Is your line busy, or are you disconnected?

Have you ever tried to call someone on the phone and just get a busy signal or find that the line had been disconnected? What if you really needed to get in contact with the person and you could not find a way to get through. Sometimes I think God feels the same way about us. He would really like to talk to us but a lot of times He can't get through because we are so busy with every day life or we just don't recognize His voice. In 1 Samuel 3:1-10 it tells the story of when God called Samuel. Samuel, like many of us, did not recognize God's voice when He called him.

1 Samuel 3:1-10

1 The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.
2 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place.
3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.
4 Then the LORD called Samuel. Samuel answered, "Here I am."
5 And he ran to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me." But Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down." So he went and lay down.
6 Again the LORD called, "Samuel!" And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me." "My son," Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down."
7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD : The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.
8 The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me." Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy.
9 So Eli told Samuel, "Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.' " So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10 The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" Then Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."


My husband and I were talking about scriptures the other night and one thing popped into my mind, when we want a strong relationship with someone, what should we do? We find out more about them, their likes and dislikes, we spend time with the other person and we get to know them. I believe that we as Christians need to find more time to spend with God. We are all so busy and we get so involved with things that when God calls us, we can't even hear Him. One other thing that I have observed is that when we want to spend time with someone, we will usually lay everything aside and make the time. I would like for each of you to stop and think about something for me. How many times in a day do you start to pray or meditate on something and right when you sit down to do it the phone rings? It is not by coincidence that this message is titled like it is. Or, you sit down to read and someone walks in and starts talking to you, you get a knock on the door and your children start calling. We have to make God a priority in our lives and spend time with Him if we are ever planning to know Him well enough to hear His voice when He calls.

This is an area that we all need to work on. It doesn't matter how long you have been a Christian or a minister for that matter. It doesn't matter how much you have learned over the years. Any good relationship takes time and effort and sometimes crying in order for it to be a good strong relationship that you can count on. When we are in a marriage and we see that other things are taking up all of our time together we go out on a date. I know that I have probably mentioned this before but this is a very important point. The other day my husband got up from eating to go into the kitchen and without even turning around to see what he was doing I said, "Can you bring me some peppers too?" First he laughed and then his comment was, "How did you know I was getting peppers?" I said, "Simple, I know you." Do we know God that well? Do we know what He is thinking and what He is doing? We need to spend as much time with God as possible, whether it is through prayer and fasting or reading. I try to talk to God constantly throughout the day. It is not something that is really hard for me since I have been doing it for years, but to someone that didn't know me and definitely someone that was not a Christian they would think that I had lost my mind. If I am driving down the road I talk to Him and when I am in the shower I talk to Him. I know that He knows everything that is going on in my life but I talk to Him about it anyway and cast my care upon Him. I do have to say one thing though...even though I might have conquered this one area of talking to Him all the time, the one thing that I still struggle with is the listening. See when we are talking all of the time it makes for a one sided conversation and we are not learning about the other person that way.

It's time to hang the phone up (metaphorically speaking) and sit still and wait for God to call us. Let's be quite for a while and listen because it is hardly ever a loud sound like when your phone is ringing. It is usually soft like the wind blowing and unless you are alert and listening for it, you might just miss it. Let's be like Samuel in the end...

Go back to your room and lie down and listen...if He calls to you say, "Here I am Lord, speak, for your servant is listening.

Have You Lost Your Mind?

Have you lost your mind? Are you still trying to figure things out? Are you letting God be your guide or are you still in control?

When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."

"But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."

The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?" Judges 6:12-14 (NIV)

How many times a day do we question God? There are things that God is telling us to do or places that God is wanting to take us but we are always asking how or why. Then there are times when we step out and do what we believe God is telling us to do and right in our path there is an obstacle. In verse 13 Gideon is questioning the angel of the Lord (God): “But sir, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?” The funny thing is that God did not answer his question because Gideon just needed to trust Him. God is always with us even when we don’t feel Him or see Him. God simply tells Gideon to go, in verse 14 he says “…Am I not sending you?” It is a simple question. Paraphrased it would say something like this: “Why are questioning whether or not I am with you, my word says I will never leave you nor forsake you, if I am sending you then will I not be with you?”

In Mark 16:15, Jesus says “…, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” The command itself implies that God will be with us. We are put here in order to do His will but in order to do His will we have to get out of the way. Our mind is the key to all of our answers or to all of our problems. We can either bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ or we can meditate on things long enough that we talk ourselves out of what God wants us to do. Read 2 Corinthians Chapter 10

Gideon had to walk through a long process after questioning God on what He wanted Him to do. Read chapter 6 of Judges and see how many times Gideon questioned God. Then read chapter 7 of Judges. In chapter 7, Gideon went to battle for the Lord and defeated the Midianites but because he questioned God so much before the battle, Gideon’s faith had to be stretched and he was only able to bring 300 men into battle with him. He had to realize that without God he could do nothing and that it would be God that would deliver the Midianites into their hands and not their own abilities. When God called Gideon a mighty warrior, or as in other versions a mighty man of valor, it was because God saw in Gideon what Gideon himself could not see. God sees in each of us a mighty warrior whether we are men or women and because of that we have to believe and trust what God sees and not what we see. We have to stop questioning how and why but realize it is not us anyway. It is God and God alone that will win the battle and it is God who will take us to where we need to be. He knows who needs to be ministered to and at what time and all we have to do is let Him guide us. If we do that, then many hearts will be won and many will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The time is now and the season is here, will you allow God to use you? Will you be God’s mighty man/woman of valor?

The Easy Way or The Hard Way

So many people make the message of salvation hard in their minds. It is so much easier than we think.

I was recently trying to figure out how to remove hairspray from my marble counter tops; if you’re a women you’ll understand. You can't just clean marble with anything because it can be too abrasive and ruin the marble. I have tried everything and for one thing, it always takes way too long. Secondly, my arm is always aching afterwards because of all the scrubbing. Finally, after all of this cleaning and scrubbing it would come off but it looked like it was scratching my counter tops. So one day I was thinking, how in the world can I get this stuff off more easily and this thought popped into my mind, I don't know if it was me or God having mercy on me in the moment of my frustration. Either way, the thought was, "What do you put on your hair to remove the hairspray?" "Well, I wash it with Shampoo." Guess what, I tried it this morning and you know what? It washed right off pretty as you please. Now I know you are thinking what does this have to do with salvation, well let me tell you. Everyday we are faced with the reality that we are in this world but not of it. We, like the scripture says, are pilgrims in a strange land. We are Christians and to most of the population, we are weird. They see us trying to live our lives according to scripture but are we truly. We try so hard to act like we are Christians that we never really ask the question, are we living it. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The Pharisees and Sadducees were labeled as hypocrites, do you know why? It was because they were so busy preaching the law and laying the hammer down that they never bothered to live the life. If they had lived the life of a Christian then they would have realize the Grace of God and would have recognized Jesus for who He was, The Son of God! Living the life of a Christian has two sides to it. The hard part, this is the part where we do what is right even if it brings reproach from those we love. The part that makes us stand out in a crowd when we won’t fight, cuss, tell dirty jokes or laugh at them and go out and get drunk because it is what everyone else is doing. It is the part that makes even our best friend alienate us because they don’t understand why we won’t do like everyone else. However, the other side is also the easy part, the part that allows us to run to God with all of our troubles. To talk to a God that knows what we are going through because He has been here and done that. It is knowing that we are a child of God and that since God is our Father, like a Father there is only so much He is going to put up with before He runs to our defense. It is knowing that we are loved so much that God would send His only son to die so that we might live.

God just wants us to live the life of a Christian. Living that life is what will draw others to God. No where in scripture does it tell us to go and scream scriptures at everyone that is doing wrong. The scripture tells us to love and when we do wrong it tells us to repent, then go and sin no more. Are there people in your life that you want to see living for the Lord? If we want to see other’s living for the Lord then the first thing we need to do is live for him ourselves. Once we do this everything else will fall into place. God is just waiting for us to figure this out and once we do…you will be amazed at all of the people that He will start displaying you to.