BACK                                                                                                                                                                      NEXT
YOUR SOTERIA® AT WORK THE STORY Of SOTERIA® {so-tay-ree’-ah} Greek for SALVATION, DELIVERANCE, & HEALING PERMENANT! Can’t wait until Thanksgiving? Christmas? Love those times of year when family is focused on each other and food. For a short while we become interwoven more than any other time of the year. Intimacy and fellowship seem to ooze out of our core being and the spirit of giving just can’t be held back. We begin this season with a horrific display of ghouls, ghosts, and goblins, along with witches, jack-o-lanterns, and many other supposedly creative applications of celebratory revelries of the fall festival. Never mind the entire concept of Halloween is steeped in the origin of death worship and demonic conjuring of evil to prevail upon us. It has become “normalized” because Wal-Mart and every other retail organization has delved into a blinding effect of necessity in order for parents to have approval by the peer pressure of little children. Our society has become a product of marketing mania as I watch and see all the Christmas commercials begin and the aisle of every store already jammed with holiday cornucopia. And we, well we just play along as though we tethered to the absolute rule that you must buy into all the hype if you are going to be able to even show your face in public if you don’t. Make the house pretty, cook the dickens out of your oven, and resurrect ginger out of the mad professor spice closet that you only use once each year. Make sure you’ve predetermined where you’ll spend the holiday sheet-tugging and chill-giggling nights and make sure all reservations are made to the delight of loved ones who can’t wait to see what wrap and wrangle you managed to think of this year to get them. Yes folks it’s that time of year again. Seems it was only yesterday we had the smell of ham, dressing turkeys, and snoring victims of L-Tryptophan overdoses lingering all around the living room as echoes of bowl games collided across the television channels. The falling leaves and the falling temperatures matching up to the soaring credit card debt and roaring fires are the quintessential part of American tradition. Did you ever wonder what God thinks about all this? Did you ever stop to think about how much He must wonder if we will ever get it? I mean, if we were to Love one another and treat one another all year like we do during these few weeks, what would America be like then? Can you imagine having lights for all seasons and time off each set of four months just to be with family, give each other gifts, give extravagantly to the poor, and give thanks just for what we have instead of striving and fighting to obtain what we don’t? What if every four months we celebrated the birth of salvation for all mankind and began to actually live like we are saved from our sins and from each other’s trespasses? Can you imagine how the store fronts would change and the cityscapes would maneuver all the pizzazz and passion of each season to our liking? A week off every four months plus vacation! Wow. Wonder how the hospitals would survive if we actually lost 50% of the stress in America and we curbed the necessity to drink and smoke simply because we had more scheduled fun instead of forced fun in cramped little compartments of time called weekends. I just can’t imagine what kind of blessing an almighty God would be able to pour out upon a nation that spent four times as much effort and energy to recognize His son than ever before. What means of enjoyment would we encounter if evil had one fourth the ability to move and splinter a nation from each other’s loving arms during the course of each year? How much longer would we have to live with children and grandchildren close by to our feet and our con’t... OCTOBER 2005 © Soteria Ministries 2003 EDITION 3 Vol. 10 Our SOTERIA At Work is a monthly publication to inform and enlist everyone to work out their Salvation by Loving others and living a disciplined life unto CHRIST! WORD FOR THE MONTH - HIS BANNER Psa 60:4 Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah. Sgs 2:4 He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me [was] love. Isa 13:2 Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. \ something lifted up, standard, signal, signal pole, ensign, banner, sign, sail a) standard (as rallying point), signal b) standard (pole) c) ensign, signal My banner is Love and it is forever flying over you. Raise up your standard to match the one I have given you. Come unto me as my friend and as a servant to my friends. Let them see me in you and you will see me in them. We are one as I am one. This is my sign unto you these days, to be waved before the nations, to be a signal of my coming!
 

BACK                                                                                                                                                                      NEXT