Why does God come and help us? Why is He so merciful? Why does He love us so? Because He is good! We don't deserve it, Yet we are blessed!

Do we really believe that God loves us? Do we really believe that God will bless us with His presence?

I was challenged to think about my faith in God, by a sermon by Pastor Chanski. "JUST ASK" That is certainly a message for me. Ask, seek, knock? God loves us and He wants to become a real part of our chuches and families. Not just a way to walk, but a family relationship. We live this way because our Father in Heaven loves us and takes care of us. Oh what a challenge to a greater devotion to Christ! Pastor Chanski put it in a challenging way! I am so grateful for the growth of my personal expectation from God. I remember our early prayer meetings about Pastor's Conferences and such. "Make men like Pastor Martin, etc." I loved Pastor Martin, but I didn't think he was the pattern. We are so far from the cookie cutter days, I think. Make us Christians Lord, whatever else we may be, ie. Black, White, denominational, non-denominational. Make us Christ's sheep and children of God. Make us believers and worshippers and intercessors for our generation. Halleluia, for the privilege to grow in the family of God.

The Church calendar and the feast of the "Transfiguration"?

I find it a wonderful providence, now that I am so unaware of the "Church Calendar" how often God reveals Himself in just the same way that the Church is celebrating on the calendar.

Stu was preaching about the work of Satan and the sifting of Peter a few weeks ago and I providentially stumbled on this delightful treatment and my soul was provoked to meditate on the closeness of Peter to the Lord Jesus to be thusly warned. I thought of the transfiguration and that there are so many things that Peter saw on the positive side of Jesus revelation of Himself, because of His proximity. You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God! This revelation of Christ's Godness kept getting clearer and clearer for Peter, until he would really see the intercessory Savior before the completion of the project.

We see Him interceding on our behalf, everyday now. Sadly, it is the darkness of our sin that lightens this aspect of our glorious Saviour. I was the one who interceded for Job, Jesus seemed to say. Satan has asked for your soul, Peter. I am praying for you, Jesus assures Peter that his fall is not an eternal demise. Don't we often need that reassurance of our Savior. This sin is not unto death. When you are restored, strengthen your brethren. Peter must have mulled this over again and again before and after his denial of Christ. How could he have known that Satan asked this? He is God? He is praying for me? "The Lord said to my Lord, sit here until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet." He was despised and rejected {that meant I rejected him}. I thought I loved Him more than that, and He still loved me and prayed for me. John knew these conundrums of faith, from his love perspective. "If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The transfiguration was a precursor of redemption. He ever lives to make intercession for us.

Do I appreciate the propitiation of God on my behalf? Do I seek His continued presence in my life? He is enthroned on high, on the feast and everyday. He saw my stumbles into sin and loves me, anyway. Satan doesn't always seek to sift us, but when he does Praise God, "5 bleeding wounds he bears...pour effectual prayers". I carry my soul and my forgetfulness to Jesus and ask for help and sight to see His prayers as for me, in Jesus Name. Amen.

Intimacy with Christ and the warfare of the spirit. Jesus really helps us cry!

Stu Johnston's sermon on Luke 22Thank God for good exegesis as a tool to become a workman that "needeth not to be ashamed". Satan was going to sift Peter as wheat. Jesus told Peter that this was his coming experience. How very scary an uncovering of future events this must have been for Peter? I would imagine that this was part of the many things that Jesus couldn't have told them any earlier or any later than He told him. Even a close friend and the Lord of Glory would tell his dear one of the coming stumblingblock. Peter would have seen that Jesus was speaking to him from a Heavenly enthroned perspective. His friend was God of glory. His friend was a loving advocate. His stumbling gave him a glimpse of the reality of the identity of this dear friend and God of glory that no one else saw. This friend, "in the appearance as a man" that everyone saw as divine; no one could fully embrace the full reality of how great He really was.

Jesus said to Peter that he was privy to the interaction between God and Satan. Peter's only reference for this reality would be the book of Job. This personal transfiguration coming, just at the junction between His passion and His death. This concept would be inconceivable for any human. Jesus trusted Peter with this truth for his own sanctification. He was leaning on the relationships, Our Savior and this was a disappointment that God the Father had shown to His perfect son. There is no leaning on the arm of flesh, for Christ in His passion. Everyone was an enemy and on the side of sin. He became a curse for us. He knew that His desertion in heart and reality was the next step on the road to the cross. Christ paid the price of this for us. He remained a true friend. He faithfully took up the cross and acted in love, when bitterness could have caused Him to just keep this truth to Himself.

God is building His Church that we can hold one-another together, when the sifting and the sorting of Satan is our portion. Let us lean on the everlasting arms of our Lord and Savior. Let us see His faithful friendship to draw His beloved close to His heart, even in our direst of temptations. Hold us up, dearest Savior. Draw us close to Your perfect heart, that we may know You and know Your love expressed in Your Church, for Your glory and for the growth of Your Church on the earth.

He ever lives to make intercession for us. He remains a faithful and true High Priest on our behalf. The payment had not been fully paid for Peter, as yet. Now, when Satan asks to sift us as wheat, Jesus prays for us. Jesus says, My bleeding wounds are pleading, Father. Forgive him/her! Don't let her die in her sinful estate. Draw her closer to grace and faith. Don't let him go that far from my presence.

God wants us closer to Him than we could want to get. Sometimes the challenges make us run to Him, sometimes they are the magnet away from Him. Whichever way, Jesus untangles us and builds us personally and builds His Church corporately and we see the gates of Hell, not prevailing against His Church. Corporate prayer, individual prayer, praise and worship, attendance upon the Word of God are all the tools that God uses to whittle a Church into a Glorious Church without spot or wrinkle. He whittles the image of Christ, first upon our desires and then slowly upon our experience. Halleluia, What a Savior.

What ingredients compose a "good conscience"?

I do ask myself that question everyday. How could you be a Christian and still struggle with sin and temptation? Exposure to the commandments? Exposure to correct doctrine? What is it?

I felt a good conscience one season only and it was the day before my whole life fell to pieces. Everything in place. The kids clothes ready for church and convictions all in place, with as many children as hands. I will do this and all will be well. Ask and it will be given to you? No, said God. Not this time.

What is it for?

Just get me home to heaven, is my prayer. I can't ask anything more than I have already asked. I need exposure to God's commands everyday to know where I can get up from crushing blows of soul and mind. His commands are so much more merciful than man's. He's good, even when my heart condemns me. He's good, when I think I'm okay. He's not under scrutiny. I am. If Jesus didn't pay all our debt to God, we are in trouble. Forever trouble. Trust and obey.

Let your conscience be your guide?

What if your conscience is wrong? God's Word better instruct your conscience to bring it to truth and then maybe it can guide you. God said it, that settles it!

The Deception of Self Righteousness

Oh, doesn't that come in so many shades and colors? Do I know Him? Do I teach about Him?

"Whitley Benjamin said in LWF" 'Father's going to hell and will burn through eternity.'

I believe family prayer brought father to heaven with the rest of their family. Are we happy to place sinners in the hands of an angry God? Are we so sure of our convinced state that we are predisposed to call another Raca? Is that what God gave His Word to us for? Your faith is spurious, we love to announce in our youthful zeal.

I think that our intimacy with Him, should draw and not our blasting of others. I think that method is a residual of our pagan backgrounds. "I must bring someone behind me so that I will have someone to peck at." is the background of our thinking oft times.

Who will be the ones telling God, what they have done for Him? Do we know Him? Does He know us in our labors for Him? How much more should we pray for the souls of those through whom, much exposure to the word of God may have begun to breed the contempt that this exposure could? Let us intend to pray their souls into heaven with us, our dear devoted and overexposed fathers. {many sunburned souls from long study} Draw them to know and love the one who gave that Word to us for our healing and help and not just for the building of our resumes. In Jesus' Name, amen.