I understand very few churches, even Baptists, these days have prayer meeting, the fortress of true believers, real Christians, in the early church. I overheard two very elderly ladies of my church talking at lunch, following prayer meeting. I felt I knew something of the heart of both of them. One, had never married, had sat in the same seat-same pew at the front of the church for 72 years... every since she stopped sitting with her parents as a young girl. One said to the other, “I can hardly wait to see him,” the other said, “I know he can hardly wait to see me.” Faith is a verb, action, based on belief, sustained by confidence. Such is the confidence we need to face a new year.
My driver tells me that the streets are aghast with cars, people hurrying and scurrying to get somewhere. With all our getting, so important to know the Giver. We have all heard the phrase “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” It is better to have never gained or lost than to have done either in the wrong way.
America has the definition for it's financial problems. In 24 years, falling from the world's greatest economic power to the greatest debtor nation, in bankruptcy, unable to determine it's exact debt, a debt that can never be repaid. The word is hypothecating, a practice individuals, banks, nations have been using without even knowing the term. Hypothecating is pledging possessions to someone else without supplying sufficient title of ownership. This is what happened with Jon Corzine, rich banking head of Goldman-Sachs, ex UA Senator, ex Governor, MF Global, and supplier of election funds for Obama. The stock broker-banker cannot pledge the wealth of his clients in transactions. One woman, a 16 year old son with a large trust fund, he too young to be prosecuted, trotted him around from one bank to another borrowing money against that son”s trust fund, This happened locally and it is surprising how much money she obtained from naive bankers. Corzine did the same with rich clients. Every man, woman, child , in America is bankrupt because their country has pledged everything they own or ever expect to own against the debt of the country... about $250,000 each. Now Coirzine, and his partners in crime, enjoy a great life, riding in limousines, eating off gold plates.
The High School students who drop out of High School every day (7000 daily), college students who work several jobs trying to stay in school. Hard-working parents who try to explain to their children why they are losing the security of their home, 40 million, will never understand why and how injustice goes unpunished. When every acumen of human society (Bible-Law books-Constitution) has attested and proclaimed that (honesty is the best policy)
One of mankind's oldest guides to living is the Heidelberg Catechism. (1550) The first question in this Catechism, “What is man's greatest comfort in Life and Death?” and of course we know that it is our faith in Jesus Christ. Few of us can live the great commandment of Christ, loving God and our fellow man (Matthew 22:37) or the beatitudes preached by Christ in the greatest sermon the world has ever known (Matthew 6) When we study one of the greatest books ever written, a book that has one of the greatest distributions, Thomas Kempis' Imitation of Christ, we find these words, Speak, then, O Lord, for Thy servant heareth; for Thou hast the words of eternal life. Speak to me, that it may be some comfort to my soul, and the amendment of my whole life; and also to Thy praise, and glory, and everlasting honor.
GOD speaks to the understanding by the light of His Spirit, and to the heart by His holy inspirations. All that the Prophets deliver in the Word of God, all the truths which preachers announce to us, cannot enlighten the understanding, nor touch the heart, if God Himself speak not to us by the motions of His grace. We should, therefore, entreat the Lord to speak to our interior, while we exteriorly attend to or read Divine truths, for fear that hearing the word of God and not keeping it, knowing His doctrines and not following them, conscious of His will and not doing it, we should become more and more culpable in His sight.
SPEAK to me, O Lord, speak in such a manner to my soul that I may hear and obey Thee. Make known to me Thy designs for my salvation, and enable me to execute them. Teach me and all Christians, O Jesus, what Thou art to us, and what we ought to be to Thee. Instruct us in the sacred maxims of Thy Gospel, and induce us to practice them. For what will it avail us to believe Thy heavenly doctrines, if we endeavor not to follow them, and to live, as well as to believe, as becometh Christians? O eternal Word of the Father, by which He spoke, and all things were made, speak to my soul; say to it: "I am thy salvation." Work in me to will and to do, and consummate my salvation. Amen.
Shameful, shameful, that in the pulpits of America, pastors and pew-warmers do not know anymore about the honesty stipulated here than Corzine, his ilk, or the power-brokers if the world compromising justice just as the serpents, dishonesty to Eve.
The apostle Peter could not understand how those who had not walked with Christ, as had he, so easily believed in the redemption of Christ OR as on the day of Pentecost, the beginning of the church, without a Bible, without a knowledge of the prophets and promises, just from the testimony of Peter about the resurrection of the Savior, 3000 believed.
The plumb-line of our lives, this year, each year, honesty in our relationship in this world. What would you have if you did not have the Bible, the inspired, inerrant, omnipotent, omniscient word of God? Only 2 percent of the people in India are Christians. Most of the world is UN-Christian. America has been known as a Christian nation. People of a Christian nation do not ROB one another. Doctors do not take kickbacks from Big Pharma. Attorneys do not take “graft” from the mafia. Like lying lips seeking political office, God shows up in the most unexpected places. We must have the faith to believe He will straighten everything out.
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