Casting Pearls- Want to go fishing?

The World says that we can do nothing to stop it from doing whatever it wants to do. The truth is seen in two places in the Bible that explain that we have all the strength we need to influence the path the world around us takes by only drawing our strength from Christ. The most obvious verse is from Phillipians 4:13 that says; ‘I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength’
        The less obvious place it is shown is in John 20:3-11 which states that Peter, upset and depressed after first denying Jesus, then seeing Him put to death, even though Peter had seen Jesus’ resurrection, he still felt sad and lost because he was unable to forgive himself for denying Jesus.  In spite of how Jesus had tried to reinstate Peter in the leadership of the Apostles Jesus had left behind at His death.
        Peter was so upset and depressed with himself that he had given up on the things he had been taught by Jesus and decided to go back to the one thing he knew how to do without question. Just like Peter, we also give up on God’s plan and go back to what we know, before giving God the chance to work in our lives.  Peter went back to what he knew best and not only went himself, but like we so often do, he took several other Apostles with him. As we take those who are lost or wish to give up on God to go away from God or the things of God.
         He and the other Apostles did what they had been trained from youths to do and began to fish again. They struggled to be successful in their own strength and fished all night, because it was the usually best time for catching fish, and ended up catching nothing. As they came in closer to shore, they saw a man on the shore cooking some food over a fire. The man called to them when they had gotten within earshot and asked if they had caught anything to eat. They had to respond NO.
        The man then instructed them to do something that went against their training as fishermen, let down the nets again where they were close to shore, and let them down on the right side of the boat that was closer to shore. They knew by their own understanding that this instruction by the stranger should do nothing to help as it went against everything they knew to work as fishermen. Peter had an idea as to who this was and it seemed confirmed by what happened next. The net that was let down by them was filled with fish so much so that they could not by their own strength pull the net back up on the ship. This was basically the same thing that had happened to Peter when Jesus had first called him to be a disciple and follow him. Jesus wanted Peter to do the same thing, let down the nets on the boat’s right side. The same thing happened, the net was filled so much with fish that Peter could not bring them all up. The first time Peter could call to other boats in the area to help him with all the fish. This time though, there were no other boats in the area to help. Rather than wait for the boat to return to shore, Peter confirmed his suspicions with John and immediately Put on some clothes, as he was necked from being out on the boat fishing and working hard so he took off his clothes as it was very warm there even at night. Peter put on his over coat and dove into the water to swim on to shore so he could be with Jesus.
        Even though Peter felt depressed and lost he knew that he was very excited to see Jesus again. The other disciples rowed on to the shore dragging the net behind them and Peter filled with the strength of the Lord, then went over to where the boat came ashore and singlehandedly pulled the net with as John said, 153 fishes, on the shore before returning to Jesus. Peter and the other disciples had been blessed beyond anything they had dreamed, again by Jesus. Despite their lack of strength to follow the teaching and direction in their depression and sadness over losing their leader, they were greatly blessed with great riches by God. Peter in himself showed the strength given by God in that he alone was able to drag on shore the net with 153 fish that the other disciples were unable to drag in the boat.
        We have a choice we must face in our life, either follow Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our lives, or follow the world and the things of this world that limit the power of Jesus and His Holy Spirit. Which one do you think you will follow? The Creator of all things, or the creation He made? That is the choice we all have to make, because we know who is the lord of this world and who is ultimately in control.

Casting Pearls- Dribbling a Football

How often do we go through life and question if God is really interested in the things happening to us. We struggle through a family member dying or a divorce, or a injury or sickness, or something like that, and we want to ask God why are you doing this, or God why are you allowing this. Our problems are nothing new in the experience of man.  The depression we feel as we are feeling left out of the plan for our own lives  seems too great to bear. We ask Why?. 

Living for Jesus is like dribbling a football, if your lucky the ball will bounce right back up to you. Maybe it will continue too for a time or two but eventually it will bounce off in some other direction that we weren't planning for it to go. Our lives are just the same, we travel along making plans for where we will go with this education or that training, and wherever we turn, something new could influence us to head off in a completely new direction. The direction we head in may be a good one or a bad one. 

If we look in Matthew Chapter 11:2 we will see just the situation we are dreading happen to someone that we don’t think deserves it. In 11:2  we see John The Baptist in prison, being held by Herod The King of Galilee. John had heard of the works of Jesus the man he thought to be the Messiah. He had been held for some time and even though he had heard, even in prison about Jesus, he was beginning to doubt as he was not released from prison, even though he had come as a forerunner of the Messiah, Jesus. He had starved himself in fasting, had eaten only wild honey and locusts, had lived in the wilderness and never had a home as such. After all he had done for Jesus the Messiah, could he not be released from jail? Or was Jesus really the one that was the Messiah? 

John had all these doubts and wanted to make sure Jesus remembered him and his struggle. So, John sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus, ‘Are you really the Messiah, or should we look for another?’. How often in our lives do we get so caught up in ourselves and our situations that we question our own beliefs? 

Jesus simply said to the disciples to go and tell John what you have “seen” and heard, we see in verse 4. Jesus went on talking in verse 5&6, and said, “the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk,the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.”. The most important part is the last, to not be offended in Jesus.

As followers of Jesus, we are to expect troubles and trials and suffering, but whatever we have to face, we should never be offended by Jesus. The troubles of the world will come and then will go, and nothing in this world can have any lasting effect on us but the saving knowledge of Jesus. It is only through Jesus and our faith in Him that we will have eternal life. The world can have and destroy if it wants, this mortal body. Because my immortal soul will then be with Jesus in Heaven. The ultimate reward that is greater than anything we could ever receive here. That is where John the Baptist would be rewarded for his sacrifices for the Lord. Jesus went on to talk about John in 11:11&12, Jesus said that John the Baptist was a great man here on earth, but even the least important that was already in Heaven was greater than he would be here. No amount of praise by men could ever be equal to the praise that even the least worthy in Heaven would receive. 

We might have to face trials and troubles or sicknesses here in  this body, but the greatest praise will come when we are allowed to go to Heaven. There is no comparison here on earth. Whatever we have to go through, it will be for God’s glory in the end. Even the least of the people mentioned in the Bible, was alive, and lived their life so that we, as Christians, could read about them and learn from them the things which God would have us understand. 

Casting pearls - Are we worshipping Baal?

                  We today are in danger of being in the same boat as the Baal worshippers of Elijah's  time. You see, the Baal worshippers thought they were doing the right thing, while actually breaking the first commandment to have no other gods before the Lord our God. They thought they were worshipping God, all the while they were worshipping god. Let me explain, the word Baal has been widely corrupted in it's true meaning over the ages. All in an attempt by satan to confuse the sitituation. The word can be broken down like this, BA meaning 'god', and AL meaning 'the', so the Baal worshippers that Elijah dealt with claimed to be worshipping 'the god', while Elijah was worshipping the Lord Our God.
                  For years the people of Israel had been moving away from the worship of God to the worship of the creations of God,as we have done. The Baal worshippers 'thought' they were still worshipping God, yet they were worshipping God's creation instead. We are doing much the same thing today. All the environmentalists who worship the creation of God rather than the one who made it are missing the point. If we want to stop mankinds wasteful actions with the environment, we should call on the God who made the environment to stop them.
                  You see it all comes to dominion. originally man was given dominion over all of creation. After man brought sin and death into the world, man gave his dominion over creation to satan, thus man has abdicated his rule over creation to satan.  Over the years we have changed the meaning of the Baal that the people worshipped to the God of the Rain. This was caused in part because of the drought that was going on at the time Elijah took on the Baal worshippers. Baal has also been said to correspond with satan or the devil, which is in some way true as Satan is the god of this world, The Lord God's creation.
                   Now that is not to say we are not in some way responsible for taking care of the creation that God has given us. Ultimately we are responsible to The Lord God who made this creation for using it to spread to the world, not that we need be responsible for taking care of it, but that we need be responsible for worshipping the one who made it and honoring Him by taking care of it.
                   In Elijah's time The Lord God had become fed up with the people putting His creation before Him, and was willing to use the priests of Baal as an example to the people of how fed up He had become. It is only a matter of time before The Lord our God gets fed up with us doing the same thing and punishes us.
                    As we do not see the United States mentioned directly in the prophecies of Revelation, I believe  that we will no longer be a world force at the time of the end of the world. That is not to say that we will no longer be around, but the current world power we are, will no longer be true. Our time of prosperity is close to an end, and unless we quickly turn back to the God of Creation, there is no hope.It would be just like satan to attempt and trick mankind into worshipping the creation, or god of this world, instead of the God of Creation.   All the negative publicity about GMO's and the Big Corporations use of natural resources for their monetary gain is only playing right into satan's hands.  This is not to say that these things are not bad, but the focus should not be on God's creation, but on the God of Creation. God's power alone can show us the way to find the truth, and the way back to Him.