I found this on the Tangle website. What a fresh expression of love for Christ. Are you ready to make this decision?  More information can be found at www.P4CM.com

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” Hebrews 8:37

Monday morning I took my Bible to the lake behind our house to sit in my favorite spot. I’ve sat there countless times before on clear days and enjoyed the peaceful view. But on Monday, the lake was obscured by a thick blanket of grey. I stared out into the mist. 

Life looks like this for me sometimes. It calls me to trust in what I cannot see; to wait on Him, believing that the Lord knows what’s ahead and that He will lead me through it. 

These days I’m busy preparing for speaking engagements, certain of my calling but uncertain of how God will unfold the details. My guess is, you are sitting in the chair next to me, waiting on the Lord for something. Let’s wait in faith.

But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.        Micah 7:7    

Post a comment and tell us what you’re waiting for so we can join with you in prayer.

I’m tweeting! Believe it or not, it was a Bible verse that made me tweet.

Isaiah 50:4 “The LORD GOD has given Me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word.” What is “the tongue of disciples?” It’s the language your audience is speaking. While I love a handwritten letter, that’s not how we communicate in today’s world. My audience is listening to the words that come over a computer.

So here I am, tweeting away. Sign up to get my occasional twitters by @FawnBrents. (http://www.twitter.com/FawnBrents) 

I’m new to this world so do me a favor and tell me who you follow on Twitter. I want “to speak the tongue of disciples” so that I will be effective in having an encouraging word to “sustain the weary one.”

Thanks for your help!

Hope dies when we stop believing that God is working in our lives. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known God, how many Bible studies you’ve attended or how many sermons you’ve preached. The prescription for hope-lost is the same. It’s found in Hebrews 11:6:

      “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that

                   He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”

Do you believe that God rewards those who seek Him? If your honest answer is not really, my guess is, you feel hopeless. Change how you feel in a moment by changing your mind about God. Believe Him. He is the Sovereign God, the King of Kings who knows each star by name and loves you with an everlasting love. This God rewards those who seek Him. Believe it right now and let truth from God’s Word renew your hope!

I sell real estate for a living. If ever an industry has been shaken from the foundation up, it is the housing market. Lives have been effected. Fortunes have been lost. People I speak with are afraid. What is God doing in all this? Does He see? Does He care? I believe that the Bible gives clear answers and the assurance that He is sovereign over history.

For most of us in America, we have enjoyed a way of life that has put us to sleep. We have trusted in our incomes and our government. We have found our security in the stuff we’ve accumulated and the retirement fund  we’ve set aside.

In these uncertain times, God wants our nation to turn to Him for stability. He wants to display his unchangeable character and unfailing love. He’s allowing everything to be shaken, “in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” –Hebrews 12:27

Reach out and take hold of The Rock. Do more than survive in these times —thrive. Psalm 62:5-6 “My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.”

                          Photo by Charles Brents

Last week I heard that word at 3:30 AM when Charlie woke me out of a dead sleep. Something was burning. We raced down the hallway from our bedroom expecting to see smoke but there wasn’t any. There was only that strong burning smell.

While Charlie went from the attic to the basement looking for the source, I went to the places where our family photos are stashed, gathered them up and threw them in the car. Three thousand square feet of stuff and the only thing I grabbed were the pictures.

We solved the burning smell mystery when we found that a part in our new furnace had burned up. As I was putting photos back into cabinets the next day, I took time to enjoy those moments captured on film. I thought back to all we had been through as a family—sick kids, moving, birthdays, heated arguments, summer vacations, weddings, funerals, an endless chain of events all recorded in those boxes. Looking back, it’s funny how when we were in the middle of the bad stuff, life seemed impossible, God seemed a long way off and the effort hardly seemed worth the reward.

I thought about our grown kids, now with families of their own, and I just wanted to write it someplace: Life is possible. God is next to you. It’s worth it. Take lots of pictures.                                                                                                                          

Granddaughter Emma loves looking at pictures with me.

“How great is your goodness which you  have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you. In the shelter of your presence you hide them… ” Psalm 31:19 NIV

–And probably yours as well. I’ve bought a few of the gifts on my list, but we’re being pretty conservative this year–fewer gifts but more effort in planning the time we’ll spend together as a family.

This morning I was reading in Isaiah and saw some great verses.

“Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?   Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance.   Incline your ear and come to Me.” (Isaiah 55:2,3)

While your bank account may be low, the stuff that really satisfies is readily available.

“See the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)

As we take the time to read God’s word and know His thoughts this Christmas, He promises to accomplish some really great things–things you can’t get by putting more stuff under the tree.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD.” (Isaiah 55:8)

“So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:8, 11)

The best part?…We get everything that we really want this Christmas!

“For you will go out with joy, and be led forth with peace” (Isaiah 55:12)

It was the morning of November 5th, the morning after the Tuesday elections of 2008. I knew the results before I even got out of bed and laid there wondering what the promised “change” was going to mean for the America I knew and loved. I threw on my old jeans and a sweat shirt, tired of this broken world and hopeless to do anything about it.

Over the next three days I went through the motions of my day, unsure of how to process the mandate of the political majority. While the stock market plummeted and the phones in my real estate office went strangely silent, I mourned the decline of my country and walked around half-engaged, too sad to do business.

With a strong sense that we are in the final days before Christ’s return, I wondered what to do next. Should we pull our money out of the markets and buy gold? Should we sell everything and go a foreign mission field? Maybe we should do what the disciples did in Acts 1 right after Jesus ascended—stand out on the front lawn and gaze intently into the sky waiting for him to come back!

On Thursday morning while I was making coffee, a verse came to mind from my days in Sunday school: “Occupy until I come.” I couldn’t remember where the verse was or just when Jesus had said it, so I curled up in my favorite chair with a cup of coffee and searched out the phrase.

It’s in Luke 19. And strangely enough, verse 11 tells us that Jesus’ disciples thought that the time had finally come when the kingdom of God was about to appear on earth. Jesus gave them a parable to shed some light on what was really about to happen and what they should do about it.

A nobleman, a king who was about to take a long trip had three slaves. Before he left he gave each slave some money to invest. You remember the story. One slave does a great job by making a ten-fold return for the master. The second one does an okay job by producing a five-fold profit and the last buried the money and didn’t make any return at all. Jesus had something to say to each one of them: “Well done,” for slave number one, a passing grade for slave number two, and the words, “Worthless slave,” for slave number three.

But the part of this passage that pulled me out of my doldrums was in verse 13. Sure enough, the King James Version did say, “Occupy until I come.” But in current English “occupy” sounds like the King was telling his slaves to hang-out and take up space. That’s not the real meaning of the word. It’s the Greek word for to “do business or trade.”

I closed my Bible with clear direction on what to do next. The King is on a long trip. He’s given me some assets and expects a healthy return — Bible classes to teach, a real estate practice to direct and a family to care for. With renewed joy and a sense of purpose, I got up from my chair, put on my best suit and went out to face the day.

“Do business until I come back.” –Luke 19:13

“Because you have prayed to Me about Senacherib King of Assyria…”
Isaiah 37:21

Things were bleak in Jerusalem. The Assyrians were coming to destroy the city and nobody could stop them. If the pollsters had been calling households, opinions would have come in a slam-dunk in favor of the Assyrian King and his advisors. Senacherib’s army had already mopped up all over the region and Jerusalem was next.

The Assyrians send word to Judah’s King Hezekiah in Jerusalem and ask a good question: “Who are you relying on?” Then the Assyrians went on to launch a psychological attack by adding—all your counsel in this war is just made up of “empty words”. It’s over. Give up.

Like all effective enemies, the Assyrians had studied their targets. In Isaiah 36:10 they reminded King Hezekiah that Israel’s own prophets had already told them what was coming. Because of Israel’s persistent rebellion against God, the city would be carried off into captivity. They put it in a letter and they mocked Israel saying—even your God is against you. It’s over. Give up.

While Assyrians surrounded the city with a sea of armed warriors, the King of Judah, Hezekiah, grabbed the letter and entered the temple. He spread out its pages before the Lord and prayed. It was an honest prayer. It was the prayer of a man who has no place else to go.

“And now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou alone, Lord, art God.”

God answered and His answer reminds me that my prayers can change history—

“Because you have prayed to Me about Senacherib King of Assyria, this is the word that the Lord has spoken against him…”

“Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the King of Assyria, ‘He shall not come to this city, or shoot an arrow there; neither shall he come before it with a shield, nor throw up a mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not ome to this city, declares the Lord.”

“For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.”

The Scripture says, “Because you have prayed…” Our prayers can change the course of history. And today, America’s history hangs in the balance.

“And He shall be the stability of your times, A wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge; The fear of the LORD is his treasure.”
Isaiah 33:15