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&In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths&

Appearances"

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As I sat here at my desk, thinking about my upcoming second (Spiritual) Birthday, the news was on and the major topic on the news was about the woman in Union (Susan Smith), who is now accused and has apparently admitted to the murder of her two small children (Michael and Alex).  This woman for the most part had the whole country fooled into thinking that she was a victim and that she was so innocent.  This was indeed such a tragic episode to take place and it is only one of so many that takes place every day.  As I was thinking about this, I thought about how so many people base their everyday life on appearances.  So many Christians live defeated lives, because they see so many evil people seemingly prospering while it seems that the Christian is downtrodden.  They tragically lose sight of the fact that Jesus Christ gave us the final victory over this world and even death and hell.  As I was thinking about this, the news mentioned that it is Friday night and all the High Schools are gearing up for Friday night football.  Then the thought came to me that the multitudes of people were attending a Friday night football game the night the Lord saved me.  You see, it was Friday the 13th of November, 1992 when I received that victory.  No one will ever be able to convince me that Friday the 13th is unlucky.  In fact there is no such thing as luck. 

Imagine this:  It's a Friday night (maybe even Friday the 13th).  Here I am, the weakest member of a football team that no one believes should even have been in the play-offs.  And here I am on the sidelines at the championship game.  The defending champions have the home field advantage and they come rushing out on the field and begin all their warm-up exercises.  All of a sudden there comes a great cheer from the bleachers on our side of the field.  I look up in the stands and see everyone standing and looking at the scoreboard.  I look up at the scoreboard and it reads, "Final score Visitors 7 / Home 6".  The victory is ours and all we have to do is march out on the field and accept our prize.  The victory is Jesus Christ, the home field is the world, and the prize is Salvation.  Appearances would have you to think that we were defeated and yet Jesus Christ goes beyond appearances.

The world says, "Master Card - don't leave home without it".  I say and the Lord says, "Salvation - don't leave earth without it".  So many Christians don't live the victorious Christian life they should because they don't fully realize what they received when they received Jesus.

There once was a man who always wanted to take a cruise to Israel, but he was very poor.  He saved his money for years until he finally had enough to purchase a ticket aboard a cruise ship.  He checked with the cruise lines and realized that he had enough money, so he purchased his ticket and began to prepare for his journey.  He knew he wouldn't have any extra money to spend on his trip, so he went and bought enough bread and peanut butter to make enough peanut butter sandwiches to last him the entire time he would be gone.  Well, the day finally came for the trip to begin, so he gathered up his stuff and his peanut butter sandwiches and boarded the ship.  When it came time for him to eat, he ate his allotted peanut butter sandwiches in his room.  Then he decided to take a walk around the ship.  As he walked, he passed by the dining room and he saw everybody feasting on massive seven course meals.  Then he went topside to find others enjoying the huge buffet.  Everybody was stuffing themselves and this was depressing him, so he decided to go back to his room.  Each day after his meal of peanut butter sandwiches, he would go for his walk and each time he would be faced with seeing everybody enjoying all the fancy foods.  Well, the last day of the cruise came and they were on their way home.  After eating his peanut butter sandwiches, he started out for his little walk.  As he was walking, he passed a crew member in the hallway carrying a large tray of food to the buffet.  His desire to have what others had finally got the best of him, so he stopped the man with the tray and said, "Sir, how much does it cost to eat one of those meals?"  The crew member, with an astonished look on his face replied, "Sir, you don't understand, all the meals on this cruise are included in the price of your ticket". 

So many of us as Christians are like this man, ignorant to the many benefits paid for with the purchase of our ticket, bought by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  So many of us confine ourselves to eating our peanut butter sandwiches in our room when we could and should be enjoying the smorgasbord the Lord has prepared for us at no extra cost. 

We have not because we ask not.  That's what the Word of God tells us.  His word also says:

Ask, and it shall be given you;

Seek, and ye shall find;

Knock, and it shall be opened unto you:    Matthew 7:7

With prayer and faith in the Lord, there is no reason for the Christian to live the defeated life that so many settle for living.  There was a little boy who had a best friend and that best friend came to him one day with a brand new baseball glove his Dad had bought for him.  The little boy thought how fortunate his best friend was that his Dad would buy him a brand new baseball glove like that when it wasn't even his birthday or anything.  Then, the best friend said, "I sure wish my Dad had time to teach me how to play."  How tragic it is that we as Dads so often neglect the most important things in life to our children.  Thank God that our Heavenly Father has time to teach us how to play and how to live.  He cares about us and He shows it.  He is always there when we need Him, even when we don't realize that we need Him.

Some may say that I waste an awful lot of time writing these little articles, but it's something that the Lord puts on my heart to do and it is my prayer that He will use these writings to help some Christian to live that victorious life He has set before us, thereby causing some lost person to see that there is truly something to a life with Christ and that they may come to a saving knowledge of Him.