TRAPPED

TRAPPED  

That's right.

This raccoon was caught in the act and trapped,

caged, locked in - where it should not have been.

[For you animal lovers I hauled it so far off it could

not find it's way back and released it in the woods.]

What was the bait used to catch it.  The same bait

that catches you, food.            

That is about where the human race began.

After God created the first humans he told

them not to eat from that one tree.  But you

know as well as I what happened.  He said

"don't" so they did.  "When the woman saw

that the tree was good for food,...".   You

know the rest of the story.  The human race

has been in trouble ever since.

When I was a young man (many decades ago.)

they used to say, "The way to a man's heart is

through his stomach."  And I remember the 

batch of  chocolate chip cookies in the bottom

of my foot locker in the Navy.  TRAPPED.

Or consider how many an obese person has

died a premature death.   Am I picking on 

food.  Not really.  I like to eat as well as you

do.  If we don't keep eating we will be in 

serious trouble.

But right now I am  thinking of food more

as a temptation.  Or some other temptation

could just as well be the bait that traps us.

Is it any wonder that Jesus Christ said;

"Keep watching and praying that you

may not enter into temptation; the

spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

(Matthew 26:41 NASB)  

I like the way John Dryden said it;

"Better shun the bait than struggle in

the snare."   

TODAY'S PROMISE

"And those who know Your name

will put their trust in You,

For You, O LORD, have not 

forsaken those who seek You."

(Psalms 9:10 NASB)

DISTRACTIONS

You have seen the advertisements;
"New life for old computers".

Well, I just happened to have a few old
computers laying around. Sounded good to
me. Also something to try or play with.
So, I ordered one.

I pulled one of the old computers off of the
shell along with an old monitor.  Brought it
into the office and set it up.  It was an old
windows XP.  I found it kind of fun to play
with.

But, but, but.
Would you believe it, it was too old for the
device that speeds up old computers.  In
other words that old computer was even
older than old.  So, I'll have to try the neat
device on one of my newer old computers.

But I was enjoying having another computer
on my "computer bench or desk",  so I decided
to keep it in the office and give it a special
task. [That only makes four computers in the
office.]

After down loading a lot of stuff on the poor
little computer I decided to eliminate a lot of
the programs in the computer that have
nothing to do with the task I gave it.

Would you believe it, the old thing seems
to work a lot faster than it did before.  Why?,
it has less to do.

What is my point?
Our life is like that old computer, loaded down
with a lot of unnecessary clutter.  Look at all
the stuff you have around you.  You spent a lot
of hard earned money and time in acquiring it,
and now you have to take care of it.

Or you have wasted a lot of time and effort on
things that really do not matter to life.

Soon every one of us will be at the end of life.
Then we are going to stand before God and
answer for everything we did in life - whether
we like the idea or not.

I don't know about you.  But I want to get rid

of a lot of the useless things and activities of

life and concentrate on the thing that matters -

Standing before God himself.

TODAY'S QUOTE

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"The vigor of our spiritual life will be

in exact proportion to the place held by 

the Bible in our life and thoughts."

- George Mueller

THE STORMS OF LIFE

If you are old enough to read this, you know that life is

full of storms.  The weather kind, of course.  But even

worse the personal storms that come up in your life.

At my age I have been through the storms of child hood, 

adolescence, courtship, mariage and failed mariage, life

threatening sickness and now old age.  But the question is

how to survive.

One of the storms I see facing all of us right now is the 

world conditions.  Things are headed in a direction that

if continued will completely destroy every one of us.

This morning while reading in my Bible I was reading

a passage written by King David many years ago.  It

reflects my attitude often.  See if it does not express the

way you often feel when life's problems confront you.

"My heart is in anguish within me.

And the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

Fear and trembling come upon me,

And horror has overwhelmed me.

I said, 'Oh, that I had wings like a dove!

I would fly away and be at rest.

Behold I would wander far away

I would lodge in the wilderness.

I would hasten to my place of refuge

From the stormy wind and tempest."  

(Psalms 55:4 - 8 NASB)  

I have found that what worked for King David

works for me too.

First he was in relationship to God Almighty.

That is the only place that we can get any real

peace.  Then when David closes out his Psalm

he says;

"Cast your burden upon the LORD and He

will sustain you;" (v. 22)   

Every time I have turned to Jesus Christ with

my problems - He has brought me through.

Even to old age.

TODAY'S PROMISE

"Ask, and it will be given to you;

seek, and you will find; knock,

and it will be opened to you.  For

everyone who asks receives, and

he who seeks finds, and to him

who knocks it will be opened."

(Matthew 7:7,8 NASB)

A WOMAN'S INFLUENCE

Ladies please I am not trying to pick on you one way

or the other.  In fact growing up without sisters I thought

that girls and women were angels.  I think that it was my

wife who told me that not all females are angels.

But one morning while reading my Bible I noticed what an

influence one woman had on her husband.  Then my mind 

began to wonder over the influence of a number of the women

mentioned in the Bible and their influence, either good or bad.

Consider:

Eve.  She influenced Adam to eat the forbidden fruit and the

entire world has suffered for it since.

Sarah.  She influenced Abraham to have relations with a 

woman he should not have.  The result is hard feelings 

and war between two races of people ever since.

Ester.  Here is a good one.  She simply melted king

Ahasuerus's heart.  That saved the Jewish people.

Solomon's wives.  They influenced him to worship

foreign gods to his hurt.

Jezebel.  She influenced Ahab to live an evil life.

King Herod's step daughter influenced him to have

John the Baptist's head cut off.

Here is a more modern day woman.

Susan Wesley.

If memory servers me right, she had 14 children.

She spent time with every one of those children

every day.  In the process she raised John and Charles

Wesley who greatly influence the world you and I 

live in.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it bothers

me in our modern world that women are trying to

be every thing but a woman.  In their God given

position women have one of the most influential

positions on the face of the earth.  Why lower it?

Most of my life I have heard the expression,

"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."

Having never read the poem before it is included

below.

Blessings on the hand of women!
    Angels guard its strength and grace.
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
    Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
    Rainbows ever gently curled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
    Is the hand that rules the world.
Infancy's the tender fountain,
    Power may with beauty flow,
Mothers first to guide the streamlets,
    From them souls unresting grow —
Grow on for the good or evil,
    Sunshine streamed or evil hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
    Is the hand that rules the world.
Woman, how divine your mission,
    Here upon our natal sod;
Keep – oh, keep the young heart open
    Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
    Are from mother-love impearled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
    Is the hand that rules the world.
Blessings on the hand of women!
    Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
    With the worship in the sky —
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
    Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
    Is the hand that rules the world.

by William Ross Wallace (1819-1881)

TODAY'S QUOTE

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"A sinning man will stop praying.

A praying man will stop sinning."

-Leonard Ravenhill

PEACE IN THE STORM

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PEACE IN THE STORM

I have shared with you on this subject before.

But today we are in the middle of another storm in 

our little family and seeing the "peace" at work in 

the middle of it makes me want to share again.

My wife is much younger than myself.  She is 

only 76, but insists on working everyday.  She has

her own little cleaning business and works daily,

but now days has been coming home very tired.

After checking with her doctor they found that part

of her heart was not getting the blood flow it 

needed.  So, yesterday was the day to take her to

the hospital to get things "fixed".

She told me two different times before we went

to the hospital that she had complete peace about

the whole thing.  She had placed it in God's hands.

And I could see that.  She was as peaceful and content

as if we were just going out to eat somewhere.

It ended up that she had one artery 100% blocked 

and two that 90 some % blocked.  So, if God is 

willing they will be installing two "stints" to help

regain the necessary blood flow today.

When I left her at the hospital last night she was

still just as peaceful and content as when we left

for the hospital earlier in the day.

How can this be?

Over forty years ago she begin a personal relationship

with Jesus Christ.  She invited Christ into her heart and

submitted to his lordship.  And he has given her "a peace

that passes understanding".

 Just a historical knowledge or an intellectual knowledge

of Jesus Christ simply will not do it.  You have to get

into a "real" relationship with him.  Get your knowledge

of him out of your head and down into your heart.

Jesus said,

"Peace I leave with you;

My peace I give to you not as the 

world gives do I give to you."

(John 14:27 NASB)  

My wife has needed and experienced that peace

may times in the storms of her life.  And you know

that life will bring you storms.  You can have that

same peace.  Get yourself a "Holy Bible" and learn

about the love that Jesus Christ has for you.

WHEN NOTHING BECAME SOMETHING

Seven trillion three hundred and 23 million

years and seven months ago, before time 

begin, so much nothing accumulated that a

horrendous implosion took place sending

tremendous shockwaves through out the

vastness of nothing.  The accumulated

nothing is estimated at about one million two

thousand and one inches of mercury, on the

vacuum scale, to cause the implosion.

But at the core of the implosion was left one

quark.  As soon as scientists find out how that

one quark was able to multiply by it's self to three

quarks making a neutron, then they will under-

stand how evolution works.

In the meantime they will continue to hand you

a line of baloney about creation.

TODAY'S PROMISE

"Better is a little with righteousness

Than great income with injustice."

(Proverbs 16:8 NASB)

WHY UNANSWERED PRAYER

Just like yourself,
I have heard for years that all prayers are answered.
You know, some are yes, some are no, some are wait.

But is it that simple?
I read this the other day when reading out at my
hide out.  It was very quiet and peaceful.  I was
having a good time reading God's word when
He threw this at me.

"Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short

That it cannot save;

Nor is His ear so dull

That it cannot hear.

But your iniquities have made a separation

between you and your God,

And your sins have hidden His face from you

so that He does not hear."

(Isaiah 59:1,2 NASB)    

Ouch!

    

TODAY'S QUOTE

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"If you do not worship God seven days a week,

you do not worship Him on one day a week.

There is no such thing known in heaven as

Sunday worship unless it is accompanied by

Monday worship and Tuesday worship and

so on."

-A.W. Dozer  

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY.

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"Death and life are in the power of

the tongue." (Proverbs 18:21 NASB)       

Consider the Titanic.

You know the story better than I do.

Allegedly the architect of the ship, Thomas Andrews

states that, "God himself could not sink the ship."

In case you are not aware of it, it's not smart to

put a challenge up before God.  So, April 15, 1912

God showed him differently.  The ship went down with

Andrews himself on board and over 1,500 other lives

with him.

Oh!

By the way, Thomas Andrews knows better now.

I do not know about you, but I want to tame my

careless tongue. 

TODAY'S PROMISE

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say to the LORD, 'My refuge and my fortress,

My God, in whom I trust!'

For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper

And from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with His pinions,

And under His wings you may seek refuge;

His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark."

(Psalms 91:1-4 NASB)

AN OPEN MIND???????????

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All my life people have either bragged about having

an open mind, or said we should have one.  But if you

pay any attention, most of them have collected a lot of

trash in their "open mind".

How do I know this?

Jesus Christ gives us the answer.

"A good person brings good out of the treasure

of good things in his heart; a bad person brings

bad out of his treasure of bad things.  For the 

mouth speaks what the heart is full of."  

(Luke 6:45 GNT) 

  

All you have to do is listen.  What comes out

is what a person is full of.

Would it not be better to simply have a "guarded" mind?

That is, guard what you allow into your mind.

Consider this Scripture.

 "Be careful how you think; your life is 
 shaped by your thoughts."  
(Proverbs 4:23 GNT)   





 

TODAY'S QUOTE

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"The only saving faith is that which casts

itself on God for life or death."

-Martin Luther

HA, HA, HA.

It was really funny.  You should have been there.

You remember how it all started.

So much nothing came together that it became 

something.  The something was not much bigger

than a germ.  But it grew until it was some goo.

And about seven trillion years latter the goo became

a blob.

It was after the blob decided to move around and

fly that the real fun began.  The first few million

years the blob tried to fly was the funny times.

It did not know that it had to develop feathers.

You should have seen all the crashes and failed

take offs the blob went through trying to fly.  In

fact the flying blob was unable to find seeds to

eat.  So it went extent three times waiting for

plants to develop so it could eat.  That of course

is the reason their fossils look so weird.

Every time you see a bird fly, remember it refutes

the greatest myth of all time

"evolution"

"The fool has said in his heart,

'There is no God.'"  

TODAY'S POST

"The Lord is not slow about His promise,

as some count slowness, but is patient

toward you, not wishing for any to parish

but for all to come to repentance"

(2 Peter 3:9 NASB)

NOT A CHANCE

NOT A CHANCE

Stop and do something that hurts really, really bad -

think.

Consider the circulatory system in your body.

The heart, arteries, veins and all those little

capillaries.

For years they have been trying to tell us that

all this happened by shear chance.  You know,

it just happened over lots and lots of time.

If so, and our bodies need them to live, how

did our bodies exist until they developed a 

suitable circulatory system?

Somebody is not using there God given

brain.