"Walk With Me" - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

"Walk With Me" - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Walk With Me

“Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Yeshua/Jesus Matthew 11:29-30, THE MESSAGE)

As believers in Jesus, Yeshua HaMashiach, we are called to walk with Him. We are called to hear, obey, and see His plans and purposes fulfilled not only in our lives but in those He touches through us as a result of our obedience. What a wonderful and privileged calling that is. To walk with Jesus, the King of the universe.

Boyhood home in Cedar Falls, Iowa - Steve Martin (1962-1985)

Since the call on my life to live for Him, knowing I received it at the age of 10 in Cedar Falls, Iowa, He has kept me in His grace, mercy, and love. For this, I will forever give thanks and testify of my Savior’s goodness and provision.

Walk with me. That is the challenge, and the opportunity, He gives to each. What have you done with His call on your life? Have you heard and obeyed? Have you experienced His adventures, while at the same time dying to self as that also comes with the call and the territory?

Just under 10 years ago, when my good wife Laurie and I founded the ministry of Love For His People, Inc, in April of 2010, primarily to support Messianic Jews in the promised Land of the Jews, Israel, He gave me even more of a challenge, to walk with Him, and in that doing and going, to share it with others. At first, I was not clear as to how to do it, but now, after 420 messages I call, “NowThink On This”, through 20 published books and over 300 videos which I have entitled as the series, “Walk With Me”, the picture has become quite clear.

It is all about hearing and obeying. Do what you know to do, even if having only a word or two to go by (and yet, having the entire Word of God as our instruction!), and He will take you on His journey one step at a time. It is all to share His love for the nations.

It is also quite clear to me that the Lord will put you through the tests, even as He did with Moses, Joseph, the prophets. Some for 40 years. Even Yeshua Himself had 30 years of training and then another 40 days and nights in the wilderness. Our God, and Father, does this to make sure you are willing and will continue to press on even when you want to quit. Been there. Done that.

During my 24 years of training and serving while with the ministries of three well-known international organizations, the Lord gave me several tests. Would I give my best? Would I seek to bless others through them and not myself? Would I receive from them what they had learned and were willing to teach me, knowingly or unknowingly?

Former luggage of Mahesh Chavda (1987-1999)

With one particular ministry, that of Mahesh Chavda Ministries (now known as Chavda Ministries International, to rightly include Bonnie Chavda), I counted my trips hauling luggage while taking them to the local airports of Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Charlotte, back and forth, as 400 plus. No exaggeration. I am an accountant. 

And towards the end of this 14-year period with them from 1987-2001, my heart cry had become, “O Lord, when will I get to go?”

Now, after completing my 20^th trip to Israel, this May 2019, the Lord continues to answer, and fulfill, that desire which He Himself placed there. And as a special side note, the black and gray pieces of luggage which I used to carry to the airport for Mahesh for his trips, which became mine back when he bought new luggage around 1999, has been with me on these many foreign ministry travels. 

On this trip, I too gave one to a volunteer in Israel and will give the other to whomever just needs a well-traveled, answered-prayer, piece of natural and spiritual history. Maybe they too will do as I was able to do. (Or maybe with some new luggage I really hope!)

Be encouraged if you are still serving with another, longing for the day when you too will have your “vineyard” as I call this ministry of Love For His People. If you continue to hear and obey, in the little and the much, small and large, trust me, you will!

Now think of this,

Ahava and shalom,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. You can see my last 71 short “Walk With Me in Israel” videos here on our YouTube channel: Walk With Me - Israel May 2019

Also, my previous ones are here on YouTube: Walk With Me

If these messages have ministered to you, please consider sending a charitable gift of $10-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us bless families in Israel whom we consistently help monthly through our humanitarian work. Your tax-deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation. Fed. ID #27-1633858.

  

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Contribution checks can be sent to: 

Love For His People, Inc. 

P.O. Box 414   

Pineville, NC 28134

Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.) 

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Now Think On This #420 - in the year of our Lord 05.11.19 – “Walk With Me” – Saturday, 8:30 am

Commitment - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Commitment

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

  

“Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can't. The heart regulates the hands.” (2 Corinthians 8:12-13, THE MESSAGE)

Normally you don’t celebrate your 40^th marriage anniversary of covenant love by writing a blog post to speak of commitment. You save that for later as you speak words of cherished days, happy memories, and the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus for your good wife or husband, as the case may appropriately be. That is right and great to do!

But I want to take this very special occasion, on my good wife Laurie and my 40^th wedding anniversary this October 8, 2017, to write on that very appropriate word for such a time as this – commitment.

I believe the Lord uses people as examples. His heart is to show His committed love, grace, mercy, faithfulness, long-suffering (!) and so much more through His people. He above all is the perfect example that we must follow after, and demonstrates that through His creation!

In these days of the “anything goes” attitude, which has now become so prevalent in our American culture, and elsewhere around the world, which people have so gravely mistaken to believe, and which will prove to their own hurt - that giving one’s word and standing on it; holding fast to something that will cost you to stick to it; and living a life laid down for others and not just for yourself - are “old school” and can be cast aside.

“That was for then. This is now. We must live in an enlightened era of freedom with no restraints.” Or so many would proclaim and take to the streets to demonstrate.

Well I am here to say, “Not true!”

Without giving multitudes and multitudes of Scripture, which have stood the onslaught of lies, destruction, slashing of teeth over and utter falsehoods spoken by the proud ignorant and vastly deceived, I want to once again proclaim the eternal truths that need to be spoken loud and clear.

1.      Marriage is between a man and a woman. You can’t produce the next generation naturally any other way. That should be obvious to anyone and all.

      2.      Sex is for the committed marriage bed. Anything outside of committed love will bring sickness and the clear results that sin produces.

      3.      When you stand at the altar of marriage, you eliminate the “D” word from your vocabulary. I spoke to my good wife 40 years ago within that week of our commitment to each other that divorce would never be an option. By the Lord’s grace and mercy we have fulfilled that promised word to each other.

4.      It takes a real man and a real woman to make a promise to one another and then stick to it, come heaven or hell. A promise is to be a promise, not a “we shall see whatever will be will be” watered down attitude; nor just as “long as were are in love.”

5.      If you commit to do something, do it. If you give your word, then keep your word.

6.      The weather isn’t always to your best liking. Neither are you to one another moment of the day. But tomorrow will still come, so get through it and make it work.

7.      I am not perfect. You are not perfect. But the Lord is, and He will prove Himself faithful to keep us together for His plans and purposes to be fulfilled in our lives. He is the reason He created you and I. 
      For His good pleasure, and to share it with us and all who believe.

8.      Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Put them on anything or anyone else and you will sink. That is Gospel truth.

I could give a hundred more, but eight reasons for holding solid onto commitment is a good number to finish with. After all, 5 x 8 = 40, which by the Lord’s numbers means much “grace” (5) and “new beginnings” (8) to get to 40, which is “tried and true”. He has tried us, and He has proven Himself TRUE!

Shalom and ahava (peace and love in Hebrew).

Now think on this,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. I want to give special thanks to my Dad (Louis J. Martin, who is living in glory with His Lord and Savior), my Mom (Lila Martin Parker); Laurie's parents Otto and Lorraine Unzicker, also dancing on the streets of gold; our children Josh, Ben, Hannah, Christien and their families; and all of our extended family (especially Bob and Mary Smith of Charleston, SC (one of my five sisters) and Laurie's sister Linda and Dick Skaggs!); and the dear, good friends whom have been there along the way these 40 years of life thus far. We love you dearly!!! 

And to you Kevin Grafton, my Best Man and my best friend to this day! (Photo below...)

The Martin Family - June 2017

Kevin Grafton and Steve Martin - my Best Man and still best friend.
Photo from sometime in the past years. Maybe two decades. He would probably still beat me in tennis...

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If these messages have ministered to you, please consider sending a charitable gift of $10-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us bless families in Israel whom we consistently help monthly through our humanitarian work. Your tax-deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation. Fed. ID #27-1633858.

  

Secure, conveniently contributions can be done online now. Click here: DONATE 

(or use the DONATE buttons on the blog.)

Contribution checks can be sent to: 

Love For His People, Inc. 

P.O. Box 414   

Pineville, NC 28134

Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.) 

Please share Now Think On This with your friends on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and LinkedIn.  We appreciate your help.

Now Think On This - in the Year of our Lord 10.08.17 - #322  – “Commitment”