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