A Christian Viewpoint

Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons (and daughters) of God. It is through his leading that you begin to do the works of God. If by his leading you end up in part-time or full-time ministry, you can they say you were called.

It is like becoming a Christian. God’s Spirit had been preparing you for salvation for days, months or years. When the time was right you heard a message and the Spirit witnessed with your spirit that it was true. You accepted the Lordship of Jesus over your life.

There will come moments when the Spirit says in your heart, “do this”, and it will be a ministry of service. That is the call. It can be a onetime affair up to a lifetime ministry.

🙂

The sun, moon and stars are for signs, times and seasons.

Gen 1.14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

One interesting note is something found in the scriptures that a star will rise in the house of Jacob. Magi in the east saw a star rising in some constellation relating to Israel and knew from the scripture that the king of prophecy had been born but not where. They discovered it was Bethlehem only when the wisemen of Herod’s court told them.

Num 24.17 I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.

Matt 2.1Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. 3When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. 5And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, 6And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

Now is this a sign? If so, is it similar to astrology or is it something completely different? Do you have an alternate understanding?

Have fun with it.

🙂

I remember watching movies that were centered around the Roman Empire. Somewhere in the plot there usually comes along a man with much authority. He holds up what looks like a short decorative rod. Then says, “in the name of Caesar…”. I thought the rod was the symbol of power. In fact it is not the symbol of power, it is a decorative case. It is the carrying case of a piece of paper. On that piece of paper is the written authorization for the holder to carry out the command of Caesar. When he spoke holding the rod he was “the voice of Caesar.”

As born again Christians we do not have a piece of paper in a rod. We have the Spirit of the Word of God inside our mortal bodies. We have all the authority that the Spirit gives us. It is our gift and our responsibility to carry out his word. When we lay hold of the Spirit within us we are speaking as “the voice of Jesus.”

That is an awesome responsibility.

In the name of Jesus…

🙂

When I was a child I use to have horrific nightmares. They became so bad that I began to fear going to sleep. One day I felt the urge to simply blabber in what I thought was a foreign tongue. You know, just like any kid making it up. Funny though, I never felt that it was a make believe language. I felt compelled to mouth these non-sense words.

The following evening I went to sleep and slept like a baby.

Several years later I once again began having the nightmares. After a couple of nights I remembered that the last time I spoke that make believe language my nightmares ceased. What the heck I thought. I began once again to let the words tumble from my mouth. I had no idea what I was saying. Once again the nightmares stopped. This was pretty wonderful stuff.

Twenty years later I found myself attending some Pentecostal meetings. People spoke in tongues and I thought they were jabbering non-sense. I read the bible and found tongues mentioned. After many meetings and reading the bible through a couple of times I began to want to speak with tongues. Couldn’t figure out how to do it.

One night I was asking God about tongues and that I wanted to be blessed with the spiritual gift so that I may talk in an unknown tongue. At that moment God dropped into my consciousness that I had spoken in tongues twice when I was a child. I was surprised. I thought, “is that all there is to it, open your mouth and start speaking jibberish?” God said, “no”. He said to start speaking as I did as a child and the Spirit will impress my mind so that the words would be real. I did it by faith. No great shaking revelations but I found that my spirit was more open to his Spirit when I did this.

I have been speaking in tongues like this for 20+ years now. A few times I spoke tongues and basked in the power of the Spirit. Most times it is simply my spirit chatting away to God, and sometimes would result in watching a spiritual door open. I often begin prayer by speaking in tongues in this fashion. I do it whenever I want.

It is comforting. It is helpful. It is…

🙂

🙂 Today my wife and I go to the polls to cast our ballot for our riding representative. In years past the selection was so lean I would simply go to reject the ballot. That my friends is a very serious statement to send to the parties and Elections Canada. However, this time around: the Reform, Alliance, or whatever they called themselves over the years and the Progressive (read Regressive) Conservative Party; have finally come together and healed the rift in the Conservative community. Today I cast a vote. My, what a wonderful day to be a voter again.

note* Perhaps the BQ in Quebec will see they are true conservatives, not seperatists, and the healing of all the conservative people in Canada will be complete.

:laugh: There are two shortcut philosophies about life. The first says: live your life as if this were the last day of your life; so better get my affairs in order. The second says: today is the first day of the rest of your life; so better make some plans. I began to ponder these two thoughts on life. I melded them into one thought. Since this is the first day of the rest of my life and I should live as though it were also the last day… I came to a same similar conclusion to that of Solomon the great… leave a goodbye note then eat, drink and be merry for tommorow we die.

hmmm… Maybe I need to think this one through a little more 😉

:plain: I wrote when I started this weblog that I would enable comments when I thought it safe to do so. Looking at my logs recently I have noticed that one or more persons have been trying to hack into the weblog through restricted access pages. Why is the net not as great as it could be? Because there are people who would wreck the work of others for a sense of perverse enjoyment. So as a precaution I will not be opening this weblog to comments from others. Until I find a way to protect the site better, things will remain as they are. If you are willing to give your email address and get a password, you can then use the forum to start (I hope) a discussion string.

:doze: I thought I would give a bit of an update to my repeat visitors. You may be wondering about a lack of additions to the site over the past month. Yes, my father dying did have an impact. Yesterday I tried to get something started and when I went to print my printer died on me again. I print all my material so I can work at it away from my computer. Hopefully a new printer… a new computer… is not far away. I should be able to get things up and running again shortly after the purchase. God bless…

🙁 Last month I came to you and asked that you would pray for my father who was in the hospital due to pneumonia. He recovered yet the disease was not fully cleared from his body. On Friday, June 4th, he was admitted to the hospital once again for pneumonia and additional problems. On Saturday my sister and I had a chance to visit him. He was suffering and wanted to die. I prayed for him to recover and added that when the time for his departing was at hand that he would be taken quickly. The time for his passing was that day in the evening. Now my father rests from his struggles in the bossom of his Lord and Saviour. We will meet again in the ressurection. I mourn his passing but will joy in the morning when all things are made new. Thanks again for those who prayed for my father. Your prayers will be remembered. God bless…

😀 Over the past three months my wife and I have been taking the first ASL course that is offered to beginners. Very basic signing and learning to also finger spell. Yesterday my wife informed me that we have both passed the course. I guess we will be taking the next two courses for ASL being offered soon.

I can talk to my wife and others who sign over a fair distance or extreme noisy conditions. There is also the benefit to communicate without disturbing others in a quiet environment. In the end though there is the purpose it is designed for, to communicate to a deaf person who needs help or simply wants to “talk”. Like my limited french it can be very useful and helpful in some circumstances. My suggestion… everyone should get the very basics under their belt. You may find for yourself that using it can also be an advantage to you and to others that you meet.