JESUS VISITS

JESUS VISITS

Last night we sat down to relax a little and watch a movie. That’s when Jesus came to hang out for a while. He does that often, not to deliver an earth-shaking message, but just to be with us. That was right before we experienced a total blackout. After spending a little time with Jesus, we knew we had nothing to fear.

 

In the dark, I felt my way over to where we have a battery-operated light that lights up the whole room, and I turned it on. Then I went to where our solar flashlights are, and a battery-operated radio. Everything worked well, so we were in good shape. Going through this fairly short experience showed us where we were prepared in this one room and where we could improve things in the rest of the house should it happen again.

 

Jesus cares about our safety and our preparedness for blackouts, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and anything else that might harm us. He watches over us to make sure we know that He is always with us and that we will be okay if we trust Him to lead us. In the physical realm, He even lets us test out how prepared we are and lets us know if we need to do anything more. 

 

Yes, Jesus likes to visit us. He shows us in the Bible that in His resurrected body He visited with His disciples one morning after they’d been out fishing.

 

“But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, ‘Children, have ye any meat?’ They answered him, ‘No’” (John 21:4-5).

 

Jesus showed them what to do to end the day prosperously, and then he cooked some fish and had dinner with them.

 

“Jesus saith unto them, ‘Come and dine.’ And none of the disciples durst ask him, ‘Who art thou?’ knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise” (vv. 12-13).

 

Jesus gave Peter some instructions on how to be prepared to take care of the people who were followers, but for the other disciples, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee and two others who are not named, it was a time to just be with the Lord enjoying some food and fellowship.

 

I love it that those two other disciples are not even named by John. But Jesus knew their names. To Jesus they were just as important as John or Peter. That’s just like us! Jesus was right there eating and visiting with His disciples, regular believers just going about their regular business of fishing. He is willing to visit us too, if we’ll let Him.

 

For many years when Jane was a teenager she would take the bus to downtown Chicago. She had a certain route she took, going in and out of different stores. And somewhere along the way Jesus always met her. It was always an overwhelming feeling of sweetness, so sweet she could nearly taste it, and she knew it was the Lord. For me, when He comes to our living room, I don’t feel the sweetness, but I feel a supernatural peace and I can see Him, but I can also see through Him. I’m sure He manifests differently to different people. With a minimal understanding of quantum physics, we know that something can be in two or more places at the same time. This is why the Bible says Jesus is seated on the right hand of God and is in us and can visit us as a separate personage as well.

 

I can’t tell you why Jesus likes to show up when Jane and I are at the end of our day relaxing and watching a movie. We’re not doing anything religious, but He shows up just to be with us. I remember a time several years ago when I told Him I wanted to know Him better, but this is amazing! Maybe that was my time of Him knocking and me opening the door.

 

In Revelation 3:2, Jesus tells us: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

 

Love, Carolyn

 

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A BETTER LIFE

  

 A BETTER LIFE

Lord, I pray for your healing presence in our nation and around the world. I pray that this day there will be new people who accept Jesus as Lord and get born again of Your Spirit. I pray for those who are born again to be filled with the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues and prophecy. I pray that Your people study the Bible and receive dreams, revelations, and insights more than ever before. I pray for wisdom, understanding, and boldness to apply what we learn.  In Jesus name, Amen.

 

I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord when I was around eight years old. But my life didn’t change dramatically until I got filled with the Holy Spirit at age 21 and began to study the Bible, not just read it. I spoke in tongues as evidence of the holy thing that was in me, and though I’d read the Bible through many times before, I began to understand it much better. I started to hear the Lord’s voice in my everyday life.

 

My mom and dad kept my high school graduation picture on a shelf in their bedroom. Wow! I remembered how alone and depressed I was. After I got filled with the Holy Spirit, I still got attacked by depression, but I could fight it. I am supposed to be a happy person.

 

Many people discover that the person God made them is the opposite of what they were before they got born again and filled with holy spirit, Christ in us. The new us is pretty awesome.

 

I pray for you daily. Love, Carolyn

 

I hope you’ve been enjoying and growing spiritually by reading some of my books and booklets. I try to help people to learn how to live by the Bible, and apply its knowledge, wisdom, and supernatural skills to daily circumstances and challenges.

 

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SEEING CLEARLY

 SEEING CLEARLY

Why do people act the way they do? Matthew 6:22-24 gives us answers to that question. But for most people, this section of scripture remains a mystery, until one can understand the meaning of the original words that were used. A Concordance helps with that. Let's take a look at the passage and break it down, so we can see clearly what Yeshua God wants to tell us. 

 

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

 

“But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

 

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:22-24).

 

First let’s look at the word “light” in verse 22. In the original language, it is a portable candle or oil lamp, one that can be lit, or it can go out. The next word I looked at was “eye.” Here it used metaphorically, of ethical qualities.

 

The candle guiding us is our ethical qualities – our moral standards. Our moral or ethical standards guide our whole body. The “body” is the whole man—body, soul, and spirit. What we do with our body and soul is maneuvered by our moral standards. So, if we carry a lamp that is full of good Biblical morals and ethics, it will guide us in a good direction. But if that light burns out, or the wick is pinched, the good standards slip away and are replaced by other standards, beliefs, and actions that are not Biblical.

 

In the second part of verse 22, what does it mean, “if thine eye be single“? The word single means simple, clear, in which there is nothing complicated or confused; without folds (not double-minded). Jesus was saying that if our eyes (ethical qualities) are clear and not jumbled, our “whole body will be full of light.”

 

So, we have these meanings for the words we read in the King James Version of the Bible:

 

Light = portable oil lamp or candle

Eye = ethical qualities, moral standards

Body = whole man (body, soul, spirit)

Single = simple, clear, not confused or double-minded

 

People think they can take some standards from the Bible, some from Buddhism, some from Hinduism, or Islam, or New Age, or situational ethics, but if those standards don’t jive with what the God of the Bible says, there’s going to be double standards, ethical difficulties, and a confused, jumbled mess. Granted, a person needs to understand what the Bible actually says, and not just blindly believe what’s “always” been taught. Asking questions is perfectly okay with our God, and there are plenty of verses documenting that.

 

Verse 23 goes on to say: “But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” The word “eye” is again ethical qualities. The word “evil” is poneros, “the Evil, malignant one,” so this is saying that if a person’s ethics are inspired and motived or manipulated by the evil one, Satan, then the intent is “wicked, actively bad, actively causing sorrow or pain.”

 

If moral codes are so deranged, the whole self is going to be full of darkness. “Full of darkness” is translated from one word, skoteinos, which means covered in darkness, like a tent. Things are opaque; vision is blinded. Actions are shady and shadowy. There is skotos - “ignorance respecting divine things and human duties.” People whose moral standards begin to deteriorate, become prey to the Evil one’s ethics, or lack thereof. They become skotos - “persons in whom darkness becomes visible and holds sway.”

 

The last part of verse 23 tells us: “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” The word “light” in this part of the verse means the light of God. If that gets compromised, the darkness becomes “great,” which means large in magnitude, number, and gravity.

 

God has the antidote to going to the dark side. It’s in the next verse, Matthew 6:24: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

 

The word “hate” doesn’t mean what we think it does. In this verse, it’s a relative preference. It means a person prefers one over another. He or she cares about serving the interests of one rather than the other, for whatever reason. A straightforward analysis would be if a person has two jobs, two bosses, and both want the person to work on the same Saturday. The worker can’t do both, so he or she analyses the pros and cons, and picks one.

 

When Jesus says: “He will hold to the one, and despise the other,” it means he’ll “hold fast to, cleave to” (the Greek word anticho) one, and not really think much of the other. To “despise” means to” think less of, disdain, to look down on.”

 

We can’t be disciples (disciplined ones) of the Lord and get all the benefits of God if we play in the devil’s sandbox. And the consequences just aren’t worth it. Darkness perpetuated out from a person will eventually come back around to destroy that person.

 

Let’s fall to the feet of our merciful God and learn what it means to truly surrender all to Him. Mark 8:25 says: “Then again Jesus laid His hands on his eyes; and the man stared intently and [his sight] was [completely] restored, and he began to see everything clearly.”

 

With so much confusion entering our cultures, lots of people really aren’t totally sure of what God’s moral standards really are, so we need to get back to studying our Bibles so we aren’t walking around in partial darkness, but that we can once again see clearly.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

If you have any family members or friends who would like to get my weekly Preach Letters, let me know.

 

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OUR LORD KEEPS US AWAKE, OUT OF HARM, AND EDUCATED

 OUR LORD KEEPS US AWAKE, OUT OF HARM, AND EDUCATED

If we pay attention when reading God’s instructions in the Old Testament, and some of the things Jesus says too, we see that some warnings and instructions are way more curt and graphic than we’d really like. But graphic warnings alert us, and God knows it. He does it to keep us awake, keep us out of harm, and keep us educated.

 

There’s kind of a gross saying in Proverbs 26:11-12: “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” But God is warning us that we are not to trust our own thinking when it comes to some important issues in life. I looked up the expression about a dog returning to its own vomit and found that the Bible is talking about rabid dogs. In the East, troops of fierce half-famished dogs, without masters, are often wandering around the towns and villages.

 

They eat anything they can find. Anyone who has cats and dogs for pets knows that the silly dog will find great treasures in the cat box, as disgusting as that is! Dogs will eat poop. There I said it. A dog will eat its own vomit if it’s hungry enough, as these rabid dog packs do. There are other references to dogs in the Bible as well. These talk about the packs of dogs eating a dead person. Disgusting, but true.

 

1 Kings 14:11: “Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat.”

 

1 Kings 16:4: “Him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat.”

 

2 Kings 9:10: “And the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her.”

 

The Lord is using this example to make a point: Don’t be enticed into going back into a bad situation. Let’s not let ourselves be bewitched by a memory. Think about it: The fresh food the dog ate is no longer fresh when it comes out – it’s waste. It’s dead and deadly. Toxic! It’s not what it used to be!

 

We’ve all made the mistake of thinking we could go back to an old job, an old relationship, a place we once lived, and think it will be better this time around. But we really need to check it out with the Lord first before we make this kind of decision. There may be good things about going back, but remember, there was a reason we left in the first place. Jane grew up in Chicago, so when we both returned from being missionaries in Africa, she suggested we go to her hometown because she knew we would easily find work there.

 

But it wasn’t long until she discovered that she’d made a grave mistake. Growing up in the Polish community, Jane remembers hearing the adults talk. She said the two main subjects of conversation were sickness and death. When she went back there to live, the spirit of death was always hovering over her. She felt like she was suffocating and two years later she knew she had to leave or she’d die. We left and only returned once to see my favorite Art Museum and a Cubs game.

 

When Jane and I first moved to Las Vegas, she met a young girl at work whose boyfriend was an ex-con. The girl would come to work bruised. He hit her at home. One Monday she was scraped up and couldn’t move her fingers. He’d thrown her out of a moving car. That was when Jane called a battered women’s shelter. The counselor on the phone stopped the conversation and started counseling Jane. She told her she shouldn’t even get involved at this point because the average battered woman leaves 7 times before she leaves for good. The counselor told Jane it was classic for a third party to get involved to try to help and all that happens is that they get in the middle of the couple and the woman defends the abuser. The counselor said it never does any good to get involved until the woman seeks help for herself.

 

The packs of wild dogs will eat their own vomit and will eat what is dead. Let’s not do that. Jane wanted to go back to Chicago because there was good potential there, but it was too toxic for her. The good things didn’t override the bad. Some relationships and associations from the past were dead and weren’t to be resurrected.

 

Admitting we can’t go back to a person, place or situation, isn’t failure; it’s deliverance!

 

God admonishes us: “In all thy ways acknowledge him [God], and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear [respect] the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones” (Prov. 3:6-8).

 

“Health to thy navel.” This phrase in Hebrew is translated “refreshment shall it be to thy nerves, in which is the seat of strength.”  When we’re not being nervous, we can be strong! In other words, when we do the first part of Proverbs 3:6-8, things go right. We let God lead us, we respect Him, and we stop doing ungodly things, and the stress goes away.

 

God’s will is that we are blessed, not stressed, so that’s why He warns us about not being tricked into going back to things that are done or decaying, but instead reach out to Him, because He will gladly direct us into His ways, which make us much stronger and stress-free.

 

“For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall” (Ps. 18:29).

 

Love, Carolyn

 

 

LIFTING UP OUR HANDS IN VICTORY

 LIFTING UP OUR HANDS IN VICTORY

A few years ago, when I was working on a special finish for a hotel in California, I had to match an existing piece. I worked at it, but it was difficult. I started to feel the pressure, and I was getting more and more fearful as the day went on. The deadline was growing bigger than the possibility of a solution.

 

Finally, I had to get both of my bosses outside to take a look at the pieces I’d done and get some suggestions. All the suggestions included mixing more paint, starting from scratch, and going through all the steps again. Yikes!

 

But at least I was going to have help. We all went our separate ways for lunch, and I took the opportunity to pray. I prayed for Jesus to help me. I really needed Him, and I told Him so. His first direction to me was to look at the story of Ruth in the Bible. As I was soaking in her story, the scripture came into my head: “Lift up the hands that hang down,” from Hebrews 12:12.

 

That scripture coming to my mind was evidence to me of the love of Jesus and the mercy of God to answer my cry for help.

 

I remembered a TED talk I saw on the internet. It was about nonverbal communication, and they did a test to show how nonverbal communication could affect a good outcome. The challenge was to lift your hands in a show of victory. You had to keep your hands up for two minutes. As it turned out, when the people did it, their blood levels of testosterone went up, and their level of the stress hormone of cortisol went down and they felt more confident.

 

 I decided now was the time to try it.

 

I went into the restroom. I laid down my cell phone on the sink and looked at the time. I lifted my arms above my head as if I’d just won a race, and I said out loud: “I have the victory through Jesus Christ, I have the victory through Jesus.” I snuck a look at my phone, and I’d only done it for one minute, so I stretched out my arms a little more and said it a few more times till 2 minutes were up. I left the restroom and doggone it if I didn’t feel more confident. I really did! I felt invigorated and even a little carefree.

 

It worked! I lifted my hands like it says in the Bible. And the experiment shown on the TED talk showed me how to do it for two minutes straight.

 

When my one boss came back from lunch, he started working on the pieces with me, and we had some good laughs as we both came up with almost the same exact colors. We took them outside to see how they looked against the sample; they were way off! We both looked at each other with wrinkled brows. We shrugged our shoulders, and off we went to try again.

 

The goofy thing is that the piece we were looking at appeared to have mustard color in it when we saw it outside, and the same color appeared reddish when we had it inside! We got out a fan deck of colors and took the piece outside to match it up. We were sure we’d do better the next day. At least, I knew I’d have a better attitude, and I’d start with my hands lifted in victory.

 

As well as lifting my hands, I prayed for God’s mercy and kindness to me. I knew He would help me come up with a solution to our problem. “With everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer” (Is. 54:8).

 

Sometimes it’s difficult to keep working on something that seems so hard. God knows this, and speaks plainly to us. He says in Hebrews 12:11-12: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands.” We can do it, and we are victorious!

 

I finished the sample; it was approved and now decorates the outer walls of a major hotel in Southern California.

 

That was the past and now it’s time once again to employ this 2-minute victory pose to some new situations. I hope you will try this out too. The victories we see in our own lives will help us to teach a victorious life to others as well.

 

Love, Carolyn

KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT

 

KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT

Have you noticed that a lot of Christians are using the term “YAHWEH” or “YAH, instead of using the word, “God”? I didn’t give it much thought until the other day when the Lord God of the Bible gave me insight on what was going on. There is such a mish-mash of gods and deities worshipped in the USA now, that we’re going to have be more specific in our conversation and writing when it comes to who we’re talking about, and not assume that just because a person uses the word, “God,” they’re talking about the God that we know.

 

When I went to grade school, we said the Pledge of Allegiance every day with “one nation under under God.” Everyone back then understood that we meant one nation under the Judeo-Christian God, the God of the Bible. But it’s not that way anymore. And now I know why in the Old Testament we’re given other names to describe our God. One of those names is Yahweh, which is the name God told Moses to give to the children of Israel to call Him. In Exodus 3:15 and other places our God is called “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” He is called the Creator (Elohim) of all things, “The Most High God”.

 

And by the way, since the Most High God, our God, created all things, He also created Lucifer, which makes Lucifer below God, and he (Lucifer, devil, Satan- which ever name you call him)  will always be beneath our Almighty God in authority and power, no matter what form he or his minion demons decide to take.  

 

So, this gives me something to think about, as far as my conversations and my writing. Please know that when I write, and I use the capital “G” for God, I am referring to the Almighty God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Yahweh, and Elohim (The Creator).

 

When we read the Bible now, we can become more aware of the culture, and the circumstances surrounding the believers, and see how they speak of our God to distinguish Him from the other existing deities.

 

Know Who you’re talking about and let others know too.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

CONFESSIONS OF A PREACHER

 

CONFESSIONS OF A PREACHER

I wrote this to my friend Debbie yesterday (a little summary of who I am), and I thought I would share it with all of you today:

 

"I'm convinced that the worship of Moloch, Kali, and other gods presented by Satan is more widespread than we want to believe.

 

But God is still way bigger than anything Satan tries to pull, and so I try to balance what God shows me spiritually on the evil side in the world, which is some days so gigantic, I could get deeply depressed and anxious, but I have to see it because God trusts me with it, so that I will pray. I know I am one of His watchmen on the high ground, there to do what is needed to protect, rescue, and encourage His people. When I got ordained, I had a vision of my job. I had no idea of the extent of it, but I committed and surrendered all, and He's shown me I have to see the evil for what it is, but not forget that His magnificence and wisdom for me is much greater. 

 

I know that what I see isn't for everyone, it's the ministry He's called me to do, my part in the body of Christ, not something I chose, but I do the best in my capacity because I told God I would do it. 

What I do for Him is complicated. I encourage, teach, love. But I can't do what I do in the full capacity He wants of me unless He can trust me as a seer into the evil motivations of men and women. I see motivation and I see demons. I see iniquity in the blood lines, and so much more, and I sometimes forget that everyone doesn't see it - but it's what I'm supposed to see, so I accept it. 

 

At the same time, God gives me more of what takes me close to Him and to Jesus, and far away from seeing so much evil, thus my small backyard garden plots, my little dog, action movies, doing artwork, horseback riding once in a while, fun things in odd places, my best friend Jane, conversations and parties with other friends, and most recently an art connection with a writer who writes about traditional art.

 

Anyway, thanks for listening! I had no idea I would write so much, but I guess I needed to get it out, so thanks again, and I will definitely keep you and your family and friends in my prayers.

 

Love, Carolyn"

 

A GOOD CONSCIENCE

A GOOD CONSCIENCE

The dictionary defines “conscience” as “the internal recognition of right and wrong, with the compulsion to do right; a moral judgment that opposes the violation of a previously recognized ethical principle.” But “blind ambition” will disregard conscience and go for what it wants, no matter what. The Bible tells us that “in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2).

 

If we continue to act against what our conscience tells us, we get burned; repetition makes the “skin” numb like scar tissue, and we are no longer sensitive to what’s right and wrong. We’ll do what we want, rather than what God wants.

 

The end does not justify the means. God wants us to stay righteous today, not later when we’ve accomplished what we think we want. Ambition is good, but only under the distinct leadership of the Lord.

 

The news is riddled with horror stories of what many of the actors in Hollywood, singers, and sports figures have compromised to get to the top. Morals, ethics, and a sense of what’s right and wrong go right out the window because being a great star is what they want more than being a great person.

 

People get tempted to compromise on morals because they think they’ll lose something, like a job promotion, or a boyfriend or girlfriend, for instance. We are so afraid of losing something that we do things we know are wrong.

 

But honestly, we don’t have anything worthwhile to lose if we endeavor to live with a good conscience toward God. Hebrews 13:5 says: “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” 

 

People misunderstand the part that says be content with what you have. They think it’s referring to our present job, our physical possessions, etc. But what God is talking about is what we really have: every desire fulfilled by him. Psalm 37:4: “Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

 

The Apostle Paul gives us a great goal: “Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day” (Acts 23:1). And when he was accused, in Acts 24:16, he answers: “Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men.”

 

No matter the circumstance, big or small, let’s keep our moral compass on the truths found in God’s Word and decide to do the right thing without compromise. It’s God’s job to bring us to the perfect things for us always.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

Lots of great true-life stories on a variety of issues that come up in our everyday lives.

 

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