All my life I’ve struggled with how to start a conversation with someone about their relationship with God. I’ve longed to find some way to get started without offending them or making them mad, or driving them away. It’s a very personal subject, one that many people are uncomfortable talking about.
One time 3-4 years ago, I had a friend named Evelyn, who was dying of pancreatic cancer. She worked part-time for the same guy I worked for. She was about my age. She was in the hospital, fading fast and I went to visit her. I didn’t know whether she had a relationship with God or not, but I wanted to talk to her about it. I didn’t know how to start or what to say.
I don’t know if it mattered, but I took her a prayer blanket that had been made by ladies at our church. They even prayed over it and anointed it with oil, especially for her. Now that I think about it, maybe God used that prayer blanket to touch Evelyn and me both.
Anyway, I was standing there beside her bed, trying to think of something to say, when God says, “Ask her if she’s made peace with God.”
So I did. Right out of the blue I said, “Well, have you made peace with God?”
She thought about it a minute and said the most amazing thing, “Since my husband died about 9 years ago, me and God haven’t had much to say to each other.”
After I thought a second I said, “Evelyn, God loves you; and it doesn’t matter what you’ve done or failed to do, He forgives you; and all you have to do to get right with God is to trust Him and accept His forgiveness.” She said she’d think about it.
She must have done it though, because after she died, her daughter told me that after we talked, she was at peace, happy and thankful; free of all the fear and anxiety she’d had before.
Praise the Lord!
The question for today is: Can a believer in Jesus trust God for the healing (inside or outside) of another person? The answer (or at least one answer) is found in Mark 2:1-12, where it tells the story of four men who brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus to be healed. When they got to His house, they couldn’t even get in the door, so they went up on the roof, cut a hole, and lowered the guy down into the room, right beside Jesus. Then verse 5 says, “Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ ” When the Pharisees condemned Him for forgiving sins, denying His authority, He said, “I’ll prove that I have the authority to forgive sins.” He turned to the man and said, “Stand up, get your mat and go home.” Miraculous healing.
In John 8:3-9 is this story: “Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught[b] in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?” . . . He said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” . . . Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. . . . ” He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”
Discipline is one of the ‘fruits of the Spirit’, as in Galatians 5:22-23. But there it’s called ‘self-control.’ Discipline (as in self-control) is extolled as a virtue, almost without equal. If you can be self-disciplined, then you can achieve almost any goal known to man. Wars are won by armies who have the most self-disciplined soldiers, from top to bottom. Their officers not only give good orders, but their troops respond well to orders, and they always fulfill their orders. Of such are great men and great events made.
I used to have these long spells when I’d get down and pray, and nothing was happening. Sometimes I’d go for months without praying at all till something really bad would happen and I’d start trying again. Then I discovered something. Every time I’d get really desperate, when I was so worried and so scared and so depressed about my life, and so cornered with nowhere to go, I’d really have a spell of knowing what bad shape I was in, and how bad I needed God, and how weak I am and how strong He is; and how stupid I am, and how Wise and Smart He is, and how ‘out of control’ I am, and how ‘IN CONTROL’ He is, and what a stupid jerk I am and what a MERCIFUL GOD He is, and I’d feel this blanket of peace and forgiveness and love settle over me like I never felt before. (It’s happening to me right now; Wow!) I call it ‘humbling yourself before the Lord’. I don’t know if that’s all it is; but that’s sorta the central point I think. After I had that experience a few times, I started trying it on purpose, instead of accidentally, and IT WORKED. I would actually feel the Presence of God, right there, right then! (right here, right now!) Try it; see what happens.
Isaiah 40:31 says, “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength . . .” I call it the “Old People’s Prayer’. A verse or two before it says, “even the young men will grow weary and fall, but those that wait on the Lord . . .” (the old people like me).
Romans 12:1 says, “I beg you, brothers and sisters, to present you bodies as a living sacrifice ….”
Luke 9: 23 says, “If anyone would follow me (be my disciple), let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” The point I want to focus on right now is about our daily habits. We can’t go many days without eating (and we certainly like to eat every day); we cannot live more than a few days without water; we have to sleep regularly, mostly every night. If we don’t go to work or school every day, we won’t last long in those endeavors. If we don’t do these things every day, we will languish, and diminish, and die.
lifevolumeone 