Jesus vs. Religion

180 Degrees

Day 19 - Victory in Jesus

"The song I sing most often."

(My favorite hymn).

"Victory in Jesus"

by Eugene Monroe Bartlett, Sr., 1939

I heard an old, old story
How a Saviour came from glory
How He gave His life on Calvary
To save a wretch like me

I heard about His groaning,
Of His precious blood's atoning
Then I repented of my sin
And won the victory.

Oh, victory in Jesus,
My Saviour forever
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood
He loved me 'ere I knew Him
And all my love is due Him
He plunged me to victory
Beneath the cleansing flood.

I heard about His healing,
Of His cleansing power revealing
How He made the lame to walk again
And caused the blind to see

And then I cried, "Dear Jesus,
Come and heal my broken spirit!"
And somehow Jesus came and brought
To me the victory.

Oh, victory in Jesus,
My Saviour forever
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood
He loved me 'ere I knew Him
And all my love is due Him
He plunged me to victory
Beneath the cleansing flood.

I heard about a mansion
He has built for me in Glory
And I heard about the streets of gold
Beyond the crystal sea
About the angels singing
And the old redemption story
And some sweet day I'll sing up there
This song of victory!

Oh, victory in Jesus,
My Saviour forever
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood
He loved me 'ere I knew Him
And all my love is due Him
He plunged me to victory
Beneath the cleansing flood.

Remembering Teresa

Teresa was a beautiful little girl, with dark black hair cut in a pageboy. She was a very light skinned Hispanic, but that meant nothing to me then. We were eight years old. We'd been friends since first grade and had grown closer after my best friend Cindy died of leukemia.

I remember playing on the monkey bars with Teresa and thinking that she really should wear shorts under her dress so no one could see her underpants. (We all had to wear dresses to school back then). I even remember telling my mommy that I saw Teresa's underpants.

I don't have even a hint of a memory of being told that Teresa was dead. I remember the facts, though. She was playing in her front yard and had run out into the street after her ball, from between two parked cars. The car that hit her was going fast for a shaded suburban street, especially in the 1960s era when children spent all their play time outside. When the car hit her, Teresa was thrown into the air and landed on her head about twenty yards down the street. She died instantly.

I do remember some hushed talk at my house, which was unusual. Then my mother took me to the funeral home one evening for Teresa's visitation. I remember every detail of that. (My mother hadn't taken me to see Cindy).

The room was narrow and it was lit with candles. The casket at the front was very small, and it was white with a satin cushioned interior. The opened portion of the casket was to my left as I walked slowly forward, my mother holding my hand. Teresa was wearing a frilly pink dress and on her head was a white doily. In her white-gloved hands she held a small white Bible and a string of beads with a strange-looking cross on it.

I silently cried and cried. I had never seen a dead person before. And Teresa didn't look asleep, like my parents had said she would. She looked gone.

After spending a few moments looking down at my friend, my mother pulled me back a little so others could approach. And then I stared at Teresa. She was breathing! I could see her breathing! This was all just a terrible mistake; I didn't know why she looked gone, but she had to be alive because she was breathing!

I got an idea. I took in the biggest, fullest breath I could, and I held it. I studied Teresa. She wasn't breathing. I gasped out the breath and tried the experiment again. When I was holding my own breath, Teresa wasn't breathing. Teresa was really dead. She was really gone, just like she looked.

In front of Teresa's casket was a satin padded kneeling bench, and women dressed in black kept kneeling to pray, all of them holding variations of the same beads that Teresa was holding. The beads had crosses on them, but Jesus was on the cross. That didn't make sense to me. I had asked Jesus into my heart at the age of four, and I knew that a critical aspect of salvation was believing that Jesus rose from the dead. Why would these people be holding necklaces with Jesus still on the cross?

I could hear some of the women praying for Teresa's soul, praying she'd be accepted into Heaven. Now I was really confused. A person accepted Jesus into their heart when they were alive, so they would go to Heaven when they died. But Teresa was already dead. If she hadn't accepted Jesus when she was alive, it was too late now.

I tearfully and quietly asked my mother a few questions, and she explained that Teresa and her family were Catholics and believed differently than we did. She briefly told me about rosaries and about purgatory. The rosaries made sense to me. Purgatory didn't.

When we got home, I have a vague memory of talking with my parents about how the beliefs of Catholics differed from ours. I remember telling my parents about how I tested whether or not Teresa was breathing. And I remember my mother saying, "I knew I never should have taken you there."

About six years ago, not long before my mother died, I talked to her about Teresa's visitation, and about her comment that she never should have taken me. She remembered that night, and she remembered her comment. My mother told me that she hadn't realized that I would be so upset, and she hadn't realized that I would absorb the Catholic rituals and become so confused.

I'm 51 years old now, and I have long since adopted my own religious beliefs, most of which are still based on that early training. I use prayer beads, although not in the same way that Catholics do. And my beads have an empty cross, because Jesus hasn't been on the cross for almost 2000 years.

And I have to say, praying for the soul of someone who is already dead still makes no sense to me. God gives us a choice, and we have to make that choice for ourselves; once we die, no one can make that choice for us, no one can pray us into Heaven.

So I don't know where you are, dear Teresa, but I remember you.

Miscellaneous

I had my first visit with my new therapist today (Tues.). His name is Joe and he's very tall. I've never had a male therapist before, but I think I'll like him. I won't see him next week, but after that I'll be back in therapy weekly. I'm so glad. I've called the on-call therapist many times over the last couple of months. I also saw the psychiatrist today; I'm seeing her every two months. No medication changes.

Thursday I will finally achieve, with the help of my nephew, clearing out my storage unit. I've been going through boxes at the unit two or three days a week for over a month now, so everything that comes into my apartment will be items I know I'm keeping or giving to family members. There are many, many trash bags in storage now, and lots of boxes and items labeled for Goodwill. I still have tomorrow to finish going through things, and then I've reserved a rental truck for Thursday. Unfortunately, I still have belongings in both my sisters' storage units. I don't understand how I accumulated so much junk. It's very oppressive.

Then Friday I have an appointment with the acupuncturist. I haven't been in over a year, but I'm having significant numbness and pain in my hands and wrists again, and it was cured last year in only one visit after I'd suffered with it for several months.

I'm significantly stressed about whether or not I'll receive my Social Security disability check on August 3rd. Obama is saying checks won't go out. If they don't, homelessness will increase exponentially in this country in four to six weeks. And I will be homeless again, too, and have to put everything back in storage if I can find someone to pay the storage fees for me for a while. I shudder at the thought of going back into a homeless shelter, but it's better than the street.

My niece and her husband will be in town next week, as will one of my sisters and her husband. I'm excited about seeing them and visiting with them, but I'm a little nervous and anxious, too, that I won't act right or say the right things.

I was able to spend time with my little six-year-old grand-niece on Sunday and then overnight into Monday. She really lifts my spirits. On Sunday she came so, so close to asking Jesus into her heart, I really thought it was going to be The Day. But then she said she "wanted to do it alone." At one point she asked me, "Why haven't my teachers at church told me all this?" and she also told me that she thought I would have lots of stars in my crown when I get to Heaven! I've been working with her for so long, talking to her about God, and Jesus' death and resurrection, and all the other critical things she needs to know and believe in order to be born again. And blessedly, I'm not the only one working with her; several people are, and many people are praying. So I think it will be soon. And then people on earth and in Heaven will rejoice, and all the angels will sing and dance and rejoice!

Plan of Salvation

The Bible says there is only one way to Heaven. 
Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me." (John 14:6)

 

Good works cannot save you. 

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9

Trust Jesus Christ today! Here's what you must do:
 

Admit you are a sinner.  
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" (Romans 3:23) 

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:" (Romans 5:12) 

"If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." (1 John 1:10)

Be willing to turn from sin (repent).
Jesus said: "I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." (Luke 13:5)  

"And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:" (Acts 17:30)

Believe that Jesus Christ died for you, was buried, and rose from the dead.  
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)  

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)  

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Romans 10:9)

Through prayer, invite Jesus into your life to become your personal Saviour. 
"For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:10)  

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:13)
 

What to pray: Dear God, I am a sinner and need forgiveness. I believe that Jesus Christ shed His precious blood and died for my sin. I am willing to turn from sin. I now invite Christ to come into my heart and life as my personal Saviour.

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:" (John 1:12)
 

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Thank you to Chick Publications.

Still Here . . .

Yesterday was a sad day for Christians. Not because the infamous "end-of-the-world" prediction was wrong, although we do hope each day could be the day we'll join the Lord in the air. No. We're sad because atheists rejoice, agnostics remain complacent, and thousands of people around the entire world may lose their faith in God. The positive aspect is that people are talking about Jesus and about eternity. God does work in mysterious ways.

According to Harold Camping, a Christian radio host from California, the long-awaited Rapture of the Saints was scheduled for May 21, 2011. He stated with certainty that approximately 3% of the world's population would be lifted to Heaven at 6:00 p.m. local time; that is, the Rapture would not happen in an instant but would roll around the earth, so to speak. Then massive earthquakes, greater in magnitude than the recent devastating Japanese earthquake, would begin on the Pacific Rim at 6:00 p.m. local time and would hit New York City at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time. The actual annihilation of the earth, of the entire universe, would take place six months later, on October 21, 2011.

This is the web site of Family Radio as it appeared yesterday:

This is the web site of Family Radio as it appears today:

 

Various news outlets state that Camping cannot be located for comment.

Camping has made a Rapture prediction before, in a 1992 self-published book titled 1994? which set the date in September of that year. When nothing happened, Camping said he must have made a mathematical error.

A civil engineer, Camping has always been fascinated with numbers. His premise was based on the appearance of numbers in the Bible, stating that God would only have included various numbers for a purpose. He has studied the Bible for decades to develop his equations and to be certain his calculations are correct.

Pure hubris. The Bible is clear. Documented in Matthew 24: 36 (King James Version), Jesus states, "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." Didn't Camping see that verse during all his years of study?

I have no doubt that Harold Camping genuinely believed his prediction and believed that he was doing the work of God: warning non-Christians that the end is near.

Well, folks, he certainly got that right. The end is near. The day is at hand. As documented in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (KJV),

 ¹⁶For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

 ¹⁷Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

...and also documented in Matthew 24:30-31 (KJV), 

³⁰And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 

 ³¹And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Will you be left behind?

God's Plan of Salvation 

Thanks to Wikipedia for information on Harold Camping

The Most Important Job

This morning as I read my Bible and worked through my prayer beads, I reflected unexpectedly on my Christian heritage. I accepted Jesus into my heart when I was 4 years old, ample evidence of a Christian home. I have always been certain of my salvation.

Although my daddy was an ordained minister, my family didn't attend church regularly when I was growing up. Nevertheless, my parents ensured that we were well-grounded in the conservative Christian faith.

We watched Day of Discovery on the television and listened to Radio Bible Class on the radio, and we did our individual daily devotions using Our Daily Bread.

We memorized Scripture through Bible Memory Association and went to camp every summer. I remember memorizing in Primary Books through Adult Books, and I went to camp for the first time when I was old enough by camp policy: nine. I was there every summer for nine years.

When I was 15, my parents allowed me to leave home for a private Christian boarding school. It was the most freedom I had ever had, and my faith continued to blossom.

When I was 17, they encouraged me to travel to British Columbia as a summer missionary, a privilege I obtained through my attendance at boarding school.

Yes, my family was flawed, in some areas excessively. Yes, discipline was harsh and, by today's standards, completely unacceptable. Yes, a portion of my damaged psyche arose from my childhood.

But a parent's greatest mandate from God is the salvation of their children once they reach the age of accountability, and a parent's subsequent greatest responsibility to their children is Christian education. My parents fulfilled the assignment God gave them or I would not have survived to the age I am now.

Have I had crises of faith? Of course. Almost every day I doubt and question. And though I miss my parents terribly, I'll see them again, and I'll have the wonderful, the exquisite opportunity of thanking them for doing their job, the most important job of all.

(Written July 31, 2009)