notes from lisa...

" Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, 'I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, ‘Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat it and bless you before the Lord before I die.’ Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves. And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.' But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, 'Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.' His mother said to him, 'Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, bring them to me.'"    [Genesis 27: 5-13, ESV] And we call Ja...

" And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?  And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together." Sometimes, when things get tough we forget. I'm sure it was tempting for Abraham to forget at the moment when God "tested" him. After all, there were a couple of occasions when Abraham became forgetful--faithful as he was. Remember, his encouragement to Sarah to lie--first to Pharaoh, and then to Abimelech. Abraham had Sarah tell the same lie--that she was his sister--well, it was a half-truth (it was spoken with the intent to deceive), because of his fear . Abraham forgot God's providential care at those moments--he forgot His promise . Abraham forgot that there was a Covenant necessitating both his and Sarah's health and well-being. He didn't nee...

If Job's experience isn't a perfect example to prove that the Prosperity "Doctrine" (which is so popular in Western churches today) is dead wrong , than what is? In Job, God's righteous servant (and, God declared it to be so), we have a man who did all of the right things and served God with his whole heart, yet , calamity washed over him almost to consume him. It simply doesn't line up with the mantra of good things happen to faithful people and bad things happen to the wicked or unfaithful.  It also doesn't line up with God's Word. Jesus said, "...for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust ." Eliphaz could easily be a popular prosperity preacher, today--I can just see him all decked out on television, filled with emotion, preaching that message: "If you have faith in God, than there is nothing out of your reach! Those who do not believe, it is evident...

Early this year, I had a "little" heart scare--I guess these things can happen when you get old-ER. I must admit, at first I panicked when I heard "don't be alarmed, but we found some abnormalities, so we will have to keep you for observation". Thankfully, the panic was only momentary and I resumed laughing and talking, because I remembered who I was; and, more importantly, "to live is Christ, and to die is gain ". I thought about this, again, because I think often we have a love-hate relationship with death. We forget (as saints) about the "gain" part until the homegoing service; until then, death is a dirty word. Until we or our loved one draws a final breath, we believe God to raise them up and make them whole, by faith . We won't even consider otherwise, until they die; then our whole conversation changes and "the death of the saint is precious in the sight of the Lord". Why is it only precious after death? Why isn't d...