Author: Ira Paine

Echoes From the Campfire

by Ira Paine, Posted on

I love the quiet of riding in the dark and the peace of stars twinkling overhead.”

                    –Ron Schwab  (Beware a Pale Horse)

       “I am leaving you with a gift–peace of mind and heart.  And the peace I give isn’t like the peace the world gives.  So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
                    –John 14:27 (NLT)
——————————–
     “Good news!”  Wouldn’t that be a change?  There is so much doom and gloom, hatred and bitterness in the news and going on throughout the nation and the world that good news is seldom heard.  But that was the message that we were and are given by the angels that night long ago in Bethlehem.  This is the good news of salvation, peace on earth, and joy to all people.
     Christmas?  Too early!  No, it should be celebrated in our hearts all year long if we are truly born-again believers.  Our hearts should be joyous and filled with peace despite what is going on around us.  People clamor for peace, but there can be no true peace unless there is first peace with one’s Maker.  Charles L. Childers said, “Peace between man and God is an essential prerequisite to peace between man and his fellowman.”  Let’s look back at that night when the skies were suddenly burst asunder by a mighty voice of an angel.  (I normally use the NKJV version but am going to go with NLT this morning)  First the preface to the short angelic hymn.

          “That night some shepherds were in the fields outside the village, guarding their flocks of sheep.  Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them.  They were terribly frightened, but the angel reassured them.  ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he said.  ‘I bring you good news of great joy for everyone!  The Savior–yes, the Messiah, the Lord–has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David.  And this is how you will recognize him:  You will find a baby lying in a manger, wrapped snugly in strips of cloth!’  Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others–the armies of heaven–praising God:  (Luke 2:8-13)

Angelic hymn:  “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors.” (Luke 2:14)

Link to the Psalms:  “Praise the Lord!  Praise the LORD from the heavens!  Praise him from the skies!  Praise him, all his angels!  Praise him, all the armies of heaven!”  (Psalm 148:1-2, NLT)

WOW!  Can you even imagine?  There is a great lesson here–never forget your experiences with the Lord.  There are experiences in life that we may have only once, do not forget them.  Peter, James and John would never forget the transfiguration, Jacob would never forget wrestling with the Lord, thus we should never forget those wonderful experiences that we have had.  Let no one take them away from you.  They are yours and they add to your faith.
     “Good news of great joy for everyone!”  It is there–the good news.  Rejoice in it, if you have received and partaken of that wonderful news of the Savior and have received Him.  Great joy for everyone?  Yes, yes, if they partake and believe in the good news.  We have this tremendous joy given to us by the Holy Spirit, not only when we celebrate Christmas but every day of the year.  Christmas brings us that great “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”  The world may cry for peace, but my friend, if we have the Holy Spirit residing in us, that peace overflows like a river.
     So this holiday (holy-day) season partake of the riches of this joy and peace, and if you haven’t done so before, let it fill your heart and flow through your being throughout the year.

          “On Christmas night all Christians sing to hear the news the angels bring,
          News of great joy, news of great mirth, news of a merciful Savior’s birth.
          Then why should men on earth be sad, since our Redeemer made us glad,
          When from our sin, He set us free, all for to gain our liberty?”
                    –Luke Wadding

 

Coffee Percs

by Ira Paine, Posted on

He turned away to get an enamel cup and the coffee pot off the stove in the corner. He poured the cup full, sat the steaming black brew in front of the man, and stepped back. ‘That’ll be a nickel.’” 

                    –B.N. Rundell  (Wagon Wheel Gap)
 
     Take a deep sip, Pard.  That thar coffee comes from roasters way over in Silver City, New Mexico.  No, thar’s not no pintos nor peppers in it; it’s coffee yuh dodo.  Fresh, hot, black elixir from my own kitchen.  Ahhh, good to have it this mornin’.  Doc prescribed a stress test for me, an’ that meant no coffee for twenty-four hours.  Whoopee, I’ll tell yuh I sure wanted a cup that night before.  After the test, I rode the ol’ steel mount over to the daughter’s house where I promptly swallered three cups.
     Ha, when I first read what ol’ BN wrote I had to chuckle.  Shore did remind me of somethin’ my Grandpa Jones said once on a trip.  He stopped for coffee on a trip back to those wheatfields of Kansas and almost had a combustion fit when he found out that coffee at the cafe cost him a whole dime.  Mom said, he slammed his hand on the table, “Who ever heard of coffee costin’ more than a nickel?”  Ain’t like that now, that’s for shore.
     Things just don’t stop.  The foolishness and stupidity continues.  I know that thar are some out there that’s a-wantin’ a global society.  An’ I tell yuh they don’t know what they’re askin’ for.  When that comes about it’ll be too late for them for that ol’ devil-filled man of lawlessness will be in control.  Pard, if’n yur around then, yuh better seek shelter quick an’ hang on, not only will coffee become scarce or too expensive to buy they’re be a lot of the devil’s doin’ goin’ on.  In fact, this ol’ world will be bustin’ wide open with evil.  But for a politician, a supposedly American mayor (Chicago) to ask for the United Notions to step in an interfere with immigration enforcement in this here U.S.A. is downright shameful.
     Go ahead, Pard, yuh can drink it.  I know it’s the last of the brew, but I’m good to share.  Don’t blame yuh for wantin’ more.  Now, back to my pontificatin’, what I don’t understand is why these so-called leaders, an’ yuh know of whom I’m a-speakin’, go on about things that are illegal.  Illegal immigrants, illegal drugs, Illegal this and that, but don’t they get it?  The term is “illegal.”  How can stoppin’ cartel drugs from comin’ into the U.S. be illegal?  How can stoppin’ noncitizens from votin’ be illegal?  Do yuh get my drift?   
     On top of all this there was the shenanigans the liberals did by shuttin’ down the government.  Didn’t hurt them none, exceptin’ maybe they got their feelin’s hurt by not gettin’ their own way.  An’ most of that was over this ideal of givin’ handouts, welfare, and insurance to–yuh got it–illegals.  My mercy, if’n we’d follow them and check them out I’m a-thinkin’ they mount up not checkin’ their cinch.  No wonder they’re looney; they’ve fallen on their noggin’ too many times an’ don’t know up from down, much less right from wrong.
     Yuh be havin’ a good and safe week, Pard.  Sit tall in the saddle, knowin’ of whom yuh serve.  He’s got it all under control and we all can be a-trustin’ Him, even if’n we have to pay a little more for coffee.
     Vaya con Dios.

 

Echoes From the Campfire

by Ira Paine, Posted on

He was learning that to speak of love is not easy when the feeling is deep and strong.”
                    –Louis L’Amour  (The Burning Hills)

       “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.  God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
                    –1 John 4:16 (NKJV)
———————–
The Supreme Court confirmed it, “love is love”, so says the governor of Colorado.  Not so!  The Colorado governor is mistaken.  Love is love cannot be right for there are many ways the term is used and there is also false love, emotional love, pseudo-love, and deceptive love.  This term is misused and misunderstood by most everyone.  I may say, “I love apple pie,” and then turn to my wife and say, “I love you, honey.”  They do not equate.  
     The Greeks understood this to an extent.  They used “phileo” to mean “tender affection,” a brotherly type of love or deep friendship.  “Storge,” which is familial love and “eros,” which is romantic, passionate love.  We see “agape” and “phileo” in the New Testament.  Greek thought that “agape” or “agapao” love was impossible for man to show as it was a god-type love and was seen only in their literature.  How can man love like the gods, they thought?
     So when the governor of Colorado is speaking of love he cannot be thinking of “agape.”  For “agape” is pure love; it is God love.  It is the love that says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NASB)  It is the love that Jesus spoke of when He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13, NASB)  I would ask my apologetics class, “Do you love me?”  Most would answer in the positive, while the intelligent ones would not reply.  One student, in the front row was emphatic in her declaration.  I proceeded, “I am old, lived most of my life, and you are just getting started in yours, so am I to believe that you would willingly die for me?”  Well, that caught her, and she crawfished.  She was beginning to understand a little about “love.”  I will say, later in the year she came to me and confirmed her earlier statement by informing me, “Mr. Adkisson, I would die for you.”
     There was one time, while walking down the halls at school, a parent walked by me and said, “Love you, brother,” and continued on.  “Love me,” he doesn’t even know my name.  Then there are those individuals, the worst being youth evangelists who spout out, “I love you all.”  Hmmm?  This brings me to my point.  “Love,” what the Greeks thought only the gods could have, is a mystical, supernatural love.  It comes from God.  For us to love like Him, we need to have the Holy Spirit in our lives.  When Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, we need to remember that he is writing to believers, not those in the world.
     I have always been careful in expressing my feelings using the term, “love.”  It can be so flippant, so easily spouted out of the mouth with honestly no real meaning.  So can a person say, “I love you” without knowing you?  Only through the love of God.  Can an evangelist honestly say that he loves everyone in front of his voice?  Perhaps, but only through the love of God.  That love which is so powerful, so giving, so sacrificing has to come from God.  This love is not an impulse that spurts out from emotions.  Love is thoughtful.  I cannot love a piece of apple pie with “agape”; if that could happen then that piece of pie, which I would soon consume, would become an idol.  See, “apage” is an attribute of God that shows His essential nature.  With the Holy Spirit living within us, we can truly (at times) say, “I agape you.”
     We are moving closer to Christmas so let me say that this time of the year we can show “agape” as the Holy Spirit leads us.  It was the Incarnation that showed one of the greatest aspects of “agape.”  God sent His Son–a gift–a gift because He loved man so much to want to redeem him.  The Father sent “Agape” because He “agaped” mankind.  O the great, wonderful, magnificent, deep love of God.
 
          O, the deep, deep love of Jesus,
          Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
          Rolling as a mighty ocean
          In its fullness over me!
          Underneath me, all around me,
          Is the current of Thy love
          Leading onward, leading homeward
          To Thy glorious rest above!
               –Samuel Trevor Francis

 

Echoes From the Campfire

by Ira Paine, Posted on

There was no telling what one man might accomplish. It was as if doubt and fear had never tortured him.”

                    –Zane Grey  (Stranger From the Tonto)

       “So the Philistines were subdued, and they did not come anymore into the territory of Israel.  And the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.”  
                    –1 Samuel 7:13 (NKJV)
——————————-
Veterans Day is now past; are you thankful that we have had men and women sacrifice time, effort, and blood for our freedom?  My, what a blessing!  In fact, what a blessing we have that we live in this country despite all the nonsense we see happening.  We could have been born in Somalia or Bangladesh.  Or, shades of George Bailey, wish we had never been born at all.  Do you remember the story of Philip Nolan, the Man Without a Country?  He hated his homeland and was forced never to set foot in it again.  Oh, my friend, count your blessings!  And where do all these and all other blessings come from?  They come from that Fount that is continually flowing.
     Robert Robinson composed this wonderful hymn in 1758.  I remember singing this song in church as a child and it was usually around Thanksgiving time.  A few years before he heard a sermon by George Whitefield that caused him to deeply reflect, and a few years later he wrote this wonderful hymn.  Fix the words in your heart and mind for the Holy Spirit still flows.

          Come, thou Fount of every blessing; tune my heart to sing thy grace;
          Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
          Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above;
          Praise the mount!  I’m fixed upon it, mount of God’s unchanging love!

Every blessing, every good thing comes from the Father above.  Streams of mercy, and oh, how we need it.  Yet so often we don’t think we do, we ignore it, or take it for granted.  No, it should cause us to sing to heaven because of His wonderful fount that flows with mercy that never ceases.  Think of that–never ceasing mercy…that is, unless we reject Him in this life.  Right now, fix your life, your mind, your heart upon God’s unchanging love!

          Here I raise my Ebenezer; hither by thy help I’m come;
          And I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
          Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God;
          He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.

“Ebenezer” is a word seldom used.  My Grandpa Jones had a cat named Ebenezer, and I know of Ebenezer Scrooge, but what does it mean?  “Stone of help”–it was a place we find in 1 Samuel 4:1, “Israel went out…and camped at Ebenezer…”  This area was a place of springs and fertile land.  Later we see in Samuel that he set up a stone of remembrance that “The Lord has helped us to this point.”(7:12)  Then the battle raged the next day, and “the Lord thundered loudly against the Philistines that day and threw them into such confusion that they were defeated by the Israelites.”  Are you getting the picture?  Raise your Ebenezer as a testimony!  In the time of trouble, help will surely come.  It is “an enduring monument to perpetuate the memory” of victory.” (Expositor’s Bible)
     Look back at your conversion; it is an Ebenezer, a stone of remembrance.  Look back at some special experience the Lord gave you; it is an Ebenezer, a stone of remembrance.  From where does the victory come?  From where does the fount of blessings flow?  God met with us, He takes us through life’s situations and will in His good pleasure take us home.

          O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be!
          Let that grace now, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.
          Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;
          Here’s my heart; O take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above.

Without a doubt God is with us every minute of every day.  Without a doubt we know that He has intervened in our lives numerous times along the journey.  Think of the debts we owe Him, any of those times He could have said, “Sorry, not today, you’re not on my “to help” list.  But know, His blessings flow down to us.  I like this last verse, grace chains us to Him.  We are prone to wander, prone to sin, but He has, with His grace, chained us to Him so that we cannot be swept away by the cares and evils of this world.  Let those blessings flow over and through you this holiday season.