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I Can’t Make You Listen

Written by talk2shari Published December 22, 2018 Discussion Leave a Comment

The hardest part of being a child of God, parent, grandparent, niece, cousin, aunt, and friend is when your heart breaks as you share the gospel and they won’t listen. They’re not rude. They’re not unkind. They’re just indifferent.

I debated for a few seconds on whether or not to write this blog today. My heart is tender and I’m weepy. But that’s okay. I need to share while the pain is fresh.

I’m not a super saint. I’m a messed up child of God that was saved by grace alone, that’s my greatest fear on why people won’t listen to me. They look at me and think “Why does she think she has it (life) figured out?” And I don’t, but I have eternal life figured out and that’s my message.

Ezekiel was not only a spokesman, he was a watchman. He watched as the world around him spiraled into destruction because of a nation that rejected God. I see the same thing, only now God is not viewing us as a nation, He’s viewing us individually, and every single one of us is going to stand accountable for what we’ve done in this life. Alone, before God.

I envision my family and friends standing before God and having Him say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” I feel Ezekiel’s frustration. But I feel God’s pain of rejection and I feel my broken heart that those people will miss out on Heaven and suffer Hell. Yes. There’s a Hell. Why won’t they hear?

I can’t make them listen. I can only blow the horn again and again and say Jesus is Coming Soon whether or not you believe. He will step out on that cloud and call His people home because the Bible says He will and not one word of that book has failed yet.

Christmas can be a sad time because loved ones aren’t with us, but at least if we know Jesus Christ as Savior we know that we will spend eternity rejoicing with our loved ones. But what about the ones that aren’t there? I don’t believe we’ll remember them. But you can believe (because the word says it’s true), that they’ll remember us.

After the heart attack and surgery, I’ve struggled with playing games with faith. I wasn’t guaranteed another Christmas, and I almost missed it. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to tell everyone I can about the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

I can’t make them listen. But I can keep blowing my horn and telling the world Jesus is coming soon! Be ready!!!!

Do you know you’re ready? If not, follow the link for the plan of salvation at the top of the page! And then tell me and everyone else in the world you can about Jesus!

Posted in Bible Journaling, Christian Service, Church Unity, Evangelism, Life Inspiration

Hometown Boots on the Ground

Written by talk2shari Published September 2, 2016September 2, 2016 Discussion Leave a Comment

Ephesians 6:15

And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace

On Wednesday I traveled back from my Minnesota journey for fifteen hours in the car. Other than the necessitated pit stops I drove with purpose and without music or preaching which is usually what I occupy my mind with when traveling. But I wanted to hear from God, which was still difficult when my mind has trouble shutting up, it’s such a chatty Cathy! But what I discovered on my journey to my friend Dewey’s Hometown was that Windom, Minnesota and Grantsville, West Virginia have the same common thread running through their tapestry. It’s a raveling. It’s a thread that’s gotten disconnected from its garment. It’s still attached but it yet it’ loose. It’s not holding anything together, it’s just there. I think that’s a very good analogy of the church.

So as I’m driving… and driving… and driving. God keeps putting that hometown thought into my mind.

We’ve become disconnected from our communities. It’s very easy to say that the community is not our concern. It’s our job to be a light for Jesus! Yes, yes it is. And yet when Jesus was His own light in the towns that He was going to, He wasn’t just in the church house.

He was at the well

… at a wedding
… at the fishing hole
… meeting Nicodemus outside of business hours
… in people’s homes
… in the grain field
… in the cemetery

Every place He went was viewed as an opportunity to serve; and I think that’s where the disconnect comes into place in the church. We’ve bought the lie of Satan that church has no place in the secular world, and yet that’s the very place we’re told to take the gospel of Christ. We forget that the church is not a building, it’s a person. A person with a story and a purpose exclusively belonging to Christ, no matter where you are.

I’m fully aware that we cannot preach the gospel in a classroom. However, we can train our children to walk in the light of Christ and share Him with their friends. Most jobs forbid evangelism in the work place, but they usually don’t mind one iota if you live like Christ on the job. They call it ethics, we call it faith. Nursing homes, prisons and hospitals love our kind and usually welcome us with open arms, and yet we seldom go.

That’s the talk God had with me on my way home. “Shari, you’re going back to your hometown, what are you going to do there to make a difference? How are you going to motivate people and reconnect with your community?” And in my earthly wisdom I said to Him, “But God, they’ll not want to hear what I have to say.”

Oh, He fully understood.

Luke 4:24

And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

“Now what your excuse?” I ask myself. I didn’t have one. But I do have a hometown,, and so do you. And we are without excuse in evangelizing it, starting at the house and working way out.

So I’m working on a way to reconnect the raveling that’s been hanging from my church skirt. I want to prepare the way for Christ’s return like John the Baptist did for his arrival in town the first time. My first step is look for resources… and then I want to get this party started.

Posted in Christian Service, Eternity, Evangelism

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours

Written by talk2shari Published November 15, 2015 Discussion Leave a Comment

If that headline caused you to break out in song or bust a move, you’re either a lover of the oldies, or you’re an oldie. Although I was only 8 years old when Stevie Wonder released that song, it was still quite popular in my teenage years, so as I studied Revelation 7 for my teen class this morning, my ol’ fleshly mind couldn’t help but go back to that song. No, I didn’t bust a move, but in my mind’s eye I did go back to the 70’s when love and I were young. But reality soon kicked me back to 2015 and what caused me to reminisce is now in the forefront of my mind, and that is the fact that I have been signed, sealed and delivered, GLORY TO GOD! for almost 20 years.

Revelation 7:3-4 speaks of the 144,000 of the tribes of the children of Israel, servants of God, sealed in their foreheads and protected from the wrath that’s being poured out on the earth. The last evangelist team on earth. But what about the one before that? You know… us! We don’t have a seal in our forehead, but if we’ve accepted Christ as our Savior but we have one across our heart that declares we are children of the living God. That should cause us to bust a move and do a little holy dance across the floor this morning.

Ephesian 1:13 says ~

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

There it is – Signed, sealed and delivered! The promise of God that we are sealed by the providence of God that regardless of what happens in this world, nothing happens to us without God’s stamp of approval and for His glory.

You better believe in the hour that Revelation 7 is being played out, when all the world is in chaos even greater than now, these 144,000 are going to be feeling the seal that protects them from the enemy that wishes them dead. And this morning I feel that seal as I read the latest on ISIS and their grand scheme of taking over the earth. This wicked lot of men who proudly boast and proclaim victory over the suffering in Paris will one day meet the wrath of God and their arrogant touts will cease as they bow to the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ.

But until then remember…

YOU ARE SIGNED

Isaiah 49:16a

Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands;

On the cross of Calvary Christ bore our names in His hands so that we would have the promise of eternal life.

YOU ARE SEALED

2 Corinthians 1:22

Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

The second we accepted Christ’s final work on the cross as payment for our salvation, God sealed His Spirit inside us so that we may know and feel His presence in our heart.

YOU ARE DELIVERED

Luke 1:70-8

As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.

It’s that time of year again when the Christmas season is upon us. What better time to remember that we are signed, sealed and delivered to serve Him without fear. Preparing the way for our friends and family that they may know the peace and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ before it’s too late.

Go and Tell somebody!!!