If there is a pulse-there is hope! Are you willing to receive it? (Mark and Shirley Parsons)6/16/2023 Saturday’s meeting (June 10, 2023) did not disappoint. Our God is ever faithful! He knows what He wants to bring about and He enacts and accomplishes His plan through us.
As always, we did not know who (or how many) would come. We desire for them to come expecting something, but how much better when they come for other reasons and God just sweeps them off their feet! With a thankful spirit, I can say the right number of people came; the God-intended people came and some got swept off their feet. God wanted to bring a message full of power to those who have lost hope, or wonder where it went! A person who feels hopeless and helpless at the same time, is near dead, but if there is still a pulse, there is still time and there is a way to once again experience hope. It requires action—every person has an individual choice to make. First, they must be willing to receive the hope and then begin to live in it. To be clear, the hopelessness we are talking about is not about feeling a little off one day or feeling a little “blue” or depressed one day. Hopeless means NO HOPE; no expectation of any good or success; despair. Hopelessness can come when one feels helpless and powerless—trapped! And it often leads a person to thoughts of why they should even go on living. Finding hope in these extreme situations does not consist of wishing. A wish is like an empty cloud going nowhere. Hope is completely different—being foundational, of substance, concrete, and anchored in the expectation of something good. Hope has weight to it with feet firmly planted and immovable. It can be shaken but not taken! We had planned to use the story of the Prodigal Son as a launching point to discuss hopelessness, but Paul’s Shipwreck (Acts 27) on the way to Rome replaced it and that’s what we went with. It is the recounting of Paul’s story—a story of utter hopelessness turned into hope and life! (I encourage you to read it, more than once, and place yourself within the story to learn how it may relate to your life.) The desire is to have each participant identify in some way with the story and in an open and “safe” atmosphere set by the Holy Spirit, for them to share their experiences of hopelessness and how they coped with them. We prayed for changed hearts before anyone leaves the room and our great God did not disappoint. We had barely begun when we realized that over half of us had been to that dark place at the bottom, where hope departs completely. Lively discussion set the pace for the evening and we did not fail to praise God and give thanks to him along the way. The group was reminded, for those who have not been to this dark place, it is almost guaranteed that you will run across someone in your daily travels who is without hope. You then, may be the torchbearer bringing light and hope to others. Exploring and sharing our experiences should lead us to discover how to acquire and receive hope. The plain truth is: Turning to Jesus is ALWAYS the right first step! There are many “Words” of Jesus that guide us in the way to receiving hope, for He is the Hope of Glory! “…which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Col. 1:27) “Come unto me, … and I will give you rest.” (Mt. 11:28) “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Mt. 6:33) “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” (Rom.15:13) “The hope of the righteous [honorable character and integrity] is joy…" (Pv. 10:28) “But those who wait for the LORD [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] Will gain new strength and renew their power;” (Is 40:31) What an evening! Everyone had received something from our faithful Lord Jesus Christ. But then, we all rejoiced along with the angels in heaven when one soul, who admitted that God had been pursuing her, humbled herself and turned her life over to King Jesus. She was born again and set off on a fresh new journey of life! This message was not just for listening and thinking about hope, but in power, for rising up to receive hope. A choice! An action! It is simple; it is strong; it is failproof! "I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes and trusts in Me [as Savior—all those who anchor their hope in Me and rely on the truth of My message] will not continue to live in darkness." (John 12:46)
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If you are in the area of Pikeville, TN, this Saturday, June 10, at 6 p.m., please join us as Mark and Shirley Parsons share this wonderful message - if there is a pulse, there is hope! Are you willing to receive it? We will meet at the Multipurpose Room at Mountain Glen, 6182 Brockdell Rd., Pikevile, TN, 37367.
Our God is bringing hope to many precious people. If you are in the area of Pikeville, TN, this Saturday, May 13, at 6 p.m., please join us as Mark and Shirley Parsons share this wonderful message. If there is a pulse, there is hope!
We will meet at the Multipurpose Room at Mountain Glen, 6182 Brockdell Rd., Pikevile, TN, 37367. In Matthew 5:13, we are told, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing any more, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” The salt reference is important. We are told that we are the salt of the earth, but if we don’t do the work of salt, we are ineffective and worthy to be thrown out! God is serious…we have received from Him the ability to make a difference by having His Spirit flow through us and change the world. Let’s look at what salt is and does. Do we match up, also, in the things of the Lord? Salt:
NOW, GO LIVE IT! Our nature cannot obey God, not in the manner God requires. The only way to serve God without sin is to walk by the Spirit. The scriptures tell us that when you walk by the Spirit you cannot sin...problem solved! Today, there is an ongoing debate on "what" is right. That is like a dog chasing its tail! It is not "what" is right - it is "WHO" is right. God's wisdom lays down the principles and the direction in which we are to go and, in obedience to Him, right-ness comes. Mankind keeps changing what is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. Just look at what is considered modest and immodest today, compared to 40 years ago - BIG CHANGE! God is stable, He never changes, nor do His principles. Don't go by your flesh (natural ideas, feelings, desires). Be a part of God's stability. Stand up and be a part of changing our world...in Christ. NOW, GO LIVE IT!Jeremiah was a humble prophet of God who was used mightily by God in his time. He frequently felt the sting of ridicule and rejection for proclaiming God’s word to a rebellious people. He was on fire for God’s purpose in his life and was not about to be silenced. There was good reason for his devotion to the living God, for he testifies in Jeremiah 15:16 saying, “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.” He consumed the words of God and he spoke the messages he had received. Jesus said that a man’s mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. (See Luke 6:45.) Paul also confessed with an unwavering conviction that, “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose (or counsel) of God.” (Acts 20:27) Let us be encouraged to seek and discover GOD’S WORD for ourselves. Let us eat the heavenly manna (Jesus) and proclaim the mighty gospel of grace in our generation – and witness a bountiful harvest of souls for the kingdom of God. NOW, GO LIVE IT!There is a tremendous responsibility for a mother to raise up a child in the love and admonition of the Living God. (See Proverbs 22:6) I thank God for the example we have in Jochebed, the mother of Moses. We read about her, her husband Amram, and Moses in Exodus 2:1-10. However, in Hebrews 11:23, we discover the reason for her actions - she moved in faith! "By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict." (NIV) Although we know little about Jochebed, we can learn much about her faith in God to surrender her child into His hands. She placed Moses in a well-prepared and sealed papyrus basket into the dangerous and crocodile-filled Nile River (symbolic of our present world). Acting on faith, this mother was moved to release her son unto God's care. She did not now he would be the very man God would use to deliver Israel after 400 years of bondage and enslavement. What a mother of faith! What a child of God! NOW, GO LIVE IT!Change is strange for most of us. We get "comfortable" in our habits, our thoughts, and our behaviors. Many times, those things are full of broken ways that keep us in the grip of sin. Break free! Get on your face before God and ask for that "new life" and "new creature" existence God tells us about. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that if any man is in Christ he is a new creature and the old things start passing away. "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." This message of the new nature is not a dark and dire message ... it is a message of supreme hope! The Spirit of God can accomplish a life-changing transformation for anyone who comes to Jesus and remains bound to Him. God's kind of change – oh, yeah – that's worth all the coins in the world! (Romans 6-8; Ephesians 4:4-6, 4:23-24; Ephesians 1:13-14, 2:4-10) NOW, GO LIVE IT!All who have come to know Jesus Christ have been saved to serve. Isaiah was a humble and devoted prophet of God in his time. He even saw the King, the Lord of Hosts seated on a throne in glory, majesty and splendor (See Isaiah 6:1-8). During this time before the Lord, Isaiah heard the Lord say, “’Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’” But to whom was Isaiah being sent? He was to go to a rebellious nation who had forsaken the Lord, urging them to repent and turn back to the Living God. Today, we are living in a degenerate world of moral decay and decline, and many are calling evil good and good evil - just as it was in Isaiah's time. They are substituting darkness for light and light for darkness and substituting bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter (See Isaiah 5:20). NOW, GO LIVE IT!For so many, the annual pilgrimage to church occurs on Easter Sunday, perhaps out of tradition or feelings of guilt if they do not attend. But what do the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ mean to you? What is the significance of the power of God to raise His Son from the Dead, and is it relevant in your life today? Let's visit what the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus meant to Paul in Philippians 3:10-11, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being confirmed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." Paul diligently sought to know Jesus - not intellectually, but experientially and intimately in his daily walk. He hungered for and pursued God for a flow of the Holy Spirit that the life of Jesus would be seen in him and witnessed by others. All his passion was due to the identification, ownership, and commitment he had to Jesus who had surrendered His life for him. How about you? Are you experiencing and encountering the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in your life today? Remember - He arose that you may live! NOW, GO LIVE IT! |
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