love

The heart of the matter

Why is lawlessness surging in America? The blame game is being played. Guns, drugs, mental illness get the headlines but what are we really witnessing?

Here’s the cold hard truth.

A latter day sign of the return of Jesus is lawlessness. He said, “And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” Matthew 24:12

When lawlessness grows hot, love goes cold. The thermometer on our society has changed for the worse and we blame everything but the source of lies and hate.

Satan.

Of course this is laughable in a post Christian world where absolute truth is offensive, the Bible is shelved and rejected by “seminary trained spiritual leaders” and their sheep.

Paul points out the source and power of lawlessness and where it finds its home. It’s in the heart of people without faith in Christ.

[1] And you were dead in the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—[3] among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:1-3

Jesus said to the religious leaders that Satan was their father. He was a liar and murderer from the word go just like those hypocrites. (John 8:44) They are still among us.

His spirit is alive and well and working in the hearts of the religious, the irreligious and especially clergy who speak like the world and reject the word of God.

We have a serious spiritual crisis in America. Lawlessness is growing but the cure for individuals is still the same. It’s a heart issue and we need a transplant.

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Romans 10:9-10

Grace and peace

Hope

A teacher called grace

A teacher called Grace

Seven years have come and gone since our Jake passed in March of 2014.

Grief has been a teacher to Stacey and I (others also) through this difficult season of life.

I think the greatest lesson I have learned since that awful day is that the grace of God is without end. It is deeper than I ever imagined.

At my salvation I experienced Gods grace through faith. As I began to walk by faith his grace continued to be revealed to me. This is a wonderful experience.

At Jacobs death and the years that have followed I have learned more of Gods grace in the pain than in the days of pleasure. This is a wonderful experience as well.

Grief is a tool God used to teach of his boundless grace and strength. I didn’t enjoy the class but pain has taught us things about God that aren’t known apart from discomfort.

Seven years ago I was at my lowest and weakest point in life. It seemed unbearable but Jesus carried the burden with us the whole way, till this day.

Jesus taught us things about his grace that we never could have understood apart from losing our son.

There is grace in pain. A depth of grace that is discovered only in our weakest points in life.

God didn’t remove our pain. Jacob is gone and that is a continual ache in our hearts.

I hated the hurt and wanted it gone. But now I wouldn’t trade the pain for what I have gained and learned through it.

The apostle Paul experienced tremendous pain and Jesus refused to remove it. Paul also was instructed by a teacher named Grace.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:8-9

Wonderful things are learned in Gods classroom of pain. What have I learned most? Gods teacher is named Grace and she is more wonderful than I ever imagined or thought possible.

Grace and peace to you all. Mike

Valentines Day for Dummies

Valentines Day for Dummies

https://mjfekete.com/2016/02/10/valentines-day-for-dummies/
— Read on mjfekete.com/2016/02/10/valentines-day-for-dummies/

Hope in hard times

Its been nearly 5 years since my son died. The three anchors that have moored me in the most difficult days are faith, hope and love. Heartache and hardships truly test the validity of these three foundational Christian principles. I have found that it is impossible to destroy these three things. The ship may be battered but the anchor always holds in spite of the storm.

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I have been told by people that they have watched and admired my faith while walking through hard times. I always want to turn the compliments back to God who strengthened me and deserves all the glory. I am not to be commended for enduring the storm. I am neither the anchor nor the chain that prevents me from drifting from the harbor and sinking in the depths. My faith is in Christ, my hope is in Christ and my love is for Christ. Apart from him I can do nothing.

My faith is not in a religion nor is my hope in clever fables devised by mere men. The Christian faith is not a “I hope so” philosophy of life but a confident “i know it’s so” assurance in actual historical events. My faith is in the promises of Jesus whom I have never seen. My confident hope is that he actually and literally defeated death and offers me his life by believing in him. Love for him is the result of receiving this outpouring into my life.

 Good Hope

I have nearly 100 entries into this blog. The blog has been a journal of how faith and grief has walked hand in hand in the darkest period of my life. Writing has been a great outlet and help to me in my journey. It has also been my desire that what I have written would encourage, comfort and offer hope to those who are grieving.

Jacobs death was, and still is, a crushing blow to my life. I need daily hope to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I have no use for hopeless pie in the sky mystical superstition that is not based in truth. Christianity is factual and extremely comforting and offers good hope. Truth is, if Jesus isn’t alive from the dead then hope of heaven is also dead and my faith would be pointless. Life would be empty and death might actually be a welcomed friend because of my many sorrows.

Christian hope changes my darkness into light! I have a confident hope in the future promise of heaven because of actual, pre-written, historical events that were literally fulfilled to the letter. So I share with you the words of Paul the Apostle, an eyewitness of the One who was raised from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God.

“Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.” 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 NKJV

Perhaps you are reading this and you feel like you are without hope and without God in this world. I urge you to trust in Jesus the risen one. Call out to him and you will find rest for your soul.

I wish you all a happy and hope filled new year.

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13 NKJV

 

 

 

 

Remembering Jake

Jacob was born March 3rd 1992. A chubby and content newborn, nearly ten pounds who could have won a cute baby contest. Soon he was sitting up, soon he was walking, soon he was dressed for his first day of kindergarten. Not long after we were attending football games, wrestling matches, choir concerts and high school graduation.

Birthdays, Christmas, vacations, and Sunday afternoon dinners with the entire family have vanished. All that remains are these snapshots of his life. Just frozen images of places, times, and events but not much more. His life doesn’t run like a movie in my mind. There are only clips and screenshots, bits and pieces that flash in my memory.

Sometimes Facebook jars my memory and I recover a forgotten snapshot in time.

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I can’t remember. I want to remember but it seems most of the files have been deleted. They are scattered, unrecoverable and taken away like leaves with the cool winds of fall. There are a few leaves left behind that the late October wind left behind. I hear his voice and the garbled laugh of his great-grandmother. I see his thin-lipped crooked smile and clips of his maturing face as he grew from a boy into a man.

There are other memories that exist in a firesafe box in the basement. They are digital memories on discs and VHS tapes. The box has not been opened. The digital images remain in darkness, unseen but available. I have not come to the place where I can open the box, the very thought still causes me to shutter. Pandora’s box? Perhaps. I guard myself from places that complicate my grief. I’m not ready and I am not sure I will ever be ready. Maybe his brother and sister will discover it years from now and open the treasure chest of their brother’s life. I hope it makes them smile. I hope it warms their hearts. Near the firesafe box is a cedar chest. Someday they will also open the hope chest  and in it they will discover all the cherished family leaves gathered in one place. Full of color, full of beauty, full of memories and full of love.

I long to hear his voice, but not in this way. I desire to see him but not on a 60 inch flat screen. Not now, not yet, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps never.

Life begins and life gets lost in forgotten moments that have passed me by. How I wish to gather the leaves into a pile and admire the beauty of each colorful fallen leaf. Scattered memories are all that remain and every so often I pick up fallen leaf in time and recall a sweet moment. Once insignificant moments in time that have become beautiful and cherished snapshots for me to enjoy today.

Someday hope will end and I will realize my hope when we meet again face to face.

“For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)