Ed Christian's World

Faith,Hope and Love…

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The many times I have written about Faith and Hope yet we still seem to end up forgetting what they are. Is it because we have little faith in our Father or little hope in our future? If so what can we do about it?

In my last post “Faith and Hope” I attempted to bring it all together in straight forward everyday talk. Today I will add the last part, Love, and show why it is the greatest of all three.

God is love! All things are possible through Him and only Him. It is through His love we have faith and a genuine hope for things to come. I believe this to be fact and live my life accordingly. He has never let me down. Even when I fell and fractured my hip He was there to pick me up and comfort me through the pain and surgery.

1 John 4:16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

LOVE IS… being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others without impatience or anger.

LOVE IS… making a daily commitment to resist the needless moments of conflict that come from pointing out and responding to minor offenses.

LOVE IS… being more committed to unity and understanding than you are to winning, accusing, or being right.

LOVE IS… a making a daily commitment to admit your sin, weakness, and failure and to resist the temptation to offer an excuse or shift the blame.

LOVE IS… being willing, when confronted by another, to examine your heart rather than rising to your defense or shifting the focus.

LOVE IS… being willing to invest the time necessary to discuss, examine, and understand the relational problems you face, staying on task until the problem is removed or you have agreed upon a strategy of response.

LOVE IS… being willing to always ask for forgiveness and always being committed to grant forgiveness when it is requested.

LOVE IS… daily admitting to yourself, the other person, and God that you are unable to be driven by a cruciform love without God’s protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.

Love is all this and much, much more. All things we do in love shows others we have God in our hearts and that we let Him be our guide in our everyday life.

So that brings me back to 1 Corinthians 13:13 …and the greatest of these is love.

By the way in case you didn’t know: 1 Corinthians 13 is called the love chapter. You should read it again and again, it will open your eyes and heart to life.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Hope and Faith are synonymous with each other, but does that mean they are the same?

Hope is defined as: A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen, a feeling of trust.

Faith is defined as: Complete trust or confidence in someone or something. A strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

Synonymous, but not quite the same. They both define as a trust, one a feeling of trust, the other a complete trust. For me they are so close they could be the same. Take for instance this: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the reality of things unseen. This verse from the Book of Hebrews Chapter 11 Verse 1 probably defines the very essence of both in one sentence.

We have faith that when we flip the switch, the light will turn on, yet we don’t see the electric power flowing through the wires. Being involved in the electric field I know the electricity is there, because I felt it many times in my life. Shocking, I know. I have faith in God, even though most have never seen Him, I have been in His immediate presence. But that is me, not everyone can say that.

Life is full of twists and turns. Sometimes a curve is thrown in somewhere in the middle. I’ve talked many times about rolling with the flow and living life to the fullest. Many times I have been asked how to roll when you don’t know what is around the next bend.

This is where Faith and Hope enter the. picture. I have faith that God knows what is best for me and hope that everything I need will be provided at the time it is needed. I have never been let down. There has been times that I had to look real hard for the solution, but it has always been there right in front of me. I have also learned that I need to listen when He is talking to me, even when I think I can see the direction I need to take. Sometimes the path I think I need to take is not the path He wishes me to take and I end up re-tracing my steps and starting again. I’m sure we all have similar stories of life that we could share. Our lives have had many very dark times, but through faith we have found the little light at the end of the tunnel to show us the way. Isn’t it nice that there is always a light showing us a way out of the darkness?

Faith is that light and hope is the reality that it will be there to lead us home. That is the essence of Hebrews 11:1 God is always there to guide us if we will just ask Him for direction. I see this at night when I go out and look into the heavens. The stars give me hope and a satisfaction that God is watching over me. A long time ago I defined hope as when the darkest times come, the stars will come out.

I guess the essence of this is depending on how you define Faith and Hope in reality is how you define yourself. Are you living a life of joy and happiness, or are you constantly fighting with life, living in despair?

How do you define your life?

When it is the darkest, the stars will come out.

Love,

Ed

I remember, back when I was a child, my Grandfather talking to me about life. Life is something you learn and live, not something you control. You flow through life, don’t fight it, let it carry you, it just may surprise you how much you learn to feel.

I remember one particular morning I came to him about some little problem I had. He picked up a glass of water, held it out in front of me and asked how much does this glass of water weigh? I would guess about 5 or 6 ounces, I responded. He just laughed at me and set the glass down on the table.

Then he started talking “The weight of the glass really depends on how long you hold it. When you first pick it up, it is not so heavy, but the longer you hold it the heavier it becomes. Pick up the glass and hold it out in front of you. See it seems easy right? So now five minutes later you start to feel a little pain in your arm, after 15 minutes the glass seems to have gained more weight, and your arm is tired. Now imagine holding it out at arms length all day, it is really heavy now. So let’s put the glass down and analyze what just happened.

Life happenings are like holding that glass, the longer you fight them, the heavier they get. Life is meant to be lived to the best of your ability, to be enjoyed not despised. So when life throws you a curve, bend with it and see where it takes you. You just may be surprised how enlightened you become.”

Yes, life is like that glass of water, the longer you hold it the heavier it becomes. There is nothing you can’t do in life if you are willing to bend with flow and not fight it at every turn. Your goals are always obtainable when you just let life happen.

Remember, you have to put down the glass!

Love,

Ed

Our origins / We believe…

When it comes to our origins, most Christian’s will agree we were created by God. At our church, a few weeks ago, we went through three weeks of fairly intense training designed to prove we were created and not evolved.

The seminars were mainly around just how old the universe is and attempted to prove the earth (universe) is just around 5000 years old, not the millions of years we were led to believe. Though the classes were interesting and the instructors presented an interesting argument, it seemed to create more confusion rather than answers for most of us, especially the older people among us.

Two of the instructors, Dr’s. Hebert and Lisle from the Institute for Creation Research, put on the most persuasive presentations explaining how the book of Genesis describes in detail the origins of our universe and how it all happened in seven ‘normal’ days. Their theory, using Dr. Hebert’s explanation is that using the timeline presented in the Bible our universe is just around 4500 to 5000 years old. This puts questions into everything we were taught, and is still being taught, in school. When questioned, by me, about this they both either changed the subject or said the pastor was looking for them and walked away.

As a Bible believing Christian, I don’t think most Christians care if the universe is 5000 years or 3 million years old, but that is my opinion. The ICR belief is designed to give us answers to offset the beliefs of those who are pushing evolution over creation. In the end it still comes down to how life is formed and intelligence is gathered. As a Christian I know God has given me life and has blessed me with fairly good intelligence.
I think, for Christian’s, the Newsboys song “We Believe” pretty much says it all.

“We Believe”

In this time of desperation
When all we know is doubt and fear
There is only one foundation
We believe, we believe
In this broken generation
When all is dark, You help us see
There is only one salvation
We believe, we believe

We believe in God the Father
We believe in Jesus Christ
We believe in the Holy Spirit
And He’s given us new life
We believe in the crucifixion
We believe that He conquered death
We believe in the resurrection
And He’s comin’ back again, we believe

So, let our faith be more than anthems
Greater than the songs we sing
And in our weakness and temptations
We believe, we believe!

We believe in God the Father!
We believe in Jesus Christ!
We believe in the Holy Spirit!
And He’s given us new life!
We believe in the crucifixion!
We believe that He conquered death!
We believe in the resurrection!
And He’s comin’ back again!

Let the lost be found and the dead be raised!
In the here and now, let love invade!
Let the church live loud our God we’ll say
We believe, we believe!
And the gates of hell will not prevail!
For the power of God, has torn the veil!
Now we know Your love will never fail!
We believe, we believe!

We believe in God the Father
We believe in Jesus Christ
We believe in the Holy Spirit
And He’s given us new life!
We believe in the crucifixion!
We believe that He conquered death!
We believe in the resurrection!
And He’s comin’ back,
He’s comin’ back again!
He’s comin’ back again!
We believe!
We believe

Have a blessed day!

Love,

Ed

When I was growing up I would marvel at how Grandfather would walk outside, look up into the heavens and tell me what the day would be like. He knew when the rains were coming and just when we needed to batten down the hatches hours before the big storms would hit. I remember one summer morning as we were heading down to the river to fish, he said I think we better grab our ponchos it feels like rain.

We haven’t had any rain for weeks and the sky was clear blue, but I turned around and gathered our ponchos then off we went. Right before noon the rains came and it was a downpour. Out of nowhere came dark clouds and a big storm. When I asked Grandfather how he knew this was going to happen, he just said “It’s the wisdom of age.”

What is wisdom of age? Grandfather would define it as knowing yourself. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. Over the years I have learned it is the accumulation of all your experiences and knowledge all rolled up into the love of living life to the fullest.

No matter what age you are, or what your circumstances might be, you are special, and you still have something unique to offer. Your life, because of who you are, has meaning. Wisdom really does come with age: Older people’s knowledge and experience means they make better decisions. Grandfather would agree with that for he always made to right decisions.

Wisdom is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. Wisdom has been regarded as one of four cardinal virtues; and as a virtue, it is a habit or disposition to perform the action with the highest degree of adequacy under any given circumstance. To put this Grandfather’s words: “Wisdom means making the right decisions at the time they are required, keeping in mind the feelings of others, the love of life and the laws of God.” Then he would add and not necessarily in that order.

In school we learned that knowledge is power and the wisdom to use that power correctly defines us in life. That is where common sense and insight come into play. It seems the older we get, the more common sense we have or the more we rely on common sense. In short, wisdom is a disposition to find the truth coupled with an optimum judgment as to what actions should be taken in order to deliver the correct outcome.

When you add all this together you find the wisdom of age. There is a certain reward for growing older, that is the knowledge that you grew through all the good and rough times and still came out on top of the heap. To me there is nothing more valuable in life.

Proverbs 16:16 How much better to get wisdom than gold, and good judgment than silver!

I am no where near as good as Grandfather when it comes to predicting the weather, though I do much better than the people on TV. But he has instilled in me a love of life and an understanding of nature that will never end.

Wisdom of age is the experiences of living a full life of love and joy, sharing the happiness of life with all you meet and then enjoying their happiness in return.

What about you are you living the wisdom of age?

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love,

Ed

How many times in your life have you heard the phrase: “God helps those who help themselves”? It’s probably the most often quoted phrase that is not found in the Bible. This phrase is usually attributed to Ben Franklin, quoted in Poor Richard’s Almanac in 1757. In actuality, it originated from Algernon Sydney in 1698 in an article titled Discourse’s Concerning Government.

Whatever the original source of this saying, the Bible teaches the opposite. God helps the helpless! Isaiah 25:4 declares, “For You have been a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat…” Romans 5:6 tells us, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”

In terms of salvation, we are all utterly helpless. We are all infected by sin (Romans 3:23), and condemned as a result of that sin (Romans 6:23). Nothing we can do on our own can remedy this situation (Isaiah 64:6). Thankfully, God is the helper of the helpless. While we were still sinners, Jesus died for us (Romans 5:8). Jesus paid the penalty that we were incapable of paying (2 Corinthians 5:21). God provided the “help” that we need precisely because we could not help ourselves.

Apart from salvation, there is perhaps a way that the concept “God helps those who help themselves” is correct. As an example, if you asked me to help you move a piece of furniture, but then just watched me as I moved the furniture for you, I was not actually helping you. I would be doing the work for you. Many Christians fall into the trap of inactivity. Many Christians ask God for help, but then expect God to do everything Himself. They excuse this by pointing to the fact that God will provide according to His will and in His timing. However, this is not a reason for inactivity. As a specific example, if you are in need of a job, ask the Lord to help you find a job – but then be active in actually looking for a job. While it is in His power to do so, it is highly unlikely that God will cause employers to come looking for you!

Another example would be when you ask for help for just about everything, but are never able to offer when someone comes to you for help, you always find an excuse or you say you will help, but for some reason can’t be found when the project comes in. If you can’t be counted on, eventually people are going to stop offering to help you.

So maybe the phrase should be reworded: God helps those who help others. I know He certainly blesses us when we step up and help.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love,

Ed

As you are aware I was raised on a reservation in Arizona. My family read the Bible everyday, we worked the fields and cared for the animals as instructed in the Bible. I, myself, read through the Bible three times by the time I was twelve. This was required reading for me and I was tested on it. After I graduated AYOP school at age eight, Grandfather started teaching me the Bible and the way of the Lord, guiding me to become a Shaman, a spiritual healer. He taught me the ways of protecting the earth and caring for people and the animals in times of sickness. He spent many hours teaching me the Medicine Wheel and the phases of the heavens and earth. Never once in my life have I ever questioned my foundation, for my foundation is God’s word, the Bible.

I remember the morning I was to go into the canyon and present myself to God to prepare me for my role as a Shaman. I stood there in quiet prayer as I prepared for my journey into the canyon for three days of solitude at the Angel Grotto a few miles inside the Grand Canyon. This would complete my training and with God’s will I would then become a spiritual healer. I felt a peace come over me that made me feel like I was floating on air.

God’s word is the Bible and all that is in it is His word. From the creation in Genesis to the coming of Jesus in Revelations. I place my being on this truth and strive to live my life sharing this truth in my everyday life. Through word and song. I start my day with a quiet time with God and then post on Facebook a thought for the day, a bible verse and a prayer. This is my daily ritual and I pray that others are reading them and learning from them. It is my hope that these postings makes someone’s life a bit easier and also makes them happy.

I tell you this because I think it is something everyone should think about. When I gave my life to Jesus 59 years ago, I promised Him I would do my part to bring others to Him. I would follow the path He has chosen for me and have lived my life in His name.

This week our church had a “A Firm Foundation” reading of the Bible, cover to cover, which culminated in the reading of Revelations chapter 22 in church service this morning. Taking part in the reading of the Bible brought back memories of when I was younger and had read it as part of my training. The peace I felt then and this past week was so consuming I felt that I was in His immediate presence. It is a wonderful feeling!

This brings me back to the question – How firm is your foundation? His word is so important in our everyday life and I pray it is your foundation. Make God part of your image today.

Walk daily with God at your side.

Love you,

Ed

He is speaking – Are you listening?

Before I get into the question, I need to clarify myself. When I get an idea for a post, usually in the middle of the night, He wakes me up and has me write until I have written His message. The post “In His Image” was one of those posts. If you haven’t read it go to my home page and look it up.

This post is a culmination of four other posts written last spring and summer. He has had me reword it many times. Enjoy.

In my post “The Simple Life” I showed how prayer is a two-way street. That when God speaks to us we should be listening to what He has to tell us. We have learned to pray as Christians but have we learned to listen?

In my post “Two Ways To Live” I wrote how we have the choice to be positive or negative in our life and our choices determine who, what and why we are who we are.

I followed up with my post “The Silver Lining” where I tried to show our every thought, word and deed is tied to our relationship with God and how close He watches over us.

I pulled it together with my post “Do We Complicate Christianity” where I showed some of the many ways God answers prayer and talks to us.

This asks you why you don’t follow what He is saying. God talks to us many ways, the Bible, through prayer, through our friends and in our thoughts. The pastor of my church says some Christians read their bible during bible study class and service on Sunday and it gathers dust the rest of the time. I have to say I don’t know any Christians like that, but I am sure some do exist. I’m also sure God had that in mind when He gave us life. That is why He talks to us in many ways. The problem is we just aren’t listening!

Over the past few weeks our Bible study teacher has said there has been many times when he prayed he felt like it wasn’t going any higher than the ceiling in the room. Frustrating as that may sound, many other have felt the same way once in a while because their prayers were not answered the way they thought they should have been. Some think it is because we aren’t in a sincere state when we pray or are asking the wrong way.

Just to be clear, God hears all your prayers, in fact He knows your needs before you put then to words and is acting on your behalf before you even ask. As our Father, He is watching over us and meeting our needs according to His time table, not ours. He wonders why you don’t listen when He is talking. He reminds us that He gives us everything and everyday we are blessed in some little way, whether we realize it or not.
He talks to us in quiet times as well when we are in need of comfort. He calms us in the midst of our storms and warms us when we are chilly. He guides us through our everyday life, yet so many times we choose to take another path and end up coming to Him for help. He is very patient with us and also very forgiving in spite of our misgivings. Yet, we say He doesn’t hear our prayers or He didn’t answer my prayer.

He asks “I gave you life and a land to live on, along with instructions on how to care for the land. Did you follow the instructions and give the land time to recover? I told you My greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as I have loved you, do you, or do you love only those you think worthy of your love? Where do you get off determining who is worthy of my love? When I come to you as a neighbor asking for assistance, do you find excuses not to help and push it off, or do you extend your hand in help? Are you doing everything you can to help the needy or are you complaining because they are asking for a hand up?”

Can you answer those questions honestly? God blesses us everyday of our life, yet we find it hard to bless others with our help and company. He listens to our requests for this and that then gives us what we need, yet we fail in the very thing when someone comes to us for help. He says live your life as an example of Him and lead others to Him. What kind of leader are you?

God answers every prayer in His time. If we share our blessings with others, they are blessed and we are blessed again by them. If we would listen more and talk less we just might hear Him when He whispers in our ears. Hear what He is telling you!

Walk daily with God at you side!

Love you,

Ed

This poem was one of Grandfather’s favorite, written in about 1855 by Helen Hunt Jackson.

New Years Morning

Only a night from old to new!
Only a night, and so much wrought!
The Old Year’s heart all weary grew,
But said: “The New Year rest has brought.”
The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down,
As in a grave; but trusting, said:
“The blossoms of the New Year’s crown
Bloom from the ashes of the dead.”

The Old Year’s heart was full of greed;
With selfishness it longed and ached,
And cried: “I have not half I need.
My thirst is bitter and unsolved.
But to the New Year’s generous hand
All gifts in plenty shall return;
True love it shall understand;
By all my failures it shall learn.
I have been reckless; it shall be
Quiet and calm and pure of life.
I was a slave; it shall go free,
And find sweet peace where I leave strife.”

Only a night from old to new!
Never a night such changes brought.
The Old Year had its work to do;
No New Year miracles are wrought.

Always a night from old to new!
Night and the healing balm of sleep!
Each morn is New Year’s morn come true,
Morn of a festival to keep.
All nights are sacred nights to make
Confession and resolve and prayer;
All days are sacred days to wake
New gladness in the sunny air.

Only a night from old to new;
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old come true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born.

Helen Hunt Jackson (1809 – 1884)

From my house to yours – Happy New Year to all, may your New Year be full of love, joy and peace!

Love always,

Ed

When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? How about when you look at your children, your neighbors or even the checkout clerk at the grocery store, what do you see? Do you see love, compassion and hope or do you see something else?

God created us all in his image, out of love and compassion. He gave us hope and eternal life through His son, Jesus. Yet, today, so many have a problem seeing this in their everyday life. Has our world changed so much that we have lost the truth of life? Or have you?

Ask yourself if everything you do in life today reflects the Christian values you were raised on or the Christian values you took on when you asked God to be your Savior. Everything! If not, what has changed in you? What are you going to do about it? Have you lost all empathy?

We now live in a divided country, pushed to extremes by the media we read and listen to, along with the politicians and we have not pushed back. I wonder why. Are we so out of tune with ourselves that we can let the outside world control our every thought and move? I sure hope not, but when I see all the hate and mistrust, the racial divide, the lack of compassion in people and the total self righteousness in defending all these actions I wonder where we have let ourselves get to. There is nothing that is stopping us from turning this all around, but us.

God had a reason for creating us in His image. As a Christian, the Holy Spirit has entered your body and resides within you. Are you following the path God is leading you down or are you using free will to take your own path?

So I ask you again, when you look in a mirror, or at your children or at your neighbors and friends what to you see? That face looking back at you just may be the face of God. As I said we are created in His image for a reason and that reason is to remind us that He is with us every step of the way, every minute of everyday. He is love and so must we be love! So take a close look and see if you are living as an example of what He expects of you.

Walk daily with God at your side!

All my love,

Ed