I have a good friend whose mother is dying. She is a dear old Christian (92 years old.) My friend has gone to be with her in these last few days to help in any way she can.

It's a hard thing to be with someone you love while they are going through this dying business! She says her mother is more than ready to leave planet earth and can't understand why she can't just die and be done with it.

I am reminded of PSALM 116:15 which says: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." For us, death is our out-going. But for Him, our death is our home-coming. He is excited about it because we are about to come home to be with Him forever.

As the days of our lives draw to an end, our physical persons become weaker and weaker. But our spirits are actually becoming stronger. It is a process which seems to take time. But at some point our spirits get stronger than our physical bodies can hold and then at last we fly away!

When you are waiting to die or watching someone else go through that process it is hard to imagine why it can't just be over. But I think all the while God is busy preparing us a place. And one of the wonderful things about God is He is always right on time--never to early, never too late.

So when it is just the right time, the person is released from his body, released from the tether which holds him to the earth, and set free to fly home to the Father who is excitedly waiting for that home-coming. What a celebration there is waiting there for each one.

I don't like the dying process from a physical standpoint. But I do think it is an exciting time in which our true selves are not becoming weaker but stronger. It does not yet appear! Death remains a mystery in many ways. But what a wonderful thing it is to realize that if you are born again, there is a wonderful home-coming waiting just right there. No darkness and horror or flames for us! Only light and love and joy and peace. No more worry or concern or limitation or sickness. But real life which goes on for ever in the presence of the Lord.

There is a grace or anointing for dying just like there is for living. God help us when it is our time, to find that grace and to end our course well and in such a way that it is a blessing to others and not a torture! We go to a far better place. A place prepared for us by our Father who loves us best and most. Rev Mary  

I was reading in the Word today out of DAN. 5:12 when I had one of those experiences where you read something as you have for so many times before, but suddenly you see something you never saw there before.

When the queen was telling her husband of all Daniel's attributes and abilities, she said he had an excellent spirit and had knowledge, understanding, interpreting of dreams, showing of hard sentences, and DISSOLVING OF DOUBTS.

Now what an awesome gift that would be! To have an anointing to dissolve all the doubts in people's minds so that they could receive the truth. It would bring such peace into people's lives if they could just get beyond their doubts.

As the world gets darker, people are more and more questioning everything they thought they once knew. That includes their faith in God and their Christian belief system.

Daniel lived in a day when the kingdoms of men were changing and coming to an end. There was a lot of confusion and a lot of sin. But God gave him the ability to know things and understand things and interpret things that were currently going on and that would happen in the future as well. Then He gave Daniel the further gift of dissolving of doubts so that when he gave these interpretations, those who heard were able to accept the interpretation without the doubt that usually slows us down and brings confusion.

I decided to ask God for this gift at once! It is so evident to me that such a gift would be of great value to humanity in this hour when doubt is on the rise and faith is being shaken to the core.

Doubt or belief is a choice! God often reminds me that Christians were first called "Believers", not doubters. Doubt is the exact opposite of belief. And Belief and faith are the same thing. So doubt is the exact opposite of faith. According to the Word, faith comes by hearing the Word. So hearing God's Word must dispel doubt.

So I perceive that Daniel had the ability to hear God's Word and when he spoke what he heard from God out, it had the power to dispel (or dissolve)doubt. How great a gift is that!

Because of the necessity of the hour, I believe God will surely pour this gift out on us in this hour. Thank God He is the same yesterday, today, and forever! Rev Mary 

I've been thinking about how hard things seem to be these days and how we will live in these days. I've lived long enough now to realize that things are really changing in the world and not for the better.

I got to looking at Habakkuk 3 in the Bible. At the end of the chapter it says, Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall the fruit be in the vine; the labor of the olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no harvest; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

In other words, even when everything goes wrong that can go wrong, this man makes a decision to rejoice and praise God. In so doing he is acknowledging that it is not God who has brought all this difficulty into his life. And he is also deciding not to let all the difficulty turn him away from his faith in God.

It really helps when you can identify who the enemy is! It isn't God who is bringing all this on mankind. He is not our enemy but our friend. He walks with us in the most difficult places in our lives if we will only let him.

People sometimes think that if you become a Christian you will no longer have problems in your life. That just isn't true. In fact all you have to do to see that is read a little in the Word of God. How about Paul? Peter? Well how about Jesus Himself? Life was pretty hard for all of them. What made us think it would be different for us?

What Christianity offers is a way to live victoriously in the midst of the difficulties of life. It isn't an escape from life. Troubles come to everyone (and with increasing speed these days.) But Christianity offers to those who choose it, a friendship with someone who will always love us, never leave us nor forsake us. Someone who doesn't want to condemn us or judge us. Rather someone who is always there to help us.

How I thank God for God! I really don't know how anyone can live without Him in these days. He is always there to help me understand what is going on and help me deal with what ever circumstance I find myself in.

Life is hard! But He alone makes it worth living. He even helps me get the most out of it and enjoy it. He prepares a table right in front of me, in the very presence of my enemies. And there He dines with me and strengthens me.

So, no matter what is going wrong today, I will make a decision not to blame Him but rather to praise Him and thank Him for my salvation. It's another good day because today is the day of salvation! Rev Mary

We are excited to be hearing news of spiritual revival breaking out in the USA. So far there have been reports from FL, GA, and NC. God is on the move!

As usual, when God decides to do something He seems to enjoy picking unlikely people and situations to work through. It is almost as if He says, "You want the move of the Spirit? Okay. But if you REALLY want that you will have to take it from those I chose to use."

More than once I have turned up my nose at God's choices only to humble myself so that I can receive what is being offered. But then, who really wants to be so proud you miss what God is doing?

We are hearing of healings and miracles and that is wonderful. But to me, two of the greatest testimonies are that there is an outpouring of hope and an anointing which is instantly changing people so dramatically that they do not even seem like the same people.

There has been such a condition of hopelessness on the people of God in these last few years. We have been worn down with the battle and our faith has been so attacked on so many levels. It is wonderful to hear people saying that they went to some of these meetings and came away totally refreshed and with new hope that God really is going to do exactly what He says in His Word.

And as a pastor, there is no better news than to hear that people who seem to have been virtually untouched by teaching and the Word of God for years, suddenly have become doers and not hearers only. What could be more wonderful than suddenly being able to deal with problems that have gone on for years, even when we try and try to deal with them in ourselves?

Yet as exciting as these reports are, I find myself crying out to God for such a revival to come to my own heart, my own community, my own church! It isn't enough to just hear about others experiencing these things. We need revival ourselves! And when I consider the other nations we travel to for missionary work, I can tell you there isn't a nation in the world that does not need to experience the kinds of manifestations that are being testified to.

And so we will continue to cry out to God for His wonderful presence and power and ability to change the unchangeable. Surely God will hear our cry and come down! Rev Mary

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