If Jesus Came to your house

If Jesus came to your house to spend a day or two, if He came unexpectedly, I wonder what you'd do?  Oh, I know you'd give your nicest room to such an honored guest, and all the food you'd serve to Him would be the very best.  

 And you would keep assuring Him you're glad to have him there, That serving Him in your home is joy beyond compare.  But when you saw Him coming, would you meet Him at the door, with arms outstretched to welcome in your heavenly visitor?

Or would you have to change your clothes before you let Him in, or hide some magazines and put the Bible where they'd been? Would you turn off the radio and hope He hadn't heard, and wished you hadn't uttered that last loud nasty word.

Would you hide your worldly music and put some hymn books out?  Could you let Jesus come right in, or would you rush about?  Oh, I wonder if the Savior came to spend a day with you, would you just go on doing all the things you always do?

 Would you go right on saying the things you always say?  Would life for you continue as it does now day to day?  Would our family conversation keep up it's usual pace, or would you find it hard each meal to say a table grace?

 Would you sing the songs you always sing and read the books you read, and let Him know on which the things your mind and spirit feeds?  Would you take Jesus with you everywhere you planned to go, or would you maybe change your plans, for just a day or so?

Would you be glad to have Him meet with all your closest friends, or would you hope they'd stay away until His visit ends?  Would you be glad to have Him stay forever on and on, or would you sigh with great relief when He at last was gone?

It might be interesting to know the things that you would do, if Jesus came in person to spend the day with you!

~ Song written by Lois Blanchard Eades, sung by Red Sovine ~

Currently Reading Deeds of Valor: How America's Civil War Heroes Won the Congressional Medal of Honor see related

One Chance

Given this scenario, how would you change the way that you are living?

You go into the doctor for an annual check up not expecting any bad news. He runs a couple tests and says there really is no need for concern and that the test results should be back in a couple days. A couple days pass and you get a phone call, hoping that they will tell you your test results over the phone but instead ask that you come back into the office as soon as possible. You are off work the next day and decide that would  be a perfect time to go in, you let the secretary know and you are on your way to work. As the day goes on your stress level increases, you start to worry about the test results. You have all these worries running through your head. That night when you get home you are hungry but can't quite bring yourself to eat because of the nervous-nausious feeling in the pit of your stomach. You are extremely exhausted but yet toss and turn all night long, get only about 2 hours of sleep, and get up at 5 because starring at the ceiling is getting you no where. Finally, 9 o'clock rolls around and you are sitting in the waiting room. Your name get's called and your heart starts pounding, throbbing almost. The nurse brings you in a room and sits you down. She starts asking you about your family medical history and after all those questions the doctor comes in. "We got the test results back and I have some news for you..." "You have cancer and it's spreading very quickly. Treatment could only slow down the process, it cannot stop the cancer. Even with treatment you only have 6 months to live. I'm so sorry, I wish I could change the results or could offer you a treatment that would eliminate the chances of death. But in this case it just isn't so." You sit there, shell shocked wondering if this is really happening. Streams and streams of tears are running down your face, questions running through your mind, hopes are shattered, dreams seem to fade off into the distance, you are now faced with death.

You now have a decision to make, what are you going to do with the remainder of your life? You have six short months left. What can you do that will really count? 

 If you are a Christian, this just gives you even more motivation to tell those whom you love about Jesus Christ. The urgency of death. It definitely gives you a reality check. You see, we should live for today; we should live everyday as if today was our last day here on earth. Why do we put off telling someone about Jesus Christ. He has changed our life, why not let him change someone else's also. The Impact that he has had on your life should be shown outwardly, people should be able to see the difference. We have one chance to make a difference in someone's life. We have ONE CHANCE to show people the Love of Christ. I Have ONE LIFE - ONE CHANCE- ONE LOVE It's my choice what I do with the time I have, I don't want to waste it. Life is too short to worry about tomorrow. Now, what are you going to do TODAY that will count in ETERNITY????

Actual answers and spelling on a 6th grade history test:

1. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

2. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

3. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. They believe the assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

4. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.

5. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

6. The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.

In the Shadows

I looked for you in the Shadows

But only found you in my dreams

I searched for you for hours

And days on end it seems

I have not stopped looking for you my love

You are still my Angel sent straight from Above

If I ever find you or you stumble across my way

I’ll pick you up, brush you off, look at you and say

I will always love you, and I will always care

If you ever need me, I will be right here

Social Status vs. Spiritual Status

Social Status: A status by which our society judges each other based on material things, belief systems, or race.

Spiritual status: Where are you in your walk with Christ?

Social: If you took me, Bethany Guthrie, and gave me a social status, what would it be? And why? People judge each other by the way they dress, talk, act, who they hang out with etc.

2 Corinthians 10:12 “we do not dare classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.”

Why are we so scared to “associate” with some one from a different “social class”? Is it the fear or rejection? (God does not care about your “social status” rather your Spiritual Status) When it all comes down to it a “social status” is just another way of building yourself up and making yourself out to be a better person than you really are, and putting down others who are not in your “social class”.

A few Social Statuses:

Jock

Prep

Cheerleaders

Emo

Goth

Dork

Geek

Druggies

“Christian” – Hypocrites

Non -conformists

Rejects/ outcasts

Republican

Democrats

Jesus freak

Samaritan – a person who lived in or came from Samaria. Because the Samaritans were only part Jewish and worshiped God differently from the Jews, Jews from Judea and Galilee hated the Samaritans. They would go out of their way to travel around Samaria.

Luke 10:30-37 “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robber?” The expert replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

If someone were to put me in a “social class” I would want to be the Jesus freak. If you know me, then you know that so called “social status” isn’t that big of a deal to me. I can talk to pretty much anyone. I don’t care about your social status; I care about you and your Spiritual Status. Where are you in your Walk with Christ? How can I encourage you? How can I pray for you?

I’m sick of all the superficial attitudes of Christians. If you go to church then you know what I mean.  You pass by someone in the hallway and ask them how they are doing and they reply, “I’m doing good, and you?” And you say, “I’m doing great” even when really your world seems to be falling apart. Christians should be able to talk to other Christians about what’s really going on in their lives. Church should be a support system where Christians are praying for each other. If someone needs prayer don’t just say, “I’ll be praying for you,” stop and pray with them right where you are. Christians WAKE UP! Get daring with your faith. So what if people think you are a freak, be a Jesus Freak! Clothe yourself with the attitude of Christ. “He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14) “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)

So, I have to ask, Where are you in your walk with Christ?

What’s holding you back?

Get daring with your faith, share your faith, dig into God’s word, Become a Jesus Freak.

“Smiling At Her Torturer”

Luiba Ganeyskaya

U.S.S.R.

1970’s

“Enough is enough,” Liuba Ganevskaya said to herself. “I will not receive the blows with meekness anymore. Tonight if they begin again, I will tell the guard to his face that he is a criminal”

Luiba, arrested for her faith by the Russian Communists, was kept in a solitary cell, starved and beaten. Still, she had not denied Jesus or revealed the names of other believers. As so many others, she had patiently suffered for the sake of the Gospel.

She promised herself that Tonight would be different.

But that night, when the guard insulted her with foul words and was just about to start beating her, she some how saw him differently.

She noticed, for the first time, that he was as tired of beating her as she was of being beaten. She was worn out from the lack of sleep and so was he. He was as desperate over not getting any information from her ash she was about suffering for refusing to betray her friends.

A voice told her, “he is so much like you. You are both caught in the same drama of life.”

 Stalin, the chief Communist dictator, killed thousands of God’s Children, but he also killed 10,000 officers of his own secret police. Three successive heads of the police – Yagoda, Yezhov, and Beria – were shot by their comrades, just like the Christians they had persecuted!

“You and your torturers pass through the same vale of tears.”

Luiba looked up at the guard who had already lifted his whip to beat her. She smiles. Stunned he asked, “Why do you smile?”

She replied, “I do not see you the way a mirror would show you right now. I see you as you surely once were, a beautiful, innocent child. We are the same age. We might have been playmates.

“I see you, too, as I hope you will be. There was once a persecutor worse than you named Saul of Tarsus. He became an apostles and a saint.”

The torturer put down his whip.

She continued, “What burden so weighs on you that it drives you to the madness of beating a person who has done no harm?”

He had no answer. The torturer left that day a changed man.

“A gentle response defuses anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

“Angels are transparent. If an Angel stands before you with a man behind him, the presence of the Angel does not keep you from seeing the man. On the contrary: Looking at a man through an angle makes him more beautiful. I see my torturers through an Angel. In that way, even they become lovable.” – Ivan Moiseyev (martyred in the U.S.S.R., 1972)