Subject: Loving God with all our Heart
Date:    Wed, 1 Jul 1998 00:56:28 +0000
To:      "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

 

From:         Michele Bartlett
To:           heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject:      Loving God with all our Heart


Satan called a worldwide convention.  In his opening address to his 
evil angels, he said, "We can't keep the christians from going to 
church.

We can't keep then from reading their Bibles & knowing the truth. We 
can't even keep them from conservative values.  But we can do 
something else.  We can keep them from forming an intimate, 
abiding experience in Christ. If they gain that connection with Jesus, 
our power over them is broken.

So let them go to church, let them have their conservative lifestyles, 
but steal their time, so they can't gain that experience in Jesus Christ. 
This is what I want you to do, angels.  Distract them from gaining hold 
of their Savior &  maintaining that vital connection throughout their 
day!"

"How shall we do this?",  shouted his angels. "Keep them busy in the 
non-essentials of life & invent un- numbered schemes to occupy their 
minds," he answered.

"Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, then, borrow, borrow, borrow. 
Convince the wives to go to work & the husbands to work 6 or 7 days 
a week, 10-12 hrs. a day, so they can afford their lifestyles. Keep 
them from spending time with their children.  As their family 
fragments, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures 
of work."

"Over stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still small 
voice. Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they 
drive, to keep the TV, the VCR, & their CD's going constantly in their 
homes. And see to it that every store & restaurant in the world plays 
music constantly.  This will  jam their minds & break that union with 
Christ."

"Fill their coffee tables with magazines & newspapers.  Pound their 
minds with the news 24 hrs. a day.  Invade their driving moments with 
billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes, mail 
order catalogues, & every kind of newsletter &  promotional offering, 
free products, services, & false hopes."

"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive.  Have them return 
from their recreation exhausted, disquieted & unprepared for the 
coming week. Don't let them go out in nature.  Send them to 
amusement parks, sporting events, concerts & movies instead. And 
when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip & small 
talk so that they leave with troubled consciences & unsettled 
emotion."

"Let them be involved in soul-winning.  But crowd their lives with so 
many good causes they have no time to seek power from Christ. 
Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health 
& family unity for the good of the cause."

It was quite a convention in the end.  And the evil angels went eagerly 
to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busy, busy, 
busy & rush here & there.

Has the devil been successful at his scheme?  You be the judge. 

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From:          Lynmarie Johns
To:               heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject:      Struggle in our Lives


                         Struggles in our Lives

A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he
could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. On the day a small
opening appeared, he sat and watched the moth for several hours as the
moth struggled to  force its body through that little hole. Then it
seemed to stop making any  progress. It appeared as if it had gotten
as far as it could and it could go no farther. It just seemed to be
stuck. Then the man, in his kindness, decided to help the moth, so he
took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the
cocoon.

The moth then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small,
shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the moth because he
expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be
able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither
happened! In  fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life
crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was
able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the
restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the moth to get
through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body
of the moth into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once
it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight would only
come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of a struggle, he
deprived the moth of health.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God
allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, He would
cripple us. We  would not be as strong as what we could have been. How
true this is! How many times have we wanted to take the quick way out
of struggles and difficulties, to take those scissors and snip off the
remaining bits in an attempt to be free. We need to remember that our
loving Father will never give us more than we can bear and through our
trials and struggles we are strengthened as gold is refined in the
fire.

"May we never let the things we can't have, or don't have, or
shouldn't  have, spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can
have". Don't focus on the things you DON'T have, enjoy each moment of
every day God  has given you. This is the day that the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it. So let's take today, even with its
struggles and make it a  good day ... our loving Father God has given
this day to me to use as best I can. The struggles of life won't go
away, but remember that God is  allowing us to go through it for a
reason.

Disturb us, O Lord when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when
our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, when we
arrived in safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb
us, O Lord when with the abundance of the things we possess we have
lost our thirst for the water of Life; when having fallen in love with
time we have ceased to dream of Eternity; and in our efforts to build
the new earth have allowed our vision for the New Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, where
storms shall show Thy mastery, where losing sight of land we shall
find the stars.  In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of
our hopes and invited the brave to follow Him.

  A bell's not a bell 'til you ring it
  A song's not a song 'til you sing it
  Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay
  Love isn't love 'til you give it away!

    --- OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN

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