Run!

What good is the Armor of God without a WARRIOR on the inside??

"Finally, be strong in the LORD and in His great power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can fight against the devil's evil tricks. Our fight is not against people on earth but against the rulers and authorities and the powers of this world's darkness, against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly world. That is why you need to put on God's full armor. Then on the day of evil you will be able to stand strong. And when you have finished the whole fight, you will still be standing. So stand strong with the belt of Truth tied around your waist and the protection of Right Living on your chest. On you feet wear the Good News of Peace to help you stand strong. And also on use the shield of Faith with which you can stop all the burning arrows of the Evil One. Accept God's salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times with all kinds of prayers, asking for everything you need. To do this you must always be ready and never give up. Always pray for all God's people." -Ephesians 6:10-18

That's deep! Have you ever seen empty armor without a warrior inside fighting a battle? Not me! ...not even in a movie!  Yes, God has equipped us with all we need to be effective for Him but we must do our part! We have to be willing to practice self-discipline and resist the forces around us in order to be most effective!

How do we do this? Well, like any warrior preparing for battle, we have to be "fit" to fight. A warrior has to be physically in shape and in the same manner, we have to make sure we're in top shape by feeding ourselves with the Word of God, clothing ourselves in prayer, empowered by the Spirit, and constantly seeking Him.  

Yes, the battle is not ours, but the LORD's (2 Chronicles 20:15), but we have to be present, willing to let God use us in the battle.  

Jesus, help us to be fully clothed by the FULL armor of God so that we may overcome as you have overcome. Amen. 

Have you talked to a chicken lately? Meet: The Chicken Egg

"But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or ask the birds of the air, and they will tell you. Speak to the earth, and it will teach you....Every one of these knows that the hand of the LORD has done this." 

(Job 12:7-9)

       A fertilized chicken egg is a very special creation. Before even thinking about a chick developing in an egg, it is interesting to ponder how the chicken manages to get a shell around that slippery, raw, fertilized egg. It is a rare sight on the farm to see raw egg smeared on the outside of the shell. Have you ever attempted to put an egg back into its shell after it rolled off the counter?

The shell itself is highly specialized. Each egg shell has about 10,000 tiny holes or pores. How does that chicken form a shell around a soft, messy egg and design the shell to have porosity?

 Put a raw egg in warm water and soon you will see tiny bubbles floating up. These bubbles are escaping through the pores in the shell. The developing chick needs these pores to breathe. Evolution requires a need before an organism will change. How does a chicken know it needs to make a shell with porosity, and how can it manufacture such a shell? The chick does not know it needs the holes in the shell to breathe until it dies for lack of air. Of course, dead chicks cannot evolve.

Within the first few days after the egg is laid, blood vessels begin to grow out of the developing chick. Two of these attach to the membrane under the eggshell and two attach to the yolk. By the fifth day, the tiny heart is pumping blood through the vessels. What makes those blood vessels grow out of the chick, and how do they know where to go and to what to attach?

The chick feeds from the yolk with the yolk vessels and breathes through the membrane vessels. If any of these vessels do not grow out of the chick or attach to the correct place, the chick will die.

The chick gives off carbon dioxide and water vapor as it metabolizes the yolk. If it does not get rid of the carbon dioxide and water vapor, it will die of gaseous poisoning or drown in its own waste water. These waste products are picked up by the blood vessels and leave through the pores in the eggshell.

By the nineteenth day, the chick is too big to get enough oxygen through the pores in the shell. It must do something or die. How does it know what to do next? By this time, a small tooth called the "egg-tooth" has grown onto its beak. It uses this little tooth to peck a hole into the air sack at the flat end of the egg. When you peel a hard-boiled egg you notice the thin membrane under the shell and the flattened end of the egg. This flattened end, which looks like the hen did not quite fill up her egg shell, is the air sack. The air sack provides only six hours of air for the chick to breathe. Instead of relaxing and breathing deeply, with this new-found supply of air, the chick keeps pecking until it breaks a small hole through the shell to gain access to outside air in adequate amounts.

On the twenty-first day, the chick breaks out of the shell. If one step in the development of the chick is missing or out of order, the chick dies.

Each step in the development of the chick defies evolutionary logic. The process must be orchestrated by God, our Creator. The impersonal plus time plus chance is not an adequate explanation for the incredible complexities of life as we observe it.

(http://www.present-truth.org/3-Nature/Evolution%20of%20Creationist/MOGC%2008.htm)

Sea Hearts

Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day. - Psalm 25:5 

What can ride ocean currents for years before finally washing ashore and springing to life? According to National Geographic's World magazine, it's a nut that is native to South America and the West Indies. Some people call them "sea hearts."

These 2-inch, chestnut-colored nuts are hardy, heart-shaped seeds that grow on high-climbing vines. They often fall into rivers and float out to sea. There they may ride the currents for years before coming to shore and sprouting into a plant.

This life-bearing, time-enduring, wave-riding seed illustrates a basic spiritual principle. God's plans may include extended times of waiting for Him to act on our behalf. This was true of Noah, who endured ridicule while spending 120 years building a ship; of Abraham, who waited for the fulfillment of God's promise that he would have a son in his old age; and of David, God's anointed, who chose to wait for God's timing rather than take the life of envious King Saul.

Sea hearts can't choose to be patient, but we can. Nothing is harder or better for us than to follow the example of David, who wrote Psalm 25. By waiting on the Lord we can have peace, and our faith will grow - even while we are riding out the waves.

-Mart De Haan II

THINKING IT OVER
What circumstances make it hard to wait for the Lord? How do we know we won't be disappointed when we wait for Him?


God stretches our patience to enlarge our soul.