Showing posts with label rewards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rewards. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Eat Your Food Zoe - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Eat Your Food Zoe

Now Think On This
Steve Martin


"Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach (Revelations 22:12-13, NASU)


Do you like to get a reward? Don’t you feel a bit more inspired to achieve something if there is a “carrot at the end of the stick”?

OK, for the young ones under 30 - you may not know what that old school saying means. So how about this one, “Do what I tell you to do and you will get an iPhone for your birthday.” Got it?

We have a dog. Her name is Zoe Girl Martin (full name on her pedigree papers). She is a Dachshund - a wiener do, a hot dog. And she is a bit overweight for being 10, or 70 years in human terms. (But don’t we all…)

Zoe likes to eat. Dog food. Human food. Any kind of food. I know, that isn’t the best for her, but when she looks at you with those beautiful brown eyes, and whimpers her sweet, sweet sounds, what can I say? A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Zoe - her Facebook profile photo from 5 years back. (Just kidding.)
She didn't want me showing yesterday's photo. Must be a girl thing.

What Zoe likes best, as I imagine all dogs do, are the treats. Give them a treat as a reward for being obedient and they do what you want them to do. They may not completely understand that doing what is good to do is good to do anyway, but dangling a treat in front of her helps her achieve the proper goal.

When there are times Zoe doesn’t necessarily like her same old, same old food for supper, we remind her of the treat she gets once her plate is all cleaned up. For her, nothing is better than a “rawhide” bone, or a real steak bone rarely (or medium rare) brought home from Longhorn Restaurant. (My favorite!)

Amazing how it works. When you are given the promise of a reward after a job well done, or obeying a command even when you don’t understand why, but know that the reward is worth the blood, sweat and tears, then you find the strength and courage to do it. Whatever it takes. Right? Say yes.

Your faith in the Person doing the promising gives you the hope and the will to press on.

“You who bring good news to Tziyon, get yourself up on a high mountain; you who bring good news to Yerushalayim, cry out at the top of your voice! Don’t be afraid to shout out loud!

Say to the cities of Y’hudah, “Here is your God! Here comes Adonai Elohim with power, and his arm will rule for him. Look! His reward is with him, and his recompense is before him.” Isaiah 40:9-10, Complete Jewish Bible)

“The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance; He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, so that men will say, "Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely He is God who judges in the earth." (Psalms 58:10-11, NKJV)

Max Greiner, Jr. artwork design (Look here.)

"Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach (Revelations 22:12-13, NASU)

Our Lord Jesus Christ promises us a reward. The one that counts in the end.

Even after He Himself lived, died, buried and rose again; even after He saved us, called us, and sends His Holy Spirit to be with us every day and everywhere, He STILL promises us a reward at the end of our time.

To put it another way, as does the well-known saying, “Such a deal.” It is the real deal.

What other encouragement do we need to hear, obey, do His will, and get the job done?

Be encouraged today. His reward here on earth and eternal life in heaven should be enough to spur you on until the end.

Now think on this,

Steve Martin
Founder
Love For His People, Inc.



P.S. I would be most grateful if you'd share this encouraging word with your family and friends. They might need it. You can easily use the social media icons below. Thanks! Steve

We are blessed when the ministry receives gifts to support the families that we do, primarily in Israel, Hungary, India, Pakistan and the hurting ones here in the USA. You also can share out of the abundance you have been given.

Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA humanitarian organization started in 2010 to share the love of the Father in the nations.


If these messages minister to you, please consider sending a charitable gift of $5-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us bless families we know in Israel, whom we consistently help through our humanitarian ministry. Your tax deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation. Fed. ID #27-1633858.

Click here for safe ONLINE GIFT GIVING THROUGH OUR WEBSITE using major credit cards: Love For His People. If you don't have a PayPal account you can also use your credit card or bank account (where available). 

Contribution checks can be sent to: 
Love For His People, Inc.  P.O. Box414   Pineville, NC 28134

Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.)
Please share Now Think On This with your friends.

Email: loveforhispeople@gmail.com  
martinlighthouse@gmail.com

Facebook pages: Steve Martin and  Love For His People  
Twitter: martinlighthous, LovingHisPeople 

Full website: Love For His People

Now Think On This - In the Year of our Lord 05.31.17 - #287 – “Eat Your food Zoe” – Wednesday, 4:30 am

All previous editions of Now Think On This can be found on this Blog, and on the website: Now Think On This


Again, I would be most grateful if you'd share this encouraging word with your family and friends. You can easily use the social media icons below. Thanks! Steve

Friday, May 26, 2017

Persistently Consistent - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Persistently Consistent

Now Think On This
Steve Martin


“Four things on the earth are small; nevertheless, they are very wise — the ants, a species not strong, yet they store up their food in the summer…” (Proverbs 30:24-25, Complete Jewish Bible)


We all have heard stories of the ants, of how they work and work and work. I can certainly attest to that. Living here in the South (southeastern part of the USA) over these past 30 years have presented many encounters with the red fire ants. These are the ones that when they bite you, you know it because it hurts. Then a short time later, small, red blisters cover your ankles or elsewhere on those parts of the body that were exposed. Sometimes they even get you under your socks, and then it is later that you feel their bite. Just great.

I have found a method that works for me, to rid my beautiful, weed infested yard of their hills. For if you don’t deal with them, you will have nice mountains of red clay all over your scenery. So what I found that works is this.

Step on the mound with your foot (shoe on of course) to flatten the mound out. This causes them to eventually move on to the neighbor’s yard. Or if the mound has already grown to be bigger than your foot, take a plank of wood, lay it on top, step on it, and then roll it over to smash the next section. Repeat as needed. Works every time! No pesticides. No hot buckets of water to carry. No bleach killing the rest of your lawn.

      
  
It must be said of the ant colonies – they are persistently consistent.


They never give up. They never give in. They keep on working even better than the Energizer bunny did. (Is he still around, or did his battery finally die out?)

One thing that I have found that also “works” in my Christian life, in order to be faithful in the small and the large, is to be persistently consistent in what I do. Then I trust, as He promised, that I will finish the race and get His reward. 

After all, who doesn’t like rewards? Even Zoe, our 10-year-old loving Dachshund, knows that if she consistently finishes her doggy supper she gets a rawhide bone! You can bet she likes rewards.

Zoe driving my Hyundai Elantra.

"If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won't be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you are not faithful with other people's things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?”
(Luke 16:10-12) New Living Translation

Want to know what are some things in the disciplined Christian life that pleases our Father in heaven? Seeing His children be faithful in prayer, spending time learning about His ways in His Written Word, and being the one who others can count on when a need is needing to be met.

If you learn to be persistently consistent in your doing, you shall obtain the reward, and help others achieve that objective also. 

Good servants of the Most High can be counted on, for they have learned to press on and not give up.

Now think on this,

Steve Martin
Founder
Love For His People, Inc.


P.S. I would be most grateful if you'd share this encouraging word with your family and friends. They might need it. You can easily use the social media icons below. Thanks! Steve

We are blessed when the ministry receives gifts to support the families that we do, primarily in Israel, Hungary, India, Pakistan and the hurting ones here in the USA. You also can share out of the abundance you have been given.

Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA humanitarian organization started in 2010 to share the love of the Father in the nations.

If these messages minister to you, please consider sending a charitable gift of $5-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us bless families we know in Israel, whom we consistently help through our humanitarian ministry. Your tax deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation. Fed. ID #27-1633858.

Click here for safe ONLINE GIFT GIVING THROUGH OUR WEBSITE using major credit cards: Love For His People. If you don't have a PayPal account you can also use your credit card or bank account (where available). 

Contribution checks can be sent to: 
Love For His People, Inc.  P.O. Box414   Pineville, NC 28134

Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.)
Please share Now Think On This with your friends.

Email: loveforhispeople@gmail.com  
martinlighthouse@gmail.com

Facebook pages: Steve Martin and  Love For His People  
Twitter: martinlighthous, LovingHisPeople 

Full website: Love For His People

Now Think On This - In the Year of our Lord 05.26.17 - #285 – “Persistently Consistent” – Friday, 12:47 am

All previous editions of Now Think On This can be found on this Blog, and on the website: Now Think On This

Again, I would be most grateful if you'd share this encouraging word with your family and friends. You can easily use the social media icons below. Thanks! Steve

Thursday, October 29, 2015

3 Mysterious Ways That God Might Be Speaking to You by Teresa Ward - Identity Network

3 Mysterious Ways That God Might Be Speaking to You by Teresa Ward

Identity Network

You may ask why God would use symbols and figures of speech to communicate with us. Why wouldn't He just speak plainly?

The answer is not entirely simple, but basically God uses things you understand to explain things you don't understand. He uses the physical realm to explain the supernatural spiritual realm.

To think that God does not continue to speak symbolically or metaphorically through dreams is to deny His nature throughout Scripture - from Genesis to Revelation. God uses symbols to reveal attributes and to cause you to apply your heart to understand. Did you know there are over 8,200 figures of speech used in Scripture? That is totally amazing to me! If we know that the Word of God is inspired by the Holy Spirit, then whenever symbolic speech is used in Scripture, it is on purpose and it means we should stop and take notice and learn something.

Metaphors

The entire Hebrew culture celebrates and communicates through symbolic expression in their feasts and their traditions, and even every letter of their alphabet is a symbolic picture of something! I personally believe metaphors and symbolic ways of communicating are God's preferred speech because we have to want to understand and we have to apply our hearts to understand. When we learn to think symbolically, we will discover all types of hidden treasures, not only in our dreams, but also in Scripture and in our everyday lives! You will begin to hear and see God communicating with you everywhere, every day when you begin to apply your heart to understand the meaning behind God's symbolic love language.

God says to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul and strength (see Deut. 6:5, 11:13, 13:3). How can we do that unless we apply our hearts fully to understand? When we have to gain an understanding of symbols or metaphors, it requires us to meditate and involve our minds, our wills, our experiences and our emotions - only then can we begin to understand what God is saying.

Parables

Dreams are often parables, allegories or even riddles that contain hidden treasure if we're willing to search for it. The condition of our hearts directly affects our spiritual insight and understanding. Are you distracted or captivated by the gift God may be giving you in your dreams? It may reflect the condition of your heart.

Jesus spoke in parables to the unbelieving because He wanted them to have to apply their hearts. He says:

"Therefore I speak to them in parables: 'Because they look, but do not see. And they listen, but they do not hear, neither do they understand.' In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says: 'By hearing, you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing, you will see and shall not perceive; for this people's heart has grown dull. Their ears have become hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I should heal them'" (Matthew 13:13-15).

Jesus goes on to bless those who listen and apply themselves to understand what He is saying. Notice, too, that He explained what the parables meant to the disciples who asked (those who want to know). To be a disciple means to study and follow Jesus. When He speaks symbolically, it means there is hidden treasure to be discovered, and those who search it out will find reward! (See Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9; Hebrews 11:6.)

Figurative Speech

E.W. Bullinger, who was a biblical scholar and theologian from England in the late 1800s, gives us the following for serious reflection in his book, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible:

"Applied to words, a figure denotes some form which a word or sentence takes, different from its ordinary and natural form. This is always for the purpose of giving additional force, more life, intensified feeling and greater emphasis. Whereas today, "figurative language" is ignorantly spoken of as though it made less of the meaning, and deprived the words of their power and force. A passage of God's Word is quoted; and it is met with the cry, "Oh, that is figurative"-implying that its meaning is weakened, or that it has quite a different meaning, or that it has no meaning at all.

But the very opposite is the case. For an unusual form (figura) is never used except to add force to the truth conveyed, emphasis to the statement of it, and depth to the meaning of it. When we apply this science then to God's words and to divine truths, we see at once that no branch of Bible study can be more important, or offer greater promise of substantial reward.

Bullinger goes on to say, referring to figures of speech, "no branch of Bible study can be more important: And yet we may truly say that there is no branch of it which has been so utterly neglected."

God is speaking to you today and desiring for you to find hidden rewards. Will you seek Him with all your heart, or will you squander your riches? It is my prayer that you will consider the condition of the soil of your heart and value how God may be communicating with you in dreams and also in everything around you. Apply your heart to understand what He may be saying, and you will be rewarded above and beyond all you can ask or even possibly imagine (see Eph. 3:20; Heb. 11:6).

Teresa Ward



Saturday, February 8, 2014

Get the Gold! - Now Think On This (Steve Martin)



“Get the Gold!”


“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.” (Matt. 6:19-21, The Message)


I love the Olympics! Be it the winter or summer games, I enjoy watching all the nations’ athletes walk in for the opening ceremonies, all dressed in their colorful and smartly dressed uniforms (as my Brit friends would say) and cultural garments, waving their flags and their hands to the crowd, as they proudly represent their countries. It is a great sight of unity among the people, and the hosting country always puts on a fascinating show. Russians, Chinese, Americans, Europeans, Asians and more have all hosted the grand celebration of completion among athletes. I commend them for it.

It amazes me each time a new country is represented that I have never even heard of, or a country is in the games for the first time. Especially the lone athlete carrying his flag by him or herself. I hope they do well and make new friends. They certainly have worked hard to get there too.

Training and coming together through teamwork, in preparation for the honor of their country and their sport, has been the foundation built on for the competition. It certainly brings out the best. The goal of standing on the podium after their event is completed, holding onto the precious metal of gold, silver or bronze is a grand sight, as their home flag is lifted and their national anthem is played.

As a former athlete myself, in middle and high school, I understand a measure of the effort it certainly takes for these competing. To spend hours, days, months and even years preparing; and then to give it all you have at that specific moment in time, when you have a few minutes to excel in an individual event, or as your teams goes through the bracket toward the championship game, is quite the effort. May they all do well, and accomplish their heart’s desire.

I am chasing gold too. Mine isn’t made up of the earthly metal, but it is being stored up as an eternal reward, to fit on my head as a crown. The King Himself, Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ) will be giving them out. And then we will participate in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb ceremony too. That will indeed be a "crowning moment" for those who have received His salvation through His shed blood. It will be a joyous occasion, as much perseverance and running the race He has given us while in our human body has been accomplished. I look forward to sharing that eternal time with those I have walked with, and those who I will meet for the first time.

While our time remains here on this planet, our hearts are to be set on stockpiling treasure in heaven, as The Message Bible puts it in terms we certainly understand. Laying up those crowns prepared for those who have followed in His plans and purposes will be the award, along with the eternal realm of heaven itself. This is not just a dream or fairy tale, but it is reality. Our labors here on earth are to be for eternal, not just temporal, achievements. My heart and yours must be set on that purpose.

Enjoy the Olympics as you can. Celebrate with the victors as they raise their hands and winning metals in triumph, knowing that your reward, being stored up in heaven, is a treasure worth living for in this time we have been given. This too is a shadow of things yet to come, for those who know the Lord Jesus.

Now think on this,

Steve Martin
Love For His People
Founder



Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA humanitarian organization started in 2010 to share the love of the Father in the nations.

If these letters minister to you, please consider sending a charitable gift of $5-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us bless known families in Israel, whom we consistently help through our humanitarian ministry. Your tax deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation. Fed. ID #27-1633858.

Go here for safe ONLINE GIFT GIVING THROUGH  OUR WEBSITE using major credit cards: Love For His People If you don't have a PayPal account you can also use your credit card or bank account (where available). 

Contribution checks can be sent to: 

Love For His People, Inc.  P.O. Box414   Pineville, NC 28134
Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.)


Please share this Ahava Love Letter/Now Think On This with your friends.