The Word is Truth

“Prayer: Heavenly Father, may Your Spirit guide me through the truth of Your Word. Protect me as I do Your will in this world. May Your love for me bathe me so that I am known as Yours. In Jesus Name, Amen” (“Faithful Promises of God” p 266)

As you read through the Word of God, you are bathed with truth, for God’s Word is truth. Our world seems to get more evil each day but past generations have said the same thing. Could it be that as we draw ever closer to Jesus and read the Word daily, we notice the evil more? We are keenly aware of the evil around us.

John 1:1 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word is God speaking directly to us. It’s not just the Word in red letters, it is the whole Bible. God wrote it all using different men along the way. Yes, their personalities come out in their writings but it is God who wrote the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. He made no mistakes and, in each translation, our God is perfect and watches over what is being written. Sure, there are some Bibles you just want to stay away from but we have some wonderful modern translations that are spot on.

Are you devouring His Word daily? Are you asking Him to show you just what you need to read each and every day? Are you obeying His Word? Are you fellowshipping with other believers?

I will close with one of my favorite passages (remember, I say that all the way through the Bible): “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.” Ephesians 4:17-19 No longer live as the world lives but find out what He is calling you to.

If you are planning on reading through the Bible in 2020, I encourage you to get “Faithful Promises of God” to help guide you along this path. My hope is for more and more people to read through the Bible for that is where our hope is!

Christopher Columbus, the “Christ-Bearer”

I may be a two-days late as to when Columbus actually set foot onto shore after sailing for approximately six weeks but at some point, our politicians and even the people did not care what we were celebrating but only that they got a three-day holiday.

So you see, some are trying to make the Columbus Day celebration into a political statement, saying that Columbus didn’t set foot here on the United States soil but rather, there was a group of indigenous people already here. Some say those people came from northwest Asia crossing over into Alaska and down but others say they were from Central or South America, coming up. Still others want to give the credit of the discovery of the Americas to northern Europeans much earlier than Columbus.

We are going to take a look at Christopher Columbus, the man himself but it really started before he was 10 years old, when he was just a boy. He lived in Genoa, Italy and loved the sea! He was down at the docks whenever he wasn’t helping his father in his business. At this young age, Columbus and his mother, father and siblings attended a mass and it was at that feast of the patron Saint Christopher that Christopher Columbus realized that his name meant “Christ-Bearer”. It was at this age of 10 that Columbus decided that he would be a bearer of the Gospel to the heathens of far away lands. He would fulfill his love of the sea and carry the message of Christ. That was his dream.

Christopher had read these words from Zechariah 9:10, “he shall speak peace unto the heathen; and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the end of the earth.” It was exactly what he knew God was calling him to do. From that point on, he prayed for God to allow him to share the Gospel to all people. In fact, years later, that is exactly why Queen Isabella encouraged her husband to provide the financial support for Columbus to sailing to the India by sailing west.

Christopher left home only a few years after his 10th birthday, never to return to Italy again. He lived for a number of years in Portugal where the king had promised to provide him with ships and provisions to find a new route to India but he was not honest and gave the ships and money to another. It is here that Christopher and his brother Bartholomew (a map maker) spent time and where Christopher met his first wife. They had a son but within a short time after, his wife died.

When Columbus realized that the king of Portugal was not going to provide him the means to sail, so Christopher took his son and moved to Spain to seek help for his dream. There, his son was cared for by the grace of God and Christopher set out to convince the King and Queen to fulfill his dream. This process took time, several years in fact but Christopher told everyone he met his dream.

While waiting to hear back from the King and Queen, he met his second wife. She gave him a second son. She supported Christopher’s dream and because of that, she would spend many years away from the husband that she loved.

It was worth the wait, all the prayers and missing his family for his brother Bartholomew still lived in Portugal. Finally, ten long years later, he was provided with two ships, the Pinta and the Nina. They were small and Christopher felt that he needed a third ship, a bit larger than the other two, its name was LaGallega but Christopher immediately renamed it to Santa Maria (Holy Mary) in honor of Jesus’s mother to honor God.

On August 3, 1492, Admiral Christopher Columbus set sail to take the Gospel to the heathen. Their first stop was the Canary Islands. Along the way, prayers could be heard often as Christopher led his men is praising the Lord in hymns. His intentions were to chart a route to China and India for their gold and spices. Instead, Columbus discovered a whole new land, the Bahamas and later many islands in what is now the West Indies.

He made three such trips to the “new world” struggling with men who rebelled, health issues and missing his family but he never regretted being a “Christ-Bearer”. And with that, you now have a little more of the story about the day that is celebrated here in the U.S. Christopher Columbus was a great, God-fearing man, a man full of adventure and courage.

Last 90 days…

We are getting close to October 1st and that means that many of you have either just started the New Testament or will be starting it within the next week or so. And for those of you who have not started reading through the Bible, this is your opportunity to read the New Testament yet this year. You can still use “Faithful Promises of God”, just flip to the page where Matthew 1 starts…that would be page 236.

What stories do you have to tell? What has God shown you as you have made a concerted effort to read through the Bible this year? What great treasures has He given you and what exciting changes have you made in your life? Did you keep a journal? If not, start now!

As I read the minor prophets, I am reminded often how God uses all our life circumstances to help us grow to be more like Christ. How God uses ordinary people, not those who are highly educated, to touch the hearts of hurting people and draw them to Jesus. He uses people like you and me…you don’t have to have everything perfect as you witness, just be real. And pray…it’s the Holy Spirit who works in that other person’s life to draw them to Himself.

Stay humble through it all and remember that we are His instruments; the music may not sound pretty to us but to the spiritually tuned, it is ever so beautiful. I can’t stress enough that reading through the Bible, from cover to cover, will change your life because you will meet the One who will change it. Our Heavenly Father loves each of us dearly and He waits for us to surrender our lives to Him.

What does that surrender look like? You will see it throughout God’s Word as God shows us sinners who turned from their past and became new creatures in Christ. The tears that come when we see our filthy lives compared to Christ. The hunger of not getting enough of God’s Word and making new friendships that are deeper because you share the same Father. We experience a joy even in times of sorrow because He walks with us through those hard times. That dance you have with the Savior is the best dance of all, He gently leads you on the ballroom floor of life and at times it feels like He picks you up and carries you. Oh, the love of the Savior…He is calling you today, longing to take you into His loving arms. Are you ready to surrender?