Murphy Family Weekly Newsletter From Tucson, Arizona 04/16/2008
Warm Greetings to you from Tucson, Arizona, where it is getting a bit warm, in the low 90s,
which is about 14 degrees above normal. We
almost turned on the air conditioner last night. We are all fine under our wonderful God’s love
and grace.
Don had a 95 minute atrial fibrillation episode
on Monday night, but he is doing well.
Praise God. Naomi has been busy
with her studies and taking care of her baby birds. One blessed thing is that Terry Kroll from
the CDO church called and told us that she would sell them for Naomi. Terry has an aviary and raises cockatiels,
love birds and parakeets.
David has returned home this morning from his trip to China and Japan. We are anxious to hear from him about his
trip. God is showing Jim his love so
closely and he is touched. He will be
traveling a lot for a couple of weeks, teaching at various spring baseball
camps. May God guide and bless him.
Thank you, Lord. Our grandson
Titus called a few nights ago and sang songs for us. It was a joy.
The other day our sister in Christ
Karin Noah brought Naomi home from her physical therapy. What a wonderful surprise! Thank you, Lord, for all the love You have
shown us.
Michi talked
o
n the phone with our friend Hyeok Flynt the other day. Her daughter Rebekah needs healing. She still has grand mal seizures. Hyeok is now working as a nurse’s aid at a
hospital. Rebekah is not well, and
without a husband, it is very difficult.
Please pray for the family. God
made us brothers and sisters, and we are feeling so much love of
our God the
Father. We need to reach out also.
God
Is Love
The greatest joy of being a
disciple of Jesus is resting in God’s love, knowing that He, the creator of the
world, loves me and takes care of me.
Jesus said that a disciple should relate to God like a little child
relates to his father, resting in his love.
(Mark 10:15, Luke 18:17) The
apostle John says that God is love and those who live in love live in God and
God lives in them. (1 John 4:16)
How do we experience this life of
living in the love of God? Jesus said, “If you obey my commands,
you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and
remain in his love. I have told you this
so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have
loved you.”
(John 15:10-12) Jesus prayed to
our heavenly Father, “I am coming to you now,
but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the
full measure of my joy within them. I
have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of
the world any more than I am of the world.” (John 17:13-14)
Yes, in this world the disciples
of Jesus will have tribulations but we can be of good cheer when we live in
love. (John 16:33) We read in Acts 16 the amazing story of Paul
and Silas who had received a severe beating and thrown into prison with their
feet in stocks. Yet about midnight they
were singing and praying with the other prisoners listening. They were of good cheer even in their
suffering.
Living in love has two parts,
resting in the love of God and showing active love to others. When we live in love we experience the joy and
peace of being close to God, our heavenly Father. Therefore the apostle Paul writes that the
disciples in the kingdom of God experience the righteousness, peace and joy of
the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17)
Jesus tells his disciples, “One day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are
in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my
commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I too will love him and show myself to him.” (John 14:20-21)
The Lord showed his love for us
today when he answered Don’s prayer so quickly.
Michi was gone shopping when Don prayed, “Lord, watch over Michi and
bring her home safely.” The instant he
prayed that, Michi came in the door and said, “I’m home!’. God is love and he does love us so.
Jesus Shows Us How to Love
In John 8:31-59 is the amazing
story of false Christians. Here Jesus is
speaking to some believers and told them that if they live according to his
teachings, they are truly his disciples and will know the truth and the truth
will set them free. These believers
didn’t want to hear this so Jesus told them the plain truth – that they were
actually children of the devil! People
who believe in Jesus but don’t want to live according to his teachings and
commands are children of the devil!
Amazing, isn’t it? Well, this
group of Christians proved Jesus to be right by getting angry with him and
tried to do him harm.
Sadly we see this same thing
throughout history. The Catholics and
the Protestants in the 16th century tortured and killed thousands of
Anabaptists. The Catholics and
Protestants in Germany supported Hitler with the result of millions being
killed. They considered Hitler to be a
Christian. Hitler wrote in his book Mein
Kampf, “I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty
Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the
Lord.” (Do some Christians today
substitute the word ‘Moslem’ for the word ‘Jew’ in the above quote?)
The atheists love to point out what
the German Christians did to the Jews and others; proving, they claim, that
Christianity is an evil religion. Today
we see a similar thing in America with the invasion and occupation of Iraq
which results in the Moslems seeing Christianity as an evil religion.
Are the Christians who support war
acting contrary to the teachings of Jesus and his apostles? The song says, “They will know we are
Christians by our love.” Jesus said, “Do
not resist an evil man.” Paul taught, “Overcome
evil with good.” Peter taught, “Do not
repay evil with evil.”
A modern preacher, Greg Boyd of
St. Paul, MN, teaches that true Christians are to respond to evil with love, Calvary-like
love. But so many Christians since the
time of Christ seem to have this problem: "The god of this age has blinded
their minds..." And a sign of this
blindness, this madness, is their response when someone tries to point out this
problem. They tend to become unreasonably angry. The apostle Paul encountered this
and wrote about it. "We are to God the aroma of Christ among
those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are
the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life." ( 2
Cor 2:15-16)
Therefore when we live a life of
love we have grace and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to
rescue us from this present evil age. (Gal 1:3-5)
True, long lasting, eternal joy and peace comes only by living a life of
love according to the teachings of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Distinguishing
Between Spirits
If an
evil spirit has blinded the eyes of some Christians to the truth, how do we
recognize this? How do we distinguish
between spirits? How do we recognize
sin? In addition to the teachings of
Jesus in John 8:31-59 about how living according to his teachings will enable
us to know the truth, the Lord God has also given some disciples the
supernatural ability to discern evil. The
apostle Paul wrote: “Now about spiritual
gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that when you were pagans, you were
influenced and led astray to idols… Now
to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit… the
ability to distinguish between spirits.”
(1 Cor 12:1-10)
It seems clear to us now that
those Christians who supported Hitler were badly mistaken. And part of the reason that it seems clear to
us is that we were not involved. But
what about when we do get involved in something that is wrong? How can we discern that? One answer is our response when someone tries
to point it out to us. If we become
angry that should be a sign to us that we are motivated by an evil spirit,
shouldn’t it?
Psalm 1
1 Blessed is the man who
does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners or sit in
the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is
in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit
in season and whose leaf does not
wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
4
Not so the wicked! They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the
righteous.
6
For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
This first Psalm stands as a kind of introduction to the rest of the
Psalms. Its subject matter is very
general and basic, but it touches on two subjects that continually occur
throughout the Psalms. It declares the
blessedness of the righteous and the misery and future of the wicked.
Man’s spiritual life is set forth
negatively and positively, inwardly and externally, figuratively and literally. Above all else, it summarizes all that is to
follow in the rest of the Psalms, and, for that matter, in the rest of
Scripture.
It presents two ways of life: the
way of the righteous and the way of the wicked.
However, the key subject is the centrality of God’s Word to the life and
fruitfulness of the righteous who truly love His Word.
Now may the God of all grace who has called you join Him in His
eternal glory with Christ, may He continue to make you strong, firm and
steadfast. To Him be the power and glory
for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:10-11)
your brother and sisters in Christ,
Don, Michi & Naomi Murphy
Tucson, Arizona, phone 520-297-1639
"We are God's
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)