have the opportunity to hang out with them because I finally had what they had. But the seats weren’t open for me, and the girls said I couldn’t sit with them. I was devastated. I walked in my white, studded, triple-laced Michael Jackson L.A. Gear shoes to an empty table and sat alone, confronted by my greatest fear: I would never have what I needed to be who I wanted to be.
We knew poverty; we knew the sting of not being socially accepted. But God always seemed to provide. One particular day, when the fridge was empty and the pantry bare, my mother pulled out a large piece of butcher paper and taped it to the kitchen door. On the top of the page, she wrote PRAYER LIST in thick, bold letters. With earnest humility and brazen faith, she told us that we serve a God who hears our prayers and answers them in His perfect time.
She gave us each a marker and told us to list what we needed.

• Grandpa’s salvation
• A car
• Food
• A building for church
• Outfits for Easter (This was mine. Obviously.)

As the list grew, we poured out prayers for each need. We bowed our heads, closed our eyes, and asked God to provide for us just as He provided for the children of Israel. We knew God provided water, manna, quail, and daily provisions while the Israelites were in the desert. Why couldn’t He do the same for us?
That very afternoon, one of our neighbors stumbled onto our front porch with a heavy box of bread, government-issued cheese, yogurt, and butter. My mother graciously received the box of food and thanked our neighbor profusely. As she shut the front door, the heavy box slipped from her weary arms. She pulled us around the dining room table. Pointing to the prayer list, she said, “The Lord has heard our prayers! See? He’s already answered us.” Her belief unwavering, she instilled in us the kind of faith gained through experience, won through battle, and revealed through perseverance.
We watched as our mother slathered butter on slices of bread and placed them in a sizzling hot pan. She cut pieces of cheese from the five-pound block, and placed them atop the grilled bread. The butter bubbled and filled the kitchen with an aroma so delicious, I’m almost positive Jesus Himself would have salivated over her culinary masterpiece. (Note: If you’ve never had a grilled cheese sandwich made with government-issued cheese, you’ve never had a grilled cheese sandwich!) She took the sandwiches from the pan and put them on our plates. The cheese oozed from the corners of the bread’s crispy edges as my mother cut our sandwiches into triangles. Then, holding hands, we sat around our dining room table, across from our prayer list, and thanked God for hearing us in our time of need.
The prayer list (which was eventually answered in full), the faith of my mother, the grilled cheese sandwiches, the kind neighbor, the marked moment of gratitude around our table, it all came together perfectly like the butter, bread, and cheese to form something delicious. Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” And let me tell you, His provision tasted even better than those buttery sandwiches!
Whether through donated food boxes or hand-me- down clothes from people at church, or anonymous cashier’s checks mailed to our house, our needs were always met by a God who heard our cries. I watched as God provided for us in undoubtedly supernatural ways. But still, my young mind missed the message in these miracles: God provides what we need when we need it.

_____________
Taken from Play With Fire: Discovering Fierce Faith, Unquenchable Passion, And A Life-Giving God by Bianca Juarez Olthoff. Learn more at www.PlayWithFireBook.com.

( The above excerpt was published as free content by Zondervan books.)

A New Start!

Do you know who you are?
Last week Monday, I felt like singing to God with songs from my roots because I simply love the way we sing, the beat and rhythm makes one to loose dignity and dance like David danced. Before sharing the song with everyone, I would like you to think about who you are, not your material, financial or physical achievements but who are you in relation to Christ's death on the cross. 1 Corinthians 6:20 let's us know that we have been bought with a price, Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law( Galatians 3:13) and we are blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3).
I read somewhere recently that a coincidence is when God works silently behind the scenes, am still thinking on that, but on Tuesday, Devotional Daily by faithgateway ministries posted a devotional that am sharing. Read it and determine if it's a coincidence.

Sinach: I Know Who I Am

https://youtu.be/Iof4goETh6k : Listen with lyrics here.

Testimony:

New Starts At Burned Out Faith
                                                                                                  By Donald Miller

There is a time when every person who encounters Jesus, who believes Jesus is the Son of God, decides that they will spend their life following Him. Some people, like the Apostle Paul, make this decision the minute they meet Him, the minute they become a Christian. Others, like the Apostle Peter, endure years of half-hearted commitment and spiritual confusion before leaping in with all their passion. Still others may enjoy some benefits of God’s love and grace without entering into the true joy of a marriage with their maker.
Not long after I graduated from high school, I found myself leading a college group at a large church just outside Houston. I cherished the role, at first, because it was a place of honor. I studied the Bible for hours, putting talks together that students enjoyed. It started as a substitute teaching job. The college minister couldn’t be there one week, so he asked me to fill in. When I was asked to speak again, I jumped at the chance like Homer Simpson at a donut. Pretty soon I was teaching all the time. I swam in the attention and the praise, I loved it, I lusted for it, I almost drowned in it.
The more attention I got, the stranger I became.
I was on my way to having my own religious television show. Okay, that’s a bit much, but you know what I mean. I was a smiler, a hand-shaker, a baby-kisser, a speech-giver. I said things like “God be with you,” and “Lord bless you.” I used clichés like a bad novelist.
I led the college group for a couple of years and enjoyed it at first, but it wasn’t long before I felt like a phony. I got tired of myself. I didn’t like to hear my own voice because I sounded like a talk-show host.
One afternoon I made an appointment with my pastor and told him I was leaving, that I was going into the world to get my thinking straight.
“How long will you be gone?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged.
“Are you okay?”
“I think so. Maybe,” I told him.
“Can you talk about it?” He looked concerned.
“No, not really.”
“I understand you need a break. Why don’t you take a couple weeks off.”
“I was thinking longer,” I told him.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Can you put a time limit on these things?”
“What things, Don?”
“I don’t know,” I told him, sort of staring out the window.
“Can you tell me how you feel?”
“No. I’ve tried to put words to it, you know, but I can’t. I’m just really tired. Mentally drained. I feel like I am jumping through hoops or something. I don’t feel like God is teaching through me. I feel like I am a fake person, you know. I say what I need to say, do what I need to do, but I don’t really mean it.”
“What does the real you want to say and do?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. That is what the trip is about.”
“Are you having a crisis of faith?” He looked concerned again.
“Maybe. What is a crisis of faith?” I asked him.
“Do you believe in God?”
“Yes. I want to go on a trip with Him.”
“You aren’t having any doubts at all?” he asked.
“No. I don’t have any doubts about God or anything; it’s just me. I feel like I am constantly saying things I don’t mean. I tell people they should share their faith, but I don’t feel like sharing my faith. I tell people they should be in the Word, but I am only in the Word because I have to teach the Word. I said to a guy the other day, ‘God bless you.’ What does that mean? I have been saying that stuff all my life, but what does that mean? Then I started thinking about all the crap I say. All the clichés, all the parroted slogans.
I have become an infomercial for God, and I don’t even use the product.
I don’t want to be who I am anymore.”
“So you think you should go away,” he clarified.
“Yes.”
“Where will you go?”
“America.”
“America?” He looked confused.
“America.”
“We are in America right now, Don.”
“Yeah, I know. But there are other parts to America. I’d like to see the other parts. I was looking at a map the other day, you know, and Texas was sort of brown with some green, a few hills, but then there were other places that were more green with big lumpy mountains. I’d like to go to those places.”
“Do you think God is out there somewhere? Out there in the lumpy places?”
“I think God is everywhere.”
“Then why do you have to leave?”
“Because I can’t be here anymore. I don’t feel whole here. I feel, well, partly whole. Incomplete. Tired. It has nothing to do with this church; it’s all me. Something got crossed in the wires, and I became the person I should be and not the person I am. It feels like I should go back and get the person I am and bring him here to the person I should be. Are you following me at all? Do you know what I am talking about, about the green lumpy places?”
The conversation went on like this for about an hour. I went on and on about how the real me was out in the green lumpy places. I wasn’t making any sense. I can’t believe my pastor didn’t call the guys with the white coats to take me away. I suppose what I wanted back then is what every Christian wants, whether they understand themselves or not.

What I wanted was God. 
I wanted tangible interaction. But even more than that, to be honest, I wanted to know who I was.
I felt like a robot or an insect or a mysterious blob floating around in the universe. I believed if I could contact God, He would be able to explain who and why I was.
The days and weeks before a true commitment to Jesus can be terrible and lonely. I think I was feeling bitter about the human experience. I never asked to be human. Nobody came to the womb and explained the situation to me, asking for my permission to go into the world and live and breathe and eat and feel joy and pain. I started thinking about how odd it was to be human, how we are stuck inside this skin, forced to be attracted to the opposite sex, forced to eat food and use the rest room and then stuck to the earth by gravity. I think maybe I was going crazy or something.
Life no longer seemed like an experience of freedom.
About twelve hours after I had the conversation with my pastor, a friend and I jumped into one of those Volkswagen camping vans and shoved off for the green lumpy places. A week into our American tour, we found ourselves at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, which is more lumpy than green, it turns out. It was a heck of a hike, let me tell you. I was in no shape to do it. So by the time I got to the bottom of that gargantuan hole in the ground, I was miserable. It was beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but when your head is throbbing and you can’t feel your lower half, you don’t want to sit and reflect on how beautiful things are. Lumpy or not.
The canyon is more spectacular from the rim than from the river. Once in it, everything looks like Utah. As my friend and I fell asleep by the river, however, I had a cherished moment with God. I was in a lot of pain from the hike, so I was in no mood to mess around. There was no trying to impress Him, no speaking the right words. I simply began to pray and talk to God the way a child might talk to his father.
Beneath the billion stars and beside the river, I called out to God, softly.
“Hello?”
The stars were quiet. The river spoke in some other tongue, some vernacular for fish.
“I’m sorry, God. I’m sorry I got so confused about You, got so fake. I hope it’s not too late anymore. I don’t really know who I am, who You are, or what faith looks like. But if You want to talk, I’m here now. I could feel You convicting me when I was a kid, and I feel like You are trying to get through to me. But I feel like You are an alien or something, somebody far away.”
Nothing from the stars. Fish language from the river. But as I lay there, talking to God, being real with Him, I began to feel a bit of serenity.
It felt like I was apologizing to an old friend, someone with whom there had been a sort of bitterness, and the friend was saying it was okay, that he didn’t think anything of it.
It felt like I was starting over, or just getting started. That is the thing about giving yourself to God. Some people get really emotional about it, and some people don’t feel much of anything except the peace they have after making an important decision. I felt a lot of peace.
There is something quite beautiful about the Grand Canyon at night.
There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing.
(They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.) And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart.
I imagined Him looking down on this earth, half angry because His beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her.
I know a little of why there is blood in my body, pumping life into my limbs and thought into my brain. I am wanted by God. He is wanting to preserve me, to guide me through the darkness of the shadow of death, up into the highlands of His presence and afterlife. I understand that I am temporary, in this shell of a thing on this dirt of an earth. I am being tempted by Satan, we are all being tempted by Satan, but I am preserved to tell those who do not know about our Savior and our Redeemer. This is why Paul had no questions. This is why he could be beaten one day, imprisoned the next, and released only to be beaten again and never ask God why. He understood the earth was fallen. He understood the rules of Rome could not save mankind, that mankind could not save itself; rather, it must be rescued, and he knew that he was not in the promised land, but still in the desert, and like Joshua and Caleb he was shouting, “Follow me and trust God!”
I see it now. I could see Satan lashing out on the earth like a madman, setting tribes against each other in Rwanda, whispering in men’s ears in the Congo so that they rape rather than defend their women. Satan is at work in the cults of the Third World, the economic chaos in Argentina, and the corporate-driven greed of American corporate executives.
I lay there under the stars and thought of what a great responsibility it is to be human. I am a human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan.
God is reaching out to me to rescue me.
I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved.

Excerpted with permission Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, copyright Donald Miller. Published by Thomas Nelson.


Prayer: 
Lord give me the fresh start that I need in my fellowship with you. Help me to reconnect back with you. May I not be consumed by self but learn to serve with all humility. May I  love you more than all you have blessed me with and live a life of 100% obedience to you. Like David said "Restore unto me the joy of my salvation", that is my hearts desire in Jesus name, Amen