From my friend and mentor Homer Owen.

LET 5772 BE A GLORIOUS YEAR – GLORY!
Ruby and I were tremendously blessed in being able to live with the Jewish people in Ariel for seven years. It was very interesting to observe all of the customs that take place along with the different cultures of these children of God who He has brought back home. This time is very important in the Jewish community as it is the beginning of the new year.
Rosh Hashanah is the ‘head’ or ‘beginning’. The Jewish New Year. God puts within the hearts of His people a spirit of expectancy for great things to take place in the coming months. This time has an effect on the rest of the world in different ways. Many businesses start their new year during this time. One of the most important nations on the planet today is Iraq. The Lord is telling us that these are extremely important days for the nation of Iraq. Mystery Babylon is coming forth and will be a dominant nation in the coming days.
Let me encourage you to read the last part of Revelation and ask the Lord to give you understanding about what is taking place both in the world and in your own life. Ruby and I have been married for 55 years and we have seen many times that the next two or three months have been life changing for us over the years.
Each year while we lived in Israel we observed several customs traditionally associated with Rosh Hashanah. The dipping of bread and apples in honey is done as a symbol of the hope that the new year will be sweet. The apple also symbolizes the Divine Presence of God. The most important is the blowing of the shofar. These are days of soul searching as the tenth day is coming forth.
The Ten Days of Awe, beginning at Rosh Hashanah, are the time in which they believe God is determining the fate of each person. The Shofar is blown daily in the Synagogue to remind the people of the new beginning. These ten days lead up to “Yom Kippur,” the day of Atonement. This time is designed to give Israel hope for future redemption. While we were living in Ariel we would have Jewish friends come by and ask us to forgive them for anything they might have done or thought about us in the past year that was not right.
Let us be extremely thankful to the Lord that our day of atonement has taken place. We need to remind ourselves on a daily basis of how fortunate we are to have been redeemed by His blood and that He has great plans for us each and every day. Today is our day of salvation and with great joy we can draw out of His well of salvation strength for today. Glory!
Along with our Jewish friends we can be poised to enter a new season where the Eye of the Lord is looking to see how He might find those whose hearts are turned towards Him with great expectancy. The Hebraic Year 5772 actually conveys piercing into world structures to recover and restore Kingdom blessings that have been captured. Let us all expect great favor because we have literally become the “apple of His eye.”
“Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by your generous Spirit.” Psalms 51: 9-12
Be blessed in Him today and the coming days of this new beginning in your life.
Blessings,
Homer Owen
http://www.HomerOwen.com

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From my good friend Terry Ermoian, who sends me a daily A. W. Tozer post

(This information can affect everything we do–not just our finances.)

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Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rains righteousness on you. –Hosea 10:12

It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to biblical ways. But it can be done. Every now and then in the past Christians have had to do it. History has recorded several large-scale returns led by such men as St. Francis, Martin Luther and George Fox.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no Luther or Fox on the horizon at present. Whether or not another such return may be expected before the coming of Christ is a question upon which Christians are not fully agreed, but that is not of too great importance to us now.

What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know. But what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. The Pursuit of God, 70-71.

“Lord, today I commit myself to ‘turn to God in earnest,’ to ‘begin
to exercise [myself] unto godliness,’ and to ‘seek to develop [my]
powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility.’
You determine the results. Amen.”
A.W. Tozer

(Terry’s website is www.settingcaptivesfree.com)

 

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One man’s life journey leaves a priceless legacy.

This guest column appeared in the Waco Tribune-Herald on Friday, November 12, 1999. As the 10^th anniversary of 9/11/2001 approaches, I have been reflecting on the many great Americans, like my grandfather, who are no longer with us, and on many of their values, which also seem to be disappearing.

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In the 1930’s, when Oklahoma was synonymous with “Dust Bowl,” he and his wife met their basic needs by selling cream milked from their milk cows, raising chickens and turkeys, and growing a garden. For years, he awoke at 3:30 a.m. in order to take care of the milking and other chores.

At one particularly barren time, in search of a paying job, he walked to the government offices 12 miles from his farm. After a long delay, which included waiting for the office employees to go to lunch, he was told that the agency would give him some basic food and supplies.

He was insulted. He had come for work, he said, not to be “given” anything. He promptly left and made the 12-mile journey back to his home.

He was my grandfather, Hudson M. Powell. My grandfather – “Paw Paw” to us – was a member of an almost-vanished segment of our population: those few remaining people whose actual memories provided a baby-boomer like me with a link to the 19^th century.

In other cultures, “Huddie’s” last years might have been filled with visits from friends and relatives – people eager to gain wisdom from him while he was still alive. Instead, my mother and I were the only ones to spend much time with him in his last years. But those of us who knew anything of him at all were indeed privileged to have known this man. Through him we discovered a world quite unlike ours – a world where a man’s work was valued, as was his word.

Born in Mangum, Oklahoma Territory in 1896, Hudson was only 12 years old when his mother died. Since his father had abandoned them, young Hudson was saddled with the job of rearing five younger brothers and sisters, including a 6 month old baby, thus sacrificing any hopes for his own formal education.

Despite the hardships he had faced and his relative lack of material riches, Paw Paw always maintained his faith in God and his sense of humor. He often expressed thanks for simple things like a nice rain, a good crop from his fruit trees, or whatever else was on his mind – he looked for opportunities to be thankful. He would often say, “Well, you know, Steve, I’ve been wonderfully blessed . . . .” And he had been. In return, though, his life is still a blessing to us, his family, and now, I hope, to you as well.

He was a man who whistled a tune, loved a song and humorous stories, and one who never harbored bitterness about all the tough times. The legacy he left is priceless. By example, he taught me how to work and to love the land that God gave us all. He taught concern for one’s family, friends, and neighbors. He showed me that no matter where I live, or what work I do, true freedom and wealth are inseparable from my relationship with God.

Paw Paw went to be with God in April 1984. I know how important it was to him to leave a good name for his descendants. I hope he realizes how thankful we are, not only to have had him in our lives, but also to know that we can rely on the same Source which strengthened, guided and blessed our Paw Paw.

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From Os Hillman’s “Today God is First.” Where is your mission field?

Called to the Ministry
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 2 by Os Hillman
Monday, September 05 2011

“Usually a person should keep on with the work he was doing when God called him” (I Cor. 7: 20 TLB).

We’ve all heard stories of men or women in the workplace that left their jobs for the “ministry.” Certainly God does call people into vocational ministry. However, many times this move is more rooted in dissatisfaction with a career combined with a spiritual renewal or first time commitment to the Lord. The idea of a “higher call” can also appeal to our sense of a greater and nobler destiny.

We have incorrectly elevated the roll of the Christian worker that serves within “the church” or a traditional “ministry” role to be more holy and committed than the person who is serving in a secular environment. Yet the call to the secular workplace is as important as any other calling. God has to have His people in every sphere of life to meet the needs of His creation. Also, many would never come to know Him because they would be separated from society.

I learned this lesson personally when I sought to go into “full-time” service as a pastor in my late twenties, only to have God thrust me back into the workplace unwillingly. This turned out to be the best thing He could have done for me, because it was never His will for me to be a pastor. He knew I was more suited for the workplace.

We are all in missions. Some are called to foreign lands. Some are called to the jungles of the workplace. Wherever you are called, serve the Lord in that place. Let Him demonstrate His power through your life so that others might experience Him through you today. View your vocation as means to worship Him.

Paul said it right; “In most cases we’re going to remain in the place where He first called us.”

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