YOU CAN RESPECT HIM

Every man has gifts because he is in God’s image. Abilities, giftedness is there; you can trust that it is.

 

My husband, Eric, worked as an electrician's helper when we first married; the pay was minimum wage and we lived on it about four years in a rented mobile home; our first two sons were born in those years. Work he did not know existed came to him just after our third son was born. Eric had a natural bent toward organization and Logistics. His education at Boston University in secondary science, work as a Radioman on the U.S.S. Ponchatoula and now his interest in electricity all qualified him for a career in the Navy.

 

If it takes time for interests and gifts to come out, listen carefully to your husband day after day. Watch him with fresh hope and vision. Look deeper than the surface you will discover his strengths, his gifts. He will be very encouraged if he suspects you are seeing him this way. Passion will rise again; fascinating layers to his personality he may not even know are there.

 

Beyond his encouraged persona, you have hope, too. When you met and agreed to marry him, you saw something important and worthy of love and respect. With years of marriage, with the disappointments, you may have forgotten all the reasons. But no matter what he has or has not accomplished yet you can begin again to believe because he is created in the image of God.

 

Look and listen. Focus. A spark, an interest he demonstrates. Being closest to him, you may begin to recognize it! His uniqueness needs pride from you. Your power is because you are created in the image of God!  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:27. 

 

For the minute, forget the past, forget the attitude of anyone else and think just of yourself, him, and God! Once you “see” with spiritual eyes and you decide to encourage what you see in your husband, you may just make the difference in his future . . . and in yours . . . in the future of your world.

With fifty years together, the solidarity, the agreement and love, Eric and I share covers even how we disagree. It has come from the Bible. 

"CALL UNTO ME"

In Scripture, there is an invitation to call on our Creator. The All Powerful One is there. We have needed Him in crises recently.

On the way out the door with instruments, music stands and time drawing near, we had to change the plan. My husband, Eric, our son Zach, and I have been ministering with Hymns and Bible verses at an assisted living home going on four years. Each month, we never knew what to expect: sometimes seventeen residents came. One month just one showed up, but she was confident enough to allow us to sing and read and quote the Bible just to her for an hour. Lately more have come.

Last month as we packed the car with what we would need, Eric had a pain in his chest, and a feeling of increasing weakness. It was time to show up for the Julin Family Hymns, but instead we talked him into going to the ER. It was the Sunday before Easter.

On the day before Easter, an intense pain (that had been increasing for months) took me to the ER. The Emergency Room is not where you ever want to be.

A CT scan, Ultrasound tests showed that I am healthy.

Eric’s tests for his heart also revealed nothing. Looking ahead, all we know is this:

“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Jeremiah 33:3.

What is going on? God knows. Our Creator is also our Redeemer.

“I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.”

Psalm 116:1-9.

WHEN YOU FEEL BAD, DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEBODY ELSE

How vulnerable should I be! With our kids grown and married with children, work, admirable callings, I came home from Church this Sunday. Everything was all right at first: I made a late breakfast for Eric and myself, cleaned up and took a nap on the couch.

Suddenly I woke, my mouth open, my nap over and I felt bad, useless, a critical attitude toward the world flooded my mind. I felt afraid of the future, afraid of my own feeling of inadequacy.

I felt attacked.

As I lay there awhile, I decided to pick up the iPhone and look up Animal Control, to find the way to reporting a Pit Bull dog that had bitten both my husband and me. A nice couple, who have no children love this dog, as the owner told me, “We love her like our child.” But the website required personal information I would wait to give only if necessary. Instead, I will likely write a hardcopy letter.

I got up from my nap, looked at the Calendar and saw that next Sunday is both Daylight Savings and our children’s anniversary.

So, a pencil and chalk drawing for their card happened in the next hour or two. Thanks to my electronically savvy husband, Eric, the card should be ready to mail in the next couple of days.

I feel better now. I am useful. I love my husband of almost fifty-one years, our children…all of them: our three sons, three daughters in law and grandchildren. I am blessed. I have useful things to do…one attitude is to get once again interested in cooking healthy, good tasting, attractive food. "Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world..." Philippians 2:14,15 

LORD, let me be a light.

  

IF ONLY WE COULD TRUST THE FREELY AVAILABLE FOOD

IF ONLY WE COULD TRUST

THE FREELY AVAILABLE FOOD

Eat in a restaurant, what is the bread, salad dressing, sauce, pasta, dessert made with! You will rarely find a healthy baked, fried food, salad dressing that is good for your health. Rarely…almost nowhere! This is where we as health minded consumers can have a say: speak out. Avoid it. Find healthy food.

Too often our American culture … which influences the world … is not concerned with taking responsibility for feeding people for wellness. They are “fast foodies” and looking for long shelf life and money, a lot of quick money: packaged, frozen microwaveable, fast food restaurants, canned soup companies with bioengineered ingredients, the cold cereal shelves in the grocery stores, bakeries that sell the cheapest, devitalized ingredients, corn syrup, even mixed with maple syrup. Natural Flavor is not natural. Check all of these online: many deviant “foods” will come to the light. What we are buying is hurting us, our loved ones, our friends…our husbands, wives, and children!

In early times, God spelled out in Scripture in the Law “unclean food.” Fish should only be eaten if they had fins and scales…of animals: "Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you." Deuteronomy 14:7

But in the New Testament, God turned it around. There is literal and figurative truth to consider.

Speculate why the food laws changed in the Bible: it may be because of the ability to store or clean or manage smartly. The Law of Moses speaks of this. The Bible changes from vegetarian before Noah’s flood to this: “Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have, I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” Genesis 9:3,4

 

The vital subject of food: What we have before us today is the challenge of taking diligent care of ourselves smartly: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Thes.5:23.

 

You know the passage: “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” I Co. 6;19

 

My interest is in knowing how to prioritize health and put it in its proper place. No, food is not our god. No, not making a focus on myself. But being wise!

 

https://smartanswers.net is a site to consider. When you compare its recommendations with the Bible and your common sense you will be interested as I am.

Best Olive Oil & Vinegar Collection - Extra Virgin Olive Oil

https://www.seasonandstir.com

Topics:

Benefits and Top Recommendations of Olive Oil

Effective Remedies for Toenail Fungus

Factors to consider while buying foundation.

Effective Supplements to Improve Your Memory

 

FINDING REAL FOOD

In grocery stores and restaurants, it is almost impossible to order bread that is whole grain, made with good oil, such as pure olive oil or butter. Just simple whole grain bread: in Ezekiel 16:13; "thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful...", made whole with the bran, endosperm and germ, good oil, and pure honey. No bleaching or chemicals added.

Canola Oil

There is some scientific evidence that canola oil is bad for your health because an increased intake of canola oil is linked to inflammation, heart disease, impaired memory function, and stroke.”  

Source: Canola Oil Dangers: Why It’s Bad for You According to Scientific Evidence (healthyandnaturalworld.com)

Check this.

 https://smartanswers.net

Smartanswers.net

Smartanswers.net is a comprehensive platform that is home to everything you've been looking for! Unlike most other cluttered sources on the Internet, we offer reliable, cutting-edge information through our quick search tool and categorized blogs.

Process for Oil: Bleaching and Deodorizing  

Some of these oils would be high in vitamin E and phenols, if not for the refining process itself. Alas…

“Most seed oils go through the refining process, which includes bleaching and deodorizing,” Zumpano explains. “This helps with the taste, color and shelf life, but it also removes the oils’ antioxidants.”

The result is oils with no real health benefits and more than a few health risks.

Unhealthy Oils

Seed oils are not necessarily good for you. But the real reason they are considered so bad for you is how they are most often used.

“Most seed oils are being utilized in the form of processed packaged foods, fast foods and eating out, and even foods that.

are considered minimally processed but are still packaged,” Zumpano reiterates. And that is where the danger is.

WHAT TO DO

When we go to the grocery store, I buy fresh Vegetables, fresh Fruit, frozen Fruit with no additives, pure Butter, organic Olive Oil, whole grassfed Milk, organic Half and Half, organic whipping Cream, whole Yogurt, Whole Grain flour, pure Honey, pure Maple Syrup, Raw Sugar and good Meat and cheese. You can possibly avoid lab grown “meat” by looking for meat with the bone. Reading labels will soon give you the experience to avoid Natural Flavor (which is not natural) and other chemicals.

One of the priorities in my profoundly serious attempt to “guide the house” is food…this “job” being extremely rewarding.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU DOUBT

When my older sister died this month, after a very long goodbye, my heart was preoccupied with her, and with her son and daughter in law who cared for her in their home. And her husband of only two years, was there, too. All of us in her family were somehow involved, watching, praying, grieving.

Why did God allow this hard and painful end to the life of my sister. She had lived a long and useful life of love and hospitality, caring for everybody in sight. Of course, she was eighty-six!

As God would have it, during this sad time, my husband and I are reading in the Book of Job. You know him! He was accosted by our archenemy, Satan: and God allowed it. We are in this amazing Book during our regular reading through the Bible. When you doubt, when you fear, where do you go? Go to God. Go to the Bible. Reassurance and hope will be there waiting for you. Psalms is one good place for comfort.

 "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance." Psalm 42:5

 "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." Psalm 42:11

"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." Psalm 43:5

"Thus, saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go." Isaiah 48:17

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14. Jesus was speaking to you and me. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me." John 12:32

"I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Hebrews 13:5. Stay close!

 

 

GUARDING HOUR HOUSE

If ever there was a time to be vigilant it is today: the influence on our household is from many sources. Watch for those aggressively promoting a godless agenda. We can discern between good and evil! We can be wise and courageous. Deceit is potentially inside your home through internet, the media, through television, YouTube, and radio. Wisdom by staying close to God through the Bible will give you courage to guard your home.

It might mean teaching a child a truth that is in your heart, and in Scripture. It might mean turning the YouTube off. It might mean warning, but always in a spirit of humility. “I love you. That video, (music, movie, show) is wrong to put into your head and heart, because…”

"But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously, and without reproach and it will be given him." James 1:5. Liberal wisdom is what God is pouring out from Scripture. This is first, then go to a trusted relative and friend. But even they are not your final source: God through the Holy Spirit will guide you. "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth..." John 16:13.  We can be watching out for those near and dear…husband, children, friends. A guide of the house is to “rule a family” … you can wisely guide and guard your house. “I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house…” 1Timothy 5:14.

What is the threat, anyway? "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist." 2 John 1:7. So, for the sake of your future, for the love of those you care for, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves..." Matthew 10:16.

MY UNUSUAL UPBRINGING

Growing up our family of ten traveled on a mission for years. The vision of my evangelist father, Dr. Arnold Pent was to challenge and encourage families to read the Bible every day together and out loud. 

 My Dad was a visionary. When his ministry with his father in York Beach, Maine ended at his father's death, that left him free to begin anew.

 He was musical, as was my mother. Here, attached, is a link which was sent to me from somewhere .... It is the actual presentation of "The Dr. Arnold Pent Family" in a Church in Missouri. The eight children (I was fourth) were five boys and three girls. We gave presentations like this in forty-eight states and all the way through Canada. I heard Dad's passion and message for years. His death was years ago, but as I hear this again, it moves me all over again.

 To the glory of God, if you are interested, may it encourage and challenge you. 

Love,

Elisabeth Pent Julin

 https://youtu.be/W4pMxq-l3Gg

LINK DR. ARNOLD PENT FAMILY MINISTRY

FOOD CAN BE CONNECTED WITH FAITH IN GOD

There were “unclean” animals listed in Leviticus eleven: the clean eaten, the unclean to avoid. But in the New Testament God told The Apostle Peter,

“What God has cleansed, that call not thou common.” In Acts 10:15 Peter was sent by God to the Gentiles. Now they were “clean”: it is a spiritual and physical lesson.

But is our culture of “fast food” today the new “unclean food”? Food that is good for you, eat that! The modern, processed, bleached, bioengineered food is a risk to our health.

Bread, when it is bleached, degermed, chemicals added, and the bran used elsewhere is not only not health building, it is harmful. Like fast food available everywhere, it is easy, quick, cheap, habit forming, addictive. Today, important nutritional value from the whole grain (the bran, endosperm, and germ) are often taken out; chemicals are added, and the food value is gone.

Nearing my eighty-second birthday, the importance of eating wisely is more interesting than ever…below are excerpts exposing why wheat flour is bleached… with the link below.

 “Bleaching wheat flour is a common process that involves the use of chemicals such as chlorine dioxide or benzoyl peroxide to whiten the flour.”

·      One of the main risks associated with bleached wheat flour is an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

·      Another potential risk associated with bleached wheat flour is an increased risk of heart disease. 

·      The Shocking Truth: Why Is Wheat Flour Bleached? Find Out Now! - Flavor Insider

The additive “Natural Flavor” on food products does not come clean with its claim. This Link describes the deceptiveness of Natural Flavor on food labels:

Natural Flavors: What are they and are they safe to eat? (foodrevolution.org)

“At the end of the day, many Natural Flavors are highly processed and contain a host of chemical additives. In fact, there could be as many as 100 chemicals in a single natural flavor.”

Modern fad diets confuse and frustrate us. When they are a fad, they work against our power to think for ourselves, do our own research, find dependable resources: study their value. A better Way is right in front of you in the Bible. From the Old Testament and through the New Testament are mentions of many foods.

What’s even more intense about the mention of food in Scripture is that there are deeper lessons for us: the literal food is there stated on the page (on many pages) and the figurative teaching will touch you when you know a powerful lesson is right before you. "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." John 6:35.

THE CHALLENGE OF A LIFETIME

Food, but not too much. The challenge of a lifetime!

When Jesus said, “I am the bread of life…” that is a literal truth going spiritual. There is physical health and life, there is spiritual health and life: and that is eternal. Bread, not the bleached, devitalized, degermed, white bread. The bread Jesus stands for is made from a powerful whole grain. In wheat there are three parts: the bran, endosperm, and germ. This is a picture of Jesus, “The Bread of Life.”

Health has been a lifelong interest, and the Bible is profound inspiration on this subject. What has been a surprise as I study it is that food is physical and spiritual. One teaches about the other; it is useful and powerful in our lives and future if we believe it? There is a lifetime of benefit if we do.

The Bible has profoundly influenced my life from the first day I was born. Every day, my father and mother and their family of ten read the Bible aloud together. All eight children learned to read this way. It influenced me, even before I realized and directed my life. By my twenties, my health pursuits became an adventure primarily because of Scripture. About this same time, I traveled with my brother, Arnold, to Texas where he and his new wife, Esther lived. I could type well and got a job at Transicold Trucking Company in Dallas, Texas. There all the ways of the big city came up.

Instead of going rogue, I decided to follow the Bible already planted in my head and heart. My spirit, soul and body needed to be fed. I felt pointless and after six months drove home (in the new little Volkswagen my brother cosigned for). I look back now and wonder at God’s protection and leading, even when I was directionless.

“Don’t go home,” my friend advised, “nobody will come to your doorstep.” As it turned out, Eric Julin proposed on my parent’s doorstep. And our marriage started me thinking about not only feeding myself but my new husband. He amazingly approved of the budding “health nut” experimenting on him.

IF ONLY SHE HAD KNOWN

 All of us can get valuable information wrong. For years, my understanding of clean and unclean food came from the Old Testament. Then our fourteen-year-old granddaughter helped me see something. Her love of exotic food from her family’s traditions surprised me until…I happened to see that I was wrong. Sure, pork was forbidden to the children of Israel in the Old Testament Law and so was octopus…which our granddaughter, Lilly loves. Then I saw what I had missed one evening in I Timothy 4:

 

“Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils. Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron. Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats (food), which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”

 

I was wrong.

 

Our son, Zach introduced a topic at the dinner table. He, his wife Roxy and children, Eric, my husband, and I were finishing dinner together, “What do you think about women preachers?” He looked right at me, knowing I would have an opinion on one of my favorite subjects: the respect and happiness of women taken from the Bible. “I don’t like them.” Was my immediate reaction, obviously not carefully thought-out. What happened next was a surprise. Roxy, our daughter in law spoke up with passion…that women are emotional, quarrel, argue on theological topics about women in the Bible.

 

For years I studied this question that is a hotly debated subject in our culture. Is the Bible dismissive of women? Does God demean the female gender? He, in fact, created them in His own image, Genesis 1:27 “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Why is there so much debate?

 

There is fear, I believe. It is a deep misunderstanding of the gifts and calling of “male and female” …made in God’s image.

 

Strengths of women are emotional sensitivity, a good trait. Creativity. Wisdom is one more powerful gift to women (consider the wisdom in the Book of Proverbs), “Wisdom cries without; she utters her voice in the streets…” Proverbs 1:20.

 

When we know that we are valuable, precious, important to God and to men, we can summon confidence and focus. Begin with your female biology, your beautiful self! Yes, your body and female point of view and personality! The layer of fat which adds beauty, softness to your features. Go to the way you care. You love. You automatically do…feel responsible for!

 

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, "If you continue in my word then you are my disciples indeed: and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31,32. 

 

If only Eve had known. We know now! Eve, the first woman created at the hand of God was deceived. She believed a lie, and she did not recognize this Deceiver, Satan himself.

 

Eve with Adam had firsthand access to God; "And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…;" Genesis 3 relates that sad day early on!

 

If the first woman had known the awful trap by the enemy of God and rejected the lie, what would have happened? We cannot know. What we can know is that God is Truth. “I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life…,” said Jesus. He told Adam and Eve ahead of time and the command God had given was clear in Chapter 2. "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die." Genesis 2:16,17.

 

The liar, “You shall not surely die…” paraphrasing Satan, God knows that you will be like gods knowing good and evil…God lied to you.

 

Eve was deceived. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." Genesis 3:6. Adam was not deceived: he defied God. I Timothy 2:14.

 

My simple deduction: we can look to God in the Bible for His powerful message in the creation of our bodies, in nature, in our sense of fairness and right and wrong, of good and evil. We can know the truth and be free.

WASTING AWAY by Eric

This Blog is from my husband, Eric's Blog  http://www.congaeric.com/

Proverbs 5:3 and following: "For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword."

Her mouth "drips honey" , her mouth "is smoother than oil". This is how the wisdom of the world sounds: it is sweet and smooth. It is difficult to overcome because it sounds like it is good (honey) and it sounds so logical and solid (smoother than oil). But if we read further on we find it is death.

The wisdom of the world is movable (verse 6) meaning it has no standard upon which it is based, so it is free to drift in any convenient direction. When you shine the light of scripture and logic upon it to show that it is incorrect, it moves aside avoiding discovery. The wisdom of the world will cause you to give honor to others who are unworthy (verse 9). Your sense of worth and dedication will be merge with those who directly oppose what is written in God’s word, like the evolutionist, and not with God's people or family.

Your years may be spent with the cruel and your time will have vanished among the godless and not with gods people or family. Careerists, strangers, and materialists may eat up your laborers. At the end of your life your flesh and body may have been spent for humanist education, for feminists and homosexuals, for possessions many of which have long since decayed, or for your career, which did not further God's Kingdom .

When you choose your occupation over your family, when you seek your toys like your automobile over God's will or improvement of your character, when you select your fulfillment over your proper relationship to others -- then you will, at the end, find honor gone to others, years to the cruel, strangers filled with your strength, laborers in the house of others and your flesh and body consumed. You will no longer be able to correct what you have done.

But keeping in God's word is like staying with your wife and receiving refreshment by her. You should bring water out of your own cistern and well -- use God's instructions and not the instruction of the world.

Posted by PapaJ at 12/13/2023 01:55:00 PM