{"id":339,"date":"2010-01-25T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2010-01-25T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/?p=339"},"modified":"2011-06-29T06:49:03","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T13:49:03","slug":"gathering-from-the-four-winds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/?p=339","title":{"rendered":"“Gathering from the Four Winds”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>Good Morning!\u00a0 God has blessed us with another beautiful day! The “snow-capped” Organ Mountains sure gives us another reminder of God’s Creation. It’s amazing how the snow reveals such an unusual visual contrast that shows just how rugged these moutains really are!\u00a0 How often have we looked upon this sight and taken it for granted? I know that I’m\u00a0 guilty of that, as I go through my “busy day”. Blessed are we with such a beautiful scene\u00a0that portrays God’s universal wonder — all for us to behold — right before our eyes!\u00a0 As a followup from last week’s email… I had a sucessful trip to my mountain observatory\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
last week. As I mentioned, I went up to this facility to troubleshoot some electronic equipment. Recall that we also prayed that God would place someone in our path to share the Good News of Jesus. I hope He did that for you. It’s amazing how God listens to our prayers — indeed, we really matter to Him!\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
While I was up at the observatory site, I encountered all kinds of technical electronic problems with the computers not communicating\/networking properly. I started the process of debugging the equipment, which included replacing the DSL Modem.\u00a0 Nothing! The problems remained. I called the Internet Sercice Provider (PVT) and talked with their Technical Support. These folks were really helpful, and said they would investigate the Server conneciton and give me a call back in a few minutes. So I hung up and waited…\u00a0 There I was, on top of a mountain, in the middle of nowhere. About five minutes after I had hung up, I heard a truck drive up. It was PVT’s field techs. These two guys announced that they were there to fix my DSL problem. There was no way they could have responded that quickly, but it happened ! I moved aside, and they began working on checking the gear and Internet connections. They worked with their Internal tech team and within about 15 minutes, the problems were solved.\u00a0 I was somewhat in awe at these guys just “showing up”, and the quick nature of these repairs. I told them it was a blessing that they arrived so quickly to help resolve the technical issues. They proudly said, “That’s our job!” Subtle guy that I am, I then asked them directly if they knew Jesus, and they both replied yes. I said, “Praise the Lord!” and reminded them that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life — John 14:6.. They acknowledged this fact, and we prayed together. They left with a smile on their faces, and we were all filled with the encouragement that only our Lord can provide throught this kind of Christian interaction.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
I pondered what had happened, and once again realized that God truly cares about what we are doing in this world. Do you realize that God goes out of His way — just for us!\u00a0 What a pleasant reminder that God is constantly calling His children together – sometimes in unusal ways and in odd circumstances — gathering His children from the four winds as it were. Have you had such an experience?\u00a0 A key here is that as Christians, we must be alert to what God is placing before us. Our job is to listen to the Holy Spirit, and use discernment for every situation we encounter – both great and small, easy and difficult.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

Such is our walk in Christ, as in everything we do, we are called to be His witness.\u00a0 Called to the task of spreading the Good News — sharing with others our reason for the hope we have. For as it says in 1 Peter 3:15, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.\u00a0 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,”. Praise the Lord for the hope we have in our Savior — Christ Jesus!”. Amen!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some may interpret this as a “passive” walk in Christ. That is… we are always waiting for someone to “ask us about Jesus”. I would like you to consider the hunger that people have for Jesus. Ever been hungry, and don’t know what to eat? Such is the case with the spiritual hunger in the world we live in today. The fact is, many people in this world are lost and have a spiritual hunger that can only be filled by believing in Jesus — they just don’t know “what to eat”. Many times we can fill that hunger by being more active in raising up the name of Jesus to those we discern are seeking to fill that hunger or emptyness in their life. It is truly a joy to discover that so many people are receptive to hearing the Good News of Jesus — if only we take an active role in sharing the Truth.\u00a0 In addition, it is no less joyful for another Christian to re-hear the Gospel as an affirmation in their own life — bolstering strength and purpose to their life. This kind of affirmation tends to lift up our spirit, and adds to our desire to reach out to others in like manner. The old adage, “The more you do, the more you do.” is good model to apply to our Christian life — constantly keeping Christ in our “spiritual field of view”.\u00a0 This field of view not only applies to our worldly walk, but more importantly, to our Spiritual Walk. When we place Jesus in the forefront of our lives, we see everything in the world differently, as we serve and grow in Christ. A test of this growth is seen as we become unafraid to mention and share the name of Jesus. In this regard, let God’s Word be our constant encouragement to help lift our hearts to be obedient and do His will.\u00a0 When we do this, we are indeed a light unto others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I think about our being a light for others to see — this truly represents a positive component in each of our lives. This essentially translates into opportunity to serve others as we serve the Lord — understanding that everything we have is provided by God. This “Servants Heart” further translates into purpose for our life as we do the will of God, and become a light to others. All this according to His Mercy and Grace — all from our Creator from whom everything is possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Speaking of being a light to others….\u00a0\u00a0 Here\u00a0is an astro-image of a heavenly object showing God’s Light in the universe — displayed in the heavens for all to see. I took this image this morning at 3am. This object is commonly called “The Hercules Globular Cluster”, technically named M13. This object is some 20,000 light years distant from our Earth, and resides in our own Milky Way Galaxy. It is home to over 100,000 stars – super packed in God’s cosmic space! I like the way the prominent star in the upper foreground shines — much like “God’s Guiding Light” — gathering together His children (that is you and me) from the four winds. As you gaze upon this gathering of stars, let this image showing God’s Glory in the heavens be a blessing to you today — and let us embrace what it means to be gathered together as fellow Christians.
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Now is a good time for us to reflect on God’s Word, “And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

What a blessed hope we have in our Lord and Savior Jesus!\u00a0 Have a great week!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Your Brother in Christ,
\nMike Sherick\u00a0<\/p>\n

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[Translate] Good Morning! God has blessed us with another beautiful day! The “snow-capped” Organ Mountains sure gives us another reminder of God’s Creation. It’s amazing how the snow reveals such an unusual visual contrast that shows just how rugged these moutains really are! How often have we looked upon this sight and taken it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1340,"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions\/1340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.imagingtheheavens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}