An Insiders Tip: Buy the purest Gold, and insight giving salve for your eyes!

The pastor spoke about Paul's "thorn in the flesh" on Sunday. If you take the time to read Second Corinthians chapter 12 you'll get a lot out of it. I was thinking about Paul asking God to take his pain away.

You know Paul was taken to heaven prior to this affliction, (the first few verses of chapter 12 talk about this.) I set there thinking about that. The Bible doesn't say what he specifically ask for. While we were living in LA I became very sick. After my fever climbed above 106 degrees, I went into a semi comma state. For three days, they said I just slept. While I slept, my soul went to heaven. It was awesome, more than mere words, or pictures can describe.

Do you suppose Paul asked God to take him permanently out of this world to heaven? Did he beg God to remove the pain or take his Earthly life? Have you ever been there, and done that? I have, more than once.

Before you think the worst of me, put yourself in my shoes. Imagine just for a minute, pure ecstasy visiting heaven. You do not miss your life on earth at all. Jesus is almost close enough to touch, and you see all the awesome colors deep in the river that flows from the thrown of God like I did. (If you want confirmation of what I'm talking about :) see Revelation chapter 22:1-7. Just wait and see it's awesome!

If you had been there; would you want to come back to sickness and worldly flaws? If you think you would, your a much tougher person than I am. In fact, sometimes I still cry because I'd rather be there, present with my Lord and absent from this body. Yet, I am comforted in knowing that His grace is sufficient for what I need in every situation. What He lets me go through, He personally sees me through.

"But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power will rest on me." Second Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)

Like Paul, I can relate, there have been so-so many times I fail in this flesh, but I can rise victoriously in Christ! Paul was far from the only person who felt and knew this. See Hebrews chapter 11 and 12, especially chapter 12 verses 1-3.

It has been said we are living in the end days. :) I believe we may be. Hang on, it's gonna be a fast and furious ride! Until then endure whatever is laid before you in every circumstance, with joy and peace. Jesus will see you through it, if he brings you to it! Let him hold you, because when you can't do anymore He can do awesome things through and with you. Finally, there are some awesome words of encouragement in Revelation 3:14-21.

Real wealth is not found in materials or money, true wealth is when God opens your eyes and heart to see the treasures you need to lay up in heaven. Remember you are living in a temporary world, preparing you for a permanent eternity.

"I counsel you to buy from me gold, refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline, so be earnest and repent. Here I am, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." Revelation 3:18-20 (NIV)

I knew you before you were ever born.

I woke up this morning thinking about how God has really controlled my life all the way through. Before I was ever born He knew my name and had the wheels in motion for my life. None of us were, "by chance conceived."

The summer after I was saved I went to church camp. Ironically the church camp I went to was Lincoln Lake in Greenville Michigan. Some of you may have been there. I met some of my best friends there. People like Darcy and Doug Hutson. Doug was so cute, he was the first Michigan boy I ever kissed, in a wild strawberry patch.

Darcy and I wrote to each other and once in a while we talked on the phone. A few years latter we rode a church bus to Lake Ann, somewhere up near the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. We were little boogers in some ways. We stayed up late giggling and talking; we had to clean the bathrooms for all the giggling and keeping people awake. After cleaning we decided to short sheet the counselor's bed. Another night we put cornflakes in her bed. The list goes on and on.

But then, there was a big bomb fire and a very serious talk about our lives. Particularly, not just were we saved, but did Christ really have control of our lives? Darcy and I both threw our sticks in the fire, representing that God's Will was more important than our individual will. We both committed our wills to Christ for rest of our days how ever long or short that may be. His will would be completed, before our own desire or will.

Darcy grew up in First Baptist Church in Stanton MI. I went to Lincoln Avenue Baptist in Ionia MI. Darcy married Bob Goodenough, who became a pastor of Nevins Lake Baptist Church. Mark and I took our kids to church there.

Mark's Uncle Leo persuaded me to go on a blind date with Mark. I had never been on a blind date, and really didn't want to go, but agreed to just to appease Leo. Ironically, Mark grew up at First Baptist in Stanton too. He never went to camp, but we still ended up married with two kids. Isn't it something how God pieces all of us all together?

"I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord and I will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, declares the Lord, and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."

Jeremiah 29:11-14 (NIV)

Not all days are bright and sunny when we yield to God, but He knows what's best. The happiest and the fullest our lives can be are in His will.

Look at the book of Haggai it's such a short little book, only 2 chapters. Our earthly efforts are in vain without seeking Him first.

"Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but never are warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it."

Haggai 1:5&6 (NIV)

"If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?

"Yes" the priest replied, It becomes defiled."

"Then Haggai said, "So it is with this people and this nation in my sight declares the Lord. Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled." Haggai 2:12-14

"From this day on, from the twenty fourth day of the ninth month, give careful thought to the day when the temple foundation of the Lord was laid. Give careful thought: Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit.

"From this day on I will bless you." Haggai 2:18-28

The final verse of this chapter God says, "for I have chosen you, declares the Lord Almighty." that's the end of Haggai 2:23. If God has chosen you as one of His own, the rules still apply today; serve God with all your heart. Do things in His timing, not your own. This is the only way He will bless you.