Sunny Days and Ice Cream Cones

This is a very short, but poignant post called Sunny Days and Ice Cream Cones.  A gentle reminder of what is precious…

PRAY FOR AND WITH YOUR CHILDREN BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE TODAY! THIS IS SERIOUS!

PRAY FOR AND WITH YOUR CHILDREN BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE TODAY! THIS IS SERIOUS!.  All of us who are Christians should take it as a matter of course to pray for our children and for the children of others.  These are very dangerous times that we live in as countless stories on the news attest.  Prayer is our first line of defense, and who of us who has children wouldn’t want to do all we can to protect them.  Please make it a point to pray for the children of this country, and all countries.  It’s the least we can do.

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Laborers For God ♥

This Laborers For God ♥. is a great post, and a wonderful reminder for us all.

A Thought on Honoring Our Commitments

     Do you honor your commitments?  I know.  Right off the bat you’re thinking, “What?  You had to start off with that right from the get go?”  If you haven’t already left me for some site that makes you feel more comfortable give yourself a solid ten points.  The last thing most people want to be reminded of is a failure to keep their commitments, so the fact that you’re still here shows at the very least that you care about the subject.  Caring about whether you keep a commitment is a good place to start.  As far as I’m concerned that puts you on another level automatically because finding people and businesses that actually honor their commitments is growing harder all the time.  Honoring your commitments is akin to keeping your word, doing what you say, being responsible for your actions, all that stuff that doesn’t seem to mean a whole lot to anyone anymore.  If we get it done, great, and if not, “Well, oh well” seems to be the refrain, and we leave it behind scarcely without a thought as to it’s impact on others and ourselves.

     Failure to honor commitments seems like it’s a national pastime with our federal government, and elected officials all leading the way, and what seems to be good enough for them, seems to be just as good for the people they represent.  Doesn’t seem like much changes over time, and through the course of history, to me.  The same things going on today were going on back in the time of the prophet “Malachi.”  Just as much of the leadership and people of today aren’t overly keen about honoring their commitments, so the Priests and people of Malachi’s day weren’t much better.  If you’ll look at the second chapter of Malachi, you’ll see many similarities between the so called priests, preachers, and teachers of that day, and the ones that are leading a lot of our churches and religious institutions today.  Matter of fact, in many of our churches you would be hard pressed to see any difference at all between the two.

     I realize this is a pretty stern statement, and more than likely some of you reading this are going to be offended, but as an old saying goes, “if the shoe fits.”  Well, you get the idea.  Malachi 2:2 says, “If ye will not hear; and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of Hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.”

     They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it seems to me that these 53 God inspired and prophetically written words draw a pretty good picture, too.  I’ve always been amazed that of all the many different views we have of God, so few of God’s children ever view Him as a God of Discipline.  The nation of Israel didn’t have any trouble viewing God as such.  They had seen it first hand, and more than once.  Just as an experiment, do a word study on “curses” in the Bible.  You already have an inkling of what you’ll find if you’ve read the above paragraph carefully. 

     It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to me to say that our country-the good, old US of A-is in pretty much the same condition as the priests and people of Malachi’s day were in, and for pretty much the same reason.  Our spiritual leaders are doing the same kind of things as the priests of those days were.  Malachi 2:5: says “My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name.”   The priests of that by gone era had broken God’s covenant of peace that He had made with the tribe of Levi.  That covenant of peace extends to every child of God through Jesus Christ, but just like the priests of Malachi’s day we’ve often broken it by failing to give God the reverence He deserves, and by failing to live by his commands.  When we do so we deprive ourselves of “life and peace.” 

     We as a society have fallen into the same quagmire as the people in those days.  They failed to honor their commitments, to God, to their office, and to the people, but their most abysmal failure was in their failure to honor the covenant of marriage.  Now, please understand, it’s not my intention to reopen old wounds, to make people relive the past, or to cause anyone pain by mentioning this, and I’m truly sorry if I have.  I understand the pain of divorce because I’ve been through it myself, and I’m very much aware of  and sympathize with those who have had to go through it, and please know that I’m not judging.  Those of us who have experienced divorce came to it from different angles, for different reasons, and it’s nobody’s right other than God’s to judge or condemn someone for it. 

     Having said that, our society has succumbed to the same covenant-breaking, God-hating practice that the people of Malachi’s day were guilty of.  In part, our spiritual leaders, are to blame for this in that they have failed to communicate God’s view of marriage to His people.  Let me be clear, as God’s Holy Word, is clear.  God intended marriage to be between one man and one woman for life.  God hates divorce.  To say anything else any other way would be a lie.  He hates it.  He hates the destruction it causes His people, their families, and worst of all the incalculable damage done to children.  He hates it because it’s a blight, a stain, upon His people who were intended to be a pure and holy people. 

     As Christians, we hold a God-honoring, responsibility, to uphold and to keep our covenant-making marriages intact.  This is a sacred thing and not to be taken lightly or to be treated trivially.  I cannot stress enough how important and how serious God views this covenant between a man and a woman.  Honoring this commitment is and should be your highest form of praise and worship to God, and is your most sincere witness as to His place in your life.

     We, as Christians, our duty bound to honor our commitments to: our spouses, our families, our business interests,  our brothers and sisters in Christ, and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  We cannot hold anyone else responsible, no group, no individual person, no organization, for the condition our once-great country is in.  The failure is ours, but all is not lost.  We as God’s people, as the unified, loving body of Christ, are never more than a prayer away from His love and forgiveness and restoration.  Let us, as the Christians we’re called to be,  kneel and pray, and honor our commitments today.