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Life Lessons, Uncategorized

Why Do Bad things Happen to Good People? (Part Nine)

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                                     Summing  It All Up.

  Elihu , the youngest of the group had kept silent during this second round of speeches. But now he spoke up and gave his opinion of Job’s situation, and what the others had said…    He was angry at all their speeches, even at Job for justifying himself rather than giving God the glory, and he was angry at the other three because they hadn’t been any help at all with their ideas. He said that he had waited in vain for them to say something constructive, and now that they had run out, he was going to give his opinion!

“I’m nearly ready to bust”, he exclaimed, “so you all listen to me now! Job, you’ve been telling us  about all the good you’ve done in your life, and how you feel God has now deserted you! God deals with everyone differently, and He has the final say in men’s affairs. So take notice of this Job, and if you’ve got anything more to say, say it now!”    Elihu then turned his attention to the others…”You guys think you’re the wise ones, now listen to me…Job thinks he has done nothing wrong. We know that God certainly does no wrong, and that He is over everything on earth…are you in God’s place to say these things against Job? Even if he has been talking rubbish, he is the one who is paying for it now! We’ve got to remember that God knows more than we do and that He knows what He is doing. Job’s words are just wasted in his situation!     “You all just listen to me! God is mighty in power, and what He does is right! He is great and we cannot know His wisdom, and how He orders the world, the rain, and the light that He gives! I tremble to speak on His behalf! Just take notice of the thunder, the whirlwinds that come, and the snow in its season. Just listen to me Job, there is no-one and nothing that can equal God’s might and majesty….this is why we are to fear Him!”

      Job’s trial was nearly at an end although he didn’t know it then, and God now spoke directly to him. Although Job had not let God down as Satan had hoped, yet there were still things for him to learn. This is how it is for each one of us, and there are many things for us to learn through the trials we suffer, and often through sickness and ill health… God now spoke directly to Job….  “Job, you wanted to talk to me, now I will ask you a few things! Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? How much do you know about its construction? “  and on He went asking Job  about the universe and the great seas that He had created and now controlled. He continued to point out to Job other things about the animals and nature that He had created.     Job listened to all this and became completely speechless. “Oh God, I am completely unworthy of your notice!” he cried, “I can say no more!” If we would only think of ourselves in relation to God, we too would be speechless!

    Our little concerns would seem so petty in the light of God’s glory and greatness. What seems so important to us now suddenly becomes worthless junk compared to the things of eternity! When we look around us, God’s glory is seen in every flower, bird and animal, from the largest to the smallest. No two are the same, every sheep has its own characteristics, and the tiny ants would have too! Every human being has their own distinctive face and DNA! We are all unique, we all have a soul given to us by God and a spirit that craves communication with Him whether we give in to it or not.    

      We are truly left speechless in the face of all this! This is how each one of us will be when we face Him in the day to come. Speechless, but for the praise that is due to Him (from His people) and the admission that Jesus Christ is Lord from every mouth, both saved and unsaved.

                                                                                             (Job Chapters 32-41)

Life Lessons

Why do Bad things Happen to Good People? (Part Eight)

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                    Summing it all Up!

          Elihu , the fourth friend, had kept silent all this time as he was the youngest. But now he spoke up and gave his opinion of Job’s situation, and of what the others had said…     He was angry at all their speeches, even at Job for justifying himself rather than giving God the glory, and he was angry at the other three because they hadn’t been any help at all with their ideas. He said that he had waited in vain for them to say something constructive, and now that they had run out, he was going to give his opinion! “I’m nearly ready to bust”, he exclaimed, “so you all listen to me now! Job, you’ve been telling us  about all the good you’ve done in your life, and how you feel God has now deserted you! God deals with everyone differently, and He has the final say in men’s affairs. So take notice of this Job, and if you’ve got anything more to say, say it now!”

   Elihu then turned his attention to the others…”You guys think you’re the wise ones, now listen to me…Job thinks he has done nothing wrong. We know that God certainly does no wrong, and that He is over everything on earth…are you in God’s place to say these things against Job? Even if he has been talking rubbish, he is the one who is paying for it now! We’ve got to remember that God knows more than we do and that He knows what He is doing. Job’s words are just wasted in his situation!     “You all just listen to me! God is mighty in power, and what He does is right! He is great and we cannot know His wisdom, and how He orders the world, the rain, and the light that He gives! I tremble to speak on His behalf! Just take notice of the thunder, the whirlwinds that come, and the snow in its season. Just listen to me Job, there is no-one and nothing that can equal God’s might and majesty….this is why we are to fear Him!”

    Although he didn’t know it, Job’s trial was nearly at an end by this time. God then spoke directly to him and we will do well to listen to the things that He had to say to Job, and see what we can learn from them. Nothing that happens to us in this life is wasted if we take stock of the situation and learn from it.

Random Devotional Thoughts

Thoughts from Proverbs…

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Proverbs 1:7-33                            

     There is so much contained in this passage, that we could go through it verse by verse, and still not come to an end of it! Solomon points out that to not follow these instructions is to not  fear the Lord and is foolishness in the extreme! Parents have the great responsibility of passing on to their children this wisdom…..

    Bad friends are the worst influence in a person’s life, so it is up to all of us, no matter what age, to be careful who we choose for our closest friends. It is so easy to get carried away by what seems to be good ideas, but in reality they lead us down the wrong path.

   We then read of how wisdom cries out to each of us to listen to common sense….this is available to all, but not all use it! It includes caution, yet action….but not so much caution that we hold back from doing what we know we should be doing.    God then warns the people to not go too far in their refusal to listen to Him… “You might find the day will come when I will laugh at your calamities,” He warns, “You will call on Me then and I will not answer. You didn’t want My advice, so you can reap  the consequences!”    In spite of all that, yet God will still hear the repentant cry if we call on Him in sincerity and truth.

When God’s patience has worn thin, With man’s rebellion and his sin, He always hears repentant cries, And will step in before man dies!

Random Devotional Thoughts

Are You Keeping Up?

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           I was thinking the other day about how our telephone system has evolved during my lifetime. Mother-in-law was telling a story nearly thirty years ago about how she had stopped her boys talking too much on the phone when they were teenagers, and I had video-ed her doing this. She was waving her hands around to demonstrate how she took the lightning guards out to cut off the conversation. I got to wondering if our grandkids would know what she was talking about, let alone the great grand-kids!

      How many of you, our readers, know what the lightning guards were and what they were for? How many of you remember the old telephone boxes that were attached to the wall near where the telephone wires came into the house?  The lightning guards were to protect the listener being banged in the ear if there was a thunder storm while talking….the central fuse would break if the lightning struck them and the line would go dead. High up on the wall inside above the brown box was where the line came in from the outside of the house, and this was protected from any lightning strikes there might be by two long tubes that had fuses in them. The idea was that these fuses were what connected the voices to the line and the line was effectively cut off if they were taken out or blown for some reason.

    Back then, the phones were attached to the wall of the house, usually in the living room, in  a large brown box on the wall, and the hand piece that you talked into (and listened to)  was attached to the box, so you could never go into your room and have a private conversation. It meant that you had to stay by the phone to use it. Every house had its telephone connected by wires that went along the roadsides to each house, and there were about 8-10 people who shared the same telephone line….this was called a “party line”. It meant that everyone on that line could tap into your conversations merely by lifting their handpiece and listening.

    Each house had its own number just like now ….I remember ours was 28W . The 28 was the line number and the W was the morse code number of W which was the ring of short, long, long. So when ever we heard that ring come through, we knew that call was for us. If it was three shorts (S), we knew it was for the house down the road, and two longs was M, and it was the neighbour further along.

          It was a great day when these phones were replaced by ones that had the rotary dial for ringing, and those who shared the line were cut back to two or three. After that came the day when each household had its own line, but we were still attached to the wall for talking! Then there came the cordless phones….great, we could get on with our chores while Auntie was giving us the latest gossip!!

     Then came the “brick”, a great heavy handpiece on the first really mobile  phones. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever imagine the modern smart phone that we have today, and that does so much!

    I couldn’t help thinking that God has enabled all these marvellous modern inventions, and how much do we give Him thanks for them? How much do we stop to think about Him at all? It isn’t man’s smartness that has thought of these things, look at how many hundreds of years mankind lived  without any of these things and did everything the hard way. No machinery, no technology to make life easier. Having to carry suitcases full of reference books when travelling to classes or a conference, and now they are all contained in our pocket in our smart phone! Truly we have much to be thankful to God for, let us make sure we give Him thanks as we use them!

Random Devotional Thoughts

How Well do you Listen?

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“Could you run down to the grocery store and get me a couple of things please Honey?”      Debbie asked her new husband.

“Why sure”, Jeff replied only too happy to oblige.

“I’ll give you a list”, Debbie went on.

“No, no” Jeff insisted, “I’ll be OK. What do you want?”

“Well, I need some self-rising flour, and a packet of Twinings tea”, she said as she wiped her hands on the towel.

Jeff bounded off, happy to do his beloved’s wish.

He got to the shop and found the section for baking needs. “Flour” he muttered, and then looked at the array of different sorts of flour before him. “Now what sort did she ask for?” he asked himself. High grade, plain white, brown, self-rising, bread flour. Her instructions flew out of his mind.

It was in the days before cell phones, so he made a wild guess and picked a packet off the shelf.

It was the same in the tea section. “Tea”, he muttered, “Now what sort did she ask for?”

Green tea, black tea, cheap tea, expensive tea…. Nerada tea, Bell tea, Choysa tea, Twinings tea? He made a stab and picked a packet up and put it in his basket.

When he got home, Debbie saw what he had brought. “Those aren’t the ones I asked for Jeff”, she wailed, “Why didn’t you listen?”

“Well, I did get flour and tea”, he said.

You see, Jeff had heard, but he hadn’t really listened. This what so many of us are like with what God tells us. Yes, we hear that God loves us, but we don’t listen to the fact that He is a holy God and can’t stand sin. We hear that He wants to bless us, but we don’t listen to the fact that He only blesses those who give their lives to Him and do their best to follow Him. We may even know that verse that says that “all things work together for good”, but we don’t take notice that is only for those who love God and are doing what He wants them to. Let’s make sure that we REALLY listen to what God is saying to us, and then act on it. If Jeff had really LISTENED to Debbie, he would have taken the right things home for her!!

Random Devotional Thoughts

Truth in a Nutshell.

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    BIBLE2             There seem to be so many people these days  contracting that dread “C” disease….cancer. A young friend had a brain tumour towards the end of last year and it was only a matter of weeks before he went to be with the Lord. His funeral service was a triumphant testimony to the fact that he knew where he was going, and that all his family knew where he was at that very time…he was rejoicing with his Lord who he had endeavoured to serve in his short time on earth.

Another friend visited a neighbour of his recently who only had a very short time to live. Our friend tried to talk to him about the Lord, but only met with a blank refusal to listen. “I don’t believe that rubbish”, the man said, “when we die we just disappear into the cosmos”.

“Would you like me to get my pastor to come and talk to you?” our friend persisted.

“No, I wouldn’t”, the man said, “I’d be very angry if you did that!” he said definitely and the conversation finished abruptly.

What a sad state of affairs to go into eternity with! It reminded me of this parable that  came through my mail box not so long ago, and is worth passing on again…

Parable of the Unborn Twins….

Wonder if there’s life after birth?              Of course not! Whoever heard of such a thing!

But what if there is? What would it be like?  No one’s ever come back to tell us!

I wonder what it would be like to be free?   At least we know what it’s like here.

Would there be light and food we could eat?  Rubbish! We are adequately fed by the umbilical cord!

Don’t you want to meet Mother?      Mother?       Whoever heard of a mother?

But we can sometimes hear her voice as she talks and sings from up there….

Rubbish! It’s all imagination!

Well, I’d like to meet her and have her hold me in her arms! It would be all light and freedom then!

You do talk a lot of nonsense! I’m going to turn over….ooh, it’s getting awfully tight in here!

Well, I don’t care what you say. If you are right and I’m wrong, we’ve got nothing to lose. But if I’m right and you’re wrong, then there is everything to lose, and I’m positive I’m right!

Can’t we just hear the truth in this parable! People say there is no life after death, no-one has ever come back to tell us, that there is nothing to be set free from and there is no such thing as “God”. As for His Word, the Bible, it is all just imagination, a collection of fairy tales! We think our ideas are the truth of the matter, but what if we WERE wrong? What then? There is everything to lose then, so it pays to search these things out and see what the truth is. God says, “My Word is Truth”; Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. Let’s look into these things for ourselves, and then make our decision!

Stories for Teens

Do You Really Listen?

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                                                       Luke 8: 10-18

  PECHI092How much do we REALLY listen when people are talking to us? Or when the preacher is speaking at church? Sarah had the same problem……

    “This is awfully hard to understand”, said Sarah one Saturday afternoon  while her mother was getting tea ready.

“How do you mean?” asked Mum.

“Well, our lesson for this week is about listening, and how to not lose what we’ve been given”.

“It sounds like a bit of a puzzle”, Mum said, only half listening. “Why don’t you ask Uncle Jeff tonight when he comes round for tea?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea” said Sarah, “Is he coming round then?”

“Yes”, said Mum, “Didn’t you hear me telling you all this morning that he was coming?”

“Well, I was busy texting Emma and didn’t hear what you were saying!” Sarah said.

Mum smiled. She thought that Uncle Jeff would be able to explain very easily what Sarah wanted to know.

     After tea was over and everyone was settled down for the evening, Uncle Jeff came over to where Sarah was curled up on the couch in her favourite position.

“Well Sarah,” he said, “What is your lesson for tomorrow about?”

“Oh Uncle Jeff”, Sarah said, “I was going to ask you about that! It’s from Luke chapter eight and it’s about listening. It’s the sower’s parable, and it keeps saying to hear what is being explained. Then later on, it says that we have to be careful we don’t lose what we’ve been given. What’s that all about?”

“Well”, said Uncle Jeff, “We have to remember that Jesus was explaining about the seed that was sown and the crop that came from it. That is about all that we remember about that story. But Jesus was actually saying a lot more than that. Let’s look at those verses and see what He was really saying. What does verse ten say?”

Sarah read it slowly. “It says that He was explaining it to the disciples so that they could understand it”.

“That’s right”, said Uncle Jeff, “What does verse twelve say?”

“It says that the first lot of people hear God’s Word, and then the Devil comes along and takes it away. I suppose that means that it goes in one ear and out the other”.

“Yes, that is exactly what it is saying”, Uncle Jeff said, “What does verse thirteen say about hearing?”

“It says that the next lot of people that hear God’s Word think it’s a great idea but it doesn’t last. It’s like sleeping on a good idea and seeing what you think the next morning  and then changing your mind about it I s’pose”.

“You’re getting the picture Sarah,” said Uncle Jeff. “What do you see about the next lot of people who hear God’s Word?”

“It seems as though they get too busy with work or things like sport to be able to fit church in”, Sarah said.

“That’s exactly right Sarah. We’ve seen all the people now who heard God’s Word but they never did anything much about it”, Uncle Jeff said, “So what conclusion do you come to about these people?”

“I s’pose it means that they should have listened and then done something about it” Sarah said slowly, “Is that how that verse about losing what we’ve been given ties in with all this?”

“What do you think Sarah?” Uncle Jeff asked, “Let’s look at verse fifteen and see what it says. What do the people who grow a good crop do about listening?”

Sarah read it through and then said, “It says that when they really HEAR what God is saying, they KEEP it, and then DO it! “

“Now read verse eighteen and tell me what you see there”, Uncle Jeff said.

Sarah read it and then said, “That’s what was puzzling me before!  But now I can see that people who hear what the Bible says and do it will get a lot more blessings, while those who only half listen won’t do what it says and after a bit they’ll think it’s not worth bothering with any more. They’ve lost it!”

“Good girl!” said Uncle Jeff, “I’ll give you top marks for that! Now you’ll be able to explain it to the others tomorrow”.

.

 

 

Morning Musings, Uncategorized

Who’s Going to Listen to Him?

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girls-huggingTwo men were talking together about the state of the world, the state of the country and even the individual’s state, on talk back radio. Everything was doom and gloom, with no real solution in sight. One man said (as though it was a last resort),  “Well, I suppose you could always listen to Jesus, but no-one takes any notice of Him!”

The other one brushed that comment aside, and said “There’s always music that could enthuse people I suppose, what about Stevie Wonder?”

They didn’t realise how much their comments held! What if everyone in the world DID follow the teachings of Jesus… “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind and with all your soul, and your neighbour as yourself!”

There would be no more war and no need for armies, no need for police, no need for Children’s Services to supervise homes for child abuse, no need for courts to operate, no need for anywhere the amount of hospital emergencies that deal with domestic disputes and fights!

We DO have the answer, but it must start from within, for the heart of man to be renewed by our Man of Wonder, the Lord Jesus Christ! But how true the second man’s comment was….  “No-one listens to Him!”

WHY? Why won’t men listen to the One Who created them and Who has all the answers? The One Who has never done them any harm, and yet they shut their ears to His words and advice! He has even given us His book, the Maker’s Handbook, to tell us how to overcome the problems we find in life….let’s make sure we read it and do as He says!