Changed By Love

Changed By Love

Following the Lamb wherever he goes… Revelation 14:4

The Gift of His Peace

By David Wilkerson
[May 19, 1931 – April 27, 2011]

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).

When I reread this passage recently, I was struck by something I had never seen before. Paul instructs us to stop worrying, go to God with prayer and supplication, and thank Him for the answer. But he never says anything about getting answers! Paul says nothing about receiving a word of direction, deliverance, miracles, or healing. Instead, he says we receive a gift of the peace of God!

God answers all our requests and supplications with the gift of His peace: “Let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (v. 6-7).

In other words, God’s first answer to our every prayer and heart-cry is His peace! All praying people have this one thing in common: No matter how bad they feel going into their secret closet of prayer, they come out filled with His peace! God has limited Himself to His own government. This is known as the providence of God. He does things here and there, preparing people’s hearts and orchestrating events, but until His providence works out the answer to your prayer, He says, “I am going to give you not what you think you need, but what I know you need—peace of mind and heart!”

Many of us wrestle with the Lord in prayer. We petition Him with crying and tears; we pound heaven’s gates; we claim every promise. But as the days, weeks and months go by, we begin to wonder: “Why won’t You answer, Lord? What is blocking my prayer? What have I done to grieve or displease You?”

The fact is, God already has said to us, “Here is My peace that passes all understanding! Take it and let it rule in your heart while I work out all things for your good!” We are to be kept in God’s peace until His promise is worked out by the Holy Spirit!

Hold on to His peace and let it rule and reign in your heart!

Read this devotion online: http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/node/15140?src=devo-email

God Triumphs!

This is an email that I received from Shawn Carney of 40 Days for Life.

The Fall Campaign has started.

This is Day 2.

Pray for 40 Days for Life and get involved if you can.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have to say that the ENTHUSIASM I’m seeing and
hearing is really uplifting — and also humbling.

The dedication and prayers of so many — like you —
have made this the largest 40 Days for Life campaign
ever … and prayer always sustain us through
adversity. Here are a few examples.

—————————————————–
FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS
—————————————————–

The people who arrived for the 40 Days for Life kickoff
event outside the abortion center in Fayetteville got
a bit of a surprise — a brand-new sprinkler system,
with the sprinkler heads pointed directly at the prayer
volunteers.

“The owner of the business complex turned the sprinklers
on as soon as we set up all our equipment,” said Tiffany
in Fayetteville. “And they kept the sprinklers on for
two hours.”

One co-owner spent the entire two hours “pacing and
walking up and down the parking lot, yelling at us and
telling the police to arrest us,” she said. “Needless
to say, the police officers were polite and explained
they could not arrest us.”

The prayer volunteers were then greeted with loud,
obscene music from inside the building. “We sang and
played worship music and lifted our voices to God,”
Tiffany explained. “Our God songs drowned out the
vulgar music.”

Through it all, the prayer volunteers refused to be
discouraged. “The bottom line — God triumphed,” she
said. “Praise the Lord!”

—————————————————–
TOCCOA, GEORGIA
—————————————————–

Bright and early on Day 1, a young woman stopped by
the 40 Days for Life vigil site in Toccoa and gave
Mary a great big hug.

“Please know that people are noticing what you are
doing,” the woman said. With tears in her eyes, she
showed Mary a picture of her son.

This young mom said she had been on her way to have
an abortion when her car broke down. She had to use
the money she had saved up for an abortion to get
her car fixed. Soon after, she decided to keep her
baby — and now was so very happy with her choice.

“She also agreed to stop back and sign up to join our
campaign,” said Mary. “We are looking forward to
seeing her again, and hope to be able to send more
stories like this.”

—————————————————–
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
—————————————————–

About 75 people came out for the 40 Days for Life
kickoff in Las Vegas. “The sun was hot,” said Linda,
one of the local leaders, “but many were willing to
brave the heat … in support of the dignity of human
life.”

The event began with music — and the sound of the
shofar, the traditional ram’s horn. “Pastor Wally
Smith of House of Israel Fellowship proclaimed a
Bible passage and called us to bravely fight the
evil of abortion that occurs here in our city nearly
every day,” said Linda.

“Let’s stand ready to storm heaven with prayer,” she
said, “and then humbly await God’s will.”

To see a photo of the kickoff event in Las Vegas,
please go to:

http://40daysforlife.com/blog/?p=2255

Here’s today’s devotional from Fr. Frank Pavone,
national director of Priests for Life…

—————————————————–
DAY 2 INTENTION
—————————————————–

Pray for those who work in the abortion industry, and
for those who have repented of committing abortions
and have resolved to defend life.

—————————————————–
SCRIPTURE
—————————————————–

Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into
your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said
this, he breathed his last. The centurion, seeing
what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this
was a righteous man.”

— Luke 23:46-47

—————————————————–
REFLECTION by Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life
—————————————————–

“Those of us who have participated in the killing of
unborn children are the Centurions of today. We have
dropped our swords against the unborn child. Now we
must recognize the depth of our guilt and deal with
the ramifications… To revitalize our humanity we
need to forgive and be forgiven, to reconcile and be
healed.”

These words come from a brochure of the Society of
Centurions, an organization for former abortion
providers. These words convey in a beautiful and
moving way what is happening across the nation as
hundreds of abortionists and their staff members
experience repentance, conversion, and healing.

How does this conversion begin? Dr. Philip Ney
writes, “The factors that changed their opinion on
performing abortions, in the following order of
frequency, were: evidence of the infant’s humanity, a
spiritual experience, personal distress, evidence of
the mother’s distress, scientific articles, being
accepted as a person, a personal relationship with a
pro-lifer, pro-life pickets.” (The Centurion’s
Pathway, p. 77).

The journey is not easy. But the Jesus who heals us
calls us to face the truth of what we’ve done, make
restitution where possible, and engage in the hard
work of mending relationships. Let’s pray for the
Centurions; may their numbers increase!

—————————————————–
PRAYER
—————————————————–

Lord, we thank you for those who have repented of
committing abortions and have resolved to defend
life. We too repent and resolve.

We repent of every instance in which fear has made us
silent when we should have spoken. We repent of the
ongoing bloodshed in our land, and for thinking that
we can deprive the unborn of protection but keep it
for ourselves.

We resolve that we will advance the cause of
righteous candidates for public office, and that we
will be more afraid of offending you by our silence
than of offending others by our speech. We resolve
that we will proclaim your name to the nations,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Mother of All Sins

by David Wilkerson
[May 19, 1931 – April 27, 2011]

I could list a whole catalog of sins that believing Christians practice, but none of them would come near to the sin that I want to talk about. The mother of all sins—the one that gives birth to all others—is the sin of unbelief!

I am not speaking of the unbelief of a hardened sinner. The unbelief of reprobates, agnostics and atheists does not move God at all. No, what angers God more than anything else is the unbelief and troubling doubts of those who call themselves by His name! His children who say, “I am of Jesus,” and yet hold doubt, fear and unbelief in their hearts grieve Him more than all others!

How seriously does God take this sin of unbelief! Jude warned the church with these words: “But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (Jude 5).

Jude is reminding believers of God’s attitude toward unbelief! He is saying, “I am bringing to your remembrance God’s utter hatred for unbelief among His saved people. Having saved the people, afterward He destroyed the ones who did not believe!”

Beloved, I believe that God has called me to put His church in remembrance of this same thing! “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). God may no longer destroy His people physically as He did in the Old Testament but His judgments on our unbelief today are spiritual and they are just as severe.

Unbelief is just as destructive today as it ever was. We may not turn into a pillar of salt, but we do become stiff-necked and bitter! The ground does not open up to swallow us but we are swallowed by troubles, stress and family problems. Fire does not come down and consume us but our spiritual life is destroyed.

Many of us are guilty of the mother of all sins and we do not fear it. We do not take our unbelief seriously; in fact, we live as though God winks at it. And yet it is the one sin that opens our body and spirit to every other sin known to man.

Read this devotion online: http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/node/15100?src=devo-email

History for History-Makers

Here are some of Charlotte Mason’s thoughts about studying “The Knowledge of Man” or History:

“It is a great thing to possess a pageant of history in the background of one’s thoughts.” (vol. 6, p. 178)

“Perhaps the gravest defect in school curricula is that they fail to give a comprehensive, intelligent and interesting introduction to history.” (vol. 6, p. 178)

We need to “offer such a liberal and generous diet of History to every child in the country as shall give weight to his decisions, consideration to his actions and stability to his conduct; that stability, the lack of which has plunged us into many a stormy sea of unrest.” (vol. 6, p. 179)

Living books about the lives of great men and women of the past are the best History books I’ve ever read. I’ve used History and Bible as the basis of our homeschooling for about five years now. I wish I could tell you about all of the wonderful stories we’ve read through the years. But a list would not convey the depth of feeling, the life, the connectedness or bonding that have come from reading these stories aloud to my children.

We have truly enjoyed these stories together. It’s better than a TV show or movie or any other form of entertainment. We each paint our own picture in our imagination and flesh out the characters and action in the way that comes to us, but at the same time, it’s a shared experience. Later, we share things that we remember and we find that different things struck someone than what stood out to me and vice versa. It’s not a forced sharing, but a thought comes to someone and they say, “remember in that one story about the little girl…” and the rest of us jump in with things we remember about it.

My boys just did this yesterday. We read about repeater rifles being used in the Civil War, and Patrick was surprised that they already had something that advanced that early. I remembered that there was something about rifles in the story Rifles for Watie (the title kind of gives that away). I brought it up but couldn’t remember any details about the rifles or even what they had to do with the story.

Patrick and Shawn started recapping what happened in the story and they remembered lots of details and were having a great time discussing what would have happened if the South had been able to get hold of those rifles and things that happened to the main character, Jeff, when it was discovered that he was a spy, and all sorts of cool details. I didn’t remember any of that, but don’t tell them.

A trip to Gettysburg helped to bring History to life!

Patrick even remembered Jeff’s full name and asked me if he was a real person in history. They talked about the bushwhackers and how we’ve always had problems with mobs like that in America taking advantage of turmoil and going around and robbing people and hurting them.

All of this discussion came from reading a book about Robert E. Lee and remembering another story we had read about the Civil War and how it affected Missouri. We read that book about 5 years ago. It seems to have made an impression on them.

I am offering a liberal and generous diet of History to my children. I hit on an idea of studying American History by reading at least one good biography of each American president. So far, we’re only to John Quincy Adams. I need to find one about Andrew Jackson. I read things like Childhood of Famous Americans and Landmark books to get historical stories that are interesting to the ages of all of my children.

I have used ideas from Heart of Wisdom, History Revealed and Charlotte Mason.

We have a timeline notebook that I keep track of for the kids. I have them color pictures of historical scenes and people (we use History Through the Ages timeline figures) and I put them in the timeline notebook where they belong.

We do some mapping and put our maps and charts in our notebooks.

We have used different means of narrating, such as plays we acted out and stories that we have written based on the historical era or biblical story that we’re learning about.

I do end up covering different times in History at the same time since I go where life and the Spirit lead us. For instance, right now we’re studying the beginning of the American nation, the Civil War and some British and French History around the reign of King Henry II, through reading A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver and If All the Swords in England. I intend to delve into Church History and the Medieval Period through Diana Waring’s curriculum Romans, Reformers, and Revolutionaries.

I also intend to read more G. A. Henty books aloud. I have read several to myself and have gained so much knowledge of History that I never even came close to learning through all of my school and college years.

Through studying History with my children in this way I have become a deeper thinker and, dare I say it, almost a philosopher. I have made connections and understood things about human nature that I hadn’t seen before. I’m seeing God’s hand in History through the Bible and through the books that I’m using in our study of History. I’m learning things that I’m ready at my maturity and understanding level to really grasp as my children learn what they are able to glean from our studies.

I believe that reading books about heroes and men and women of great character is teaching my children to become great men and women – History-Makers!.

Our study of History is the mainstay of our homeschool curriculum. It has enriched our family life and brought great fulfillment and enjoyment, satisfying our hunger to learn and to understand what’s happening in the world around us.

Favorite History Resources

Heart of Wisdom – Adam to Messiah by Robin Sampson

History Revealed by Diana Waring

Sonlight catalog booklist for each year

YWAM Books – Christian Heroes Then and Now

G. A. Henty Books – “Henty readers learn in-depth history, superior vocabulary and literary techniques, and the advantages of high personal character – while they are being entertained by a master storyteller.” from Robinson Curriculum website – you can read these free online at gutenberg.org or archive.org

Childhood of Famous Americans

Landmark Books

History Through the Ages Timeline Figures
and all Homeschool in the Woods products

All Through the Ages List of Books for each age of History by Christine Miller

Lamplighter Books – These books are great for teaching our children good Christian character and for giving our students a taste of what different eras were like.

I have found many, many of these type of books at the library. That is my favorite resource of all!

This post is included in the Charlotte Mason Carnival at Fisher Academy International.

And it’s included in the Carnival of Homeschooling at Consent of the Governed.