The TIme is Coming

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east,searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it. ” Amos 8:11-12


When I read the opening line of this verse from God’s word I want to repeat the first four words over and over again. “The days are coming, the days are coming, the days are coming!” Back then they were words of warning and they still are as we approach the time in which Amos was talking about. Most people don’t appreciate a good famine because they’ve never had to deal with totally doing without anything. Just look around we are the first one to grumble if dinner is late an hour or if we have to skip one meal out of hundreds of meals.

Indeed only a certain number of people can tell you really what its like to experience such a thing. However, the famine Amos is warning us about is one that will affect everyone not just a selected few. His warning isn’t about the fact that the donut we usually like to eat with our coffee or the second helping we usually add to our meal won’t be there. He’s telling us about a more serious famine one that affects our spiritual well being for all eternity not just for a day or two.

Sadly enough a lot of people don’t realize what it would be like to do without such a thing. They feel they can live just fine without it. The fewer they hear those words like “Thou shall not kill, steal, or take someone else’s spouse or belongings,” the better. The less rules off the books to follow the better towards their freedom and fun.

Unfortunately the famine would not include just the commands to be obeyed and the guidance for living right it would include the promises of God too. Things like, “I will never leave you nor forsake you. I will be with you always. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, I have gone to prepare a place for you and I’ll return you unto myself,” and so much more.

The thought of reaching a time when there will be a famine of hearing the words of the Lord to me is a devastating thought. Sadly enough it’s a famine we have created ourselves that begins with little moments and grows into something bigger. Situations such as setting aside our Bible to read the newspaper, declaring it bad to read in school replacing it textbooks full of tinted half truths of history. Staying home from church to listen to what’s playing on TV instead of what God has to say through His word.

A few months ago our church did something for the very first time and it really came out with great results. Our pastor decided we needed to read the Bible through front to back without stopping. People signed up for all sorts of hours of the day and night to participate in this adventure. For those of us who knew this was going on it felt good to stop and pause and know that the Word of God at that very moment was being read some where. It didn’t matter what chapter or verse of the Bible they were on at the present time, it was just a comfort to know it was being read out loud.

As Amos warns us there will be a time when people will be scrambling to have that comfort or luxury back in their lives but they won’t find it. Instead of panning for gold from east to west they will be looking to hear the word of God only to discover that its gone, never to be found.

Oh people, this is one lie of Satan’s that we cannot fall for and that is the lie that “we don’t need the word of God” because we do. It’s the spiritual food needed to pack for our journey to Heaven. Plant it in your hearts, carry it in your minds, live by in your lives for the time is coming, the time is coming.


© 2010 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

What's It Going to Take

“A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s Truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.” ~John Calvin

In the front of my Bible I have a quote I once heard that reads, “People try to bury the Bible but it only rises up to outlive its pallbearers.” The Bible and God Himself throughout time have withstood many attacks. Each time they both rise to out live and out last their attackers.

Although the Bible and God don’t need us to help them stand we definitely need to speak up when the attacks are happening. To remain silent as John Calvin pointed out would make us a coward if we chose to remain unspoken. The purpose of speaking up is more for us than anything. It strengthens our spiritual growth and commitment to God. In order to be able to recognize God’s truth so we can speak up we need to know what His truth is in the first place.

We are way to vulnerable when it comes to believing everything we hear. We need to listen and go to God’s word for the truth. If we find a difference between what we are hearing and what God says we need to speak up. To assault God’s truth is to show aggression to the one we love, our Lord and Savior. To turn a deaf ear to what is being said is like turning a deaf ear to God.

We don’t need to start a rally on national television. It may or may not require shouting out loud at a town hall meeting but it requires speaking up and breaking the silence. Unfortunately we often feel safety in our stillness. We nobly turn over the responsibility to someone else who could say it better so we don’t have to.

We seem to follow what Abraham Lincoln once said, “Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.” If we know God’s truth as we should then we will never truly play the part of the fool. Satan and his attackers will try to get us to believe that but here again is where we need to stand up.

On the internet people will flock to a particular website that let’s them know if something they got in an email or heard elsewhere is true or not. They will go there in a heartbeat trusting what it tells them but how often do we flock to the Bible to search out God’s truth. Searching the Bible for God’s truth helps us to search our hearts for any lies that Satan may have planted deep within.

Frequently we hear someone quote something from the Bible, “Well the Bible says this or that.” When this happens we need to find it in the Bible and read it for ourselves. Not to prove anyone wrong but to know for ourselves the truth in God’s word. If what is quoted is wrong or twisted then stand up for it the next time the subject comes up, don’t remain silent. The job doesn’t belong to someone else.

To twist the truth of God’s word to fit our lives is an attack on God’s truth. We are the ones that need to be twisted to fit God’s truth not the other way around. We need to know it, live by, and stand up for it as Christ stood up for us. All it took as a kid was someone calling us a coward to get us to do something to prove them wrong. What is it going to take to get us to stand up and speak out for God’s truth?

What’s it going to take! We come equipped according to 2 Timothy 1:7-8 (NKJV), “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God.” What’s it going to take!


© 2009 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Manual Entry

August 19, 2008

Order my steps, in Your word. Order my tongue, in Your word. Guide my feet, in Your word. Wash my heart, in Your word. Show me how to walk, in Your word. Show me how to talk, in Your word.(refrain) I want to walk worthy, my calling to fulfill. Please order my steps, Lord, and I’ll do Your blessed will. The world is ever changing, but You are still the same. If You order my steps, I’ll praise Your name.~A hymn by Glen Burleigh~


If we listen close enough when we read this fine hymn from Glen Burleigh, we can hear an echo in the background from God Himself.

In My word I have ordered your steps, mouth, and heart.
Showing you how to walk and to talk.
The goal is for you to walk worthy my child, your calling fulfilled,
your calling made real.
With your steps that I’ve ordered My will can be done.
It’s accomplished through Jesus, Christ my Son.
The world is changing, but I am the same.
Your steps that I’ve ordered are like they originally came,
The same as they were for Saints of old
Such as Enoch, Moses, and Paul as they were told
Yes, I’ll order your steps, I’m happy to do
Your job is to get in them to use thoroughly through.

Praise the Lord that we just hit the jackpot on what the Bible is all about, the purpose of why it was written, and its goal. It’s there to guide us. It’s our owner’s manual, map, and encourager. Full of stories of people’s failures, successes, words of wisdom, warnings of stupidity, and steps of direction. Problem is it doesn’t come with its own CD in the back of the book that we can take out and plug in to download all the information into our heads and hearts. It still is and always be a manual entry.

Manual, Emmanuel interesting closeness to the two words. God with us. That’s all it takes is getting into His word to get the things needed to do His will, to walk as He walked, to guide our steps, mouth, and heart. Taking with us as we dive in to what He has to say the willingness to apply what we learn. A smorgasbord of information, the multi-vitamin of our soul that requires a manual entry on our part to take in and digest what God has to say and apply it thoroughly through in our lives. Our steps have been ordered. The question is “are we ready to walk the walk?” Join with me in listening for one more echo from my heart. A prayer I wrote once that suits us all:

Today Dear Lord

Today Dear Lord, I commit myself, soul, body, affairs, family, friends to Your care.
Mould me wholly into the image of Jesus as a potter forms clay.
Let no evil this day soil my thoughts, words, hands, nor heart.

May I view all things in the mirror of eternity, waiting for the coming of You my Lord.
As I listen for the sound of the last trumpet call.
May I speak each word as if my last utterance
and walk each step as if my final stride.
If my life should end today,
Let this be my best day.

I love You Father God,
Your daughter, Karen


Our host this week is Lori. I’ll shut up now so you can get over there and read and share at All You Have to Give with others on today's quote. Remember to into God's word and stay there!