admin – Page 12 – Jackie Calhoun

God’s Way To Bring About A Healing

Cleaning up some very large bamboo cane along the creek that borders our property, rewarded me with some very fine splinters in one of my fingers. It happened to be the same finger that I shot a nail through, and into the next finger, a couple of years ago. And, a couple of days before I got the bamboo splinters, in that same finger I had already gotten a couple of splinters off an old door I was sanding. The finger painfully swelled and needed surgery to really fix it, but I opted for the antibiotic only from the medical field. After preparation for self-surgery – alcohol, sharp knife, etc., I realized the one set of splinters was broken off too deep for me to deal with, and the bamboo splinters were too fine to even be seen, much less to be dug out. Plus, the pain to dig around so deep – it was way too much. So, I just let it go and continued with the antibiotic. Now, with the month or so that has passed, that finger has a hard knot within it. No doubt, the flesh has encapsulated the cane splinters as the defense mechanism God has set up to deal with such neglect of remedy. Now, there is no pain, just a knot a little less than the size of a black-eyed pea in my finger. I guess it will be there till my dying day.

Here’s the deal. In life we get splinters between us. We’ve all been stuck and we have all stuck somebody with a harsh word, a misunderstanding, a misdeed, and on it goes unlimited. We can go to the heavenly Father and deal with it his way, or we can just let it go and get calloused over the matter. God’s way to deal with offences is that we each humble ourselves before God and before each other. We are to lay the cards on the table of how we either gave offence or were offended. We are to confess our faults one to another. Then, we are to pray for each other. According to the Word, this is what brings about a healing (James 5:14-16). The offence, the splinter, is not just internalized and calloused over. It is removed and real healing takes place, because our mutual trust is placed in God who is the healer. This is how the Master Physician handles it. We might make a shallow apology and live in a calloused condition, but doing it God’s way brings complete healing. Complete healing is better. The offense, the splinter, being calloused over, is a condition of hardness. We want to remain tender toward God and toward each other. Doing it God’s way helps us to be sensitive to God’s needs and desires and to each other’s needs and desires. Jesus Christ paid for us to have overflowing abundant life. Abundant life is living in peace, joy, harmony, and with a mind to love and help one another.

The Loving Master

A little over ten years ago I rescued a couple of pups out of an eight foot deep dry well that was under an old house. Their breed is unknown, but they have strong similarities to a Cairn Terrier and a Portuguese Podengo Pequeno. Whatever they are, they have been my little furry buddies for these years. They did live in the house when I lived in Arkadelphia with free access to the fence enclosed yard via doggie doors. It was discovered that pet dander was causing breathing problems with my wife. So when we moved to Benton, I built the little boys a house. They are twenty pounds each, so I built a house in proportion to their size. It has wall to wall carpet on a thick foam pad. It has a padded sleeping box inside, and I have provided both a heater and an air conditioner to take care of seasonal extremes. All the padding and carpet is easily changed out from time to time as they become soiled. Their little house is raised with an open dirt “basement” underneath so they can lay in the cool dirt under the house in the hot summer time and still see what’s going on around them. They have a lookout deck positioned so they have full view of the back yard and a view of the driveway and street that goes in front of our house. Their house is in an approximately 12 x 12 fenced yard, joining to one of our storage sheds. I try to turn them out to walk them twice a day for good health. Their names are Willy and Waylon, and they will sing a tune when they start chasing one of the rabbits that hang out in the back yard.

Every day I see a picture of God’s love in action. I provide for them everything they need, and I am greeted with unbridled love and joy. They know I won’t hurt them and I will protect them and rescue them when they get in trouble. Their training is by word repetition, and reward. Displeasure is shown when they do those things they know not to do. God’s love for us is such that he has provided abundance of all we need through his Son, Jesus Christ. He will never do bad things to us. Satan, flesh, and life itself will do that. Sometimes we get ourselves in trouble. But God’s love is there to rescue. We can be confident in that. When we know our loving Father, we trust him, knowing that together with him we can make it through. When we submit to his discipline, we are free to “run in the yard” in liberty. When we walk with him by his word and in the power of his Spirit, we experience unbridled love and joy in daily life. It is not a chore to walk with him. It is the highlight of the day. Father God is a wonderful master.

Love Lifted Betty

Barbara’s sister, Betty, vowed she would not get on an airplane under any circumstances. Betty would not even get on a Ferris wheel! Her husband, Dewayne, started having classic symptoms of a heart attack. Betty and Dewayne live way out in the country, a 40 minute drive into Little Rock. With the 911 call, it was decided he would be air lifted to the hospital. The helicopter landed in the pasture behind their house, and as they loaded Dewayne and made preparations to depart, Betty was invited to go on the helicopter with Dewayne. Betty’s reply was this: “I’ve been by his side for these sixty two years, and I am not going to be apart from him now.” With the assistance of the pilot and the medic, she stepped on one’s bent leg while the other one steadied and helped to lift her right into the co-pilot’s seat. They strapped her in and away they flew. She did fine with the short flight to the hospital. They got them safely to the hospital and Dewayne is doing well. We visited with them a few days after the incident after they went back home, and got the whole story in full detail.

The power of love will enable us to do things that we thought we could not do. We have watched Betty stand by her man in many incidences for many years. She stands before all as a faithful wife and a faithful believer in the Lord, who reflects some of the same love that God has for us all. The Bible says the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. When we yield our lives to the Holy Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit to overflowing, as Betty did at an early age, we have the love of God dwelling in us. While our natural love might fail, God’s love in us will never fail (1 Corinthians 13: 8). It is God’s strength that resides in us by the Spirit of God to enable us to do the will of God and overcome natural fears and inhibitions. The Bible says this love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). This is the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit to overflowing. This was demonstrated on the day of Pentecost with the first church. They were hidden behind closed doors for fear of those same Jews who had killed Jesus. After they were filled with the Spirit, with no fear, they boldly confronted the Jews and all the gathering people with the good news of the resurrected Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Through the infilling of the Spirit and the operation of the love of God in supernatural healing power, multitudes of people were reached with the gospel and lives were changed for the better. This is the answer for our world today – our hearts and lives changed by an encounter with Jesus Christ in the power of God’s Spirit of love.

Two Sides Of The Coin

Life is like a coin given to us. How we spend or invest it determines the return received. That coin has two sides. On one side is the Almighty, All-knowing Sovereign God, whose name is “I AM” (Exodus 3:14; John 8:58). With God is his supreme purpose, plan, power, and his unlimited provisions. He is the One True God to be feared and reverenced as such. The secret things belong to God but that which is revealed belongs to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of the law he has given (Deuteronomy 29:29). That brings us to the other side of the coin – Man’s Responsibility. We are responsible to get all the knowledge and provisions of God that we can. He has provided full salvation in Christ. To neglect or only get part of what God has for us is in Christ is to deny ourselves abundant life now, and eternal rewards hereafter. God has revealed that we are to be born again by the operation of his Spirit working in our lives revealing the love of God and the finished work of Jesus on our behalf (John 3). In our commitment to follow Jesus, we are to be baptized, immersed, in water just like Jesus. To live out the will of the Father on earth as it is in heaven, we are to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and give ourselves to learn to be led by the Spirit in everyday life. God has revealed there is one Body in Christ in which Jesus Christ is Lord, with a singular mission to get the good news of Jesus out to the whole world (Isaiah 52:7, 8). There are over 30,000 denominations of Christianity, yet we are one Body in Christ. Through Christ we are one coin with God. That is awesome! We experience results of being one with God’s purpose, plan, power, and provision, by keeping our focus being on Him instead of on particular religious views and practices. In this way our lives exhibit his love for us and his power working in our lives. With our focus on him, his Word, and his Way, we remain true to him instead of denying him by an infinite number of religious distractions (Acts 2:38, 39; Romans 8:1-14; Ephesians 4:1-7). This is the coin given to us to either spend on ourselves or invest in the kingdom of God. If we spend it on ourselves, we only get what we spend it on. The good news is if we invest our life in the kingdom of God, not only do we get abundant life to enjoy here now, but we also have an exponential growth of eternal rewards laid up in heaven. The apostle Paul is still winning souls for Jesus today through his focus on God and his writings. He invested his coin wisely. We can do the same. It is never too late to start a fresh walk with God.

How Many Pencils Do You Have?

Some of us can remember the days of the timed test. In some sort of educational setting, a test was administered in which we penciled in our answer by filling in the little circles by our chosen answers. In some settings we were told to be sure and bring at least two #2 hardness pencils so in case one broke we could continue the test. It was foolish to come take the test with just one pencil. If the soft lead broke, you could not finish and you risked not passing the test. It was wise to bring at least two pencils to the test.

Jesus taught in the end time the kingdom of God would be like ten virgins awaiting the coming of a bridegroom for a marriage ceremony. They all had ceremonial lamps with oil in them for their place in the ceremony. Five of the virgins had vessels of extra oil with them as a reserve. The bridegroom was a long time coming, so they all got sleepy and lay down and slept. Finally the call was made and they all got up and trimmed the wicks of their lamps to make them burn brightly. During their time of sleeping, the oil of five of the virgins had burned out and they had no oil with them to refuel. They started trying to get some of the oil from the reserves of the other five virgins, but they were told to go and get their own oil. While they were gone to get their own oil to replenish their lamps, the bridegroom came. Those that were ready went into the ceremony with him, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came back and knocked on the door saying “Lord, Lord, open to us.” But the bridegroom answered them, “I say unto you, I know you not.” Jesus concluded the analogy by telling us to “watch”, to “stay awake” (spiritually), because we don’t know when he will be coming and we will be meeting him face to face (Matthew 25:1-13). The five virgins came to the time of the test with only one pencil. They had no back up, no reserve. When life uses up or breaks our pencil, we don’t have time to wake up and go find another one in order to finish the test. We are to be ready with a reserve. It is foolish to not have a reserve. The foolish virgins had it in their minds that they had all they needed, nothing lacking. But there was more needed in order to pass the test that life offers. Jesus taught that we be born again, baptized in water, and baptized in and led by the Holy Spirit. With this, we have a reserve from which to draw each day. With this we can be ready. We are to keep the extra pencils of living in his Word and Spirit each day so we can write our ticket of victory with God!

Grab The Right Cup

We enjoyed a trip to Branson for a couple of days doing various things, with the highlight of the trip being to see the sight and sound production of JESUS. This is truly a spectacular portrayal of the life and ministry of Jesus. I highly recommend anyone going to see it. You can’t know what it is like until you go see it. Meanwhile, back at the motel one morning, I got up and went about getting one of those in-room cups of coffee. As with many motels, they had a little tray with clear plastic cups on one side for water and paper cups on the other side for coffee, with the packets of coffee, tea, and sugar in the middle. Being preoccupied with waking up, when the coffee was brewed, I grabbed one of the clear plastic cups and had to take my pocket knife to get the plastic off. It didn’t want to tear. So I did that and poured my coffee. I did not think about what I was doing until I was walking over to a chair to sit down and realized how hot that cup was in my hand. “Well, I’ll be! I grabbed the wrong cup!” I thought to myself. But I decided, “Well, for all the trouble I went to for this one, I’m just going to keep it.” So, I held it up around the top rim to drink it until I got it drunk down some. When Barb saw what I was doing, she asked, “Is that coffee you are drinking out of that cup?” I said, “Yes” and explained to her how it came to be. She just shook her head.

Sometimes we just settle for things that are less than the best. We just get by, figuring to get that which is designed for us, is more trouble than it is worth. Had I been paying attention to what I was doing, I would have gotten the paper cup which is insulated against the heat. Life can dish out some pretty hot stuff that can burn us or even cause us to drop the cup. We need to take all that God offers us in order to most effectively deal with things. When Jesus paid the price for us, he not only took our sins away, but he provided that we can live our life in the supernatural power of his Word and Spirit. Two provisions can help us to handle the hot things in life much better. To “stand on his Word” means to believe, confess, and take action in life according to the promises in his Word. To be “filled with and led by his Spirit” means that we yield to and receive the power of his Spirit by faith. Then, by “stepping out in faith”, we can experience the supernatural operation of the tools and weapons of the Spirit provided to help in daily life. We just need to grab the right cup. Luke 11:9-13.

Grab The Right Cup

Stung!

While traveling in the hot summer time, a wasp was deflected off the little side glass pointed toward me and ended up resting on top of my left leg. I looked down and saw it sitting there and thought to myself, “Well, I’ll be! There’s a wasp sitting there on my leg!” I pondered a moment on what I should do and decided, “I’ll just fix him for good.” So I made sure I had good control on the steering wheel and that I was clear of traffic on the road, and I slapped that critter on my leg with a good hard slap to kill him. Much to my surprise, I drove the stinger right into my leg. With angry irritation, I said out loud, “Dadgummit, I stung my own self with that wasp just sitting there!”

So much for murderous vengeance in my heart – it came back to bite me! Isn’t that the way it usually works? We go about getting at somebody and we end up hurting ourselves. These days people don’t know what the Word of God says, and we end up stupidly slapping a stinger into our leg and blame it on God or the devil. We are told in the Word of God that he who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the just, even they both are an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 17:15). Tongues waggle on facebook and phones at the drop of a hat before all the facts are ever known, or even cared to be known. Put this with the truth that we will definitely reap what we sow, and we get a not-so-pretty picture (Galations 6:7, 8). It might feel good coming out and make for juicy conversation, but much of what is spoken simply amounts to hard-core slander. If what we are relating is not a fact, it is a spiritual felony to relate it. It is called speaking evil (Ephesians 4:21-32). Then people wonder what hit them. Such sin is an open door to sickness, weakness, despair, depression, and even premature death (1 Corinthians 11:29, 30). Adam and Eve believed and sided with a lie in the Garden and brought trouble on themselves and everybody. First, make sure what you hear and relate is true. Just because a person is a wasp, does not mean we need to be slapping them. Remember, Jesus himself taught us to be careful what we say. Words carry spiritual force. If you’ve got a wasp on your leg, you best brush it off by prayer, forgiveness, and asking God to bring hidden things to light. That does not mean you let people walk on you. It means you keep your heart clear and trust God to deal with them his way. Jesus dealt with evil people to their face and he warned his disciples of them, keeping his focus on God’s will for his own life. If you don’t, you will end up slapping a stinger into your leg.

In Earth as It is in Heaven

Years ago we were having student Bible studies in our home with students from the local universities in attendance. One evening a girl from Japan was invited to come who was of the Shinto religion. She did not want to come, but the friend insisted that she come with her. During the course of the meeting it was asked if anyone had any needs to pray about. It was discovered this girl had a bad headache, a chronic condition due to an accident. One of the attendees kneeled before her as she sat on the couch and prayed for the headache to go. The pain instantly left. She was then told that this same Jesus who healed her of the headache would take her sins away and give her new life. She received the Lord. I was told that the next day on campus, she went everywhere telling people what the Lord had done for her – a life transformed by the Lord through simple prayer, trusting God.

Prayer is a wonderful thing. Anyone can do it. It requires no special training. You can do as much or as little as you choose. The pay is commensurate with the work performed. The long term benefit potential is unlimited. You don’t have to be religious to do it. It can be done in any setting with good results. One prayer, from a heart bowing to God Almighty, repenting from sin and receiving the Savior Jesus Christ, can take you from the spiritual kingdom of darkness and put you in the kingdom of light and life in Christ Jesus, with, a destiny of heaven in the end. Then, you can live a lifestyle of prayer and communion with that great loving, merciful, and faithful God, seeing him work in ways and accomplish things that you in no way could ever do or accomplish. Jesus took the limits off how we are to pray. He said it was God’s will for things to be on earth as it is in heaven. There’s no sickness in heaven, so it’s God’s will for us to not be sick on earth. God’s will on earth began in the Garden of Eden. Man fell, but Jesus came to restore man back to God in every way. Jesus demonstrated God’s will on earth by healing all and forgiving all who came to him with an open heart, and he taught us to pray that way (Matthew 6:9-15). You can know – just as it is God’s will to forgive you of your sins, it is God’s will to heal you of your sickness and that you be healthy and live a long, satisfying life (Psalms 91:16). What a privilege we have through the work of Jesus Christ, that we can talk to Almighty God and come to know him as a loving Father, and receive all his provisions for us on a daily basis. “Yes Lord! ‘Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven’.”

Good People Can Be Born Again

Nicky was a good man. He was enlightened and educated in the things of God. He knew God was a miracle-working God, and even as a Jewish Pharisee, acknowledged that Jesus was sent from God. He desired to know more about Jesus, so much that he came to Jesus to learn more about him. He certainly did not want his Jewish colleagues to know that he had a personal intrigue to know more about Jesus, so he went to Jesus at night. Nicodemus, in our modern culture, by pursuing his interest in Jesus could have gone to Bible College and become a fine pastor or even a college Bible professor. With his Jewish background and knowledge, his teaching would be rich and good, tying the old covenant in with the new. However, Jesus ignored Nicodemus’ enlightenment, his knowledge, and the fact that he was convinced that he, Jesus, was of God. Instead of acknowledging and commending him for his fine knowledge, Jesus abruptly said to him, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). They conversed about being born again. Jesus explained to him that it is by the Spirit of God that a person is born again, and so enters into the kingdom of God. He continued with good news of how God so loved the whole world that he gave his only begotten Son so that people would not perish in their sins, but have everlasting life (John 3:16, 17). He said this to a very good man, one who, as a Pharisee, vigorously shunned sin and sought to live a righteous life. Jesus used birth as a metaphor of entry into spiritual life. A baby is conceived and grows in the darkness of a womb before it is ever born into the light of the world. Being enlightened and going to church is not the new birth. Being convicted of sin and doing good religious things, even teaching about Jesus and trying to live a good life is not the new birth. All that is well and good, but it is not the entry into eternal kingdom life. It is not just an intellectual assent to the Spirit. New birth is a life-transforming yielding to and fellowship with the Spirit in view of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. This is when we are supernaturally infused with the very life of God. When this occurs, the Lord Jesus Christ becomes our focus. We commit our life to follow him. In this operation of God we are born from the darkness of the fleshly womb into the spiritual light of the kingdom of God. Jesus becomes our total and only peace with God. Our good Bible works are shown to be vain and useless in the light of what he did for us. We love him because he first loved us. With the new birth, good people can come to really know Jesus.