Christ be Beside Me!

I should know better by now, but it still amazes me how we tend to feel good about ourselves when we think we have it all together. When we think and feel like everything in our lives is coming together and things are going to settle down and we can relax and enjoy for awhile.

Guess what, that’s being human!  In reality, that’s when you need to put on the helmet, strap on the seat belt, grit your teeth and hang on, because the road is about to get bumpy and the battle is about to begin!

God’s plan is not for us to be comfortable!  God’s plan is not for man to “feel good” about his situation, God’s plan is for us to worship him!  It’s for us to take him fully into our hearts and allow him to use us as He sees fit, to use us to complete His plans for us.  He wants us to take care of each other, wants us to make a difference in the world by showing others His love and the freedom it brings.

The hard part for us as humans and especially as Americans is that we’ve become complacent in our love and Worship of Christ!  We live “the good life”! The poorest amoung us would be extreemly wealthy in any third world country where survival is the only concern on a daily basis.

We have chosen to remove Christ from our lives, our schools and our government.  When we do this we lose the blessings that He has given us in the past.  We need to wake up and come back to Him, we need to return to the core values of our forefathers.

Our God is a God who is slow to anger, but whose wrath is mighty!  We have been putting His patience to the test for too long and the time may be short before we see his wrath.

The LORD is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never lets the guilty go unpunished. He displays his power in the whirlwind and the storm. The billowing clouds are the dust beneath his feet.  Nahum 1:3

I hate to sound negative today, but I worry where we are heading as a nation.  I worry about what the future holds for my children and grandchildren.  I pray the the Lord Jesus will come into the hearts of our leaders and more importantly into the hearts of all Americans that we turn back to Him.  That we allow him to use us all to fulfill His plan.

You’ve heard this before from me on many occations, when we try to control our lives and the lives of others, I guarantee you we will find a way of messing it up.  When we let God control our lives, when we let Him lead us in our ways, everything works out for the good of all.

21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; 23 who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. 24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. 25 To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing. 27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”? 28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. 30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; 31 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.  Isaiah 40:21-31

I pray to the Lord Jesus, that He will come into ALL our hearts.  That He opens our eyes that we truly see what is around us.   That He causes us to really let Him work within us, use us to right the wrongs we see, lift up those in need, spread the Good News to all we touch.

Christ be beside me, Christ be before me,

Christ be behind me, King of my heart.

Christ be within me, Christ be below me,

Christ be above me, never to part.

Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left hand,

Christ all around me, shield in the strife.

Christ in my sleeping, Christ in my sitting,

Christ in my rising, light of my heart.

Christ be in all hearts thinking about me,

Christ be on all tongues telling of me.

Christ be the vision in eyes that see me,

In ears that hear me Christ ever be.

But my greatest wish today is that when someone encounters you or I that they no longer see us as the individual, but they see and feel the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ!

That is my prayer and wish for you this day, have a blessed, Christ filled day today!

God’s majesty!

We recently came back from visiting our son and daughter in law and new baby granddaughter in Colorado.  Flying out visiting and flying back I could not help but think about the beauty of this earth that the Lord provided.

In Genesis 1:1 thru 2:3, is the description of creation.  When you’re flying at 30,000 feet above the ground, how can you not gaze in wonder at his marvelous works!

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Our flight out was an early morning flight, we left before dawn.  As the Sun started to come up, I was reminded of verse 3 of chapter 1.   “³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”

As our trip continued, the sky became a brilliant blue with puffy white clouds and I was then reminded of the next three verses. “ ⁶ And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” ⁷So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.”

As we continued our flight across the country, over the mighty Mississippi River, over the Great Plains and over the rugged Rocky Mountains and saw the beauty of these great peaks, we saw how he’s provided land for growing the crops we need.  This continued my current day visualization of Genesis 1:11-13  “¹¹ Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. ¹² The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.”

For verses 14 thru 19 – “ ¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶ God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.”

If you’ve ever been out west especially in an area away from the lights of a city or town, you can appreciate the stars and the moon.  On a clear mountain night, there are so many stars it will astound you and the moon is so clear you feel like you can reach out and touch it.  His amazing handiwork!  As for sunrise and sunset, what more can be said about watching the beauty of a sunrise or sunset.  It doesn’t matter where you are to watch, could be on a beach, or in the mountains or in a city; some of the most amazing colors and sights come with a magnificent sunrise or sunset!

Verses 20 – 23 – “ ²⁰ And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.”

For those close to my home in Pennsylvania, have you ever gone to Hawk Mountain for the fall migration and seen the numbers and variety of birds heading south; or gone to Middle Creek Wildlife Refuge in the early spring and gazed at the thousands of Snow Geese and Tundra Swans heading north? Or on a smaller scale, have you ever had a bird feeder in your yard and watched the variety of birds that visit?  As for the creatures of the sea, most of us my age grew up watching Jacques Cousteau and seeing the vast variety of creatures of the sea.  Who hasn’t been entertained by watching dolphins, or in awe of seeing a whale or a shark for the first time!  God’s creation gift to us all!

In an amusing kind of way, when I look at the final section of chapter 1, it looks like the sixth day was the busiest day for God.  If it were the recap of a week for a man, I’d say this guy was a big time procrastinator!  The first five days were 3 – 4 verses, relatively quick. Then comes day 6!  This day was 8 verses and had a lot going on! For a procrastinating man, it’s like “Wow! I only have one day left and I have all this to do yet! I know this wasn’t the case for God as in his almighty way, he determined what, when and how long everything was going to take.

So on day 6 he:  created all the land animals, created man, gave man authority over all the fish, birds, and animals, commanded them all to be fruitful and multiply.

Genesis 1:24-31 – “²⁴ And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
²⁹ Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
³¹ God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”

Then on the seventh day, He rested.  He created the Sabbath and made it holy.  Why do we feel that we need to continue to work on the 7^th day of our week?  Don’t you ever think, if God felt it was important to rest after 6 days of hard work, shouldn’t you?  Do we feel that we are “smarter” or “stronger” than God that we don’t need a day to rest and rejuvenate our bodies, souls and minds? Something to really consider the next time you’re rushing thru another weekend!  Here’s the beginning of Chapter 2 again – “ ¹ Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

Pondering the creation story in Genesis caused me to really think about all that is around us.  We got to Colorado and saw our new granddaughter for the first time! A true blessing and gift from God!  An amazing sight to be able to see and touch this wonderful little baby, seeing those little fingers and toes and realizing that all this is possible coming from God!

Then I think about the wonders in nature around us.  The uniqueness of the snowflake, the colors of the leaves in fall, the feather like qualities of ferns in the forest.  The unique fresh tastes of a strawberry or a grape or a crisp apple!  The sweetness of honey in summer or maple sugar in the spring!  All of these things given to us by Almighty God!

How can we be so naive as to think these are just random acts of nature or the science of evolution without the direction of a higher power?  All things, and all science are gifts from the creator, we cannot let our human pride deny this basic fact.  Man no matter what he wants to think is not the center of the universe! That spot rightfully belongs to Almighty God!

Friends, I will close with this… as we quickly approach a new spring season, take some time to really watch God’s majestic power again transform our world as we awake from winter.  Enjoy the rebirth of plants, the newborn creatures as they emerge from their winter homes, the renewing warmth of the stronger rays from the son.  But most of all, give thanks to the Creator for allowing us the privilege of experiencing His creation.

God bless you!

New Post coming tonight….

The Spirit is moving again, new post coming tonight with additional to follow shortly there after!

Thanks for you patience and thank you for following!

 

God Bless You!