Author: admin

Something Good

Remember the song, “Don’t Give Up on the Brink of a Miracle”? Wouldn’t you hate to get to heaven and find out that you gave up just before the answer came to pass? Keep that in mind today. Maybe the answer to your prayer is right there in the spirit just ready to come to pass, so don’t let go. Keep your faith up there.

The Bible speaks of “waiting.” That is not just sitting on your thumbs, groaning and complaining about the problem, wishing and hoping God or someone would DO SOMETHING!  No! Bible “waiting” is an eager anticipation of something good about to happen.

Oral Roberts had a motto some years ago, “Expect a Miracle” and his praise team on the show sang a song, “Something Good is Going to Happen to you, happen to you, this very day, something good is going to happen to you, Jesus of Nazareth is passing your way.”

Your assignment today should you chose to do it is, if you know that song, sing it all day. Hum it. Think about it. If you don’t know the tune, make one up and sing it to yourself.

Sing it this way,

Something good is going to happen to ME
Happen to me, this very day
Something good is going to happen to ME
Jesus of Nazareth is right here with me.

And then expect a miracle. Expect things to change. Don’t expect it all to continue as it has been in the past. Today is NEW DAY! Things are changing. Spring is in the air. The seasons are changing, the world is changing, the Church is changing, I am going to change with God.

I am not going to wallow around in the muck anymore, groaning and complaining that nothing good ever happens to me. No! I am going to sing and praise the Lord and expect a miracle today and every day until the Lord comes or I go to be with Him.

Shock yourself, your spouse, your family, your friends, by praising the Lord. We can change the atmosphere around us. It will make people wonder, “What’s up with her?” Put a smile on your face and a song on your lips and tell the world, I am glad to be alive today. Jesus died but He is risen! Praise the Lord. I don’t serve a dead God! My God is alive and He hears and answers prayers.

 Have you ever driven by a beautiful home and wished you could look inside? I love those magazines, like Southern Living, that show the insides of homes and how they are designed and decorated. And at  Christmastime, I love to drive around looking at the bright lights and  wondering how they have their homes decorated inside for the holidays.

John the Baptist saw through the open doors of heaven and he saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove and lighting upon Jesus. Then they heard the voice from heaven, saying “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

 Jacob in the Old Testament dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven and angels going up and coming down. Isn’t it interesting that he saw them going up first? I like to think they were going up to the throne of God to get the blessings to bring them down to us.

 Stephen, as he was being stoned, looked into heaven and he saw the Lord Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of the Father. In Ephesians, it says that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, so  what caused Him to rise from His seat and stand? The martyr’s death of His  beloved disciple, Stephen. Jesus stood to welcome Stephen personally through the doors of heaven.

 Doors and windows are for two purposes, both out and in. So while the Lord has the doors of heaven open, pouring out blessings on us, I would like to look in. (I’m not quite ready to ‘go in,’ if you know what I mean!)

Looking through the open doors of heaven, through the Word of God, I get a glimpse of the grandeur to come.

 “I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” Revelation 3:8NIV

Some day born-again believers will each pass through the doors of heaven to be received into the eternal presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Gates of pearl, streets of gold, mansions designed and decorate beyond the imagination. No Christmas light display will compare to the beauty of Jesus, the Light of heaven. Every day will be a holiday, a holy day.

Nothing can compare to the glory of eternity with Jesus.

Our family was quarantined with scarlet fever when I was about 10. Someone from the health department posted a notice on our front door saying no one was to enter or exit the house for two weeks.

The corner grocery left sacks of groceries on our porch.  The school teachers came by to check on us and talked to Mama through the door.

Mama babysat a 2-year-old neighbor girl, so she was quarantined with us. I remember her mama talking to her through the window, but I don’t remember Diana being particularly upset. She called my mama “Mama Hightower” and spent almost as much time at our house as she did at her own.

After a couple of days, when we started feeling a little better, our experience was more like playing hooky from school. We did same thing we usually did—playing school and Sunday school. I was the teacher as we studied reading, writing, and arithmetic. We memorized Bible verses and read Bible stories.

It was fun for us kids but I can’t imagine what our poor mother went through, with four sick kids, and only herself to take care of them.

Lepers were quarantined in Bible days. They were required by Levitical law to call out as they walked, “Unclean, Unclean!” so that people would know they were about to come in contact with a person with a highly contagious disease.

Luke tells the story of Jesus and the ten lepers in Luke 17:12-14 kjv. “And as he [Jesus] entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.”

It was unheard of for a quarantined leper to show up in the temple, to get near a priest, but if Jesus told them to, they believed they must obey, and as they did, they were healed.

As you believe and obey, your healing will come.

 

When I was preparing for Christmas Eve dinner at my home, I was working around the kitchen, and since the kids weren’t home yet, I also set the dinner table, complete with tablecloth, cloth napkins, my good dishes, glassware, and silverware, and matching serving bowls and platters. It’s about the only time I ever set the table.

The dining table, chairs, and china cabinet are new to me, from an estate sale, so I decided with the table all set and looking so pretty, I would take a picture of it, with the china cabinet in the background.. Of course, I meant to take a picture of the family after we were seated, but with all the commotion, I forgot.

We got a few good pictures of Christmas gift exchange, and when I uploaded the pictures to Facebook to show my friends, I also posted the picture of the table. For a description, I posted, “The table is set, dinner is ready, and I’m just waiting for the kids to get home.”

Just waiting for the family to get home.

“A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ Luke 14:16-17 NKJV

There’s an old gospel song, “Jesus has the table spread where the saints of God are fed, He invites His chosen people, Come and dine. With His manna He doth feed and supplies our every need, Oh, ’tis sweet to sup with Jesus all the time!” (Come and Dine, Charles B. Widmeyer, public domain, 1907)

Jesus has been preparing a place for you, for all of  us who believe, a place in heaven that’s just waiting for God’s children. We will all sit down at the table of the Marriage Supper of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

Jesus told His disciples in John 14:2, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

He’s ready and waiting for the Family of God to come home.

 

 

When we were kids, we always got our Christmas tree the last day of school before Christmas, given to us by the school teachers. Every year for many years, we got a tree on Christmas Eve and left it up until New Year’s Day.

When I had my own home, I couldn’t get in the mood to decorate until Christmas Eve and I usually left my tree up until New Year’s Day. One year I even thought about turning my tree into a Valentine tree, a St Patrick’s tree, and an Easter tree, maybe even a 4^th of July tree.

Of course I love a real cedar Christmas tree. I used to buy a real tree every year, usually from the fire station or grocery store. The last few years that I bought a real tree, I got a 3 or 4-foot tall Scotch pine to set on a corner table.

I love the smell of a real Christmas tree, but about 5 years ago, I was tested for allergies and discovered I am allergic to cedar trees. I should have known. It seemed like I always had a cold, with a runny nose and sneezing around Christmas time each year. When I finally gave in and bought that first 6-foot tall artificial Christmas tree, I mysteriously didn’t get sick. As much as I love a real live Christmas tree, my health comes first.

Within the Christmas story is the story of the cross. God becoming flesh through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of a virgin, Mary—this is the beginning, but the end of the story is Christ on the tree, the cross of Calvary, giving Himself completely for the whole world.

“Because Christ also suffered for us,…^. who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” I Peter 2:21-24.

From the words of the old hymn, The Old Rugged Cross, written by George Bennard, (1873-1958) —  “So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it some day for a crown.”

I’m sure all Mary wanted was to be left alone, so she could rest after the birth. She sure wasn’t ready for any company, much less strangers.  

However not long after she gave birth and wrapped the baby in the special clothing she had brought with her, the shepherds came looking for the baby that the angels had told them about. Shepherds lived with their sheep night and day, never shaved, seldom bathed. They were a rude and crude bunch of men. And they were wanting to look at her baby.  

Can you imagine what it must have been like for Mary, a teenager, to give birth without her mother or other women relatives, with only Joseph to help her, in the unclean surroundings of a barn? When the time came for the baby to be born, they were far from home, in Bethlehem.  

The miracle of Jesus’ birth has been told again and again, but it never grows old. The angel Gabriel announced it to Mary, the lowly little virgin girl, probably no more than 13 or 14 years old. telling her that the holy Child born to her would be the Son of God. The angel Gabriel said that Mary would “bring forth a song and shall call His name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest.” Luke 1:31

Because she knew this Child was Messiah, Mary willingly shared Jesus from the moment of His birth, even with the most lowly workmen of society in those days, the shepherds. 

Baby Jesus was not hers to keep. He had come for the whole world.