Welcome to 2018!
We are only two months into the new year and so many things have happened. Where does the time really go? So many tragedies for some, and many happy moments for others. The bad weather with floods and snow storms in many parts of our country, the school shootings in Florida, demonstrations in Iran and persecutions in many parts of the world, predators accused of sexual harassment and other tragedies on the daily news.....We also enjoyed watching the Winter Olympics, where many athletes had triumphant moments but others left disappointed. Regardless if they won medals or not, these Olympians, are exceptional role models and very inspirational. Their dedication to their sport, their perseverance, sacrifice and the amount of time they spend on practicing is AMAZING! So, as we can see that many people experienced tears of mourning and despair, while others had tears of joy!
Well, life has many ups and downs. Three weeks ago I fell and fractured my right foot, so for 8 weeks I am confined walking with a Boot, which means I cannot do things I was planning on doing, but I am thankful because it could have been a lot worse; nothing compared to some of the above mentioned tragedies. On a positive note, what this accident forced me to do is to slow down and do things that I had postponed for a while or things I had procrastinated with. I caught up on some of my reading. In the February issue of Decision Magazine I was reading an article about Billy Graham, who had celebrated his 99th birthday few months prior. I wondered to myself how long might he still be with us. Would he live to be 100 or 110?
Well, the answer to my question came the following day! When we got up the next morning, Galen asked me: Guess who died today? I gave him a few names of 'famous' people, none of them correct. He said: Billy Graham! He was 99 years old. WOW! I was shocked. He was known around the world for his ministry. He had shared the Gospel for more than 200 Million people. He had advised Presidents and celebrities. From early on in his ministry he had worked for racial harmony and equality. He worked with Civil Right leaders around the world to end discrimination. Over the years, I had enjoyed many of his books and have been inspired by his knowledge, and comforted by his wisdom. No matter what your faith, some things are universal and he appealed to many people. He will be missed.
Anyway, in the February Issue, of the "Decision Magazine", is an article titled: "Spiritual Heart Disease", by Billy Graham. It was from a sermon he had preached on May 23, 1957, during his historic New York Crusade. I will share with you some excerpts from it (it is quite long..so I will do my best to shorten it). Anytime he would share a point and share a scripture (from the Old and New testament), he would start with: "The Bible says":...On May 23rd, 1957, he started out by asking the crowd if their hearts were right with God. There are times, I think, when our hearts are not right with God. He told them that he wanted them to see the meaning of the word heart from the Biblical point of view. Our hearts are hard and rebellious. "But this people have a revolting and rebellious heart (Jeremiah 5:23). "Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
In (Proverbs 6:18), the Bible speaks of a "heart that devises wicked imaginations" and in (Jeremiah 17:9), "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?" In (Matthew 15:8), Jesus said that our hearts are far from God. He said: "These people draw near me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me". It is true. Our real self, our heart, is mostly taken up with the things of the world. We have very little time in private with God, and reading the Bible. We spend far more time with TV. Our hearts are dark, because of pride, and because our spiritual eyes have been blinded by the god of this age.. "the people were not thankful, but became vain in their imaginations" (Romans 1:21). I find it interesting that this was 1957 and today we have even more distractions to pull us away from God..Facebook, twitter, video games, cell phones, computers, countless books, you name it.. Mr. Graham continued to say "your heart can be hardened". The same sun that shines on the clay hardens the clay, but it melts the butter.The same Gospel that is preached here tonight will soften some hearts until they yield to Christ, but will harden others. Your heart can be so hardened that when God speaks, you no longer hear Him.
Psalm (44:21) "for he knows the secrets of your heart" ....you cannot hide from God
(Jeremiah 17:10) "I the Lord search the heart" ....he searches your heart
Proverbs 21:2) "every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord ponders the hearts" evaluating it....you may think your way of living is all right, but God doesn't take your evaluation and your judgment..
(Proverbs (16:1) "The preparations of the heart in man...is from the Lord"..
The Bible says that God weighs the heart ..do you weigh enough? He weighs your spiritual life in comparison to the Ten Commandments. And the Bible says that every one of us have broken those Ten
Commandments. He weighs you by the law of conscience-the times your conscience spoke to you and the times you rejected the voice of your conscience. He also weighs you by the life of Christ, and none of us weigh enough. We all come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
But the heart of Christ; his perfect, glorious, loving, tender and compassionate heart, bled on the cross for our sinful heart, so that we would be forgiven. He died in our place....while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).
The death of Christ is a mystery, of course. None of us can understand it. But we know that he bled and his heart was broken for us, and he gives us a new heart. If you will come to Christ and surrender your heart, God says: "I'll take out the old heart and I'll put in a new one". The Bible says: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me". (Ezekiel 36), "A new heart also will I give you , and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh"
Would you like to have a new heart? Change the whole direction of your living? Change your whole moral life? Would you like to have new thoughts and new ambitions and new energies? Would you be willing to surrender your life to Christ..are you willing to do that?
Well, there are thousands upon thousands of testimonies of people changing their hearts and their lives after attending these crusades of Billy Graham. A humble man that God used in extraordinary ways to reach hurting people around the world. Galen and I had the privilege of attending the Billy Graham Training Center, The Cove, in Ashville, North Carolina 2 years ago. We attended a retreat with The American Leprocy Mission. It was the most peaceful retreat that I had ever been to. You could feel the peace and the presence of God everywhere you went. From the peaceful forest setting to all the staff and the amenities, it was an amazing experience, and we came out of it renewed and refreshed. Also we visited the Billy Graham Library, in Charlotte, North Carolina where they had Mr. Graham's funeral. We watched it on line the other day and it was very inspirational and moving. So many pastors and dignitaries, from around the world came to pay their respects, among them also were our President and Vice President with their spouses.
If you are interested in viewing the funeral, and other information, you can go to the web address:
BillyGraham.org
(Revelation 14:13) "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord..that they may rest from their labors and their works follow them"....
May he rest in Peace
We are only two months into the new year and so many things have happened. Where does the time really go? So many tragedies for some, and many happy moments for others. The bad weather with floods and snow storms in many parts of our country, the school shootings in Florida, demonstrations in Iran and persecutions in many parts of the world, predators accused of sexual harassment and other tragedies on the daily news.....We also enjoyed watching the Winter Olympics, where many athletes had triumphant moments but others left disappointed. Regardless if they won medals or not, these Olympians, are exceptional role models and very inspirational. Their dedication to their sport, their perseverance, sacrifice and the amount of time they spend on practicing is AMAZING! So, as we can see that many people experienced tears of mourning and despair, while others had tears of joy!
Well, life has many ups and downs. Three weeks ago I fell and fractured my right foot, so for 8 weeks I am confined walking with a Boot, which means I cannot do things I was planning on doing, but I am thankful because it could have been a lot worse; nothing compared to some of the above mentioned tragedies. On a positive note, what this accident forced me to do is to slow down and do things that I had postponed for a while or things I had procrastinated with. I caught up on some of my reading. In the February issue of Decision Magazine I was reading an article about Billy Graham, who had celebrated his 99th birthday few months prior. I wondered to myself how long might he still be with us. Would he live to be 100 or 110?
Well, the answer to my question came the following day! When we got up the next morning, Galen asked me: Guess who died today? I gave him a few names of 'famous' people, none of them correct. He said: Billy Graham! He was 99 years old. WOW! I was shocked. He was known around the world for his ministry. He had shared the Gospel for more than 200 Million people. He had advised Presidents and celebrities. From early on in his ministry he had worked for racial harmony and equality. He worked with Civil Right leaders around the world to end discrimination. Over the years, I had enjoyed many of his books and have been inspired by his knowledge, and comforted by his wisdom. No matter what your faith, some things are universal and he appealed to many people. He will be missed.
Anyway, in the February Issue, of the "Decision Magazine", is an article titled: "Spiritual Heart Disease", by Billy Graham. It was from a sermon he had preached on May 23, 1957, during his historic New York Crusade. I will share with you some excerpts from it (it is quite long..so I will do my best to shorten it). Anytime he would share a point and share a scripture (from the Old and New testament), he would start with: "The Bible says":...On May 23rd, 1957, he started out by asking the crowd if their hearts were right with God. There are times, I think, when our hearts are not right with God. He told them that he wanted them to see the meaning of the word heart from the Biblical point of view. Our hearts are hard and rebellious. "But this people have a revolting and rebellious heart (Jeremiah 5:23). "Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
In (Proverbs 6:18), the Bible speaks of a "heart that devises wicked imaginations" and in (Jeremiah 17:9), "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?" In (Matthew 15:8), Jesus said that our hearts are far from God. He said: "These people draw near me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me". It is true. Our real self, our heart, is mostly taken up with the things of the world. We have very little time in private with God, and reading the Bible. We spend far more time with TV. Our hearts are dark, because of pride, and because our spiritual eyes have been blinded by the god of this age.. "the people were not thankful, but became vain in their imaginations" (Romans 1:21). I find it interesting that this was 1957 and today we have even more distractions to pull us away from God..Facebook, twitter, video games, cell phones, computers, countless books, you name it.. Mr. Graham continued to say "your heart can be hardened". The same sun that shines on the clay hardens the clay, but it melts the butter.The same Gospel that is preached here tonight will soften some hearts until they yield to Christ, but will harden others. Your heart can be so hardened that when God speaks, you no longer hear Him.
Psalm (44:21) "for he knows the secrets of your heart" ....you cannot hide from God
(Jeremiah 17:10) "I the Lord search the heart" ....he searches your heart
Proverbs 21:2) "every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord ponders the hearts" evaluating it....you may think your way of living is all right, but God doesn't take your evaluation and your judgment..
(Proverbs (16:1) "The preparations of the heart in man...is from the Lord"..
The Bible says that God weighs the heart ..do you weigh enough? He weighs your spiritual life in comparison to the Ten Commandments. And the Bible says that every one of us have broken those Ten
Commandments. He weighs you by the law of conscience-the times your conscience spoke to you and the times you rejected the voice of your conscience. He also weighs you by the life of Christ, and none of us weigh enough. We all come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
But the heart of Christ; his perfect, glorious, loving, tender and compassionate heart, bled on the cross for our sinful heart, so that we would be forgiven. He died in our place....while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).
The death of Christ is a mystery, of course. None of us can understand it. But we know that he bled and his heart was broken for us, and he gives us a new heart. If you will come to Christ and surrender your heart, God says: "I'll take out the old heart and I'll put in a new one". The Bible says: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me". (Ezekiel 36), "A new heart also will I give you , and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh"
Would you like to have a new heart? Change the whole direction of your living? Change your whole moral life? Would you like to have new thoughts and new ambitions and new energies? Would you be willing to surrender your life to Christ..are you willing to do that?
Well, there are thousands upon thousands of testimonies of people changing their hearts and their lives after attending these crusades of Billy Graham. A humble man that God used in extraordinary ways to reach hurting people around the world. Galen and I had the privilege of attending the Billy Graham Training Center, The Cove, in Ashville, North Carolina 2 years ago. We attended a retreat with The American Leprocy Mission. It was the most peaceful retreat that I had ever been to. You could feel the peace and the presence of God everywhere you went. From the peaceful forest setting to all the staff and the amenities, it was an amazing experience, and we came out of it renewed and refreshed. Also we visited the Billy Graham Library, in Charlotte, North Carolina where they had Mr. Graham's funeral. We watched it on line the other day and it was very inspirational and moving. So many pastors and dignitaries, from around the world came to pay their respects, among them also were our President and Vice President with their spouses.
If you are interested in viewing the funeral, and other information, you can go to the web address:
BillyGraham.org
(Revelation 14:13) "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord..that they may rest from their labors and their works follow them"....
May he rest in Peace
