December 5, 2017

Greetings My Friend,

We had a visitor over the weekend from Ohio. He is the son of one of Junior's Marine Corp buddies and he has been talking to Junior on the phone for a few years now. As he settled in for his stay with us it crossed my mind that our day to day walk with Jesus might spill over to us talking about some of the lessons we have learned or are learning. Most days Junior and I have a conversation or 2 about what we are learning as we look into God's Word. For us, God's ways and His Word are not far from our thoughts, we talk about Jesus with each other and whom ever we meet. The young man is in his 30's and like many 30 year old's today he has not fully entered into his adult years of making a living and being responsible for himself. Recently he has been talking about going to college to get his degree. He has not held a job for long if at all. Our goal is to present Jesus to him, to give him a comfortable place to visit for a day or two before he leaves again. Tomorrow we will go to church and invite this young man to go along with us. Afterwards is a potluck at church, which means I won't be making lunch at home although there will be food for him to eat. We have longed to have company, now we have someone  to come visit us. All of my thoughts turns toward how walking with Jesus is a day to day journey, we need to prepare for the moments someone comes along who may be seeking to find Him. If life is not lived with Jesus on a day to day basis then when God wants us to speak His truth to people we will not be prepared. All of my day to day quiet time may be used as we visit with Jeff. Junior's time in the Word will be because he brings each conversation around to Jesus as they speak on the phone. Jeff is starting to quote Scripture more on his Facebook page, he seems to be connecting the importance of a faith walk and eternity. Our prayer is the connection takes place and he will then begin giving the Word to those he meets. Many people find our "Jesus" talk to be a bit much, we are grasping the importance of making a decision for Christ and then walking with Him and how long eternity is without God. Lately I see this pain of life without God as I look at Jesus on the cross. In my minds eye I see all of the physical pain of the cross. I have dwelt on this for many years wondering how I would ever be able to deal with physical pain in the name of Jesus. Slowly I have learned that God will give me the ability to handle what I need to handle, mainly I see that the angels comforted Jesus just before He went to the cross. What I have been seeing more recently is Jesus crying out "My God, my God why have You forsaken me?" I hear the anguish in His voice long for God to not turn His back on Him. For that one moment in eternity, God has turned away from Jesus because of the sin He is carrying for us. At this moment in time I begin to see how painful life without God's presence is unbearable and what hell will be truly like. With this picture in mind I find that I want to bring the hope of the Gospel to all people even my worst enemy. I am grateful that Jeff is starting a faith walk, our friend Brenda seems to be hearing the importance of truly walking with Jesus and not playing around with a faith walk as she has done for most of her life. My resolve to wake up and be in the Word and prayer grows stronger in the light of the hope of winning souls for Jesus. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet