Last Lessons #38 - FRIENDS

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”  Proverbs 17:1

Everybody needs friends - human beings to spend time with, talk to, encourage and be encouraged by – people who love us and whom we love.  It is wonderful when our closest friend is a sibling or other relative.  But if they do not live with us or near us, and we cannot see them and hug them, we are likely to become lonely.  We need friends.  I remember when my husband died and I had moved to Florida from Texas where I had had several close friends, it was hard for me.  I had children and employees and students that I spent time with, but it was not fair to expect my children, my employees, or my students to be my best friends.  I should be-friend them and love them dearly, but I needed to be their mother, or their employer, or their teacher.  God intended my relationship to them to be for a different purpose than only a friend.  

So where did I find friends?  It was the same place I made friends for most of my adult life; I came together with others who had, not just common interests, but a common purpose.  I joined others in mission work in Africa for a common purpose, I met with others for the common purpose of studying the Bible in BSF, and others joined with me for the purpose of putting together the Rafiki Foundation.  In all these activities I made my closest friends.

Now I want to suggest to you where you might make the best friends you will ever have.  Start a Rafiki Bible Study group or become a member of one.  Check with Rafiki (rafikifoundation.org) for how to do this.  Your purpose would be to study the Word of God with others face to face.  Not only do you learn what the Bible teaches, you also come to know others as you listen to them and pray with them.  A RBS group spends about one and a half hours every week together becoming friends because you have a common purpose.  If you are already a part of a RBS group, then you have friends!

One last thing: the best friend you will ever have is Jesus.  

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my father I have made known to you.”  John 15:15

I know this because he is my best friend.  I can’t see him, but I can talk to him any time I want and I can listen to him as I read his words to me in the Bible.  And someday I will see him face to face.  In the meantime, I often find myself singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”   But I change the pronouns to the singular, that is, “What a Friend I Have in Jesus”.  If you don’t know this hymn, look it up on Google to get the words.  

I always have a Friend and so do you if you are a Christian.

 

Last Lessons #37 - OLDIES

“Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent.”  Psalm 71:9

Yes, I am old now.  I think that most of you who read my blog are over 55 years old which makes you a senior citizen too!  And our strength may not be what it used to be, but we are not dead yet!  And if the Lord has not taken us home, he must have something he still wants us to do.  I am kept busy doing what I have strength to do for my family, my church, my friends, my country, and Rafiki.  

This week I want to talk to you about what we can do for our country – the United States of America.  The USA is changing so fast from what we knew of it when we were young that old brains have a hard time keeping up.  Here’s what I have to do to keep up.  Maybe these things will help you too.

Be informed.  Watch conservative news on TV (at least FOX).  Use your computer to read news from a Christian perspective (at least Al Mohler’s Daily Briefing, World Watch, Crosswalk News and Commentary).  You might like to read the book THE THREE Cs THAT MADE AMERICA GREAT by Mike Huckabee.  It’s definitely worth reading.

Be involved.  Help out in any way you can the organizations, ministries, and groups that are concerned with the sanctity of life, marriage, the family, freedom of speech and law and order.  

Be prepared.  Make sure you are financially secure as the economy is changing so quickly in the USA.  Make out your will.  Be sure you have arranged for your own health needs.  Which reminds me – if you are a member of AARP (American Association of Retired People), then get out of it and become a member of AMAC (Association of Mature American Citizens) which is conservative.  

But it’s not enough for us oldies to just take care of ourselves.  The Bible tells us to inform, involve, and prepare the next generation.

“So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.”  Psalm 71:18

Make sure your grandchildren or great-grandchildren are in schools that teach love for this country.  Public schools do not do that.  You may be able to get your church to use its facilities for a Christian school.  Rafiki can help you with that.

Talk to the next generation about the policies that this country needs to put in place or keep in place.  Help them think about free speech, freedom of religion, law and order, etc.  

Encourage your grandchildren and/or great-grandchildren to go into vocations that build this country – like being a fireman or policeman or going into the military.  Of course, the best vocation for boys would be to become preachers in good doctrinally sound churches!

Finally, Oldie, the best thing you can do for your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren is to love them and help them know and love God.  

Last Lessons #36 – SUNDAY SCHOOL

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Matthew 28:19-20

By God’s grace I was able to go to Sunday School as a child.  That’s how I learned to know what is in the Bible and ultimately how to know God.  What would I have done without Sunday School?  How can disciples be made if they are not taught, and what better way to teach children and adults than in Sunday School?  

The great news is that Rafiki is beginning to make Sunday School Lessons available not only to African churches but to churches in the USA and throughout the World!  So far, we have lessons for MATTHEW (31 weeks), ACTS (26 weeks), 1 CORINTHIANS (16 weeks) and 2 CORINTHIANS (14 weeks) all ready to be purchased by churches from Rafiki on its website https://www.rafikibiblestudy.org Let me tell you about them.

The lessons are taken from the Rafiki Bible Study material and re-organized to fit within a 45-minute timeframe for people who have not come prepared.  This fits what most churches need.  A box of lessons contains one printed lesson for teachers of adults, one for pre-school, kindergarten – grade 2 teachers, one for grade 3-6 teachers, and one for grade 7-8 teachers.  High school teachers should be able to use the adult lessons. The Sunday School class members do not receive printed material, but they will need to have a Bible available.  Rafiki SS lessons are taken from the ESV.  

The adult teachers lesson is so well scripted that it does not require a great deal of preparation on the part of the teacher.  However, a commentary on the Book of the Bible is included in the box and it is hoped that it will be studied by the teacher.  

The adult lesson contains notes (to be read or told) interspersed with questions for the class.  There is also a suggested hymn (printed), a memory verse, and doctrinal focus.  

The children’s lessons provide notes for the teachers to read or tell, plus a hymn, memory verse, doctrinal focus, and a suggested activity for the children appropriate for their grade level.   

Does your church have Sunday School?

Does your church have good Sunday School material?

Do you teach a Sunday School class?

I hope you will talk to your church about the Rafiki Sunday School Lessons (RSSL).  

Close to two thousand churches have requested the MATTHEW study and we expect more.  What thrills me is that this means that hundreds of thousands of adults and children will be going to Sunday School, learning what the Bible teaches, and coming to know God. 

What could be better than that!! 

Last Lessons #35 - LIES

“Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of men. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say, ‘With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?’”  Psalm 12:1-4

In today’s world it seems that we cannot trust anyone to tell the truth.   Everybody lies.  I lie and you lie but not as much as our politicians lie.  Even our President lies.  We cannot even trust “fact-checkers”!  It does seem that all the faithful have vanished and everyone lies to his neighbor as Psalm 12 says.  But that is not the whole story.  Psalm 12 goes on in verse 6 to state:

  

“The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.”  Psalm 12:6

I have learned that there is one place where there are no lies.  That one place is the Bible.   I also know that there have been, and still are, some men and women who are faithful in standing for the truth of the Bible and who are willing to state it in writing.

By the grace of God, my husband and I were privileged to be a part of the ICBI.   

The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) was founded in 1977 to clarify and defend the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.  You can google ICBI to find out more, including the names of those of us who signed the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 1978.  Here is the “Short Statement” of what we signed.  

1. God who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge.  Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as Cod’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.
3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture’s divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less to what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

The truth is available in the Scriptures and we thank God for those who have stood for it through the years.  We thank God for those who are still standing for truth today.   The reason people, especially our political leaders, lie and therefore damage our country is because they do not know the truth because they do not read the Bible.   

“But Jesus answered them, ‘You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.’”  Matthew 22:29

What does that say to us?

READ THE SCRIPTURES.  And earnestly pray that our leaders will read the Bible so that they know what is right and what is wrong.  

And please DO NOT LIE!  

Last Lessons #34 – WAITING

“So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’  He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth’. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’”  Acts 1:6-11

When I was a child, I couldn’t wait till Christmas morning.  I couldn’t wait till vacation time when I wouldn’t have to wear shoes.  Now as an old lady, I have to wait for someone to pick me up to take me somewhere.  I have to wait until my food is served in my room.  I don’t like waiting for any number of things.  

No one likes waiting.  I cannot imagine what it was like for Jesus’ disciples when they watched Jesus being lifted up and taken out of their sight by a cloud.  He was gone!  When would he come back?  They knew he had promised to return, but how long would they have to wait? Jesus had told them –

“Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”  Matthew 24:30-31

How long will we have to wait for Christ’s return?  Things in our world look so bad that we cannot imagine Jesus will not return soon to gather his own to himself and to judge the earth.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for Jesus to return.  I’m sure you are too if you are a Christian.  If you are not a Christian, you had better ask Jesus to save you from your sins now or else you will mourn when he returns.  And he will return!

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”  Matthew 24:14 

So while we wait, we (just as the disciples were told to do), are to be witnesses to the gospel to the ends of the earth.  Christians have different ways of witnessing to the ends of the earth.  For myself, when my husband died, I asked God what he wanted me to do as half a person and no longer able to travel.  God graciously and mercifully made it clear that even if I could not go myself, that I could send his Word to Africa.  So I started a 501c3 organization called RJBF (Rosemary Jensen Bible Foundation) to send out Bibles and Bible commentaries to the ends of the earth – especially Africa!  As of now, we have sent out more than 60,000 Bibles and 500 Bible commentaries.  If you want to know more, you can reply to this blog and I will give you my contact address.  

What are you doing as you wait for the Lord to return?  Are you witnessing somehow, somewhere?  I can assure you that if you pray for God to show you how and where you are to witness to his saving grace and his return, he will answer your prayer.  And you are not too old or too weak! 

“But they that wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”  Isaiah 40:31