Sunday, April 29, 2007 "If we choose not to remember"

Sunday, April 29, 2007

"If we choose not to remember"

From Julie's Keyboard:

Distracted????

A friend sent me an email that really fueled this thought I had for this week's posting. It basicly said " Get your big girl act together and deal with it." The message went on to define just what things to deal with. If someone has a newer car, a bigger and better house, finer clothing, right body weight and figure, spouse of their dreams, etc. You get the picture! And I thought, oh how true indeed.

Why do we, God's children, go around whining and complaining, making comparisons to others, and showing ingratitude for the goodness of the Lord? Ouch, that was loaded! Sorry, but most of us get here at some time or another.

Oh, yeah we've worked so hard and made this sacrifice or the other to attain some earthly possession that means less and less to us by the day after we have obtained the item.

Just this afternoon my husband and I sat on our balcony swing and discussed the improvements we needed to make in the area of remodeling in our house and work on other building structures on our farm. We really had to stop and come to the conclusion that these things, as much as they need to be done, could become major distractions for us. We had to remind one another that in God's time and provision these things will be accomplished. No need for getting antsy or feeling pity because we have chosen to live a life free from financial debt.

We then turned our conversation a bit to begin counting our blessings and realize how well provided for we really are and how thankful we should be.

Indeed we all have these material issues of life which have to be met and dealt with, but none of them should distract us from our first Love.

If we would turn our eyes on Him and let things in this earth grow strangely dim, all things remaining will get sorted to their rightful place.

If we could only hear our enemy, Satan, speaking with his workers of darkness sometimes, I think we would hear something like this.

"You know guys we can't get them to deny their God, but we can sure get them busy and offer them many things to distract their attention."

Ouch, again! Let's examine ourselves and the distracting things that come our way day by day. The following passage of scripture will help us remedy this ill.

Psalm 128:1-6

"Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in his ways.
For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.

Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.
The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.

Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel."

Have A Blessed Week!

Julie

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"If we choose not to remember"

Do you know what April 29, 2007 of this year was?

Exactly 400 years ago today, a group of English settlers reached the shores of a New Land. One of there first acts was to establish a covenant with the God of Bible in an expression of their Christian Faith.
On April 29 1607, these men fashioned a make shift Cross from timbers of the ship and dragged it ashore and set it in the sands of the Virginia beach.

After planting it firmly in the sand, they knelt in humility and asked forgiveness for their sins having made preparation through three days of pray and fasting.
Pastor Robert Hunt prayed and dedicated this New World to God. He prayed that the Gospel would be preached from these shores to the uttermost parts of the earth. God has been faithful to answer his prays.

This colony, beset as it was with ongoing difficulties, nevertheless established a monumental covenant with God there in the sands of Virginia, one that laid the foundation for the birth of a new nation founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Captain John Smith, one of the first and most famous inhabitants of Jamestown, kept a diary and described the open-air worship services conducted under the shade of an old ship sail until a proper chapel could be constructed. He depicts a block of wood connected between two trees used for a pulpit with the colonists kneeling on the ground.

Pocahontas became the first convert to Christianity in the new world, when Pocahontas was baptized she took the Christian name, Rebecca,. The Powhatan Indians, led by Pocahontas’ father, practiced a polytheistic religion which included child sacrifice. The Grace of God was reaching across the globe bringing not just a new world, but salvation to the lost.

In 1807, a Jamestown Jubilee was held to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the first American Settlement. Fifty years later a 250th anniversary was celebrated.

In 1907, the key event for the 300th anniversary of Jamestown was the unveiling of a great 103-foot-tall Jamestown Tercentenary Monument , erected by the United States government.

Today, April 29, 2007, at the 400th anniversary of our Nations Christian Founding, at the 400th anniversary of remembering our Covenant we as a Nation and a people have made with God, there is no official government ceremonies commemorating that dedication and Covenant. Not today, not this month, not this year, not ever.

It seems America has chosen to not remember anymore, not to reflect on who we are or what we are becoming. We are different from those before us who choose to remember.
The inscription on the monument mentioned above includes the following words, with no apologies.

“Lastly and chiefly the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God the giver of all goodness, for every plantation which our heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted out.”—Advice of London Council for Virginia to the Colony 1606

This year our Nation will not remember, but let all who hear the call pray and fast for our nation as we did at Jamestown 400 years ago, and remember as we did in 1807, as we did in 1857, as we did in 1907.

Let us vow to show our children the Covenant we have with God, that the generation to come might know, even the children which shall be born; that they should arise and declare this Covenant to their children. That they might be able to set their faith in God and forgot not His Covenant.

Let each who will, dedicate themselves and all they have back to God, and pray that the heart of our nation may look to its roots and it’s foundation for the hope of our future.