THE GREAT RICE BOWL COMPETITION

#2- Series-"Beware the leaven of the Pharisees!"

    Jesus' pet peeve was none other than the leaven of the Pharisees. The New Testament records thirteen times Jesus telling His disciples to "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees." They, knew what He meant, do you? In the following story, this toxic, hidden substance gradually takes over an entire community. It is a message for the body of Christ today. Can you tell how it happened?

           THE GREAT RICE BOWL COMPETITION 

   It all started very innocently, really. It hadn't rained in a long time. No one knew why until one day someone noticed a sign on a tree, "The rain god is mad; bring out another bowl of rice!"
Members of the community clustered around the sign and then scattered to their homes to collect bowls of rice to place at the base of the tree. There were different sizes, shapes and colors; but the next day there were still no rain clouds on the horizon.

   Then someone suggested that the rain god had preferences. In the past, the rain god seemed to operate best if the rice bowls were lined up a certain way. The people were relieved that some student of history remembered this fact and rearranged the rice bowls in the historically appropriate order.

        After awhile when there was still no rain, someone else suggested that perhaps the bowls themselves were the problem. Members of the community formed a committee to reflect on what it would take to make the bowls more pleasing to the rain god. What could it be that was withholding the blessing of rain? The committee met practically every day and finally finished its report. The report concluded that it was both the size and the color of the rice bowls but more likely the fact that there just weren't enough of them that offended the rain god. No one was sure yet which color or what size or how many would bring the favor of the rain god, but they decided to experiment to find out.

   The committee named themselves the Great Rice Bowl Committee. A place on this committee was the crown of prestige in the community. The Internet was abuzz with their names, and whenever a citizen of the community saw a member of the Great Rice Bowl Committee ( hereafter designated the GRB Committee or simply The Committee), he stared wistfully at him wishing he, too, could have a place on The Committee. After all, it seemed that The Committee knew what the rain god liked and what he didn't. They "knew" things that the regular members of the community didn't know, particularly the secrets of The Committee's inner sanctum, which involved the next program on the agenda to try pleasing the rain god.

            Soon the members of the GRB Committee decided to please the rain god with an event. The Committee proclaimed that on a certain day there would be an event called the Great Rice Bowl Competition. Whoever made the best bowls in the greatest number and in the color the rain God preferred would win. The reward for winning the favor of the rain god would be a seat on the GRB Committee. Now any citizen of the community, even one who had been previously marginalized and thus unknown would now be able to advance to a coveted place of prominence in the community on the GRBC!

   That was the day the once peaceful community exploded into a frenzy. The members of  the community divided into clubs. Each GRB Committee member had his own club filled with members who were dedicated to producing rice bowls according to the wishes of their favorite member of The Committee. Each citizen of the community wrestled with the decision regarding which club to join. It was a hard choice because a community member could raise his standing in the community by joining the "right" club. The word on the street was that it was dangerous not to join a club. One might not be seen as a team player or trustworthy because he wasn't in a club. Besides, how would he hope to communicate with the rain God if he wasn't in a club?

   The clubs took names corresponding to the shape of their rice bowls to differentiate themselves: Square, Round, Oblong, Hexagonal, Trapezoidal... Each club challenged the others by increasing its goal. The worker in the club who could make the most rice bowls - for the rain god- would win an intra-club award. Preparing for The Great Rice Bowl Competition occupied everyone's time almost exclusively!

   Then someone had the idea that perhaps it would please the rain god to have Great Rice Bowl Factories, particularly if having fewer bowls than another club would increase the disfavor of the rain god. Each club had its own factory which produced as many rice bowls as it could, after its kind, in the manner the club believed would best please the rain God. Within a short time, The Committee issued a proclamation:  Everyone was required to produce his rice bowl in a factory if he wanted to compete. It was easy to tell which bowl came from which factory because each factory had its own style and also its own stamp.  (The GRB Committee members, of course, did not need to make rice bowls so they were exempt from this rule.) Each committee hired marketing executives to publicize the glories of their particular shape of rice bowl in order to attract more club members who would then make more rice bowls.

    Everyone wanted to please his or her favorite member of The Committee. Clusters of club members grouped around their favorite committee member learning all they could about rice bowl manufacturing, but more importantly, about how to function on the committee if they happened to win the competition.

   All this was not cheap. The community poured funds into their rice bowl clubs to support the Committee members and their respective factories. One could only dream of having his own seat on the Great Rice Bowl Committee and his own club to do his bidding.

    The Committee members had everything now: prestige, power and the money with which to buy anything they wanted personally, but especially to build more factories. Now when they walked down the streets of the community, everyone bowed to them and greeted them with their titles: Great Bowl Master of the Rain God. Although it still wasn't raining, no one seemed to notice.

   Finally the day arrived for The Great Rice Bowl Competition. Who would win? Which club would finally see the rain fall out of the sky and into their bowls of rice? The citizens of the community hadn't been able to sleep.That morning each citizen of the community gathered with his or her club to display their rice bowls to the community and present their rice bowls before the rain god. Any club member could win. His corresponding club would receive a prestigious award. Imagine being the Committee member whose factory and rice bowls actually caused the rain to fall! Their rice bowls would become the receptacles for the rain guaranteeing them eternal prestige and unlimited funds.

   A hush fell as the members of the The Committee walked in front of each elaborately crafted display. The Committee members whispered to each other, pointed to different bowls and cocked their heads knowingly as if to suggest their favorites, sure that the rain God would affirm their selections.

   The moment arrived. The judging was finished. Now the members of the Great Rice Bowl Committee prevailed upon the rain god. Their voices thundered loudly and vibrated in a distinguished manner as sweat appeared on their brows. After a awhile, they stopped.

    That's when it happened. Suddenly, lightening flashed, thunder cracked and a voice from above laughed and said,

   "I am not now and never have been a rain god!...And I don't eat rice--much less in bowls."

   The entire community quaked in shock! This divine revelation was almost more than the community could stand! The Great Rice Bowl Competition had all been for nothing. The rain god, or whoever He is, wasn't concerned about the color, the shape or even the number of rice bowls anyone produced! By then it was clear: The Great Rice Bowl Committee didn't know any more about what He wanted than anyone else! They ran to their homes to hide. That was when the community abandoned the clubs, the factories, the Committee and the notion that God wanted bowls of rice. It wasn't long before the Great Rice Bowl Committee dissolved. 

   Everything went back to the way it was before the community first noticed the sign on the tree.

            Then it started raining--on everybody all at once!
   Now the community lives harmoniously without the Great Rice Bowl Committee. 
   (However, a BOLO (be on the look out) has been issued for information leading to the arrest, capture and conviction of whoever posted that blooming sign on the tree in the first place!)

******

   




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It's About Your Smell

     Is your idea of ministry full of effort? Are you using expressions like "pull down" and "press in" to describe accomplishing a "spiritual" agenda? If so, what are you saying about  your relationship with God and even God Himself? A vocabulary that does not reflect the truth that His yoke is easy and His burden is light may even be a symptom that it is laced with the leaven of the Pharisees, and exemplifies another kingdom, one of your own making. It frightens the well-meaning saint into a turmoil of works such as 24/7 prayer meetings and long fasts with noble-sounding goals. But you cannot serve the living God with dead works.  Trust me, I know. I tried. At the end of that path was a dead end. I became weary and heavy-laden to the max! I had to repent, turn 180 degrees and go back the other way. It wasn't until I stopped trying that I found Him. 

The problem with all my masquerade of faux spirituality was that I was actually demonstrating a kingdom alien to His, while I ignored the real truth: His Kingdom was already alive in me and releasing Him to other people was "no sweat." As I gradually learned to cease spiritual striving, He lifted the cover for me on a walk of grace with Him. The walk of grace is hidden from the spiritual striver. I never meant to be proud, but I had to learn that walking with Him is born of a humble concept of my weakness and complete trust in His strength. 

    I remember studying in countless places in the Old Testament hidden prophetic shadows of the coming new Kingdom, operating under a New Covenant. One of those places is in the ceremony prescribed in the Old Testament for the consecration of the priests. Back in the day, that ceremony included stripping the priest, washing him with water, and then clothing him with priestly linen garments that would not produce sweat. The High Priest anointed him with blood and oil. Sounds very spiritual so far.

But then came the annoying part ---- waiting! Where? In the Holy Place, the doorway of the tent of meeting, in the tabernacle, representing the Presence of God, Himself--for seven days! In that compartment, just outside the Holy of Holies, rested the golden lamp stand made of one large piece of solid gold, which had been beaten into the form of a central pipe with branches resembling almond bulbs and blossoms. It was the only source of light in that room. A priest would pour the oil into a center shaft and it flowed into the other branches. Then he ignited the wicks in the tubes with a fire that came from the altar. When Jesus said, "Abide in Me and I in you as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it abides in Me," (John 15) These nice, Jewish boys, knew what He was talking about.

In the compartment where the new priest sat, the light of that lamp stand illuminated a table with twelve fragrant loaves of freshly baked unleavened bread representing the twelve tribes of Israel, who were then the only people of God. The altar of incense in front of the veil emitted a cloud of smoke from the burning of a unique recipe made of priceless compounds.  When they burned, the fragrance was "out of this world." There was no perfume on earth that could resemble that smell. The incense altar stood in front of the veil separating it from the Holy of Holies. That veil would be there until the day Jesus died on the cross. 

So then what understanding was the newbie priest to glean from 7 days of sitting there? Listen in on a conversation with God while a newbie priest gets a clue:

          "Lord, I love my new priest's outfit. It really sets me apart from everybody else! I've got my anointing. I'm all ready to start serving!" 

           "Where did you get that outfit? You didn't earn it, did you?" God chuckled as he saw the novice wince.

"No,  the High Priest gave it to me."

             "And how did you put it on? "

    "It was 'easy peasy;' I just raised my arms like I was giving up -- but you know this, don't you, Lord.

"Exactly, hold onto that thought. By the way, you don't know it yet, but you are still not ready. It's not about looking the part and just knowing the scriptures. And it's not about doing chores, either. You have to wait awhile! Calm down and get quiet."

"But I want to get started 'doing stuff ' for You," protested the young priest.

"You aren't ready. You need to learn to abide in Me. It's the only way to bear everlasting fruit."

          "But I have to plan the week and make some visits to pray for the sick, before I go to Intercessory Prayer!"

    "Shhhhh. Quiet!"

          "But ..."

          "You'll get it, if you wait long enough."

After a long while...

          "Why is it so dark in here?"

        "The only way to see is if I illuminate the place where you are! You can't serve me without seeing circumstances and people the way I see them. Just abide in Me!"

After another long while...

           "What's that smell?"

            "It's the sweet smell of my people resting in My Presence."

            "What people? I can't smell anything but incense."

A thick cloud of incense permeated the room.The newbie priest squinted until he saw twelve loaves of bread, lying peacefully on the table.

           "Oh, you mean the smell of My life burning in the fire of love for My People...Hang on. Wait awhile and you'll get it.."

Seven days later, after the new priest's frustration finally relaxed into peace, God spoke again,"Ok, you are ready to begin your priesthood!"

           "But Lord, I was beginning to love being with you in here. Besides, I can't do anything for those people unless I love them with your love. I can't see what I'm supposed to see, without You showing me. I want to live like this, in Your Presence...Can't we just stay here resting in your love?"

          "You are always welcome to rest with me. In fact, you must rest in Me.  It's where your real strength comes from. When you go out there, all I want is for the folks I love to catch a big whiff of that smell that has saturated into that linen garment you are wearing. They will know where you've been, and it will make them want to be with Me, too."

So before you keep on running to and fro about the earth trying to serve God in your own strength, sweating like any other human being and smelling like it, too, trust God enough to wait as long as it takes. It makes all the DIFFERENCE in the world!

           

             

  

     

      

 

Melinda is a seven-time author of books which have been published in a variety of languages. She is the former editor of an internationally published Christian magazine which had a distribution of 80,000 -plus eager subscribers! She is happily married for 45 years to Bill Fish who has been pastor of a fellowship for 39 years in the Pittsburgh, PA area. Melinda and Bill have two children who are adults and who are also happily married to awesome spouses. Their four grandchildren are adorable. None of these facts are relevant and do not define Melinda. 

Melinda loves people-well, some people,- and she loves to start conversations with strangers in the hopes of finding out useless information about them just to get them to talk! She also recharges her batteries alone or with very close friends with whom she shares common interests and perspectives. On many Monday nights she can be found at the local Panera "campus" with a circle of friends who have met for over ten years and who talk abou trusting God and abiding in Christ and "regular" snippets from each others' lives. These folks don't always agree, but who cares? It is just a pleasure to be with people who don't have an "agenda."

Melinda cooks, sews, cleans house, walks her dogs, Barkley and Daisy, and wonders often about what God must be up to today! 

Although she tries not to define herself by what she does or has done, it is difficult, because that's how most people define themselves. Why do we do that? Because people expect to hear something from our mouths that distinguishes us from other folks.  Am I really worth knowing, and to what end? And what does it mean to really know someone? Is it knowing their opinions about issues? Or their heart hurts or their hopes? Is it knowing them well enough to anticipate how they will react in various contexts? Do I really want to know someone for their sakes or am I wanting to know them because doing so may benefit me?

 Am I reticent to allow myself to be known because I really believe that if I am known to them, I am now vulnerable to them? What if they don't accept me, and I find myself alone and rejected?  Can I trust God enough to let myself be known to others without fear of what they may do to me? 

In order to be transparent, I need to live without the fear of being known. I can let myself be seen, including my mistakes and weaknesses. To live without this fear threatens anyone who fears being known, because it challenges them to a higher level of trust in God who ultimately gives us our true friends. Do people really know you or do they only know your mask, your wall of protection against your fear of being known. The more transparent I become, the more I can trust God to save my reputation. Becoming transparent allows another to be free, unencumbered as Adam and Eve were before they fell and became ashamed of being known.

When Paul writes, "Then I shall know fully, even as I also have been fully known," he reveals a secret: the more I am able to be transparent, the more I will know Him. It's going to happen when you see Him. In that moment, you will be like Him for you will see Him as He is. Why should I fool around with fig leaves? It only isolates me from people and from God who longs for a transparent relationship with me. He is calling me to a higher level of freedom and the key is transparency, a symptom of real trust.

A Word of Encouragement

Feb. 17, 2014- This  came to me while I was sitting in my living room:

"The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple!" Prepare for a sudden encroachment of the Holy Spirit unlike anything you have ever seen before in intensity, scope and magnitude. "I will use the power of my Spirit to smash down walls that have stood high against me and against My Church. Surrender your all to me for I will leave no stone unturned.

I will move upon people even against their conscious will and make myself known to them like never before. People will begin to crave My Presence to the degree that you will have to turn people away from the door. I will mount up as with eagles' wings and carried to the remotest parts of the earth to do wonders greater than men have imagined. The heathen will look on in the shame of their unbelief and cry for mercy. It will not be a day of business as usual, but it will be a day of hunger and a day where multitudes will make their peace with Me. I will begin to call men to Myself and they will begin to devote themselves to me even like Zaccheus did when I entered his house. I will move upon them and they will lay down their arms to make peace with Me.

It will be a move of salvation, a period where the earth will be filled with the knowledge of glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. I will create an awe in My Church and restore what the locust and the cankerworm have eaten away. It will be a day of awakening followed by a time of reformation. The humble will rejoice because the meek shall inherit the earth as My Kingdom comes!"

BEHOLD BEFORE YOU BUILD

My thought life reminds me of a child's. I think about God and what He must be like, and then I think about what I'm going to fix for dinner. I'm either a clandestine ADD or I'm normal. For me to focus on something takes concentration. I'm a doer, and I love to see what I've done. I want to get "on" with whatever I do. It's hard for me to "soak." (Soaking is a relatively new term in Christianity for an ancient practice. The term, "soaking,"means to immerse oneself in the awareness of God's love. ) Soaking requires stillness --at least in the heart. It's not about outward movement, but inward "beholding."

You can say whatever you want about the Toronto Blessing, but Toronto is where God finally caught up with me. In November of 1994, I went there with my husband, my son and a few friends. It was the first time I really succumbed to the urge to yield my outer man to God, when I did, I fell on the floor and God began to speak to me. Not with an audible voice, but with an auditory impression. He said those words that everyone longs to hear from the lips of God: "Well, I finally got you where I want you!"

God wanted me down. He wanted me to be still. I had been trying to serve Him with my own efforts, completely throwing myself into planting a church! I didn't realize it then, but I was going about it with my human strength which was a slave to my carnal thoughts. God could have thousands of congregations if He wanted them; but now I knew that it wasn't what I could DO that he wanted, it was me.

Lying there I began to sense that God was so much bigger than me. He just wanted me to look at Him. I've spent the last twenty years in and out of my own awareness of God's presence, but He has always been aware of my presence. In fact, He's on the inside of me, looking out at my surroundings and my friends and acquaintances. He knows them all and how to "get them where He wants them."

When I am still, just for a moment, I stop doing things my way and just rest in the fact that He loves me. He's got the Heavenly Agenda and doesn't need my help. He just wants me to love Him and because I now know that, He wants me to simply love the folks around me. If I can do that, I start flowing in His power which accomplishes His agenda. If I love the people around me, His love is the foundation for experiencing His power and seeing Him do what He wants in the lives of other people.
Love is the invisible thread sewing the kingdom of Heaven together. It's visible only to God.

What are you building?  God would much rather you stop building and start beholding. "But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of The Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory..."( Corinthians 3:18) When you behold Him, what you build will be totally different from what you thought you should build. It may not even be visible to anyone else but Him.

I'm trying to learn to be content with that because that's what takes real faith. What if you devote your whole life to love? Maybe then we could stop spinning our own designs out of the visible threads that everyone else uses and do it only for Him. He would probably love that. What do you think?

Texas Bluebonnet Wall Hanging

I love my home state of Texas and have chosen it as one of the design themes for my house. This is how I made this wall hanging for my guest room: I traced around the outline of Texas using an old highway map onto a  product called Steam-a-Seam II, cut it out and applied it to background fabric with an iron. Using my  Viking  Designer I sewing machine, I appliquéd the map to the fabric by stitching around the border. To create the bluebonnet/windmill scene, I used an embroidery program of Texas icons which included a 3- step stitch out of the windmill. ( I stitched the embroidery onto the map before I appliquéd it onto the background fabric.)

 I created the rest of the scene by fussy cutting pieces of existing fabric and attaching them to the map with Steam-A-Seam. In order to add depth, I spilled flowers over the border of the map in the same manner. I then appliquéd the flowers to the map and background fabric  with my sewing machine. I sewed 2.5 " strips together and rotary cut them into 6" sets. The back of the hanging is muslin, sewn with the right sides together and with a rod pocket sewn to the back.

Hope you like it!

My Shabby Chic Chest

In September I purchased this chest for $39 at a charity shop. I stripped off the years of wax and grime with stripper. After five coats of latex primer, the old finish still leaked through as pink. I finally purchased a quart of Kilz oil based primer. After one coat, my husband painted the green coat with a latex eggshell, the same color as our dining room walls. ("Tightly curled bud" by Sherwin Williams) it was worth the learning effort! The chest contains all my placemats, napkins and tablecloths! Hope you like it!

Smoking or Non-smoking?

It's been several months since my last blog. I'm embarrassed, but right after the last one, I lost my friend, Mary Tepper. My friends, Ron and Kim Cipcic, lost their daughter a month later. This stuff takes the wind out of my sails. I find it hard to process events like this, but I need to get used to it. I used to wonder why  my mother's letters read like the obituaries in my hometown, but now I know. The older you get, the more friends you lose.

I'm spiritually ready to die anytime God wants me, but naturally speaking, I don't want to go yet. I want to see my grandkids grow up and see what happens next. I also pray that when my time comes, my passing will be quick and painless. I've got more blogs to write and quilts to make. I've already told my kids to cremate me and go to the beach. In fact, if I lose my memory before I go, stuff me in a nursing home and go to the beach. 

How does someone prepare for the inevitable?

It's important to know where you are going. There are only two destinations, smoking or non-smoking. If I want to end up in the eternal smoking section, I just try to be good and hope for the best. If I'm really serious though, I realize that I'm a sinner ( one who has missed the mark) and that I cannot save myself. Jesus died to make the non-smoking section available to anyone. All you have to do is ask Him humbly to save you from your sins, to forgive you for them.

Have you done that today?

I think people should stop "praying" and start talking to God. He's an understanding Father who doesn't excuse your stuff, He erases it. If you are not absolutely sure that you are headed for heaven, settle your destination right now. (I John says, "These things are written that you may know that you have eternal life...")

I promise to do better at blogging. I've been reading FACEBOOK AND TWITTER for DUMMIES FOR SENIORS. I will be sharing what's on my mind and any recipes or hints for plain living. If you want to hear what I have to say, please join my followers. Let's be friends, and please, stay out of the "smoking section" of eternity.
Melinda Fish <>{ 

THE ACCIDENTAL INTERCESSOR is out on Kindle!

Hi friends,
To let you all know, the book, THE ACCIDENTAL INTERCESSOR, my seventh one, is out on Kindle. If you have a nook or Ipad, download the free Kindle app from the app store and then go to the following URL to get your copy. Please review it on Amazon and also Facebook.com/theaccidentalintercessor! Thanks so very much.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008FRHI8C

How is Your Soul-Count Coming?

The Baptists gave me my first assignment when I became a Christian at around 8 years old. I remember a preacher with a “wiggly” voice saying, “What will you do when you arrive at God’s throne and have no souls to lay before Him at His feet?”

I remember thinking, oh no! I don’t have any. I need to get some. My quest for souls began. The problem was that I couldn’t find any. That’s not to say that there weren’t any—I just couldn’t find them. There were plenty of bad girls and bad boys in school, but to them I was a prude, which rendered me incapable of influencing them for Christ. They thought I led a sheltered life. I didn’t “drink, smoke, cuss or chew or even go with boys who do”-or did.

I grew up during the Billy Graham Crusade era. If you couldn’t pray the prayer with enough souls, you needed to bring your unsaved friends to a Billy Graham Crusade. The conviction of the Holy Spirit was powerful at those. The resistance of your unsaved friend would likely collapse there. I tried to round up people, but I don’t think it worked. I passed through childhood and teen years and still had not one soul to lay at Jesus’ feet.

In the ‘70’s when I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I thought that surely this would make a difference in the soul-count. One day, my friend Mary Ann Brown and I decided to increase the count and go door-to-door witnessing. Why should only the cults like Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses reap the harvest behind the closed doors in my neighborhood?

Mary and I brushed up on our techniques largely gleaned from all the emphasis we learned in Evangelism Explosion and witnessing techniques that preachers taught us from the pulpit in the Baptist church. We donned our long skirts, wadded our Bibles under our arms and began to stalk victims who were doing things on Saturday afternoon like washing their cars and watching TV.

My nerves were on edge as I stepped onto each porch. Who was behind the door and how would the react? I gulped down my reservations and bravely knocked. I wrestled with the fear of man, which manifested in the wistful hope that no one was home. I didn’t want to hear the sound of footsteps coming to the door, and I didn’t want Mary Ann to see me trembling. What would she think and what would the hapless victim think?

I don’t think our soul count grew. I believe we did manipulate a few people into saying “yes” to all our questions and who allowed us pray a rote prayer with them. We were excited while they closed the door and went back to their favorite TV programs. I never saw what looked to be the slightest ounce of conviction on anyone’s face; but at least we had done our duty to tell them. Now they would have no excuse when they stood before God’s throne. We were sure that when they did, God would remind them, “Remember those two ladies in the long skirts that one Saturday afternoon…?” as he cast them into outer darkness.

That relieved me for a while. Perhaps I really did have some souls to lay at Jesus’ feet, but was the number enough? I wondered if other people felt as I did and what they did to achieve their soul counts. The teachers of all the soul-winning techniques had notches on their Bibles like gunslingers had on their guns whenever they killed an outlaw. Some of them had cards filled out with hundreds of names. These people had prayed the sinner’s prayer with them. My pathetic little life didn’t have that kind of impact on the lost, but I sincerely wanted it to. I felt like was failing Jesus because I wasn’t very good at this. I couldn’t “close the deal,” and no one every fell under conviction of sin as I passed by them on the street. I was sure that I would enter heaven’s gates without the souls I needed to warrant the approval of Jesus, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. You don’t have quite as many as Billy Graham, but you have an Honorable Mention.”

My stint as a conference speaker wasn’t all that much better, either. I couldn’t give good altar calls. One time I did all I knew to do. I posed the eternal question,
“Smoking or non-smoking?” People laughed; but once again, I had no souls to lay at Jesus’ feet.

I asked John Arnott one day how he did it. He has an incredible talent, or anointing, for getting people to come forward at altar calls. Who wouldn’t come to Jesus if a giant teddy bear asked you to? He patiently tried to explain how to do it. I still didn’t seem to get it. My soul count to this day is very low. If you have a solution for me, please send an e-mail or a text. I’m getting older by the minute and fear that I will not even get enough souls to show Jesus how much He means to me.

 How you respond to what I need to say in this blog depends entirely on how you believe someone reaches the point of salvation. Does everyone need to pray the sinner’s prayer to reach the Kingdom of Heaven?

I’m not so sure any more. C.S. Lewis did not enter the Kingdom of Heaven by praying the sinner’s prayer. He was originally a big-time atheist, challenging the most brilliant minds of the church on radio in Britain. He was a professor at Oxford.

One day as he was reflecting on the whole matter while riding through the English countryside, he said that he knew the exact moment when the faith to believe plopped into his heart. It was as though he entered a door. He could recall not believing and then suddenly believing. He became one of the greatest apologists for the Christian faith and one of the most prolific twentieth century authors of allegories and satires that illustrate the Gospel. He even made the high school literature book in the U.S. He was a radio favorite in his day among Christians because he could argue the faith with his former atheistic colleagues and disarm them. Great Britain was his audience. The BBC carried his debates live.

I don’t know, though. He may not have been truly saved because he forgot that he needed to pray the sinner’s prayer.

Since I am not very good at “closing the deal,” I do the next best thing. I just talk to people about what Jesus has done for me. Perhaps it’s just to assuage my conscience because I have a low soul count, but I’ve come to believe that God has a bigger role than we have imagined in any person’s salvation. He is the author of it, the one who draws a man to Himself.  He is the one who gives the faith to believe. The origin of salvation is supernatural. Regardless of how many cards you can present at the feet of Jesus filled out by people at the altar, you had very little to do with it.

Our responsibility is to give an answer to everyone who asks for the hope we have. We can preach the gospel of Jesus and cause people to hear of Him. It is far better if that message does not come wrapped in pleas for money or donations to your TV ministry. People will likely think that you have a hidden motive and that you care more about that than you do about Jesus.

I’ve always enjoyed how Billy Graham does it. He uses TV and does not let TV use him by placing himself in the awful place of having to raise funds to keep the program going. He goes on TV temporarily to air a crusade, and then goes off. He does not allow the religious monster to trap him. He is growing old now and doesn’t have crusades, but I heard him the other night on the air preaching at a crusade from 1957. It was so refreshing to hear the pure, simple gospel of Jesus followed by the invitation to receive Him. I wanted to “go forward,” and I’ve been a Christian since 1957! Let’s just cancel everything else and fund the reruns of old Billy Graham Crusades.

The accidental intercessor doesn’t have to go door-to-door witnessing to strangers or be on TV. As God opens doors in front of you, respond to the opportunity. You may be the link in a very long chain of influence which exposes the one God is calling to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A person can believe in the heart without you having to “close the deal.” This belief will precede any “confession of the mouth.” It is OK to pray the sinner’s prayer, but it is not necessary to declare salvation and notch your Bible. They will declare it, if it was real.

“If Only He Had Worn His Halo…”  

Don’t you just love the Christmas cards portraying Jesus and his earthly mom and dad wearing halos? Mary and Joseph are confined to a stable, probably a cave like structure underneath a motel. Had I been Mary, I would have said, “What do you mean, I can’t get into this inn? Don’t you see my halo?... What’s the matter with people anyway?”

 I’ve seen halos on Christmas cards for years and have still not figured out how I can get one. I want one. I need one. But then again, if those halos couldn’t get Jesus’ family into the inn, they probably wouldn’t work for me; and if they don’t get you into places, what good are they?

What is a halo for? Does it set you apart from other, more ordinary people? Is it like a clerical collar which lets people know who the boss is here at the church? One time when I was speaking at a church in England, a pastor, Wes Boxall, revealed that a lady had visited his church and told him that she could see an “aura” about him.( He doesn’t even wear a collar.) I was jealous. Why would someone see this aura around Wes? Can you imagine what Wes’s wife, Sharon, thought? If that had happened to my husband, he could have had a lot of fun with it! Imagine waking up in bed, turning to your wife and saying, “Honey, other women can see my aura, why can’t you?” or the minister’s wife saying, “Were you wearing your halo at church today, Honey?- Then how is the church board going to raise your salary? “

You may be asking how a person earns a halo. The early apostles must have known. They knew everything about God and Jesus. When you see their pictures in church windows, they all have halos. Do you get a halo by graduating from seminary or by being a martyr? Does the preacher know how to get one? If he does, then why isn’t he wearing one?

 I’ll bet the President of the United States knows. As a matter of fact, I recently saw a painting in someone’s office of President Obama literally wearing a halo. That’s going too far—even if you are a democrat. But what are the requirements for a halo? How many credits in heaven’s university do you have to have before one starts to appear?

Does it signify perfect attendance at Sunday school? Maybe it’s like those Sunday school attendance pins we used to get in the Baptist church. I remember one of my classmates, Ronnie Rogers, had a string of bars on his pin so long he could have tripped over it. But when I saw him recently at a class reunion, the attendance pin and its plethora of bars hadn’t yet converted into a halo.

I doubt that Jesus’ family wore halos, and I am sure that Jesus didn’t, either. It would have foiled the Father’s plan to disguise His Son as an ordinary person to save the folks who knew they didn’t deserve a halo. What a clever disguise for God: an ordinary person! That way, He could sneak up on people and do wonderful things to them, and they wouldn’t even know what hit them—until later. Can you imagine the stir if people had only known that it had been God who was standing next to them all along? Maybe they wouldn’t have executed Him if they had known…  

It was the disguise, after all, that killed Him. If only He had worn His halo! Instead, He trusted His Father so much that He wouldn’t tell anyone much less wear a halo. Had He worn His halo, we would have all died in our sin. But trust me, Honey, He’s got one now; and if you believe what I’m telling you, you have a halo, too.

So before you put your halo on today to alert the public as to how holy and important you are, remember that you didn’t earn it. In fact, it is better that you do not wear it here. Instead, go out and disguise yourself as an ordinary person like Jesus did and do wonderful things in His name. That way people won’t look at you, they’ll look at Him. Maybe He’ll give them a halo just like yours!

Melinda Fish <>{

"Four Little Lines"

FOUR LITTLE LINES


By Melinda Fish

I wish I were talking about lines of print. None of my books, magazine articles and blogs has drawn the immediate attention like the four little lines to which I’m referring now. I would have been happy to have had such a fuss over something I said. I’ve always wanted my small life to have some impact on others. Instead, what drew international attention happened over something more cataclysmic—four lines, a total of about 3.5 inches of permanent eyeliner.

In May of this year, Bill and I flew to South America, to our favorite country there, Brazil, to teach at the school of ministry in Ministerio Coelheita in Sapiranga, R.S., Brazil. It is important for you to know that not only is Brazil a blazing hotbed of glorious churrascarias and deep spirituality, but Brazil is the plastic surgery capital of the world. It’s the nation where I left my fat and part of my sagging belly in 2005, thanks to Dr. Ramilani@hotmail.com. It was destination of my “more of You and less of me” trip.

Before 2005 I had always teased congregations with, “OK girls, are we going to have the tummy tuck or the facelift.” Ironically or prophetically, I mean, it happened. God provided a way for me to have them both! My friend, Vania, the pastor, patiently explained, “Melinda, you are so thin here and here,” referring to my pencil-like forearms, but here no” (referring to my tummy swollen from the births of 2 babies who weighed 8 and 10 pounds respectively). I may as well tell you now that in two outpatient surgeries, the results of which are praised each year by my gynecologist who himself has over 36,000 patients, Dr. Milani dispensed with my belly fat and along with it, the wrinkles around my eyes and my sagging “jowls” which had prompted queries about what was wrong when nothing was. He reduced other things, too. All the surgeries were at a fraction of the cost of what even one of those surgeries would cost in the US.

But don’t be telling me it wasn’t God’s will. During my month-long recovery, I found a friend, a gal who served me during this period, Ana. One day as she helped me creep to the shower I casually said, “Ana, why don’t you come up to Pittsburgh and see me?”

She did. A few months later, she walked into the embassy in Sao Paulo and walked out with a visa to the US. She had such favor that the authorities who stamped her passport did not even examine her paperwork. Ana organized our Katrina outreach and started hanging out and absorbing what life in our congregation was like. Last year she graduated magna cum laude from a university a few miles from our home and then married Josh, a rocket scientist from our congregation. They now live in Waco, TX. I often reflect on what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to Brazil for plastic surgery. Could it be that God was not as put off by my plastic surgeries as others were?

So this year, recalling that truly “uplifting” experience, I asked Vania to make an appointment for me to have permanent eyeliner applied. The technical term is “microdermabrasion,” which being interpreted means “tattoo.” Before we left for the appointment, I logged on to my Facebook profile and asked for prayer from anyone who happened to be watching the news feed. I’d heard that having your eyeliner tattooed on was painful, and I wanted strength to have it done without needless suffering.

Was it painful? It depends on what “painful” means in the Greek. While the aftermath posed only minor discomfort; (remember that you are talking to the tummy tuck queen here) the discomfort of the procedure reminded me of the time I took childbirth classes. My instructor made a living by luring hapless mothers-to-be into the childbirth experience unmedicated, talking all about contractions and not pain. In my opinion, on the scale of 1 to 10, one being a mosquito bite and 10 being an amputation without anesthetic, the eyeliner application was a 9.5, childbirth, a clear 8. It was a strange form of pain, too, full of apprehension created by my mother who was careful to warn me not to run around with a pencil in hand, “You could poke your eye out!” Now 55+ years later this was the closest I had come to that cruel event.

I survived---barely. I am used to suffering, though, as a servant of the Lord.

I returned from my first microdermabrasion experience to have a look at my Facebook profile. My request for prayer had become an international controversy! People from the UK, Africa, New Zealand, South America, Canada, the Netherlands and the US from New York to California were all expressing either praise for my courage or rebuke for my obvious foray into the world of sin. For the next two weeks, people from a parade of nations were weighing in on my experience, but mostly weighing in on others who were weighing in. I couldn’t resist jumping in myself.

I love Facebook. Where else can you discover the answers to probing questions like, “What are my ‘friends’ in other countries having for lunch?” It’s a place to be normal and silly on an international scale. I remember being a pen pal to a little girl in Japan when I was eight. I took several weeks between letters. Now, in seconds, people in Asia were able to remark about my eyeliner.

You won’t want to believe it, but I had to have the whole eyeliner process done a second time because the first didn’t take. One “friend” saw that as a judgment of God. Others urged me to press on bravely in the face of adversity. Friends from Canada soundly rebuked the folks who accused me of not caring about the poor but having the gall to squander funds on myself. A couple of folks from the UK struggled with the knowledge that someone who was a servant of God could so quickly bow and with such abandon to the god of vanity. One person “unfriended” me having realized that they had obviously fallen in league with a person whose influence for Christ had been utterly compromised by this foolish act. Two days into it a “friend” from the UK realized that it was not his business to act as a judge in the matter. He wound up apologizing to me for judging me. I made friends with him. Folks who are able to admit getting carried away can emerge from the claws of legalism.

That’s what it was, the ancient controversy about matters of conscience and what is “legal” for a Christian to indulge in and what isn’t. That’s one of the dangers of Facebook: failing to realize that you may offend someone’s conscience by posting the fact that you are participating in something that someone else feels is wrong. It is now possible to offend people across the globe. Isn’t it great?

Inquiring minds want to know why I had to have my eyeliner tattooed on. The answer is that I have worn eyeliner since I was a teenager. When I look in the mirror, I feel “naked” without it. Two years ago I had a brain hemorrhage. I woke up one morning to find my right arm dangling and my right leg numb. God blessed me with a total recovery. However, I can’t apply my eyeliner as well as I used to. I thought what a blessing it would be not to have to go through this challenge every morning. I asked the Lord who gave me total peace about having the procedure as He did when I inquired of Him whether or not to have plastic surgery or go on a mission trip to Africa. ¬

Even with God’s approval, I had to have the whole thing redone. I do not know the cosmic reason I had to have it redone. I do not believe that reading judgment into disappointment is the way to discern the will of God. I don’t believe that events such as tornadoes, hurricanes, accidents and random acts of violence by human beings are the judgment of God, either, at least not since Jesus died on the cross. If I were God, having to have eyeliner applied and reapplied is pretty low on the vengeance scale when you are talking about mass murders and holocausts.

If God “concluded all under sin that He might show mercy to all,” maybe He’s more interested in turning my life experiences into opportunities for redemption. Do you think He (I’m talking about the God who created the images we behold through the Hubble Space Telescope) could use His creativity to turn them into something that suits His purpose –even permanent eyeliner? By His own admission, Jesus didn’t come into the world to judge the world, but He came to save it. So is He going to change His mind about me because I want to have eyeliner tattooed on?

I realize that in the Law of Moses, God told the Jews not to have tattoos. Way back then, tattoos were permanent signs of ownership, of slavery. For some people today, they still are. Samuel reminded Saul one day, “Man looks on the outward appearance; the Lord looks on the heart.” That admonition is fraught with meaning. God is able to look at a person and see more than the outward appearance. We can’t do that. Instead we usually stumble over the outward appearance because we can’t see the heart.

In light of the eternal scheme, a tattoo is only semi-permanent. One day, if Jesus tarries, I’ll be a pile of dust. In that dust pile will linger molecules of my semi-permanent eyeliner. Those molecules will merge with the dirt waiting for the resurrection. I am not commenting on the theological possibility of our tattoos showing up on our resurrected bodies, I’m thinking that the Lord doesn’t really care about whether or not my eyeliner was applied permanently. I think He cares much more that I wear the “tattoo” He gave me. It is the true mark of ownership, and it’s on my heart. I used to have an old “boyfriend” named Lucifer. He tattooed my dead soul with words that told the world that he owned me: hatred, jealousy, pride, self-righteousness, judgment. These are only a partial list. The words wouldn’t rub off no matter how hard I tried. They were permanent. But I got a new boyfriend named Jesus. He erased all those tattoos free of charge—you can’t even see the scars now. My forever tattoo is shaped like a big heart. Inside it is written, “Jesus + Melinda.”

(By the way, I have to have the lower lids redone!)

Hubble pic

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr1995044a/

Twas the Night Before Easter

Hubble pic of Eagle nebula

Twas the night before Easter this year, and I was lurking in the back of our congregation's auditorium. As usual, it was our Saturday evening meeting; and I was half in and half out of the experience. As I stood looking at a huge map of the world, I gradually sensed the presence of God filling me in the way I always know Him. As His love spilled in, I heard God laughing with me and at me. Meditation started sputtering. It was that wonderful melding of God's thoughts with mine. Christ Himself was flowing through me in a river of thoughts.

I thought, how many CSI's have I watched on TV?! The likenesses of human remains could turn anyone's stomach. Everyone reaches a moment when he or she is not just "mostly dead" but is "all dead" (to quote the movie, "The Princess Bride.") After the last breath, deterioration accelerates until each person becomes nothing more than a small pile of dust. The king and the street bum all have the same end.

When it comes to the matter of resurrection, how silly to think that in such a time, a person can offer God the slightest bit of help. How many times do we ask dumb questions like, "Who will roll the stone away from the door?" Yet how often do I think God needs my help in everyday matters. I assume I know what to do and say, "Thanks, God, I can take it from here!"

My next thought was of images from the Hubble space telescope. I kept hearing laughter in my heart. If you have trouble worrying, get a book of those photos. As you look at them, ask yourself, "I wonder if there is an intelligence gap between God and me?" As you look at the Eagle Nebula, ask the question, do I really think He expects me to figure it out?

After these thoughts, I heard a word, "Look over your lives at the things that are dead, things that are withered, things that are hopeless. Do not say, 'I don't have faith for that.' You already have enough. I will work for you; and this time you cannot help Me. I will do it. I will do what you can't for I am the God who raises from the dead."

Those things that God does are forever, even if they are only piles of dust right now. Do you know whether or not what you are doing right now is God initiated or simply man generated? It's important to know it because your time and resources need not be wasted on what will not rise from the dead.

Isn't it good to know that God is in control, the same God who created the places we see in the Hubble telescope?

Maybe you have done all that you can do. Perhaps you are so tired that you cannot do anymore about it or carry its weight. If you are in doubt about the origin of anything, go ahead, let it go into God's hand. If it is eternal, He will apply His unmistakable seal of loving approval: resurrection.

Don't try to make futile attempts to help God by resucitating things that do not have God's mark. They are no more useful to God's Kingdom than dust. Only that which Divine love generates goes on forever. If you want to see Him work through you, love Him and love people. That is enough. Perhaps now it is time to pay God the highest compliment that you can give Him, trust Him.

"I Have a Voice"

It's ironic, isn't it, that this year the academy award for best picture went to "The King's Speech"? It is the true story of King George VI (father of Queen Elizabeth II), his accession to the throne and his struggle to overcome a speech impediment that would have paralyzed his influence at the same time Hitler's voice was controlling much of Europe. Lionel Logue, an Australian man living in London, had no formal credentials as a speech therapist, but he had great success helping ordinary folks overcome speech impediments by using unconventional methods. He became the king's first true, lifetime friend even though he was a commoner. One of the king's vocal exercises was to keep saying, "I have a voice." The king found his voice by becoming a normal guy! He eventually became a beloved king and helped inspire England to survive World War II, which became, as Churchill described it, "their finest hour."

This is the day of the voice of "regular person." People have had it with dictatorial oppression. It's hard to "keep 'em down on the farm" when they can see 'Paree' on the Internet! They are asking why does our country have to live in poverty under a ruthless, maniacal dictator while other people are free and prosperous?  Operating via the Internet's social networks is increasing the momentum of any cause. At no time in history has it been possible for any individual to be able to influence any person in the world on such a vast scale and with such speed. It's possible to generate a "flash crowd" in minutes. Just "tweet" the location, and you have an instant protest march. Whereas in the past, a person had to pass through the right connections and have enough money to raise his or her voice loud enough to attract listeners, now it is no longer necessary to acquire the permission of the powers that be or to have big money in order to have a voice. Anyone can speak to another person anywhere in the world via the Internet by creating a Facebook profile or a blog.

So now "stars" no longer occupy the exclusive place they once did; and as political stars are falling from the sky, the powers of the earth are shaking. God is causing every mountain and hill to be made low by multiplying the ability to have influence through having a voice. In the words of Oscar Hammerstein, "If everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody." When anyone can do it, it is common and no longer "special." Multiplying the ability which was once afforded to only an elite few levels the playing field.  Now a worker can have the same voice as a king.

The ability of anyone to have a voice is affecting the church, too. Hierarchies no longer have the influence they once enjoyed unless they can do so through fear or other forms of manipulation. The voice of the regular person is flattening the hierarchical structures that exist as people no longer need antiquated forms of leadership that quench healthy voices rather than empower them. Now there is a whirlwind of voices clamoring for attention. It's not about "office" or title anymore. Anyone can learn to hear for himself the voice of truth above the cacophony. Yes, there will always be hierarchies and titles that go with them, but now you can get your message out by simply bypassing them.

I want to have a voice worth hearing, don't you? I want it to be encouraging and carry a message that glorifies Jesus Christ. I want my voice to be recognizable because it speaks truth, but also because it speaks it the way my heavenly Father would. The only way to have a voice worth hearing is by listening to His.
 
Our friend, Joe Gregorian, has found his voice. He has a website where for over a decade, he has influenced people in Iran by sharing the simple gospel of Jesus Christ with them. He doesn't advertise his ministry and is not a speaker at conferences. He is a financial advisor by trade, but he's a missionary from his living room. He and his wife, Anna were born in Iran and are Americans now. He immigrated here before the shah was deposed in the late '70's. In Toronto in 1997 at the renewal meetings at TACF (now known as Catch the Fire), Joe was receiving prayer and resting in God's presence when he saw a vision of Jesus dragging His cross. Then he saw the map of Iran. He heard the Lord say to him, "My compassion."

Reeling under the influence of the Lord's voice, Joe began using contacts he already had to send New Testaments in Farsi to his homeland at his own expense. When their government tried to thwart him by opening the parcels and substituting copies of a gnostic gospel in its place, he pressed on anyway. Now he sends them pdf and no one can stop him. (You cannot edit a pdf file.) Almost every day someone contacts him from Iran, someone who has prayed the "sinner's prayer" and who is hungry for more information about Jesus. Inquiries are increasing as spiritual hunger is hitting Iran. (See the English website: http://www.evangelizeiran.org/ to contact Joe.) Joe's ability to speak to the common people of Iran came as a direct result of hearing His voice and following the Lord's simple instructions. How many others are like Joe, walking through the walls of dictatorial oppression by making their voices heard through the Internet? Exciting, isn't it?

But here is a negative side to this phenomenon. Now that everyone is speaking, exercising your privilege to listen for what is true is more important than ever. The Christian wants to know above all things what the Lord is saying. So with the playing field level, how do I recognize His voice amid all the others?

It is not necessary to have any other mediator other than Jesus Christ, because to hear His voice is the privilege of any believer. It is within you because the eternal Holy Spirit has "wadded Himself up" and lives inside you, and He can talk. You will learn to hear that voice and distinguish it from your own like a child learns to hear and obey His parent. You will learn it gradually, and will probably make errors in discerning it sometimes, but the struggle to hear Him is worth it.

God's voice is recognizable because it is kind and says the truth with wisdom that creates a sometimes irrational peace in your soul. Even in rebuke, His voice brings hope. His voice is not selfish, boastful or rude, off-color or even heard constantly. It's not usually formal and is sometimes downright humorous. To hear his voice is the privilege of any believer who has the Holy Spirit within. You will sometimes hear Him speaking to you through others, and you will hear it because of its familiarity-- it confirms what God has already been speaking to you. And if a Christian has wisdom, he will observe the outcome of the speaker's life before he heeds his voice or imitates his faith.

Jesus died and rose from the dead to give each member of his body a voice. "If any man speaks, let Him speak as the oracles of God..." (I Peter 2:10-11) Perhaps you have heard many voices in and out of the body of Christ claiming to speak for God. Some of those voices sound like a stutterer learning to relax. They say nothing profound, but they are useful mainly to the one learning to exercise his own voice! Other voices carry some of the truth but only briefly. Some of the voices sound selfish and proud and have an irritating clang as though the speaker were saying the right words but hadn't spent enough time being with God before trying to speak in His behalf.

To have a voice like your heavenly Father's, you have to listen long enough to not just hear words, but possess the authority of someone who knows Him well. It's like a son growing up in his father's presence. The son's voice, regardless of his age, is precious to his father; but it  will have a different quality when the son is 30 years old than it does when he is six or twelve. Your voice is as distinct as your DNA and is different from any other voice in the world. Doesn't knowing this fact add new meaning to King David's words, "In the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice..."? Your voice produces a natural sound, and I'll bet it has a distinct spiritual sound, too, one that your Father longs to hear. He wants you to talk to Him, and He wants to talk to you, too.

Learning to hear and recognize the voice of your father is part of growing up into the image of Jesus Christ, the model Son. It takes years of learning to hear that familiar voice so that your own voice sounds exactly like His. Speaking for God is more than imitating His voice like Cecil B. DeMille in the movie, "The Ten Commandments." It is more than repeating scriptures or relating concepts you've learned. It is learning to speak from the position of being in Him.

Jesus, your Saviour, was and is the voice of His Father. In these last days, He has spoken to us in His Son.( Hebrews 1). He used to speak in many different ways but in these days, He is speaking to us in His son, Jesus Christ. Anything God says will glorify Jesus because He is the superior revelation. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge reside in Him. What the writer of Hebrews meant was that now that the Word has become flesh and accomplished redemption, there is nothing left to say. Jesus Christ is the final word. God the Father can't say enough about Jesus. Other topics don't deserve the same level of attention that He does. That's why the writer of Hebrews goes on to say, "To which of the angels has He ever said, 'Sit at My right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet..." The Father has given all things to the Son, and human beings do not have the authority to change the subject.

Jesus said of Himself, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me." It wasn't the voice of pride; it was the Father's voice, and what He said is true. On the mount of transfiguration, Peter saw the vision but tried to speak its interpretation before He had anything to say. The Father rebuked Peter. "This is my Son; listen to Him." (Aren't you glad He did? Peter was interpreting the vision as a mandate to build 3 temples and two of them were to Moses and Elijah! That's way too big a building program!) Peter didn't understand that Jesus is the superior revelation, the other figures he saw that day were of lesser importance yet they were widely recognized as the greatest prophets who had ever lived. Moses spoke the word he heard from God which became law to the Jews. Elijah spoke in supernatural demonstrations of God's power. God vindicated them both with signs and wonders and a following of proteges. It is possible that neither Moses and Elijah died naturally but were 'caught up.' However, they were only foreshadows of the Living Word of God, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. God vindicated Him by raising Him from the dead in a body that would never die again.

If you have seen or heard anything in these days, ponder it. Maybe you are like Peter and what God has said to you or shown you is part of some bigger picture; and He's not finished talking to you. The puzzle piece doesn't have the same value as the whole picture.  Maybe He's just started talking to you, but He is not ready for you to say it yet. You need the right context. Let what you have seen, read and heard ferment long enough to become good wine. Otherwise, you'll be spreading the cheap stuff around so often that no one will want what you are peddling. If you really trust Him, listen to Him, for years maybe; and He will turn what you've seen and heard into the best wine.

I believe that God is teaching each one of His children to hear from Him and to speak for Him, and He is causing walls against His voice to drop. He is leveling the playing field not so that we may draw attention to ourselves, but so that our voices will draw attention to Jesus.  If you have been denied your voice by men, know that they cannot stop God from speaking. Perhaps you feel like you are stuttering right now in order to gain a voice. Don't despair. It is God who will give you a voice. Just listen to Him.

How I Decorate My Christmas Tree

Last week I posted a picture of my Christmas tree on my Facebook profile and received more comments than I've received about some of my more noble blogs! One woman asked how I decorated the tree. I remember seeing trees encrusted with ornaments in stores and friend's homes and marvelling at how people did it. No one actually taught me; but learning to decorate the Christmas tree has been a journey which began when I was a child.

The first step in decorating the Christmas tree is to have a love for Christmas itself. Christmas is celebrating the fact that Jesus came into the world. No one actually knows what date Jesus was born, but that is not important to me. What is important is that He came. I know all the stuff about pagan rites and the feast of saturnalia, but I don't care; and what's more, I don't think my Father in Heaven cares. He knows why I'm doing it, and He is totally OK with it.

While I'm decorating my tree, I remember the Christmases of my childhood, how I waited so long for the holiday to arrive and how simple gifts gave me a thrill. I remember the plastic nativity set that my parents had. My sister recently found one like it online and gave it to me for a Christmas gift a few Christmases ago.

I remember my Grandmother's house in Ennis, TX, the sweet musty smell of the old wallpaper and the creaking of the floor boards and the aluminum tree. We slept under heavy layers of homemade quilts on Christmas Eve and didn't care that the gas stove hadn't been lit yet when Christmas morning arrived. We lept out of bed with excitement and awakened our parents, because we weren't allowed to touch the stockings until they were there. Somehow during the night my folks had tiptoed into the living room past our sofa bed and had loaded each stocking with a big apple, a huge orange and a giant peppermint stick like we used to be able to buy in the school cafeteria for 5 cents. There was always a small bottle of Jergen's lotion and little items that increased the air of mystery. When all our other relatives had arrived and we had feasted on turkey, cornbread dressing, green beans, sweet potatoes, congealed salads and Aunt Demie's pecan pie, we would open the gifts under that aluminum tree. Before I new about ordering by  mail, I often wondered how my grandmother, who didn't drive, found such unique gifts. Aunt Olean had ordered them and they both had carefully wrapped them...

So in order to decorate a Christmas tree properly you need to recall your pleasant memories of Christmas. Your heart has to be in it, or your tree is going to look like Charlie Brown's because you are uninspired; or it will look professionally stiff and impersonal.

Selecting your tree is the next step. About ten years ago, Wal-Mart had a 9' pre-lit tree on a Black Friday sale for $29! I was up in the dark that morning driving over to make sure I got one. Real trees are a wonderful touch and their fragrance will bring back memories faster than visual stimulation, but my husband is allergic to them, so we opt for artificial. We place our tree on a coffee table that is approximately 2 feet high that makes the tree almost 12' high with its stand. This leaves plenty of room for the gifts and makes it harder for toddlers to grab the ornaments and eat them.

We cover the coffee table with an heirloom quilt made by my paternal grandmother. The quilt is backed with red satin which matches a tree skirt we bought at Sam's Club after Christmas last year. The tree stands in a place near the apex of the ceiling in our family room. It's a central location where we can look at it from the kitchen and the family room. From the fourth week in November, which is American Thanksgiving, until January 2 the day after New Year's, our tree is the centerpiece of our home's decor during the holiday season.

Joining the tree's sections is my husband's job. He fetches a tall ladder from the basement and climbs up. Some years we have an angel on top and other years we have a star. If you are able to wire the decorations on the top section and also place the star on the top branch before you put the top section on the tree, you will have an easier time. If not, I hope you are not afraid of heights!

The next step is to accumulate ornaments. I'm not a minimalist. I love gaudy, bauble-encrusted trees. I probably have over 1000 ornaments which I have accumulated during 40 years of marriage. Some of my ornaments are over fifty years old and hark back to my childhood in the 50's. For some reason I like apples, stars and angels, so I seize the opportunity to buy them wherever I can. I bought three garlands of large red apples in Staunton, VA over eleven years ago when we were there on an outreach to a prison nearby. When I hang those on the tree, I remember those outreaches, the prisoners and their hunger for God. Those memories warm my heart.

I have chosen a red and gold color scheme for most of the ornaments for my tree, because I love red and because red is dramatic. Sticking with a color scheme makes the tree visually pleasing. Without a color scheme the tree will look hodge podge and will lose impact. The colors have the power to anchor the decor and homogenize the hundreds of different ornaments into a whole.

Before I put the ornaments on, I hang the apple garlands next, which divide the tree into four sections making ornament placement easier. I start from the top left and slant the garlands to the lower right. Since our tree stands at a wall, we decorate all the visible angles, so the garlands only look like they encircle the entire tree. The mirror on the wall behind the tree lends the illusion of depth to the room reflecting ornaments and lights, so I make sure that I decorate the portion that shows in the mirror.

Next I hang the gold and red balls and individual apples on the branches from top to bottom. Almost every branch that is visible has at least one ornament. The fewer bare branches, the more "encrusted" your tree will look. Arrange and rearrange ornaments in order to achieve balance. Don't put all the red in one section, for example. Sprinkle the colors you have chosen evenly distributing them over the surface of the tree. Fill gaps between branches with ornaments large enough to fill the "holes." Step back and look from a distance to see these gaps and promptly fill them. Balance the decorations on the tree by hanging smaller ornaments near the top with larger ones near the bottom. Placing ornaments inside the branches gives the tree depth. Once the color theme is established with at least 80% of the ornaments, the tree can sustain multicolored ornaments which will blend in rather than detract.

After the balls are on, I open my treasure box of keepsake ornaments which include ornaments that Sarah and Billy made when they were little. One is a scene of Mary and Joseph's flight into Egypt with Jesus surrounded by a toothpick frame. Another is a picture of my son when he was a toddler framed in a styrofoam ball. I save every ornament someone gives me. My friend, Pam, has given me several papier mache angels. I have ornaments that are favors from parties and from banquets, ornaments on sale after Christmas at 90% off from Jo-Ann Fabrics! I also buy ornaments from souvenir shops and Christmas stores in places I visit. I have collected ornaments from places like Multnomah Falls in Oregon, Alaska, Yosemite and Texas. One year my cousin made me an ornament sewn in the shape of Texas with "Merry Christmas, Y'all" embroidered on it. In my travels abroad in years past, I collected ornaments from markets in England and Germany. My mother crocheted a set of white snowflakes for me over 35 years ago. I also collect nativity ornaments. One tiny scene of the town of Bethlehem is from my childhood when it was a receptacle for a large colored bulb illuminating the star. It was my mother-in-law, Gladys Fish, who sold me on white miniature lights in the '70's. They've been my preference ever since. Each one of the ornaments recalls a pleasant memory of a person or an event that meant something to me and our family.

 This year I decorated our tree slowly during three days before Thanksgiving. It was cold enough, so I turned on the fireplace. Taking my time gave me the ability to relax and to remember the wonder of previous holidays and think about the millions of other people all over the world who were decorating their trees, too. It also gave me time to find all those ornamentless "holes" and fill them so that they don't annoy me for six weeks.

Each year I thank God that I'm able to take the Christmas decorations out one more time. My mother used to wonder if everyone in the family would be together the next holiday when we took those boxes out of the closet again. One by one, they eventually were all gone except my sister and are now celebrating Christmas in heaven. In 2009 I suffered a brain hemorrhage. Although I walked out of the hospital in four days, it took months to completely recover. During that time, I wondered if I would ever live to see my Christmas decorations again. I did, and now I'm thankful more than ever for life and God's gift of celebrations.

I believe Christmas is a gift from God. He sent His only Son into the world to be the sacrifice for each person's sins so that we might live through Him. God does not require celebration as a duty anymore, but I believe that it pleases Him to see us finding what He has done for us enough cause to alter the courses of our lives and celebrate His goodness.
While I don't believe in ignoring the poor or in spending the household into debt at Christmastime, it is important to me to take this season to demonstrate a little bit of the same love that God has for us. Christmas is a time to honor Him and to honor my family and friends by making my home into a place full of wonder and joy, full of the same kind of happiness that created the memories that are dear to me; memories of a family who loved me enough to tell me about Jesus.

Your Christmas tree doesn't have to look like mine, it just has to be decorated out of love first for God and also for people. If love is your motive, your tree will become a unique reflection of your life, the way you love your family and the way you celebrate the holiday known as Christmas.

Opera Company of Philadelphia "Hallelujah!" Random Act of Culture

THE MIRACLE OF GENERATIONAL BLESSING

THE MIRACLE OF GENERATIONAL BLESSING


By Melinda Fish <>{

Last night our congregation celebrated the 60th wedding anniversary of Vasillina and Peter Olienyuk. They are the grandparents of the Doroshes who came to America and to our congregation in 1989 from Ukraine. Their daughter, Maria, is the “mother of all the living”-- or at least the eleven Dorosh kids, and Vitali is their dad. There should be a movie about their move to America and what has happened since. Among the eleven children there are two moms, another who is on the verge of giving birth, two engineers, a real estate entrepreneur, a businessman, a college administrator working on her master’s in English, a high school history teacher and a media specialist with the Pittsburgh Steelers. All a¬¬¬¬re Christians who have active relationships with God and who love Jesus Christ. All but two, who live out of state, are in our congregation.

I marveled at how we all came to be in the same room and at the millions of choices individuals have made over centuries culminating in our being together in that one room. Some of those choices were made out of simple duty or because every other option was cut off, but God, whose power is beyond limit worked through them all.

Vitali and Maria and their family were the first of the clan to arrive here. In March of 1989, the Lord spoke a word of prophecy to our congregation one Sunday morning: “This will be the year of the opening of the door of the prison door to them that are bound behind the iron curtain…If you will yoke your arm with my arm, you will see a miracle happen.”

A few weeks later we read in a Charisma Magazine that you could sponsor a Christian family from the Soviet Union looking for a home in America. The agency doubted that a congregation as small as ours could even handle such a project. We were disallowed at first; but finally, when they couldn’t find enough volunteers, they let us try. We decided to “go for broke” and asked for a big family. The Lord had spoken to our congregation earlier in the 80’s: “I am going to send you the people nobody else wants.” We had interpreted that as being the indigent from our own city, but we didn’t know what God was about to do.

We made preparations and found willing help from the people of Pittsburgh, many of whom are the children of eastern European immigrants themselves. We found a vacant “crack” house on the edge of our community and remodeled it. The landlord sold it for a very low price, and we filled it with carpet, appliances and furniture. The last Saturday in September 1989, the Doroshes arrived. They had been staying in a dormitory in Philadelphia because their family was so large that no one wanted them. For me, it was love at first sight. They were beautiful, Vitali and Maria with their eleven blonde “stair steps.” The family had lived in a small apartment with a tiny box refrigerator back home in Ukraine. When Maria saw the house, the furniture and all the appliances, she hugged me and exclaimed in broken English through tears, “My sister, my friend!”

In all my 61 years, I have never seen the clear fulfillment of true prophecy as I have in this. Nor have I seen a greater avalanche of answered prayers. The Lord covered the tiniest detail with miraculous power. That November, about six weeks after their arrival, the Berlin wall fell, and Peter Jennings headlined the ABC news broadcast that night with, “Tonight, the prison doors of the iron curtain have opened!” It was the same word the Lord had spoken to us that Sunday in March!

A few years later, the Olienyuks arrived, too, to walk in freedom with their children and grandchildren. I am in awe of their sacrifice, leaving loved ones behind, embarking at an old age to embrace a new country. They still don’t speak English, but they come to church every week and sit patiently in the congregation smiling, enjoying the privilege of churchgoing, even if they can’t understand anything that’s going on! In fact, they go to two churches also attending a Ukrainian Baptist Church, too,--every week. They lived through the tyranny of Communism which forbade them from even going to church at all except in secret so they are taking advantage of the chance to go even though Vasillina is 79 and Peter is 85.

Today the eleven Dorosh kids, their grandchildren, are all adults. Eight of them have families of their own who are all Christians. When I looked at the Olienyuks, their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren last night, I realized how powerful the simple choice of receiving Jesus Christ is in opening not only your life, but also the lives of those who come after you to the power of generational blessing. So many Christians believe in mysterious powers of generational curses; but I don’t believe that Christians inherit curses. Jesus never taught that. The cross of Jesus annihilated that satanic power. When someone is born again, like a newborn baby, he has no past. As a Christian he has the free will to follow Jesus or to use that free will to live selfishly. It’s the day of the New Covenant now; you are free to choose. (Ezekiel 18) If you deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus, that path is difficult, but the destination is blessing. It’s the high road.

The Olienyuks, long before I was born, chose Jesus Christ and in so doing, they chose blessing. They have been faithful to each other for 60 years. Last night, that roomful of people, representing hundreds more rooms full of people yet to come, was a tangible foretaste of the truth that following Jesus Christ is loaded with generational blessing both now and in eternity. Generational blessing can start with you and your choice to follow Jesus, too, beginning with receiving Him as your Lord and Saviour and then developing your relationship with Him.

The greatest people in the world are the folks who walk out their relationship with Jesus simply, obeying what they believe He tells them to do. The real heroes are the ones who love God and their neighbors without anyone watching. They live this way because they know that God is watching. They demonstrate real faith in the power of the leaven of the Kingdom of Heaven to influence generations by “living sensibly, righteously and godly in this present age.”

I wonder how many blessings have come into my life because my ancestors chose Jesus Christ and Kingdom values. It must have eclipsed all their sin, because I have a heritage of generations who followed Jesus Christ. They did not give me wealth. Instead, they gave me the opportunity of knowing Jesus Christ. How many of my descendants will have those blessings, too? The Olienyuks are not leaving behind a legacy of wealth or fame. Instead, they have left one far better, the blessing of living a life with Jesus, the only blessing that is eternal.