OUT OF THE BOX

This is our latest installment in our discussion of "burnt stones." Billy Long “YOU GOT SOME FINE CHILDREN, BUT THEY WILL KILL YOU.” "THE CHURCH PARKING LOT?"   The photo above was in the December 1991 issue of National Geographic. It is a picture of an old car riddled with holes. There are two men slumped over dead in the front seat and one in the back seat. The photograph looks like a scene from a gangster movie or from the life of Bonnie and Clyde. Based on this description, answer the following questions: 1. What kind of people are in the car? 2. What kind of people fired on the car? 3. How would you describe the relationship between the people in the car and the people who fired on the car? 4. What was the objective of those who fired the shots? People are very surprised to learn the true answers to these questions. The picture is from an article about the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The actual caption reads as follows: Slain by friendly fire, shipyard work...

Dear Friends This post deals with anger and unforgiveness. Anger often goes with unforgiveness. Hopefully the principles given here will inspire us to gain victory over these two stumbling blocks. Billy Long ANGER AND UNFORGIVENESS Our ability to forgive involves gaining victory over anger. Anger can be useful or destructive. It can be an instrument in God’s hands or a tool of the devil detrimental to our spiritual life. It can give courage to overcome insecurity and fear, or it can be a harmful instrument for venting selfish attitudes and inflicting pain on those who have injured us. Anger can be a response to perceived injustice or it can cause an irrational loss of control in a person feeling victimized. Righteous indignation has its place, but human nature easily uses it as an excuse to justify bad behavior. It becomes an obstacle to forgiveness, and hinders our ability to gain victory over the past. The Bible says we should “be angry and sin not” and not let the sun go down...

Forgiveness is foundational to spiritual health. Unforgiveness, however, is an element in the rubble of the past that prevents us from moving forward with healthy spiritual growth. The paragraphs below contain some interesting and practical points on the subject and should be helpful to many who have been struggling with unforgiveness. Please take the time to read this important article. ---Billy Long FORGIVENESS: SOME PRACTICAL POINTS “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Matthew 6: 12. One basic requirement for spiritual health is forgiveness. Conversely, unforgiveness is a major cause of spiritual derailment. The Biblical command is clear and simple and yet one of the most difficult to obey. A person does not have to be spiritually "deep" or intellectually brilliant to understand the verses related to forgiveness, but there is something in human nature that tends to embrace unforgiveness and receives some perverted sense of satisfaction in harborin...

A cat who sits on a hot stove will not sit on a hot stove again; but by the same token, he will never sit on a cold one either. He assumes all stoves will hurt him. This seems to be the way many people respond to bad experiences and bad relationships. They get wounded, hurt, disillusioned, and derailed. Their experience of pain and hurt causes them to be "burnt stones" with distorted perspective, withdrawn. and hobbled by unbelief. The following article is meant to help us to keep a right perspective. ----Billy Long BLINDED BY YOUR LIMITED NOW MOMENT The Narrow Perspective To have an accurate understanding of truth as God sees it, we must look beyond ourselves and our moment. We must see God’s purpose beyond our own comfort and pleasure. True disillusionment means to be free from illusion, but disillusionment with God and Christianity is in itself a delusion. Disillusionment comes from a narrow and self-centered perspective, from making judgments based on ones limited ...

Dear Friends, This is the third post in a series on spiritual principles that help us come through difficulties without being spiritually derailed. The article today deals with Crying out to God when dealing with relational difficulties. Billy Long Dealing with People and Crying out to God “Then David spoke to the Lord the words of this song, on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.” 2 Sam 22:1 "In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried out to my God." Psalm 18:6 Psalm 18:1-6 Psalm 18 can be used to comfort us in our battle against spiritual enemies (Ephesians 6: 11-12), but it primarily speaks of defense, security, and protection from our natural enemies, from wicked and violent men who would give us grief or seek to harm us. In this Psalm we see David praising God for delivering him from wicked men. God delivered him from Saul (a bad leader) and from the people (rebellious followers). Satan and his force...

“…Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish---stones that are burned? Nehemiah 4: 2. When Satan points out our unworthiness, our sins and failure, the Lord rebukes him and says, “I have chosen them. Are they not brands plucked from the fire?” Zechariah 3:1-5 Standing in the Rubble Burnt stones lie as a broken-down monument to some past tragedy and testify to a loss of vision and lack of hope for the future. To lose all that we have invested in, to be hurt by those from whom we least expected it, to be dismayed in the grief of our failures will strain our faith to the limit. When the past is seen only in terms of hurt and regret, the present is experienced as pain and emptiness left by the void, and the future is viewed as a dark place devoid of vision and purpose. When the past is a disaster or disappointment, the future is faced with apprehension and fear. In such a state, it is very difficult to reach forward. With hair singed and garments smelling like smoke, blackened w...