The Struggle - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

The Struggle

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

  

^{“For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15, NASU)}

We often like to think that the ones who saw Jesus in person during their lifetime, or the ones who lived centuries ago and were believers, had it made. We hold them up as “perfect people, perfect saints”, who almost came as close to not sinning as the Lord, the Messiah Himself. He walked without sin. Surely they must have come real close too, having known Him so well.

I now tend to think not. They had their faith and flesh struggles too. Thus it helps me in my mind and will, when I do the same thing over, and over, and over, to yet have hope to overcome.

Without fail, I find myself more often than I like facing the same old same old – battling the flesh and the soul (mind, will and emotions) when it comes to walking the straight and narrow. And yet, like maybe you too, we have to keep pressing on, relying on the Lord’s grace and mercy to overcome.

That is why the Lord’s Prayer has the petition included, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” The Lord knows we need His help continually.

Are you like me, when someone gets the “shout out” at the office staff meeting, and I have to bite my lip to keep from jealousy and resentment. “They never acknowledge my great work!” I try not to say (too often) under my breath.

Or, as in an unexpected check comes in the mail for my friend and they share their excitement with me. “What about me Lord?” tries to speak into my brain.

Here’s another - the family member goes on another luxury trip, while I get to look at the photos they send back with their posts on Facebook and Instagram. “My turn is coming” I know I have said in the past. (I post a lot of social media photos. I can imagine people thinking that of me!)

Yes, it is a struggle. We fight the daily temptations to not envy another, get jealous over someone’s sports team winning and later hearing about it, while mine favorite is just so so. Or think they have it so good, and what I have isn’t so much.

I find help in being an overcomer by reading of King David and his weaknesses, and yet the Lord still stuck with him to see him through.

And then again we know Paul, probably the greatest apostle that ever lived. Thanks Paul for being was so honest in writing of your dilemma. It certainly gives hope for us.

As he wrote, “It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.” (Romans 7:21-8:2, THE MESSAGE)

Something greater outside of ourselves has been given to us to be strong in our walk, even when the temptations and struggles come to pull us down. We must keep pressing on, knowing that the salvation of our souls and body is a daily, ongoing experience. It takes times to make it through the moments that certainly, almost continually come our way. The victory won’t happen overnight. For most of us, it is a lifetime walk to keep focused, stay alert, and keep our eyes fixed on Yeshua, the Author, and Finisher of our faith.

We will make it. The Holy Spirit had promised to walk with us and get us to the finish line in good fashion.

Shalom and ahava (peace and love in Hebrew).

Now think on this, 

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter. Use the "Sign Up" button on our website, or go here: Sign Me Up!

 

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 10.07.17 - #321 – “The Struggle” Sat.  9:30 am

The Unexpected - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

The Unexpected

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

  

“Even if I pass through death-dark ravines, I will fear no disaster; for you are with me; your rod and staff reassure me.” (Psalm 23:4, Complete Jewish Bible)

Fear suddenly comes upon you. Your stomach churns as if you had just been punched in the gut. Panic wants to overtake you. Your head spins, looking for a quick solution to get you out of the mess you just found yourself in. What in the world are you going to do? Where can I run? Who can I call? What do you do?

You trust in the One whom you have trusted in thus far. You call on the Name of the Lord Jesus.

“For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 'Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 'You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

'I will be found by you,' declares the Lord, 'and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,' declares the Lord, 'and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.' (Jeremiah 29:11-14, NASU)

You can believe that is true. God cannot lie.

When I woke up this morning I had just gotten a text message from a friend who is newlywed. (I keep my phone on silent when I go to bed. Smart thing to do. Derek Prince, the great Bible teacher whom I was honored to serve on his ministry staff for eight years, often said, “There are no emergencies in the kingdom of God.”) They got married in her country, went on a fantastic honeymoon in another country, but when they came back to cross over into his homeland to start their new life together, they were stopped at the border. The paperwork hadn’t been done as it was supposed to have been done. She couldn’t cross over. 

They were then told it was going to take much legal paperwork, several months, and could cost thousands of dollars. Dollars they didn’t have. Bills they never dreamed of having to be paid on the road ahead. The unexpected had just happened.

How many times have we faced challenges and circumstances when the impossible was facing us, and we didn’t know where to turn, who to call, or what to do next. We seemed frozen with fear, which itself wanted to keep us there. But that is when we need to stand on His Word – that He never leaves us, never forsakes us, never lets the enemy have the final victory.

All of us have faced these situations. A traumatic car accident; a tragic turn of events; an impossible place in our life when it looks as if we have been forsaken, forgotten about, and left standing alone. That is where and when we need to stand on His Word.

“Even if I pass through death-dark ravines, I will fear no disaster; for you are with me; your rod and staff reassure me.” (Psalm 23:4)

When these times come, we need to know in our heart, our soul, our very being that the Lord Jesus, Yeshua, is faithful to see us through whatever comes our way. Even if death itself stands at the door and says he has got us now, we must be firm in our belief, that even then, eternity with our Lord awaits us on the other side.

Whatever you face today, this week, or this month, know that He is on your side. You will not fail, you will not fall, you will not be left standing alone. The Living God of Israel has promised to never leave you nor forsake you. He will see you through.

I told my friend that on the phone. It may be a tough road ahead, but the Bible is full of examples which have been given to us to show His faithfulness towards those who believe.

Be reassured in your faith. Stand strong. He is a BIG God, and we are His.

“For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.

Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.” (2 Timothy 1:2-14, NASU)

Be at peace. For the Lord will always be your strong tower. You can run to Him and He will see you through.

Shalom and ahava (peace and love in Hebrew).

Now think on this,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter. Use the "Sign Up" button on our website, or go here: Sign Me Up!

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 - #323  – “The Unexpected”

Sunday, 7:07 am

Hope - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Hope

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

  

^”Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12, Tree of Life (TLV)

As I sat across the table from Hope, I wondered if her middle name was Joy. Wouldn’t that have been nice! (I know a Joy by the way. I know Grace, Faith, and even Prudence. What names the Lord has given these lovely ladies!)

Hope was doing a short interview of me for the seasonal work at Samaritan’s Purse here in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Operation Christmas Child Shoebox season was fast approaching, and I wanted to be a part of the team again this go around. I had served here two previous years, and was looking forward to another time with Franklin Graham’s great program for worldwide kids. Blessed to be a blessing.

I had hope.

Some people don’t. They have lost hope in their dreams; their vision has vanished; they see things around them and wonder, “What happened? Why am I here when I thought it was supposed to be so much better?”

Those are real hurts and pains. I know. I have had them myself more times than I care to remember, or even write about. You believe something for so long, and then nothing. Nada. It ain’t happening. Or so you thought for so long.

But it is. It will happen. One thing we can count on in life is that the One who gives life, dreams, provides vision and leads us down a good path is the Lover of our soul. The One who gives is so capable because He is the same One who gave all. He gave His life for us.

This is one thing I do know. Jesus (Yeshua is His beloved Hebrew-given name) cannot lie when He speaks; He cannot hate when He loves; He cannot steal when He gives us His provision. He cannot because it is not in His eternal nature to do so. It is just not there.

What is there in His eternal being is real hope, real love, real encouragement, real joy, real passion for saving the people in the nations.

Without Jesus the people perish. One gunshot, one hurricane, one earthquake and it can be all over for those who have not called upon the Name of the Lord. He is our only hope.

My heart-felt prayer is that you have hope today. Let it be renewed, let it be abundant, let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart afresh and let you know there is light at the end of this tunnel you are in. For the Light has come, He is eternal, and where there is hope there is life to press on through whatever comes your way.

Hope in Jesus today. Be confident in what He has planned for you. He knows what it is and it is good.

Shalom and ahava (peace and love in Hebrew).

Now think on this,

  

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter. Use the "SignUp" button on our website, or go here: Sign Me Up!

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 10.04.17 - #320 – “Hope” 7:00 am

Clarity (Clearing Knowing The Lord) - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Clarity
-Clearing Knowing The Lord

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

“The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hell-bent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out.” (I Corinthians 1:18, THE MESSAGE)

Clarity. Do you know what it means? Many people don’t. They walk around in uncertainty, misdirection, unknowing in their thinking, or just plain stupefied. They want to know the answers but end up looking in the wrong place and finding even more confusion. Looking for answers in all the wrong places. Reminds me of a song, doesn’t it?

What to do and how to do it. Where to find what you are looking for. “What is truth?” as he asked even way back then when Truth stood right there in front of him.

We all need clarity. We need something on which we can stand on, knowing what is right, what is wrong, and where to turn when mounting chaos seems to break down everything we have known to be true.

In our home group gathering last night, a small group of us, consisting of my good wife Laurie and I, joined by three of the next generation, had a discussion on the supernatural, and why people seek what they seek. People are looking for direction, power, or an adventure to replace the boredom in their monotony. They end up going in the wrong direction, having seen the signposts that used to give direction torn down. Removing the proven ways of life have brought shameless acts of death.

When it all has been said and done, is it really true that your opinion is better than mine, or your ways are higher than my ways? So it would seem. How we have become so prideful in our quest for more knowledge, losing wisdom in its wake.

What then was right, has now become wrong. O how we are so mighty, with lofty methods built on shifting sand.

It didn’t happen overnight that the solid foundation was removed from under our feet. It has taken decades, leaving that which many once stood on seemingly done away with, a crumpled pile of brick, cement and iron rods in its place.

Rather than having certainty, we have welcomed ambiguity. Having removed proven commands for life, we are left with the belief that anything goes, anytime, anywhere. If you want it, do it. If you don’t have it, take it from one who does. My right replaces your right, even if it was wrong in the beginning.

Remove the commandments that once kept all in place, and you are left with each doing their own thing to promote their own agendas. Life is what you make it, even if it destroys you and others in the fatal end.

There yet remains a remnant that know the truth, that haven’t fallen for the big lie, that holds firmly to the belief that God remains on the throne, He is the Solid Rock on which we stand, and His Word is eternal, from the beginning to the end. There is nothing or no one on this earth which can destroy His work and end up with life apart from Him.

You who know the truth, stand strong. You have the answers, because you know the Answer. Do not let your beliefs be eroded and left on the side of the road as others have already done.

Salvation comes to those who believe, who know the Messiah, the Christ, and continue to walk in His ways. We will have life in our living, if you and I do what He has given us in His Word to do. Do not waver or accept anything that seeks to remove this.

Clearly, clarity is found in knowing Jesus, Yeshua. His salvation is eternal, and found in no other.

Shalom and ahava (peace and love in Hebrew).

Now think on this,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter. Use the "SignUp" button on our website, or go here: Sign Me Up!

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 10.01.17 - #319 – “Clarity” – Sunday 7:07 am

Strategies of the Lord - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Strategies of the Lord

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

“So the man became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys.” (Genesis 30:43, NASU)

For too long I have watched Christians follow the patterns of the secular world when it comes to doing a basic thing, like making money. It seems they get the big ideas – “Let’s make a real smartphone and call it, well, the “iPhone” (after all, our company name is "Apple"), or “We need a new search engine name. How about something crazy like “Google”? (See below, way below, for how the name actually came forth. But only after you read my article first!)

The world comes up with a slogan like, “Coke is the real thing.” So next thing we know the Christians are marketing items with, “Jesus is the real thing.” 

Or wearing a t-shirt with Jesus in sunglasses, quoting the movie, "I'll be back.". Is "The Terminator" (Arnold Schwarzenegger) now the one Jesus is to model after? It should be the other way around.

Don’t we have it backward? Aren’t we called to be the leaders, the innovators, the ones with the answers?

Take the Hollywood movie producers who create the big-time blockbuster, and soon after the faith community attempts to produce something in the same genre, and it flops. (But we are getting better! There have been some really good faith-based movies in the last five years.)

I had a young man call me once at my Christian ministry administrative office years back, all excited about coming up with a car flag to hang out the window with a Bible or catchy saying on it. He had seen the sports flags being hung from car windows, every Saturday and Sunday in his town. He said we needed to do the same.

As he spoke on the phone, I was silently thinking to myself, “Is this how we do it? We copy what the world system puts out, only with a “Christian” flavor to it?”

Why is this so? As followers of the Creator Himself, we should be the ones who receive the brilliant ideas, the inventive solutions, the strategies of the Lord. We have the heavenly connection, through the Holy Spirit, to know the thoughts and plans of the Lord. He is the brilliant One! Just look at the human body, the vast solar system, the depths of the massive oceans. What an Awesome God He is!

If you have been paying attention you will know where much of the new technology is now coming from. The Jews in Israel! Warren Buffet sure is investing there.

We are the ones who need to listen to what He is saying, as He desires to give us the strategies and the means to produce wealth and bring solutions to all kinds of problems, which in turn will serve our fellow man.

When I asked the Lord this Monday as to what I should be reading in His Word, He clearly said, “Jacob.” That was not what I was expecting, but I went to the book of Genesis and have been reading about Jacob. Fascinating.

In just a quick overview, Jacob had served his father-in-law Laban for over 14 years, in order to have his daughter Rachel as his wife. (If you recall, Laban had instead given Jacob his eldest Leah on his wedding night, being the deceiver that Laban was. And we thought Jacob was the deceiver?) Many years later, when Jacob was finally fed up with it all, and ready to move on from under this unrighteousness, the Lord gave him the means to do it.

“Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods. He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the gutters, even in the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink; and they mated when they came to drink.

So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. Jacob separated the lambs, and made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he put his own herds apart, and did not put them with Laban's flock.

Moreover, whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the gutters, so that they might mate by the rods; but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban's and the stronger Jacob's. So the man became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys.” (Genesis 30:37-43, NASU)

Now that is a strategy that you just can’t make up on your own. God did it for him.

I struggle in my faith often, trying to come up with ways to fund the ministry the Lord has called my wife and I to do. There are several projects we are aiming to meet needs with His provision.

Our heart is to have the means for international pastors and young people to make a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Israel, to stand where Jesus (Yeshua) stood. We have been given the heart by our Lord to provide Bibles for those who don’t have one in foreign countries; another is to make ways to provide for the children of widows who struggle daily with food, clothing, and shelter; also to help support Messianic families in the Holy Land on a regular basis, as they reach out to others around them.

I know the Lord knows the way to get it done. I am pressing into Him to know His strategies. He will show me, and you, the way to go to get it done.

Shalom and ahava (peace and love in Hebrew).

Now think on this,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter. Use the "SignUp" button on our website, or go here: Sign Me Up!

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 through our website using the DONATE buttons on either side column of our 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 09.26.17 - #318 – “Strategies of the Lord” – Tuesday 5:55 am

Read  this: Execs from Facebook, Google, and Microsoft explain why they use Israel for their R&D

Origin of the name "Google"

From time to time I read or hear stories of the origin of the search engine and company name "Google" that are incorrect, which prompts me to write this brief account, based on my understanding of the genesis of the name. The source of my information is my friends and colleagues from Wing 3B of the Gates Computer Science Building at Stanford University, where Google was born.

In 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin called their initial search engine "BackRub," named for its analysis of the web's "back links." Larry's office was in room 360 of the Gates CS Building, which he shared with several other graduate students, including Sean Anderson, Tamara Munzner, and Lucas Pereira. In 1997, Larry and his officemates discussed a number of possible new names for the rapidly improving search technology. Sean recalls the final brainstorming session as occurring one day during September of that year.

Sean and Larry were in their office, using the whiteboard, trying to think up a good name - something that related to the indexing of an immense amount of data. Sean verbally suggested the word "googolplex," and Larry responded verbally with the shortened form, "googol" (both words refer to specific large numbers). Sean was seated at his computer terminal, so he executed a search of the Internet domain name registry database to see if the newly suggested name was still available for registration and use. 

Sean is not an infallible speller, and he made the mistake of searching for the name spelled as "google.com," which he found to be available. Larry liked the name, and within hours he took the step of registering the name "google.com" for himself and Sergey (the domain name registration record dates from September 15, 1997).

---

David Koller (dk@cs.stanford.edu), January, 2004