Walk with us today

Greetings:
On this morning we pray for peace and compassion today. Big decisions are ahead of us today and we ask for the Lord's blessing and guidance.
You are the God of understanding, wisdom and mercy and we appreciate it so much. Let us walk in grace today and standing under the protection of the Holy Spirit and an army of Godly angels who battle the forces of evil that are lurking around us.
God, you are the author and creator of all we are or that we will ever be, despite what those who believe in evolution have taught us in our schools.
We know the truth and with the truth we enjoy the freedom of knowing the difference. We choose to believe in our ever-present omnipotent God who is powerful, just and good.
Look around and look at the majesty and magnitude of God's creative touch. View the beauty and the complexity of nature and its various animals, insects, fish and birds of all sizes, the landscape, oceans, the rivers, the flowers, the plants, our weather patterns  and the tiniest of things such as a grain of sand.
Who would dare deny God's hand in all we see, hear feel and the things we touch?
God on this day we praise you and thank you for your loving hand around us, guiding our steps in our daily walk.
We pray for our nation and its leaders on this day and ask that your kindness, wisdom and mercy be poured out on this land we call home.
Let us be reminded that we are all sinners who have fallen short of God's desires, but by his mercy and the shed blood of Jesus, we are miraculously forgiven, redeemed and made right in the sight of God by his grace. We don't deserve any of this, but God has given us a path to sunshine and eternal life.
Each day we are reminded that you are a good God who loves us more than we can ever imagine.
Let is never forget to pray for those who have not heard about your salvation and those who have heard, but chose not to believe.
Remember to lift those up in prayer who are hurting, poor, confused, neglected and lost in earthly terms and spiritually.
Never forget to pray for you enemies and remember someone prayed for you when you didn't believe, when you didn't walk with the Lord and when you were lost.
God in his amazing grace bent down and picked each of us up.
Let us smile and not fret because God has given each of us another day on this planet earth, in this great nation and in the family of believers.
Be blessed.
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Aim high and walk in faith

Greetings and good morning.
Let us take time this day to have a conversation with God – meaning we will talk to God and listen to God. God's presence is such a blessing and calling on him is a great uplift to our mind and spirit.
Strive today to understand that God's ways are higher than our ways and many times we don't get pr see the whole picture at first. At times, things may look like they are falling apart or spiraling out of control. Actually, these may be the times when things might just be falling into place.
Trusting God means what it says.
We must have faith to see the big picture and the outcome in God's time. Walking in faith builds our faith along with our patience. Sometimes, we just need to slow down and let God be God.
Thank you Lord for you majesty, power and abilities that we can't even comprehend. Help us today to be better at just letting go and letting God take the steering wheel of our lives.
Be blessed.
These morning messages are now available by email. Simply write me with you email address at schneider.nick@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to forward them to your in-box. Also, all of the photos in my blog are for sale. Contact me for pricing.

Be kinder than necessary

Greetings and good morning.
 Let this be the day to open our eyes to God's majesty around us. Even in the midst of trouble and tribulation we can praise and be thankful to God. We have breath on this day and that in itself is reason enough to be filled with joy. Look around, there is always someone who needs your prayers, a kind word or just an encouraging look.
God has placed you to be a blessing. Let us all be kinder than necessary, for everyone we meet may be fighting some kind of battle that we don't know about. Never forget, we serve a kind, loving, merciful and forgiving God.
 Remember we are all sinners and unworthy of God's mercy or his presence, but by his grace and kindness, we are redeemed and loved each and every day.
Be blessed.

Delight in the Lord and he will make a way

Greetings:
How many of you know that you know that God knows what we want before we for ask it?
In addition, how many of you know that God has his own way of doing things and sometimes our plans are not his plans?
Also, how many of you know that when you give something to God, he is able to make sweet lemonade out of sour lemons?
I am reminded of the words written in Psalm 37:4-7A, which read:
“Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;”
I experienced this lesson in an exciting eye-opening fashion this past week in a most unlikely way.
To put this into context, for Christmas I received from my wonderful wife a gift of two tickets to the Purdue-Michigan State basketball game that was conducted this past Thursday night in West Lafayette, IN.
Arrangements were made for both my wife and I to be take off work on Friday so we would not have to take the three-hour drive home after the night ball game and could stay overnight with our daughter who lives in West Lafayette.
I was so looking forward to going to the game and to top off the experience Purdue officials were going to honor one of the greatest players to ever suit up as a basketball Boilermaker, Glen “Big Dog” Robinson that night. Robinson was going to be at that game. As a tribute, the school was offering a miniature 'bobble head' statute of Robinson to the first 3,000 fans who entered Mackey Arena that night.
Now “Big Dog” is one of my favorite Purdue players and I thought it would be so cool to be able to arrive early enough to get one of the bobble heads.
If you're not a Purdue fan, I know you won't understand, but the Big Dog was a big deal during his playing days for the Boilermakers.
Nonetheless. as the game date approached I was comfortable in knowing that both my wife and I would not be able to leave Greene County earlier enough to arrive at the game much before 6-6:30 p.m. – which was probably not going to be earlier enough to get one of the bobble-heads.
The story of going to get to go to the basketball game got complicated about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.
I was scheduled to be off work to go to a doctor's appointment in Bloomington, so my normal time for going to work was much later than normal.
I left the house just a few minutes before my wife in order to scrap some of the ice off of her van windows.
I was chipping away at the ice when I saw my wife coming towards me with a couple of things in her hands. All of a sudden, almost like it was in slow motion, I saw her fall.
She fell to the frozen, ice-covered ground hard.
I knew she was hurt.
After she laid there for a few minutes, so she could catch her breath and regain some sense of if she was really hurt bad. Her right ankle had been bent back under her body in a direction in which God did not create it. She had a badly sprained  ankle – with a lot of pain coming from the backside of leg.
I was able to get her into the house.
Thank the Lord her leg, her ankle or her hip wasn't broken.
As the next couple of days went on she was in a lot of pain and Wednesday night came and we determined that a trip to the basketball game would not be a wise thing to do. So I made a call to a friend, offering him the tickets to the game.
He wasn't able to go. Three more calls were made on Thursday morning to other individuals offering the tickets to them.
None of them could use the tickets.
I really wanted someone to be able to use the tickets.
Finally, I placed a post on Facebook offering the tickets to anyone who wanted to use them at no cost...just come and pick them up.
Within 10 minutes, a young woman from Jasonville posted that she would like them, if I hadn't already found someone to take them.
I told her if she came to my newspaper office in Linton, the tickets were hers.
She came about 30 minutes later and said she was delighted to get them because she wanted to take her young son, who I would estimate to be around 10, to the game.
I felt good about giving the tickets to someone who truly wanted to go to the game.
As I was driving home after work, the tickets came to mind and I kind of really wished for a moment that that I had been able to go to the game. It was a selfish thought, but that tiny little bobble head was really something I desired. I really wanted it to place on a shelf of Purdue memorabilia that I have at my house.
That night, my wife and I watched the game on television and were relieved that because of heavy winds and stormy conditions outdoors, that we didn't have to make the trip to the game.
How many of you know that God was still in control of the situation?
The next I was at my office, and the woman who works the front counter came walking in and handed me an envelope and a boxed up bobble-head of Glenn Robinson from the game the night before.
The card in the envelope read: “Thank you for help making memories for my son. It was a great time.”'
Wow, I was so touched and humbled that God was able to turn a really bad situation into a blessing for some other folks. In addition, I had the bobble head that I had desired.
The small material token from the basketball game will be something that I treasure, but the lesson behind that bobble head will be something I won't forget.
Be blessed.

Testing of our faith

Greetings:
I don't know about you, but sometimes when difficult things come into my life, I wonder why.
I try to question God.
How do you think that works out?
God has a way of humbling us and show us that we must be willing to trust and obey even if we don’t know why or aren’t given that answer for some time.
We do need to know that God does test and he knows how it will all work out.
Testing makes our faith stronger.
Testing reveals to us where we are in terms of our faith as God already knows whether or not we will pass a given test. It is as we go through the fire of testing and trial that we can be strengthened, sanctified, and purified.
James 1:2-4 says, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."
Let us discern between testing through various trials and the tempting of the devil.
Scripture denounces tempting in James 1:13 which says, "Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone."
God does allow Satan to tempt us, but we can take hope that we will not be tempted beyond what we can handle and escape from by faith as it says 1 Corinthians 10:13.
Look at Genesis 22 and you'll see a big test for Abraham.
Remember God had promised Abraham descendants through Isaac that would be numerous. Yet, out of the blue, God commanded Abraham to do something that totally contradicted His promised blessing to him. He was to take his son Isaac and offer him up to God as a sacrifice.
Certainly Abraham must have been initially baffled at this stunning directive, wondering why. But Abraham had great faith, and so he obeyed God, even going as far as binding up his son and taking the knife up in readiness to slaughter his only son we read in Genesis 22:9-10.
Abraham’s faith was evident.
There was no denying it and God suddenly told Abraham to stop and provided instead a ram to sacrifice. This was merely a test of Abraham’s heart.
How many of us would have passed that test like Abraham?
We need not fear the tests that God brings to us. Rather, we need only trust Him to bring us through them. Why? Because God is always good, faithful, and true, knowing that we will end up better than we were before.
Be blessed.
These morning messages are now available by email. Simply write me with you email address at schneider.nick@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to forward them to your in-box. Also, all of the photos in my blog are for sale. Contact me for pricing.

Standing the test of time

Greetings:
Standing the test of time. There is no greater measure of a man than that.
Real greatness is not measurable until the ravages of time have made their mark, and the glamor of personality has given way to the timelessness of character. Then, and only then, can we determine whether or not a person is a success.
In the New Testament, Paul wanted to know if men were so grounded in the Word that the winds of adversity would only make them stronger. He was looking for a few good men. And those would have to be men who would still be standing when the storms had passed, and the years had melted away. He was looking for men whose lives would stand the test of time.
If you take the Old Testament and watch carefully the manner in which God destined men for greatness, you cannot help but notice one common ingredient. Some had great talent; some had none. Some had authority; they were princes and kings, others were shepherds, or farmers. Some were learned men, students of the great teachers of their age; others were taken from the back side of the desert with no formal education at all.
They all had one thing in common. Time.
God seemingly always called them, often exposed them to failure, then let them settle into those seemingly endless stretches of time when it appeared they were washed up, forgotten, or  unusable.
Moses in the desert herding his father-in-law's sheep. Joseph rotting in prison. Abraham waiting, waiting, waiting for the promise. Elijah was by that drying brook. Job sitting on that rock pile, seeming to die a second at a time while the clock ticked on, his pain went on, and nothing seemed to be happening.
God was taking his tender plants and setting them in the sunlight to ripen. Sometimes the heat seemed unbearable. Sometimes the wait seemed interminable. But always the results were predictable. Once they had gained God's perspective of time, they were ready to be placed on the firing lines of eternity. Not before.
And almost always, God's perception of time was far different than theirs. They didn't live in this jet age we live in, where microwaves cook in seconds what used to take hours, and planes take us in hours where it once took us days to go.
They lived in an era of slowness, yet even then God seemed to be taking forever.
Valleys, trials, tribulations, conflicts, and adversities are all a part of this life and all a part of our walk with the Lord.
Let us be grounded in our faith, strong in our knowledge of the Word and intent on standing the test of time.
Be blessed.
These morning messages are now available by email. Simply write me with you email address at schneider.nick@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to forward them to your in-box. Also, all of the photos in my blog are for sale. Contact me for pricing.

Staying up when the world is down

Greetings:
A question looms in my mind this morning, how can we, as Christians, stay “up” when everyone around us is down?
How can we keep our spirits high in a negative environment?
God wants us to be an enthusiastic happy people. He purposed for us to be “up” .
Happiness is a choice.
When we get up each morning – no matter how early – we can choose to be happy or we can choose to be miserable and dissatisfied with everything. It’s entirely up to us. It’s our life – it’s our choice.
Happiness is a quality decision we decide to make, not an emotion we feel. If we are constantly listening to our emotions we will never stay “up.” We must make up our mind that we are going to be happy, in spite of our emotions. Many people live in constant turmoil. They're  always upset at something or someone; or they are always frustrated at not getting the results they desire.
God wants us to be happy right where we are, right now.
Even scientific research agrees that one of the healthiest things we can do is laugh. So why not start by learning to smile more often. We may be going through some tough times, and feel that we have good reason to be unhappy. Yet, being unhappy won’t change anything.
Things only change when we agree with God’s Word, and not with our circumstances.
We can laugh in the face of defeat, and in the face of potential disaster if we know and follow God's Word.
In 1 John 4:4 we read, “For, greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”
There is something truly magnetic and attractive about a happy and enthusiastic person.
We want what they've got.
We’ll never rise above the image we have of ourself.  We need to stop looking at our lacks, frailties and weaknesses and be thankful for all the gifts God has placed in us. Thank Him every day for the natural abilities we have – no matter how undeveloped they are. In this way we will focus on them all the more and produce a clear picture of being successful.
Have you ever said, “I don’t know what’s been wrong with me. I’ve lost my drive and my enthusiasm. I feel like I’m just going through the motions.”
Well, regardless of our stressful situation, our financial status, past failures or how we’re feeling – we can remain “up” and enthusiastic because God provided a blueprint for life that will keep us in victory mode – spiritually, emotionally and materially.
The blueprint is mapped out in God's Word. We need to read it, study it and believe it – then put it into action.
Psalm 144:15 declares, “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”
Happiness is following the right path towards our God given destiny. We cannot expect to stay enthusiastic about anything we’re involved in if it’s not God’s intended plan for us.  So we must never stay where God has not assigned us. Seek God and then we will find our peace and happiness.
 Be blessed.

These morning messages are now available by email. Simply write me with you email address at schneider.nick@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to forward them to your in-box. Also, all of the photos in my blog are for sale. Contact me for pricing.