NCarolinian

Sometimes second chances do not matter. In the account of The Fiery Furnace, Nebuchadnezzar was furious with anger about the disobedience of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego concerning their worship of his golden image at the prompting sound of his music. However, even in his "rage" ( Dan. 3:13 ), King Nebuchadnezzar gave the three Hebrew men a second chance (verse 15). The three Jewish men waived the second chance. One of my all-time favorite Bible verses is this next passage I will share. The concept is real and symbolic of how believers in Christ are to treat their most challenging life-trials.  "Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, 'King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or w...

I was talking and agreeing with my wife, Tanya, last night about how God never gets frustrated, fed-up, impatient or disgusted with our requests, petitions and prayers to Him. God will never say, "Oh Brother! Here comes Chad again with that same request." You will never hear The Lord say, "I wish Tanya will just give me a break, I've got the whole world to listen to and the whole universe to manage." In Scripture there are too many Come Unto Me or When You Seek Me You Will Find Me themed verses to counter a God pictured as possibly frustrated, fed-up, impatient or disgusted with our communication to Him. Sometimes I think we forget Christians have The Perfect Father as God. No matter what kind of parents or environment you grew up under, Father God is the perfect listener, Counselor and Father. An additional Amazing feature about our Heavenly Father is that He is always around. He never sleeps, He never slumbers. Through rough times, easy times, sad t...

What is your Source? There are so many directions for people to choose from for their life journey. And whether you are looking at your lifetime occupation, spiritual life or family life - there are a plethora of options vying for your selection.  When you do choose whether to have a family; what job to have; what governs your spiritual man/woman - what will you do when temptations from other influences come in each of these areas? Who or what will be your Source as you go through life?  Is it any wonder society has many drifters in life. In the family scene the drifter doesn't know what makes up The Family Unit any more and drifts with society's definition. In the job scene, the drifter does not hold down a single position with one company - there is no loyalty, no commitment and other character building features met here. In the spiritual life of a person, the drifter experiments with different belief systems and never settles on one. It is so important to have an ...

In the Old Testament there are many foreshadows to Christ and His sacrifice for us. Some foreshadows are obvious but others have to be read just at the right time for the perspective to leap off the page and deliver the Ah-Ha moment . Now observe the parallelism I noticed to Christ's Sacrifice as the writer of 1 Kings describes what Elijah did in preparation and execution of the sacrifice before the prophets of baal on Mount Carmel.  "Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down." [Indicative of Christ driving out the robbers, buyers and sellers from The Temple and making it a House of Prayer once again.]  "Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, 'Your name shall be Israel.' With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to ...

Prayer is a privileged communication with God made possible by Christ Jesus. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) So, when a person is a believer in Christ, that relationship with Jesus should eliminate any hesitancies from addressing Father God directly and confidently. Paul says to the Jews about this frankness,    " Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 4:16) This is a wonderful honor, however, what James says about prayer and the praying person is what I desire to reveal to you today. James 5:16 says, " The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." Because of all that Christ has done for me, I desire to be powerful and effective in my prayer life. The element that precedes having a Christian's prayer "powerful and effective" is being fo...

There are some places where chivalry is still practiced but it seems to be dying. The same could be said about good ole fashion manners. My observation over the last handful of years is common sense is declining at an alarming rate too.  James 4:17 is the last verse of that chapter. In this verse, James appeals to people's common sense of life, but uses the entire chapter leading up to that appeal to provide a list of good things they ought to do.  James 4:17 says, " If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them." Prior to this statement, James mentioned concerns that needed addressing in our relationship with each other and our relationship with God. Fights, quarrels, covetousness and even murder come from not placing God first in your life and asking Him about things with the right motive. (verses 1-5) Next, we are told to sever or totally cut away the world and all of it's systems/trappings. We do this by humblin...

Many of us have heard the phrase - Garbage in garbage out . This is a principle that describes the negative cause and effect relationship. Nature and nurture play the major roles in what kinds of inputs and outputs we exhibit. "We know biblically that it's true:  Whether positively or negatively, what a person continually sees and listens to will directly affect him in his soul, in his spiritual life, and in his walk with God. And the company a person keeps will affect him spiritually and influence the way he views God and others." (Sparkling Gems From the Greek 2, Renner, p. 480) Take for example the life of Lot. 2 Peter 2:8 speaks about Lot when he says, "... for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard..." . This pictures Lot as an upstanding, honest man when he moved to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. While there he was "tormented" by all the evil sights ...

I want to speak an encouraging word into your life today. I desire to remind you, my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, that happiness is attainable even in the face of challenging life-moments of sadness and the like. But if we treat them right, that is just what those challenges are - moments; lessons to learn, feelings to feel and this too shall pass. " We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." (2 Corinthians 4:8-10) I watched a three-part movie series recently called "Death Comes to Pemberley" (attached to the "Pride and Prejudice" story). In the final installment, the female lead, Anna Martin playing Elizabeth Darcy was speaking with her beloved about perspective and said, "Let's look to the past only as it gives us pl...