Tag Archives: Father

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A Life To Celebrate

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On March 26th my Dad, Eddie Max McCoy Sr., passed away. My husband and I drove from Wisconsin to Washington state to be with family for the funeral service, in the town my parents retired in. A “Celebration of Life” memorial is being planned for a later date. So on the long trip over, I had time to think about the things we could celebrate about my Dad’s life.

My Dad wasn’t perfect. He had his flaws. He was just a tad stubborn, sometimes he lacked patience, and his temper ran on the warm side. His life was full of mistakes, bad times, and some wrong choices (like most lives). He did have his shining moments. There were successes as well as failures, mountain top experiences as well as the valleys, and many, many good times.

Dad wasn’t the perfect parent, but he loved us all, was a good provider, and genuinely wanted our lives to be better than his was. That stubbornness also came out as tenacity and he never gave up. Through every bad time, he stuck it out. He showed us how to fight back and to expect things to get better. He had a peculiar sense of humor that all of his children and grandchildren will remember forever. God gifted him to be a story teller and we grew up hearing stories about his life. (Some were great examples of what not to do!) Dad also was artistically gifted. He loved to paint and sculpt. I am thankful for that as we will always have his artwork to remember him by. If Dad ever saw someone needed a hand, he was quick to step up.

Though patience wasn’t always one of his virtues, there were times he had the patience of Job. Some of my fondest memories are from when we went camping as kids. He patiently untangled lines, unhooked snags, and for me, baited my hook (I couldn’t do the worm thing). To this day I still love to fish (my husband still untangles my line and baits my hook). He left all of his kids with so much. Yes, we tend to be stubborn, and some of us tend to have a bit of a temper, and we are still learning to be patient, but we also all have some artistic ability, we can all tell a story, and like him, we all know how to help out in a pinch.

The most important thing my Dad ever did was to put his trust in God and give his heart to Jesus. Two times my Dad had died and was brought back. Both times, though his body was going through terrible issues, his spirit experienced something totally different. One of those times, as my Mom drove him to the hospital, his body convulsed and it was all she could do to drive and keep him on the seat, but later, by Dad’s account, we found out that his spirit was in perfect peace. He experienced no pain, worry, or regret. Just perfect peace. I too have had one of those experiences and can confirm the peacefulness of the passing of our spirit. So I am confident that though his body has passed away, my Dad still lives, in peace, with the Prince of Peace, where there is no pain, sorrow, or regret.

So, my Dad wasn’t perfect and his life certainly wasn’t. But his life was full and is most definitely a life worth celebrating. He will be sorely missed by many.

I firmly believe that his hope, for us who are left behind, (and my prayer) is that you would follow his example. Place your trust in Father, and surrender your hearts to Jesus, so that when it is our time to give up these mortal bodies, we too can be with him in Heaven.

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The Awesomeness of God

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“Sheol (the place of the dead) is naked before God, and Abaddon (the place of destruction) has no covering [from His eyes]. He it is Who spreads out the northern skies over emptiness and hangs the earth upon or over nothing. He holds the waters bound in His clouds [which otherwise would spill on earth all at once], and the cloud is not rent under them. He covers the face of His throne and spreads over it His cloud. He has placed an enclosing limit [the horizon] upon the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of the heavens tremble and are astonished at His rebuke. He stills or stirs up the sea by His power, and by His understanding He smites proud Rahab. By His breath the heavens are garnished; His hand pierced the [swiftly] fleeing serpent. Yet these are but [a small part of His doings] the outskirts of His ways or the mere fringes of His force, the faintest whisper of His voice! Who dares contemplate or who can understand the thunders of His full, magnificent power?” Job 26:6-14

Yep, God is awesome. Read Job, He even tells us in His own words how great He is! How can we be anything less than humble when we realize how magnificent He really is. So why do we, at times, think He can’t perform what He promised? Why do we put the God of the Universe in a puny box and say our problems are too big for Him? Abraham was given a promise that could never take place in the natural. He said, “Is anything too hard or too wonderful for the Lord?” (Gen 18:14a).

Numbers 23:19
“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”
God is able and willing to perform what He has promised. Look at Exodus 14. Moses had the people at the edge of the Red Sea, this was part of God’s plan. Pharaoh and his army of chariots were thundering down on the escaped slaves. Naturally they panicked. Moses told them in verse 14, “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” How many times have we heard that one quoted as “Be still and see the power of God” and truly He does deliver in His mercy as we sometimes rest, but lets move on to verse 15-16. God corrects what Moses has just told the people. “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.” His plan wasn’t for them to be still, but to ACT! Moses knew that God would deliver them, but God wanted them to act on that belief. That’s faith, putting actions to out belief and our hope.

God is awesome! He is also our Father. When your father is God, what can stop you?

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Who’s Your Daddy?

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Ok, so the title is a little corny, but it fits.
All of us, with not exceptions, are born into a corrupted word. Since Adam and Eve’s disobedience, we have lived in a “fallen state.” No longer in relationship with God. There are only two families. God’s (the Kingdom of Heaven), and Satan’s (the kingdom of rebellion). Just like in the natural, when we are born, we cannot choose our family. It was decided for us ages ago by our ancestors, Adam and Eve.

But, (here comes the good part), God allows us to choose later in life. His desire is to be our Father and so He gives us the opportunity to be adopted into His family. Galatians 4:4-6, “But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”” He always wanted us, intended for us to be His, but He can’t break His own laws. He won’t be a “child-napper.” We have to come freely to Him. He already made the legal way through the shed blood of His Son.

When we choose Christ, we immediately are translated from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light. But, we may still have to get rid of some old thought patterns and some un-godly habits. When Satan was our father, we had his nature. John 8:44, (Weymouth New Testament) “The father whose sons you are is the Devil; and you desire to do what gives him pleasure.” Now that God is our Father, we should be demonstrating His nature. We should be reflecting God’s personality and character.

The hard part is that the devil still wants us. Not out of any love or loyalty, just to keep us away from God. He never had any love for us. He was ever an abusive parent, in every way, physically, mentally and verbally. If he seemingly did something we perceived as “good” at eh time- it was only a trick, a trap and a snare. We always paid for it in the end and the price continued to get higher and higher, until finally God Himself had to pay it for us. We lived in bondage. Not son’s but slaves.

In the Family of God, we have a wonderful, loving father. His thoughts toward us are good and not of evil (Jeremiah 29:11). In His Family, we are no more slaves, but Sons! We are “accepted in the beloved.” Our hearts are created new, clean, our minds are renewed. We have to destroy any thoughts that are against the nature of God, that don’t line up with His word. We have to “crucify” our flesh, all that junk that tried to come over with us into our new family.

We can’t ask God to take us, then keep boing back to our “old” family! There is no weekend visitations, no joint custody. We need to be fully His. Because if we aren’t fully His, then we aren’t His at all. You can only have one father. So…who’s your daddy?

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FREE TO BE WHO WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE

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Knowing who God is, is a very important aspect of following Christ. We can learn so much about Him by reading the books of the prophets in the Old Testament.

There is a study help in the Amplified Bible that says:
“One may read the writing of the prophets only as a valuable contribution to History and may become enriched by familiarity with their forecasts of events which have been startlingly fulfilled, thus proclaiming the diving inspiration of the books and the wisdom and power of the God who prompted their writings. BUT, to stop there is by no means to grasp their full and outstanding purpose for today. Though the prophets God is speaking definitively to every individual and nation on earth, right now, demanding that we see ourselves as He sees us!”
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the lord, thought of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

God’s plans and purposes for us have been there forever. Before He formed us in the womb.
Psalm 139:16 “Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written everyone of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them.”

He recorded His plans for us in His book. He wrote them down…before He even made time? “Before the days were formed for me.”

Isaiah 43:18-19 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

We can’t worry about our past. We can’t worry about what others think. Let’s read Jeremiah 1:5-10, The Message Bible.

“Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you: A prophet to the nations— that’s what I had in mind for you.” But I said, “Hold it, Master GOD! Look at me. I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy!” GOD told me, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy.’ I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there. I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it. Don’t be afraid of a soul. I’ll be right there, looking after you.” GOD’s Decree. GOD reached out, touched my mouth, and said, “Look! I’ve just put my words in your mouth—hand-delivered! See what I’ve done? I’ve given you a job to do among nations and governments—a red-letter day! Your job is to pull up and tear down, take apart and demolish, And then start over, building and planting.”

God didn’t listen to his excuses. He doesn’t want to hear ours. He promises to be there, and to look after us. He’s given us a job to do! We have to know who He is and who we are to be able to do what He has asked. To be able to fulfill the plans that He has for us. He had wonderful, awesome things in store for His children-for you-for me! In Philippians 2:13 He says, “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” We don’t have to do it in our own strength and wisdom!

Ephesians 3:19-21 “and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

What are some of the plans that He has for you?