I have to admit that sometimes I don’t always feel God’s presence immediately in our prayer meetings.  At times I feel God is not listening to me at all!  Almost like a misfit compared to our God and Maker of this Universe.  And I wonder why a God that big and powerful would even listen to me, much less answer a request that I may ask.  After all, I was just as guilty as those who didn’t believe Jesus was Our Messiah and God and who cried out to crucify HIM on the same stony mount where Abraham offered up Isaac.  But just as God provided a substitute for Isaac and Abraham with a ram on the third day of their journey up to a hill where God led Abraham; I’m confident HE will provide for us according to HIS word. For God is faithful and just and HE is called Jehovah Jireh, God will provide.

And just at that moment when I don’t think God will move upon us, or provide like HE did in HIS word.  When my words won’t flow or come out just right, or I am interrupted in prayer distracted by thoughts of things I need to finish or accomplish.  Maybe the music in the background is too loud or not my preference.  Then all of a sudden, God shows up and touches and comforts me with HIS presence.  And I remember that we today have a greater advantage than those in the Old Testament, because we have God’s Spirit living within us!  Why should we ever feel discouraged knowing that?

If we look at the visible and tangible things around us then we may never see or feel God!  But one thing I know for certain is that God is faithful and true to His word.  He will stick closer than a brother day or night, in trial or blessing. And He’ll stand one day to confess my name in Heaven and to the Angels.  That’s why I’ll choose to be faithful to HIM, regardless of my feelings or emotions at a given moment!  HE is the air that I breathe and He is why a few simple words mean so much more to us, than to those who don’t know HIM or witnessed HIS faithfulness like we have.  Because throughout our lives starting the very moment we made HIM king in our hearts, confessing Him as LORD, Jesus has been faithful!  Faithful to remove the stain of sin in our lives as we repent before Him.  And Faithful to the day we shall behold His face in Glory!

“This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me

This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word spoken to me

And I, I’m desperate for you
And I, I’m I’m lost without you! song by Michael W. Smith”

Bro. Tim

Response to above email forwarded from a friend.

Do you ever get the idea that God makes it easy for us to follow him? It’s only difficult when our view is obstructed by distance. As a testimony to God and His word, I don’t ever want to spend a day without God in it!

I’m trying to remember what Pastor brought up last night which is so relevant concerning worship. How did you put it Pastor? Worship is doing all things as if we were sharing the moment with God? Even the mundane things can be such a blessing if we do as if we were doing it for God. How does Manny clean the church early every Sunday unless he is motivated by God to do it for HIM! Maybe he’ll listen to some praise music while vacuuming. Or if I spend time working in the flowerbeds, I’ll see it as time I can spend with Jesus just relating HIS word to the task at hand. Or to the person who sings, as if he were singing to Jesus! God enjoys that time as much as we if we do it with thanksgiving and cheerfulness!

But also, spending time with God each day keeps us strong not to falter into temptation or hardness of heart. I can’t imagine where I would be today if I didn’t spend time with God. I need His word to protect me and create strength in my soul. I also liked how the video series last night said we as Christians shouldn’t be isolated from the World but insulated. And no where else can we get insulation other than HIS word and spending time with HIM. We all know we work and live in a wordly environment and many of our co-workers and neighbors don’t live as we, but we can’t resign ourselves to the monastery or a ranch and live without interaction with the world. Just another reason to be ready in season or out! No matter what day it is of the week.

Liked it Kelly!

Tim Fisher – Outreach Director
www.northgatepentecostals.com

As my father grows older, memories of his childhood surface every now and then while we talk.  Recently he told a story about when they lived just outside of Tulsa, OK near the railroad tracks in Jenks, OK.  He didn’t re-visit the description of the house, but earlier stories described it vividly.  It was a two room white board house where 5 children grew up and lived, my dad second youngest.  He often told stories of the stove in the center of the kitchen area and how it provided heat for the entire house.  And on cold mornings it was his chore to light the stove early each morning.  Sometimes they would run down to the trains parked at the rail yard and use the excess grease from a train wheel to help the fire continue burning longer with wood through cold days.  
The garage was out back which was converted to a shop where his Dad and his older brother worked on vehicles as mechanics.  They took in many jobs other than mechanical work as well. I remember him telling me stories before about painting vehicles with paint brushes and replacing bumpers.  Anything having to do with a vehicle they were able to repair in most instances.  I view this garage out back of their house as the mechanic, body shop and towing company from the stories I heard throughout the years.  
Dad was born in 1926 so these stories give us an idea of the depression era he so deeply remembers in the mid to late 30’s, though he was just a boy. Dad’s stories are not unbelievable nor are they long or detailed.  But they do give you a glimpse of his character and background which was common to many people of his generation and his parents.   His mother, my grandmother Lily, he said, had a small garden out back of the house between the garage shop area and the back of the house which faced the railroad tracks.  And it was here where his story centered from his memory. 

 Even though this was a very short story told in a few short sentences, I realized it had greater importance than most people could realize.  We had been talking about our present economy and Dad started talking about what it reminded him of the most, and that was the Great Depression.  He spoke about the money his Dad and Mom had saved but he remembered them not understanding why simply their money wasn’t worth anything.  He remembers his Dad asking a close friend who owned a small corner grocery what good were the dollars he had saved for so many years.  Grandpa’s friend who was better educated than my Granddad simply replied “Ed, we’re broke, just simply busted and the money isn’t worth enough to buy what we need even to survive”.  It’s a hard concept to understand when something that you traded with and which had supplied a living for so long especially during the affluent years of the 1920’s had become so obsolete.  
But Grandpa and Grandma didn’t live an affluent life during the 20’s or anytime.  They managed to save money when most people were spending even though it was only pennies at a time.  Now all their efforts to save for a later day seemed to suddenly fail them.  But what they didn’t realize were the friends and neighbors they had come to know and help during earlier years were going to be their means to live in this depression.  It meant bartering with other families for items instead of purchasing them.  
One family would slaughter a hog and trade some of the meat for milk or eggs or anything another family had which you needed.  He didn’t add a complete recount of this part on this occasion but I had heard it a few times before, but he did mention it briefly so we all would know the friendship between neighbors.  But this story involved a simple gesture of caring which is so rarely seen these days. 
He quoted, “I remember an afternoon when the train stopped out back of our house.  Hobos, men and families from every train car emptied out of the stopped train and began walking to our house and small garden which Mom had so neatly weeded and aligned.  There were rows of vegetables and two rows of grapes which my mother so eagerly worked for to ensure that us boys would have fresh fruit to eat.”
 “Then when I was looking at those people so needy, as many as 50 to 60, I heard my dad yell out from the garage, Feed them as long as you can Lily, just feed them.”  A tear nearly came to my Dad’s eye when he finished and I’ll never know exactly how he felt or how vivid the memories of his Dad or Mother were, but I do get a glimpse of his desires.  Maybe it’s a desire to see and embrace his parents one more time and maybe it’s a clue of how we can endure if a similar time should happen again.  Perhaps he was telling our generation and me, people survived in a previous era by a willingness to help others.  And even though you don’t know them, or it’s in a moment when your next meal is as scarce to you as it is to anyone, just give as the Lord has provided for you. 

Tim Fisher
Northgate Pentecostals