Tag: Christian

Are you Prepared?

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. Matthew 25:1-4

I have just spent my day cozy in bed.  A drizzle of rain outside and a hot cup of coffee has made it perfect.  I have been on the internet most of the day looking at potential restaurants in and around Paris.  Yes, you read correctly, Paris the one in France. I am just a couple of weeks from my first trip abroad.  I will be fulfilling a dream of a lifetime. I will stroll the streets of Paris, visit patisseries, looking on the face of the Mona Lisa and gazing on the Eiffel Tower. 

 My traveling companion and I have been working on this trip for months.  She has been researching, planning, reading reviews, and buying tickets online. We each have packing lists that list each and every conceivable thing that we might need. It has been years of dreaming and months of planning, but it is finally around the corner. We are prepared for this trip.

As I was dreaming of creme brulee and eclairs, it occurred to me how much time we spend planning our futures.  We prepare for our education, building houses, birthday parties, pregnancies, retirement, and vacations. However, how many of us plan for our ultimate future?  How many of us anticipate and are ready for eternity in heaven?

The Bible tells us that no one, not the angels nor Jesus, only the Father, knows the hour when Jesus will return to gather his people.  In the book of Matthew, several parables encourage us to make sure that we are prepared for the coming of Christ. We should always have the kingdom and the ultimate future in mind. We only have this moment to share the gospel, show compassion, and give encouragement to all we encounter. 

We do not know when our time to be called home will come, nor when Jesus returns. 

Are you prepared?

Typist for Jesus

Come and Drink

But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14

I walked down the hallway and up the ramp to the water fountain. I was surprised to see several waiting. I fell in line and watched the clear liquid splashing in each cup or bottle. I listened to the chatter of my coworkers and smiled at the quips. I thought about how fortunate we were that we have water flowing clean, clear, and crisp. It gushed in an unending stream. Filling cup after cup. Just there for the taking.

Holding my empty bottle, the story of the woman at the well sprang in my thoughts. (John 4:1-42) Like the people of the day, we each had brought vessels to carry our water back to our respective desk. One even had a coffee pot. We each waited our turn for our share of the filtered refresher. Without a doubt, we all would return for a refill.

The woman at the well came late in the day to fill her jugs. She came late because she was despised by those in her village. She wanted to avoid their stares and judgment. She quickly followed the lonely path to the well. The midday sun heated the sand and scorched the bottom of her bare feet. Sweat beaded on her brow her tongue was parched. She had been waiting all morning to come for her share.

I imagine she was more than just surprised when she came into the clearing and found a man there. A Jewish man with kind eyes that he did not divert when she emerged from the pathway. Instead, his eyes met hers with compassion she had never experienced. He was poised on the bricks that of the well, his hands folded in his lap as if waiting. He addressed her kindly and asked for a ladle of water. In return, He offered her a gift. Living water. She did not have to wait in line. Instead, He waited for her.

You do not have to wait for His forgiveness or salvation. You don’t have to wait until you feel worthy or ready. He is waiting for you by the well. Waiting for you to come and drink.

Typist for Jesus

Age is Irrelevant to God

It is a beautiful Sunday.  Bright sun, clear blue skies, and a gentle breeze.  I can hear the laughter and music from the pool in the complex, and someone is grilling over the fence.  I am watching all this from my bedroom window. I am inside on this beautiful day doing homework. Math homework to be precise.  Formulas for simple and compound interest. As many of you know, I have decided to return to school. Crazy, I know, I have passed the half-century mark, and I am a grandmother now, but I have always wanted to get my education.  It has been hard, not just getting through classes but being the oldest in the class, that most times includes the professors. Everything is online, powerpoints, virtual books, and apps on my phone. School is very different than the last time I cracked the books.  It is intimidating and overwhelming a lot of the time. I cannot help but wonder if it was foolish for me to be pursuing my education this late in life. However, I took a little look in the Bible, and I found several prominent people that God called into action were well into their years. 

  1. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, and water covered the earth. Genesis 7:6  So Noah probably was between 525 and 545 years when he began building the Ark. 
  2. Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh. Exodus 7:7
  3. Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”  Genesis 17:17, God got the last laugh on that one.
  4. Remember Caleb, who followed Moses into the wilderness, when he was forty years old, Moses sent him as a spy into the Promised Land. When the people rejected his report, he had to wait for forty years.  At eighty-five years of age, now serving under Joshua, he asked for permission to drive the Anakites from the “hill country.” He had another mountain to conquer.

These few are just a small sampling of those that even in advanced years were willing to serve.  So age is no excuse to stop serving, stop learning, or stop sharing the Gospel. No matter how old you are, God has a plan and a job for you.  So if you are thinking that once you get to a certain age you can sit back and do nothing, you need to think again. There is work to do until He calls you home. 

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.  Psalm 71:18.

Age is irrelevant to God.

Typist for Jesus

Age is Irrelevant to God

It is a beautiful Sunday.  Bright sun, clear blue skies, and a gentle breeze.  I can hear the laughter and music from the pool in the complex, and someone is grilling over the fence.  I am watching all this from my bedroom window. I am inside on this beautiful day doing homework. Math homework to be precise.  Formulas for simple and compound interest. As many of you know, I have decided to return to school. Crazy, I know, I have passed the half-century mark, and I am a grandmother now, but I have always wanted to get my education.  It has been hard, not just getting through classes but being the oldest in the class, that most times includes the professors. Everything is online, powerpoints, virtual books, and apps on my phone. School is very different than the last time I cracked the books.  It is intimidating and overwhelming a lot of the time. I cannot help but wonder if it was foolish for me to be pursuing my education this late in life. However, I took a little look in the Bible, and I found several prominent people that God called into action were well into their years. 

  1. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, and water covered the earth. Genesis 7:6  So Noah probably was between 525 and 545 years when he began building the Ark. 
  2. Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh. Exodus 7:7
  3. Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”  Genesis 17:17, God got the last laugh on that one.
  4. Remember Caleb, who followed Moses into the wilderness, when he was forty years old, Moses sent him as a spy into the Promised Land. When the people rejected his report, he had to wait for forty years.  At eighty-five years of age, now serving under Joshua, he asked for permission to drive the Anakites from the “hill country.” He had another mountain to conquer.

These few are just a small sampling of those that even in advanced years were willing to serve.  So age is no excuse to stop serving, stop learning, or stop sharing the Gospel. No matter how old you are, God has a plan and a job for you.  So if you are thinking that once you get to a certain age you can sit back and do nothing, you need to think again. There is work to do until He calls you home. 

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.  Psalm 71:18.

Age is irrelevant to God.

Typist for Jesus

New Wineskin, New Wine

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins” (Luke 5:37-38).

I made some decisions this week about some things that I want to accomplish in the next few years.  These are not new goals.  Instead, they are old goals that I have yet to realize.  For years these items have been on my list but I have allowed circumstances and situations to derail me.  Just as I made up my mind to follow through on the first of this list, a situation popped up.  I began to allow myself to get distracted and in just a few minutes I had begun to talk myself out of following through.  In just a short time, I had already retracted my plans and was convinced that this new situation would not allow me to finish this goal.   I sat alone, disappointed. 

As I was talking with the Lord, later on, I realized that I was just following my Modus operandi.  For my entire life, my MO had been to allow circumstance and situation to hinder my progress.  It is now or never to make a commitment to following through.   I realized I was trying to put new wine in old wineskins.  So, I read up on that particular parable, looking for wisdom.

The parable of the new wine in old wine skin is recorded in three of the gospels.  Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22 and Luke 5:33-39.  Because it is mentioned three times by three separate writers, I think there is definitely a lesson just waiting to be learned.  

The parable was spoken by Jesus to rebuke the accusations of the Pharisees, that he and his disciples were not as pious as the Pharisees.  Jesus was anything but conventional.  He ate with tax collectors and sinners.  Spoke to women and lepers and according to these Pharisees, he was not fasting enough. Unfortunately, these men that had devoted their lives to being scholars and experts on scripture and God, just could not get past what they thought was Jesus’ flagrant disregard for the laws.  The legalistic approach was all they knew.  If the Pharisees were going to be able to embrace Jesus as Savior they would have to let go of the legalistic way they viewed their relationship with God.  They were so inundated by rules and laws they had lost the relationship.  Jesus was offering freedom from the legalism and a relationship of grace and love.  Unfortunately, they were unable to relinquish their old ways of thinking.  Jesus never broke the laws, he just followed them as they were intended.  Not with only legalistic focus but with love.

I cannot continue to use my old way of thinking to accomplish my plans.  Obviously, my old mindset has not worked.  If I am going to do something new, I need to renew my thinking.  I do not want to miss out on realizing these goals because I am unable to change my MO.   I got my new “wineskin” and I followed through on the first step to completing my goal. 

Do not allow yourself to miss out on God’s gift of love and redemption because of old ways of thinking.  Do not be denied realizing a desire or a dream.  If they are not working out or coming to fruition, then examine your MO. 

Get a new wineskin and get ready to make new wine.

Typist for Jesus