Ed Christian's World

Secrets Of The Soul Keepers…

In order to live a life of righteousness and blessing, and to avoid falling, you need to have hedges in your life, godly hedges, parameters, for what you can do and what you can’t.

Hedges to protect your marriage, your home, your family, your relationship, your prayer life, your time in the word, your purity, what you watch, what you’ll allow, what you won’t, etc.

There’s a Hebrew word used in the Bible that means boundary, or trench, as in a hedge that you would make to protect something. That same word also means “decision.”

There’s a revelation there. In order ot protect your life and walk in God, you need hedges. In order to have hedges, you need to make decisions. When you make a decision, you’re sealing something, as something not to be broken or crossed. Otherwise, it’s not a hedge and it won’t protect you.

So what hedges do you need in your life, in your walk? What hedges do you need to build in your life? Start building it. And remember, every hedge begins with a decision.

Who, then, are those who fear the Lord? He will instruct them in the ways they should choose. Psalm 25:12

Where do you need to put up a hedge or hedges in your life? In what area? Make your decision today and build them.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Father, behold our family here assembled. We thank You for this place in which we dwell, for the love that unites us, for the peace accorded us this day, for the hope with which we expect tomorrow, for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

We are all family to each other, everyone of us. With God as our Father, we are all brothers and sisters. Yet we seem to have so much trouble when it comes to reaching out and offering a hand up. Although we have no excuse, we always figure someone else will step forward and help, maybe someone better equipped than me. How soon we forget that when we were in our deepest need, He came forward and picked us up, loved us and gave us a new life.

Love others as I have loved you seems to go by the wayside when it is inconvenient for us to act. Did you ever think it just may be a test God is sending to see if you will lift Him up and shine His light for others? Maybe, just maybe, we are too tied up in the world of self, the what’s in it for me. As I see it all the graces of a Christian spring from the death of self.

Often with people you cannot completely alleviate their problem but, by being with them, whatever you can do for them makes a difference. A soft loving touch can do more to show people you care than just about anything else. Just knowing there is someone out there that cares will light up a persons world. The candle at the end of the tunnel. We either add to the darkness of indifference … or we light a candle to see by. It’s a choice we make everyday of our life. For me I would rather light a candle in someone’s life than add to the darkness. It is my nature to reach out and help.

God is in the business of restoration, and He’s been doing it for a long, long time. We’re merely His partners, His apprentices. We’re working with a pro! Today open your heart and let God’s touch bring restoration to those areas of your life that need repair. Then go and touch others with His restoring love. Be there for others and shine His light. Just being there will light up someone’s world. Share your light and love.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love,

Ed.

A Year Of Joy…

When my father was a child, growing up his father would take him out to a restaurant, he would go around to other tables, pretend to be poor, and beg for their food.

When his father caught him doing that, he wasn’t happy at all. He was embarrassed. To have your son going around begging as a pauper, isn’t a good reflection on your family, or on your fatherhood.

It’s the same way for God and you. If you’re born again, you’re a child of God. If you live, as if you’re empty, desperate, needing to get your fill from the world, from the media, from material things, even from the approval of others, then you’re a child of God living as beggar.

It’s an embarrassment to heaven. Get filled up at your Father’s table. Everything you need is right there. Then if you want to go to the other tables, to the world, then go, but not to beg, but to give and bless. For a child of God is born not to beg, but to bless.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 1 John 3:1

Today, seek to be independent of them Be filled by directly from Him. And rejoice in the fact that you’re not a beggar, but a child of the Most High.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Miracle Keepers…

Yosef and Miriam, Joseph and Mary, were given the greatest of miracles, the life of God in their midst, in the form of the child, Jesus. But they had to take that miracle home and care for it, nourish it, feed it, protect it, watch over it, cherish it.

When you have a baby, that’s what you do. Anything that could harm the baby, you remove from your life and from being near your baby. You feed that baby, and watch to meet its needs, at all times.

So the new life God has given you, your salvation, is a miracle. But you have to care for that miracle, nourish it, feed it, protect it. Anything that would harm your new life, your salvation, any sin, habit, or thought, you have to remove from your life.

You need to daily feed and nourish that life with the Word and love of God. You have a miracle. Nurture it, protect it, guard it, bless it, and that miracle will grow and become all that it was born to be.

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Romans 6:4

Treat your salvation, your new life, as a treasure from God. Especially guard it from any negative thing, any thought, any sight, any sin, any temptation, that would hurt it. Nourish it with the Word and love of God.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Making The Best Of It…

There was a young artist whose strong desire to was to travel the world. But she couldn’t. She had to stay home and support her parents.

Instead of seeing the wonders of the world she could only look out from her basement studio at three stone steps leading up to the house next door.

So she painted a picture of what she saw: a stone wall, three rough stone steps, a dandelion, and three flowers which appeared to be growing out of the stone.

She called her painting, ‘Making the Best of It.” It ended up being reproduced and giving inspiration to many.

Maybe there are things you’ve wanted to do, places you wanted to go, dreams you wanted to fulfill, goals you wanted to achieve.. which, for one reason or another, never came about.

Your faith is not about where you are in life, but Whom you’re with. That’s all that matters. So stop looking at what is not, and rejoice in what is. Make the best of it, because with Him, the best is exactly what you have.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon–from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me– a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”

My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42

Today, make it your aim not to dwell on anything you don’t have – but dwell on what you do, all the blessings of God, give thanks, and rejoice in them.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Notes On Forgiveness…

During the Cold War, much of the world was divided into two camps. The city of Berlin was divided into east and west. There was a church located right on the east-west division.

The western part of the property was sealed with the free world while the eastern part was sealed under Communist rule. This could cause problems.

Suppose you were on the hospitality committee on the east side and you had to get some supplies for the church picnic from the kitchen on the western side.

If you tried to cross over to get the paper plates you could get shot! Even worse, the name of the divided church was called the ‘Church of the Reconciliation.’

Amazing! A wall built in the middle of a church bearing the name ‘Church of the Reconciliation.’ It’s written in the Bible that Jesus broke down the wall.

Too often we allow the walls of the world and the flesh to come up in our own house. If we allow such walls in our hearts or congregations, we become as ridiculous as a Church of Reconciliation with a wall running through it. Follow Jesus. Let the wall come tumbling down.

Jesus knew their thoughts8 and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” Matthew 12:25

Is there a cold war going on between you and someone you know? Take down the wall and mend the fences.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Threat Of Assyria…

In the Book of Kings, the mighty Assyrian Empire decided to lay siege to Jerusalem. The fierce Assyrian army camped around the walled city and threatened to destroy it as it had countless other cities.

The Assyrians were known to be the most savage of ancient armies. Entire cities would surrender out of hand in their presence rather than risk their cruelty. The situation looked hopeless.

Just then, an angel of the Lord went out and struck down over a hundred thousand of the Assyrian army. Another miracle of the Bible the world finds hard to believe.

Two ancient historians, who weren’t believers or from Israel, bear witness to the miracle. One was Berosus, an historian from Chaldea. He records that the Assyrian army was besieging Jerusalem.

While they were camped around the city, ready to take it at night, a miracle happened. The Assyrian army was struck down by an invisible hand. This is amazing – a ancient historian confirming the veracity of an incredible and miraculous salvation.

God saved His people from the certain calamity of a hopeless situation. How much more will He do the same for you?

Early in the morning they left for the Desert of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful. 2 Chronicles 20:20

When you’re afraid, facing an impossible situation, know that the Lord is a God of the Impossible.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Ruth’s Perfume…

In the Book of Ruth, Chapter three, Naomi tells Ruth to bathe, perfume herself, and then go to Boaz. This is the fateful night when Ruth will turn Boaz’s eyes, and have him place his garment over her.

Boaz is called the Goel… the Redeemer. He’s a type of Messiah. Ruth is a type of us. In the same way, we want to turn Jesus’s eyes to us.

How do we do it? How did Ruth do it? First of all, she bathed, and then she put on perfume. The word for the perfume Ruth used is… Rayach. It comes from the Hebrew word Ruach. ‘Ruach’ means ‘the Spirit.’

So how do we turn Jesus’s eyes to us? We adorn ourselves with the Spirit, the perfume of the Spirit. The way to make yourself beautiful is to live by the Spirit.

The way to have a sweet life is to live in the Spirit. It’s the Spirit that makes life sweet and us beautiful. So, put on the Rayach… that is, apply the Spirit to your life. You’ll go right into the presence of your Beloved, your Redeemer, and your heart will be filled with His sweetness.

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:25

Spend the day with your Redeemer. Dwell in the Spirit, and enter His presence, under the covering of His garment.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Curved Life…

How do you make a circle? You start with a curved line that’s moving in several directions at once. A curved line is a straight line that bends and moves in two directions. After a while, it will curve back on itself, and make a circle.

Making circles is fine when it comes to geometry – but it’s not fine when it comes to life. How do you make a circle in life? You move in two directions at once.

You go through life double-minded, with one foot in the world and the other in the Lord. You waver, back and forth, to God, to the world, to doubt, to impurity, to indecision.

When you go in two directions, you will eventually curve back to where you were before. In other words, you just move in a circle and end up going nowhere. Do you want your life to end up going nowhere?

Stop going in two directions. Choose to go only in one- go straight in one direction. Choose the Lord with all your heart. Live all out, one hundred percent, no compromise. Be on fire for God.

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1:8

Where are you wavering or double minded or going back and forth. Resolve today to go straight.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Stay Sharp…

Have you ever heard a preacher say the same Scripture twice? How many times have you heard the Scripture, “God so loved the world He gave His only begotten son that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life?”

The answer is you’ve never heard the same Scripture twice. Your ears may have heard the sound of it before, your mind may have pondered the thought of it.

But you can never hear the same Scripture twice, even if it’s the same verse – for God only speaks now and His word is always new. It doesn’t matter if you’ve heard the same verse every minute of every hour of every day of your life.

God will speak a new word to you through that same Scripture and it will change your life if you receive it anew. For God only speaks now, and right now He has a word to speak to you that you’ve never heard before.

So, open up the Bible today and your heart… so that you may receive the new, fresh, and life-changing word He has to give you. If you receive it – it will be new and will change your life.

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

Try this for today. Go get your Bible, open it up – find a verse you’ve heard before and now receive it as if you have never heard it before – as if for the first time.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed