In the hands of a capable God.

Either the Bible is the Word of God, not to be questioned, but to be believed and obeyed, or it is an outdated religious record to be applied at our discretion and convenience.

If you accept the Bible as the Word of God, you can’t pick and choose which Bible verses are pertinent to our culture. You must believe that God is capable of writing a book that is supra cultural

---M. Pearl


Hmmm...you all think about that tonight.

To read the article this quote is taken from go here.

Every six seconds a child dies of starvation.

That fact nags on me relentlessly.
Every time I buy a stick of gum.
Every time I buy a favorite snack of flavor blasted gold fish.
I look down at the smiling fish in my hands
and see a dozen meals worth of money,
a dozen saved lives,
set aside
so I can satisfy my craving.

I see the faces of children, their faces
caved in with hunger.
I see the woman who holds her dying child. Her eyes
are empty, lacking the hope of God. Lacking
the strength
that God grants.
Her eyes are deep and emotionless.
Joyless.
Because she cannot provide sustenance
For her child to survive.

I come upon the verse,
"remember those in bonds
as if you were bound with them"

If they are naked, cloth them.
If they are hungry, feed them.

Two simple commands that are forgotten
because our churches need
soft, cushioned chairs
so we can have someplace to sit.
We forget that millions call a cement floor
a luxury.

I remember the pictures
that the women at church brought home
of people
living in trash.
Of a boy who was shamed
because all he had to wear,
all he could find,
was a T-shirt
and a pair of girls tights.

He did not have
a pair of boy's pants.

Unknown to most,
you can feed an entire family
for less
then a dollar day,
on the other side of the planet.

We turn our eyes away from the scruffy man
sitting outside the supermarket.
Turn them away from the harried, grubby mother
who snaps at her children.
Twenty dollars
in the name of God
for food or a night out
is enough to impact her
for the rest of her life.
A smile
without scorn
could make her cry.

You feel guilty as you read this,
but you will forget
eventually.

My words will pass
forgotten.

But my dreams will not.

Because I cannot stop dreaming of those children.
innocent
fearful.
I keep dreaming of those children,
and in those dreams
I hold them.
I tell them Jesus loves them.
I tell them of a better Father
a better place.

But then I wake
And the children are gone.
So brief a time that I was with them.

So how come
I can't forget them-
push their faces away?

You might be able to forget,
but I cannot.

God will not
allow it.

Faith like a child

A couple weeks ago I was reading an article about a prayer wheel. It's this big round thing with an intricate design that runs around the whole thing. You follow the design and it takes you about half an hour or more to get to the end, it really depends on how fast you want to go. It's supposed to be for prayer and meditation.

Well, one of the 'churches' in my town rented it for people to use, imagine, renting out prayer, and a local news paper had done an article about it. It had a picture of two young girls walking the circle and they looked to be having a good time. They were quoted to say "this is fun, were praying!"

Now people, the prayer wheel is not Christian, so this is bad.

I read it to my dad, and told him how sad it was. Those two girls were told by their parents that if you walk the wheel, your praying. He said that almost all five year olds can't really understand prayer, though. Even if your Christian. When I told him I prayed all the time when I was five, I could tell he was doubtful.

After I got to thinking about it, I was better at prayer when I was five then I am now at sixteen. I talked to God all the time, about everything! I didn't have to go on my knees and make myself to feel small and unworthy, I just talked to Him. I would tell Him hi and how I felt about things, ask Him to heal someone. I would pray we wouldn't have such and such for dinner, and if we did I would pray that I could choke it down. I would have a conversation with Him as if He were an old buddy of mine. Now realize I didn't pray out loud, most of the time it was in my head. But He was all to real to me, I never doubted for a moment that God created everything and that He listened to me.

Now, looking back at it all, I wonder how I could have lost all that. How could I have forgotten

At five years old I had given Him the only thing that could please Him...faith.

Faith

I live by faith because, as a Christian, that’s the only way too live. I believe God is real and that He fulfills His promises, and fulfilled one by sending His only Son to be a sin offering on the cross for me.
Faith, the way the bible defines it, does not mean I can skip life, car or health insurance, that’s just living recklessly. Having faith does not mean I believe God will give me a life of ease and comfort, shielding me from the bumps and turns on the road, guarding me from hurt. No! It means God will test me, try me by fire, and purify me. My faith in my God is more precious to Him than gold. It is the only thing that pleases Him.

I live by faith by just believing in God. God says I will go to heaven because I believe on His son, I know I’m going to heaven when my time is up! I don’t have any physical evidence of heaven, I don’t have any proof beyond God’s word, but I believe I’m going there. Just because God says so. Faith isn’t something I muster up when I pray, willing myself to ‘have faith’ in God. Faith isn’t some sort of ‘power’ I have to perform miracles.

I live by faith just like Abraham lived by faith. God told Abraham that he would be a father of a great nation, and he believed. Even though he and his wife were far past the age of producing children, he believed that God would find a way. When God told him to kill his only son, the physical evidence of God’s promise, Abraham obeyed. He believed God would still know a way, he assumed that God would just bring his son up from the dead, because He keeps his promises. In the same way I believe and trust God. I have no fear of death, because God says that we will go to be with Him when we die, I have faith that He will keep His promise I don’t fear the devil because the bible says Christ has already defeated satan, I live by faith by believing that satan has no power over me. I live by faith when I obey God. If He tells me to give away all my money, I will. If He tells me to forsake everything and go deep into the jungle and share the gospel with a hostile tribe, I will. It doesn’t matter who or what stands in my way, I know it will come to pass, because He said so, and I have faith that God keeps His promises.

I believe that I am free from sin because Jesus died on the cross in my place. I don’t have evidence of it, I just have faith. I have faith that when the bible says, ‘obey on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved’ it is the truth. I have faith that Christ came down to be a man and suffered on the cross, bearing my sins, taking my punishment, and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and that ALL I have to do is believe on Jesus, and what He did for me, and be born again, to be saved. I don’t have any evidence of that, I just have faith.


God told me that, so I believe.




My faith essay for Awana, 300 words or more. This is what faith is and how it is in my life, short and sweet.