Jesus Is Calling Doers

In April of 1988, I purchased my wedding dress. Actually, my mother purchased it for me. I had tried on around 10 that were in my affordable category, $300 or so. Afterward, I chose the first one I had pulled off the rack.

In July of 1988, I wore the dress, not once, but twice. My spouse and I had two wedding receptions, one in Florida and a second in Michigan. Today it is preserved in a box, shelved up high in my closet.

Though historians claim that the white bridal dress was first popularized by Queen Victoria when she married Albert of Saxe-Cogburg in 1840, the true origin is Revelation 19:7-9.

 “‘Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.’ 8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9 Then he said to me, ‘Write, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”’ And he said to me, ‘These are true words of God.’”

The bride of Christ is the body of believers, disciples of Lord Jesus. We are to be clothed in fine linen which is bright and clean in Heaven. The linen is given to us because of our righteous acts.

Aha! We are to be doers not just speakers of the Word. (James 1:22) And, we must put the linen on ourselves—”the bride has made herself ready.” Another indication that we must be doers.

After Lord Jesus settled in Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, He went walking by the water. There He called His first disciples to follow Him: Peter, Andrew, James and John. The four were fishermen and had been busy casting nets, mending nets and fishing with their father. (Matthew 4:18-22) Immediately they left what they were doing (their work) and followed Lord Jesus (a full-time commitment).

These men were already doers, not afraid of hard work, just as those in the Old Testament were. David kept sheep while fighting off bears and lions. Amos was a farmer. Moses was tending his father-in-law’s sheep. Gideon was threshing wheat. Elisha was plowing his fields. God calls doers to discipleship.

Discipleship means leaving behind the nets, the boats, and farming equipment. It means following immediately where Lord Jesus leads.

He calls us to live a life of righteous acts that He calls us to.

Some will be called to preach.

Some will be evangelists, teachers, prophets, etc…

But we are all called to do something for God, not out of our own imagination, but specifically in the role He gives to each of us.

Nancy Halford works at a WalMart. She reacted immediately when worship began inside her workplace. Nancy stopped work and joined the celebration. God used her video for His glory. Doer. (Libby Emmons/The Post Millennial)

The worshipers had felt called to hold a service in a WalMart because churches were closed. Doers.

Sean Feucht has gone into the middle of the riots in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington to lead worship in the face of open threats and curses. Many were touched and came to know The Lord. This is obedience to divine direction. Doer. (Aimee Herd/BCN)

Humbly, The Lord has called me to write. I write five days a week. This blog reaches Africa, Canada, Europe, the USA, and Asia. Who reads it? People like you, who are from the Church, part of the body of Christ. It is a way that we might stay connected. Right now, this is what I do for God and the Name of Jesus.

Yes, I do get some flack for it. But I have not yet been threatened.

What are you doing? What are your righteous acts? God is calling you to stand up and act.

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TEACH YOUR CHILDREN NOT TO FEAR

(C) 2020 Kelly Jadon

Teach Your Children Not to Fear

As a kid, I was a member of the Girl Scouts. The first level is called the “Brownies.” Our troop of girls was very young, around seven and eight years old. One Saturday we went to a Girl Scout Campground to a large cabin surrounded by heavily forested acreage. My mother came along to help with the activities; she brought my three-year-old sister with her.

A friend and I wanted to go walk the dirt trails around the cabin. Mom said, “OK, but take your sister with you.” My friend and I set off, each one of us holding one of my sister’s hands. We were away for about 20 to 30 minutes. Upon our return Mom asked, “Where’s your sister?”

I had no idea. I had forgotten she was with me.

Mom chastised me, “I told you to watch her!”

Mom ran quickly into the woods frantically calling my sister’s name. She found her, my innocent little sister who had trusted me.

That episode in my life and my mother’s was a bit traumatizing; neither of us ever forgot it.

Our children are a heritage from the Lord. They are His favor poured out upon us. The children are our continuation of who we are long after we are gone. The children of believers carry the mantle of Christ to the generation to follow after them. (Psalm 127:3-5)

But what are our children learning during this time of pandemic, unrest, rioting?

Are they learning to live in fear?

Or are they learning that God is in control and will never leave them nor forsake them? (Isaiah 41:10) (Hebrews 13:5)

But the mantle must still be passed, just as the mantle of Elijah was passed to Elisha, his successor. (1Kings 19:19)

What will they pass on? Fear? Fear is of the darkness. It is not of God. (2Timothy 1:7)

Lord Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.” (Matthew 19:14) This is the first step. Bring your kids to Christ for all things.

Teach them to pray, as Lord Jesus taught us to pray.

Teach them to trust in God no matter what we go through, because life is tough. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Teach them to read the Word and apply it to their lives.

When they grow older, they will not depart from this. (Proverbs 22:6)

Do this in your home daily.

Children across the United States are returning to public school this week. Their teachers are afraid. The children will be taught fear. But God tells us not to fear. This is why children of believers must be taught at home.

Fear if left to fester becomes a weakness the enemy plays upon. It can turn into paranoia. (Mind.org/UK) But the mindset can be overcome with the Word of testimony. Speak to your children about all the things that God has done in your lives—how He has saved you physically, mentally, spiritually. Speak to them of God’s great power and His miracles. Write them on your children’s hearts. (Revelation 12:11) Even write them on paper to refer back to.

Bound for Virginia, In 1620, the Pilgrims landed far off course, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They were sick, dying, tired, hungry, and were dreading the coming icy winter sheltered on the Mayflower. Yet, they endured, for the sake of God’s glory and their freedom to worship God. They brought their children across the Atlantic to an untamed wilderness, arriving with little.

Our American spiritual forefathers left everything for this freedom—freedom for their children, whom they taught at home and kept separate from the world.

The hands of Pilgrim children were not held by the King of England, nor the authorities of Holland, but by Lord Jesus, Who is the Head of the Church through their parents. (Colossians 1:18)

Yesterday I sat and spoke with a friend. She had gotten herself into trouble when she was young. “Everything that led me down the wrong path, I picked up in public school,” she said. Today, she is a godly woman raising two children. She knows the darkness and pitfalls that need to be avoided.

Do everything you can to demonstrate and teach the power and love of Lord Jesus in your children. If we as parents and grandparents do not instill Christ in our children, they will fall to the enemies surrounding us who teach fear. It is up to us adults to take the children by the hand and keep them out of that darkness.

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PULL CHRISTIAN CHILDREN OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS

(C) 2020 Kelly Jadon

Changing the Church

The summer of my junior year in college, I worked as a counselor at a Free Methodist Church camp in Ontario, Canada. One blustery night a ferocious storm blew through, fronted by lightning and thunder. It felled a large ancient oak. It landed just between the cabins on soft green grass. My turn on the maintenance crew that week required I help cut it up. A chainsaw was placed in my hands and I cut off great limbs. The trunk was left to professionals, who had better stronger equipment and more expertise.

Sometimes the old things need to be cut down to make way for new and better things.

Lord Jesus said, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results.  No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” (Mark 2:21-22)

What was The Lord referring to? He’s speaking about the old religious systems that are so stuck in tradition that they’re inflexible and cannot contain a new work of God. And so, God goes outside these systems.

One good example would be Operation Christmas Child, run by Franklin Graham’s organization, Samaritan’s Purse. With a shoebox gift of love, they reach thousands of children for Christ who otherwise would have remained in darkness. It is one of the greatest moves of God in our time as each day thousands of children come to know Lord Jesus.

Another local example would be Roxanne Brown’s Carebag, Inc. which reaches hundreds of the homeless, giving them necessary living items, showers, and the love of God.

The list is endless. God is moving in His Church, taking us to knew and better ways of reaching the unreached, the unchurched, and those chained in darkness.

During these chaotic last six months, many churches have closed their doors. Some have reopened, some have not. Some never will reopen. (Michelle Boorstein/Washington Post) Not every church practices Godliness. God is cutting off limbs, preparing for new things.

When The Lord led His people, the Hebrews, out of bondage in Egypt, He began bringing about new things, teaching them to be a holy nation, set aside to Him. Old ideas of life in Egypt had to be thrown out—idol worship, being content as slaves, etc..They were stuck in their old mentality.

God instituted holiness through change, culminating in worship of Himself and the creation of the Tabernacle. (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)

The Lord does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. (Hebrews 13:8) He brings change. He wants an end to sin and old ways of thinking.

This morning I went out to cut down an old dead orange tree in my backyard. I used a smaller battery operated chainsaw. I worked at it, a little at a time, sweat dripping into my eyes, thorns puncturing my calf, but I could not cut it down. I knew I needed something bigger and more powerful. God knows my thoughts. Then my new neighbor came to the rescue with his bigger better chainsaw. In a minute, the tree was cut down to the ground, leaving only a stump. The wood was hard, that’s why my smaller saw couldn’t do the work.

Believers, we cannot save ourselves. No president can save us, no army, no Homeland Security. What will save us is obedience to God. We must humble ourselves to His desire to change us, His Church and this nation. He begins first with His own people, “to the Jew first and then the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16) Like the tree, the old ways are hard and difficult to alter. Like the neighbor man from next door, we need God’s power to do the work. We pray. He does the work.

Hard times cause the Church to turn to God and away from our own strength.

Let us pray for holiness and Godliness first in ourselves, our church and then our country, the United States. And let us pray that His will be done, His purpose be accomplished.

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LAWLESS TIMES

(C) 2020 Kelly Jadon

Nothing Can Stop The Word of God

One Christmas Eve in snowy Goodrich, Michigan, I insisted on staying up until midnight. I had heard and believed that animals could speak as humans do during that dark hour. It was a type of miracle that was an extension of the Nativity birth. I was about eight years old and sincerely wanted to speak with the rabbits we kept in cages out behind our house. My mother wanted nothing to do with this. She made me go to bed at my normal time because Santa was waiting to come!

The irony, believing in Santa but not the animals having the ability to speak. Both are fairy tales.

To the world, the story of the virgin birth of Jesus, His life, death and resurrection are a myth. The Bible to the world is a book of fictional or at best, somewhat historical tales. Yet we believers truly and sincerely believe the Bible. To us it is holy and contains the oracles of God.

Why? Why do we believe?

Because our lives have been changed with a touch from The Lord, through reading and applying Scripture to our lives, answered prayers, from witnessing great miracles, even others being resurrected from death.

During my journey with God I have had to stop and ask myself, “Do I really believe this part of Scripture?”

Did Noah and his family really survive a worldwide flood in an ark which he himself built? (Genesis 6:14-18)

Was Jonah actually swallowed by a whale? (Jonah 1-2)

Could Paradise or the Bosom of Abraham have actually existed prior to Heaven being opened to believers? (Luke 16)

I had to remove areas of unbelief until I believed the whole Word of God.

We must all do this. We must believe Scripture as a whole, because it is whole and cannot be broken. (John 10:35)

The world wants us to deny our Godly heritage, our Word, a gift of God by eroding and whitewashing truths from it little by little. The world wants us to believe that God is not able to do what He says He has done.

But God has done these great things, and He will do many more.

Knowledge of the glory of God will fill the Earth just as waters cover the sea. (Habakkuk 2:14)

The Word of God is divine. Lord Jesus is the Word. Lord Jesus is God. He cannot be stopped, neither can His Word. All things are in His hands. All things are His. (Psalm 24:1)

Lord Jesus is coming again. He will come for His bride. He will come in judgment upon the world. He will come on a white horse with fire in His eyes. (Revelation 19:11-16)

And what is His Name given at His return?

“His Name is called The Word of God.” (Revelation 19:13)

Listen not to the world which denies Him and His return. This is a lie from out of the deep hearts of iniquity. (Psalm 64:6) But even this will not stop Him.

Nothing can stop the return of Lord Jesus. Not even the burning of Bibles. (J. Davidson/The Federalist)

Believe upon The Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. (Acts 16:31)

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THE CHURCH'S HIDDEN ENEMIES

(C) 2020 Kelly Jadon

Jesus Matters First

When I attended college, at Spring Arbor University in the 1980s, like the typical student, I changed my major a few times. Back then, I really didn’t know what to major in, so I studied what I both liked and knew that I could handle. I became a teacher certified in Secondary English and Music education. What I did know is that God guided my life.

Moses was a man of the Old Testament who was born a Hebrew, under an Egyptian death sentence for male babies. His mother made him a private little ark and cast it away upon the waters. Providence saved Moses when Pharaoh’s daughter, a princess of Egypt, had his the ark pulled from the Nile River. Moses grew up in the courts of the Pharaoh, with privilege, great wealth, and education. God’s providence kept him safe. (Exodus 1-2)

Jesus, the Son of God, was born to the tribe of Judah, in Bethlehem to a virgin. (Luke 1:26-37) Worried about his own power, King Herod implemented a death sentence for male babies. Then Joseph, Mary’s husband, had a dream in the night. An angel of the Lord warned him to get up and take Mary, the Lord’s mother, and baby Jesus, and flee to Egypt. They remained there five years until God called them out of Egypt and back to their original home in Nazareth. (Hosea 11:1) God saved His own Son, Joseph and Mary. Lord Jesus grew up to be the Messiah, the Sent One, in the home of a carpenter in an obscure town, under the care of an adoptive father. God’s providence had kept Him safe in humbleness. (Luke 2, Matthew 2)

Both men became what the Lord called them to be. Moses—a prince. Lord Jesus—a carpenter.

Both men became the leaders of their people. Moses—led his people out of physical bondage and Egypt. (Hosea 11:1)

Lord Jesus led those who followed Him out of spiritual bondage and slavery to the world.

Moses led his people around the wilderness, demonstrating God’s great miracles.

Lord Jesus led His people for three years, demonstrating God’s great miracles.

Moses died and God buried him. (Deuteronomy 34:1-8)

Lord Jesus died and God the Father had arranged for His burial through His providence. (Mark 15:42-47)

Moses lived on spiritually and was seen by Peter, James and John at the Lord’s transfiguration. (Matthew 17:1-13)

Lord Jesus rose from the grave spiritually and physically in a glorified body and was seen by hundreds. (1Corinthians 15:6)

Moses is a type of Lord Jesus Who would come to earth. (Romans 5:14)

Why did God give these types long before Baby Jesus came?

To tell us to watch for Him. Some did. Simeon, Anna the prophetess, the three magi, prophets. .

Jesus’ first coming was that important. He altered the world, permanently.

There is so much turmoil happening in the world today. “Black lives matter (BLM). White lives matter. All people matter.” Even, “animal lives matter.”

But the only thing or person Who truly matters is Lord Jesus. All black, white, red, yellow and brown peoples are His. He is the Creator. (John 1:3-4; Genesis 1:1)

Nations rise and nations fall. Leaders die. Governments become corrupt. Governments are overrun.

But God still is. He does not change.

Before the Earth existed, He was.

Today He is still the great “I AM.” He oversees all things and is sovereign. It is a relief to know that He is in firm control.

No government nor organization will save us, the Church. No president nor elected official can be our savior. Look instead to Lord Jesus, Who sits upon the throne of Heaven.

For peace in this storm of many waves, look to The Lord. He saves. Ask Him to guide you through these trials. He is the only truth and peace that truly exists. Jesus matters first. May His will be done.

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HOW THE CHURCH CAN HELP THE CHILDREN

(C) 2020 Kelly Jadon