Notes of Faith October 15, 2021

God is Near

Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
— Luke 12:7

Never take for granted My intimate nearness. Marvel at the wonder of My continual Presence with you. Even the most ardent human lover cannot be with you always. Nor can another person know the intimacies of your heart, mind, and spirit. I know everything about you — even the number of hairs on your head. You don’t need to work at revealing yourself to Me.

Many people spend a lifetime or a small fortune searching for someone who understands them. Yet I am freely available to all who call upon My Name, who open their hearts to receive Me as Savior. This simple act of faith is the beginning of a lifelong love story.

I, the Lover of your soul, understand you perfectly and love you eternally.

JOURNALING PROMPTS

What does God’s “ultimate nearness” mean? Do you take His Presence for granted? How?

What comfort does God’s loving knowledge — even the number of hairs on your head — provide?

We are not only fully known and understood but also eternally loved. What assurances does this give?

Read More: Psalm 145:18 NKJV; John 1:12; Romans 10:13

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Finding Him

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. — Hebrews 3:1

I am renewing your mind. When your thoughts flow freely, they tend to move toward problems. Your focus gets snagged on a given problem, circling round and round it in attempts to gain mastery. Your energy is drained away from other matters through this negative focus. Worst of all, you lose sight of Me.

A renewed mind is Presence- focused.

Train your mind to seek Me in every moment, every situation. Sometimes you can find Me in your surroundings: a lilting birdsong, a loved one’s smile, golden sunlight. At other times, you must draw inward to find Me. I am always present in your spirit.

JOURNALING PROMPTS

Seek My Face, speak to Me, and I will light up your mind.

Do your thoughts “tend to move toward problems”? Why?

How have you seen the truth that “a renewed mind is Presence-focused” in your own life?

God is always present with us. When do you feel God most near?

Read More: Psalm 105:4; Romans 12:2

Excerpted from Life in His Presence: A Jesus Calling Guided Journal by Sarah Young, copyright Sarah Young.

God knows every detail about us (even those that we don’t even know) and loves us completely. How is His presence displayed for you today? I’ll wait . . .

Pastor Dale

 

Notes of Faith October 14, 2021

This is information that I receive by email from Compass International.  I am passing it along to you to peruse and pursue if you are interested in what they have to say.  I am also forwarding information about a conference that will be held this weekend that is free of cost and could also be very informative.  It will be posted on the Lamb and Lion YouTube channel for later viewing.

Pastor Dale

Is This Satan’s Plan For World Control?

Lately I've been wondering how much Satan knows about what's dead ahead?

Watching Satan’s people, the Globalists, unabashedly work in the open these days makes you wonder how much Satan knows about the timing of the Rapture. He’s certainly not hiding what he’s doing here on earth.

Could he know a close approximation of the timing of the Rapture? Maybe that would explain why he’s pressing forward without regard to known consequences.

So what could that rascal know that we don’t? The Bible says he’s quite wise. Having practiced his craft for 6000+ years, we must realize that he probably knows the Bible at least as well as we do.

Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Ezek 28:12

So he too can dive deeply into scripture and has had 6000 years to think about and understand God’s prophecies.

From reading the Bible, Satan knows that even if he wins a few battles, he’s already lost the war. He knows that in the end, he goes down big-time—it’s just a matter of time until his devastating defeat.

Like us, Satan can read about where he ends up after being tossed to earth from heaven at the mid-point of the Tribulation (Rev 12).

As a spirit needing a body, he takes over the remains of the slain world leader, brings it to life and begins 3 1/2 years of earthly destruction. It doesn’t end well for him:

“Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit. Those who see you will gaze at you, they will ponder over you, saying, ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a wilderness and overthrew its cities, ...’“ Is. 14:15-17   

So until the Rapture, when Satan gets his unrestricted control of earth in the Tribulation, the highest and most evil fallen angel wants to kill or maim as many humans as he can…while he can.

Believers are protected from God’s Wrath, but we're not protected from persecution by Satan’s human followers. For 2000 years Christians have been horribly persecuted all over the world.

I don't think Americans should prepare for persecution, but it's certainly possible.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 1Pet. 4:12

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. James 1:2

This earth is not heaven. That wonderful after-life comes later. Currently we’re living as aliens on Satan’s planet.

in whose case the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2Cor. 4:4

Satan’s ultimate desire is to control every person on his planet. As most everyone reading this knows, he will accomplish this post-Rapture in the Tribulation by controlling food worldwide and the only money/digits you’ll be allowed to use to buy it (Rev. 13:16-17).

So everything that Satan is doing today is moving toward that ultimate goal when he can make the entire planet suffer all at the same time.

Never forget—Satan LOATHES those made in the image of God and especially HATES Believers and Jews.

But also never forget:

...greater is He [God's Holy Spirit] who is in you than he [Satan] who is in the world." 1John 4:4b

All this crazy stuff going on in the world seems to be coming to a head. So we have to keep reminding ourselves that God is still in control. Without the Lord I would be a nervous wreck!

The last obstacle for the Globalists/Satanists to institute the entire world into a one-world-order/one-world-government is the USA.

America has too much money and too much freedom. Not to mention we're the last hope of liberty for all the people on earth. So we're in the cross-hairs of the Globalists/Satanists.

What These Globalists/Satanists Intend To Do

Blinded by Satan, they believe the world has too many sick old people, especially in the USA. So they need to be eliminated.

Bill Gates once said on a Ted Talk, “Do we really want to continue to spend millions of dollars per person to keep an old person alive for another year or two?” (I wrote that quote from memory. I may not have it transcribed exactly word for word, but it’s close. They seemed to have scrubbed the original video.).

Opening our borders, tanking our financial system and destroying our society with WOKE dictates were working, but far too slowly. So the USA had to be torpedoed into submission to accept global authority.

The Globalists/Satanists decided to use the "Pandemic" to reduce the number of independent businesses. This is because when owners work hard, they make good money that buys them cherished freedoms.

To control the food, they needed all the food to be distributed from just a few companies, not hundreds of thousands.

To reduce healthcare expenditures, they needed to kill off the useless, sick, older population. They were costing way too much in healthcare keeping them alive for their last few years of life.

To get the population of earth down to a manageable number, they needed something to cleverly kill off 90-95% of the population. They wrote their target number of 500 million in stone.

In addition to reducing the population of the world to 500 million, they needed something to severely cut the birth rate so the population wouldn’t begin growing again.

They had to control the media and censor private communication, both to groups and individuals, so people couldn’t share what was happening. And they had to limit travel.

And they needed to do all of this without people realizing what they were doing…they needed plausible deniability.

So these Globalists/Satanists have been fine-tuning a plan for world control for decades.(10) The plan was to stealthily release a bio-weapon virus/illness that closely resembles the flu while simultaneously blocking the use of all known cures.(11)

They called it a “pandemic” and lied about how many were actually dying from the virus. Of the 345,000 deaths recorded as Covid, they had to admit only 6% were from only Covid. Turns out 2020 had an average yearly death rate for a typical flu season.

They aggressively restricted doctors from treating the disease with inexpensive known cures. The only approved treatment, Remdesivir, actually made the virus worse, increasing the death count.(9)

The Remdesivir treatments are so bad that nurses have started calling Remdesivir, “Run, death is near.”

Lying about the numbers who died from the disease and blaring in the media the party-line 24/7 about how dangerous the disease was, they scared people into lining up for a “safe and effective” va((ine.

It turned out to be neither safe nor effective. Many credentialed researchers believe in excess of 100K deaths have occurred due to taking the “va((ine,” which is really not a va((ine at all.

Rather, it’s a gene-altering therapy that changes your God-designed software (but we'll call it "va((ine" for now for clarity).

But regardless of what you call the gene-modifying treatments, more people are dying from the va((ine than did from the disease itself.(7)

This “va((ine” is causing cancer(1), huge blood problems (2), myocarditis(12) and death(7). It compromises your immune system and several docs are warning this winter could be a disaster with va((inated people having no immunity from even a cold, much less the normal seasonal flu.(3)

Even the inventor of the “va((ine” construction template candidly says the va((ine is what’s causing all the new Covid “variants.”(6) Imagine that!

Several health experts are now analyzing the Covid va((ine vials and are finding they contain huge amounts of graphene oxide, a poison.(8) The more shots you take, the more the poison accumulates in the organs of your body.

There's even a question as to what's in the va((ines. We put a link in the eNews last week that when analyzed va((inated people's blood under a microscope they were finding some kind of organized metal(13). Now they are finding patents applied for that connects the metal to the web(14).

When half the U.S. population easily saw all the death and disease from taking the va((ines, the Globalists/Satanists began to offer bribes to get people to take it.

When that didn’t work, they began leaning on businesses to do their dirty work. They know they have a short window to get as many va((inated as possible.

Their goal is to get to a “Health Passport” before the masses figure out their deadly scheme. What’s amazing is that we now know the original “va((ines” don’t even work on the new “variants” floating around. And their effectiveness wanes after just a few months.

So if you get “va((inated” now, it doesn’t help you. And the boosters are the exact same as the original. So why would anyone take a useless va((ine that might kill or maim you?

Or, if you’ve had Covid, you’ve already got the antibodies that are better than the “va((ine.” Unlike the “va((ine,” when you have natural antibodies from having contracted Covid, you can’t get Covid again or spread it. There are 100 million Americans in that category that they simply choose to ignore.

The Globalists/Satanists are doing all this because the Health Passport is crucial for them to gain total control. It’s their gateway to the world “reset” and new digital currency.

Once they start forcing everyone to use only their new digital money, they have their total control. Everyone will be required to “do what they say” or they don’t get their digits to buy food.

So now, with the va((ine numbers waning and more and more people beginning to wake up to the reality of what is taking place, there are rumbles of the next fake problem coming that will be used to push for more control, more “va((inations.” They are calling what's coming next as “Cyber Covid.”

Klaus Swab of the World Economic Forum (WEF), who must be really high up in the Satanic hierarchy, in July began warning his followers to get ready for a total blackout of communication.(4)

Schwab says millions of computer devices and Internet links will be simultaneously disengaged. He also says cell phones will not work. Electricity will not work. Hospitals will be down. Transportation will be down.(5)(60 second video)

He says this will make the Covid-19 pandemic look like a walk-in-the-park. A purposely released cyber virus will shut down everything but snail mail, copper-wired phones and short-wave radios.

Schwab says the only thing that will bring back your communication devices will be a “digital va((ine.”

Naturally, the Globalist/Satanists will have control of this “digital va((ine.” And they will also have control of what you’ll have to do to be able to get it. One can only imagine.

I have no idea what’s ahead. It could be they're just releasing this info to try to scare more people into getting the killer va((ine.

Or, if it does happen, who knows how long we’ll be in the dark until the terms for connectivity are released.

But these Globalists/Satanists seem to THINK the cyber lock-down is coming. And if Satan knows when the Rapture is close, he might do something like putting everyone in the dark just before Rapture happens—so few people would notice those who disappeared.

The God Factor

Again, God's still in control. And if the Rapture doesn't happen, His Restraining Holy Spirit is still restraining. As bad as this cyber lock-down sounds, our God is King of His Created Universe.

Since Clown Schwab, Tiny Fauci and Gutless Gates are not Believers by any stretch of the imagination, and God can and will do anything He wishes regardless of the Globalists' plans, it's imperative to balance out the above cyber lock-down info with the opposite side of the coin.

So here's a link to a well-written article on how this whole Covid thing could blow up in their global-geeky faces.

CLICK HERE (Have to go to the original article to do this)

One of the great truths in the Bible is to realize we should never say never. We always have hope. Who knows what the Lord will do!

Whether it was the citizens of Nineveh facing destruction or Israelis backed up against the Red Sea and seeing the dust of the Egyptian chariots closing in on them, God heard their prayers. And He answered with huge miracles.

So, how big is your God? Our God is an awesome God. We should forever keep the faith while we keep praying for wisdom! And one thing we know for certain—in the end, we win!

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. Prov. 3:5

CQLJ!

BP

References:

1) https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-incidence-of-cancer-triggered-by-the-covid-19-vaccine/5758110

2) https://rumble.com/vnbgal-never-before-seen-blood-doctor-reveals-horrific-findings-after-examining-vi.html

3) https://thehighwire.com/videos/do-covid-mrna-vaccines-disrupt-the-innate-immune-system/

4) https://www.bitchute.com/video/qTnveoNdarck/

(First 10 minutes deal with Digital Covid Lockdown)

5) Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J7EOMgYNHk

6) https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/justin-williams-robert-malone-fully-vaccinated-covid-super-spreaders/

7) https://noqreport.com/2021/10/09/more-than-200000-have-already-died-from-the-covid-jab-in-the-us/

8) https://rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com/2021/09/02/american-scientists-confirm-toxic-graphene-oxide-and-more-in-covid-injections/

9) https://www.brighteon.com/36b46b3c-3b73-43d8-bf78-70cdaf7a2478

10) https://politicalmoonshine.com/2021/09/29/covid-19-enterprise-fraud-construct-timeline-major-dates-events-entities-legislation/

11) https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/dr-carrie-madej-first-us-lab-examines-vaccine-vials-horrific-findings-revealed/

12) https://rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com/2021/09/16/vaccine-boosters-have-a-substantial-risk-to-cause-myocarditis-inflammation-of-the-heart-study/

13) https://rumble.com/vnbgal-never-before-seen-blood-doctor-reveals-horrific-findings-after-examining-vi.html

14) https://rumble.com/vnhqap-receipts-dod-joint-artificial-intelligence-center-monitoring-vaxx-deaths.html

 

 

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Join us this weekend via live streaming for...

"The Great Reset" Lamb & Lion Ministries Regional Bible Prophecy Conference

Details and Live Stream

Lamb & Lion Ministries invites YOU to join us this weekend via live stream at "The Great Reset" Lamb & Lion Ministries Regional Bible Prophecy Conference! 

We have teamed up with Pastor Billy Crone of Get A Life Ministries for a very exciting two-day Bible Conference this Saturday, October 16 and Sunday, October 17, hosted at Sunrise Bible Church in Las Vegas, NV. Our theme is The Great Reset, addressing from a prophetic perspective the rapid rise of the globalist agenda that is sweeping the planet towards a one-world government. As with all meetings hosted by Lamb & Lion Ministries, we will focus on Jesus Christ and the hope-filled message of His soon return.

Speakers

Exciting messages from our speakers will challenge and encourage you, as each brings a powerful message from God's prophetic Word:

Schedule, Times, and Topics

(Pacific Time Zone)

Saturday, 10/16 pm

6:00-6:30 pm – Opening and Worship

6:30-7:30 pm – Session 1: Brandon Holthaus – "What is the Great Reset?"

7:30-8:00 pm – Break and Worship

8:00-9:00 pm – Session 2: Nathan Jones – "Technology & Culture Reset"

Sunday, 10/17 am

9:00-10:15 am – Worship and Session 3: Billy Crone – "Economics Reset"

10:45 am-Noon – Worship and Session 4: Don Perkins – "Government Reset"

Sunday, 10/17 afternoon

Noon-1:30 pm – Break

1:30-2:30 pm – Session 5: Tim Moore – "Christianity Reset"

2:30-2:45 – Break

2:45-3:30 – Session 6: All Speakers – Q&A

 

Registration

No registration or fee is required to watch the conference via live streaming on our YouTube channel. All six sessions will remain posted to our YouTube channel if you cannot attend the live sessions.

You will not want to miss this very relevant conference!

These are things that interest me and therefore I wanted to share them with you to give you the same opportunities that I have.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 13, 2021

Have you ever read the familiar verse,

Be still and know that I am God. — Psalm 46:10

and wondered: Well, how, then do I manage my chaotic life, my disobedient children, or that project at work that my boss expects me to complete if I want to receive a promotion. Does “cease striving” (as the New American Standard translation reads) mean that I just take a day off, and stop trying to do my best?

How do weary Christ-followers live in the reality of a demanding world? If God desires that I trust Him, and cease striving, what does that really mean?

If you’ve spent any time in the epistles — letters written by disciples in the New Testament — you may have noticed a pattern. In conveying important instructions, exhortations, and reminders to the young churches learning to live out their faith as a community, these letters all began with clear reminders of biblical truth… clear reminders of who God is and who they are in Christ, because of God’s grace.

The reader would’ve already known the gospel, but Paul, for example, who wrote the letter to the Colossians, waited to give instructions on how to do the Christian life until after he realigned the reader with the truth of Christ and redemption.

Why? Why was it so important for him to repeat himself, to restate what should’ve been obvious and already known?

Well, I think because we so easily forget who we belong to, forget who our Father is, forget what He’s done for us. Because we get out of alignment and so easily turn to striving in our own strength in order to face the demands of our everyday lives.

The epistle writers reminded us of all these things because it’s easy to fall back into a pattern of striving for grace rather than striving in grace. You see, without being firmly planted in the truths of God’s redemption and our identity in him, we’d easily wander into trying to succeed in the Christian life by my own means, rather than God’s. When God says for us to “be still and know that [He] is God,” it’s not because He desires for us to do nothing, but because He’s created us to do all things from the overflow of a life that knows God as Rescuer, Redeemer, and Trustworthy King.

So when we read in Colossians 2:6-7:

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

…we know that the “therefore” points back to all that we remember about what God has done for us.

I love imagining Paul as he wrote this letter, pausing after all the glorious truths he’s written — about who we once were as sinners and how the grace of God rescues us — and he gets to this part of the letter and he’s asking himself, “So what? So what do I want my readers to grasp in response to all this good news?”

He chooses the words, “so walk in Him.”

He doesn’t say,

“so, feel good about yourself.”
“so, give yourself a break!”
“so, just relax.”

No, he tells us to actively live and go forth as we believe. He tells believers to strive IN GRACE.

Striving in our own strength is, in essence: straining and anxiously toiling to achieve or secure what we don’t truly trust God to provide.

As a recovering striver myself, I can appreciate the distinction Paul makes here. Striving out of scarcity, fear, self-preservation, and distrust of God’s purposes for your life is not the same as striving from the grace that frees us.

One works frantically to be enough, the other works restfully knowing we’re not enough for the tasks only God can do through us.

What kind of good works are we freed then to do from a place of grace?

Well, Paul’s about to tell them in Colossians 3:12-15:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

Sounds similar to the fruit of the Spirit Paul teaches to the churches in Galatia in Galatians 5:22-24, which says:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

God’s grace through Christ, relieved us of the burden of sin, and our continual striving to perform our way to acceptance in Him.

This newfound freedom that measures us by Christ’s perfect righteousness and not our own merit is the same freedom that we now use to serve others.

We aren’t saved by good works. We are saved to good works in love. We can strive in grace.

In the same way that an apple tree will never bear oranges, even if you were to dangle some from its branches, so it is that a self-striving person — no matter how gifted or kind — will never bear the fruit of genuine good works in Christ if not rooted in grace.

Friend, if you, too, are a recovering self-striver who is discovering how to strive in grace rather than your own strength, hear Jesus’s invitation to me and to you:

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. — John 15:4

Friend, grace replaces striving with abiding. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. You can “cease striving” today, because of Christ — because of grace. When we consider all that He’s done to rescue us from sin and brokenness, we don’t dare try and produce through striving; instead, we overflow in praise and thanksgiving… and strive in grace.

Written for Devotionals Daily by Ruth Chou Simons, author of When Strivings Cease, copyright Ruth Chou Simons.

It’s so easy to slip back into trying to succeed in the Christian life by our own means, rather than God’s. We have in our nature this idea that we can do it on our own. It’s our pride! But, it’ll never work and it always leads to stress, anxiety, depression, and alienation from God. Rather than striving for grace, let’s remember that we believers can go for it in grace!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 12, 2021

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His love for those who fear Him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
— Psalm 103:11-12

You may feel that something inside you is broken because of your sin, and that God can’t look at you because of it. But God sees you as beautiful because Jesus cleansed you from your sin.

“As high as the heavens are above the earth.” That’s how deep God’s love is for us. “As far as the east is from the west.”

Knowing your sin will never again be brought up by your heavenly Father should bring ecstatic joy to your heart.

Consider these words from Psalm 103. The distance from the heavens to the earth’s surface, the span of land between the east and the west, is vast. In the time of ancient Israel, these distances would have been incomprehensible. These word pictures give us just a glimpse into how completely our sins are removed by the blood of Jesus. Let the truth of that sink deep into your soul today. And then focus on another thought:

your beauty is built from your brokenness.

Sometimes, even knowing that truth, you may wonder, How can something that is broken ever be made beautiful again? It may seem impossible, but in the Master Potter’s hands, shards of clay can become a lovely vessel useful for God’s work.

Transformation from broken to beautiful happens not because of our own effort but because of Christ’s work of redemption on the Cross. He understands what it’s like to be human because He became human for our sakes.

Imagine taking a precious vase and using it as a hammer. That’s not what it’s meant for, and it will shatter that beautiful creation. Sometimes, despite our efforts to protect that vase, it can be shattered by someone else’s selfish actions. Now imagine God, who created that vase in the first place, gently picking up the shattered pieces. There is no condemnation in His eyes, only sadness for the brokenness. You think maybe He is going to throw away those broken pieces because they are not useful to Him anymore.

But then, to your surprise, He lovingly handles each broken piece — sorting, cleaning, straightening. You see tears in His eyes for the brokenness, but so much love that it squeezes your heart and you weep. As He touches each piece, it is transformed into something astonishingly beautiful.

Even though you can’t quite see the whole design yet, know that God has taken each and every broken part of your story, your priceless vase, and is creating something even more valuable because it has been restored by His hands.

Father God, King David wrote the words of Psalm 103 by the power of Your Holy Spirit. He knew of God’s forgiveness. He had sinned deeply, but he had been called a man after God’s own heart. I want to be a person after Your heart. Help me to see myself as You see me — clean, holy, and beautiful. I know that You bring beauty from ashes. Like the mythical phoenix, I want to be brought back to life by your love, resurrected from my old life. Help me to die to myself and the sins of my past that hold me in bondage. Release me from my sin by the power of Jesus’ blood. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Amen and amen.

Excerpted from Peace with the Psalms, copyright Carpenter’s Code, Inc

Your story may be one of brokenness, but God is in the restoration business. He is taking every piece and creating something even more beautiful than you could ever have imagined. 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 11, 2021

Do you remember the scene in the movie Rudy when he’s trying to get accepted into Notre Dame but it's not looking good so he goes to a priest for some advice? The priest says that in thirty-five years of religious studies he’s only come up with two hard, incontrovertible facts: “There is a God. And I'm not Him.” 

When I first saw the movie I thought that was the most pathetic answer ever. You're a priest and that's all you got? Come on, man.  Over the years, however, the priest’s answer has grown on me, because as I’ve grown in both years and spirit, I've discovered that one of the more challenging and comforting aspects of faith is the realization that I am not God.  

Confessing I’m not God is challenging  because while I say I believe in God I mostly live as though I were God. I am the expert, I know what to do, I am the one upon whose shoulders rests success or failure. I choose what it is right and what is wrong based upon my education, my experience, and my gut. 

My words say there is a God. My actions say that God is me.

Setting aside my ego to actually trust in God’s sovereignty is a daily struggle.  

On the other hand, confessing I’m not God is wildly comforting each time my depression and anxiety rears its ugly head to torment my body and soul.   

You see, I count myself among the 1 in 4 Americans who struggle with their mental health each and every year. There are days when I wake in the morning only to be met by an immediate and unprovoked ocean of anxiety flooding my brain.

Other days I wake and discover I have neither the desire or strength to get myself out of bed.  I did not choose to suffer these maladies nor did I do anything to bring them upon me. Rather, they are simply aspects to the reality that is my life.  

Why do these harsh realities help me find comfort in the declaration that I am not God? Because in this admittance comes the realization that  

I need not — nor can I — save myself.  So I thank God that I am not God.  

But what, exactly, does that mean?  

Can I pray the depression away? Can I attend enough church services to convince God to heal me? Can I increase my faith to the point where I’m so filled with the Holy Spirit that I transcend my suffering? 

No.  

No.  

And… no.  

That’s not to say I don’t bring my depression to God in prayer or beg God for healing in my moments of pain. I do! What I don’t do is ignore the resources that God — the Ultimate Healer — has provided for healing.  

For me, and many others who battle their mental health, that means availing myself to therapy, medication, and a strong support network of a trusted community.  For too long Christians have hyper-spiritualized mental illness by marginalizing these healing tools. As a result, countless children of God have suffered in ways that could have otherwise been otherwise.  

We would never ask a believer to forgo chemotherapy for cancer or a diabetic to skip out on their daily injections of insulin.

Likewise, we must avoid the temptation to characterize issues of mental health as wholly spiritual issues. Instead, we need to acknowledge depression, anxiety, and other forms of psychological distress are every bit as bodily as any other form of disease.  

Fortunately, we have a God who chooses to rescue us in our bodies with His own body. When God decided it was time for humanity to more fully understand His very nature, He chose to come in a body. It was in this body that He taught us, loved us, died for us, and rose again in power to redeem us. Of all people, Christians should be the first to embrace the idea that our deepest suffering need not wait to be relieved in the life to come but in the life that is here and now with the tools given to us by the here and now.  

Gone are the days when mental illness was seen as a mysterious force that could only be treated by mysterious means. These days we know a great deal about how to help people think, feel, and act better.  

We go to therapy. If appropriate, we take medication prescribed by trained physicians. We allow people we love to hear us, us love us, and normalize our pain.  If the body of Christ is to be truly serious about treating all the bodies that belong to Christ then we must not be afraid of the means by which these bodies find their healing.  

Encouraging Christians to seek out the resources offered by the mental health community is not of minor importance but in many cases, quite literally, a matter of life and death. All of which brings me back to the wise old priest Rudy went to see.  

I am not God, for which I say, “Thanks be to the God all healing!” 

Written for Devotionals by Ryan Casey Waller, author of Depression, Anxiety, and Other Things We Don’t Want to Talk About. 

Depression is hard. Thank You, God, that these days we know a great deal about how to help people think, feel, and act better! And, thank You, Lord, that there is healing in Your wings! 

Pastor Dale 

Notes of Faith October 10, 2021

Winter casts a cold shadow. The days are short. The nights are long. The sun seems shy, hidden behind the grayness. Warmth has packed her bags and migrated to the tropics. Beach weather would be nice.

But that’s not going to happen. It’s winter.

Spring will see blossoms. Summer sways leafy bushes in the wind. Autumn gives forth a harvest of plenty. But winter? Winter is still, deathly still. Fields are frosty. Trees extend skeletal limbs.

Wildlife is silent. Gone.

Winter brings danger. Blizzards. Ice storms. Caution is the theme. Come springtime you’ll run barefoot through the meadow and plunge into the pond. But now? It’s best to button up, zip up, stay in, and stay safe.

It’s winter out there.

Is it winter where you are? Are you trapped in a perpetual gloom? Do you know the solstice of sunless days and barren trees?

I know a mom who does. A mom of three kids. Two in diapers and one with a disability. Her apartment is small. Her income is meager. And her husband is AWOL. Life in Camp Chaos was too much for him. It’s too much for her as well. But what choice does she have? Somebody always needs to be fed, changed, held, or bathed. So she does whatever needs doing, and it appears she will be doing it forever. She wonders if this winter will ever pass.

So does my friend Ed. He and I have much in common. Our health is good. Our golf game is poor. We both like dogs. We both have marriages that predate the Carter administration. The difference? My wife just asked me what I want for dinner. His keeps asking him who he is. He placed her in a memory-care facility a year ago. They’d dreamed of touring the country in an RV. So far he’s spent his retirement sleeping alone and making daily visits to a woman who stares out the window.

Can you relate?

When did you first realize that life was not going to turn out the way you thought?

Your parents divorced. Your spouse cheated. Your health never recovered.

Your friend never returned. In that moment a Siberian cold settled over your life. Your world became an arctic circle of dark days, long nights, and bitter weather. Winter.

This book was born in winter. As I pen these words, every person on the planet is living in the frostnip of COVID-19. A pandemic has locked us down. The mom I told you about? Her income is meager because her restaurant job was discontinued.

Ed can still see his wife but only through a window. Church doors are closed. Students are stuck at home. Masks hide smiles. A microscopic virus has paralyzed us.

And an ancient sin threatens to undo us. Those of us who’d hoped racism was fading were convinced otherwise. An officer’s knee on the neck of a Black man activated a subterranean anger. A volcano spewed into the streets of many cities.

The entire world seems wrapped in winter. We are all searching for springtime.

Winters are a part of life — some personal, some global — but all are powerful. Try as we might to bundle up and lean into the wind, the heartiest among us can fall. The wind is too strong.

Nights are too long, and the question is all too common: Will this winter ever pass? You wonder (don’t you wonder?) if you will survive this.

If so, God has a six-letter word of encouragement for you: E-S-T-H-E-R.

Excerpted from You Were Made for This Moment by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

It seems like an all-time low world-wide, doesn’t it? How is it possible that things have gotten so bad everywhere we look? Where is God? Doesn’t He see?.. He does… The book of Esther will show us!

I believe we were made for the moment in which we live. . . to know Christ, to grow in Christ and to share Christ.  How are you doing being made for such a time as this?

Pastor Dale

 

Notes of Faith October 9, 2021

As a little girl I would leap out of bed early on Saturday mornings to watch the latest episode of Batman. I would press up against the cold glass screen of our small, static television and get lost in the inner workings of Gotham City as the heroic duo combatted the evil schemes of Two-Face, the Riddler, Catwoman, and the best villain of all time, the Joker. (Not up for debate.)

There’s something exhilarating about watching the good guys overtake the bad guys, coming out of nowhere in the exact moment of dire need with impressive skills and explosive weapons in the sky — even in clearly uncomfortable tights.

(Dear “Project Runway”, please do a hero-makeover challenge soon. As the great poet Beyoncé once said, “Let me upgrade you.”) When the Justice League cartoon began, and it featured a whole host of heroes — including the one and only truth-lassoing Wonder Woman — I was sold. Girls could be heroes too? I was all in. I wanted to know about superheroes. I wanted to be a superhero.

The religious people of Jesus’ day were also looking for a hero.

Just as it is to us, the brokenness of the world was glaringly obvious to them, and they believed a king, a warrior, was coming to defeat the evil empires, fight off the tyrannical leaders, and forcefully turn over the corrupted governments of the day. Also, hopefully, he would judge and destroy all of those horrible sinners everywhere. They awaited a hero’s arrival.

And someone did come. He had more power than they could ever comprehend, and yet He didn’t come to take over with forceful power at all.

Instead, they were introduced to a Savior not participating in remarkable battles, showing off His spectacular strength, or lobbying for titles to invoke His impressive status; no, He gave up His status. In a world where we naturally seek glory and applaud those we also find glorious, we surprisingly find that the One who already had all the glory did not aim to be above us but came to be with us. The distinguished Savior emptied Himself of His outward splendor and

made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness — Philippians 2:7 NIV

to serve other humans.

He came to hang out with, love, and serve the ones the religious people hoped He’d judge and destroy. And for the record, He also came for the judgmental religious people — sinners who were much more eager to point out others’ sins than to consider their own. He came to forgive and save them too.

It turns out, in our quest to be Savior-like, to be Christlike, and to live like Jesus would, servanthood is the example we’re given.

The call to be like Jesus is not a call to save. It is a call to serve.

It is not a commission to become greater; it is an invitation to become less. There is no mandate on you to save the world.

There is a mission for you to love the world Jesus came to save.

The battle for people’s lives will not be won in grandiose battles in the sky, with capes flying in the wind, with front-page who’s-stronger-than-who battles and egotistical showboating. The battle for people’s lives will be won on the ground, loving and serving people, many times privately, in our homes, schools, places of work, on our city streets, and in our everyday lives.

The pressure to be a hero is off. The guilt of failing to be God is gone. The salvation of your family, your workplace, and your city is not all on you. Jesus is the One who saves lives, who heals marriages, who sets people free from addictions, and who makes the impossible possible. Our power can’t compare to His.

We are neither the climax of the story nor the main point.

Jesus is the subject, and we are the storytellers.

This simple truth liberates me to take more risks without fearing failure. To share with people the wonderful news of what Jesus has done in my life without feeling the pressure of what those results will be. To be myself around coworkers, throw a dinner party and invite people that I might previously have been too embarrassed to invite, start a Bible study and not freak out about how many (or how few) people show up, share my story even if it isn’t perfect yet, serve people who may not show gratitude, and share Jesus with people who may never accept Him. I’m free to fumble. I’m free to risk. I’m freer than I’ve ever imagined.

Phew! What a load off. I was never a very good savior anyway.

Excerpted from How (Not) to Save the World u by Hosanna Wong, copyright Hosanna Wong.

Do you feel the pressure to “save” the people around you, to perform at the highest level at work or in life, or to be seen as a success? You don’t have to anymore. Jesus is the only Savior. You get to be fully you right as you are, used by Him in whatever capacity He chooses.

Pastor Dale

 

Notes of Faith October 8, 2021

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. — Philippians 3:12 ESV

I was driving my fourteen-year-old son, Joey, to a birthday party when I heard five quick beeps coming from my steering column.

I glanced down to see what was going on: out of gas.

There was a message flashing on my dashboard: “Range to empty: 0 miles.” I asked my son to use Waze to determine the closest gas station. The options: 2.4 miles ahead of me, or 1.2 miles behind me.

I had a decision to make. Should I turn around and head to the closer gas station, or should I keep going forward, hoping that my momentum would carry me 2.4 miles?

My son chose for me. “Just keep going straight, Mom, you’re already rolling pretty fast.”

Looking straight ahead, I coasted along the rolling hills, watching the tenths of miles tick away. One mile in, the gas actually ran out (I must have been running on fumes up until that moment). In another half mile, I had slowed to half the speed limit.

By the time the gas station came into view, I was coasting along at about five miles per hour. Somehow I managed to steer my car up to the gas tank.

I took a deep breath and said a prayer of thanks that we had made it, grateful for my son’s wisdom to just keep my eyes straight ahead and my car rolling. Because while I hadn’t had the gas to make it to the station, I’d had the momentum to keep going forward.

Lord, remind me to keep my eyes on You, letting You pull me along even when I’m completely unable to move forward on my own. Amen.

~Erin MacPherson

Excerpted from Daily Guideposts, copyright Guideposts.

Some days we just don’t have the “gas” to continue. This season may feel like that to you. Maybe you’ve been rolling on fumes for a long time. It’s through those times that we desperately need the Holy Spirit’s strength and might. God is with us even when we’re out of gas! 

Pastor Dale

 

Notes of Faith October 7, 2021

Many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. — Matthew 24:10–12

Except for 1968 with its riots and assassinations, I can’t remember a more challenging year for America in my lifetime than 2020. Between the pandemic, the flaring of racial tensions after the death of George Floyd, a floundering economy, skyrocketing murder rates, and the impeachment of President Donald Trump, people had a lot to argue about. Of course, the US presidential election added fuel to those fires.

In the midst of that tension and animosity, pastor Chris Hodges of Birmingham, Alabama, logged onto his Instagram account one day and clicked “like” on a small number of posts from a conservative author and speaker. Can you imagine something so innocuous causing trouble? Well, it did.

A high school English teacher living in Birmingham saw what pastor Hodges had done and felt uncomfortable. She created a Facebook post to address that discomfort, including an image of Hodges’s name next to the notorious “likes.” She later ironically told reporters, “I would be upset if it comes off as me judging him... I’m not saying he’s a racist. I’m saying he likes someone who posts things that do not seem culturally sensitive to me.”

In less than two weeks, the Birmingham Housing Authority voted to cut ties with Pastor Hodges and the Church of the Highlands, no longer allowing the church to rent space for one of its campuses. The Housing Authority also cut ties with Christ Health Center, a separate ministry founded by Church of the Highlands to provide free health services for residents of public housing.

Now, stop and think about that. A local government shut down a free clinic for the poor in the middle of a public health crisis!

Why? In their words, “Pastor Hodges’ views do not reflect those of HABD and its residents.”1

That wasn’t the end. The Birmingham Board of Education also voted to cut ties with Church of the Highlands after the so-called scandal. For several years, the church had rented two high school auditoriums to serve as additional campuses on Sunday mornings, paying more than $800,000 for that privilege. No more. The leases were terminated immediately.2

Ed Stetzer was quick to point out the sad irony of these decisions, given all the ways Hodges and his church have contributed to the Birmingham community and beyond. He wrote:

[Chris] has... led his church to be the largest diverse church in Alabama, to engage the poor and marginalized, and to minister widely and well in his community. He and the church he leads has served the poor, engaged the sick, volunteered in the schools, and more. During the pandemic, Church of the Highlands has served thousands of meals, made masks, hosted blood drives, and helped other churches with online services. He also liked some social media posts. Get the pitchforks.3

The long and short of it was that Pastor Hodges had been “canceled” because he liked a few posts from a popular conservative pundit.

The word cancel once described what we did to magazine or newspaper subscriptions, or to what happened to a faltering television program. Now it’s what we do to people.

In our society, canceling someone is a punishment for doing something, saying something, or even thinking something that violates a set of unwritten rules currently in play throughout much of the liberal world. These punishments are typically carried out in three stages:

1.      There’s an attempt to publicly humiliate the person by flagrantly exposing the supposed wrong he or she committed.

2.      Once the person has been exposed, he or she is pushed mercilessly to confess and apologize. Whether that person has actually done anything that requires regret is irrelevant. Simply to be accused means a retraction and an apology is expected.

3.      Regardless of whether the accused apologizes or not, attempts are made to remove that person from public life and from all public conversation once and for all. As a result, people are fired, mocked, threatened, de-platformed, and delegitimized in every way.

Professor Evan Gerstmann said, “There is no single accepted definition of cancel culture, but at its worst, it is about unaccountable groups successfully applying pressure to punish someone for perceived wrong opinions. The victim ends up losing their job or is significantly harmed in some way well beyond the discomfort of merely being disagreed with.”4

What does it take for a person to be canceled? We’d like to know because most of us would rather avoid the experience. But no one knows what it takes to be canceled. At least, not specifically.

As I said, the boundaries that govern this new way of life — what many are calling “cancel culture” — are unclear. The rules are unwritten, and it reminds me of a car driven by an inebriated person, swerving from lane to lane. We’d best stay out of the way, if possible.

Yet it’s not always possible. People have been canceled for a broad range of offenses — everything from being accused of rape to voting the wrong way to expressing unpopular opinions.

Or even liking social media posts that make other people feel “uncomfortable.”

One of the more frightening aspects of cancel culture is that its tendrils extend even to regular members of society. You don’t have to be famous to be canceled. For example, Mary Purdie is a local artist who was accused of plagiarism when a piece she designed went public. The accusations were false, but that didn’t matter to the hundreds of people who posted hateful comments on her Instagram account and found other ways to harass her. She even attempted to apologize for a possible misunderstanding, but, in her words, the apology was “torn to threads.”

“I’ve survived five miscarriages and breast cancer,” Purdie told Good Morning America, “and this was still the worst thing that’s happened to me.”5

If this culture sounds unreasonable to you — even unbiblical — you’re correct. When Jesus was asked to identify the most important commandment in the Bible, He replied with a two-for-one special:

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. — Matthew 22:37–39

I can think of few things less loving than publicly excoriating random people, even trying to get them fired and shamed and silenced, all for the sin of daring to disagree with a prevalent opinion. Yet that’s what cancel culture demands.

It bears noticing that Jesus spent a lot of time with people in His day who had been canceled, so to speak. Remember the woman at the well? Women were considered second-class citizens in the ancient world, and Samaritans were scorned.

Even her own people shunned her, which is why she came alone to draw water from the community well during the heat of the day. Yet Jesus approached her. He spoke kindly to her. He even offered her the water of life, saying:

Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. — John 4:13–14

Jesus touched lepers who were untouchable according to the law. He welcomed sinners who were despised. He blessed children when others tried to nudge them away. He expressed compassion for a woman taken in adultery, and He accepted the worship of a woman criticized for pouring perfume on His feet.

He touched the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. He cast demons from the violent. During His final hours He comforted a criminal nailed to a cross beside Him. After His resurrection, He reassured a doubting disciple and reestablished the one who had denied Him.

Jesus had no place in His heart for the cancel culture, but He was wonderful at demonstrating God’s love and grace to everyone. He still is.

  1. Anna Beahm, “Birmingham Housing Authority Ends Work with Church of the Highlands,” AL.com, June 8, 2020

  2. Greg Garrison, “Birmingham Schools, Housing Authority Cut Ties with Church of the Highlands,” com, June 9, 2020, See also Greg Garrison, “Pastor Chris Hodges Responds to Social Media Controversy,” June 14, 2020

  3. Ed Stetzer, “Unliked Likes: Cancelling Pastor Chris Hodges and Church of the Highlands,” Christianity Today, June 11, 2020

  4. Evan Gerstmann, “Cancel Culture Is Only Getting Worse,” Forbes, September 13, 2020

  5. Lesley Hauler, “I Was ‘Canceled’ and It Nearly Destroyed My Life,” Good Morning America, January 17, 2020

Excerpted from Where Do We Go From Here? by Dr. David Jeremiah, copyright David P. Jeremiah.

Cancel culture is not Jesus’ way at all. He hasn’t cancelled you. He’s right with you no matter what you’ve done, whether other people have rejected you or stuck around. He will always be your biggest Supporter and Friend!

Stand firm in the truth of God and your vindication is assured.  Scripture is unfolding before our eyes.  Evil forces are doing everything they can because they know their time is short.  Jesus is returning to judge, rule and reign.  Soon!

Let God lift you up from the depths the cancel culture seeks to put you.  Speak boldly of Jesus, His power, authority, and salvation to all who believe.  You will win on the side of eternal life!

Pastor Dale

 

Notes of Faith October 6, 2021

Praise Befits the Humble

But the most obvious fact about praise — whether of God or anything — strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise — lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game — praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least.

— from Reflections on the Psalms
For Reflection: Psalm 33:1–22

Taste and See

William Law remarks that people are merely “amusing themselves” by asking for the patience which a famine or a persecution would call for if, in the meantime, the weather and every other inconvenience sets them grumbling. One must learn to walk before one can run. So here. We — or at least I — shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest.

At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found Him so, not have “tasted and seen.” Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are “patches of Godlight” in the woods of our experience.

— from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
For Reflection: Psalm 34:8

Noticing the Dirt

I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience etc, doesn’t get the upper hand.

No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be v. muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, & the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard.

The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the v. sign of His presence.

— from a letter to Mary Neylan, January 20, 1942
For Reflection: Psalm 40:1–3

I Delight to Do Your Will

Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, “Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.”

— from Mere Christianity
For Reflection: Psalm 40:6–8

You Thought I Was One Just Like Yourself

I have often, on my knees, been shocked to find what sort of thoughts I have for a moment, been addressing to God; what infantile placations I was really offering, what claims I have really made, even what absurd adjustments or compromises I was, half-consciously, proposing. There is a Pagan, savage heart in me somewhere. For unfortunately the folly and idiot- cunning of Paganism seem to have far more power of surviving than its innocent or even beautiful elements. It is easy, once you have power, to silence the pipes, still the dances, disfigure the statues, and forget the stories; but not easy to kill the savage, the greedy, frightened creature now cringing, now blustering, in one’s soul— the creature to whom God may well say, “thou thoughtest I am even such a one as thyself” (Psalm 50.21).

— from Reflections on the Psalms
For Reflection: Psalm 50:19–23

Excerpted from The C. S. Lewis Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

The Book of Psalms is a wonderful book to read no matter what you’re going through. There’s praise, wisdom, thanksgiving, lament, and every kind of conversation with God in the Psalms. In this Bible, C. S. Lewis reflects on various passages in his own brilliant and thoughtful way.

I thought I would share with you an opportunity to check out a new Bible with reflections by C. S. Lewis.  I have not seen it yet, and he is sometimes hard to understand, at least for me, because my mind is no match for his, and yet his thoughts bring me closer to God.  That is indeed a good thing!

Pastor Dale