Author: marettej

MERRY CHRISTMAS: 

Question: What do you and I know to be true, yet refuse to believe?

   This is exactly what was happening at the time of Jesus’ birth in Matthew 2:4-6.  The Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem and asked, “Where the king of the Jews is to be born?”

   King Herod along with Jerusalem’s people got wind of the Magi’s visit and their question. They were dIsturbed enough that they called the priests of the people and teachers of the law and asked them, “Where is the Christ to be born?” The religious Jewish leaders knew the correct answer from reading O.T. prophet Micah 5:2. “In Bethlehem of Judea” was their unanimous answer.  

   These religious men knew THE RIGHT ANSWER, but did not believe it enough to accept the truth.

   This part of the Christmas story ends with the Magi being led by a star to the very house where Jesus and Mary were staying. They worshipped and gave them their gifts and returned home by another way because in a dream they were told not to return to Herod. 

   Then an angel appeared to Joseph who told him to take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. “Stay there until I tell you to return”, said the angel. 

So in this story we see several important things happening connected with Jesus’ birth.  

a)  Magi come to worship being led by God’s star.

b)  Jewish leadersknowing where the Christ was to be born, ignored the obvious and had absolutely no follow-up faith to their knowledge. 

c) Magi are led by God’s star to find the child, 

d) God’s provisionsfor Joseph’s family’s future being supplied by the Magi’s three generous gifts,

e) Magi obeying a command in their dream to avoid evil Herod, 

f) Joseph and Maryobeying God’s instruction from the angel and 

g) Jesus’ life being protected before Herod commands that all boy babies in Bethlehem under age two were to be killed.

So from this Christmas story, whose example will you and I wholeheartedly follow?  

a) The Magi to find Jesus.

b)  Religious leadersknowing the truth and refusing to follow the truth.

c) Herod to destroy Jesus.

d) Magi to listen to God and avoid evil King Herod.

e) Joseph  and Mary to listen to God and follow God’s complete instruction.

   We all know the right answer about where Jesus was born. We have heard Jesus’ words he said while here on earth about making righteous (right) choices. 

   How often do we completely follow his instructions to His followers like:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself,” 

“Take up your cross and follow me”, 

“You cannot follow two masters:

 I am THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE. No one comes to THE FATHER except through me.”

“He that is baptized will be saved. He that does not believe will be condemned.” 

“I am coming back to take you where I am.”

   God gives everyone free-will to believe and trust their chosen master in life. Either THE CHRIST or Satan. 

Joshua 24:15 says it well. Joshua gave this challenge for the Jewish people’s thinking, “YoU will either serve the Gods you left in Egypt or the Gods of the heathen people who we, God’s people, are conquering.  

   Then Joshua made a command decision for himself and his family. “As for me and my house, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD!”

   Men and single mom’s will you also set this example before your family and children? I know you and I know what is right! To know the truth means we need to accept it and not to refuse it, as did the Jewish leaders at Jesus’ birth. 

Know the truth and it will set you free John 8:32.

Merry Christmas

Don G. Hunt II

It’s Thansgiving week. Every week is a Thanksgiving week for believing Christians. 

Psalms 100:4-5   ⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; Give thanks to him and praise his name. ⁵ For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

It’s been said, “Count your blessings and not your bruises.” We all have some of both.   Isaiah 53:5 says through prophecy that Jesus was bruised (wounded) for our transgression.”  Not even God’s own Son got through life without being bruised and feeling hurt.  

Daily we all need to take inventory of our blessings, look up and praise the Lord for His magnificent mercy, His abundant grace, His many answers, His sufficient provisions, Our many freedoms, and loudly rejoice! 

Matthew 26:53 ]Jesus told his disciples right after Peter had cut off an ear of a man coming to arrest him,  

“He could call 12 legions of angels to stop his coming arrest and bruises. That’s 72,000 angels!  Right after this encounter all of Jesus’ followers fled away from Him. Yet Jesus walked up calvary’s hill and gladly laid down his life for at least two reasons  

1)’‘To please His Farher’s will. 

2) Because He,like His Father, loved  people (the world) John 3:16

Luke 23:34  Jesus looked at those who were killing  him and said, “Father, forgive them for theyknow not what they are doing.” At that very moment Jesus saw you and me and our despite need of His atoning sacrifice 

Jesus could have walked up to the cross, looked at it, and said, “I’m not doing this “cross thing” for sinner. I’m out of here!” 

Remember in his own hometown of Nazareth, Jesus disappeared from their midst.  What kept Jesus from disappearing from their midst on Golgotha’s hill?    Long answer is Heb 5:6-8. His obedient reverent submission to do His Father’s will   Christians are thankful Jesus didn’t quit on us!

Let’s pray.  Father, there are many unexplainable moments in life. One being why you would sacrifice your only son for lost sinners. We are thankful we are on the receiving end of your magnificent Mercy, generous Grace, and compelling Compassion. Thank you for sending your Son to earth to be our perfect substitute offering. We praise You! In your Jesu’s holy name. Amen. 

Don G.Hunt II

   We all have some or several things in our life we do not like or totally understand. After having a brain aneurysm stroke 51 years ago, My wife and I have lived with my physical limitations. we have made many life and family adjustments. One of the limitations that bothers me more than you might think is dealing with numbness on my left side which affects my mouth that often droops and drips. 

   Some days it is worse than others. Some mornings as I am bending over to put on a shoe or to pull up my pants, my mouth will drip and moist evidence runs down my chest and I think to myself, “Has life boiled down to this? I wipe up the moisture and thank GOD THAT I STILL AM ALIVE. and able to go on.  

   Sometimes my wife will say, “Your left mouth” and I know there must be something on my face that missed my mouth. I do not like that about me, yet little or nothing I can do to change this residual stroke affect.  

   I have a talk in my line-up of messages entitled, “Accepting, Adjusting, and going on”. When a person gets stuck on one of those high hurdles in life, then there is “no going on”. 

Going on is what God’s strength, leading, and vision has happened in my/our family’s life. We all have reasons to quit, fold our hands, and stop producing fruit for Jesus.  Yet His word says, “Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life.”  Rev 2:10.

And aren’t we all glad Jesus didn’t quit on us! He walked up Golgotha’s hill, knowing what was next for Him.  With every step, Jesus must have been thinking more about pleasing his Father’s will, more about the millions of people he was dying to redeem, than the pain awaiting him.  He didn’t stop and call more than twelve legions of angels (72,000) to rescue him. How did Jesus get beyond that moment. He took the long look and saw you and me unable to save ourselves. His action loudly continues to say,”THEY ARE WORTH IT”!

   It’s easy to get distracted and side-lined from God’s purpose statement for yours and my life with small things like a mouth dripping. This is a minor nuisance compared to learning to walk again with paralysis, getting dressed with one hand, and being able to be vocally be heard again following my stroke 51 years ago.  Life and ministry and family have gone on. We still have a God to serve and God has blessed us with 14 grands and 3 greats to enjoy and watch mature for Jesus in life.

There are many things in this life you and I may never understand or like, yet trusting God provides reason enough to go on! PROVERBS 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him. He will direct your path.” 

Well said by the wisest man on earth, inspired by God. This gives us sound counsel about how to live for and trust the Almighty creator of the universe, even when we may not understand or like our circumstances or situations we face. 

   Do you and I really love God, even when life experience bring hard to understand trials and difficult to get through moments?

    We all have experienced seemingly unnecessary hardships and challenges. What is our attitude about these often BIGGER THAN LIFE HURDLES? 

   Even Jesus faced God in prayer before going to the cross saying, “Father, all things are possible for You. Take away this cup from me. Nevertheless, not that I will, but that you will.” In other words, father, if this cup can pass, let it pass, yet it’s not what I want that counts, but your will be done.  

   It takes a submissive attitude toward God to be able and willing to pray these words to God. 

    Read Hebrews 5:7-9 for a strong snapshot of Jesus’ submissive attitude after God heard His prayer. READ IT AND THEN MEMORIZE IT! Let’s see if i can quote it. “During the days of Jesus’ life here on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with LOUD CRIES and TEARS to the one who could save him from death. AND HIS PRAYER WAS HEARD BECAUSE OF HIS REVERENT SUBMISSION. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. And once made perfect (or complete). He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.”  (I’m not going to check for accuracy. That’s very close to the exact message in those three verses!) 

    What a submissive example for us to follow!

   Let’s pray, Heavenly Father, We all suffer losses, as Jesus did, in this life, but when we put our faith and trust in You, those losses become gains in glory (like Jesus gained for us). Thank you, God, for all our promises in Christ. We praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen.  

I Corinthians 2:9“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”

   To me, that means “to those who love Him enough to obey and trust Him”. Loving God is where we started these thoughts. Trusting, loving, and obeying are different actions, yet deeply connected. Let us determine to let God have his way, as Jesus did. 

How true when the hymnist wrote: 

“His power can make you what you ought to be.
His blood can cleanse your heart and make you free. 

His love can fill your soul, and you will see,
’twas best for Him to have His way with thee.”

I remind my friends the Scriptures say to pray and not protest our “leaders in authority”. I have always prayed for all our government leaders! Romans 14 and I Cor 8 highlight the need to be considerate of others’ consciences, even if your own conscience allows for greater freedom in areas of preference and liberty.

We learn from the past, don’t relive the past. It’s history! These are the moments we have to remind ourselves of SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES. Our future will always be in God’s hands!

In Daniel 6, we are told that Daniel raised his window and prayed toward his “power source”. It says two things: 1) Daniel prayed to his God as before, giving thanks. 2) And HIS ENMIES overheard DANIEL PRAYING and ASKING GOD FOR HELP. Other than that, what Daniel prayed for is speculative. My hunch is that he also prayed for his friends in the government, knowing them personally, while understanding their 70 years of exile were not completed as he prayed.

BOTTOM LINE: As with everything, our God-changed conscience (like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) needs to direct our thoughts, decisions, and our prayer requests. God will meet our physical, emotional, relational, and financial needs, regardless of any government we pray for and submit to on a daily basis. Christianity can live under and be active anywhere on earth, no matter where we live; submitting to any style government and its rulers. Yes, freedoms make it easier to be a Christian, yet I REMIND US that Christians are instructed to pray and submit. Exactly what Jesus, Stephen, James, and Paul did! Yes, IT COST ALL OF them their LIVES. We too, in the world we now live in, may experience a high cost! God is able to give us persevering strength to all of life’s challenges we face!

Read Isaiah 40:29-31. God gives strength to those who HOPE is IN THE lORD. Waiting is never easy, yet it’s exciting and rewarding to watch God work! We used to sing a hymn, “God will take care of you”. It’s still the truth!

I grew up in Iowa, the son of a preacher and teacher at the Midwestern School of Evangelism. I met Vikki at Bible Camp and loved music. The Sing for Christ Quartet was the first step into singing and sharing and eventually that would evolve into the Gateway Singers, which Vikki joined when we married. It was in Nashville, Tennessee July of 1974 when my life changed forever. I had a brain aneurysm which would result in paralysis and eventually through an accident in surgery, I lost the use of my good vocal cord. God has been good to us. We have continued to minister as half of the Gateway Singers and Coping with Crisis has evolved out of learning to find the blessings in the valley’s God allows. In 2017, Vikki was involved in an accident which resulted in her bottom legs being amputated. Because of God bringing us to and through our valley’s, our encouraging others to keep walking, keep trusting and keep praying, is what Relief Ministries and Coping with Crisis is all about. We have three grown children, fourteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Life is good but that is because God is good.

R eal

E ffective

L living

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E every

F amily

Ministries

DonHunt2@gmail.com

Relief Ministry is the ministry of Don & Vikki Hunt. Relief as an acrostic stands for,

Real effective living in every family.