Sunday_Service

Dear Lord we are all gathered here from all over the world and we are on all different times but whatever group and time we are in our worship to you is still open and full of Love and thanksgiving and forgiveness, our heads are raised or they may be down showing respect or humility, what ever time or place we are at which ever country, it does not matter because You are everywhere and you are the one that we all trust and love through whatever you allow Satan and His agents to do, what ever suffering You have planed we are going to love You an worship You and that is the way it has to be, You are our number one and we have to reside at Your feet, we are Your children and we are going to get as close to You as we can, we don’t want to end up getting the door closed on us and we have to know our mistakes and we have to know our sins and we have to know Your will. So Father please as we call out the Name of the Lord and we ask that You be praised please Father send your Holy Spirit to us all to each village to each town to each place or by the brook or a stream or an opening by the river or the cliff, what ever place it may be, it might be in a house or in a basement or one person that is looking into His computer, we want to give You something in return, our hearts of Love and our wholeness of Spirit, please Lord give us the confidence and explain to us what all that shutting of the door when we are trying to be as close as possible. Lord we are human and we have fears, but we trust You but this world has done so much damage to our minds and Spirits we need to know from You because You are the only one we trust, You and Your Son Jesus and of course the Holy Spirit. We are here at what ever time we are here to say praise be to the Father of the universe, and we thank You so much for even helping us just for the small things that has altered our destinies and our careers and what ever you want us to do for You and Your children. We are waiting for Your commands and we need Your direction not mans.

Dear Heavenly Father, Please hold us in Your loving arms, You are Spirit and that can be done , if you could just put Your arms around each one of us, we re not asking for the feeling but we want to know you still care for each of us, God we all sin, and we know You just don’t like sin, and you don’t even want to be around sin, Father you have the strength to caste sin away from each of us, You can make us pure enough so you can just look at us, God we are a select group of people and for all we know You have selected us. We want to be in Your heart, w want to love you more than things, we want to talk to you about anything, God can you please forgive us, we are a race that is full of sin and greed and this lust for money and so many other things, but Lord you know each and every one of us, you have made each and every one of us please comfort us, please as you are working and molding us can you please give us this time together to share a meal. We just want to share some bread and break it with You, We need to relax from this fallen world and we need to stay clear from it but we must exist with in it. Father just spend some time with us, we are Your Children, please let us through the ball or walk through the park or share a loving conversation, God how do we become close to you I mean even closer then any others, how can we make You smile what do we have to say and do so that You will talk to us? We know You have talked to many great men and we want to be a part of that togetherness, Jesus died on the cross for us so or sins would be forgiven but why are You so distant, what do we have to do to be worthy, so you can speak to each of us, are we on the right track? How much longer do we have to go until you do communicate with us? You want us to each suffer and learn and become more like Your Son? Jesus, You are our advocate, please ask the Father if He can just tell us He loves us, in any way or form, Jesus we love and we want to point it in the right direction, we don’t want to make the mistakes that the rest of this world is making, we need a little bit of the Fathers strength, and we need a bit of the Fathers faith, and then we can go on with strength and faith to fight off all the darts and the lies of the evil one. Jesus can you grant us the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Can you blow into any of the gatherings and send that divine anointing, we need to be above the race of evil, we are not trying to get to the top of anything, in fact we are crawling on the bottom, please lift us up, please share some of Your Holiness we need to feel safe and secure always and we can’t do that with our on power, we need the Spirit to enter into us so when we speak, we can carry that truth and that conviction to others we know that we are nothing but sinners but can You make us feel at Home just for today as we praise and worship? I tried to get the right words out for us all, I hope I did the right thing, God we love You and can you say something back? In Jesus Name, Amem.

I picked this psalm, well the Lord picked this psalm and in the beginning it is full of worship and praise, then it changed and the Lord spoke and He talked about hardening hearts, and we could name like 10 people right now with hardened hearts, and I have to say at times my self my heart had to be hardened because it has been crushed everyday, maybe that is why all the trials I have so my heart is continuously broken, like I know of so many others and they truly love the Lord too. A hardened heart is useless it is like a hard loaf of bread, you can’t eat it unless you add moisture back into it, we can also represent a hardened heart like a lump of clay and a hard lump of clay you can’t do anything with it. The psalmist warns us all not to get a hardening of hearts as Israel did in the desert by the ongoing resistance to the will of God, and I hope none of us gets like that, and maybe because I am so afraid of all these medical problems and the treatment from all these doctors and even pharmacists making me go back and forth maybe that is my sin, maybe that is why I just don’t get cured. What the Israelites did they were so convinced that God would not help them and each day that went by they got lesser and lesser faith in Him until they really had no faith left, and God well He was mad. It is real bad when a man or a woman hearts get hardened it is so bad that at time you can’t turn to God for anything, your personality becomes stubborn and there is no way to get through to that person because they are so set in there thinking and you can’t change that. It does get even worse and this happens through a serous of events and some people get so hard you can’t even talk to them, they don’t want to be taught they are not open for advice, and what good would you be, you can’t even take advice, so God may just toss you aside like a piece of stale bread. You have to remain open to God even if you are going through hard times the Israelites were taken out of captivity and still they were just not satisfied, I would be happy not to be in the mud pits and being yelled at and whipped all day.

In early spring the people of Israel arrived in the wilderness of Zin and camped at Kadesh. While they were there, Miriam died and was buried. There was no water for the people to drink at that place, so they rebelled against Moses and Aaron. The people blamed Moses and said, "We wish we had died in the LORD's presence with our brothers! Did you bring the LORD's people into this wilderness to die, along with all our livestock? Why did you make us leave Egypt and bring us here to this terrible place? This land has no grain, figs, grapes, or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!" Moses and Aaron turned away from the people and went to the entrance of the Tabernacle, where they fell face down on the ground. Then the glorious presence of the LORD appeared to them, and the LORD said to Moses, "You and Aaron must take the staff and assemble the entire community. As the people watch, command the rock over there to pour out its water. You will get enough water from the rock to satisfy all the people and their livestock." So Moses did as he was told. He took the staff from the place where it was kept before the LORD. Then he and Aaron summoned the people to come and gather at the rock. "Listen, you rebels!" he shouted. "Must we bring you water from this rock?" Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the staff, and water gushed out. So all the people and their livestock drank their fill. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust me enough to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel, you will not lead them into the land I am giving them!" This place was known as the waters of Meribah, because it was where the people of Israel argued with the LORD, and where he demonstrated his holiness among them. Num 20:1-13

As you know the bible kept 37 years of wandering silent and didn’t speak anything about it at all and it has been 37 years since Israel’s first spy mission into the Promised Land. As this is rolling down the generation of people from Egypt are just dieing off and the new generation is going to enter into the promised land there are only a few left Moses, Aaron, Caleb an Joshua are the few that are still the original people that left Egypt, and once again they stopped at Kadesh and it was the same place as it was before and that whole mission was a bad situation and ended in tragedy. After all that time the people just seem to forget that they have been wandering because of there own parents sins, plus there own, you know some people just can’t take the sin on there own shoulder they just don’t want to admit that that they messed up, people blame everyone except themselves so they just started blaming Moses who else is there to blame. When we blame someone else that shows lack of faith and we tend to just not except our own disobedience, people are just like that and they just will not except that they have sinned, then some people start blaming God and we know that cannot be the way at all, We have to learn and face our own sins and ask God to forgive us and if we have hurt someone else in the process we have to apologize to them to and ask for their forgiveness, otherwise we will never have any peace and never will grow spiritually. This is where Moses really messed up but look at the strain he was under the Israelites were constantly complaining and taking everything out on Moses and He was to talk to the rock not strike it and he struck the rock twice it was like you want water I’ll give you water, but you see Moses was taking credit for the gift of God and that is a no- no, and God just said well you have come all this way now and here is your punishment , you can’t enter into the promised land with the others , that must have been a real let down for Moses and some scholars felt that maybe the punishment was a bit too heavy, but you have to look at God’s reasoning even though these people were constantly on him and bickering and causing rebellion and saying all kinds of things to Moses and Aaron, but you see mosses was the great leader for the entire nation, he had great accountability and dependability to all those people so Moses could not be left off with a slap on the wrist, buy doing something against God has to be normal and give him a great punishment because he made God look pretty bad in front of all those people. You can’t go around and dishonor God. That is a lesson in itself.

[“At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.”] (Job 1:20-22) Most of us know the story of Job, and at times I call Job my name, Job was a good man and he just suffered some real bad news of losing his family and all his herds of animals, he did not hide his grief, and of course he did not ever lose his faith in God, instead the emotions were normal and he loved his family. God created our emotions and it is not a sin to express them, everyone goes through some kind of suffering or a loss or some burden or a broken heart, me my heart is been crushed over and over, I thank God that I can even still think, you see I have know one to admit my feelings to, so it is like Job but he had his three friends, I have many but they are all across the world. Job lost his possessions and family in the first of Satan’s tests, but you see Job reacted in the right and he still respected God and His authority and knew everything that was given to him in the first place was from God. Satan lost the first round. Job passed the test and proved that people can love God just out of pure motives, and love God just for who He is and not for rewards or possessions or accomplishments, I am the same way, I love God because He is God, not for what He can give, I have loved God since I was a small boy, I talked to God a lot, I was so alone then right before school at the age of 4 and just moved into the neighborhood, and I would talk to God walking and swinging on a pole hoping to find someone to talk too, just like today I take walks hoping praying and asking God to find someone to talk to, I praise God I still can walk, I can’t walk to far but when I was a child I would talk and pray to God asking for someone to be around, and it is the same now, I know it is part of Satan’s tests, just like the next part with Job. Satan will attack his health. We all know this world is falling away, and things are not what they seem to be, good behavior is not rewarded always, and bad behavior is not always taken care of, the bad guys seem to prosper in this world and the good just get stepped on, not just once or twice for some I know so many others that are going through their own trials and tribulations and they are experiencing what I have been going through I have been walked all over like a rug or a floor mat. And I keep taking it and I still pray for forgiveness of the evil deeds that people do, and I know they just don’t understand what they are doing. And some they don’t even care. I have been on the prayer networks for over 2 years and I pray for thousands of people in a short length of time and I used to sleep with the prayer requests rolled up in my arms, so I could say a few words as I was going to sleep, and then pray for them in the morning, now I wake up I am in incredible pain and I can’t even talk, now I place all the requests that I have written down the night before and each persons affliction or problem is all written out, and they lay upon the church alter and sometimes a candle is lit and sometimes I light a few, it depends on the requests, when it is children that are suffering I usually light a few candles and I have these cards that I put peoples names on and their situation or families problem or burden or what ever it may be. You see the devil does not like that at all, and he has tried everything to make me stop, and everyday there is another trauma, to stop me from writing prayers, tonight he made me waste 3 hours all for nothing and it first starts out where the cable line is not working then it is something with the computer then I get sick or I get full of pain or it is always something but I still send out what I can. So the book of Job is about a good man that suffers for no reason at all, it is a test between God and Satan, and God was proud of Job but Job had no idea what was going on, the same with me, but I don’t know if God is proud of me, and there is so many other people that are suffering right now, so that is why I send prayers out to people because with the limited strength I have and the time, I am able to help besides that is my job, I am a pastor and have all the other titles but what is a title compared to God. We are to love Him and trust Him and help our fellow man, which I have been doing, I do what I can for others and at the end of the night when I lay the cards on the alter I know I have helped a few people. We know the story of Job does end in happiness and through all of Jobs trials he was justified by faith even though all the situations look hopeless. You see I am crying my eyes out I am so broken up by all of this, 2 years of solitude and now I can’t even drive, and I get slapped in the face everyday by something or someone, and I know I have to keep fighting and keep praying and keep loving others.

Our next question is can Satan change God’s plans? We all know the answer to that, which is an absolute no, at first God said he did not want Job to be harmed physically, but then he decided to allow it. Satan is unable to change God’s mind, God is to good and God is not is the game of agreeing with evil, God was willing to go along with Satan’s plan because God knew the outcome and He knows what was going to happen. Job’s suffering was a test for Job, Satan, and us to learn from all of this, God already knows what He is doing; God uses Satan and his agents to test all of His children, to build their faith or strengthen them to all different degrees and protocol. So Satan’s next step was to inflict physical pain and suffering, humiliation, unrest and total confusion to prove that Job would give in and blame God. ["Skin for skin!" Satan replied. "A man will give all he has for his own life. But stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face." The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life." So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!" He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.”] (Job 2:4-10) Next we ask ourselves why was Job’s wife’s life was over looked and the whole family was killed, it seems to me the attitude made it even harder on Job, and caused him more suffering through her nagging and complaining of what she lost, I know God did not want to here what she said again. What she said alone to Job would have put me over the edge. If I had a wife like that I would not stay home that is for sure. You see here is where we have to break this down, many people think if they are always praying and helping at church or even being a preacher saves you from troubles, so when the roof falls in and all of your life falls apart, that is why people question God and his sympathy, compassion and His love, the whole book was written for a purpose, and this book was one of the oldest, that is why it’s teaching is so vital. What is important is just because God allows you to have bad situations in your life , you don’t just give up on God, you see that is where everyone makes that big mistake, they take the whole situation out on God and some even blame God, God is our sovereign ruler and you should be thankful your even breathing and have a roof over your head to fall on, there is so many people right now downtown sleeping under a bridge and they have nothing and what ever they do have of any value gets stolen, how would you like to live like that? These are the people I am trying to help, this is why I came here, this town is very poor, and it isn’t the rich section of the islands it is one of the poorest, but you see that is why God sent me here but before I open the church/mission God wants a bit more training from me, and He I would guess He wants me to have perfect faith and trust in Him, when I was younger and living in a church ministry house we used to go to hospitals and pray on people and they would feel it, and that was back in the mid 80’s and that is what I wanted to do, so for the past I would say about 25 years all I ever wanted was to bring healing to people through our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember we are nothing we are dead in Christ so our ambitions are usually not what God has picked out for us to do, I want to follow the will of God more than anything, and I never wanted to be rich I wanted to be able to help people and all I needed was a building and I had a few picked out and the one or two are still lying there empty making no rent for all of these families, some of the letters I wrote the places were owned by the whole family and you would have to ask many people before you could even think about renting out their building. Sorry I got off the main points what the story is saying that just having faith in God is no guarantee for anything in the way of goodness for your life or a life of continuous prosperity, and the same with lack of faith does not guarantee to have constant troubles or hardships. If any of these facts were true everyone would have faith in God to be well off or being rich. God has plans and reasons for all kinds of suffering and he has a plan for each one of us. A good plan normally if we still are Christians after a major calamity or a let down or going bankrupt, God know what is going on, and He knows what is going to happen, but we don’t, and know one else does either, our families and friends and even other pastors don’t know the out come of what is in tune for own destiny and why we are suffering. God can always rescue us out of any tragedy or some kind of suffering, but the thing is which is hard to say to you all is we should welcome the suffering because each of us has to carry our own suffering just like each of us must carry our own cross, Things happen for reasons we don’t understand, and Satan is right now out to destroy our faith in God right at this very moment which is pretty heavy and we should all be on our guard and stick even closer to God even if we are going through the most horrible parts of our lives. Satan wants us to doubt God, and through certain episodes this will tear down a Christian to a point where they are walking around in circles, we have to understand God’s overall picture His vast perspective we can’t just be looking out for number one here, or anything personal, we are heaven bound and that is or could be another way of testing us, I don’t think He wants people in heaven like Jobs wife up there if we are going to be surrounded by pure love and no pain or tears we are not going to have anyone up there yelling or putting us down or criticizing us at all, so God has to make his decisions remember Matt. 7:21-23 not everyone is going to go, not even Christians, so we better all start repenting and turning toward good and have no fears and doubts about anything. If we knew why we were suffering our faith would not have any room to grow, so we have to live in the unknown that is what Job is living he does not have a clue what is going on, and his three friends come and see him and there is a lot of silence at first because it is customary or normal when you first go to visit someone going through great pain and hardship. But even his three friend s think it was some kind of sin that he did and they just keep with that attitude, otherwise they would say why else would this be happening to you Job? As time went on God wanted Job to speak and he did but it got to a point that he just decided to remain quiet because there really wasn’t any reason for him to speak, God had to show Job a few things and Job understood he realized he was just a human being and he didn’t have any right at all to place any judgment calls on our God who created the earth and the universe and the stars and the moon and he also realized he had no right to even ask God why. Here is something very important God’s procedures do not depend on anything we do. He will do what He has to do and He knows what is best for us always, even if we don’t even think it may be fair. It is important that God did go to Job, because He did care for Him and He showed His love for Him. When God gave His speech Job of course humbled himself, and God rebuked his three friends for making his suffering even worse because of their fake statements and there criticizing attitudes. We all know Job got back everything and received even more than what he had before. The point to be made is this if you persist in trusting God He will take care of you and give you the things you desire. Some people today still after they sin they say something like if God is in control how could He let this happen? Another good point is we need to trust God even with all your unanswered questions. Well I am going to end this here I wanted to write a small paragraph on this story to help people that are going through things like me with so many unknown questions while we suffer, we are to keep praying and trusting in Him and that is it.

I want to move over to something else this week some thing that has been tugging at me for a long time, it takes me back to the times when I was living in Florida and living almost totally in the world and I was at the time a great Chef, and that is another reason I wanted to have the mission I was going to tell the whole story before I left California and then I was working in a mission and one day I could not sign a piece of paper because they were already doing some bad things and I don’t even want to get into the judgmental parts of the story, it was just a shame, when I worked in that mission that part f my life was the happiest and I only made 36.50 every two weeks, but I so much enjoyed feeding people on the Streets and if I didn’t have things I would head out to the farms and pick up all the brushed and discolored produce because I had so many people to feed and I needed all the food I could get, were did all the money go well that is a different story all together, so they cam upon us with paper work and told us that we had to sign them or go, it was insurance papers they didn’t want to pay for any of us if we feel down or hut ourselves, the point is I didn’t like t hwy it was presented and I didn’t like the whole deal, so I left and hit the streets and about a month or so I was hitch- hiking to Florida, now about 5 years after that I was sitting on a curb in front of Christian book store and this man came out and told me about myself and what I was going through then and everyone I would meet back then told me to read Job, because I was going through trials then, in fact I was sitting on the curb in tears no car, no job, and no place to go, so I have been searching the book of Job and that is all I have been doing looking for answers looking for clues since, anyway this man sat down with me and told me this story, That God has picked you out of the crowd and He wants you to be a special object of His grace and therefore you have to go through a great amount of suffering and you were called to endure all this suffering. He also said that people think that God has no special people there is the scripture that God shows no favoritism. But as you read through the scriptures you know that there are plenty of people otherwise or there would not be any characters of the bible. He said each star is different from every other star in glory among the saints on earth as well there is ones in glory in heaven so what he was saying that there are special people on earth and heaven, and they all shine differently. The thing is now if God has picked you out as an unusual Christian he is going to not be so gentle to do the molding and the changing, and he explained to me about a sculptor that he can’t take this large block of marble and change the appearance with a manicure set ,he needs hammers and chisels and saws and all kinds of big hurtful things that form the sculpture to take this block and make it into something of beauty there is a lot of work ahead and if you are this block of marble it is going to hurt, so in other words prepare yourself for a lot of suffering plus now he also says he is going to take away everything that your heart loves the most and everything you care about the most. And I have to imagine in my mind that all the things that mean anything to me, picture them all in piles of ashes. We are not just talking about being in poverty, and otherwise everyone that sleeps on the park bench would be included. He also said that God knows how to remove these things from your heart while they still remain with us, what He does do He makes us think that we don’t enjoy them any more. So they are still there they are just not being used. The next phase will be your life will seem out of place, boring, not worth anything and your life will become somewhat like a burden to you. So during this state you will exist on blind will or blind faith I said, he said you will be missing the good inside you like the tenderness and the compassion, plus God ‘s smile will not be around for you He will be hidden from you for a while. It may come as a feeling or spiritual or actual reality; some people talk and see God. Next you will learn what faith is all about, not that you don’t know already but let me go on, you are going to learn about faith the hard way, but it is the only way open to you. That true faith lies deep down in your will, and that faith will come and go you will have spiritual joys, and they will not effect your faith or alter your spiritual status and will not effect your strong position of a child of God towards Your heavenly Father. Your next level will be a feeling that everything will go just fine with relationships with God and man, but you will not feel that peace and joy you here so many others talk about, because those who talk about peace and joy all the time are immature Christians. How long you stay on this road no one knows, the flash of darkness to light and the flash of light to darkness all will happen through your life as you grow in faith, no one knows but there are a number of factors involved and maybe later you will be able to identify them, the changes in your thinking, the values of your importance while other feelings will remain with God, that will completely hidden from you, for a time and then they will be unleashed. Now the Holy Spirit the best of all teachers will teach you this one aspect that the day is mine and the night is mine and these words will be interpreted to you by The Spirit of the Living God. Then something will come up and by personal experience you will fully understand the ministry of the night. I said where are you going with this I don’t want to be a part of any darkness, He said let me finish, he said there is a limit to a man’s ability to live without joy. He said even Christ could endure the cross only because of the joy that was later set before Him. Examine in your mind that the strongest piece of steal breaks if it is kept under unrelieved tension. God knows how much each of us can take. He also knows how long we can endure the night, so He gives the soul relief, first by welcome glimpses of the morning star which is also known as Jesus Christ and then by the fuller light that is a forerunner of the morning. Slowly you will discover Gods love in your suffering. Then your heart will begin to understand the whole thing. You will learn from yourself what all the schools in the world could never teach you, the healing act of faith without supporting pleasure. You will start to feel and understand the ministry of the night; its power to purify, to separate, to humble, and to destroy the fear of death and what is more important the fear of life. And you will realize that pain can do what joy can’t, such as exposing the self-importance of the earth’s small performance of value and filling your heart with a long peace of heaven. What I am telling you is of no way of any importance or original. This has been discovered by all different generations of Christian’s seekers and is almost a formula for deeper life. Yet it does need to be said to this generation of believers often and with a lot of emphasis, for the type of Christianity now in the trend does not include anything as serous and as difficult as this. The quest of the Christian is likely to be for peace of mind and spiritual joy, with a good deal of material prosperity thrown in all together as an external proof of the divine favor. As he says, my friend some will understand this, and the number may be small and they will represent the practicing saints so badly needed at this serous hour if New Testament Christianity is to survive to the next generation.

We know that Peters letter is one of great hope maybe that is why he wrote it, he went through hard trials and I can remember that Herod had him chained in between two guards and a holy angel came and told him to get dressed and the chains unhooked and he was able to get up and not even wake up the guards lying next to him woke, and then the door of bars opened and the guards were like in a trance and he followed the angle right out passed everyone and then they both walked right out of the clutches of Herod and he grabbed someone in the streets right before the angel knew he was secure and safe and he just vanished and Peter grabbed this man as was so over joyful he saw a miracle in action and he was facing death and he was rejoicing all the way to the hideout and even then when he knocked beyond the door they thought he was a ghost, that they all never figured he could possibly get out of there but they were so happy to see him. Anyway I got off the track a bit and I wanted to explain the suffering part of his writings, he was probably writing to new Christians as he thought, people that just started believing and were planning to get baptized. Peter wanted to let them all know what times of hardship lay ahead being a Christian especially a devout one, he wanted to give them all words of encouragement to aid them and to look back on his words so they could face certain kinds of conflict and resistance, but don’t get me wrong this letter he wrote is for any Christian, anyone facing trials like me and there are so many more, I read every night so many people suffering and in most part of all the prayer requests they are words of sorrow. We also know Christians even now are living under governing bodies as cruel as the Roman Empire, we in America it is a bit different but how do I say it, it is different then the Christians of the early church, yes so you pray for them and give them hope and edification and compassion and understanding, it is a lot easer to talk to a person when they say I know what your going through, I pray always I could run into someone that new what I was going through I don’t want to get caught up in my philosophy, we would be here all day, besides it would be the voice of the Holy Spirit, He is in my heart tonight, besides in many other countries and even here Christians everywhere are subject to misunderstanding, ridicule, and even harassment by believing friends, employers, and even family members, I am still trying to get my own mother saved and each time I seem to have hooked here some evil enmity pulls her away and she changes her personality. You see that none of us is exempt from any hardships or pain, illness, death, pure and simple catastrophes, but you see when we go through trials like persecution it makes us in a way press on more to God, we want to hold on to God we want to cry to God we are just human with normal feelings and then we try to just lean on to Jesus or the Father for their grace and peace. We seem to need their help more than normal.

We all know the story about Peter he was one of the 12 that Jesus choose and along with James and John, they had their own little fellowship, and Peter was the first to recognize who Jesus really was, and then Jesus gave Peter a special leadership role in the church, and we have to remember that Peter denied Jesus 3 times and I can still see Peter now in between the doorposts in the dark crying his eyes out after he realized what he did. But I don’t know if anyone really took notice in the end of the book of John, Jesus asked him wanting an answer three times, do you love me? The thing is Jesus was giving Peter a repentance action just with words and He wanted to know that Peter was still loyal and those three questions also was a healing for the three times that He denied Jesus. Peter was one of the best apostles and He just had to shine through, we all make mistakes when you are under great fear, some say no way and some just understand how he felt. And when they put him in chains and new he was going to die for the glory of God he wanted to be crucified upside down he wanted to suffer more than his King.

This letter is addressed to the elect as if they were strangers in the world this becomes very heavy because of all the scattering from persecution, so they were all living as foreigners and they were all Jews but they didn’t give up there individual heritage just like us we didn’t give up our heritage when we became Christians, I still love spaghetti and meatballs, the thing is back then these men and women were the first believers in a world full of persecution and they were all scattering about but you see the good points is this scattering formed a ministry or a missionary all by itself and while they all scattered they were spreading the Good News to all the gentiles. Also meeting all the different cultures of different people living in all different ways and customs, you see it was a lot like my life, I just traveled I wanted to learn from them and they wanted to learn from me, so I had a wonderful life and wonderful memories just traveling and meeting different people, and after a while you were able to open up to who you were supposed to. Maybe that is why God gave me the education I did by traveling alone and at times with others, I could have not ever made it all those miles if it wasn’t for Him. Glory be to God for a life and teaching and a wonderful grateful sharing life.

We all look forward to a big family ahead and we may be alone now but then when we enter into the eternal city of God. God has picked a special place for each one of us and can never be destroyed or tainted by any sin. The whole thing is this we may have a suffering life but you will have the heritage if you have trusted in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God will be with us all the way, and a lot of us loose that perspective, we might have to go through unbelievable suffering and all kinds of trials and tribulations, but we know the Fathers care, and He will be with us all the way until we arrive and that is a beautiful feeling with in itself, it is almost as if God has us all by the hand leading us through all these battle grounds of darkness with gunfire and bad people and hearing all kinds of bombs and whimpering, crying, yelling and screams and He will be guiding us to the great light. We have to except what ever is dished out along the way because during our lives that darkness can get painful and can get hard and even stressful with all kinds of arrows coming at us and spears and we will be touched by a few here and there but God still has our hand and we can feel our lives being persecuted and going up and down through darker valleys and inner caves with coldness and feeling the wetness of disaster all around us and we may fall into the cold rivers and be bitten or stung and we could die a horrible death but our souls cannot be harmed the piece of ourselves that is really us and that part our souls can never be touched or harmed and we will be welcomed into the greatest gift of all our salvation and all those rewards we have heard about all though the bible and all those crowns that are mentioned we will get some of these rewards and that alone when you are feeling so down on yourself or someone else we know God has still got us by the hand of our living eternal soul.