Volume 19, No.7

JULY 2004

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CONTENTS

Broken Things

Surrender

Hugs 'N Tugs
By Wendy Greiner Lefko

The Best of Lifeline 
By Rev. Larry W. Greiner

The Archangel

Kindness

Drinking Deeply

The Kneeling 
Saint

Spiritual Gifts

Justice & Judgment

Praise & Prayer

Greiner Itinerary

 

                                      

BROKEN THINGS

Broken homes, broken hearts, broken bodies, broken hopes, broken health, broken vows, broken lives—what sadness in those words!  But this is merely the course of nature.  Broken things suggest accidents and calamities.  We associate them with disappointments and failure.  But all these “tragedies” are known to God, and He can bring out of those broken fragments something far better, more beautiful, more enduring than that precious thing which was broken at our feet.

With the Lord there are no calamities.  God knows no disappointments.  He knows all things from the beginning, and nothing that happens surprises Him.  Knowing everything from the beginning, He has planned that every broken piece in the lives of His own children will fit in somewhere in the complete portrait of His eternal counsel and will.  

Someone has said, “The narrow straits always lead into the wide, wide ocean.”  The Lord deals with us in that way.  The things we thought were the greatest trials and tragedies later we find to be God’s way of bringing us something better.  We think broken things are a loss, but God turns them to gain.   In nature, broken things are cast aside; but in grace, God will never use a man until he is broken.

              —M.R. De Hann, Broken Things

SURRENDER  

Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys.  I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting.  I come trembling, but I do come.  Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival.  Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious.  Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

                —A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God  

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HUGS 'N TUGS

By Wendy Greiner Lefko

“No….no….no!”  Some days it seems that’s all I say.  “No, you can’t play outside when you’re sick.”  “No, you can’t have ice cream at 10:00 in the morning.”  “No, we can’t call you Cinderella instead of Grace from now on.”  I try to be positive rather than negative, but granting many of the requests would range from being foolish to outright neglectful.  Recently I found myself lecturing some less than submissive attitudes about accepting the “no” answers they didn’t want to hear.  I had to reinforce the principle that we as parents know and see things they don’t and our negative responses have a reason behind them that only has their well being and best interest at heart.  I tried once again to remind them that all we do as parents is out of complete and utter love for them.

So I was particularly challenged and humbled when only a short while later I found myself getting “no” answers of my own from my Heavenly Father.  I was dismayed to find myself reacting with the same immaturity of a child that wants his or her own way, and wants it now.  I wasn’t practicing what I preached.  I didn’t have the submissive attitude I expected from my own children. Though my head knew my Heavenly Father knows what is best for me, my heart didn’t want to hear it.  I saw in myself the same self-centered, spoiled attitude I was trying to teach my children not to have.  In bringing requests before the Lord, I was less than accepting with His responses.  But my Heavenly Father graciously held a mirror up to my heart, bringing to mind my reprimand to my own children to show me how far I had to go in learning to be Christ-like.

When Paul prayed for the Lord to remove his thorn in the flesh, the Lord said “no,” but reminded Paul that His grace was sufficient for him. Paul responded by “delighting” in hardship.  It is not wrong to bring our requests before the Lord. In fact He takes great joy when we bring our desires to Him.  Even Jesus asked the Father to “take this cup from Me,” but then surrendered to the Father’s perfect will.  When we receive a “no” response from the Lord, we need to  change our prayer to that of Christ’s, “Yet not as I will, but as You will.”  The Lord loves to shower us with blessings, but we need to remember that “no” can be motivated by an even deeper love. He only has our best interest at heart. “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” (Matthew 7:11).

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THE BEST OFLIFELINE

By Rev. Larry W. Greiner

A twelve-year-old Chinese girl was a pupil in a mission school. One day, her parents came to her and said she must now earn her living and must go to a city thirty miles away to work in a heathen home.  The girl came to the room of the missionary to say good-bye. Quietly, she said, “I shall be the only Christian in that city.”

“Yes,” replied the missionary, “but you know who is going with you, don’t you?”  “Oh, yes,” said the girl, her face lighting up with joy, “the Lord Jesus is going with me!” Several months later, two men walked the thirty miles to the mission school. They told the missionary that they had been sent to ask that some one come to their city to teach them about Jesus and to start a school. Several times missionaries had tried to get permission to work in that city, but always they had been denied.  Now, the missionary asked, “Why do they want us to come to the city now?”  The reply was, “A little girl, twelve years old has come to our city.  She says that she is a Christian. Every one who visits the home where she works has noticed her happy face, and her kind, gentle manner.  When they question her, she always replies, “It is because I love Jesus and Jesus loves me, and is always with me.”  Then the man said further, “We want the other girls in our city to be like that Christian girl.  Won’t you send somebody to tell us about Jesus and start a school?”

A hostile city in China was opened to the Gospel message because one twelve -year-old girl witnessed for Jesus with her lips and with her life!  If you are a young person seeking to be a witness for Christ, don’t let anyone discourage you from sharing your faith. 

The Apostle Paul said to young Timothy, “Let no one despise you because you are young.”   Obey the great commission and God will use you to bring lost souls into the family of God.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”  (Matthew 5:16)  

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THE ARCHANGEL

Yonder he stands at military attention before the throne of God in Heaven.  From out eternity he has stood.  At the dawning of the week nearly two thousand years ago, there came from the voice of God an imperial command: “Go.”
      The archangel turned and swept from before the throne, over the parapets and the embattlements of Heaven, and out amid the stars, planets, moon and the sun, he moved down, down, down to a newly made grave on Olivet’s slopes in Judea.  He rolled away the stone and, robed in the dazzling light of the presence of God, took his place upon the stone, by the empty tomb, and waited to announce to the first anxious comers that Christ had risen.  When this glad tiding was announced, he returned to his heavenly place.  There he stands today.
          One day—a day known only to the Father—there will come another command: “Go.” Again that archangel will sweep out to the outer heavens, followed by the risen, living, now returning Son of God and all the spirits of just men made perfect.  In yon outer heavens the trumpet of victory, the trumpet that ushers in our Year of Jubilee, will sound.  The body of every saint of all the ages will be resurrected; and, as they come sweeping up, they will be joined by the changed, transformed bodies of all the saints yet alive on the earth, and together all of God’s redeemed of all ages will be gathered in that glorious resurrection morning at the sound of the archangel’s trumpet of victory unto the Lord Jesus in the air. 

—Dr. Augustus Ayes, Sword of the Lord

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He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. —Jim Elliott

KINDNESS 

I have wept in the night
For the shortness of sight,
That to somebody’s need made me blind;
But I never have yet
Felt a twinge of regret,
For being a little too kind.

--Anonymous

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RESOLVED, never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.   —Jonathan Edwards

DRINKING DEEPLY  

Drink deeply, flow freely.  Those four words come close to summarizing the whole of the Christian life.  And their order can’t be violated: To be able to flow freely requires that we first be drinking deeply.

Are you drinking deeply, child of God? I didn’t ask if you were studying your Bible, or praying, or serving, but something far more important: Are you allowing your raging thirst to be slaked at His waters?  Are you pressing on to know firsthand His ravishing beauty, His loving heart, and His eternal ways?

“My principal enjoyment,” wrote Henry Martyn, a missionary to the Muslim world two hundred years ago, “is the enjoyment of His presence.”

 —Dwight Edwards in Releasing The Rivers Within.  

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THE KNEELING SAINT

William R. Newell says kneeling is a good way to pray because it is uncomfortable.  Daniel prayed on his knees.  Jim Elliot said, “God is still on His throne, we’re still His footstool, and there’s only a knee’s distance between!”  He also said, “That saint who advances on his knees never retreats.”  

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SPIRITUAL GIFTS  

 A young schoolboy was trying out for a part in the school play.  His mother knew that he had set his heart on it, though she was afraid he would not be chosen.   On the day the parts were awarded, she drove to school to pick him up.  The young lad rushed up to her, eyes shining with pride and excitement.  Then he said some words to her that should remain a lesson to us all: “I have been chosen to clap and cheer!”  In the same way, God has lovingly chosen each of us for different and special tasks.

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“Father, make my roots deep, and my knowledge of Your trustworthiness unshakable.   I travel well in the warm sunshine.  Dear God, make me a better rough weather traveler.”—Randy Becton

JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT

“Clouds and darkness are round about Him” (Psalm 97).  When Lincoln had been assassinated, and word of the tragedy came to New York , “the people were in a state of mind which urges to violence.” A man appeared on the balcony of one of the newspaper offices, waving a small flag, and a clear voice rang through the air: “Fellow-citizens!  Clouds and darkness are round about Him!  His pavilion is dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies!  Justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne!  Fellow-citizens, God reigns!” It was the voice of General Garfield.

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Thou art a Sea without a shore,  
Awsome, immense Thou art—  
A Sea which can contract itself  
Within my tiny heart.

             —Frederick W. Faber  

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 PRAISE & PRAYER

·     Praise for more than 25 commitments made for Christ on a recent Sunday morning.

·     Praise for the new laptop computer.  Claire has been using it especially to work on the web page.  Our deepest thanks to you who have made it possible. Praise for Claire’s continued improvement. More chemo is scheduled in the coming days. 

·     Praise and Prayer for Bob’s Korean youth ministry.

·     Prayer for upcoming Bible Conference ministry.

 

Beloved friends and co-laborers for Christ,

Summer has always been an exciting time of year for our family.  Though we have had to curtail some of our activities this year, due to illness, we are grateful for the opportunities before us. Our thrust at Montrose Bible Conference will be “Leaving a Godly Legacy.”   Lord willing, our entire family will be participating. Sharing in the three-generation messages will be Claire, Larry, Bob and Bobby.  

Thank you for your love, prayers and support. God bless you richly.

Gratefully pressing toward the mark,

“The Greiners”  

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GREINER ITINERARY

        

June  26-July3 Dallas Greiner’s mission trip to Matamoras, Mexico  

July 4       Keswick  Concert 

July 10-17  Ruth and Claire’s 50th Wedding Anniversary & Greiner Reunion

July 25    Living Hope Community Church, Lancaster, PA

  August 1   Pineville Chapel (Larry & Sharon), Pineville, PA

 August 14-20   Montrose Bible Conference 

Bob’s Korean ministry every Friday & Sunday

                                                                                                                     

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