Kill It So It Can Live. Again. (Part 1 of 2) - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Kill It So It Can Live. Again. (Part 1 of 2)

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection…” (Romans 6:5, NKJV)

Life. Death. Burial. Resurrection.

As I read Don Moen’s new autobiography, “God Will Make A Way” (Thomas Nelson, 2018), I was struck by a paragraph in which he explains how typically the Lord works, when He gives us a vision for our life.

“There seems to be a pattern that the Lord often uses in our lives. He will birth a vision in us. Then there will be a point where we feel led to lay it down, even to the point of letting it die. Once we believe the vision is dead and gone, He will revive and restore it in us, often making our passion stronger than ever.” Don Moen

He reveals the vision. We start to see it happen. He asks us to kill it. (Or He does.) And then months, years or decades later He resurrects it.

It happened with Moses. So too with Joseph. Many of the prophets. And of course Jesus. Life. Death. Burial. Resurrection. Ever happen with you? If not yet, it will. If it is God from the beginning.

Personally, I can relate. Yes, indeed. I got it.

Music has always been a joy in my heart. Beginning with the period of time that I took basic chord guitar lessons on my cheap, Gibson starter guitar (rented, if I remember right) in 6^th grade, going to the YMCA building in Waterloo, Iowa (thanks Dad and Mom for always driving me the 15 miles, waiting the half hour during the group lessons, and then taking me home every week!) Mrs. Fullilove, a rather robust, jolly black lady in her mid-40’s I think, taught me the G, C, D, and minor chords. I learned how to play “Red River Valley” and a few more during those months with her small group.

Then it was onto 7^th grade, carrying my guitar, that I had bought with my Waterloo Courier paper route money, the one and half miles (yes, even in the snow at times in Cedar Falls, Iowa!) to the single man who taught me even more, with picking, songwriting and such. At $15/half hour, that was a stretch for me way back in 1962. Again, thank you Lord for my paper route!

A song I played at the 8th-grade talent show encouraged me to continue, singing Song of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. Somewhat in high school and a small bit in college, I led worship at small Christian home groups. I regret I never learned bar chords though. I could never wrap my wrist far enough around the neck it seemed to master that essential part of playing more songs than I ever did.

After Laurie and I got married in 1977, we sang together in choirs and led worship many times in churches, with me strumming the guitar along with both of us singing lead vocals. By 2002 we also formed the “Steve Martin & the Raiders” band, wanting to hit the “secular” scene with Gospel praise and worship. My thought was to “Be as David did, and go out into the highways and the byways, “raiding” the lost souls for Jesus.” With Steve Martin being my actual name, I felt that would be a name catch too and get people’s attention to come to check us out. That lasted two years.

Finally, around 2011, we brought together Jew, black, white, Indian, male and female, to form the “Ahava Love Band” (“ahava” being love in Hebrew, so we had the real One New Man band – both Jew and Gentile!) Through 2013 we enjoyed the joys, struggles, and commitment it took to keep the band team together.

Steve & Laurie's music...over the years.

Then we quit it all. 

Right before a Saturday night Messianic Jew-led gathering, in August of 2013, in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Lord told me that this was it for the worship band. End of the road. Time to lay it all down. Bury the band.

And He was right. Right before the meeting started, the keyboard player/singer told me she was leaving because the band was “under our non-profit” Love For His People, Inc. ministry, a 501©3 tax-exempt organization, and thus essentially “controlled by the US government”. Because of that, she said she could no longer be a part of us. I said, “OK”, but even before then the Holy Spirit had told me that this was the end. So it didn’t crush me as I would normally have experienced.

And so for the next five years, neither Laurie or I sang again. My Takamine guitar had long before been laid down, but now even my tambourine, orange shaker, and “lead vocal” instrument was laid to rest. Laurie’s beautiful alto voice no longer sang publicly, except as part of the full church congregation worship during Sunday morning services. We had no plans to ever sing again – as a duet, band vocals, or as a worship team backup or lead singers.

But…never say never if you walk with the Lord Jesus!!!

And so, this week of November 26, 2018, I shall continue this real, right now story in my next Now Think On This message. I am thrilled to share it with you!

Shalom and ahava (peace and love in Hebrew).

Now think on this,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. Want an adventure walking the streets of Jerusalem? Come with me sometime! And in the meantime, watch my short videos that I recorded in October 2018 as I did that just that. Jerusalem October 2018 playlist

P.S.S. I hope you get my latest book, Adventures in Courage, just out this November. Paperback or Kindle versions. My 19^th authored publication. (Yes, this is an advertisement!)

  

If these messages have ministered to you, please consider sending a charitable gift of $10-$50 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.) 

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Now Think On This #371 - in the year of our Lord 11.25.18 – “Kill It So It Can Live. Again. – Part 1 of 2)”  Sunday, 4:10 pm

Time To Move On When You Are Called To Move On - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Time To Move On 
When You Are Called To Move On

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

“From one man he made every nation living on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the limits of their territories and the periods when they would flourish. God did this so that people would look for him and perhaps reach out and find him although in fact, he is not far from each one of us, ‘for in him we live and move and exist.’” (Acts 17:26-28, Complete Jewish Bible)

There have been several times in my walk with the Lord Jesus (Yeshua) over these many years when I heard Him say, “Now is the time to move.” No, it wasn’t in an audible voice (someday!), but in that sense you get when you know that it is Him. He is wanting your attention, for He has something important to say to you.

The upcoming move may mean relocating to another city, state or country; a career job change; or a change in a relationship, good or bad. My family even moved from Illinois to Michigan to be involved with a church in the 1980’s. It was after that decision had been made, to hear and obey the Lord to move our household, that I found the job He had prepared ahead of time as provision.

Hasselbring-Clark Company, Lansing Michigan

My employment as Office Manager, 1980-1987

Often, people make decisions based on the other way around – finances, climate or state benefits; or maybe even recreation opportunities. Then when it doesn’t work out as they had hoped, they blame it on God. Priorities need to be in God’s order, if you really want to succeed.

An upcoming change begins during that season of your life when the Holy Spirit starts giving you small drops in hint form, letting you know that something new is coming. For me, this usually begins a year before the actual move takes place. I start getting an uneasiness where I am at physically. If it involves a job, the grace begins to depart where I am working. Things around me that were exciting aren’t just so anymore. I get the feeling that the time is coming.

I have learned to realize that it is time to move when I am called to move.

Of course there are times and seasons when you just have to press on in a situation, to wait for the breakthrough to come. Moses certainly did. Joseph had to. Many can testify of the difficulties endured while being directly in the center of the Lord’s will. You can learn a lot of the Lord’s ways when you do so. But in this message I am not referring to those times. That is another message for another time!

The Lord moves His people around to get them in the right place at the right time. Ever feel like you are a square peg in a round hole? I have at times. Even now, very recently, as the last seven years of accounting work is just about over. The grace is gone. The work becomes very frustrating. The time to move on is now.

Hearing His voice and then obeying out of your commitment to follow Jesus, wherever He leads you, is the best, and for your own good, only path to follow. Remember back when, when you first got saved? You probably even sang the popular campfire tune, if you are around my age, “I have decided…”

Don’t let the comforts of living in the lounge chair in front of the Sunday sports game keep you from following Jesus, with all your heart, soul, and yes, even body. Don’t become so set in your ways that when He calls again, to go on the next adventure that would change your life forever, keep you from saying, “Yes Lord. Do unto me according to Your Word.”

Our good friend Hadassah in Jerusalem wrote about their family of seven making aliyah to Israel from America many years ago. I echo her urging – listen to the Lord Yeshua if that is you He is beckoning now. (Read here: Just Say Yes)

Do you realize that the verses often used in church gatherings, to call sinners to have a “come to Jesus” moment, and in paintings of our Lord and King humbly knocking at the front door, were not being spoken to unbelievers? These words were spoken to the church, those who had already believed Yeshua was the Messiah. He was talking directly to them then, and even so, you and I today.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 3:20-22, NKJV)

It is so important for each of us to hear the Holy Spirit instruct us, and lead us in the way we are to go in these crucial, final days. It may even be a life or death decision. We best be wise in how we choose.

Choose wisely, young man, and old man, teen girls and all other ladies, and seniors too!

Better get your move on. Jesus still calls and shows us the way ahead.

Now think on this,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

  

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 and pastors in Israel, Pakistan, Northern Ireland, and Nigeria, whom we consistently help monthly through our humanitarian ministry. Your tax-deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation. Fed. ID #27-1633858.

Secure, conveniently contributions can be done online now through our website: Donate

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. Steve Martin

Now Think On This - in the Year of our Lord 07.30..17 - #303– “Time To Move When You Are Called To Move” – Sunday 3:10 pm

Our ministry outreach to help supply international pastors with our teaching materials is much appreciated by them. We hope you can join us to bless them. Remember in the past when someone gave you a free book that taught you of our Lord's love and grace? Return the blessing to another.

Nigerian pastors received our books. July 22, 2017

Secure, conveniently contributions can be done online now through our website: Donate

Contribution checks can be sent to: 

Love For His People, Inc. 

P.O. Box 414   

Pineville, NC 28134

USA tax receipts are provided by our 501(c)3 ministry Love For His People, Inc.

When It Hasn’t Happened Yet - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

When It Hasn’t Happened Yet

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

“My soul, wait in silence for God alone, because my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and salvation, my stronghold; I won’t be moved.” (Psalm 62:6-7 Complete Jewish Bible)

Disappointment and discouragement go hand in hand. You had put your hopes on an expected desire to be fulfilled, and it didn’t happen. Discouragement then followed, and you even wondered if what had been promised to you would ever happen. It has been two years, five years, even seven years since the word was delivered to you. Might it even be 40? What is going on Lord?

Thinking back, you believe you did all the right things along the way. You prayed, you fasted, you gave yourself to everything you knew to do. And yet in the time you thought it would have come by now it had not. The right person to marry, that move to another location to start over, the beginning of a new work that had been burning in your heart since youth.

“Surely this was you Lord, and yet when will it come to pass? Why is it taking so long?” you cry silently in your heart.

We all know the stories of Moses and Joseph, who each were given a word that they would do something great for God. For Moses, it was to lead God’s people out of the long-endured suffering in Egypt. For Joseph, it was to rule a nation in order to save his family, and many others. Both of these would be mighty accomplishments if they ever happened. But years into the struggle to believe, it hadn’t. I can imagine Moses (Moshe in Hebrew) saying to himself in the 39^th year, “I am quitting. This will never happen. How could I have been so wrong?”

And Joseph, in prison for two years, previously spending 11 with the Egyptian Potiphar after being bought as his slave, could have said the same. “It won’t happen. The dream was just a dream. What was I thinking?”

How many times have we come so close to seeing something completed, a dream come true, and then we gave up hope just short of it? Probably more that we would know, by not allowing the Lord’s time period to be completed. But even in those times we missed it, the Lord was still directing our steps. He realizes our weaknesses, and accomplishes His will in spite of those shortcomings.

Knowing that our Lord Jesus knows all, I am encouraged that He will indeed finish what He started. The hope within, to keep on pressing on, even when it seems nothing will change, in and of itself is a gift from the Lord. His Holy Spirit within us is there to help us keep believing, trusting, and seeing our dream accomplished. After all, He is the One who gave us the dream. And when it hasn’t happened as yet, He will give us the grace and fortitude to keep hoping and trusting until it does.

I encourage you to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith.

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2, NKJV)

The promise, the dream, the desire of your heart will come to pass. The Lord Himself gave that to you, and He was not kidding around. What He says He will do, He will do. Keep strong in your faith, and don’t give up.

Now think on this,

Steve Martin

Founder

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. I would be most grateful if you'd share this encouraging word with your family and friends. They might need it. You can easily use the social media icons below. Thanks! Steve

We are blessed when the ministry receives gifts to support the families that we do, primarily in Israel, India, Pakistan and the hurting ones here in the USA. You also can share out of the abundance you have been given.

Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA humanitarian organization started in 2010 to share the love of the Father in the nations.

If these messages minister to you, please consider sending a charitable gift of $5-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us bless families we know in Israel, whom we consistently help through our humanitarian ministry. Your tax deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation. Fed. ID #27-1633858.

Click here for safe ONLINE GIFT GIVING THROUGH OUR WEBSITE using major credit cards: Love For His People. If you don't have a PayPal account you can also use your credit card or bank account (where available). 

Contribution checks can be sent to: 

Love For His People, Inc.  P.O. Box414   Pineville, NC 28134

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

Please share Now Think On This with your friends.

Email: loveforhispeople@gmail.com  

martinlighthouse@gmail.com

Facebook pages: Steve Martin and  Love For His People  

Twitter: martinlighthous, LovingHisPeople 

Blogs: Love For His People,   Now Think On This

Full website: Love For His People

YouTube: Love For His People Inc.

Now Think On This - In the New Year of our Lord 02.23.16 - #246 –“When It Hasn’t Happened Yet” – Tuesday at 11:15 am

All previous editions of Now Think On This can be found on this Blog, and on the website: Now Think On This

Again, I would be most grateful if you'd share this encouraging word with your family and friends. You can easily use the social media icons below. Thanks! Steve

Expectations - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Expectations

- Now Think On This

by Steve Martin

“Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” Col. 3:2-4 NASU

Expectations come and go, rise and fall, and can be fulfilled or left hanging as we press forward. We experience different levels of expectations during our lifetime, as we seek to know the will of our Father, Who knows all and desires to see us walk in His way. Along that way, each of us will be given the opportunity to learn to trust in Him, expecting His promises and purposes to come about as He has said. Often that trust and faith in Him is tested, even as disappointments and setbacks occur.

In times past I have been told that my expectations were too high, that I need not hope as much as I did. Most often it was because I was looking at people to bring about a certain fulfillment in my dreams, rather than the Lord Himself. There had been opportunities to experience something different and new, but when circumstances or the people I looked to did not bring about the expected result I was hoping for, I had to guard my heart from disappointment and press hard into the Father’s heart for an answer. 

At times it was not easy. At times it seemed that I had gone as far as I would or could go, and really didn’t want to believe again for a better result. The temptation was to settle for things as they were, and be content with that. But we all know that that doesn’t bring fulfillment, does it?

After spending another time slowly re-reading the biblical story of Joseph and his expectations, and the resulting situations, I once again became encouraged to trust that the Lord does redeem our times and seasons. It is though in His time. Those pits and prisons are real. But also the release and triumph can be just as real. It becomes a matter of time for His plan to become reality for us.

As we hear or read of others who have gone before with their life stories, we realize that they too had to overcome the disappointments, the failures of oneself and others, the unfulfilled expectations that they had placed their hope in. They had to daily press on, to push forward, to contend for the prize set before them, in order to gain the higher ground. It was a battle, in an even great spiritual war.

In Isaiah 40:30-31 the Word says, “Young men may grow tired and weary, even the fittest may stumble and fall; but those who hope in Adonai will renew their strength, they will soar aloft as with eagles’ wings; when they are running they won’t grow weary, when they are walking they won’t get tired.” Complete Jewish Bible

Whether young or old, we must keep our hope in Adonai, our Savior, in order to renew our strength. When anticipated expectations do not come about as we had hoped, once again we must stand on the foundation He has laid. Once again we must experience His renewal, His uplifting of our wings, as we run the race set before us. Though we will become weary and tired, He will not fail us in our journey.

Now think on this,

Steve Martin

Love For His People. Inc.

Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA humanitarian organization started in 2010 to share the love of the Father in the nations.

 If these messages minister to you, please consider sending a charitable gift of $5-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us bless families we know in Israel, whom we consistently help through our humanitarian ministry. Your tax deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation. Fed. ID #27-1633858.

Go here for safe ONLINE GIFT GIVING THROUGH OUR WEBSITE using major credit cards: Love For His People. If you don't have a PayPal account you can also use your credit card or bank account (where available). 

Contribution checks can be sent to: 

Love For His People, Inc.  P.O. Box414   Pineville, NC 28134

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

Please share Now Think On This with your friends.

Email: loveforhispeople@gmail.com  

martinlighthouse@gmail.com

Facebook pages: Steve Martin and  Love For His People  

Twitter: martinlighthous, LovingHisPeople 

Blogs: Love For His People,   Now Think On This

Full website: Love For His People

YouTube: Love For His People Inc.

Now Think On This #164 - “Expectations” by Steve Martin 

Date: In the year of our Lord 2014 (11.11.14) Tuesday at 8:30 am in Charlotte, NC

All previous editions of Now Think On This can be found on this Blog.