Christian Reflection and Prayer

Scripture:
   
Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked,
"Are you also going to leave?" Simon Peter
replied, "Lord, to whom would we go? You
have the words that give eternal life.
John 6:67-68, NLT

Reflection:
   
After many of Jesus' followers had deserted
him, he asked the 12 disciples if they were
also going to leave. Peter replied, "To whom
shall we go?" In his straightforward way,
Peter answered for all of us--there is no other
way. Though there are many philosophies
and self-styled authorities, Jesus alone has
the words of eternal life.    
People look everywhere for eternal life and
miss Christ, the only source. Stay with him,
especially when you are confused or feel alone.    

(Life Application Daily Devotion)

Reflection:

One of the most difficult times in my
life is when I went through a divorce.
This was never ever suppose to happen
to me.  This only happened to other
people, people who did not have
"Christian" values.  I was brought up
better.  Divorce was morally wrong
and contrary to the teachings of
Jesus Christ. People like me, who had
my kind of background, just never
got divorced.  It was not ever spoken
of in my family. 
But here I was facing the most
difficult and heart wrenching period
of my life.  My wife was asking me
for a divorce.  In one brief moment.
on my 5th anniversary. the person
that I loved was telling me that she no
longer loved me and wanted to end
our relationship. I felt angry, hurt and
abandoned by my wife and my God.
As I speak of it now, I feel the pain in
my heart.  My eyes well up with tears
as I remember the hurt I felt and the
loneliness that I was about to experience
was overwhelming. I felt that this pain and
emptiness would never go away. That
my life was over and there was no longer
any reason to keep going. 
I found myself begging my wife to stay
with me and promising I would do anything
to keep her in my life. But this was not
enough and she left me.
I know what your thinking, "Here comes
the sermon, here comes the life changing
experience that brought meaning back
into my life".  Well that's not what happened.
IT WAS A LONG HEALING PROCESS NOT
AND OVERNIGHT REVELATION. It was a
process of discovery that yes indeed
eventually changed my life.  The discovery
in my life was this, that even though my wife left
me, MY GOD DID NOT. 
I know, to some, this sounds like some kind
of platitude that never happens.  Many people
say, without meaning, that God is there for you.
But I'm telling you and asking you to believe me
when I say, "GOD NEVER ABANDONED ME".
And I know, from personal experience that HE
WILL NEVER ABANDONED YOU!

GOD LOVES YOU AND HE LOVES ME AND I
PROMISE YOU "For it is by grace you have been
saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God". THROUGH HIS LOVE HE WILL
ALWAYS BE WITH YOU
AMEN

On God's Authority

1 Kings 19:9, 11-13; Psalms 85:9-14;
Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33

"Man of little faith, why did you doubt?"
(Matthew. 14:31).

At the age of four, I knew that God was
everywhere. I spoke to Him...But as I
grew toward manhood, the more I learned,
the less I believed in God...When I was
twenty-one, my superior intellect told me
that God was a fake. Heaven could not be
"up" and Hell could not be "down" because
in space there is no up or down. And I
knew that everything in creation dies,
including the smallest insect and the
biggest star.

These words were written by Jim Bishop,
the author of many best-selling biographies
and histories. "Then one day," he said,

I felt a new experience. I saw the miracle of
birth -- Virginia Lee, a child of my own -- and
it turned my wandering mind around. I began
to doubt my doubts. Gradually I lost faith in
my intellect. It was not supplying the needed
answers.

I could not see the air, but without it I would
die. Thus it is, I decided, with the spirit of man.
I needed something to breathe life into a soul
that had been crushed by the dominance of
the human mind.

What Jim Bishop needed was faith. "I was a
slow learner," he said, But, somehow,
somewhere, as I groped my painful way, I
found my soul...I knew it was there -- wounded,
bleeding perhaps, but alive.

I began to pray, and as faith returned to me,
I feared that it might dissolve again. So I prayed
for continuing faith.

It was only when I gave up -- when I let go and
allowed myself to be carried by God -- that I
began to really feel His Presence. He was there,
and I knew it!

I had wanted proof -- something for my eyes or
ears or hands. He wanted me to believe without
it. Faith and trust are what He required of me!
And He never rested till I found them.1

What is faith? Faith means acknowledging that
God can tell us truths beyond our human power
of reasoning. Faith means accepting truth on
God's authority.

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote...

He walked by faith and not by sight,
By love and not by law.
The presence of the wrong or right
He rather felt than saw.

DO YOU WALK BY FAITH?

(From the editors of Sunday Sermons Online)