MY BROTHER JOEY

Matthew 10:36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

Barnes Notes:

…such would be one of the effects of his coming. One part of a family that was opposed to Him would set themselves against those who believed in him. … It is unnecessary to say that no prophecy has been more strikingly fulfilled; and it will continue to be fulfilled

I remember the day my brother was born. I was just about to turn 12 at the time. My mom was in her mid 40’s and it was a difficult birth. I recall my dad pacing and smoking a cigarette. I had never seen my dad smoke before, nor after that day. Thank God that all ended well. My brother was born healthy, and my mom recovered without complications.

As a young man my brother became briefly involved with a Protestant church. I’m not sure it was a good one though. I wasn’t saved at the time, but I remember telling him to be cautious. Years later, when I was born again, I witnessed to him. One day sitting at my dining room table he said he thought he was born again before me! In reality that wasn’t true. The truth is he didn’t believe the Gospel. I was a fairly new believer at the time, and looking back I wish I would have done and said some things differently. This is my “baby brother”. He turned 61 today! I still think of him as he was in his younger days. The last time we communicated was after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.

Psalm 69:8 I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.

MY MOTHER HAD A NEWBORN SON – A Poem

THE SWORD – A Poem

REMEMBERING MY DAD

Remembering my dad…

My father first heard the Gospel when he was in his 70’s. He did not respond favorably because he did not like the conflict and division it caused within the family. My father was born in Italy where almost everyone is Roman Catholic. He told me he had never before heard the things that we were telling him from the Bible. Even so, he took the Bible we gave him and began reading. I don’t know how far he got but I do remember that he said 1st and 2nd Timothy were “perfect”. I’m not exactly sure what he meant, but it was definitely encouraging he hear him say that. I also remember that he liked the hymn “How Great Thou Art”, a hymn he learned when my husband and I did Sunday services at the nursing home.

My father had an autoimmune disease that left him with bloody blisters on his body. When we prayed for healing the Lord mercifully healed him. The nurse’s aid who took care of him was a Christian woman, and she said his skin had become smooth like baby skin! He also had a stroke that confined him to a wheelchair, and Parkinson, and later dementia. He would vacillate on what he believed and that was discouraging. My father never said the words I wanted so badly to hear… “Don’t worry about me, I’m saved, and I will go and be with the Lord when I die. I’ll see you again on the other side.” He never said that. Oh, how I wanted him to say that, but he didn’t. The Lord gave me such an intense love for my Dad in his latter years. It was truly a work of the Holy Spirit in my heart. I remember holding his warm hand and being glad he was still alive but also sadly knowing that soon he would be gone. My father heard God’s Word until his last unconscious dying hours. On a Sunday night in March 2010, a few short hours before my 93 year old father entered eternity, my husband was quoting Scripture to him. And that’s how it ended.

John 3:16 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.

***

As I sat with my father and observed how feeble he had become my mind went back to earlier days when we were younger. Those days were not trouble free, but there was time left to live out life. More importantly, there was time left to seek the Lord. As I sat there and pondered these things, the words “days of wine and roses” came to my mind. I looked up the meaning and I found they described a period of happiness and prosperity. Thinking on these things, I wrote this poem shorty before my father died. I recited this poem at my father’s funeral.

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

The days of wine and roses,
They have been called by the world,
But we as Christians know that,
Just like flowers they unfold.

The days are just a vapor,
Oh, if we had only known,
So fanciful and passing,
In vanity they were sown.

The days of wine and roses,
Cannot have them back again,
And even if we could have,
Would we choose as we did then?

Lord please cleanse these our vessels,
With new wine and with your blood,
Please change our hearts forever,
By your Spirit’s cleansing flood.

The days of wine and roses,
Seemed to us a sweet sweet song,
But like the flowers fading,
The wind blows and they are gone.

The only wine of value,
Is the shedding of Christ’s blood,
The only rose enduring,
Rose of Sharon, our beloved.

Cathy White 2010 ©

I’M GOING TO A CITY…

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. A day acknowledged by saint and sinner alike. Families gather for Easter dinner as mine did for many years without any knowledge of the true Gospel. It is a Roman Catholic holiday complete with all the pagan trimmings. But my story doesn’t end there. In 1988 I came to know the real Jesus, the Jesus of the Scriptures, and you can know him too. Now I celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ every day of my life, and one day soon I will go to be with him forever!

I’M GOING TO A CITY

I’m going to a city,
To a place I’ve never been,
The Lord is now preparing,
For the day I’ll enter in.

My family there is waiting,
What sweet fellowship there’ll be,
With God’s children round His throne,
All in perfect harmony.

I’m going to a city,
Where all trials and troubles cease,
No one is ever lonely,
A great throng lives there in peace.

There is no need for sun there,
‘Cause God’s glory is bright light,
The Lamb is always shining,
In that city there’s no night.

I’m going to a city,
And it’s only by God’s grace,
I’ll join those gone before me,
I’ll see Jesus face to face.

by Cathy White – 2009

Hebrews 13:14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

Hebrews 11:16 But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

PERSISTENT PRAYER

“God answers prayer from above. Quietly, He moves. There is a lack of faith because there is no fanfare. He moves quietly and surely, unseen by human eyes, and it is done.” Cathy White

Luke 18:1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;

F.B. Meyer Bible Commentary:

If answers to certain prayers, which we have offered in an agony of tears, are slow in coming, we may be sure, either that the time is not ripe, or that He is going to do something better. 

Luke 8:7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?

Albert Barnes Bible Commentary:

“Although he defers long to avenge them, and greatly tries their patience, yet he will avenge them.” He tries their faith; he suffers their persecutions and trials to continue a long time; and it almost “appears” as if he would not interpose. Yet he will do it, and will save them. 

John Wesley Bible Commentary:

Though he bear long with them – Though he does not immediately put an end, either to the wrongs of the wicked, or the sufferings of good men. 

Luke 18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Albert Barnes Bible Commentary:

When tried and persecuted, do “we” believe that God will avenge us? Do “we” pray always and not faint? Have “we” faith to believe that, though clouds and darkness are round about him, yet righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne? And when storms of persecution assail us, can “we” go to God and confidently commit our cause to him, and believe that he will bring forth our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the noon-day?

1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

The Syrophoenician Woman

Mark 7:26 The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. 27 But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. 28 And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. 29 And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. 30 And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.

Pulpit Bible Commentary:

Mark reports the words of Christ, “For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.” He does not say, “I will come and heal her;” he tells her that the cure is already effected. Without personal contact with the sufferer, without any command uttered to the possessing demon, by his silent will alone the wonder comes to pass. This blessing for the child was won by the mother’s faith. The two points to be remarked in this marvelous history are – Christ’s abnormal treatment of a suppliant, and that suppliant’s astonishing faith and perseverance.

ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW!

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

(A POEM – BORN AGAIN)

Albert Barnes Bible Commentary:

They are new creatures. No matter what they have been before, whether moral or immoral; whether infidels or speculative believers; whether amiable, or debased, sensual and polluted, yet if they become Christians they all experience such a change as to make it proper to say they are a new creation.

Ephesians 4:24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

It means, evidently, that there is a change produced in the renewed heart of man that is equivalent to the act of creation, and that bears a strong resemblance to it – a change, so to speak, as if the man was made over again, and had become new.

The phrase implies evidently the following things:

(1) That there is an exertion of divine power in the conversion of the sinner as really as in the act of creating the world out of nothing, and that this is as indispensable in the one case as in the other.

(2) That a change is produced so great as to make it proper to say that he is a new man. He has new views, new motives, new principles, new objects and plans of life. He seeks new purposes, and he lives for new ends.

If a drunkard becomes reformed, there is no impropriety in saying that he is a new man. 

If a man who was licentious becomes pure, there is no impropriety in saying that he is not the same man that he was before. 

There is a change so deep, so clear, so entire, and so abiding, that it is proper to say, here is a new creation of God – a work of the divine power as decided and as glorious as when God created all things out of nothing.

There is no other moral change that takes place on earth so deep, and radical, and thorough as the change at conversion. 

They now renounced that independence, relied on the merits of the Saviour, their attachment to idols, their love of sin and degradation, their dependence on their own works, had passed away, and they had renounced all these things.

In regard to all, it is also true that old things pass away.

Their former prejudices, opinions, habits, attachments pass away. 

Their supreme love of self passes away. 

Their love of sins passes away. 

Their love of the world passes away. 

Their supreme attachment to their earthly friends rather than God passes away. 

Their love of sin, their sensuality, pride, vanity, levity, ambition, passes away. 

There is a deep and radical change on all these subjects – a change which commences at the new birth;

Behold, all things are become new – that is, all things in view of the mind. The purposes of life, the feelings of the heart, the principles of action, all become new. The understanding is consecrated to new objects, the body is employed in new service, the heart forms new attachments. Nothing can be more strikingly. descriptive of the facts in conversion than this; nothing more entirely accords with the feelings of the newborn soul. All is new.

There are new views of God, and of Jesus Christ; new views of this world and of the world to come; new views of truth and of duty; and everything is seen in a new aspect and with new feelings.

LEARN HOW YOU CAN BE BORN AGAIN AND BECOME A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST JESUS.