SEASONS CHANGE, BUT JESUS IS UNCHANGING

Oh, what a mighty God we serve! He shows Himself in each season—a glimpse of His eternal beauty and faithfulness. All of creation praises His Name.

ETERNAL PERSPECTIVES  by Sally Bair

For All Seasons
    
Like many of you, I feel blessed to live in the Northwoods, especially this time of year. Each season brings its own colors, textures, and shapes. Maple leaves change hue from pale green to a deeper shade as spring turns into summer. They change into a variety of reds and golds in the fall and finally, as winter settles in, the lovely maple branches now devoid of leaves sport a coat of fluffy snow.

I find it interesting to study one particular tree from season to season—not only its changes in color but also its shadow. Nature always brings pleasure to our senses. When it comes to the life of nature around us, there is nothing dull or boring about it—especially in the Northwoods where the seasons bring their own rewards, their unique life-celebrations. In fact, all cultures celebrate their seasons in various ways.

During certain seasons the Israelites celebrated their identity in God. Even the prophecy about Jesus coming to earth specified He would appear at a certain time. You know the rest of the story, how each year we celebrate His birth during our winter season which we call Christmas.

A pastor told about a picture his young daughter drew, framing it with these words: "Jesus is the…Reason for the…Season." Most of us probably have heard that phrase. Her drawing, however, did not show a manger scene, nor an outdoor, winter scene, but a four-part portrayal of all the seasons. She was merely showing that we celebrate Jesus in every season.

In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus spoke to His disciples as He prepared to leave the earth. He gave them their final instructions—to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you …” And His last words were meant to encourage them, even as they are meant for us today—"And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Lord, help us to remember every day that You are unchanging, a God for all seasons. Even as the seasonal changes in nature bring us joy, Your infinite love and faithfulness and goodness give us joy unspeakable and are available to us forever. May we always take joy in You, our Redeemer and our Friend. Amen.
   

GOLD FOR OUR FUTURE

Gold is a valuable gem and it represents different things for different people. Some view it as financial security for the future. Others consider it something to strive for, to give them popularity or high social standing. Emotions can run high at the mention of gold—awe, fear, envy, resentment, pride, reverence. How do you feel about gold?

ETERNAL PERSPECTIVES by Sally Bair

Golden Promises

Never have I enjoyed autumn colors as much as during my recent trip to Calumet, Michigan. My eight-day stay required making daily visits to eye clinics for a close relative, up and down the Keweenaw Peninsula. For miles and miles, the trees along roadsides and on the mountains paraded their vivid reds, bright oranges, and golden hues of every shade. The pleasure of such astounding beauty eclipsed any discomfort I felt from my hours of driving.

The yellows and golds dominated the landscape. What a warm, joyful color! The colors yellow and gold are known to stimulate the mental process and nervous system, activate the memory, and bring happiness. Conversely, the same colors signify cowardice or deceit, as considered in the familiar saying, “He’s yellow-bellied.” The term “yellow journalism” is associated with sensationalism. In some cultures, yellow symbolizes liberalism. In others, it represents greed.

The Bible also tells about the color gold. Psalm 19:9-10 states, “The fear of the Lord is clean … the judgments of the Lord are true … more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold.”

Not only is the color gold used to describe the precious nature of God’s Word, it is also used to describe knowledge. “Receive my instruction, and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold.” (Proverbs 8:10) Even our faith is considered more precious than gold. “…the genuineness of your faith (is) much more precious than gold that perishes.” (1 Peter 1:7)

In the book of Revelation, John also records God’s new heaven as having streets of gold. God showed him a new heaven and earth, “and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.” (Revelation 21:21) 

The entire twenty-first chapter tells about the beauty and perfection of God’s residence, a place meant “only for those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (verse 27) Our streets of gold leaves are but a glimpse of the beauty He has promised when we reside with Him in His new place forever. When the golden leaves of autumn are in their death throes, we realize that the world we live in now is imperfect. But the pure gold of our faith, our obedience, and our heartfelt devotion to Him, will last forever.

Lord, we look forward to a life of golden perfection and beauty when we meet You face to face. Thank You for Your faithful promises. In Jesus’ name, amen.
   

THE GLORIOUS COLORS OF AUTUMN

                            

        An extended stay during a family emergency turned out to be an unexpected blessing. As I drove up and down the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan several times, I had the privilege of enjoying the splendor of God’s creation in a way I never had. Vivid reds, oranges, and golds covered the peninsula mountains and roadsides for miles upon miles. Such breathtaking beauty! Such a taste of what’s to come when God returns with a new heaven and earth.

        ETERNAL PERSPECTIVES  by Sally Bair

 Coverings

When it rains, if we’re smart we use an umbrella, hat, or rain gear. When it snows, we get out the parka. In the fall we cover our flowerbeds and vegetable gardens with mulch or plastic. There are many ways to protect ourselves and the things that are dear to us.

Sometimes, however, we put a blanket on our raw emotions in an effort to avoid or hide them. How many times have you answered someone’s “How are you?” with a smile and a “Fine,” when you didn’t feel fine at all? You may have been crying on the inside because someone criticized you. You may have felt self-pity or loneliness when a friend or spouse neglected you. Perhaps you were sad because a loved one was ill or had died, or felt anxious and fearful about an encounter with someone who had threatened you.

Covering our bad feelings is common to most of us. We don’t like to expose our hurts and failures to others. Not that we should spew out our feelings of self-pity and anger to everyone. It’s always good to address our feelings, problems, or faults with those we love or with people of trustworthy counsel. But the problem with cover-ups is—they leave no chance for the problem to be solved. They also give others the wrong impression about us and, if we continue in the lie, we eventually tend to believe the lie ourselves.

    

God cannot work in our lives until we’re willing to remove our emotional blankets and expose our true selves to Him. Like a shepherd who covers the raw wounds of his sheep with oil, Jesus the Good Shepherd will bring healing to our body, soul, and spirit through His powerful anointing. When we finally remove our coverings and replace them with His, then joy, peace, and freedom will be ours forever.

       “But you have an anointing from the Holy One…” 1 John 2:20

Lord, forgive us when we’ve covered our bad feelings and our sins, thus hindering You from giving us Your perfect covering. Give us the will and strength to remove the coverings we’ve held onto for so long. We want Your joy, Your peace, and Your freedom. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

PRAYING WITH FAITH

My favorite hymn is “Trust and Obey.” The words speak eloquently of God’s promises to bless us. When we look at a hopeless situation with the eyes of faith, we can know that God will turn it into whatever’s best for us. God is faithful. He can turn a seed into a colorful flower. He can turn our seeds of doubt into faith, and when we turn our faith into obedience it will grow—like a colorful flower.

ETERNAL PERSPECTIVES  by Sally Bair

All Good Things

My granddaughter’s pregnancy included months of morning sickness and other illnesses. She also had low iron resulting in extreme fatigue and low weight gain. She developed the beginnings of a pregnancy-related liver condition that often leads to still births. By God’s grace and the prayers of hundreds, she delivered a healthy and unbelievably hefty eight pound girl. I’m sure the collective sighs of relief could be heard across the country.

Many of us have experienced a good outcome from a seemingly hopeless situation. Others go through tough times, yet choose to believe God’s promise of blessing. A woman I know suffered from cancer and its treatment, yet thanked God for the experience because it changed her entire perspective about life and death. 

Other examples show us the value and blessing of prayer, of a positive attitude, and a strong trust that God will turn bitter experiences into blessing. The Bible is filled with examples of answered prayer, of changed attitudes, and of faith.

Although feeling hopeless, Abraham chose to believe God’s promise for a
legitimate heir, even though old Abe was nearly 100 and his wife way past the age of childbearing. In fact, she bore Isaac. He prayed, he focused on the promise, and he believed. Paul the apostle, and Jesus’ disciples who were sent on an evangelism trip, prayed for healing of the sick and deliverance of the demon-possessed. They saw hopelessness, but focused on the power of God’s Spirit and believed.

We can rely on that same power. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6) When we pray, with thanksgiving and belief, His peace will fill us—through even the worst of situations. But prayer and faith require practice. Every time we decide to believe the best rather than the worst, our faith grows a little more.

Paul writes in Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” God has called each of us to love Him, and consequently others, for His perfect purpose. When our physical eyes see hopelessness, our spiritual eyes can see hope—and good outcomes like the healthy baby God helped my granddaughter deliver.

Lord, as we pray for ourselves and others, we praise and thank You for the good outcomes only You can bring. Give us eyes that see beyond the hopeless to the working together for good. In Jesus’ name, amen.

FALL HARVEST

The leaves are falling from the poplars and maples faster than a blizzard of snowflakes. The green beans and zucchini are still producing in abundance. Bright orange pumpkins glow throughout a neighbor’s field. The harvest is ready! So is God’s harvest. Am I, are you, ready to use God’s fruit of the Spirit to draw others into His kingdom—today?
 
ETERNAL PERSPECTIVES  by Sally Bair

Fruit

This year I put up a fancy climbing device for my pole beans. The metal pole supports two circular rings, one near the ground and the other six feet high, joined by intertwining strings that guide the pole bean vines. In past years, the deer hadn’t touched my outside-the-fence plants, so I rationalized that it would be safe to erect the climbing device outside the fence, too. The fenced gardens had no room for pole beans. 

At first, my pole beans grew beautifully on their new home, holding a ton of leaves, blossoms, and beans. What a harvest! Then, one morning during my routine walk through the gardens, I witnessed a strange denuding. Hundreds of leafless, beanless stems stood straight up along the strings, like vertical pick-up-sticks. At least the top crop remained, apparently too high for the deer to reach. The whole affair looked like a 1970s ethnic hairdo. 

I groaned and then laughed at the sight. What a picture of my life as a fruit-bearing Christian! “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22)

We’re all vulnerable to the vagaries of life that steal our spiritual fruit. God plants and waters us within the protective nursery of His Word and Spirit. However, we sometimes stray outside His nursery.

Our fruit of love, for instance, is snatched easily by anger and hatred following someone’s evil act. We allow our fruit of joy to be stolen and exchanged for sadness. God’s peace, His special fruit, is gobbled in a moment until only the visible stems of anxiety stand. An unkind word easily steals our fruit of kindness or goodness. Someone’s broken promise snatches our own sense of faithfulness. The harsh words of a friend or co-worker quickly turn our own gentle words into an unpleasant comeback or even retaliation.

Patience, a virtuous fruit, takes time to grow. Its fragility must be fenced in daily to avoid being eaten by unexpected, unwanted circumstances. Finally, there’s the fruit of self-control. We conveniently forget to ask God to fill us with it for the day, making it easy for marauding deer—misused time, unfulfilling pleasures, and poor attitudes—to snatch our self-control in one gulp.

Jesus has the answer to these fruit snatchers. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Lord, help us abide so closely to You that the fruit of Your Spirit dwelling within us cannot be snatched by surrounding marauders. In Jesus’ name, amen.

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

As the rally call goes out during school football games, our rally call as Christians can be even more passionate. We’re in a war against evil, against worldly temptations, and against our own sin-prone flesh. Thanks be to God Who gives us the victory! He provides us with supernatural armor. We can choose every morning to cover ourselves with His truth, His righteousness and peace, our faith and salvation, the powerful Word of God … and prayer. 

ETERNAL PERSPECTIVES by Sally Bair

Praying for our Enemies

In nature, one animal preys on another to get its share of the proverbial pie, such as two squirrels chattering and fighting. The law of nature is all about survival of the fittest.

How does that apply to human nature? As a youngster and the dominant twin, I acted like a wild animal seeking the most food. My sister had to fight tooth and tongue to get her share. Fortunately, our mother came to the rescue—until she became so frustrated, she had one of us divide the food and the other choose her share. We made sure to cut as evenly as possible so the other wouldn’t end up with the biggest half.

Such silliness! However, don’t we all tend to fight for the biggest, the best, or the most? We can apply this example to most anything. We fight for respect, love, and acceptance. In an instant, we can feel mistreated, rejected, or unloved. It takes time to learn how to avoid becoming defensive or angry over someone’s mistreatment.

Perhaps in the natural world, survival of the fittest means we must fight. As Christians, however, our fighting is not to be against flesh and blood. When Peter, in the Garden of Gethsemane, cut off a soldier’s ear, Jesus said, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:52-53)

We are to pray for those who mistreat us. In fact, Jesus told us to “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you.” (Luke 6:27)

Huh? How can we pray for our enemies and still survive? Fighting them instead, whether with words or swords, will keep love from entering. Prayer is a powerful weapon. The Bible doesn’t tell us to pray that our enemies will be punished or banished. God is in charge of that. Rather, we are to “retaliate” with good. With love. With a sincere blessing for their spiritual welfare. God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4)

Lord, help us to follow Your perfect example of love. Give us the grace to pray for our enemies and do good to all so they will be drawn to You. In Jesus’ name. Amen. 

WHERE ARE YOU GOING, MR. BLACK BEAR?

The poor little guy looked lost. He wandered through my backyard even as I was preparing to send off this Blogpost. He searched through the wild blackberry patch to no avail, as I had beaten him to the ripe ones. Looking forlorn, he trudged through the woods. Besides looking for ripe berries, he probably was looking for his mama. He’s too young, too small to be out on his own. God bless the little bear.

ETERNAL PERSPECTIVES by Sally Bair

Road Maps

I get lost easily. When I'm riding in a vehicle, I don't pay much attention to landmarks and when I'm driving, I'm not much better. I’ve tried using a GPS, but find it cumbersome, sometimes inaccurate, and downright frustrating. Map reading works best for me.

The first time my husband Don and I drove to look at our East Texas property, I was glad we had a map to guide our way. Without it, we surely would have ended in someone’s pasture. Each turn brought us to a narrower road until the last one was barely wider than a logging trail. Our detailed map didn’t let us down, though our journey seemed to point to failure. Without the map, we would never have found the place—nor believed it even existed, being so far from paved roads.

Road maps are good—to a point. But maps don’t tell us where a road is closed due to accident or flood or bad weather. They don’t show us the potholes, or the road signs that have been turned around.

Studying the Word of God is like studying a map. To learn how to travel on our spiritual journey, we need to read the whole book, yet concentrate on an area at a time so we can understand exactly where we need to go. As we study each section, we can see how it fits into the whole picture. The Gospel of John, for instance, points to our starting point as recorded in Genesis, our eternal destination, and exactly how to get there. And when we ask, the Holy Spirit—our supernatural GPS—will give us revelation and guidance on each aspect of our life-journey. 

Many Scripture verses have something to say about God’s guidance. Psalm 48:14 is one of my favorites. "For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end." In Matthew 18:10-14, the parable about the lost sheep brings to mind the personal care that Christ has for each of us – the joy He receives when even a lost one of us is lost.

We don’t have to lose our way. When we follow God’s roadmap—His Word—we can be assured to reach the destination He has in mind for us. “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105)

Lord, through Your Word, show us when we’ve gone the wrong way morally and how we can get back on the right path with You. We thank You for being our Guide. In Jesus’ name, amen.