Intentions and Plans 223

"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." Genesis 50:20

It's 1981...a young unmarried couple, involved  out of wedlock, discover that they are pregnant.
They are anxious, confused, without resources...Roe v. Wade is in force, abortion is legal, and they are considering doing again what they have already done before, in fact, twice before…
but this time is different, this time they make a decision to keep this baby, and in October, 1981,
became the proud parents of a healthy, beautiful baby girl.
The couple's marriage soon dissolved, but the girl flourished...

Recently my oldest  daughter, born in 1981,who resides in New York,
along with our son-in-law, and our two beautiful grand-daughters came to visit us.
This daughter is that baby girl... and a new legacy of life was begun.
In the classic movie, It's A Wonderful Life, a despondent George Bailey gets to see what his world would've looked like without the impact of his life...and I am moved to repeatedly consider the many lives that would've been impacted without this young lady, not to mention there would be no grand daughters...

When I look at them and take in all the blessings of these two generations, both now and the future,
I hear the voice of the Lord: ...for I know the plans I have for them, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans for a hope and a future..."  Jer. 29:11
Beloved,  God's plans are crafted with eternity in His mind, and are far better than even the best laid intentions of men... Seek first His kingdom, surrender your intentions to Him.

Immanuel 221

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
Deuteronomy 31:8

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”–which means, “God with us.”
Matthew 1:21-23

Im-anu-El...is really three words, not one...the literal translation is : with-us-God.
This powerful declaration, proclaiming: GOD WITH US is all around us, our magnificent Master filling His creation with it, reminding us, reassuring us:
DO NOT FEAR!
DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED!
I AM WITH YOU!
I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU!
Yesterday afternoon my gaze was drawn to the skies as my Father put on a display in the heavenlies,
I was awestruck, recording some pictures on instagram, His glory shouted to me:
"Look up, I am your Redeemer!
Is anything too hard for Me? Trust in me alone, I am...Immanuel."
Beloved, the Lord who loves us is with us!
Go out today, praising and rejoicing in Him.
Tell someone today- IMMANUEL

Mammon and the Heart

Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything. Genesis 14:18-20 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi 3:8-12 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Matthew 6:24 Tithing: it's not about the money, folks, and never has been. There is a long standing debate about whether we should pay tithes on net or on everything, the gross income. It's not about God needing our money because He owns everything, including what you might think is yours. It's all about the condition of our hearts, and the level of real faith, the actual measure of who is really first in our hearts, and our lives. It's about learning to get ourselves out of the way, crucifying our selfish desires and making the Lord preeminent in all things. We can't serve two masters. We aren't fooling anyone, not ourselves, and especially not the Master/Father/ Creator by splitting hairs, by paying tithes on what's left after taxes, and payroll deductions, reasoning that "God understands because I have all these bills". I will tell you that everytime I've done this in my walk I could not escape the voice of the Holy Spirit, way down deep, letting me know I was robbing my God- and more than that-myself. We serve a mighty God who knows every situation, every needs, and meets them, always to a greater measure in accordance with our faith. I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. Psalm 37:25 Beloved, He asks us the question, often, and in many different ways: "Do you love me?" Consider today what He has done for us, never short changing us, or throwing us leftovers. Our Bridegroom is an extravagant lover, who has withheld nothing from us, not even His only begotten Son. How can we do any less?

Voices 292

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is My way, walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21

God has planted in each of us a heart that is capable of supernaturally both seeing and hearing.
In our heart there is a special area, created for God's dwelling place in us.
It is the helm from which His Holy Spirit speaks to us...His word to us is penned here in Isaiah 30:21:
"This is My way, walk in it."
Everyone who is absolutely honest will have to admit deep down inside that they hear and recognize this voice of guiding truth from our loving Master. When the voice is heard there are only two possible responses: to either obey the voice of the Uncreated Loving God who has our best interests in mind, or we listen to another voice, the illegitimate lying voice that comes from the one who comes to destroy, steal, and kill.
The voice of truth, the voice of the Good Shepherd is always heard first, and cannot be extinguished, but the heart can become calloused and desensitized. Just as a driver who ignores the instructional voice of a GPS navigation system, the ultimate destination of ignoring the Good Shepherd's call is a place of disastrous consequence.
But the voice of the Lord keeps calling, never relenting:
"Come back, this is My way for you, the way to My plan for your life, 
turn away from evil, and follow Me."
Beloved, make wise choices, incline your ear to Him, be still and listen to the voice of our Magnificent Obsession.

25

 Place me like a seal over your heart,
   like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
   its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
   like a mighty flame


Today, April 21, 2012, is the 25th anniversary of my saying "YES" to Jesus, it's  my spiritual birthday, the day I made the decison that moved me from death and eternal damnation to life eternal.
Looking back there have been many trials, tribulations, this path has taken me through storms, valleys, and mountain tops.
I expect that prunings, and His blessings, will continue as He refines and polishes me, removing spot and wrinkle as He prepares a place for me at the Wedding Feast.
Moving forward through this journey I am assured and re-asssured that God is faithful, even when I am not.
He carries me and covers me, in all of my weaknesses and my flawed sinful humanity, on the wings of His faithfulness.
My confidence and dependence is in Him alone, and my goal is that I will decrease while He increases...
He is so faithful, graceful, merciful, so good to me who is so unworthy, and His love endures forever.

He Promises

Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?
The words I say to you are not just my own.
Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.
He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
“If you love me, you will obey what I command.
John 14:10-15

Sometimes faith becomes weak. Perhaps we only look at the natural empirical evidence of what the circumstances appear to be. We can be overtaken with worries and fear, where our response (to praise God, who is more than able to deliver!) is impeded.
In this place Jesus asks, as He had asked Peter: "Do you love me?
To which the response comes..."Lord, you know I love you...", and part of His response is the above passage.
He is the God of miracles.
He has all authority.
He has given it to us to glorify the Father.
Greater things than these are we able to do.
We have only to love Him, obey Him, keep our gazes locked on His, with faith like a child.
Beloved, Love Him, and take Him at His word.

Learning to Live/Dying 295

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me."
John 12:24-26

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Galatians 2:20

In the desert the children of Israel wandered forty years on what could have been a two week journey, but there was this problem that had much to do with what is perhaps the greatest of stumbling blocks: unbelief, and along with it, a stubborn inclination to hang on to things and habits that are of no real value, and in fact, are usually detrimental to our maturation as believers. The Lord kept the children of Israel out there in the desert until the unbelievers, who couldn't see God past themselves, had died, and those remaining, who had seen God's mighty hand move so often, were ready to move forward as they trusted and praised the almighty magnificent God, not themselves.
Many of us, I daresay, all, have travelled through the desert...some are in that place even now.
At the beginning of the journey, we are heavily laden with "things" and plans of our own, with eyes focused on preserving control over this stuff, giving them idolatrous attention, rather than focusing on the Master and His plans, unable to see how He furiously and wonderfully He desires relationship with us.
The "Promised Land" lies on the 'other side of the Jordan", the place in our hearts where we leave behind our unbelief, fear, unforgiveness, and our other fleshly desires, when we die to ourselves.
When that seed falls to the ground, an incredible new bounty can sprout out of it, producing a life we may have never thought possible, because it runs counter to everything the natural mind considered. The proclamation has to be made by us: Not my will, Lord, but Yours.
Real life, the abundant life, only comes from really knowing Jesus, and that revelation knowledge and ability to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd that comes only as we surrender totally to Him, His perfect will, and His amazing plan for each of us.

All Things Possible (No Impossibilities) 219

For with God nothing shall be impossible.
Luke 1:37

The children of Israel had fled Egypt, men, women, children, livestock, and everything that they owned, plus all the valuables that the Egyptians had given them for the asking. Pharaoh's heart had once again become hardened, and so the Jews raced towards the Red Sea, with Pharoah's army chasing after them, and they had no clue how they would be delivered from this situation, but they followed Moses, and they watched as God did the "impossible"- parting the Red Sea for them, but as the Egyptian Army gave chase the seas closed up on Phariah and his men, destroying Israel's enemies, while delivering His people Israel.

Against "impossible" odds, a huge lawsuit against my wife and I has been overturned,
forgiven and cancelled by the plaintiff!

In 2008, we were financially devastated as the result of a failed business that happened during the worst economic moment of modern history. We then became embroiled in a legal struggle with our would-be landlords from that business.

This loomed over us for more than a year and a half, overshadowing everything, driving us even to consider bankruptcy. We were told that those who were bringing the lawsuit were ruthless, heartless, caring only about business, with no regard for people. I was told by someone familiar with these businessmen, to prepare for the worst, wishing me "good luck" as we struggled. But my wife and I believed that deliverance would come, we knew that our God was bigger than our circumstances,
we just didn't know how or when. Our prayer was: God, touch the hearts of these men, give them hearts of flesh and compassion, instead of cold stone. We began to hear the spirit of the Lord instructing us to write the plaintiffs a letter, explaining our dire situation, and ultimately asking for them to exercise grace and mercy with us, asking them for a mitzvah (grant us a good deed, a blessing to them and us).
Our attorney told us that such a request was irregular and dangerous, but we still felt to write this letter, which we forwarded through legal channels. We heard nothing for weeks-but then suddenly on the last day of Pesach (Passover), we received an email from my attorney with a forwarded response  from the plaintiff, dismissing the lawsuit, with us taking care of a relatively small amount of legal fees!
Delivered on the last day of the celebration of deliverance from adversaries…
Another breath-taking blessing from our Father! His ways and thoughts are so much higher than ours.
I am reminded of what faith is: things that are hoped for that are yet unseen,
and the Word tells us that without faith it is impossible to please the Lord.
I see this image in my spirit: my Father standing with His arms open, laughing, asking me the question: "Once again I say to you, is anything too difficult for Me? With Me nothing is impossible!"
Beloved, today whatever your situation is-Believe.
Our amazing God is in the business of exchanging beauty for ashes.
He makes everything beautiful...just in time.

Busy 224

"I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."
Revelation 2:2-5, 7

We are busy.
Busy with school, busy with our careers, busy raising families, busy with children's activities, busy with social responsibilities, sports, busy being entertained, busy with church events, just plain downright busy.
Sometimes we are busy doing "God" things, His work, lots of good things in His name, which is all wonderful, but if we are not vigilant, if we are not careful we will find ourselves distant, estranged, from our First Love.
The Lord says: "Yet I have this against you."
Do you feel, or have you felt the sting of the Lord's rebuke? I know I have, because in those words lay a truth, a searing indictment that I really didn't want to own up to: in my heart He was no longer first, which was why so much time was spent doing other things, meaningless idolatrous things.
We can become so busy, our schedules so packed, that we can forget our beginnings, where we started and how it was in the "Garden", when we were first saved, our hearts and spirits so fresh and tender, when we were so in love with Jesus that all we wanted to do was be with Him, sit before Him, feast on His Word, listen to His voice as He whispered: "This is my way, walk in it."
Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, He was there at the beginning for us, and in the end it will be us and Him, and most of what we spent our time on will have absolutely zero eternal benefit.
Beloved, return to your First Love...only He can satisfy the deepest longings of your heart.

Rolling the Stone Away #167

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.”
John 19:30a

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”
Then they remembered his words.
Luke 24:1-8

Jesus had paid the paid for each of us in full. A horrible death on the cross, laid in the tomb for three days, just as He said, and He rose from the dead, conquering sin and death, just as He had said, the huge disc-shaped stone was rolled away.
Yet in the hearts and minds of the disciples who had lived with Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, who had seen the miracles, heard His words, seen what real Love is, claiming to believe Him when things were going well, but now had fled from Him.

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.
But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
Luke 24:9-12

Their faith had been stolen from them momentarily, their natural minds not being able to move past His death and burial and was still locked up in tombs of their own, their stones not yest rolled back-until they saw Him in His resurrected body.
In each of us, the stone must be rolled away from our hearts by faith in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross, and His resurrection..."for it is by faith you have been saved, not of yourselves, but it's a gift of God, lest any man should boast.
Sin, shame, pain, sickness, anger, unforgiveness, vain and empty thoughts, dysfunction, every dark thing, death has been crucified for us when we walk in the newness of abundant life that has been provided for us all.
Today beloved, see Jesus for who He really is, in all His resurrected glory, in all His magnificence and majesty.
He is risen indeed!

A Good Kind Of Poverty

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
Psalm 42:1, 2

I need the Lord in my life desperately. Without His Holy Spirit is indwelling Me, rising up inside me, filling and refilling me, there is only emptiness, hunger, arid. I am desperately poor and I know it. My most important and essential activities that feed my soul: reading and meditating on the Word, spending time with my Abba, striving to be wrapped in a lover's embrace with a locked gaze on Jesus alone, are never enough. Only He can satisfy, His love is better than wine, and without His presence there is no real joy, no contentment. Those who are poor in spirit are acutely aware of their need and where the only real Life comes from, and they must pursue it, relentlessly persevering and reaching ahead to apprehend the fullness that comes from abiding in Him alone.

If 293

“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever– the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
John 14:15-17, 22

"Peter, do you love me?"

Like Peter, I can hear the Lord saying to me: Do you love me?
Then get out of your comfort zone, follow my commandments,
obey my teachings, feed my sheep, love your brothers and sisters.
When we truly love the Lord, a rule book is not needed because heaven's laws are written on our hearts. Everything we do is directed out of love for the beloved, the object of our affection, and so it is with Jesus. We are to live directed by love, not fear of breaking rules. Jesus said that the total of all the Laws and the Prophets hangs on the commandments to love God and our neighbors furiously, the way He did-and still does.
There are many around us today who are dead in their sins even though they walk- dead men walking- we are to take advantage of these "Godincendences" and share His love and our testimonies with them, just as Jesus did, just as we did when we fell in love with our "First Love", when we couldn't stop talking about Him.
So today beloved, remember who you are, who your First Love is...pay attention to divine appointments...
How beautiful are the feet of those who share the Good News...

153/A Testimony 84

“I'm going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We'll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
He called out to them, “Friends, haven't you any fish?”
“No,” they answered.
He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.
Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.
Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.”
Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.
John 21:3-11

"Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev..."

Paul had to make tents for a living, and I have a day job, too...
My vocation is a car salesman, let me add, a salesman who gets paid commission only, no salary, no hourly wage.
Like Peter, and the other fishermen colleagues of his, if there are no "fish", there is no income. On the 15th of this month, after toiling for 2 weeks, 10 hours per day, my "nets" were empty, I had only one car sold, and no real prospects, and I must confess that I had real pangs of worry, even though in 25 years, the Lord had never left me unprovided for, provision often coming at 11:59.
This area regarding our finances is my weakest link, the thing that I struggle the most is believing all of His promises as my Ultimate Provider.
Yet the Lord in all His mercy, met and meets our needs, giving me nine more sales, "out of the blue", just as He did for Peter and company on the Kinneret early that morning, provision coming swiftly and abundantly, suddenly, as they obeyed His direction, and just as He does for all those who trust on Him, even when things look bleak in the natural.


Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Matthew 6:26, 31-33

God is so faithful.