I have been thinking about how blessed we are that we live in the world after Christ came rather than before He came. There's always a lot to be thankful for but that comes close to the top of the list.

When you see in the Bible how before Christ man had no release from the curse of sin and death and think what that would mean to your own life and your children and grandchildren it is just amazing!

The Word tells us that the curse was passed from one generation to the next unto the third and fourth generation. So not only were you personally cursed by sin and separation from God, but for generations after your family line was cursed.

The curse was automatic. It was the result of not doing everything that was written in the law (which of course, no man could do.) Christ came to redeem (set us free, buy us back) from the curse so that not only we but also the generations of our family which came after us, would not be cursed.

In GAL. 3:10 the Bible says: For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse for it is written: Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

That is a virtual sentence of death because nobody could follow all those rules all the time! But I thank God for verse 13 which follows after and promises: Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.

When we receive Christ as our personal savior, the curse that has been passed down through our family lines from generation to generation is finally and completely broken! It could never be done with natural, brute strength or human ability. Those curses are so strong and have been strengthened through generations of unholy family members who refused to walk in the blessings of God.

But the moment we received Christ, the curse was broken and no longer had the ability to be passed on from one generation to the next. In its place there entered a blessing based on the righteousness of Christ, not our own righteousness. And so where before there had been generations of curses, now there was a clean sheet of paper and the first thing written upon the sheet was blessing!

As with all things involving God, faith is involved. Though it is irrefutably true that Christ redeemed us from the curse, we must invest faith in this fact in order for it to be activated in our lives. It took faith to be cursed (when you believe you are cursed that is having faith that you are cursed) and it takes faith to activate the blessing (when you believe you are redeemed from the curse you are investing faith in that fact and blessing is activated in your life.)

Today is a blessing day for me! Today I will pass down to the next generation of my family the great blessings of God. They will receive no curse through my blood line but rather blessing through my faith in Jesus Christ. I am not powerless to leave a wonderful inheritance for my children and grandchildren. I am a redeemed grandma and mother. What a blessing! Reason enough for another good day! Rev. Mary 

When I'm in the midst of troubles, I sometimes look at other people and think they are so blessed and wonder why I am so troubled and they are so happy. Troubles have a way of multiplying misery until you can't see beyond the immediate situation.

But reality is that every human being has troubles and knows misery very intimately. My own troubles seem so bad because they are MY troubles. And when I am in the midst of my own troubles, everyone else's troubles seem ever so much smaller and less reasonable than my own.

Yet if you were to look out upon humanity, you would not find a single person who has not suffered and known pain. There are none who walk around shrouded with apparent blessings, free from trouble. Thus we all have trouble in common.

There is no life of utopia. No one has received a free ticket to happiness. Some are more open about their pain than others but all have it. The fact that this is a common denominator for us all should cause us to be more compassionate for each other. But pain has a way of making it seem unbearable to consider anyone else when we are hurting so bad ourselves.

Here is a mystery! When we are in pain ourselves, the key to relieving that pain is to look outward rather than inward. In the very midst of pain if we do something to relieve someone else's pain, we relieve our own.  When considering someone else's pain ours suddenly does not seem so overwhelming. When trying to help someone else we are helped ourselves.

Being human, about the last thing you want to do when you are having problems, is to go find someone else and think about their problems and how you can help them with those problems. Yet in the helping we are helped. JAMES 5:16 puts it this way: Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another, that you may be healed.

Looks like this would be a good day to go a-hunting for someone who is in worse shape than me! Someone out there is suffering and hurting just like I am and even worse. When I find them and help them I'm going to feel a whole lot better! Rev Mary 

Every day I get up and go out to walk and pray. Usually I really enjoy this time when I am unreachable by phone or human conversation but able to communicate with God.

But some mornings (like today) I just don't want to go out that door. I have long ago learned the value of discipline so I force myself out there. Usually I haven't gone far before I am glad I have gone.

On such mornings I start out by just being thankful for two good feet, legs, hands, and arms. Then I thank God for good eyes and ears that hear and general good health. By then the day is starting to look up!

I go on to consider how blessed I am to have a beautiful home, nice car, and plenty to eat every day and cloths to put on my back and a variety at that! Then I think about my family and how they are all serving God and how blessed I am that they live with me so I get to see my son and daughter-in-law (and what a great blessing SHE is) and their children every day of my life.

By now the day is looking really pretty spectacular. Then I begin to realize the privilege it is to be born again and Spirit filled and to be called of God to a wonderful ministry.

It isn't that I don't have problems all humans do. But I always have God walking with me in the midst of those problems so there is always hope. He calls Himself the God of all hope in the Bible and indeed He is!

By now I am almost back home and it has become a good day! The problems I left the house with are still there but when put in the perspective of all my blessings in this life, they seem smaller and somehow manageable.

Good days are decisions before they are reality. Have a good one! Rev Mary

I have been watching the political fervor on TV with a kind of horror these days. Did you ever see so many people willing to lie and cheat and do anything they have to just to get elected? My, my, my!

I got to thinking about what kind of qualifications I really want in my president. In the end I found this to be my bottom line: I want a person who knows God and openly states that they pray and read the Bible! Why? Because I think the job of the president of the US is such a huge and important job in the world today that I just don't believe a regular human can handle it.

Further, I recognize that if the person who gets in to that office isn't equipped to do the job my son and grandchildren are going to suffer horribly and I don't want them to.

So to me, more important than skin color or gender is spiritual qualification. I don't want someone who imagines him (or her) self to be so wise they could handle the job without the help of God. That would mean they were totally delusional and who needs that? And I don't want someone who is so interested in being politically correct that they are ashamed or afraid to say they pray or read the Bible. That would just mean having a coward in the office and that can't be good for our nation.

No I want a good, strong Christian who knows the living God who says in the Bible that He is the one who puts up one leader and brings down another. I don't want my choice for the office, I want God's choice. Because I have found this out about God: Him whom He calls He also equips! He will anoint the person He has called to be the leader of this nation. How can someone who isn't anointed possibly do such a job as well as someone who is anointed?

Oh I know, I've heard all the old stuff about separation of church and state. But anyone who has read any of our history knows that is just an excuse for man to try to eliminate God from exercising authority because they don't like being told what is "right" and what is "wrong".

But there is a right and wrong and I don't want to settle for something other than what God says is best and right. I don't want right and wrong changing with every new politician. I want my right to be right forever because God says so and I want to know what is wrong and know I can count on those things not changing.

Say what you will about Pres Bush. At least he had the guts to openly say he is a Christian and that he prays and reads the Word of God. He is no wimp like so many.

God help us to elect His choice to the highest office in the land so that we can support him and pray for him (or her) without shame and regret! Is there any such candidate out there? Will the real next Pres of the US please stand up? Rev Mary

I have been thinking about my grandchildren a lot lately, probably because my grandson is just about to turn 9 years old. He is a wonderful kid! Oh I know I am his grandmother so what else WOULD I say? But no, he really is a very nice boy. One wonderful thing about my grand kids is that their parents have raised them well. We can go any place with those children and they are always polite. They say please and thank you and give clerks or waitresses respect. People always notice and comment on this because it is so rare these days.

Since my grandchildren and their parents live with me I have every opportunity to see how they REALLY are and I am proud to say they are every bit as good as they look. Thank God they have godly parents who love them and are willing to sacrifice for them if it is called for.

I was so privileged to be able to see each one of these 3 children born--what a miracle it was! And from the start of their lives they were told that they were not just ANY children, they were little spiritual beings sent from God to be a blessing to the world. They have grown up knowing that even though they are young, they are well able to know God. The 2 older children have read the Bible every day for as long as they could read and I am sure their little sister will follow their lead when she gets old enough to read. They know how to pray and they pray for themselves and each other as well as for others who need prayer.

They have already traveled to other nations and had the opportunity to know how other cultures are. They eat food that I can't even take when they are in other nations and they don't complain when we are in places where things are not so easy. They are great ambassadors for the USA in a time when Hollywood is busy being a horrible representative of our nation.

I am so blessed to be able to say I both like and respect my grand children. I love them too, of course, because you just do that naturally. But I LIKE them and they are my friends. They are always good to me--even when I am cranky! 

If I could choose any children in the world to be my grand kids I would want the ones I have. I know they are going to be wonderful adults because they already are wonderful!

So anyway, Mike, if you should read this, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I love you so and am so proud of you! You're the best!!! Granny Mary

I had a neighbor who was born again but whose husband was not. She came to me asking for prayer for her husband's salvation. She said she had prayed and prayed over him but he seemed no closer to God for all the prayer.

Knowing that the Bible tells us that it is God's will for all to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of Christ, I was more than willing to agree in prayer with her for her husband.

But when we went to prayer, I had a vision. So I stopped to see what God had to say in the situation.

First I saw a prison which was old and horrible. I could hear prisoners moaning and could almost smell the place and I knew it was no modern day prison in the US. As I watched I saw my neighbor's husband come to the barred door and he stood there with his arms through the bars and his hands extended toward us.

I wanted so much to get him out of that place and I was sure she did too. But when I turned in the vision to look at her I was surprised. She was standing back away from where his hands could reach her. In her hands I saw a huge key ring with two keys on it.

She had in her hands the means to open the prison door. But when I looked at her face I was shocked to see a look of vindictive glee. She was glad he was in that prison and had no intention of letting him out.

Then quickly the vision changed and now I saw a deep hole like a well. The sides were slick with moss and it was dank and there were things in there that I didn't even want to see.

I got close enough to look down over the edge and there I saw my neighbor's husband again. He was pleading with us to help and I tried desperately to think of some way to get him out.

Once again I turned and looked at my neighbor. This time she had a rope ladder which was attachable to two pegs on the edge of the hole. The ladder was folded up against her chest. All she had to do was attach it to the pegs and let it fall to her husband who would then be able to climb out. But it was obvious from the look on her face that she had no intention of giving him the answer to his dilemma.

Now I heard the Lord speak to me. He said that the neighbor held the answer to getting her husband saved but she was very angry with him for all the misery he had put her through. In her unforgivness she had bound him as a prisoner and refused to forgive him and let him go.

Unforgivness is an awful thing! If my neighbor's husband could get saved he would become a changed man and she could be married to the person she longed him to be. But her unforgivness was actually preventing her from getting the very thing she wanted most. The keys to the prison door were forgiveness. And the rope ladder was forgiveness.

When I shared this vision with her, my neighbor began to cry. Together we prayed and forgave her husband for all he had done to her and their family. Then we prayed for his salvation.

Not long after, he came to the Lord and has been a strong Christian all these many years since. I am so thankful that God has given us the power to forgive. It is such a great gift.  

This week marks the date of my mother’s birthday. She was such a dear thing, gentle and yet a spiritual giant. She had no idea who she really was.

Mother was always there for me, even when no one else was. She was born in an age when mothers saw their families as being a great mission field. She baked, sewed, cleaned house, washed (and ironed cloths) and yet always had time to listen to her children and counsel them when the need arose.

Her hands were used to work but they were so anointed and gentle. When she would put them on my arm or back I could feel the love just pouring through them into me. And she always prayed for me

Of course I never appreciated her until I left home and had a family of my own. When I finally got around to telling her I appreciated her she acted like she had always known that, even though I didn’t show it. She didn’t seem to expect much return on her investment other than that we would have good character and serve God and our own families.

I don’t think I have ever known anyone so unselfish! She started her days early so that she would have time to pray and read the Word of God and she was still working hard at the end of the day when we had gone to bed.

Not only did she work for our family but she also visited the elderly and baked bread for them which she would take to them on each visit. My parents would ask some of these old friends over for dinner on Sundays and if they needed help with anything, they always came to my folks.

After I left home and found out just how hard life could be, it was my mother who prayed me in to the Kingdom of God. She sent me books to read about some of the old saints and while I totally ignored these for awhile, at last her prayers prevailed and I finally received the Lord as my own personal Savior. She was thrilled!

And when I became a minister, she never argued with me about how women couldn’t teach in the church. But she always stood with me and encouraged me and loved me in the midst of persecution which came my way.

Way too early she got Alzheimer’s disease and began to slip away from us. My father took their wedding vows seriously and he took care of her through the most difficult situations as she deteriorated. He never left her side in 60 years of marriage.

I was devastated. I felt as though she was dead even when she was still with us. I spent the long years of her illness grieving for her loss. I was there when the end came. As I stood there looking at her tiny little body I was so thankful to know that she had finally been released and was at last whole and alive in the Lord.

In the days that followed I panicked as I thought of her not being there to pray for me. Even though she had been unable to communicate in any way for years, I always felt that inside she was praying for me. Now she was gone.

Then one day, I heard God speak to me that prayers are eternal. Every single prayer she had ever prayed for me was still working on my behalf. Just as surely as she lives in God, so do her prayers. And I will continue to be the recipient of her investment for eternity.

I am not someone who is anxious to die. I really love life so much. But this I do know: When that day comes I will be so glad to see her and talk with her again. God surely got one of His most glorious treasures when she returned to Him. How I pray that I can ever do just half as much good in life as she did! We don’t know how important our lives and our prayers are to those we love and who love us. Rev Mary