Let’s Pray for Steve!

I am sure you have just read Steve’s preceding blog and know that it ended abruptly with him having to deal with storm damage.  Would you join me  in prayer for Steve?

 ”Dear Lord, Thank you for Steve and Terrie.  We pray for their safety and the safety of their possessions.  We pray that even now they are resting peacefully.  Father God, continue to use both of them for your kingdom purposes.  May they be blessings in your name — through which we offer this prayer,  Amen.

Thanks Steve for continuing to challenge us.

Bro. Ray

Get down on your knees and fight like a man

Sunday Bro. Ray delivered a message on prayer. This subject has been on my mind a lot. Every morning I get up early to read my Bible. I eat breakfast, then before going to work, I talk to Terrie. I tell her I love her. She expressed the need for morning prayer before I go. It’s usually not complicated, mostly simple. I ask for protection, physical and spiritual, and the opportunity to share what God has done in our life. It starts both our days off on the right foot. I try to stay in a state of prayer all day long. Many years ago my mother taught me a simple way to stay in this frame of mind. She told me just say Jesus’ name three times. I do it quite often. It really works, things don’t always go my way, but I sure take things a lot better.

Men, every day I enter a battle field. The battle for my thoughts are ongoing. Coworkers I’m involved with every day constantly challenge me for my thoughts. They talk about the escapades of the weekend, usually with language that would not be suitable in mixed company. Oh, I could complain to management, and it would stop. But if I did that I would alienate myself from them, and I would not be able to show the love of Christ in me. They would not come to me and ask me to pray for them. Instead I’m continually in prayer, to remove a thought from my mind. 2Cor. 10:4 The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. PRAYER is the weapon it’s talking about.

One of the things I remember about Bro. Rays’ message was the prayer his grandfather prayed at meal time. I think it went like this. ” Father for what we are about to receive, we are truly thankful”. The point he was trying to make is prayer is simply communication with God. From the heart that simple prayer carries a lot of weight in Heaven. To truly know Christ,  you have to have ongoing communication.  Prayer ….

1/30/08 I have a quick testimony, when I started this blog at 6 pm the storm rolled through. The lights flickered, the computer went off. I started to reboot when the wind picked up. Next there was a large boom, much like the sound of two cars colliding. The next thing I saw was a 6″ in diameter limb about fifteen feet long, 3 ft. from me. I calmly made sure all the dogs were OK then I started cleaning the mess. It’s now 12:30pm and I’m finishing the blog. God is Good. Posted by Steve Waltrip

Free Will

In the begining was free will.  It is what caused Satan to fall from Heaven and a third of the angels to go with him. It is what caused Adam and Eve to be banished from the Garden of Eden and what caused Cain to slay Abel.  David wept many a night on his bed because of it, and it caused Judas’ death.

What is free will?  The dictionary says: will: “The power of conscience, deliberate action; the facility by which the mind makes choices and acts to carry them out.”  This is God-given.  He has given you a will.  To live for Him or not.  It’s the one thing that Satan tries to control more than anything.  If he can control your free will he’s won the battle.  You are not alone in being attacked by him. Satan tried to gain Jesus’ will when Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days.

I told a story a few weeks ago at an Upward basketball game.  I married my High School sweet heart. I have three boys from that marriage.  A few years before our 30 yr. anniversary she started seeing another man.  I found out about it, confronted her with it, and she said she would stop.  I had everyone I knew praying – my church, friends, family – everyone I knew. She wouldn’t stop and figured divorce was the answer to all her troubles. I couldn’t understand why my prayers were not answered.  One night in prayer I got the answer.  God said, “Free will.”  He told me He would not alter free will.  She did what she wanted to because of free will.  God through the Holy Spirit can convict a person they are doing wrong, but in the end everyone makes choices of their own free will. Rom. 8:28 has become real to me.  Terrie, my wife now, loves me and keeps me out of trouble. She and I ‘will’ to be together.

I encourage you to listen to ‘the still voice’ of God, and heed what it says to you.  It will not steer you wrong.  And remember it was not nails that held my Jesus to the cross, because He could have removed the nails at anytime, but it was His free will to save you and me. 

In closing, a few blogs ago I made a spelling error.  I apologize for that.  Every once in a while I make mistakes.  I learn from them, dust myself off and keep going. Posted by Steve Waltrip

Burdens

 

I have enjoyed, very much, having the opportunity to share with you these past few months. Writing blogs has both blessed me and challenged me. Some of you have come up to me personally and told me you have enjoyed reading them. To you, thank you very much. Bro. Ray, thank you also for the encouragement and support, you are a true shepherd. Someone else will pick up the gauntlets in February, while I will continue on my on blog Pligramsjourney. I have a burning desire I wish to share with you.

In November (I think), I wrote about an encounter I had in Walmart with an elderly gentleman. There have been things in my life that have caused a coarse change. This encounter is up there at the top, of things that are on my mind almost every day. Every day I wonder if that man is going to Heaven or not. If not could I have made a change or not?

If your unsaved friends or loved ones could write you a letter after death, what would they say? I think they might say, couldn’t you have told me what I was getting into? Couldn’t you have warned me? Why didn’t you try a little harder?  I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on you, but are you trying hard enough, are you praying for your neighbors? Are you trying at all? We first need to pray, for the Holy Spirit’s help. You don’t win anyone to Christ, but you simple introduce them. I personally think the best approach is to let them see the Christ in you.

The man that caused me to realize I needed Christ was my father. He didn’t push me at all, he simply answered a question. I asked him, what am I supposed to do? You know what his answer was? ” I don’t know?” “But Romans 8:28, says all things work together towards good to those that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” That wasn’t even a salvation message. But it cultivated thoughts that were already in my heart.

 In closing I pray God gives you a burden to see lost souls find Christ.

Posted by Steve Waltrip

The desires of your heart

 

Ps. 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. (NASB)

What does this mean to you? Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you a Cadillac? I guess He could, but that’s not what it means to me. The desire, He gives me, is to know Him better. He first gives me questions.( Many of them I have shared with you.) Second, He gives me answers. When I have a question I have to find an answer. 95% of all the questions I have are answered in His Word. The other 5% I find through His people, the Church.

There are many questions I will have to wait on the answers. Death, sickness, poverty, all of these questions have an answer in the Bible. But until you have experienced them first hand I don’t think they will get down in your soul. God lost His Son for three days to death.

Having said that; the desire, He has given me is to be more like Jesus. In the long run, if others love me, its not me but the Jesus they see in me.

1 Cor.13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face: now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. (NASB)                   posted by Steve Waltrip