March 2008
Once again, it’s the time of year
that many of you will celebrate Easter by
attending a local congregation. The history
of Easter, and how it became the day to
recognize the resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ is explained in the March 2005 view.
Our prayer is that every day will be a day
of rejoicing for you in Christ’s victory.
As the chorus goes: “This is the day
the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be
glad in it!”
Contact Us!
The door is open for you to contact our
web administrator with your praise reports
and prayer request. People contact us from
all walks of life. We realize that you may
desire to share your excitement concerning
what God had done. It’s healthy to
share your thoughts and feelings.
It helps to read portions of the website
before contacting us, especially “Manson’s
Right Hand Man Speaks Out!” This book
provides answers to over two-hundred questions
that you will not have to ask again. As
you search the web site, you’ll uncover
answers to many questions. We choose not
to share any information on the personal
lives of my family, but when appropriate,
personal things are shared on the web site
as well.
There is one thing that I can confirm,
since many of you ask about my wife. Kristin
faithfully supported our prison ministry,
and our marriage was sound for 24 years.
Being married to a prisoner is a relationship
with a lot of difficulties. Kristin eventually
chose a more normal life, resulting in her
divorcing me in 2003. We remain friends
and are dedicated parents to our four children.
Our Lord has given our family favor with
many friends and strong family help. Our
children are succeeding in marvelous ways,
and we are grateful to God and those He
has put in our paths.
It Is All About Love
This outreach is all about the love of
God finding us, so that His love can flow
freely through our lives to others. It is
the condition of our heart that causes our
inability to experience and express God’s
love. Just as we must be born through childbirth
to experience physical life, our hearts
must be born of God to experience Spiritual
life. His life enables us to express His
love to others. “Anyone who loves
is born of God and knows God. But anyone
who does not love does not know God –
for God is love.”
My live was in turmoil before God’s
love came into my heart. While searching
for love and acceptance, I chose physical
love from illicit sex. My parents loved
me unconditionally, but I didn’t realize
it. I became fearful of failure and of not
being accepted. I fled to California, thinking
a change of location could fulfill me. I
was unwilling to face the real problem –
my fearful heart. I wasn’t born of
the Spirit, so I was ignorant of God’s
love that casts out fear. 2
God hadn’t given me the spirit of
fear, but He made the provision for the
Spirit of power, love, and self-discipline
through a new life in Christ. 3
The same is true of everyone.
This miraculous rebirth happens when you
believe that Jesus died for your sins, and
rose from the dead to give you everlasting
life. You are forgiven because of the blood
of Jesus Christ, and you are cleansed from
all unrighteousness by God’s power.
4 Jesus gives us His
righteousness and life, and “…
since Christ lives in you, your spirit is
alive, because you have been made right
with God.”5
As a result, the Holy Spirit give you the
ability to experience God’s love,
freedom from fear and the ability to express
“… love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness
and self-control.”6
Let’s Shift Gears
Our hearts were saddened as we hear about
a new wave of violence in the schools. There
were five separate shootings in seven days.
People are looking for answers and asking
“Why?” The girlfriend of the
shooter said: “This was not the man
I knew, who was not a monster, but a caring
person.” In all humility, if we would
just learn to humble ourselves, seek the
Lord and Pay “It” Forward, this
world would be a better place.
All of us have a responsibility to respond
to God, and He gives us the ability to respond.
We cannot win the war against violence without
the power of God. “We are human, but
we don’t wage war with human plans
and methods. We use God’s mighty weapons,
not mere worldly weapons, to knock down
the Devil’s strongholds. With these
weapons we break down every proud argument
that keeps people from knowing God. With
these weapons we conquer their rebellious
ideas, and we teach them to obey Christ.”7
God’s mighty weapons knock down the
Devil’s stronghold [fortresses] and
break down every proud argument those every
argument that keeps people from knowing
God. These arguments, thoughts, ideas, speculations,
reasoning’s, philosophies and false
religions. They are ideological forts that
become strongholds in which individuals
barricade themselves against God. The shooter
of these latest killings allowed a stronghold
of demonic reasoning to inhabit his mind
in the past 6 months. He became a “cutter”,
cutting himself and filling his arms with
satanic tattoos, such as a pentagram.
The total destruction of these fortresses
of human and demonic wisdom and the rescuing
of those captive from the damning lies that
enslave them, takes place through the finished
work of Christ. It is up to us to share
His love with everyone we meet. The Lord
makes us aware of those in trouble and uses
us to rescue a tormented soul from becoming
the next fatality. The answer is believing,
receiving, knowing and sharing the power
of God’s love to save the lost. And
prayer is the key to success.
The Shack
I rarely recommend books, but The Shack
is an interesting novel. It is the fictional
story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips. His youngest
daughter, Missy, is abducted during a family
vacation and evidence that she may have
been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned
shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four
years later in the midst of his Great Sadness,
Mack receives a suspicious note apparently
from God, inviting him back to the shack
for the weekend.
Against his better judgment he arrives
at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks
back into his darkest nightmare. What he
finds there will change Mack’s world
forever.
In a world where religion seems to grow
increasingly irrelevant, The Shack wrestles
with the timeless question, “Where
is God in a world so filled with unspeakable
pain?” The answer Mack gets will astound
you and perhaps transform you as much as
it did him. You’ll want everyone you
know to read this book (click
here!)
Pray out loud:
Our loving heavenly Father, all that is
righteous, all that is holy, comes only
through you. You have provided the answer
to our troubles. All that hurts us, all
that has injured us, all in this world that
confuses us, has been overcome by Your Son,
Jesus Christ. We believe in your salvation
and the prosperity that comes through Jesus
alone. Tear down those strongholds that
resist Your will. Strengthen our faith to
boldly proclaim to this lost world Your
plan for righteousness and peace. Jesus
is Lord and it is in His name we pray, Amen!”
Scripture References:
1 1 John 4:7, 8
2 1 John 4:18
3 2 Tim 1:7
4 1 John 1:9
5 Rom. 3:25, 8:10
6 Gal. 5:22
7 2 Cor. 10:3-5
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