Cold January Thoughts

Well Glory to God! Things are happening in central Minnesota! In fact there’s allot happening around this region as of late. JC Smith will be starting a church in St Cloud, about 35 miles SE of here. That will be filling a great need in that city and I can see God’s hand in all of this, very much so. Funny how that all worked out, but I won’t go into that. Just that its kinda different seeing this whole thing start from square one back last October. An incredible learning experience for me to say the least. I tell you, Bro Smith and his family are going to be in our prayers constantly!

Winter is my reading time, I just love reading and as many reader know that have been around my blogs over time, I don’t watch any TV unless its to do with faith. But this year I’ve made a commitment to read the whole Bible on the schedule that’s in the back of my old King James Bible. Sometimes that Bible is a little tough to read but I’m hungry to do that. Plus besides the scheduled daily readings, when I’m done with them I just go anywhere and start reading some more of that old Bible. I’ve been reading the Gospel of John the last couple of nights and it always just gets a hold of me! What an incredible Gospel. Well, they all are but John has that different form and it just speaks to me. I can feel the drama, the feelings just explode out of the book!

I’ve written allot about preaching lately. Its almost embarrassing because preachers do read this here back country blog and for me to talk about preaching must be a bit comical to some of them. But what the hay! I’m a fool for Christ! That’s all I can say! If I blunder, well at least I figure I ain’t standing still. Might trip, stumble and fall but at least I’m moving forward!! If I gave up every time I made a fool out of myself I’da given up a long, long time ago! But I read somewhere that its estimated that only 5 percent of Christians in America ever witness to anyone in their whole Christian lifetime. So I guess a stumble bum hillbilly is at least in the five percent. But I don’t know how I could even live if I didn’t declare the Gospel, whether to someone in person or through writing. I think I’d literally burn up if I couldn’t preach the Gospel everyday in one form or another.

In the comments of the last post Brent wrote about how a person used to sit bored to death listening to the same old sermons, and here years later the same person is out preaching. Now let me tell you, when I used to sit in church, (not our little church), I was totally bored out of my skull. I mean it was bad. But since coming to a Word church a person soaks up the Word till the Word has to come forth or else I think I’d explode. I know this is hard to explain but that’s the way it is. I just downloaded a sermon from Pastor Anthony Wynn, that on fire country preacher that I’ve listened to for the last six months, (and you can to from Holy Ghost Online), and in that sermon was something I told our pastor a while back. My greatest fear. Now years ago I’da had all the standard fears that society says your supposed to have. But you know, the greatest fear I have is being separated from God. I don’t ever want to go back to religion, and boredom. I want God. And I want to do what God wants me to do no matter what it is. And when a person has this realization spreading the Gospel becomes a joy! Not an intimidating thing. And the more one goes into the Word the easier the Word comes out. Funny, I never knew any of this years ago, just went to church, year after year, for what I still do not know. But God took someone like me and did a total change, an unbelievable change!

Never do I want to be separated from Jesus. Never do I want to disappoint Him by not walking the walk. He died for me and the least I could do is tell folks about it. Become His on this earth to do what He wants me to do. So I’ll just farm away here till I drop and head to Gloryland, but at the same time live and breath Jesus in everything that there is. This is thee life. I do believe we have arrived! When we got this simple understanding planted firmly in us here the whole world changed!

On a final note here on this brutally cold January evening, this past September our old computer was bucking up and I lost our internet capabilities. I was deciding to just quit it all and live old fashioned, I mean life without internet. It probably would have been nice but I know that God wanted me to take the step and get a computer that would work. It was a sacrifice moneywise. Sometimes it can be figured as a waste of money when there’s other things to buy of much more importance. But I gritted my teeth and bought this thing and then made the declaration that it would only be used for the Lord, (well the weather is made by the Lord too and it don’t hurt to have radar on the farm). And since this time I can hardly believe all that has been accomplished for Jesus with this one simple computer! That’s a long story in itself, a very long story. I look back and think what would have happened to dozens of different events if this computer would not have been here. I thank you Jesus for working so much in our lives!

Farmer Preachers

 Just finishing up stuff around here tonight and then I gotta concentrate on finishing up taxes this week.  Shouldn’t take all too long, just put it all together and that’s about it. What a day though! Warm outside, in the thirties whew!! Big heat wave around here and I ain’t used to that! Neither are the critters, they sure are looking happy let me tell you! Church took up most of the day today with regular service and then a teachers meeting afterwards. Now I must say that I’m not a meeting type person. In fact I know for sure that I ain’t. Talk about a long drawn out ordeal to say the least! But the food was great so there’s always a silver lining! Trouble was the food was good, but then it was time for a farmer’s nap and there was a meeting to attend to. What a dilemma! Old farmer Tom struggling to stay awake. Head bobbing, eye lids getting heavier and heavier, egad! But after a couple hours, or what seemed like it all was finished up and we could head on home. Now if there’s a calling on my life from God I know that it doesn’t include meetings. Guess I’m used to making snap decisions every day on the farm and the turtle pace of meetings just doesn’t cut it when your whole life is run a totally different way. Oh Lord, just let me loose and go spread the Word, not sit in a meeting for a couple hours. Oh well, I guess a person gotta crucify the flesh and just take it as it comes for the church.

Now that it’s been reaffirmed that I hate meetings life can go on. But the fun part today was I was testing out a different car and that baby has a CD player. Getting up there in the world eh! So before church I burned a CD of my favorite Gospel songs for the drive to church! Man I tell you, was that different! Finally I have arrived!! I stepped out of the Chevy and I was so revved up when I walked into church that even I was amazed! Yee Haw! Now I know this is behind the times and other folks are all up and up on all this stuff, but I ain’t. Play me an old Gospel song and I’ll charge the gates of hell! Really! Trouble was I never had a way of bringing the music with me till now. Now we’ll have a half way decent car to drive around the area, with thee proper music playing so a person is always in that old time way. Just shout the Gospel out!

Yup, life is different here, what can I say. Yesterday I was searching the internet on the subject of farmer/preachers. Well, now you know what I do on this computer. And what I found has really given me a lift! I never knew it was that common, especially in bygone days. Be a full time farmer and be a preacher. But I must say I have no desire to ever be some church preacher. I don’t think it would ever work out, I hate meetings you know! More in the fashion of a preacher just spreading the Word outside of the church walls. It’s a burning desire to say the least. And what a lift to search about farmer/preachers and find out that it really fits. Coming from the back round I came from I hardly ever heard of such a thing, but now I have! That’s all I needed! Plus so many things are just coming together I stand amazed.

Yup, it fits! It works. I just gotta praise the Lord for dropping this information on me. I always wondered how the heck a person could do anything for the Lord and still farm, now I realize that its made in perfect order. A person can spend time with God almost the whole time working during the day without all to many distractions and when there’s the time off from the farm it all just naturally fits together. And it ain’t all that hard to take some time here and there! Even in the busy season.

Country Gospel

  A short one tonight, with the week winding down around here. It looks like the weather will be becoming milder and that’s alright with me! It was kind of a rough one this past week. Cold is the word, but today the air seemed to be changing!  This weekend will be busy at church with a meeting afterwards for myself and our two girls. And my wife will be taking off from church right around noon to go meet with some Hispanic folks and get things going a little more in that direction. I’d like to go, but really can’t with the meeting that we’re having at church. But I’ll catch up later and get going in that direction. The newspaper publisher has been very good to work with and the Gospel message that we have prepared will be a whole half page! I’ve seen the way they designed the page and wow! It’s really good. Plus the kicker is that the paper is going to give us a very discounted rate for this huge half page Gospel message. Glory to God! And this message will make it into just about every Hispanic household in rural Central Minnesota! And with a huge lack of Spanish newspapers and such around here this newspaper gets read over and over again in the Hispanic households.

I sometimes wonder what else we can do, but I know there’s a million things we can do, its just to do them. But we are doing them one by one for the One that died for us. Its strange, stepping out. At first there was some fear but that keeps diminishing as time goes on. And the spreading of the Gospel fits right in to this lifestyle. The many hours of chores everyday is a time to communicate with God and that’s just about all I do during chores. Really except for when an occasional disaster strikes there’s not all to much to distract a person from talking and listening to God. In spring, summer and fall its the same. Doing fieldwork for hours and hours, the whole time is spent with Jesus.  It truly is a different way of life! Maybe that’s why those old time farmer preachers could preach so good after working all day on the farm. They were prayed up after working all day and they just naturally could preach when the time came. Anyway, that’s how it seems to me. Its not very hard to talk Jesus after being in His presence all day!

Many times I just have to remember, what ever I do I cannot compare what we’re doing to any other ministry. What we’re starting is its own thing. Hard to compare it to all the things that I read so I won’t even try. I could never stand up to all the different writers on the internet talking faith and all of that. But I really don’t care or worry about it. We have our job to do right here and that’s all I’ll focus on. Don’t want to look this way or that way, just deliver the Gospel to those that we can. This is the area that we’re in, and this is the area that we’ll deliver the message. But the funny thing is, in the last year our family, through witnessing, has affected the lives of people and families in at least three countries that I know of. All of this while focusing on just this area.

This is a touchy subject and I don’t want it to come out wrong, but I also know through conversations, letters, e-mails and telephone calls we got in the last year our family has helped bring dozens to Christ.  That really hit me when the realization finally broke through! We don’t take any sort of head count, because I don’t know peoples hearts, but the amount of testimonies shocked me. I never would have believed that we would do any good for the Kingdom, but spreading the Gospel is what we are commanded to do. God does the rest. And a good share of the time as far as myself goes, I’m just blundering along. That’s why I stay out of almost all internet conversations, because I look like an uneducated fool in comparison to most. And the truth is I am. But I love Jesus because He broke every bond on my life and all I can do is spread what He has done for me.

Real Riches

Well Glory to God this day is coming to an end! It was a good one all in all. Found some hay to buy and some straw too. I don’t normally feed the cows straw but hey, they gotta buckle down too! Found 30 big bales of straw and a little over 30 big bales of hay. By big I mean big, equal to two of our large round bales. I don’t think it will be enough but I’m getting a bit more comfortable with the feed supply around here. Plus I have some hay that I bought last summer at another farm, I never picked it up yet and it’s under a roof staying all nice, so for now it might as well stay there. It been a tough year and it’ll get a little tougher before it gets better but Praise the Lord the end is in site. I don’t know, I just have a feeling it might rain this year for once. Just something in these bones tells me that. But for now we’ll just keep on plugging because we know through it all our God is with us! No doubt about that!

For those who don’t understand drought, its tough to say the least when your living is made off of the land. Funny thing is, since I’ve been going to church regular and building faith and all of that, the drought continued and steadily got worse and worse. It takes the majority of our families money just to survive it. Boy, if we didn’t have to spend that money on feed we’d be sitting pretty. Now a person could blame church for the drought, I know it sounds crazy but before church going the crops were good and everything went like clock work around here. That voice comes into the head when prosperity preaching is going on, saying, some prosperity huh! Toughest time in twenty years and they’re preaching prosperity, like it was a formula or something. Just give and receive a whole bunch more than you gave! Some say that we ain’t believin hard enough for rain and all of that. Of course when those same folks are facing a layoff or something like that it’s all a different story.

But I must say that we are prospering, tremendously, the real way, in the Lord! This goes against allot of modern day preaching but durn it, we never had it so good despite all the disasters around here. We’re happy, if that means anything anymore! There’s a reason to live where before there really wasn’t. There’s eternity to look forward to, where before there was nothing after a person gets old and crippled up and dies. You know, I’m just dwelling on this tonight, being that the checkbook has been writing out allot for hay and all the other things lately to get us through the long drought winter. Why does prosperity have to mean living totally materialistic like the world. Well they say, poverty is a curse. Ok, I’ll agree with that. But I can say that even though we live far, far below what’s considered the poverty line, we ain’t cursed! Three freezers are plump full of meat and veggies, don’t have a bill to our name, own land and cattle. Sure we drive around older cars and the farm trucks are basically junk, but I love it. We get to where we got to get with them! Good enough. Our house ain’t no modern day mansion, but it’s paid for! When we get money, it might not be a whole lot, but then again except for this feed thingy, there ain’t nobody demanding their share of it, nobody!

Maybe that’s why I can sit back and listen to those old songs of faith, those songs from a much poorer people than whats considered stylish in the church today, and really relate! They knew God! they trusted God! Now more and more God is nothing more than a formula so we can prosper in our own eyes materially. I don’t know, maybe I’m way off base, but I do believe with all my heart that God is taking good care of us. It might be the opposite of allot of preaching I hear today, but who cares. It might not be stylish to take out my old King James Bible every night, turn to the back and see what chapters to read for that day of the year. But I hunger for those moments every night. I’m not worrying about how I’ll be getting richer because someone preached it. I’d rather see a jewel in the crown than a pile of wealth stored up here.

I know, I know, this is almost heretic, saying things like this today, but that’s what I’ll say anyhow. Me and a brother in church were talking about that after service on Sunday. Boy, according  to the world we might really seem like a pair of simple hillbillies, but let me assure you we are a pair of happy hillbillies! We were discussing if we’d rather be rich or just as we are. And we both agreed that we were happy just as we are. That doesn’t seem normal in this society, but then again a couple of born again to the bone believers ain’t what you’d call normal in this world! We both have a passion for Jesus and spreading the Gospel, not worrying about that we should get rich and “be more in His will”, according to what’s called Christianity nowadays.

Before closing here I just want to say, its popular today to preach God wants you rich so you can give more to the Kingdom. They say how can a poor person give to the Kingdom to help spread the Word, you should be rich cause that’s God’s will for you? I beg to differ. I believe we are called to do the work of the Kingdom no matter what economic situation we are in. The preaching today is another example of shirking our responsibilities, figuring if we are rich we can hire someone to do what we were supposed to be doing every single day in the first place. Nope, just let me have my Bible and let me do what I’m supposed to be doing, laying up treasures in heaven by following Jesus on this here earth!

The Lost Coin

Oh Lord! Today was 20 below in the morning doing chores, but they got done without a hitch so I’m justa praising the Lord for that! Funny how it works, that cold out and church was just as full as ever, hungry folks that are seeking God. That’s a testament, shows folks that’ll brave the elements for an infilling of the Word. Last evening I was just reading a bit. Was reading a book that we bought in the church library a long while back, called Soul Winning by TL Osborn. I read it a few times before but every time I read it totally new things jump out at me. Well what I was reading covered two out of three parables in Luke chapter 15, one about the shepherd looking for that one lost sheep while leaving the other 99 sheep in the fold, plus the one about the woman and the lost coin.

Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.

Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

That lost coin represents the unconverted beyond the church walls. The sad fact is many churches are content with polishing the other nine coins and not seeking out the one that is lost. Now there’s nothing wrong with some polishing in the churches, because that’s a good place to get polished up. But the field is beyond the walls. And we are commanded to go out and reach the unconverted. It can’t be expected for the unconverted to ever step foot in the church, I mean why should they? But in the book that I’m rereading there’s allot of plain old fashioned common sense, something sorely lacking in many circles. I’ll quote:

If that woman’s lost coin represents the unconverted, the scene can be quite different in some places today. Sunday morning, the pastor may polish the coins which are safe in hand-the church members. During the week, they may be polished again. But the lost coins are not sought after.

Sunday after Sunday, there may be more polishing of the coins which are already safely guarded. Week after week, more ministry may be directed to the already saved ones. A teacher may arrive who is gifted to expound the Word of God to Christian. Then the polishing may be repeated every night during the series of meetings. Still there may be no ministry to the non-Christians- the unconverted.

Then a prophecy teacher may arrive. Still no attention may be given to the unconverted. Then someone may hold a series of special meetings to teach on spiritual gifts, or on types and shadows of the Old Testament. Still there may be no outreach to non-Christians. Then singers may come to entertain the Christians, followed by more polishing. The lost coin may still not be sought. The lost sheep may still not be gone after.

Christ cannot reach the unconverted if Christians do not go out after them. The unsaved world only sees Him and His love through His followers. He yearns to save the lost, but He can only do it through those in whom He lives. God never called anyone to any ministry that was not a soul winning ministry. The very essence of being a Christian is to have Christ living in you-witnessing and ministering through you.

Whatever your talent in the church, you are FIRST A SOULWINNER- a witness, then you may be a writer, teacher, pastor, prophet or exercise whatever gifts God has blessed you with.

This subject really spoke to me! Many times being a soul winner is put far back on the back burner and we figure that all the different gifts are where the priorities are. But that’s not the case. Without the firm foundation of walking in Christ’s footsteps the other gifts are basically meaningless. I always knew this but its good to see it confirmed by someone else. I see the opposite of this all over and I’m not pointing fingers. But I know that as far as myself and my family soul winning, preaching the Gospel comes first, always first. Then any and all spiritual gifts have a purpose, the purpose that God gave them to us for. I don’t want to chase a gift as I see so many do. The faith I have says that when the Gospel is preached the gifts will be there for that purpose. Our whole life, everything must be to be Christs ambassadors, to be His feet walking on the earth until His return. What a privilege! Glory! To be His feet! No wonder it is written:

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! (Romans 10:15)

To me there is nothing greater we could possibly do on this old earth! To Christ be the Glory!

A Cold Afternoon

It’s a cold day here and I’m laying low in the house as much as possible. I was looking over the computer, our bookshelves, TV and radios, CD players and the like. And it came to me how things have changed around this house the last few years. Everything is geared to our walk with God, everything. The computer is almost 100% for Christian works, Christian information and the like. Same with everything else that I mentioned. Why the change I thought? How was it even possible? I mean we’re talking about a 180 degree turn around! Even now as I’m typing is the song, “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold This Body Down”, by Selah and someone else with them. It’s kinda my theme song, some folks at church have known that for around six months. You want to get me going just play that song! Just something about that song, I could charge the gates of hell when that song is playing.

What changed all of this over the years? It was God doing what was earthly impossible and making it possible. In other words saving and delivering this old farmer. Yup, that’s what it took. Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing when we’re doing all these things that were not even considered in the old life. Well, it’s nothing short of the grace of God, cause there ain’t no way we could have done any of this ourselves. There’s no way we’da had the healings we’ve had, no way!

Sometimes when confronted I’m made to feel like some sort of a nut because we read the Bible, because we tell folks about Jesus Christ. In fact this is more the rule than the exception. Many times even church folks will tell me that it’s great that I do what I do, but their way to busy to do all of that. Maybe its true, I don’t know, but rest assured I have very little time. Very little at all. It’s just that when there is a moment, it’s used for the Kingdom, like right now. In a few minutes I’ll be going outside to see if everything is OK in the sub zero cold. But for the moment I’ll write.

But there ain’t one person in this world that ever saved me from eternal damnation. Jesus did that! And He’s the one that I answer to. Just look what the Lord has done, He saved me, He healed me, He gave hope where there was none at all. He took a bottom of the barrel sinner and breathed life into him. Without Him there is nothing, nothing at all. When a person even has a slight realization of what it means to be saved, what it means to be a child of God, then it all changes. I mean really saved, not just an altar call and then live “normal” after that. When a person is saved it’s a complete turn around. Might not seem like it at first but the Spirit of God is working , changing, molding, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, making a new person.

This is what drives me, the realization of who I am in Christ. Could I settle for what’s considered the norm today as far as being a Christian is concerned, no. If I were to do that I’d just as soon give up right then and there. Because of what Jesus did for us, how could I do anything less than the little I’m doing now? Everyday its growing, more and more. I’m not worried about it at all. I might be a little bewildered but I’m not worried at all.

Afternoon Update

Well Glory to God, tonight’s church. Windier than the dickens today with the temperatures falling, but that shouldn’t slow us down getting there. I figured I’d just post a short one this afternoon, kinda relax a bit before I have to go back outside and finish up any and all chores. I might be back to teaching tonight, that’d be the first time since November that I actually taught. Was going to last week, but then a snap service came up with J.C. Smith preaching and there ain’t no complaints in my department!! So we didn’t have Children’s Church last week, but got allot more instead!

I’ll be zapping the article to the Hispanic newspaper in an hour or two and will be working on any graphics the next couple of weeks with them via internet. So that is falling into place quickly. So much to do, I tell you I’m in a whirl, but that’s the way I like it. There’s the Hispanic population to minister to, plus the local population of small towns and farmers and whatevers. But God is worthy and we’ll do it! Jesus died for every single one of us, but the gospel is almost unheard of around here.

It looks like this’ll be my main base of operations as far as blogging. The new website will be steadily built up for the purpose I created it for. Brad had an interesting suggestion about that little forum over there. Like putting out a verse of the week to hash over, I kinda like that idea. There’s some bugs to get out of the forum though. Looks like a person can only write a short message on it, which might be a blessing in disguise!

But today I’d better get a move on, there’s work to do yet, articles to zap, and church tonight. God is Good!

Our Site Is Up and Running

Last summer or sometime, I forget when and I’m too lazy to look for it, I wrote that I was going to start a web site. So I have. In reality it’s kind of a practice web site. But if I get it to where I want it I’ll change it to a much better one. By that I mean I’d put a few dollars down on it and have my own domain and all of that. But for now I just want to get it going during the winter. Cold out here today and that translates into me having a few minutes here and there to get the site going. Crude yes, but give me time.

I was wondering what to do with Northern Farmer and this blog. I think I’ll keep them running but kinda pace myself on posting. They do have a purpose, both of them. I’ll probably just limit my time on them both. What I want to do with the site we are building is make a site that proclaims the Gospel in a rural way. Heck, big city sites are a dime a dozen, but it’s hard to find an old fashion Holy Ghost site that is about the country folks. And that’s what we are, country. And there’s a need for it.

It won’t rely on what has been the tradition readership for me, but I sure do hope to have some of the folks that have always read my writings come along! Plus I need advice from most readers, including Brad’s experience with forums. I don’t know if that’ll ever take off but you never know. besides many of the old readers, it’ll be a place for folks that we minister to out here in Central Minnesota to come to. The things a person could do on the site are limited only by our imaginations. I need some country style Christian photos, (hi Jan!), and any input readers have. It will be a place for farmers too. Christian farmers, well, if they ain’t Christian when they come they’ll likely be Christian when they leave. It’s happened many times on the Northern Farmer blog!

There really won’t be much changed on the old blogs that I can tell except for pacing myself and thus maybe writing better and more hard hitting. Allot to do on the site, but with the grace of God it’ll maybe change someone’s life. And most importantly, proclaim the simple Gospel to people that normally wouldn’t hear or read it. So for anyone interested just come of here to Healing Waters Ministry and settle in a bit.

Starting A New Week

Sunday evening, and I just got done watching a “live” church service on the computer from down Tennessee way. Every once in a while when I’m in the house at that time on Sunday evenings and don’t have company or something I try and tune in. It’s on a link on this blogs side bar, Holy Ghost Online, in my opinion one of the best sites on the internet. An it always touches the heart of an old farmer like me. There’s just something about old fashioned Holy Ghost preaching that really gets deep inside of me.  And the incredible amount of downloads, sermons, music, and videos is just something else. There ain’t much excuse not to tune in to their site if that’s what speaks to a person’s heart like it does to mine.

Church today was very good and after that we came home and I got a very rare Sunday nap! Woke up and didn’t even know what day it was. Yup, one of them kinda naps, deep!  Did some afternoon chores and then did a little Bible study work so I could get it in the mailbox tomorrow. Don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but besides the Bible College stuff I do I study a Bible Study from Pillar of Truth Ministries, I’ve had them on my side bar for a long, long time. It’s just good old fashion Bible believing studies. And I must admit they go through it verse by verse and you learn what every verse is about. In fact I get many more times the learning from that then from the Bible College studies. Funny how that works! But I really love studying the Word of God and that course sure does take a person through it. Plus I figure it should last me the rest of my life because when I look at how many courses they have and then estimate the years I have left, (with luck), I’ll be a pretty durn old man by the time I’d ever graduate from all of that.

Oh Lord, there’s just so much going on when a person thinks about it all. But I will admit that I’m living life like I never figured possible. You know, I always had this thing about being an old fashioned, Bible believing, Holy Ghost filled country type of guy, even when I was a super sinner, I had that in me deep down. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever figure on living that life. But it sure did turn out that way! As much as I hate so much of the modern ways I will admit that this computer sure is a blessing, and believe me, that’s a stretch coming from me. But this computer, (which is the farthest thing from perfect I’ve ever seen, I wish I had my old Windows XP), it’s sure a huge tool for learning, for communicating, and for downloading and watching good old Holy Ghost sermons and services. Plus I’ve met so many folks and also talked to so many folks on the telephone that I normally would never of heard of otherwise. I guess I can put up with this computer for a while yet.

You know, I ain’t no inner city person, I’m not even a suburban type of person. Just a country guy, a farmer that wants to follow the Lord and run a farm to the best of his ability. Not much else. But in that following the Lord there’s an awesome responsibility to preach the Word all the time. And I will admit that it doesn’t intimidate me no more doing so. Used to till I finally got it figured out that that’s what God commands us to do. And Jesus died for all men, not just me and a few other church folks. I search all around the internet for websites about Jesus and faith, but I narrowed it down to just a few cause I’d get overloaded otherwise. And the websites and blogs can be from the inner city or the country, don’t make any difference, it’s the message that does, the beliefs and the faith.

So starts the new week around here. Plenty to do as always. Farm stuff and church stuff, busy all the way through. An area with so many unsaved souls every way a person turns. But a God that is so worthy to be preached about, a Word that must go forth! That’s the old time way in a world that is more and more rejecting it.  But we were placed here for a time such as this and that’s what we’ll do.

Those Old Songs

  Just sittin here tonight listening to some music I got downloaded on the computer. I guess this is one area that separates me from allot of folks out there. I just can going pretty good listening to some of the music that I listen to, anything from modern Christian stuff, to old hymns and anything in between. But my favorite are the old country Gospel songs. And I can say that some of them can get going pretty good! I was just listening to a Johnny Cash song called “The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago” and I can honestly say that song gets me going. It was recorded live at San Quintin prison almost forty years ago, funny how time flies! And the words, those words have meaning, the music could send anybody dancing down the aisles of those old country churches!

Sometimes I wonder what would happen in church if there’d be a service with a bunch of them old songs. I’d be willing to bet that out in our area they’d have the church hoppin like those folks did years ago! Cause I know that they can put me right back on the right path when I listen to em. If a person is ever wondering why those folks years ago had the faith they did all one has to do is listen to their songs. Those songs were so real! I know, I know, they sound so out of style nowadays. People might get out of their comfort zone listening to songs about the Blood, about the cross, and about all those other things that really aren’t in style today as far as the church is concerned.

Every once in a while in our little church there’s an old song or two from that era sung during service and I can testify that there’s power in those songs. Plus a person can understand them which is a plus! Many times when a day’s work is done around here, a person is all tired out, those songs can relate like no others can. I figure the reason is because nowadays real songs about real life, songs about this way of life out on the farm are almost non existent. Songs of faith from folks that lived relatively poor, worked hard seven days a week, at the mercy of the weather and a million other things, they loved Jesus! They loved Him in a way that’s hard to find nowadays.

So here I am, sitting at the computer after a day’s work listening to those old songs of faith. Identifying with them. This I love very much. The weekend is upon us, but like them old songs it doesn’t make a hill of beans difference around here. There’s almost no such thing as a weekend on the farm. It’ll be chores as usual. Good meals and a warm house when all is said and done for the day. A day that usually tires a person out.  Am I complaining? Not a bit! We got Jesus here with us, don’t make much difference what others are doing. Evenings reading the Bible or other books of faith are the norm. Get to bed early and sleep a sound sleep. It might be a little out of the normal way today, but it’s a good way never the less! I wouldn’t have it any other way!