Just a thought by coppi

Just a thought by coppi – written in 2015

A light house does not blow fog horns but it only shines.  

When I read the above I thought of our walk as Christians.  Does our life reflect the light  of Jesus.  St Mark 4:21: and he said unto them, is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? And not to be set on a candlestick?  A candle beams its flickering light so we may find our way in the dark as does the Lighthouse.  As Christians we should let our light shine & walk in the light of Christ.  We need not blow fog horns but just shine & let the Holy Spirit beam through us.  Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord……i grew up in a very legalistic religion & if we did have a little light, it was totally blown out with dos & don’ts & lots of fear. 1 John 4:7: Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God….10: herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us & sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4 is filled with scriptures of love.  The pendulum swings both ways but should be in balance.  I guess my desire is not to be a fog horn but a flickering light for our Lord.

My 24:14 – And, the gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.

Habakkuk 2:14 – One day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters covers the sea.

2 Peter 3:8-9 – One day is like a thousand years to the Lord.  The Lord isn’t really being slow about His promise, as some think.  No, He is patient for your sake.  He doesn’t want anyone destroyed but everyone to repent.

Romans 1:20 – Forever since the world was created, people have seen the earth & sky. Through everything God made they can clearly see his invisible qualities – His eternal power and Devine nature, so they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Years ago when I was working with the Chaplain at the Veterans Hospital in Dallas, Tx, as an undercover person to hand out Bibles & talk to different ones on the critically ill floors.   One day, I was in a room visiting with a man who was terminally ill when he said to me….”okay, tell me just how everyone is going to hear the gospel.  There are people in areas of this world that have no means or ways to hear the Good News (Gospel)how are they going to be saved”?  I breath a prayer, “please Holy Spirit give me a word of knowledge regarding this request”.  “People are judge on the knowledge that comes their way.  If a person in the backwoods of our country only sees a tree and wonders how it came about – that is the knowledge they are judge on.  We in America have the gospel proclaimed through so many avenues, Church, television, internet, missionaries, etc so we will be judged on the knowledge that passed our way.”  He was receptive to that answer and I breathed a prayer of gratitude to the Holy Spirit.

The media is a big source of spreading the gospel as well as missionaries- the underground church in China is spreading rapidly as these missionaries are carrying the gospel on foot to parts of the world that have no way of hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This movement is called “Back to Jerusalem” Brother Yun is known as the Heavenly man and has endured much persecution- tortured, put in solitude confinement, beaten, etc, but his life has been spared through miracles being compared to the Apostle Paul.  His book “Heavenly Man is a very good read.  The gospel is spreading and one day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord— Look up He is coming as promised in His word.

Just a thought by coppi

2 Corinthians 5:17:  therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:  The old has gone & the new is here!

Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person.  The past is forgotten & everything is new. (Rick Warren)

I read the following article on the cicada that made a deep impression on me.  

“Magicada are periodical cicada, appearing every 13 or 17 years. The oldest insect in North America, they begin as rice-shaped eggs in the grooves of a tree. Once hatched, they fall to the ground and dig their way deep into earth. Seventeen years later, they emerge as hard-shelled, rust-colored nymphs. At first light, they climb upward to the nearest tree, picnic table, swingset, house, closest vertical surface, shed their shell.  The cicada then pulls himself free and holds on to the shell of its old self while his wings develop. In the end, all that was left was the Magicicada’s shed skin. Ghosts of who they had been piled beneath trees, scattered in the lawn, stuck in the crevices of the siding of a home, on the undersides of tree limbs—reminders of their ephemeral blessing—and a nudge from heaven to persevere through darkness.”

Unlike the cicada hanging on his old self until he develops strong wings, when we come to Christ, we are new creatures.  Our past is behind us and forgotten – but is it.  I find I still hang on to the pain, hurt, and uglies of my past.  Why I know is because if something occurs that is a reminder of what happened back then, I will actually revert back to that circumstance & feel intense pain.  Crazy I know.  Healing comes when I will allow myself to feel the pain & confess it to God & ask Him to remove  it from me.    I don’t want to be like the cicada & hang on to darkness of the past.   I want to shed that old self (skin) & become the new creature as promised by Jesus in the scriptures.  Christ in me, is the newness that will come forth.  I can shed the ghosts of the past – spread my wings and fly.  

Just a thought by coppi

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Hebrews 11:6

Believe that He exists…..that is the key. Do I believe? Not mere words Coppi but a belief that transcends from your brain and goes deep within your soul. If so, you can stand on His promises given in the Bible. Example Matthew 21:22. “All things whatsoever you ask in prayer BELIEVING you shall receive.” I quote that scripture many times praying that the word “Believe” will somehow light up as a neon light and burn into my soul. It’s a dichotomy: as Paul says in Romans 7:16 “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate.” I remember years ago when I did modeling jobs for Tanya Blair Agency, I was asked to do a job modeling for Southwest Bible school. They picked me to model as a person hanging on a curtain looking out the window with an expression of “wondering why – what – when is this all going to end.” That was years ago so I do not remember what was happening in our country at that time. Now, at times, I find myself looking out a window saying “I believe, I believe”. I read somewhere that was a good practice of believing. Lol. Saying all of this, I end with “I do believe in the written word of God, The Bible, and have for decades. Being human I suppose sometimes I am like doubting Thomas, one of the disciples, when the other disciples told him “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” To sum it up-belief is not necessarily seeing, but believing the unseen and TRUSTING in the word of God that He will do what He says He will.

Just a thought by coppi

Insecurity

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you.  Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Ps 143:8

To know that I am loved by God has been a quest of mine since childhood.  I have asked God to heal my insecurity and reassure me of His faithfulness and all sufficiency.    I am believing He will give me the courage I need to trust him.  I am believing He is my Abba father.

Insecurity has a hosts of roots – fear, jealousy, deception, covertness…etc

So insecurity is my one thing I am believing God to heal….I have been working on this for a long, long, time.  Now, I am believing all the fragments left will be removed.

“And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span.”Mt 6

C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory, “We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.” 

“The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you, it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.” – Breńe Brown

Quote of the Day: ”Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” – Rocky 

Good thoughts

“Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces.”

Psalms 34:5 NLT

“Yesterday is history; tomorrow is mystery; today is all there is.”

The verse prior to Ps 34:5  is one of my favorites- “I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears”: however, verse five seemed to light up my heart with joy when I read it.  Sometimes a scripture following another puts greater fullness and meaning into another.  One scripture that I could never wrap myself around is: 

 Roman’s 8:31. 

“Romans 8 contains a wealth of spiritual truth. Here the Apostle Paul lays emphasis on what God is to His people and what He has done for them, then suddenly bursts out with the question – “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Notice that the word ‘if’ which Paul uses does not denote doubt but is a conclusion, a consequence or an affirmation signifying since.  The argument is this: God is so evidently for us that nothing or no-one can successfully be against us. There are plenty of opposing forces against the Christian but nothing can successfully overthrow him”.  

I was stumped by the ‘if’ in Roman’s 8:31, because I did not think God was for me.  When I told my grief counselor about my trouble with the word if, she suggested I use the word ‘since’.

Also, following that scripture 31 is verse 32:  “Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?”  

By doing more research on Roman’s 8:31 which denotes ‘if’, I finally moved forward in understanding that God is indeed for me.  I had a lot of negativism in my church growing up which hurt my understanding of a good God – it has taken lots of years and study to change the ‘mean’ God into a caring, loving, God, who is for me not against me.

Just a thought by coppi 

Just a thought by coppi

Relationships are one of the parts of life that can most rob us of our peace in the Holy Spirit. Our lives are all in some way impacted by one another. If I am counting on someone and they don’t come through, it can profoundly impact my circumstances. If I truly love someone and they wound, neglect, or reject me, it can undoubtedly hinder my ability to enjoy the peace of God. But God offers us peace in the midst of all circumstances. Jesus maintained peace in the Holy Spirit in the midst of those he loved shouting, “Crucify him!” (Luke 23:21). May God lead us today to a path of continual peace founded on his love and truth.  Craig Denison 10/25/20

When I read the above, I can relate to Craig because relationships gone wrong has robbed my peace.  We are all different.  We are affected by up-bringing, culture, etc, so sometimes it’s hard to blend in with the mixture.  Disappointment causes me great sadness.  It robs me of my peace.  Also, being a sensitive one, I cringe when wounded – I want to act as Corky, my dog, did – when I would correct him.  He would  run and hide from me.  It didn’t take long for me to find him and make the world better for his sweet soul.  And, that’s what the peace of God does for me when I am under the circumstances of life and I run to Him for comfort and love.

Just a thought by coppi

My husband and I were listening to Pastor Tony Evans who is the pastor at Oak Hills Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Tx  this morning.  He was teaching on 2 Kings : 5 about Naaman the commander of the army of the king of Aram and  how He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.  What interested me was how Dr Evans did an analogy on leprosy and whatever we have that is eating away on us.  Leprosy eats away skin and your extremities just as jealousy, greed, bitterness, etc will eat away your joy, peace and love..  Dr Evans gave a very detailed and excellent teaching on this and I thought how true the analogy was.  I used to relate jealousy, greed, bitterness, and whatever ugly was in me to cancer but I like the word leprosy better as it slowly eats away your being and is contagious.  Jealousy, greed, bitterness, etc is also contagious as it affects not only you but others.   Naaman was eventually healed by relenting and going to the muddy Jordan river and bathing in it.  He ‘kicked against the pricks’ (a biblical phrase) when the man of God, Elisha, told him that is what he would have to do to be healed.  Sometimes God will ask us if we are really ready to be free from something that has held us captive for days and years to come to Him, not friends, husband, family but Him.  Go to Him with a honest heart and sincerely seek the deep reason of this ‘whatever’.  He might have you go dip in a muddy river but it will be worth it to be free from the thing that has held you captive for days or years. 

“And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.””

‭‭Luke‬ ‭8‬:‭42‬-‭46‬ ‭NIV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/111/luk.8.46.NIV

“Who touched me”.  

“Shackled by a heavy burden

‘Neath a load of guilt and shame

Then the hand of Jesus touched me

And now I am no longer the same”

The women with the issue of blood was crushed among the crowds of people wanting to get to Jesus for healing, she did not give up— she kept crawling through the drove of people saying to herself “if I can only touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed”.  She had great faith in the power of this man, Jesus, the Son of God.  Finally she reached him and reached to touch Him but was only able to touch the hem of His garment.  Jesus stopped and said “Who touched me”!!!  Fear probably rose within this frail women but she knew something happened to her.  The healing power of Jesus touched her and she was healed. When Jesus proclaimed “Who touched me”, and with all the people pushing against him, Peter tried to convince him that it was impossible for him to think a touch would awaken Him of such a thing as a touch’.  But, no, Jesus proclaimed again “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone from me”!  He then noticed this small fearful women who was healed looking up to him with gratitude, and said “your faith has made you whole”.  

He touched me…..among multitudes of people pressing in on Him; a small touch on the hem of His garment laced with much faith, she was healed.  “Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” From this particular passage we see that the central feature of faith is confidence or trust. In the Bible, the object of faith is God and his promises.”

Reach out to Him in faith….even small faith….and touch the edge of His cloak.  

Just a thought by copp

“Dear God, thank you for today”.
This is not a dress rehearsal – this is it! Dear Jesus help me to live each day, each minute/ moment of this day in gratefulness & love of the beautiful life you gave me.