Yes, I Am Alive -- Both Now And Forevermore

No, I have not died from heat stroke, nor from house fire, though both of those were certainly a possibility this week! And no, this is not my house -- see all the green stuff growing around it?  Couldn't possibly be my house.  The photo is just for effect.  We live in a double-wide, also known as a tinder box or a tornado magnet. I almost lit the ceiling on fire last night, due to one of those honey-do jobs that was put off, delayed, post-poned, procrastinated, etc for a whole year. It was a wonderful exercise for my meek and quiet spirit, and I passed the test, partly due to the fact that we had company.  I wish I could say that I know I would NOT have had words with my husband, had it not been for our visitor. I know, I am supposed to be a good example to my children and all of you ladies, but, well, it scared me.  So I do admit, the words were there, I just swallowed hard and digested them, but that makes for victory, right? The ballast on our over head kitchen light has been going out for a long while.  Last night it went up in a great smoke, soon to be flames, but for the quick thinking of my husband and our guest. For a year I have been concerned that we would inadvertently leave the house with that light on, and we would come home to a disaster.  The Lord was good to have us home when it happened!!!

Anyway, I haven't been around, as you know, because we had our missions conference and a trip to California, both of which were a great time.  Now I am trying to catch up, order school stuff, put the house back together, love my children who were neglected for a week or so, and etcetera. Life just does not wait for us slow pokes!  In our near future are a ladies' meeting, a big work day at church, and a trip to Kansas, PLUS, if we don't start school soon we are going to be WAAAAYYYY behind for the year.  Do you ever just want to go back to bed and wait for everything to blow by?

"Short" wrote a great post right here the other day...  I was thinking lately how ironic is it that truly saved people will doubt their salvation when they have been away from church for a time, but lost people who are deluded about God's work in their life (and THINK they are saved because they said a prayer, or had an experience) will feel perfectly comfortable with their eternity if they NEVER (or rarely) go to church, ie, "I can worship God just as well in my fishing boat as you can at church." Salvation consists of "REPENTANCE toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" Acts 20:21. That means there is a change.  No one is saved who says they trusted Christ, and then goes on living the same way.  I just heard someone say that repentance is not repentance for sin, but for unbelief.  Apparently this is the teaching of a huge mega-church in the Chicago area. WRONG. Revelation 9:20, 21 says, "And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts."  Sounds to me like someone was supposed to repent of their sins!  No wonder a church can get 70,000 professions of faith in a year.  They are false professions.  How tragic.  No wonder we are a "Christian" nation and we can't figure out who the Christians are.   No wonder Islam sees "Christian" America as the great Satan. If your pastor is not preaching against sins, find a different church.