12 December, 2007 - Busy time of the year

My apologies for not writing recently. Not only is it a busy time of year with the holidays and all, but add to that some additional medical issues, going back to work, blah, blah!!

I simply wished to say MERRY CHRISTMAS to to you all. Thank you for listening to Christian Mix Inet and supporting us with your prayers. I encourage you to study the Word and share the love of the season with everyone you meet. Sometimes just a "Hi" or a smile can make someone's day. With the stress of the season, your smile may be the only one they see.

Thank you God for giving us your son Jesus, so that we may see you someday!


22 November, 2007 - Thanks-giving as far as I'm concerned...

Note; The following is a letter to a father in Iraq. It is from his 23 year-old son who misses his dad terribly. Yet displays such strength and faith in Jesus for his comfort.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his for his friends"-John 15:13

I drove right past it this morning... Didn't even think twice about it at the time. You can't really. Not here. Not in Virginia, You'd never get anything done if you spent all your time thinking about what's happened around you. Now sitting in my nice warm house, all alone... I contemplate what this place was like back then. Life has its ironies. Death has more though I think. You ever stop and think about what it is you would die for?

Considering that none of us are granted more than one life here on Earth... this becomes one of the biggest things that defines what we hold to in our lives- is what we would make our deaths to be.

You see, I was driving back from Richmond after dropping off my Mom and Brother at the airport there and went right past a place called 7 Pines. Just up the road is a patch of farms called "Cold Harbor" A few miles to the south is Petersburg. They're places now. They were once ideas. Ideas about love. Idea maybe in the sense that it was a place where Men PROVED what they loved.

They all had there own reasons for joining the Army. And more than a few of them weren't the most noble kind of men. But on a hot summer day in 1864, 7,000 men showed their love for their country at Cold Harbor, by following an idiot's orders to charge head-on into certain death, and they didn't think twice about it. The assault failed outright, proved nothing except that a lot of people could get killed really quick for what they believed in.

I've got this image in my mind of what I would maybe be thinking if I was one of them... not that I'll ever know, I wasn't there... but still just the idea of seeing your officer, a man who sworn to lead you into battle... You hear the orders to advance, and you start walking. And before you even see the enemy, your enemy has seen you. 'Because he's smart. He's defending what he knows to be the most obvious path to his lines. And for some reason that I'll never figure out, my commander has NEVER done anything except the most obvious course of action.

So their cannon has opened up now, the solid shot comes in at as close to a flanking angle as is possible- the hope is that each and every shot will bounce a few times, and hit different groups of people as it goes. But at least the noise of that is enough to dull out the constant thudding of rifle shots hitting your comrades. Rifles accurate out to a half mile are being shot at you. You haven't a hope really. The fellow looking down his sight at you... he's maybe your age.

You grew up in a city. You worked factory jobs... you know how to forge iron. But this guy shooting at you- he doesn't live too far from here. Shooting has been a part of him since he was little. There is nothing he doesn't know about how put a .53 caliber lead slug into a target marching head on at him. Now it's getting nasty. People stop talking, your sergeants don't bother to give out orders anymore, ' the men they're talking to aren't living long to hear the end of the sentence-assuming the sentence can be finished.

Why you're still alive- you don't know... no one else in your company is with you. You have been taking this for what seems like forever, but it's hardly been 10 minutes. The artillery is shooting canister now. Kind of turns the cannon into a 1 gauge shotgun, overflowing with buckshot. You can't move any more. Not forwards, not backwards. Nowhere. Anyone who tries to run at all gets cut down as simply as if some invisible blades is constantly sighing over the ranks. Or what ranks? There was a division of us when this started right? 10,000 men maybe. Now it seems like no one is left... just a flag, nearly shot in half still blowing in the breeze and constant slow motion of hundreds of men, fighting for their lives to leave this awful piece of earth, to crawl, limp, find some relief from the inevitable death killing them left and right.

And then it hits you... and the world goes quiet. You stare up into the sky... but you're not sure what You are really seeing anymore... the lights are going out. I'd think to myself... "I've done all I can.... what was expected... what was ordered of me.... what "Duty" whatever that means... told me I should do. But I'll die right here in someone's field just the same.

I was shot down by someone who used to salute the same flag I did when I was a boy. And we might've even become the best of friends if this crazy war hadn't started? What difference is there between me and him? We both believe what we're doing is right, that
God would have us to defend Freedom- for him it's his home, his town, his friends, his world- for me it's the lives of those who've never been treated right one day their whole lives, but I can't make myself believe that he's a mean person...in fact I'm sure we both believe as sure as anything we're doing God's Will.

Could we both be so wrong? Or both be so right? The pain racked throughout me is unspeakable... my tears unending (oh how I'll miss seeing my pretty wife and seeing my kids grow up)... my last words, they're heard only by God...

But as my shattered heart stops beating... it all ends for me...all the pain I've ever had... it's gone, I've fallen asleep into the best dream I'll ever have- ' it doesn't end. I feel his nail-scarred hands holding me. You see, I gave my life for my "country"... but HE gave his life for ME. It probably seems like yesterday to him too. He volunteered for his assignment, and his Father knew, as certain as my C.O. did, that this would be a suicide mission.

My death was on the verge of being nearly meaningless....but his was quite the opposite. On a hill called Golgotha, Jesus proved what he'd spoken of for years. He'd lived his entire live saying "I love you" to everyone he met... now he had to let his life be ended to put an exclamation point on the sentence. And it was painful for him too. Jesus was there, hanging by all his weight on 3 nails, shoved through him and into a wooden cross- and he'd have been able to tell you if you ask him someday which trees that cross was made from, where the metal was forged from... ' he made it all, spoke it into existence. And the people that he created were using his own creation to cause him pain- but don't think we don't still do that today. SO as he died... the men that put him there... the soldiers who nailed him to that cross... and the crowd of people around jeering at the supposed "King of the Jews" ... they cast lots over his clothes, and he loved them too.

They weren't his enemy. Sin was. He knew those soldiers were simply doing as they were ordered and they were if only for the emptiness that life without God will bring to someone. He prayed for them... "Father Forgive them, For they know not what they do". Jesus saw two men get killed beside him. One mocked at him for his supposed stupidity, for not saving himself... "You claim to be God? Why don't you take yourself off that cross then?... " but the other man... he just asks... ."Lord, remember me... when you enter into your Kingdom..." and Jesus said to him.... "This very day you will be WITH me in paradise"... ..and not too much later... that battle was over. Finished forever. Jesus had paid the full price for everything wrong I have, am, or will do wrong... so long as I trust only in him for that.

If nothing unexpected happens, then on Monday I'll go back up to Richmond to pick up my mom and brother from the airport. And as I go up there, I'll still be thankful I hope... for people that would love me so much they gave their last breath for me... and forever more so... for Jesus, and the Salvation in him he gave me on that battlefield outside Jerusalem so many years ago. At the moment, this just seems to me like the clearest definition of what I could be most thankful for. Thank You Jesus.

Dad, I love you so much, I pray you will stay safe over there, and Thank You for your service to me and my country and most of all for showing me the love of Christ when I was young.

-Ben Hughes


15 November, 2007 - Subject to availability

"Forever O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations. You established the earth and it abides." - Ps. 119:89,90

Have you ever noticed the signs or statements that read "subject to change without notice" or "subject to availability"  You see these for schedules, statements, prizes, services, and products. The words in the verse above speak of the truthfulness, trustfulness, and stability of God's Word. His Word is settled, sure, secure, unchanging and it bides and endures forever.

An ad may that prices may change due to availability, or brands may differ, but you can count on the truth of the Lord's Word to remain true today, tomorrow, and forever. The Bible is solid, and the same trustworthy Word that you plan your life around and know it will work.

A poster may say, "flights are tentative" or "may change without notice". But God is the real deal. He is always up-to-date, current and relevent. One thing more, God is always on time. God's schedules do not change and by His predetermined plan, Christ will return at the exact right moment. Are you ready?

I went into a restaurant the other day and ordered an item from the menu. The waitress informed me that they no longer have that item. Isn't it wonderful to know that God's Word is never obsolete? The Bible has been faithful through time to the needs of man through every generation.

Have you picked up this precious book today to hear what God has planned for you today? His menu is never "sold out, subject availability, changed or substituted". It is always spiritually relevent. As much as this may sound like an advertisement for the Bible, it is. Pick it up today, read it, live it, learn from it. You will be so glad you did.



14 November, 2007 - You Can't Go Back

Your mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O LORD, You preserve man and beast. Psalm 36:5-6, NKJV


You can't go back; you can't go back to an old home town haunt; you can't  go back in time; you can't go back to innocence, you can't bring back a life. Left in the wake, I felt like one of those shards of old shell-unrecognizable, uncomfortable, ugly and old. What I wanted was to be whole. I wanted my children not to be broken. I wanted my sister to still be alive after a suicide many years ago, I wanted my son to still be alive after a suicide years ago,

I wanted my health back so I can work for a living, I wanted us not to feel like these shells. I look at the way things are financially right now and want to be able to pay my bills. I want my family to be restored. I wanted the pain to go away, and I wanted to not be considering the possibility of more surgery.

It is as if a I feel a cold wind bound to come; Another change, another end I cannot see, It sometimes feels like your faith is going up in smoke. But the Lord has been faithful. to me. He is making it all right. His Word assures us of that promise. I fall down on my knees in prayer; Please dear Lord, tell me that it's all right. I pray that you give me what I need. I feel like I have been knocking on heaven's door and not getting any answer. Have you forgotten about me?

But I remember that there is one thing I have learned in the past months. I have been  taught this, if nothing more, that it is all right, whatever  may come you promise in your Word that you are with me through it all. It may never be the same, but it will be all right.


11 November, 2007 - OVERFLOWING LIFE - Shadows and Staff

The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of life; Of whom shall I be afraid?" Ps. 27:1

Is your church on FIRE for the Lord? Does it stand for truth and against sin? Does your church worship and praise the Lord only on Sundays, and maybe a Wednesday night prayer meeting? As in our human hunger, our spiritual hunger is absolutely no different. We need to eat and drink some form of nourishment daily, or we will die. The Word says we need the 'Daily Bread' from the word - or we will die of sin.

Do the people in your church reach out to each other on a regular basis? I am not just talking about a weekly men's bible study, or a women's retreat every now and then. I am speaking of a full time ministry to feed us with our daily bread? If you were hungry for the Lord and need support or encouragement, as a believer, who can you call?

Yes, the answers are in the Word. We need to spend time with the Lord daily, constantly. We need to be on fire and pray that the Holy Spirit dwell in us every minute of our life here on earth. We have a responsibility to stoke our own coal for our fire. We need to be responsible for ourselves, to a degree.

But what about those times, days, weeks, that your plate is so full of stress and tribulation, that you are not sure if you are going to make it. We are promised in the Word that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But those times where we can't see it - what do we do? Those times where you can not swim - because you are too busy drowning.

Where is your safety net? It is not practical for a church to have a 24 hour crisis line. Your pastor has others to attend to also. Your friends might have a family event they are tied up with. There is no one to call! No one to hear your cry of "I AM HERE!"

That is where your wrong. There is where we fail in our own responsibility to take stewardship over the life that God has given us. Being a Christian requires your participation too. It is so hard at times to even pick yourself up from the depths of despair, to be reminded of the truth that Jesus Christ is your light! He has already paid the price so that you can live in the light. But Satan has put the blinders on you and hides your eyes from seeing Jesus.

So here is what you need to do. Find ways to remind you that Jesus Loves you. Buy little verse knick-knacks to spread around your house. Little scripture plaques with inspirational messages on it, out them everywhere. Print out your favorite scripture passages and hang them on your bathroom mirror. Don't make the "May the Lord bless this home" stop at your welcome mat.

I have Ps. 27:1 printed out and taped to my ceiling in my bedroom. It is the first thing I see when I open my eyes. "The Lord is my light and my salvation!" We use "ticklers" to remind us of appointments and special events. I don't know if people still tie a string around there finger to remind them of something they need to do. But we need reminders in our life everywhere we go, that Jesus loves us. He is our master, and our teacher. Through Him we can accomplish anything.

Place scripture passages on your screen saver. I have Isaiah 30:15 on mine. Fill your life with Christ! Listen to Christian music on the radio or the computer. Hey what a great idea? I have some cards from missionary friends that I pray for regularly, posted on the wall behind my computers screen. Those families were called to a life of of evangelism.

Tune into Christian Mix Inet while your researching what to do for your child's earache. Take the responsibility of feeding yourself also. The food is there. Your daily manna from heaven is everywhere. Make your homepage, the homepage for Christ. Set your standard for the day in a Christian believer tone. Wake up with Jesus, eat from the bread of life all day long. Feed yourself, so you can always have an abundance to share with others.

Being a Christian requires a response. Learn how to feed yourself. Yes, it is a responsibility for others to support, encourage you and support you. But if you look at Christianity and your life with Christ as a "team" effort, you all rely on each other to do their part, so you can do yours.

I would love to hear about ways that you pick yourself up when you fall. Is it that scripture on your keychain? How about that penny that is in your pocket with a cross punched in the middle of it. What reminders do you have so that you can feed yourself? Do you even know where your bible is right now?