Saturday, May 31, 2014

Time and Timelessness

Time is an occupied space that is allotted to mankind of the period in which we live on earth. God - the timeless One preceded time.  He is pre-time and antedates it. Yet He is the creator of time.

He created time yet abides independent of it. He is not governed by it, but time is governed by its Creator. Time is obedient to God and He is never rushed by it or controlled by its schedules.

God never checks to see what time it is because He abides in an untimed era – that of eternity. He decrees events by His plan and desires. Time occupies space in God. God doesn’t occupy space in time, for God is greater than time. He is also the timeless One. He is the instigator or it, yet remains unhindered or unmotivated by it.

Time is a segment of God’s great gift to us. It is significant to us, but only in this lifetime. After this life time will have no meaning to us. Eternity contains no clocks, calendars or watches. The allotted years – the timeframe of our humanity – is lavished on us so that we might prepare for the era of timelessness.

Whether we spend eternity with God in Heaven or with the devil in Hell, there will be no measure of time then. Eternity is the era of forever – a measureless space that occupies a realm yet to be which always has been. There time shall be no more (Revelation 10:6).

Therefore since God is the ‘timeless One’ it behooves us to live and move and have our being in Him now. (Acts 17:28) Now is the accepted time, now is the day of our salvation (II Corinthians 6:2). ‘Now’ is the epoch given to us – a term of lifespan in which we must choose where we will spend eternity.

After this time-paced life the decision of our eternal destination will already have been established. The question as to where we will spend our timeless and untimed space in eternity will be settled. After death here on earth there will be no more time for decision making. The allotted period of what we know as time will be over.

Today measures my time. Tomorrow it may be over and I may be stepping into the era of timelessness. How I spend this interval on earth will spell out how and where I will spend eternity. Today I will permit to elapse the seconds, the minutes and the hours which will lead to untimed days of eternity – the period of untimed life or death in the immeasurable ‘no-time’ zone.

With THIS BREATH I need to choose to take Jesus Christ as my Savior and as my Lord. If I have another breath, I must embrace that decision and live the hours of time here where time matters most to glorify God.

Jesus wants each of us to rule and reign with Him in eternity. We must use the time called “NOW” to choose to live for Him. In eternity the timeless One decrees that time will be no more! Today’s time is the “NOW” to come to Jesus and to take Him as your Savior.

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Family Time

It all started in too much of an hurry 45 years ago. Russell and I married, still being strangers, after just a few months of dating. A year after our marriage we had our first daughter, Bonita. She is married to Jerry and they have blessed us with three children, Logan 9, Sierra 7, and Vayla 4.

Three and a half years later Valencia came along. She is now married to Ken and they have given us 4 grandchildren. Micah is 15, Karis is 13, Moriah almost 5 and Judah almost 3. They reside in Spokane and pastor a church there, and are over a church plant in Moses Lake and over two Christian Schools.

Just after Bonita turned seven we had our third daughter, Lacinda. She was born to us at a time of extreme tests, but she added a lot to our home. She is married to Chris and the couple has four youngsters. Eliana is 8, Seth 7, Ashley 4 and Gracia 18 months.

Our children are a credit to the kingdom of God and we are blessed to have had spent time with them this past week. We have more blessings than we can count! Children are the glory to the grey head and can take God’s message where we will never be able to.

To Jerry and Bonita, Ken and Valencia and Chris and Lacinda…thank you for raising our grandchildren in the fear of God. They are destined to be God’s little lambs. We bless you all in the Name of Jesus.

Family 5-14

Sunday, May 18, 2014

My Rippling Stream

By Lydia Chorpening

 

I sat beside my rippling stream - thinking

And into its chilly waters - plinking

Little pebbles that lined the shoreline there

I looked around and saw a robin - hopping

And watched as he was often - stopping

Listening for the worms beneath the mosses green

I looked heavenward and saw white fluffy clouds - gliding

Driven by the wind in no particular shape -abiding

Released as lambs in early spring

The sun of late afternoon kept creeping - peeking

As out from behind the clouds - sneaking

Into its bed where it would spend my night

I thought beyond the clouds and sunshine - praying

That I might be always in God's presence - staying

Though I could not always sit beside my rippling stream

Psalm 16:11 “”You will show me the path of life: in your presence is

fullness of joy: at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Early American Revivals

Before mounting into his pulpit Jonathan Edwards had knelt to pray.  Should he preach what the people wanted or should he tell the truth?

Concern pressed in upon him.  Gone was that God fearing generation that have settled the land, but that day in 1734 marked the birth of what in many respects was the most notable revival of religion in America that has ever experienced.

There was a remnant of godly left.  They soon realized that the halfway covenant was a terrible mistake.  Something was desperately needed to keep the flickering flame of vital Christianity from wholly being snuffed out.

As God of often does, he chose a man to unlatched the windows of darkened churches to let the light in.  This man was Jonathan Edwards.  He had a religious bent early in life.  He struggled to know that true plan of salvation.Finally he came upon the passage in Timothy; “now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and Glory for ever and ever. Amen.”  That one sentence gave Edwards a new sense of things.  A sense of God's Glory filled him.

George Whitefield fanned the fire of God. He came from a England.  And spoke with quiet  intensity.  He painted pictures with his words.  He built truth upon truth.  In his most famous sermon entitled, “sinners in the hands of an angry God,” he compared the sinner to a spider suspended over the flames of hell.  He said, you hang by a slender thread, with flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe and burn it asunder.

Whitefield preached in meeting houses, in barns, in fields, from wagons.  Everywhere it was the same.  People were convicted of their sin and driven to the foot of the cross.  There was never an invitation given.  Whitefield merely preached and waited for the Spirit to move.  People wept, some from remorse others with joy.

Prayer, fasting and boldness brought on great revivals in the 1700s.  If that could happen then it can happen again.  Who was willing to pay the price?  Who was willing to move away from status quo?  I leave you with those two questions

Monday, May 5, 2014

To Love Unashamedly

To me the summer seemed long and extremely hot. The year was in the mid 1950’s and I spent my long days tucked into the lonely countryside in Missouri. My parents and older brothers did custom hay baling in the surrounding areas and I, during my adolescent years was left at home to care for my infant and toddling siblings, plus take care of chores, gardening and canning.

The days seemed unbearable as fear and heat mixed together to make me think about ‘hell’. I was taught that hell was real and to me it was more real than heaven. There were five things I believed in. Those were, God, the devil, heaven, hell and eternity. There was something (and I know now that that something was Someone) missing in my equation. Looking back now I am so ashamed to say that it was Jesus and my love for Him.

Years later after I had made my confession of faith, went through excommunication, and received the infilling of the Holy Spirit, I still remember a time when I found it difficult to say, “I love You, Jesus.”

God has been so patient with me. I wish that I could say there was an ‘ah-ha moment’ early in my life where I could remember just realizing that Jesus paid it all so that I could fall in love with Him. It must be that I grew in that love, for my heart is touched, it is tender before Him when I think of how much He loved me.

Jesus was not ashamed to stripped bare for my shame and disgrace. He humbled Himself to take the stripes on His back because of my very sins. He made Himself sinful that I might be guiltless. He went to hell that I might inherit an eternity in Heaven with Him, sitting with Him in that fathomless beauty.

Somewhere in the 98 years of my mother’s life she had grown deeply in love with Jesus. The first person she wanted to see in Heaven was “the LORD” as she called Him. She sang of Him until breath would not allow her to sing any longer. When she stepped into His presence I am sure she was still singing. What a gift of dedicated, unashamed love she left to all of us! What a heart-after-God she exemplified! How deep her insight was of the love of Jesus for her and all of us!

One example of her unashamed love was that on her death-bed and in her dying days, she grabbed every doctor’s hand and every nurse’s hand that she could reach and lifted it to her lips, planting a firm kiss on that hand and then boldly said, “God bless you!”

And I now am here, left after her to carry on that ‘unashamed-love-legacy!’ What a privilege! What a responsibility! What an honor! Lord, make my love for You, bold, honorable, unrelenting, and responsible!