Daily Manna from Heaven

CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED?

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up again, O Virgin Israel.” Jeremiah 31:3-4

Can you relate to the following? A husband and a wife come together in marriage and celebrate their love. Nine months later a son is born. They name him Jezreel but call him Jesse for short. Don’t think that children always bring you closer together. In many cases children put stress on a marriage, and that’s what happened with this couple. The husband was preoccupied with his work and he and his wife began to drift.

Eventually a second child was born–a little girl with dark eyes and the features of her mother. But things are no better. Relationships are strained, communication is difficult, and intimacy is gone.
Then what the husband had suspected in his darkest moments becomes evident. His wife is seeing another man. He’s sure this time because she is pregnant and he is not the father of the child.

Now, he faces the most difficult decision of his life. Should he tell her, “Get out; you have betrayed my trust, you have darkened my name, you are not fit to be my wife”? He thought about it, that’s for sure; but instead, for whatever reasons, he chose to stand by her. And though it was not easy, he decided to be a father to the unborn child whom he called “Lo-Ammi,” which in Hebrew literally means, “Not mine!”

After the baby comes, the wife, Gomer, is gone more and more. Some nights she doesn’t come home at all. Can you imagine how Hosea must have felt, answering the tough questions? As the older children knelt to say their prayers at night they asked, “Daddy, where’s Mommy? When is she coming home?”

The story which I have just related is as current as the tabloid on the newsstand, or the soap opera on television, but actually it took place 2600 years ago. You can read about it in the Old Testament book of Hosea.

Broken homes, broken promises, and broken hearts are not new. They are as old as human nature itself. If Hosea and Gomer were alive today we might well describe their marriage as one suffering from burn-out, a new term to describe an old problem.

Marriage burnout is a condition which exists when a marriage suffers from stress, busyness, and wrong priorities. In chess when you are confronted with a stalemate, you just can’t move, but in marriage when you have a stale-mate, you are in big trouble. Burnout is a prelude to the devastating consequences of a broken home and a broken heart.

When the fire goes out of romance, can anything be done? In the story which I related, Hosea kept his marriage together by a gargantuan effort on his part to reconcile and to bend in humility.

Long ago, God gave the Ephesians a formula to restore their love for him. The same three words apply to a marriage which has grown cold and mechanical just the same. Those three words are 1. REMEMBER. 2. REPENT. And 3. RETURN. Why not first repent, then remember and return? When our love grows cold and our hearts grow hard, we need to remember to let our emotions remind us of what things used to be and what they can be again.

Repenting means changing our minds, doing an about-face, overcoming the stubbornness which contributed to the problem, and finally returning to the way we once lived.

**“The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted.  Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited.  Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”**

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“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” Psalm 40:2

When you are in a pit, and it is so dark that the only time rays of sunlight filter into your prison is at high noon, you don’t play games with God. You don’t tell him what a nice person you are, or how much you have done for His cause. You go one-on-one with God, pleading your case, asking Him to intervene for you.

Today—at least in most civilized countries of the world—we no longer take people and place them in pits, but in ancient days, it was done. You may remember the Old Testament story of Joseph who angered his brothers, who then cast him into a pit and later sold him into slavery. Old Jeremiah was cast into a slime pit when his prophecies angered the king (See Jeremiah 38). Go to the remains of the House of Caiaphas, the high priest who condemned Jesus, and at St. Peter’s in Gallicantu, as it is now known, you will see a kind of pit, a hollowed out limestone cavern where Jesus was kept while the council of the Sanhedrin was summoned.

The pits that we often find ourselves in today are more psychological—depression, anger, inadequacy, worry, addiction—something that you just can’t break out of, something that keeps you in darkness, something which you feel has swallowed you and from which you will never escape. Have I said anything in the last minute that strikes a responsive chord in your life?

I am thinking of some of the letters which come to our office from people just like you—people with education and culture, people who married with the greatest hopes but now live with the most desperate fears, people who believe that God at one time did answer their prayers but now wonder where He is and why He doesn’t deliver them.

Whether or not David was actually in a pit is uncertain, but he talked about pits more than any other Bible character. Emotionally and spiritually, he was “in the pits” more than a few times. For example, consider these words—all of which came from the lips of David:

• Since they hid their net for me without cause and without cause dug a pit for me, Psalm 35:7

• He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand. Psalm 40:2

• They spread a net for my feet–I was bowed down in distress. They dug a pit in my path–but they have fallen into it themselves. Psalm 57:6

• “I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength” (Psalms 88:4, KJV).

• You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Psalm 88:6

Sometimes David blamed God for the circumstances which put him into a pit, something which we often do today; but always David credited God with being the one who gave him deliverance from the pit. God is still the deliverer who can take us from the pit and put our feet on solid rock.

Question: Would you admit to needing help in getting out of the pit? You’ve tried and tried and failed. Why not ask His help? There’s no need to strike a bargain with God, or to say politely, “Look, if you do this for me, here’s what I’ll do for you.” Just tell Him what your need is and then trust Him completely. The man or woman who has been delivered from the darkness of the pit has been through a life-changing experience. You’ll never, ever be the same again.

*The above article is wriiten by Dr. Harold Sala. Permission to publish is hereby granted by Guidelines, Inc.*

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Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” Hebrews 13:5-6

Forget about climbing Everest or Anapurna, or bicycling through the Sahara desert. “God, just help me to get through this day.” If that’s how you feel, you aren’t alone. You’ve got lots of company. But when you really are under a heavy load, frankly you aren’t much concerned about the passenger three cars down from you, you want help with your load—now. That’s the way it is in life.

But God knows that. When Paul wrote to families in the Greek city of Colosse, he told them that, whenever he prayed for them. In this prayer he asked that they would be (here it is) “strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that [they might] have great endurance and patience, and joyfully give thanks to the Father…” (Colossians 1:11-12). Talk about something practical! Think about it for a moment. He didn’t ask God to remove their burdens, but rather to strengthen them with His power so they could have endurance and patience, and—oh yes, one more thing—give thanks to the Father.

Talk about practical guidelines for living! You have them right here in Paul’s prayer. Human nature being what it is, we usually ask God to remove the burden—the difficulty of finding help for your children while you work, the boss who is a “pain in the neck,” the challenge of making ends meet because there is too much month at the end of the money.

“God, change my circumstances,”we usually ask, thinking that if He comes through by taking away our problem, we will be happy and joyful. Not so, according to Paul’s perspective. “God,” he really prayed, “strengthen them with your power… so they can have endurance and patience…and even learn to be thankful in the process.”

Perhaps you recall the very touching incident in the Olympics of 1992 involving a British athlete by the name of Derek Redmond. In the semi-finals of the 400-meter sprint, Derek tore his hamstring, then collapsed in a heap on the track. Immediately it was all over for him. For a moment he lay there, stunned and in great pain. Slowly, he got to his feet and began dragging himself towards the finish. There was no chance of his being competitive. Why not quit?

Then his father, thinking that his son was trying to get off the track, came out of the stands and ran to his son. Then putting his arm around his son started to help him leave. But, no, Derek Redmond wouldn’t quit. Half walking, half crawling, he dragged himself towards the finish to the thunderous applause of the crowd.

I often think that is the way God’s Holy Spirit responds to our needs when we resolve that by His grace and strength, we will trust Him to take us through the problems confronting us.
Some, unwilling to face the test, do quit. But when you reach out for the Father’s hand, you will feel His strong arms around you, helping you to not only get through the day but to go on and finish the course. Yes, God, give us patience and endurance and help us to learn to thank you for your strength and help. Give us stronger backs and greater resolve, but most important of all, help us to trust you for the strength that we lack. Help us to walk through the darkness realizing we are not alone but that you walk with us, even when we cannot feel your hand.

There are times, friend, when you have to trust the Father’s heart even when you cannot see His hand or feel His presence. Long ago, Jesus gave His promise, “’Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we may say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5-6).

** “The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited. Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”**

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But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’’ Luke 12:20

One of the illusions that we live with is that there is always plenty of time later on, so we procrastinate, full of good intentions, thinking that we’ll do that later. Take for example the secretary who worked for many years for the Eastman Kodak Company. She never married. Her nieces and nephews were very special to her. When Dick was struggling to get through college and seminary, she sent checks quite often. He was the son she never had, and when he went overseas as a missionary, her love and respect for him and his lovely wife only increased.

Each year as part of her salary package, she was given stock, and those were the years when the Kodak Company was growing and expanding. “You hang on to that stock,” people told her. “It will be worth a lot someday.” They were right, too. And at her death, she really wanted some of that stock to go to her nephew along with other members of the family. She thought she had lots of time to eventually draft a will. But she was wrong. Felled by illness, she quickly lost strength and life failed her.

How much did the family receive? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The state stepped in and froze her accounts and since there were no direct relatives, her estate was claimed by the government.

Good intentions just aren’t enough. The nephew who became a pastor of a large, thriving church was reminded of that truth a second time. Adjacent to the church property was a large empty lot owned by a businessman who attended the church. “Pastor,” he used to tell Dick, “I want the church to have that property for future expansion.” No one doubted his good intention. But he never told his attorney, or never signed the deed which would pass that property on to his church.

W\hen he suddenly dropped dead of heart failure, his good intentions were quickly forgotten.
Zora was much the same way. This little lady never married and had no family, but she had inherited property which eventually became quite valuable. She supported her church and sent small checks to Guidelines. When she learned what we were doing, she kept telling her best friend. “I want to include that organization in my will. I’ve got to get down to my attorney and include Guidelines in my will.”

You guessed it. Again good intentions fell short of accomplishment. Here’s a rule of thumb to follow: “Do your givin’ while you’re livin’ so you’re knowin’ where it’s goin’.” At least, make the decisions regarding your estate, the ones which you want to take place at your death, now.

“Just a minute,” you may be thinking. “I’d prefer not to think about that.” Of course. Who wouldn’t? The American humorist Mark Twain said that he wished he knew where he was going to die because he would never go near the place. Obviously.

A wealthy industrialist who was suffering from tuberculosis left his home and had his chauffeur drive him west where he came into a little town in the desert. Pulling up in front of the general store, he lowered his window and addressed several of the men sitting in front of the post office. “What’s the death rate out here, Gentlemen?” he inquired. Looking at the large Cadillac and the driver in the front seat, they knew this man had money. But that wasn’t the issue. One man cleared his throat and replied, “Same as it is back where you came from. Just one to a person.” It’s still true.

The Bible says it is appointed unto men once to die but after that comes the judgment. May God help us to live with eternity’s values in view and consider that we have a gift from God which eventually must be left behind.

**“The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited. Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”**

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For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:2

On his sickbed prior to his death, the English preacher, Charles Spurgeon, said, “If you do not wish to be full of regrets when you are forced to lie still, work while you can. If you desire to make a sickbed as soft as it can be, do not stuff it with mournful reflections that you wasted time when you were in health and strength.” I suppose it is only natural that when you get to the place Spurgeon described, you have some regrets. You can no longer climb that mountain or swim the lagoon. Neither can you jump stairs two at a time or run and leap across the meadow.

But that’s not what Spurgeon had in mind. What he was talking about was coming to the sunset of your life, then looking back realizing you took the wrong road and wasted a lot of your years.
To insure that you will have no regrets, put into operation the following four guidelines which can make a tremendous amount of difference.

Guideline #1: Do it now. Don’t wait until you retire to start that hobby, or the trip, or to get busy remodeling the house, or… (are you ready for this?) get into the shoebox in the closet and sort out those letters you wrote to your old girlfriend before you were married—the ones you would just as soon your children didn’t read after you are gone. I’m also suggesting that you make peace with your enemies and get rid of the bitterness which has made enemies out of friends.

Guideline #2: Plan it now. OK, there are some things that you can’t do now, things that take preparation and planning—that fishing trip with your boys, the anniversary weekend you kept promising your wife, the retirement program you have been intending to eventually set up. Good intentions are not enough. A dream, said someone, is a goal with a timeline attached.
By the way, put to rest that notion that there will be plenty of time later. You can’t broker your future. As she lay dying, Queen Victoria, the British monarch, is said to have cried, “My kingdom, my kingdom for an inch of time.” I’m amazed at the number of people who have no written will outlining what they want done with their assets which, by default, often go to the government or pass into the hands of those who will little appreciate them or use them as the donor would have wanted.

Guideline #3: Say it now. That teacher who so influenced your life. You’ve always been intending to find her and tell her how much you appreciated what she did. You’ve also been intending to tell your dad how much you do love him, something which just doesn’t come easy because of a broken home. Don’t wait. Say it now.

Guideline #4: Live it now. Make your peace with God now, not when you are on a deathbed. “Deathbed conversions are seldom real,” said Matthew Henry long ago, adding, “and true conversions are seldom made on the deathbed.” Writing to the Corinthians, Paul penned these strong words: “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”

There are times when hard-working, thoughtful people ignore God until they are felled by a stroke, or a massive heart attack, and they find it difficult to do much straight thinking.

Don’t wait until you are faced with the final exam to start cramming for the test. Find out what the Bible says about making peace with God so when you stand at the door of God’s heaven and knock, your knees won’t be making more noise than your knuckles. Good advice to make your sick bed softer.

**“The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited. Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”**

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Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea, and it will be done” (Matthew 21:21).

Doug Coe not only believes that God answers prayer. He is so sure of it that he bet $500 on it. Here’s how it happened. Bob Hunter, a friend of his and a baby Christian, was searching to find out how prayer works. One day he asked his friend, Doug, “Do you really believe what the Bible says about moving mountains when we pray?” Doug thought about it and then answered, “Sure.” “Do you mean to say that you believe that if I prayed for a mountain to move, that it would move?” asked Bob. The conversation went back and forth. But finally Doug challenged his friend to begin praying for Africa for 45 days, and at the end of that time, he could be the one to decide if his prayers had been answered.

If Hunter felt that praying had been a waste of time, Coe agreed to give him $500. On the other hand, if he felt that praying for Africa had resulted in any significant changes or results, Hunter would give Coe the same amount of money for his ministry.

And what happened? First, Bob Hunter began praying daily for Africa. “God, help Africa,” he prayed. What happened? First, he was invited to a dinner and just happened to sit next to a woman who ran an orphanage in Uganda. As she told him about the needs of the children there, he told her about his strange bet and his prayers for that great continent.

She, in turn, invited him to Uganda and to visit the orphanage. And that is how he found himself on a plane loaded with gifts for the children in the orphanage. While he was there, the Ugandan President, having heard of his interest in the work, telephoned to express personal appreciation. This resulted in an invitation to stop by for a personal meeting.

Here’s how, Doug Nichols tells it, “When Bob arrived that afternoon for his appointment, the President was just in the middle of rushing out of his office. He apologized that he had to go off to some appointment, but invited Bob to come along, so they could get acquainted in the car. Bob accepted. Along the way, at one of the stops, Bob looked out the window to see what appeared to be a stockyard; only this was a stockyard not filled with cattle, but with men. Bob asked the President what he was seeing. The president responded that it was a political prison and those men were his political enemies…. “But Mr. President, that’s not right to have men living in such horrible conditions,” he commented.

He, of course, was a guest in that country. It was really not his business to comment, but without thinking, he compassionately shared the feelings of his heart.

After Hunter returned to the U.S., he received a request from the American Undersecretary for African Affairs to meet with him. Was he in trouble? What had he done? But instead of a reproof, the government official wanted to thank him for procuring the release of the political prisoners. “What exactly did you say to him?” he was asked. He was stunned. Then he remembered the conversation. The Ugandan president wasn’t accustomed to having men candidly and honestly assess his actions, and rather than respond in anger, he accepted honest reproof.

Yes, Bob Hunter followed through with his bet and sent Doug Coe the check he had promised for his ministry, but going far beyond that, he began to understand how prayer changes things and people. It is the hand that moves the hand of God who works through mortal men.

Would you be willing to bet on the fact that God answers prayer? Though I am not a gambling man, I can tell you one thing for sure. You will never, ever have the odds stacked in your favor as you would when you commit to the certainty that God hears and answers prayer.

**“The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited. Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”**

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“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” -Psalm 19:1

Producing a weekly television program for over 15 years brought more than a few famous people to our studio for interviews, but of all those who appeared as guests on my program, none ever exceeded the graciousness or patience of Astronaut Jim Irwin who went to the moon in 1971. No matter how long the line of mothers who wanted their babies and children to be photographed with this famous man, Jim patiently accommodated them and presented each with a personally signed photo of himself.

On one occasion we were having lunch at T.G.I.F.’s, and Jim had to interrupt his lunch to use the phone. While he was away from the table, I turned to the waitress and explained that Jim was one of the 12 astronauts who had walked on the moon as part of the U.S. space program. After he returned, she kept glancing at him, thinking that I was spoofing. Finally, she blurted out, “Did you really go to the moon?”

Colonel James Irwin not only went to the moon as the commander of the Apollo 15 mission and explored its surface, driving the multi-million dollar lunar rover vehicle (a kind of overgrown golf cart), but there he encountered the presence of God and came back a changed man.

Jim explained that standing on the moon, as he held his hand at arm’s length, planet Earth was about the size of his thumb nail. On the moon, Jim experienced an awesome realization of God’s might and man’s smallness.

Returning from his moon mission, Jim resigned from the space program and established a Christian ministry known as the High Flight Foundation, taking the message of God’s love and power to audiences the world over.

As an ambassador of good will, Jim spent time in Russia and exchanged experiences in space with the Russian Cosmonauts. Though they could not say so publicly, they privately told him that they had experienced the same awesome presence of God he had felt. Jim said he never talked with anyone who had been in space—American or Russian—who did not sense the greatness of God’s might as they went into space.

The medallion presented to the crew of the Apollo 15 reads, “Man’s flight through life is sustained by the power of his knowledge!” But Jim quoted that, capitalizing the H, making the “His” refer to the knowledge of God so it reads, “Man’s flight through life is sustained by the power of His (referring to God’s) knowledge.”

Some of my most cherished conversations with this man, whom I consider to be a real hero, took place in our television studio as we were waiting for our producer to give us the signal to start the interview.

On one occasion Jim told about a little known incident which could have tragically cost his life. They had just returned to the lunar module which would take them back to the Apollo spacecraft, and as they entered the tiny compartment, Jim saw fragments of glass floating in the air. He immediately noticed that the glass cover of an instrumental panel had shattered. His heart sank and he broke out in a cold sweat. If this instrument malfunctioned, he knew that his crew would never return to Earth.

Carefully, they took a small vacuum and sucked up the broken fragments. With anticipation, he turned on the power and the instrument functioned perfectly. Only the glass cover had shattered. Jim again sensed the hand of the Almighty.

Only 12 men have walked on the moon, the same number who walked with Jesus long ago, yet the same One who created the sun, moon, and stars and put our moon in space, 229,000 miles out there, still reveals Himself to those who want to know who He is.

**Permission to reprint is hereby granted by Guidelines, Inc. by Dr. Harold Sala**

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