F A C E

“When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You,

“Your face, O Lord, I shall seek” 
(Psalm 27:8, NASB).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“The Lord bless you, and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine on you,

And be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up His countenance on you,

And give you peace” 
(Numbers 6:27, NASB).

Focus on the Father

Accept His love

Count your blessings

Embrace the day.

Eleven ... Eleven ... Eleven

I received this email this morning. Great timing since I was still thinking through an idea for “E” week for our A 2 Z meme. (Check out the button on the right if you’d like to join in.)

The calendar speaks for itself. So does the promise at the end, but I disavow any connection to the promise of wealth.

"THIS IS THE ONLY TIME WE WILL SEE AND LIVE THIS EVENT

       Calendar for July 2011
                     July
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
                                            1     2
  3      4       5        6      7     8     9
10     11    12      13     14   15  16
17     18    19      20     21   22  23
24     25    26      27     28   29  30
31

Money Bags.

This year, July has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens
once every 823 years. This is called money bags. So, forward this to
your friends and money will arrive within 4 days. Based on Chinese
Feng Shui. The one who does not forward.....will be without money.

Kinda interesting - read on!!!

This year we're going to experience four unusual dates.

1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11 and that's not all...
Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born - now add
the age you will be this year,

The results will be 111 for everyone in whole world. This is the year of
The Money!!!

The proverb goes that if you send this to eight good friends, money will
appear in next four days as it is explained in Chinese FENG SHUI.

Those who don't continue the chain won't receive … It’s a mystery, but it’s worth a try. Good luck. “

 

Since I’ve been involved in some form of accounting most of my life, the nerd in me had to follow the trail of elevens. In the Eleventh book, Eleventh chapter, and Eleventh verse in the Bible, God seems to have His own answer to this Feng Shui theory:

“So the Lord said to Solomon, ‘Because you have done this, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and will give it to your servant.’” (I Kings 11:11, NASB).

Proverbs 11:11 (I just had to look) says, “By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is torn down.”

The world promises to fulfill every desire - like wealth, health or power - with no strings attached, unless you’re superstitious. God has a different plan as, once again, He speaks to Solomon:

“If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14, KJV).

July, 2011 is an unusual month, and numbers are fun to play with. But the oddity of this small place in time is not a guarantee that our bank accounts will be overflowing by sharing an email. God always has a bigger and better plan.

Clouds

… can stir the imagination like no other natural phenomenon; their configurations are as endless and as diverse as snowflakes. Their evolving shapes and colors paint pictures and tell stories that are short lived as puffs of wind end one tale and begin another.

A child enjoys fluffy bunnies and teddy bears. Visionaries dream of ships and islands. Trained eyes look for clues of the day’s forecast while others simply marvel at their beauty. We wonder at the majestic mountain tops of thunderheads as they build into hovering giants, then collapse, changing lives forever.


There's one thing about clouds that never changes. They draw our eyes upward and, for brief moments, our attention turns to the Source of the created diversion. Clouds are His stage awaiting the return of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.




J. R. Church (Nov. 17, 1938 – Mar. 22, 2011) of Prophecy in the News (www.prophecyinthenews.com) spent a lifetime studying and teaching eschatology - we were privileged to have him as one of the teachers in our church. His work continues through his co-host and colleague, Gary Stearman. If you’re looking for the exact date of Jesus’ return, don’t bother visiting this web page. J. R. was not a date setter. He simply closed every broadcast and every lecture with the admonition to “Keep looking up!”

"Then they will see The Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven." (Mark 13:26,27 NASB, lower case mine)

Breathe ...

... a simple task using God’s perfectly designed respiratory system, unless some traumatic event interrupts the process – like being submerged in a murky lake for nearly four minutes.

My husband was busying himself on our boat dock when he noticed a commotion on the row of boat slips facing ours and about 50’ away. He heard the grandmother call, “Found him!” The grandparents then began administering CPR while begging the lifeless body of their little grandson to breathe.

Bud’s twenty years of experience on the Fire Department prepared him for “such a time as this.” He ran to the child, a 15-month-old boy (I’ll call him Matt), and calmly said, “Let me do this.” Matt had already turned blue. Bud adjusted the tilt in the baby’s neck and head and began, what seemed to him, a couple of minutes of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while his grandmother performed chest compressions. The child responded with a couple of vocal sounds, then with crying. They rolled him on his side and began to pat and massage him. Matt coughed up some lake water. The grandfather wept. The other family members consoled the baby’s mother. Then they prayed over Matt, thanking God for returning him to his family.

The call to 911 had already been placed and arrangements made to meet the ambulance at the entrance of our addition. The two men gathered Matt into our golf cart and began a painfully slow climb up a dirt trail to meet the EMTs. The little one was awake, but lethargic and trying to sleep. The grandfather put Matt across his knees and firmly patted his back. Matt’s resistant cries gave his lungs the force they needed to rid him of even more lake water.

The volunteer fire department arrived a few minutes ahead of the ambulance with the necessary oxygen and emergency treatment. “Matt” was transported to a nearby hospital and, later that afternoon, we received word that he would make a full recovery. The next day, a grateful grandfather came to say, “Thank you” to a humble servant who said he was only part of a team and just happened to be where God needed him. That’s the kind of reaction one would expect from my hero of a husband.

Matt’s story reminds us that God is still in the business of miracles. The first one was his being located well below the surface in a lake with near-zero visibility. The second was life itself winning a struggle against all odds. The third, Matt’s being given a clean bill of health.

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”