The Prodigal’s Sister

We all know the story of the Prodigal son. But let’s refresh our memory. The father had two sons and one asked for his inheritence. Really, you would have to die, and then he gets it, so in effect,  the young man wished his father dead. When he got it, he squandered it. There is a line from an old movie. Cabin in the Sky. The demons are plotting how to destroy a man named Joe. After various ideas, they let him win a jackpot. “Give a man money, watch him act funny. “, they laugh and it is true. People often waste and abuse wealth on “riotous living.” Before you starting asking for money, you better know how to spend wisely.

God is the Father, and when the prodigal returns wanting to be a servant, he never let’s him speak. God doesn’t want servants, like we believe. He wants sons and daughters. He wants us to hush up about being just forgiven sinners and worms and wretches. He already knows that and sent Jesus, His Son, to take our place, now we can go home to the Father and be welcomed.

We have a ring, a symbol of eternal love. And a robe of righteousness, and sandals to keep the devil’s dust off our feet, Genesis 3:14, we are shod with the gospel of peace. And our brother is angry. ” Where’s my feast? ” ” I wasn’t bad. ” I worked here with you, I never got a party. ”  To which the Father replies, ” You’ve always had me. ” The prodigal brother could have benefited all along, maybe he’d didn’t ask, he has no need to be angry or jealous, when the Father is  filled with joy over the return of His son, who was dead, spiritually. You can dig a lot out of this parable.

According to Jewish law, the father could have had the boy stoned. He was risking his life by coming home, so he was planning to ask to be a slave. The father who represents God, never gives him a chance but comes running to him, kissing him. Jesus tells great stories. Let’s dig some more, it is also a picture of Jews and Gentiles. We should be provoking the Jewish people to jealousy in a sense to make them want Jesus, whom they had all along. They would be the brother.

Now, as to the prodigal sister, there is no mention of one. But I have to admit it, I have felt like one. I have had the priviledge or the nightmare ( depending on your point of view ) of seeing enough bratty children. They always want what another one has, they don’t really want it but don’t want you to have it. You have three rubber duckies, and brother has one, you want all four. Brother snatches one. Two and two is sharing. tantrums. All the rubber duckies are bye bye. Get the picture?

You can certainly mess up you blessing by being a brat. Believe me, I understand children. I have thrown lots of birthday parties. Young minds don’t always understand why they don’t get a present too. That’s why I would buy, for example, coloring books. Years ago, that would make them happy, along with cake and ice cream and they would be happy that whomever got a big shiny truck or huge baby doll. That’s seems less like the case today. They want it all.

I have seen children go berserk over snacks, toys, who gets to go where, you name it. And I have had to sit home with the ones who can’t go. So prodigal sister pops up. Hey, I’d like to go, but you’ve been bad all day. I’ve seen you at the restaurant. No you’re not getting everything advertised on t.v…” Why? ” I kept one little boy who wrote down all the numbers to commercials for me but he was not asking for the things. He is in college now.

Sometimes, I find myself feeling like or even acting like the prodigal’s sister. Why am I upset? I want to see people saved, healed and delivered. I only want what He wants for me. And truthfully, I’m ashamed that Jesus had to die ffor me to inherit anything, but I’m glad He loves me. I don’t need money, except to use wisely. Or certainly, not ” riotous living “. That’s not me.

But I’d like to go to dinner, but I can’t sometimes. Still I’ve always had my ring, my robe and my Father. He may not have to run to meet me, if I feel like a slave, it’s because I misunderstood. He kisses me everyday with His love and I have always had Him, I’m no longer acting like the prodigal, for I have always been His daughter. And the is a marriage supper coming. Rebecca Jones

Give Him Time

Ever wonder why it appears to take forever for God to answer our prayers? Yeah, me too. Besides the hanging onto faith while someone is in surgery or expecting good reports from bad situations, and those harrowing hours or days or weeks or longer when you just keep hanging on, there are the moments when you feel your head is barely above water, or you are at the end of your rope.

The truth is He answers prayers, the enemy will get in the way. A lot of times we don’t even see how. Sometimes, we even allow it by not recognizing attacks, not being sober and vigilant for the devil is prowling to devour our hopes and dreams, divide our families and friends attack our health and finances.

That’s why we need the Holy Spirit to guide us in all truth. Has God got a better plan and is just working behind the scenes for us? Or is the enemy devouring our answers? We need to pray again to discover the truth, using your prayer langauge is helpful if you are in a prayer pickle. Sometimes, I have felt that I could not pray my way out of the proverbial paper bag, but the Holy Spirit changes all that.

The devil is a predator type, he will go after weak Christians and they will never know what hit them, in fact, they will likely blame God. It just wasn’t His will or that was for the disciples  and not now. An act of God, some insurance policies say, in reference to storms, but my Lord could just speak His peace to it. And it would be still.

But what if you are praying, fasting, waiting? You really wanted that job, or husband, baby, or you’ve been ill so long and you have believed for health, taken Communion, had people pray for you. Don’t give up.

Ecclesiastes tells us, He makes all things beatuful in His time. And it does says all, not some. It may not work the way we want if we don’t hold on. And it is going to be better thab expected if we just give Him time, His time, not my time.

I was never a person to leave and arrive and hour early. It tried to be there right on time. And God knows I’ve been late. I know our thoughts don’t always match up, our ways, and we’re on a different clock because you exist in eternity and step into my life and I don’t always discern seasons  or times, I don’t catch every attack or discern every plan of the enemy, but I seek your face and your timing, Your ways are perfect, and so are your times.

I know you have my best interest at heart and I am keeping faith. Help me see what I should do and when. I am keeping my heart close to you. I know you are giving me you best, I will give you time. Rebecca Jones

 

You’ll Be Amazed!

I started studying healing as a young girl. Maybe, I knew I’d be needing it, or my spirit did by the Holy Spirit, anyway. I saw how Jesus jealed people, cast out demons, what appeared to relate to diseases today. When my back hurt, I never got in the prayer line. I believed He would just heal me. I saw people snatch their glasses of but be wearing them the next day. what happened, mischievous teenagers? Or were they healed one minute, not the next?

When I was about twenty four, I had a doctor tell me, ” You know you’ve got scoliosis? ” I reluctantly said. yes. He told me it pushed my heart forward. I went chiropracters, there was no way I wanted surgery. No way. I could not have stood it. And besides, I knew Jesus healed.

There was a lot more time and mistakes made. I heard a well known minister say not to get in the prayer line for bad knees if you were overweight. That was a mistake to listen to on my part. Because we are in Christ asking what we need and believing, we need to know we are not disqualified. I let that and other things hem me in, instead of touching His hem, I was tough it out, thinking something was my fault.

But I had been touched, often as I floundered in faith, knowing but not knowing what was wrong. I believed. Let me assure you, He knows if you believe, He knows every thought annd intent. And that healing word is a sharp two edged sword when spoken by a believer and brought to pass by Jesus. He’s not counting you out. Read Isaiah 53, and other verses, He asks the man at the pool of Bethsaida, if he wants to get well. The man’s answer should have been, yes. But he starts talking about the pool and no one to help. And Lazarus, even dead four days, Jesus could call Him forth, notice how they begin to say, if you had been here….He was here now, not even death could resist His word. So does He heal people, yes!

Immediately? Yes! And from that hour? Yes! And as they went? Yes! And His love is amazing, and you will amazed when you are healed. Healing comes from the inside out, though hands are laid on, oil is anointed on, the Holy Spirit moves on. It springs from your spirit as you receive from the Holy Spirit, the healing Jesus died to give us. It also comes from daily Communion.

You’ll be amazed when you can breathe. You’ll be amazed when you can walk or see or hear. You will be amazed that cancers are gone. Kidneys are functioning, hearts are beating normally and are not enlarged, arteries are not blocked, tumors are gone. You will be amazed when depression lifts and joy returns, when you have a clear way of thinking and are not afraid.

You will amazed when all hope is lost and doctors have given up, the Great Physician doesn’t giive up. God who gave freely His Son, will also give freely. Take the blinders off and be amazed. Remember, when Paul encountered Jesus, he fell of his horse and was blinded temporarily, later he has Ananias pray for the scales to be removed from his eyes. Let’s get the scales off, and off the scales, let the light of Jesus in. God’s Word is true, purified in fire. He swore an oath to Himself, by the body and blood of His Son.

We make mistakes but He doesn’t. He keeps His Word and not one word of it will not come to pass. So what’s stopping it? Maybe, we are. Are we wearing spiritual blinders? Have we seen the light but are sill walking with scales? Are we giving excuses or reasons why we are not being healed? Have we heard something taught and it was what we believed to be true, and then we know it isn’t? You can exercise and diet and take vitamins and still have diseases, die. People who have never smoked get cancer. Sin is not always the cause, either. He even said He could heal and forgive at the same time.

You can use your will and desire healing. I think I literally willed myself well at times trying to have great faith, but it is not about will- power or we would all be thin and healthy, non smokers or drinkers or drug users, but it doesn’t work that way. You need to be willing, yes, but it is not about willpower. It’s about Jesus and what He did.

So take the time to read healing verses, listen to healing music, immerse yourself in His calm and peace and just receive. You will be  amazed, He is willing, He told the leper so, are you? Are you willing to be amazed? Rebecca Jones

Have A Little Talk With Jesus

Ever have one of those days? Yeah, me too. But that’s really when we have to talk to Jesus. I was thinking about old songs and one came to mind, ” Have a Little Talk With Jesus, ” then the next line popped into my head,  it is ” We can tell Him all about our troubles. ”

I thought that’s kind of silly, He already knows. He knows I’ve been struggling, not with faith but at some people’s lack of respect for it. He knows the negatives and the positives, He hears it all. He knows what I say to whom and when and what I say to Him in my quiet, peaceful time. Or even in the night when fear would try to attack.

He knows. So tell Him about my troubles, no. I usually end up telling Him that He is way too good to me, I mess up too much. Too often, and yet He trusts me with so very much. Often I don’t feel like I’m making a difference to those closest to me, in fact, I wonder if I don’t turn them away from God if I insist a little too hard, but I know there has to be a well laid plan at work.

He already knows my body, how I suffered with pain. Why tell Him that? Look at the pain He suffered. He knows I have need of things, I don’t have to give Him a grocery list or even a honey do one. I think He made it plain that He would supply all my needs.

So when I have a little talk with Jesus, I tell Him about how I hate that He had to die for me. I tell Him about little things that mean a lot to me. I thank Him for working healing into my body and soul. I thank for lining things up for me. For the good gifts, I have received and have yet to.

I thanks Him for angels at work for me. For the scores of winged messengers that are out and about on my behalf and that of others. I thank Him for being my strength, when I am weak, and for making me strong in Him. I thank Him for that covenant love, that is like the three fold cord, never easily broken.

I thank Him for His peace, that I never even knew existed at this level, for being my joy. I thank Him for wonderl memories but that I am able to forget the past and all things are new in Him. For making braver than I thought when love was my weapon of choice, it brought down and slew the dragons of fear.

So have a little talk with Jesus, the song says the little prayer wheel is turning, He hears the faintest cry, answers by and by and that a just little talk with with Jesus makes it right.  But let’s stop telling Him all about our problems, it is not about us, not about our circumstances or situations. It’s all all about Him.

He filled my heart with love and wrote my name above. It’s all about you, Lord. It’s all about you Jesus, and just a little talk with Jesus makes it right. Rebecca Jones

 

 

 

Is There A Plan B?

Most of us have plans. God has better ones. Even if we follow what we believe, our faith. We may not want what God wants as much as He wants to give it. Seriously. God is omnipotent, all knowing and everpresent. He had to have known that Adam and Eve would mess up, still He gave them the choice. Fear kept them from repenting, it was something they had never experienced, they had no idea what they had unleashed. You may think things are bad in the world, but the Holy Spirit restrains so much and the believer’s prayers. You would not want to be here in the Tribulation.

But the Lord had a plan, was it plan B? But there may have been only the one plan all along. Jesus coming to redeem us all from hell with the plan of salvation if we accept Him as Lord. Jeremiah tells us He has plans for us to hive us a hope and future. That future is only achieved through Christ.

And after Jesus came, we heard the good news of the gospel, we were supposed to preach, teach and share it with the world. We can do that by living exemplary lives before our fellow man. I can tell you though that a strong faith and rich prayer live can knock the enemy for a loop and send him reeling. You are also a target.  Oh yes, as a believe, satan comes ” iimediately ” for the word sown in our hearts? How?

Cares of the world. You know, everday stuff. Things we have to do. Lust for other things, not just lust, but wanting to things that are not having to do with Christ. Deceitfulness of riches, being rich and greedy or poor and proud of it, are on both ends of the scale. God wants us to have wealth both spiritual and financial to establish His gospel, He gets the glory. Persecution and affliction. We are all persecuted for our faith in some way, and that’s to be expected, though we in America are in no way persecuted like those abroad. And affliction can have to do with illness or oppression.

Being practical, we might all have a Plan B. You know how you have to rehearse fire drills and have a secondary escape route.  You may have a back up plan to pick up the children from school, a savings account. An alternative route or another plan for a trip. There’s nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with a Plan B.

Personally, I believe God chases after us with blessings and more often tht not the devil has things scrambled into our lives so that we miss them, by worrying or being afraid, or just too wrapped up in other things. In my case, I was busy trying help other people and neglecting my own life. I was chasing plan B, but God had given me A. I didn’t even know it.

Does God have a plan B? I heard the Lord has no plan B…well, maybe not. He sent Jesus and that was sufficient. But He does try to draw us closer to Him, and His ways are not like ours, His thoughts are much higher. Even if the plan of salvation works, and we accept plan A.  Jesus. He probably chases after us to reveal those plans. Remember, the devil will chase you to kill, steal and destroy. John 10:10, so why wouldn’t a Lord who loves you chase you to bless you and protect you from the evil one?  He wants you to have life and life more abundantly. So maybe, He does have a plan B, C, D…..Rebecca Jones

Jesus, Our Wisdom

…to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians 1:2

I spent a month, the month of January, and I wanted to start 2017 off right. I taught a lot from Proverbs and there is some good teaching there. Especially, about words and how we expres ourselves, about foolishness.

Just before this verse, we are told by Paul how the Jews are looking for signs, and that the Greeks want wisdom. Of course, we know this is true because the Jews were astronomers and used the moon to determine season, even the stars. It was Nimrod, a whole different story, that came up with astrology.

And the Greeks were scholars and sages and philosphers. So when Paul preached Christ to them, he said it was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. We know that there were Jews, Greeks, Romans, Gentiles of all kinds who were to become believers, even martyrs for Christ, but for many it was not believable becasue i went against wwhat they had been taught and believed.

To become a Christian, takes faith, you may not be able to see Jesus like Paul did to have a turn around, but you must believe and repent. Just change your mind , or at least open it a little too let the light of His love in. That Jesus could be the answer to all our problems was sjust too much for some. They wanted tangible things. The Jews saw miracles, so did the Greeks.

But to those who are called, the called out ones for Christ, He is our power, by the Holy Spirit and our wisdom. So even with all the teaching on wisdom and all those posts about it and all the good verses, and no matter how much wisdom is referred to as a she, no matter how many good things I might have said or points I made, remember this verse, and that Jesus is our true wisdom.

Should you go back and read them, remember that. I will probably do some editing. Wisdom cries in the streets, carries a lantern, hopes wee hear her. But wisdom is not a woman. Wisdom is Jesus. Wise men stil seek HIm, and wise women, too. Rebecca Jones

Rebuke The Devourer

Malachi 3:11 talks about how the Lord will rebuke the devourer for our sakes. Of course, the previous verses speak of bringing the tithes into the storehouse. It ties in with restoration,  how crops will not fail, and barns will be stored up. The years that canker worm has eaten up, we are familiar with that.

It also talks about robbing God, and asks how a man can do it. We know that in the Old Testament times. people were required to pay tithes, such as Abraham to Melchizedek. I believe he could have been a pre-incarnate Christ. For God to bless them they had to keep the law, make offerings and pay tithes.

Fast forward to Jesus, He fulfilled the law and the prophets, He was the perfect offering, sin, grain, even burnt. And He is our High Priest or Melchizedek. He drove the robbers from the temple, the Holy Spirit in us drives them from us. The fact is that Jesus ushered in the message of grace and truth. He is both.

If we love Him we will keep His commandment to love. Our offerings are those of praise. We are a living sacrifice that He redeemed. And He can bless us, however He chooses, and we in turn should be willing to give back to them. So you see, certain conditions had to be met because of the law, in order for God to rebuke the devourer. But Jesus met the condtions for us at the cross, and it is He who rebukes the devourer for our sake now. 1 Peter 5:8, also refers to the devil as the devourer, and tells us to be sober and vigilant, for he prowls, seeking whom he will devour. We can rebuke him also in Jesus.

Truly, Jesus allowed Himself to be devoured in our place. It was for us, the children of God that He tasted death. He thoroughly defeated the devil, forever. I am not suggest that you not pay tithes or give offerings. But you know as well as I that many ministries send out monthly letters, ask for certain amounts, even phone. And I know not everyone can give, or as much as they’d like. Some may give expecting to receive and still not because of not understanding certain principals.

I studied sowing and reaping, giving and receiving, the pressed down, shaken together, how men give into your bosom. And I still never had any money. And often, I handed over my last couple of dollars. I felt bad that I did not pay tithes, or send more offerings, I was doing what I could. But I don’t think I was robbing God, but I was robbing Jesus of the ability to give me His blessings and He knew I would give in return. You see, He was my offering, and I needed Him more than anything and still do.

So as I  write this tonight, I hope you rethink this as well, I give Him my praise and offer my thanksgiving, and what He gives me I will use for His glory. And it is my prayer, for I can do nothing without Him, that for my sake He begins to rebuke the devourer. Rebecca Jones

 Please also read Bound on Earth.