"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"

Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour

Thursday, June 27, 2013

It's Not Fair

How many times have you heard a child yell those words. Fairness is deeply ingrained into us even as a small child, but where did it come from? It's not something that we have to teach our children, they seem to be born with it. But how could we be born with an innate sense of fairness into a world that is patently unfair?

An unfair world should produce children without any expectation or even any sense of fairness, but that is not what we find. So where did the sense of fairness come from? It came from God, of course. Though, at times, it may not seem like it, God is completely fair. We may not see it on earth or even in our lifetime, but come eternity all will be seen as ultimately fair.


Our innate sense of fairness could come from no other source than a righteous God!  

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Judgmentalism

Judge not, lest you be judged. For by the judgement with which you judge, you shall be judged.
Matt 7:1,2

I've been a Christian for 30 years and have read these words of Jesus countless times, and agreed with them, intellectually. You see, I'm an intellectual person, it takes a long time for things to get from my head to my heart – but 30 years?!!!!

Apparently, I never considered myself to be judgemental. Others would quickly disagree, I'm sure. In fact, I'm so judgemental that I don't even have to say anything and people feel the condemnation. That comes from being a head person, not a heart person, a thinker rather than a feeler. We need both, of course, to be balanced, but balance was never my strength, thinking was.

Of course, judgmentalism requires a certain amount of pride and arrogance. You can't judge someone who is equal or higher than you, you can only judge your inferiors. Hence, I put myself above those whom I judge, looking down on them. I've known that for a long time, God showed me that in the early 1990's. But it still didn't stop me from judging people, not everyone, but some people.

Romans 2 tells us that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the same thing. You would think that would be a clue, but apparently not. Oswald Chambers in the June 22nd devotional in My Utmost for His Highest asks us if we believe that statement from the Bible. If we do, it must mean that the hypocrisy, fraud and unreality we see in others exists in us, if not outright, then, at least in possibility.

Ozzie also asks the question, “Who among us would dare to stand before God and say, 'My God, judge me as I have judged others'?” Not me, certainly. However, I am determined to change that. I'm repenting of my judgmentalism and asking the Lord's forgiveness for any damage I have done to His Name and His kingdom.

I'm also asking for the forgiveness of anyone out there whom I may have offended. I won't promise it will never happen again, but by the grace of God and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, in time, I expect to remove it completely from my life, whereby I can be judged by the atonement rather than the arbitrary standards that I set for others.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

What are We Doing?

These days, my wife, Patricia, does a lot of ministry over the internet to people suffering from Pulmonary Hypertension. She is involved in a closed Facebook group with men and women from around the world who have PH.

PH is an elevated blood pressure between the lungs and the heart. This damages he left ventricle of the heart. If untreated it usually is fatal within 2 or 3 years. If treated, you might get 10 or 20. It affects people of all ages, both sexes, and even little babies. It manifests in difficulty getting enough air to be able to function without great fatigue and dizziness. There are numerous other symptoms involved in PH.

A lot of doctors and even hospitals will not treat PH patients because they know so little about it. The only known cure is a lung transplant. Very often, by the time a PH'r is sick enough to qualify for a lung transplant, they often need a heart transplant too.

Some of the stories of these people, especially the young mothers, are both heart-breaking and, at times, uplifting because of their determination, courage and faith. Patricia offers them a listening ear, a sympathetic heart, and, very often, good, practical advice.

BTW, Pat was diagnosed with PH last fall, and today she is PH free. Read about her miraculous healing at: http://northwoodssaveachild.blogspot.ca/2013/05/god-answers-prayer.html. As I write this, Pat is giving the testimony of her healing to the women's group in the church in which she was healed.


As for me, I have been slogging away at learning to play the guitar. After a year and a half, I am still slogging - at times sounding not too terrible, at other times sounding just dreadful. Nevertheless, I improve slowly and continuously.

I also have to re-write part of the book I finished more than a year and a half ago. I decided it needed a better ending and asked God to give me one. He is doing just that, not only with Patricia's healing, but with the other project that I have been working on.

That project is called, Save A Child (from sexual abuse). After deciding to research the number of children being sexually abused (as I was), the answer was shocking and horrifying. For instance, at least 200 million girls will be sexually molested before they turn 18 years old, most of them repeatedly.

That is one in five girls globally, while some statistics show that in America, it may be one in four. To my mind, this is one of the worst atrocities man has afflicted himself with since the dawn of creation.

Searching the internet to see church involvement in doing something about this horror leads only to the church (Catholic mostly) being a part of the problem rather than a cure.

I'm calling on Christians to pray about this which is the least we can do. Please see: http://northwoodssaveachild.blogspot.ca/2013/06/save-child-from-sexual-abuse.html
for further information.

The blog has been viewed in ten countries nearly 400 times after less than 5 weeks of operation. We need it to go viral for the sake of the children.

God bless

Gary

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Uprising in Turkey

As mentioned in a previous post, see: "Turkey, key to a Russian/Islamic invasion of Israel", Turkey is vitally important to the prophesied Russian and Islamic invasion of Israel (Eze 38,39). Russia will have to go through Turkey to get to Israel. Some interpreters of these scriptures suggest that it is Turkey itself, not Russia, that will lead the Islamic invasion of Israel.

For either to happen, Turkey would almost certainly have to become an Islamic country. It is mostly Islamic, but politically secular. As pointed out in the above blog, that appears to be changing and many people don't like it. That's part of the reason there is so much rioting going on there now.

However, President Erdogan has very little patience for these rioters and if he can't restore order soon, he is liable to declare something akin to martial law. He has his own people in place in the military so the threat of a military coup, which has happened several times in the past, is very limited.

With martial law, Erdogan can instil more Islamic values on the people in the name of peace and good government, thus taking them one more step closer to a full-out Islamic state which would, most certainly, be an enemy of Israel.