Jan242012

WHERE EVER YOU GO

By Ken Paul on January 24, 2012

Where ever you go there you are. If you don’t like it where you are you won’t like it somewhere else. Only when we die to self will we ever be really alive in Christ and have the Joy of the Lord as our strength. People crawl into the bottle of liquor miserable, get numb and crawl out miserable. People crawl into bed miserable, have fun, but crawl out of the bed miserable. People crawl into their work miserable, run good awhile, then crawl out of work miserable. ONLY when we become alive IN Christ are we ever to have a chance to ENJOY life as God meant for us to. ALSO: remember where ever you go JESUS is with you.

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Oct222011

WE LOST HIM…

By Ken Paul on October 22, 2011

“WE LOST HIM.”

    Words like that from a doctor in a hospital waiting room can be devastating.  Images of the heart monitor going to flat line.

As a pastor I have been with many people when their loved one has passed away.  It is always a gut wrenching experience.  I held one newborn in my arms.  It was born with no real brain, just a brain stem that really wasn’t running its heart or lungs very well, the machine was doing that.  The parents had made the inevitable decision to pull the plug and they wanted me there.  They couldn’t hold the baby they wanted me to.  Such soft, warm, sweet innocents, helpless.  We prayed to God for a miracle, it didn’t come.  God said no. They turned off the life support machine.  As the life ebb out of the little baby, its face turning gray and breathing stopped, tears came to everyone’s eyes, even the nurses.  ”We lost him.”

When my mom passed away near Christmas a few years ago.  There was that one last gasp of breath, closed eyes, breathing ceased, the nurse said, “we lost her”.  It was such a heart breaking experience of hopelessness, no words can describe it.  If you have gone through this you have felt what I felt.

The church today in this post modern society seems to be failing.  There are mega churches that look like successes by the standards of the world. We build nice buildings with beautiful stained glass windows and plush carpet.  Our flesh and pride swell up and we think we are “doing  real good at God’s work.”  The devil whispers into our mind and says, “those kind of people don’t belong in a building like this,” and we frown, turn away and ignore them.

I asked someone the other day what Jesus said to them when they prayed about a certain situation.  They just looked at me like I had just gotten out of the looney bin.  I was talking with others about Jesus being near us in the room with us, and one person said maybe we should call the psych ward for me.  These were good, strong, Christians.  Attend Church every time the door is open.

We sing, pray, preach, and do “church” very well most of the time.  But where is Jesus?  I know he is there, but do we really experience HIM.

“We have lost HIM.”  Our hearts have stopped beating with excitement when we pray.  He no longer takes our breath away.  We don’t even think about him much.  As far as our experience of his presense in our life he might as well be dead.

Somehow we must come alive with the awareness that he is here with us right now.

Intellectuals will say, “oh no, he is at the right hand of the father.”  Optimists will say, “oh no, he is in my heart.”  HE said,  “I will never leave you nor forsake you”.  ”I will manifest myself to you.”  Those are His promises.  Jesus hasn’t moved off, he is not dead, he is not lost.  He forever runs after us with a craving for you to be aware that He is there with you right now. Together with you. For you to be aware, to have that passion and powerful sense that he is right there next to you right now.

Let him hold you through your crisis.  Let him hug you and wipe away the tears.  Let him put his big arms around you and listen to him as he says, “I right here with you.”

Wow!  Immanuel.  God with us.

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Oct182011

The Tree of Life

By Ken Paul on October 18, 2011

THE TREE OF LIFE

Gen. 2:8,9 “Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it. God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat.  The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil.”  MSG

1.  The Male Adam was made from the ground or dirt.  The trees God made that were beautiful to look at and good to eat were also from the ground or dirt.

2.  The Tree-of-Life was from heaven not the dirt.  Adam and Eve were allowed to eat it.  This was God’s provision for them to live forever.

3.  The Tree-of Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil was also from heaven not from the dirt.  The “Knowledge” or better yet “Mature Wisdom” from this tree was not necessarily destructive.  James Jordon teaches that if Adam and Eve had remained close to God and continued loyalty and trust toward God they would have eventually matured to be able to handle the Wisdom of this tree.  They would have had the emotional capacity to see EVIL and not be shaken by it, not be hurt by the EVIL that is present.  As we age we should be maturing and operating in greater Godly wisdom (able to handle the Knowledge of Good and Evil and understand that we must act Godly.)

Eve was deceived but Adam sinned by remaining silent

and being compliant:

Gen. 3:22 God said, “The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never—this cannot happen!”

Now they had been eating from The TREE OF LIFE up until this time.  They regularly ate from all the trees in the garden including the TREE OF LIFE. Then they slipped up and ate from the bad one.  If they had remained in the garden they could have continued to eat from the tree of life and lived forever.  It is bad enough living 80, 90 or 100 years here with the knowledge of Evil and seeing it happen everyday and not knowing how to handle it or deal with it.  What horror to live forever suffering seeing Evil and being hurt by it.

In verse :22 the word take…and eat (of the tree of Life) can mean to possess it, (“take a wife”) suggests a forever relationship or even ownership.

If there was a fountain of youth on top of Look out Mountain the whole world would swamp the place for a drink.  Or someone would want to posses it or own it and sell it to everybody else.

There is something more valuable than the Tree of Life, or a fountain of youth.  It is Jesus Christ and a real, genuine, daily, close and experiential relationship with Him.  He told us He came to:

John 10:10  “…My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”  NLT and, ” …I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.”  MSG

Give up your illusion of KNOWING what’s best, good or better.  Just simply Trust and follow Jesus, experience Him everyday and you’ll experience LIFE now and eternally.

 

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Sep252011

HOW TO HAVE JOY, PEACE & LOVE

By Ken Paul on September 25, 2011

Good positive philosophy of the world.
Happiness comes THROUGH you, NOT TO YOU!!!
Wisdom and Understanding come from God through the Spirit & Scripture:
As JOY comes THROUGH you to others, then it’s IN YOU!!!
As PEACE comes THROUGH you to others, then it’s IN YOU!!!
As LOVE comes THROUGH you to others, then it’s IN YOU!!!

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