The Upper Room - all things Christian

Praying for ya!

Let us know how you're doing once you get back up and running.

 

10-4 on that.

Don't lift anything heavier than a tomato sandwich for a few days!

 

I thought this was a good read.......helps to understand war, personally and nationally.......

Proverbs Day 193 (KJV):

Proverbs 20:18 (KJV):
18 Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war.

Proverbs 20:18 (AMP):
18 Purposes and plans are established by counsel; and only with good advice make or carry on war.

Thoughts for the Day

The book of Proverbs is full of wise advice throughout its pages. In verse 18 we are told to undertake counsel in order to establish our plans and purposes and especially in the matter of war. There is another verse in Proverbs that also tells us there is safety in Godly counsel.

In the verse below, it states that for any purposes or projects to be accomplished,good counsel is a must. In fact in larger projects, a multitude of counselors will get it done, as opposed to one man. Team work is vital for a large vision to be accomplished. A good counselor is one who weighs out the pros and cons of any situation and suggests the best way to accomplish something, or even to correct something, if it is needed. With a multitude of many counselors, the goals and purposes will not be frustrated, but will be completed because of good help. Each department will have good suggestions to get the thing established.

Proverbs 15:22 "Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established."

When anyone is facing a situation that requires any kind of battle (making war) it is especially important not to go it alone. The very nature of war means you will need reinforcements to win the battle, as the one you attack will surely retaliate. The Bible is not against war when it is for a righteous cause; however, it should never be entered into lightly nor without ample counsel from those who will be your allies.

Some Christians are having difficulty with the actions of our government in the area of war, as the heart of Christianity is to love our enemies, not destroy them. How do we reconcile this as Christians? We must understand that the Bible deals with the role of government differently than that of an individual Christian. Throughout the Bible, the main role of governments was to protect its people from threatening invaders and to maintain law and order within its borders. This was done by maintaining a military force. Those who would argue against our country's military position, must also ask what our nation would be like without policemen and prisons.

God set boundaries on mankind by establishing ruling authorities that would make and enforce the laws He gave. The purpose for this was because He knew unregenerate society, without any restraints, would seek to destroy good men. God's desire is that all men would come to Him and live by His laws. However, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and broke His law, sin entered into the world and was passed down to all of mankind through Adam's seed. God, in His love for mankind, made a way for men to come back to Him, through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. Because Jesus lived free of sin and obeyed the law of God perfectly, He became the sin offering and died upon a cross, thus paying the price for all men's sin. He then rose from the dead the third day, showing that He indeed was the Son of God. Now those who accept what Jesus did and repent of their sins can find their way through faith to be reconciled to God. This sacrifice covers and cleanses men, even from the worst of sins, including murder. Now, through Christ, even murderers can be forgiven and restored to a relationship with God so they can live forever with Him; however, they must repent and give their lives wholly to Christ.

Where we find most of our problems with the military action of our government versus loving our enemies is that God's law of justice for the taking of a life demands that life be taken; yet, God's spiritual law of mercy and forgiveness grants that a murderer can be forgiven and restored. How can we reconcile this? We must understand that God instituted civil authorities to maintain order in the earth. God uses them to restrain evil and they should be obeyed for this purpose.

An analogy would be like a family that had a son at home and who was given love, freedom and many privileges. However, one day the son committed an evil crime and was sent to jail. The rules he lived under at home while he was obedient must now be changed to the rules of the jail because of the son's sin. The same is true with God. His will is to bless the earth and all those who obey and live in harmony; but for those who disobey, He had to set up separate rules so that the ones who are evil do not destroy the good. War is like that, as God uses civil authorities to maintain order in the earth. God is a God of love, but He is also a God of justice. Sometimes battles must be fought to bring justice to bear on situations in this life.

Romans 13:1-5 (RSV):
1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
2 Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval,
4 For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.
5 Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

From these verses we see that governments can elect to bear the sword (go to war) to deal with evil men. Although the act of war is a harsh form of punishment upon evil invaders, the alternative is far worse -- the destruction of innocent people by wicked aggressors.





Prayer for the Day

Dear Heavenly Father: We know that You hate war, but You also hate what evil men do to innocent men, women and children; therefore, wars come when good men stand against the evil of wicked men. May You grant all that fight in righteous causes Your grace, wisdom, strength and ability to overcome evil. Lord, give all righteous rulers and leaders Your wisdom as they direct the course of war. Protect those who are on the battlefields fighting in these conflicts. Bless their families and give them comfort and faith in Your ability to protect and keep those who call upon You! Lord, may we prevail in every righteous cause and stand united behind all those who must pursue the course of war to overcome evil. I ask this in the name of Jesus, Your Son. Amen.

 

Surgery went well. thanks for the prayers. 1st pain meds make me throw up, real fun after tummy area surgery. 2nd seem to be working ok. Trying to walk around the house a little at a time.

 

Thanks for the update, hope you will improve day by day. Will continue to remember you in prayer.

 

You'll have abs of steel in no time after puking your guts out.

Just messin' :mrgreen:

I really hope you continue to improve and GET BETTER!!!

 

The First Time - Leona Lewis

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=f02e9b6684d26a15ecf5

this is awesome

 

I Believe

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=70ca7c611160c58475c3

 

Made it back to work the Monday (4 days later). I have a desk job, and my wife drove me until Wed. Now 1 week and a day later I walked 1 block tonight. Feeling better all the time. Thanks for the prayers!

 

Tony Snow testimony - awesome

This is an outstanding testimony from Tony Snow, President Bush's Press Secretary, and his fight with cancer.

Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush Administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen,- leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but has resigned since, "for economic reasons," and to pursue "other interests."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence "What It All Means," Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the "why" questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this, - or because of it, - God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life,- and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non believing hearts - an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, and exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease,- smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, - but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance; and comprehension - and yet don't. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

'You Have Been Called'. Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the healer announces.

The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter, - and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."

There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and fears.

'Learning How to Live'. Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.

I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was an humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity, - filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, - to speak of us!

This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God's hand."

October 2007

 

Another good read form bible.com. Click on the devotional link and the lady that does these ahs a new one everyday.......



Proverbs Day 204 (KJV):

Proverbs 21:11-12 (KJV):
11 When the scorner is punished, the simple is made wise: and when the wise is instructed, he receiveth knowledge.
12 The righteous man wisely considereth the house of the wicked: but God overthroweth the wicked for their wickedness.

Proverbs 21:11-12 (AMP):
11 When the scoffer is punished, the fool gets a lesson in being wise; but men of wisdom and good sense learn by being instructed.
12 The (uncompromisingly) righteous man considers well the house of the wicked, how the wicked are cast down to ruin.

Thoughts for the Day

These verses in Proverbs show us that there are two ways to gain instruction in living. One is to learn by instruction and observation. The other is to learn by the experience of sowing and reaping. In verse 11 we are shown how the scorner learns a lesson when he does something foolish, because he will suffer punishment for his wrong doings. However, the wise person does not have to learn things the hard way because he will take advice and listen to instruction. Therefore, he will not suffer any ill effects because he will not do the things that cause them. This is the law of "cause and effect" or the Bible calls it the law of "sowing and reaping."

Many times God is blamed for things that He did not cause. God set the limits and boundaries for mankind and when we violate them, we cause problems for ourselves. God did not bring these on us. They come on us because we violate the law or the rules that God set. The only way we can blame God for these is to blame Him for creating us and giving us His rules. However, we should not be mad at God for doing this, as being one of His children is a great privilege, not something that is bad. We can avoid much of the pain we suffer in this world by obeying God's rules.

We can learn by two different means. We can learn by hearing and obeying, or we can learn by trial and error. If we hear and obey, we need not go through bad experiences to discover the truth. Some people declare they learned a lot through their tragedies. The same lessons, however, could have been learned by studying the Word of God, and then obeying it. For example, I do not have to learn the truth of the following Proverb through actual transgression, "...the way of transgressors is hard" (Proverb 13:15). I can simply believe that it is the truth, and commit no transgression. If I choose to disbelieve this verse and sin, I will find out the "hard way" that the way of the transgressor is hard. The Lord would have us believe His Word and obey it.

According to verse 12, another way we can avoid reaping evil consequences is by taking notice as to what happens to the wicked and thereby avoiding doing the things that they do. When we look at the fate of the wicked it should be a visual lesson for us not to engage in the kind of activities that brought them down. The wicked are destroyed by reaping what they have sown.

Psalm 9:16a: The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.

The Lord instructs us to follow Him in submissive obedience and not be like a horse or mule that has to have a bit and bridle in its mouths to guide it. We are promised mercy and blessing when we follow God, while the wicked will suffer many sorrows.

Psalm 32:8-10:
8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.
9 Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.
10 Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about.


Prayer for the Day

Dear Heavenly Father, I praise You and thank You that You do hear and answer my prayers. Lord, help me stay on the straight and narrow path so that I do not go down the wrong roads and have to learn the hard way. Lord, I know that when I diligently seek you, that You will answer me and save me from many pitfalls. Help me to avoid the things that will cause me pain and trouble in the future. I want to hear Your voice so that I can make wise decisions and avert many of the traps and tribulations that the enemy wants to use to destroy me. Keep me from evil, and help me to trust You. Please give me the strength to obey You in all things. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

 

Without You -- Big Daddy Weave

Even though it's been around a while I still love this song. Nice little video too.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9v2rYe_Ylaw

 

Salvador

Aware http://youtube.com/watch?v=1VuADesfPqI

What Would It Be Like http://youtube.com/watch?v=xn2Rt-onbZE

 

Thanks for introducing me to this artist!

 

Smart

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=bdfc40720b2c71be2d43

 

You're so welcome! Let me introduce you to the lead singer's wife, in case you've never heard of her (even though this is a pretty old song) http://youtube.com/watch?v=bJAvPQyS5O0&feature=related

They have a baby boy together... don't you know that kid is going to be talented!

 

:lol:

 

What a terrible loss....:cry:

http://harvest.org/
Statement on the Death of Christopher Laurie, Son of Pastor Greg Laurie
July 24, 2008

Christopher Laurie, son of Pastor Greg Laurie and Cathe Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, died this morning in a car accident in Riverside. A resident of Huntington Beach, Laurie, 33, served as the art director at Harvest Christian Fellowship for the past three years.

In addition to his parents, Christopher is survived by his wife, Brittany, and daughter, Stella, as well as his brother Jonathan. Christopher and his wife are expecting another daughter in November.

Memorial plans for Christopher are pending. More information will be posted to the Harvest website as details become available.

 

Brandon Heath

I love the way this guy sings!

Here is his newest song, "Give Me Your Eyes" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGr8as7pPBE&feature=related

his debut song, "I'm Not Who I Was" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpOLyR8MwiA

and a song from in between :-D "Don't Get Comfortable" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpOBt4vfBwI

 

Birth Verses

http://www.birthverse.com/default.cfm