Tag Holy Spirit

God is With Us

Allen Frederick 10 Comments

image Wherever I go, He is there. So goes the children’s song we sang all week at Vacation Bible School. The words are simple, the melody is catchy, but the message it carries is timeless. The Lord promised His disciples that he would be with them always even until the end of the age.

The promise was not only for that time and that place but even until the end of the age. What comforting words to have heard from the Lord. Jesus was asking His disciples to go into all the world and teach others about the love of God through Christ Jesus. It was a hostile environment in those days to be labeled a “Christian”. I believe much of the same circumstances exist today with the persecution of Christians increasing around the world. Even in America, where freedom of religion is protected in the Constitution, Christians are finding it much more difficult to practice their religion freely and openly. It would appear the spirit of Anti-Christ is alive and well in the world.

Can we rest upon this promise given to the early church in a hostile world today? Do the words of Jesus still hold forth the same comfort as when they were first spoken? Do we as the church in the world today believe that God is with us? I fear that many live their life as if God is a distant relative they visit once a week. Perhaps you place a call to God daily but then go about the rest of your day forgetting that you spoke with Him.

Do you ever pause to acknowledge His presence in your day? Or do you perhaps feel your privacy is being invaded by this constant companion? I would hate to think about being alone at this time in history without the comforting knowledge of God’s abiding presence. I dare not think about what my life would be like without His constant help and encouragement. I tremble at the thought of facing life’s challenges alone and self-reliant. I, like Gideon, do not see myself as a brave soul, but more of a reclusive introvert. Some might just call me a closet coward.

rowboat_2929c I must confess that left to my own strengths, my weaknesses are far too evident. It is only when I rely upon God’s abilities do my insecurities not seem so great. I take comfort in knowing that I have not been the first, nor shall I be the last Gideon to have walked this earthen sod feeling insignificant when faced with overwhelming odds. (Judges 6:15) Nor shall I be the last Israelite who stood terrified in the shadow of Goliath. (1 Samuel 7:23-24) Nor dare I say that I will be the last disciple who fears drowning when confronted by an unrelenting flood of despair. (Mark 4:38)

Some people seem to have an inert ability to face any obstacle stoically. Not I!

However, I have lived long enough to know that God is faithful, and He will never leave me comfortless. He is always there and all I need do is acknowledge His abiding presence and allow him to have control of my life’s circumstances. He will never leave me nor forsake me. He shall be with me even when the world comes to an end. Those are comforting words. But do we believe them?

Do we actually believe that wherever we are God is? That means God tags along with us throughout our days just looking for an opportunity to be there for us. How often do we neglect to acknowledge that abiding presence. Are we like the disciples caught in the violent storm at sea with Jesus asleep in the boat? They exhaust themselves attempting to bail out the boat while JESUS continues to sleep in the stern. Why was Jesus asleep while the disciples were fighting for their lives? (Mark 4:38) Because Jesus knew God was with him and he knew that God was in control of his life. He knew he was one with the Father. Can we say the same? Are we able to find rest in the midst of the storm?

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31 What then shall we say to [all] this? If God is for us, who [can be] against us? [Who can be our foe, if God is on our side?] Romans 8:31 (AMP)

What obstacle do you suppose is too big for God to handle? What in this created world can defeat God? That is right, NOTHING! If God is with you no matter where you are, could it be said then that you are the instrument through which God desires to impact the world around you? Do you suppose that the same God who was with Jesus also resides within you? And the same power that raised Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal body. (Give life to, energize, make fully alive.)

LentFifthAepcl If the Spirit of the Lord is able to resurrect the dead do you suppose that same Spirit is able to work mightily through you to impact your circumstances? Do you suppose your life can be changed for the better because of God’s abiding presence? If God is with you and you acknowledge His presence.do you think  that you can feed 5000, move mountains, or speak in His name and bring salvation to a lost soul? What do you suppose we could accomplish in His name if we only believed he is actually alive and well and living within us?

Wherever I go, God is with me;
wherever I am, He is there.
I’m never alone;
He won’t forget me.
I’m never afraid; I know He’s near.
Wherever I go, God is with me;
wherever I am, He is there.
I’m never alone;
He won’t forget me.
God is near.

Pop Goes the Gospel July Edition

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

'Pop Goes the Gospel'

'Pop Goes the Gospel'

Welcome to the July, 2009 edition of “Pop Goes the Gospel”. Once again we received far more submissions then we could include in this edition. Our policy of allowing only one article per writer per edition is strictly enforced. Also our policy on only including articles which meet the criteria set forth on our submission page must be strictly followed.

In order for you to have an article included in this blog carnival you must meet the submission criteria. We do not publish anything that does not put forth a Christian world view. After all this carnival is called “POP GOES THE GOSPE”L. The GOSPEL being the operative word. That being said I have included all of the best submissions for this months carnival and once again they all are worthy of a read.

Those who check out this carnival every time it is posted will notice our repeat submitters but there are many new faces here this month. Take some of your vacation time and check out each of these articles and be sure to leave the author a comment or two. After all we are supposed to ENCOURAGE one another daily. So without any further delay on with the carnival!

Feature Article

Kurt James Salfi presents A Little Girls Gratitude posted at BrokenYokes, This month we are so blessed by many first time submissions. Kurt’s falls into this category and offers up a simple but effective tool to monitor our spiritual walk with God. Take a look at it through the eyes of a 9 yr old child. Unless we become as children we can not inherit the kingdom of God. And a child shall lead them. Have you looked into the eyes of a nine year old lately? Perhaps it would do us all well to do so. What say you? This is a must read and therefore it has risen to the position of feature article of the month.

In Church Life

andriel presents The Wrath of God posted at ReturningKing.com, saying, andriel has returned with yet another fine post this time covering the wrath of God. Many view God as all loving and yet as andriel explains you can not fully love unless you also hate certain things. In order to love only one you must hate all others in other words. This is a good read and an excellent study on God’s character of love.

Keith Tusing presents Event Planning for the “Big Event” posted at CM Buzz.Keith offers basic easy to follow steps to take when preparing for a “Big Event” at your church or for that matter corporate event you wish to sponsor. This advice will work for any “Big Event” in which you are called on to plan and implement.

In Life

NCSue presents Nick Vujicic: How to “walk” with the Lord posted at IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING.This retired nurse offers an inspiring story of a man born with no arms or legs and learned how to “Walk with God”. This heartwarming video blog article should warm your heart and cause you to pause and say… What hardships should I be thankful for?

Ann Shorb presents Godliness is Profitable posted at A Light for My Path, “Godliness means doing things God’s way; living a godly life simply means to live rightly.” Ann makes a simple yet profound statement when she says Godliness means doing things God’s way. Although a short blog post it is a good launching pad into a deeper study of “knowing the ways of God” It is possible to know the very mind of God via the Holy Spirit. Therefore Godliness is a result of living a SPIRITUAL life rather than a CARNAL one. Good post Ann a first timer here at Pop Goes the Gospel and I do hope she contributes more articles in the future.

ChristianPF presents Keep the Top Up: Materialism and Christianity posted at Money in the Bible | Christian Personal Finance Blog, ChristianPF a regular here at Pop Goes the Gospel comes through with yet another great post in which he answers the question.. What could be better than driving a red convertible Mercedes? Read the post and find out. You too many decide to keep the TOP UP also. Another great job Christian. In fact you all may wish to add his blog to your blogroll because Christian continually offers up great articles.

In Culture

Trent Cotton presents We are Salt of the Earth… « Christian Men-Christian Warriors posted at Christian Men-Christian Warriors, saying, “Salt. Not much to think about. It’s white, tasty, useful, and cheap. Did you know it is a change agent? Did you know that it is one of the most widely used change agents? Did you know that it was Christ’s secret word for us to become change agents? No?” Trent also a first timer to Pop Goes the Gospel gets back to the basics with this post. SALT and LIGHT. Now there is CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN! Great job Trent.

Mark Tenniswood presents God and Fashion posted at until we are home….Mark answers the question what Godly people are wearing this season. It seems that God has great fashion sense. To to those who say that the bible is not fashionable for today I suggest you take a look at what Mark has to say about it. You may end up making God your new fashion consultant.

Mikkal Travvis presents Huffington Post: Christians Are Domestic Terrorists! posted at Why God?.Mikkal presents a well thought out piece concerning a recent Homeland Security report that seemed to label Christians as Domestic Terrorists. This is a topic that is sure to incite heated debates amongst those who oppose such a view and those who hold to this viewpoint. Be sure to add your remarks.

In Media

Bible SEO presents Prophet Hosea – Short Film posted at Bible Study Exposition Online, This must see video message should provoke the viewer to take a deeper look at “the love of God” and see how deep that love is. Hosea was shown the heart of God as well as the heart of Israel toward God. It is easy to love those who love us back but what Hosea learned was the lesson of how hard it is to love those who do not return that love. And yet God still does. How great is the love of God shown toward us through Christ Jesus.

Shannon Christman presents The Life of O’Reilly: An Argument for God? posted at The Minority Thinker, What does Bill O’Reilly and the movie “Transformers” have in common? Read Shannon’s post and see. Hint: they both change. Thanks for your post Shannon and I hope you contribute to future editions of Pop Goes the Gospel.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of pop goes the gospel using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Grandma’s Apple Pie

Allen Frederick 5 Comments

I loved my grandma’s apple pies. To me there was nothing better than a fresh hot apple pie straight from the oven, covered with vanilla ice cream and eaten while it was still warm. Mmm Mmm good!

My grandparents lived in a simple house at the end of the road behind the now closed steel plant from which my grandfather had retired years earlier. The small fenced yard sprouted several large maple trees which provided cooling shade during a hot summer day. Also within the confines of that tiny yard was the huge Granny Smith apple tree, a sickle pear tree, and even a plum tree. Right outside the fence line was the neighbors Bing Cherry tree which every year produced thousands of dark red cherries. The eating kind.

Now you know why I loved grandma’s apple pie. The fruit came fresh from the tree in the backyard. I remember she would always bake one or two small pies just for us kids when she was baking the larger ones for herself and the neighbors.

O taste and see that the LORD is good! Happy is the man who takes refuge in him!  Psalms 34:8 (RSV)

The smell of those pies filled the whole house and we could not wait until they came out of the oven to sink or teeth into those sweet desserts. Grandma made the best apple pies! I can tell you that my grandmother’s apple pies were the best on the planet but unless you actually tasted one you would never know how good they really where. I have eaten many an apple pie since my grandmother passed away but I have yet to find one that compares to those hot apple pies grandma made.

That is how it is with God as well. We need to catch a whiff of God’s goodness, we need to acquire a taste for the Lord. We need an enticement to sample the Lord’s offerings. But once we do, we taste and see how good the Lord is!

16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles 17 So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit.18 A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits. Matt 7:16-20 (RSV)

As good as the fruit was from those trees in my grandparent’s back yard they were not able to satisfy the emptiness that resided within me. From a wide-eyed little boy running around grandma’s backyard until I became a young adult there was an emptiness that not even an apple pie could fill.

My life produced one bad crop after another until I finally got to the point where I needed to find another way of living. The crops I kept planting in my life were only producing weeds. Nothing about my life was working out the way I hoped they would. My tree of life was not producing any good fruit, and I knew it!

3 As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. Song 2:3 (RSV)

Apple pie with lattice upper crust
Image via Wikipedia

Just like grandma’s apple pie and sweet sickle pears that grew on the tree in her backyard, accepting Christ into my life was the sweetest thing that I had ever experienced. I tasted of the good fruit of heaven and found it totally satisfying. The tree of life held the sweetest fruit I had ever eaten. Not only was the fruit good to eat, but it also produced a good crop within me, and thusly started to produce good works around me. My life had been changed for the good! Thanks be to God!

The ingredients in grandma’s apple pie made for a good dessert but the ingredients in the Lord’s spirit made for a great life. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good and then go advertise His fruit offerings. Set up a fruit stand in your neighborhood and allow others to taste of God’s heavenly fruit. Introduce others to the life giving fruit of the Spirit of God. I pray that the sweet aroma of God’s love will waft through your neighborhood and others will want to try out what you have cooking inside your heart. That is how evangelism works. You get Jesus on the inside and He works on the outside drawing others toward Himself as they see how good He is to you by the good fruit your life is producing.

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My grandparents are long gone as well as that tiny house they once lived in. The fruit trees are no longer producing fruit and that chapter of my life has come to an end. But the joy of knowing the Lord will live on through eternity. Granny smith apples and sickle pears are good but the fruit the Lord produces is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Now that is good eating! Bon Appetit!

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Let It Be Written, Let It Be Done

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Save, Back-Up, Restore

Allen Frederick 3 Comments

Random Ramblings from the Resident Raptor

Insight from the Journey across the Sky

By Allen Scott



6 Take to heart these words that I give you today. 7 Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you’re at home or away, when you lie down or get up. 8 {Write them down, and} tie them around your wrist, and wear them as headbands as a reminder. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deut 6:6-9 (GW)

Save, Back-up and restore are three terms familiar to every computer IT tech, especially those who working in a ‘Microsoft Windows ™’ environment. With all the malicious malware circulating over the internet and hackers sending out viruses and denial of service attacks, it is not a matter of if, but when a computer will crash. Firewalls and virus protection can only do so much, therefore it is important that when your computer is running smoothly, you take the time to back it up.

If you get in the habit of doing regular back-ups, then restoring a computer system after a crash is pretty simple. However if you fail to back-up your hard drives and save it in a secondary location, then the restoration process will take a lot longer, in fact the lost data may never be restored. Failure to have a back-up is failure to plan ahead for a crash.

I had a run-in with the dreaded drive crash over the weekend. I had been noticing a slowing down of the computer while performing normal computing tasks. I knew that a reboot was in order and so I saved all important data and backed-up the most used documents and proceeded with the reboot. Initially all seemed to go well until the computer shut down and started the reboot process again, and then again, and again. I knew from experience this was not going to be good.

After these endless restarts I was able to get the computer to start in SAFE mode and proceeded to remove the offending program. The offending program was supposed to protect my computer from malicious viruses and malware and yet it was the program that was causing my computer to not operate properly. During one of the program’s normal overnight updates the downloaded patch caused instability in my computer. Therefore it had to be removed, and the computer restored to an earlier date, to eliminate the problem caused by the program. Thank God there was a restoration point.

I have had non-repairable computer crashes in the past, in those cases I had no back-up, there was no restoration point. In fact the only thing I could do was forget the past and start over anew. Loosing all my previous work was difficult to handle but at least I was able to start over. Since then I have learned to save important documents to several locations as well as backing up important data and directories. Especially my daily journal. I have over two years worth of writings and thoughts recorded in this daily journal that I would really hate to loose. Thoughts of what God has been teaching me along this ‘Journey Across the Sky’. It contains thoughts and feelings I have about certain events occurring in the world and reminders of the goodness of God through difficult situations.

Not having a recorded history of where you have been, and where you are going makes remembering difficult, if not impossible. Not having a back-up from which you can draw from in case of a memory loss is frightening. Those who suffer from the physical affliction of Alzheimer’s know first hand the horrors associated with memory loss.

It would be nice if we could simply do a restore for memory loss, but alas that is not possible, even with the advances in modern medicine. Computer hard drives can be restored to almost like new condition, and lost data found again through the back-up, restore process. You save it, and back it up so that it can be restored if needed in the future. For humans it is not quite so simple.

God warned Israel to write the word of God upon tablets and door posts, and to teach them to their children so that when God finally gave them the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they would not forget who it was that delivered them from Egyptian bondage. God warned them to remember where they came from, and to not forget who got them to where they are now. He warned them to not forget His words, but to make sure they backed up this information by writing it down and repeating it often, and by teaching it to their children.

Can you imagine the Bible being lost? Can you imagine our lives without the word of God to fall back on? Can you imagine not being able to re-read those stories of deliverance found in the pages of scripture? What would we do if God had not preserved His word down through the ages? What would your life be like if you had never heard the Gospel of Christ?

Continue reading “Save, Back-Up, Restore” →