‘God’s Promises’ is a song Darryl recently recorded and that he and I wrote a few years back. If you would like to hear it and some of the other songs on his CD go to www.myspace.com/darrylmarini The CD can be purchased from there as well. This is a small devotion written for that song.
Pressed
My brother was driving one day and saw someone who went to his church, so he honked to wave and say hello only to have the guy react and flip him off, this man then turned and realized what he had just done to one of his “brethren”.
How do you respond under pressure? When finances are tight or not there? When health is failing? Or when someone honks at you in traffic? It has been said that pressure does not make character as much as reveals it. It’s when the heat is on that we see what boils to the top. Oh we may say things “I don’t know what got into me,” but in fact it’s more what came out of me and like squeezing a tube of toothpaste when the pressure comes we see what was really inside us all along, we are just good at keeping it hidden most of the time. 
In Acts Ch. 7 we read about Stephan, the first Christian martyr. We are told previously that people were induced to speak lies about him and then bring him before the Supreme Court of his day with these drummed up accusations. When he spoke up and they heard what he had to say, they became enraged and began to stone him to death. Definitely a pressure situation, yet when he had every right to be at his worst, he was at his best and as his life was crushed what came from him was not judgment or bitterness, what came from him was forgiveness and love, what came out of him was Jesus. Literally, his last words were not his own they were the same as Jesus the last moments of His life on the cross. “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”
If indeed pressure does not make character but reveals it, then when Stephen’s life was crushed what it revealed was love and forgiveness, who we saw was Jesus. Who is in you?
It was estimated that 171,000 Christians were martyred in 2006
I received an invitation from Tim Bohler to be involved with another Extreme Home Makeover project. If you would like to be a part of this up in Victorville go to this website www.biabuild.com. Look for the Project 620 button!!!
Or email Tim @ tb2926@att.com
I recently read that among Leonardo Da Vinci’s last words he said, "I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have." I have to admit, reading that made me feel a bit insecure (as I sit on the couch watching American Idol and know that I would never stand a chance to ‘go to Hollywood baby!’) I mean if an obvious genius saw a failure to reach his “expected” potential, where does that leave me? 
Well, fortunately God will not hold me accountable for being like Leonardo Da Vinci, just for being like me. That may sound simple enough (for those who know me), but even in this small task I can get baffled and wonder how I should invest my life. Is it as a father, husband, pastor or friend? Is it in teaching, counseling, singing (well I already touched on that), or maybe it is to develop my business and career and be successful. How can I know what I should do so that in the end looking back I’m not haunted that I have offended God or mankind?
Ephesians 2 says “that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Some believe these words paint a picture of a narrow bridge with exacting specifications of what God wants us to do, but Kenneth Wuest says… ‘The word “walk” is “to regulate one’s life, to conduct one’s self, to order one’s behavior. We are to order our behavior within the sphere of these good works.’ So instead of this being a narrow path with only a few choices that we have to try and find, this is really more like a four lane highway with good works as a guardrail. So I don’t have to be paranoid whether this is “the” thing I am to do, instead, just start doing something good! Can you really imagine God saying … “Why did you help all those orphans? I wanted you to work at the old folk’s home!” I don’t think so.
So instead of trying to find the “one” thing you are to do, practice doing what good you can right now, right where you’re at, with the people you find around you now. Be a better dad, mom, co-worker, boss or friend. You may start off like Philip in Acts 6 taking care of the money issues for the widows and end up an evangelist responsible for the gospel message reaching Ethiopia or like Stephen who started out the same, became the first Christian martyr and left a mark on Saul who would later be known as the apostle Paul who left a mark on the entire world.
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 ( NIV )
What goes through your mind when you think of what it would take to make the next year a “happy” one? I have to admit, my first thoughts were rather superficial and self-centered (those usually go together). I figure maybe if I make more money and work less, or if I have less conflicts with people and fewer difficulties, then it will be a “happy” year indeed, but knowing that the word blessed actually means happy makes me wonder if the people that I read about in scripture who were “blessed” led lives that fit into my parameter of “happy”?
In Genesis 12 God says to Abram “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” God then says that He will make him a great nation and bless him (make him happy). Now being told to leave your home, people and family doesn’t sound easy to me, in fact that would be pretty scary. Joseph and Paul also were both blessed by God, yet had some pretty rough years and let’s not forget Job! So, how could people who went through difficult times be happy? Maybe the problem is with our understanding of the word, connecting it to circumstances and not to God.
I received a text message on New Year’s Eve. Saying “2008 wasn’t so great, but 2009 will be fine” and I thought to myself “anything easier than last year will be just fine with me,” but there I go again equating easy and good when in all actuality easy is probably more closely equated to idle or maybe even lazy, which I don’t think is necessarily good at all. The last 16 months of Corinne and my life were pretty brutal. From losing my job, three of our four children moving out (two of them out of state), one joining the Marines, another starting a dangerous profession (as if the Marines were a safe one?) one almost getting killed, two having to go to the hospital for some pretty serious things and there’s a whole lot more. How could last year be a happy one? Where is the blessing in any of that? But if God lead Abram into a desert to become Abraham so that the nations of the earth would be blessed, intended Joseph’s betrayal by his brothers for good to save many lives (Gen. 50:20), showed Saul (who became Paul) what things he had to suffer and sent him to Rome where he would be put to death, but through which we would receive much of the New Testament. If these men were blessed (happy), well, then it’s entirely possible that I had a happy year after all and what I need to be looking for is God at work in me to benefit others and not for an easier way. After all it is more blessed (happier) to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).
Let me ask you a question that I’m asking myself.
If your dreams came true for this next year, if you got all the things that you wanted for your life, would it make the world a better place for others, or just for you?
Happy New Year
With the dawn of a new year, comes for me and Corinne some new news. Our son, Samuel and our daughter-in-law, Dominique are with child! That’s right, my son is going to be a dad! I know I have shared this with a few of you already as I have been running into a few people around town, but I figured I would share it here this blog too that it might reach those of you I don’t bump into, including some of you across the pond as well.
Now, Corinne and I are as excited and thrilled as can be and the term, ‘grandparent’ doesn’t really faze either of us at all, in fact bring it on! But I would ask you to pray for them both as she is still in the Army and stationed in Hawaii and he in the Marines, stationed in North Carolina and being deployed to Afghanistan sometime soon. There are a lot of possibilities and even more questions on what is going to happen and so we are praying that this change in their lives will move them in a healthy direction for momma, dad and the baby.
The city of
Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Matthew 6:26 ( NLT )
