“The RoseBouquet”

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

It’s hard to state this single qualification with any shorter or clearer sentence. But if we’re trying to muster 100% purity on our own we’ll never put together the full price of this ticket to see the face of God.

You might turn away and say, “Ach, what’s the big deal? What if I don’t want to see God?” Good point. Let’s look at the alternative options.

If we are not pure, that is, completely free of sin, God will turn away from us when our eternity begins, and whoever He does not accept into His presence is dammed to hell for all eternity. The suffering there will be intense and horrible; it will be impossible to stop it by dying. Any who end up there are dying forever.

The guilt, the shame, the pain of regret may be worse than the flames of fire licking and chewing at the skin and bones and nerves continually.

Many of those in hell will have hardened their heart so much against God, that they will not desire to see His face at all. However, if you can picture yourself begging for a glimpse of Him then - chances are good that you want to see God now; you just haven’t thought of it much yet.

The really good news is that God has purchased your ticket for you by sending His own Son, Jesus to die and rise, so that by faith in Him you may have Jesus’ 100% purity. It won’t always be held out for you to grasp, but right now you may be pure in heart and get to see God - by accepting Jesus’ righteousness as your own.

PRAYER: Oh Lord Jesus! Thank You for paying the awful price of this ticket, and offering me Your righteousness and purity. I do want to stand before God unashamed and clean of every bit of sin. Humbly I accept this great gift, and I want to cherish and love You forever for doing this for me. Help me to remain clean and pure.

+++++Jesus is my King+++++Jesus is my King+++++

Blessings on you Today!
Ruth Marlene Friesen

P.S. Oh, how sweet to have a friend who’d drop everything and come when you need her. Ruthe, the heroine of this novel, dashes away from her own grad when her friend Muriel calls. Don’t you wish you had a loyal, caring friend like that? Buy and READ Ruthe’s Secret Roses!

Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

To be merciful means we forgive those who wrong or hurt us. To be shown mercy means we are forgiven for the wrongs and hurts we have done others - including God.

Did you know that we have wronged and hurt God? It’s true. Almighty God up there in Heaven, the Creator of the whole universe, is affected when we -

- recognize someone else as more holy and important,
- make something we admire more than Him,
- speak disrespectfully of Him,
- fail to rest every seventh day,
- dishonour our parents who gave us life,
- kill or destroy someone else,
- are unfaithful to our marriage commitments,
- take what is not ours,
- lie about the next person,
- desire what someone else has.

If we grasped how awesome and holy God is, and how personally involved He is in the details of our lives, we might get a glimpse of how He hurts when we dishonour Him. Or reject His gift of His Son, Jesus, sent specifically to redeem us and show us mercy.

We find it hard to admit to sin. I know I did well into my adult years when I began to see myself from God’s perspective. I’ve wondered if this is because I rarely saw my parents admit to a mistake. I had no role model for confession. Did you?

PRAYER: Oh God, I’m glad now that You’ve brought me to see the value in admitting my sins to You, and begging for mercy. Then I discovered You to be most gracious and ready to forgive, and to free me from all that shame and guilt. Oh the release and joy that comes out of that! Asking You for mercy is the smartest move I can make. Right after that is forgiving others who need mercy from me. Giving mercy is much easier once I’ve received Yours!

+++++Jesus is my King+++++Jesus is my King+++++

Blessings on you Today!
Ruth Marlene Friesen

P.S. How can you be sure you would like an e-book before you pay for it? In a store you’d stand and read a couple of chapters first, right? Sit down, take your time; READ six chapters of Ruthe’s Secret Roses for free!

Do I really want to be Holy?

Jesus is pronouncing blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. His promise to these is that they will be filled. That makes it a good thing to be hungry and thirsty for righteousness. We’ll get it.

You may be hesitating; what exactly is righteousness?

Only God and His Son Jesus are totally righteous or holy, perfect. And, of course, the Holy Spirit who is in us if we’ve humbly received Jesus’ death on the cross as our substitute. He abides, or is in our spirit to help us be as righteous or holy as we want to be.

Therefore, the more we desire, or hunger and thirst for His perfection the more we’ll get.

How does that work, when we, I at least, always feel like I’m not measuring up, or constantly making new mistakes that I never thought to avoid?

There is that constant tension of the Tempter trying to thwart us from being holy. So we must continually desire holiness and cast ourselves upon the Lord, reckoning that He will keep His Word and give us the holiness of Jesus for each moment and crisis.

Sometimes we tell ourselves that because the struggle seems so un-ending, we must be losing the battle. That is just not so. Jesus guarantees here, in the Beatitudes that those who hunger and thirst for purity or righteousness shall be filled!

PRAYER: Thank You Jesus, for this guarantee that I shall be holy and pure and righteous, if I keep hungering and thirsting for it. Little by little You do make me more perfect; I just don’t always notice that I’ve learned to avoid certain sins, or keep my mind on right thoughts, or to care more about You and the glory of Your name than all my possessions, nor that I’m putting others first more often. So let me cry again, I thirst for Your righteousness!

+++++Jesus is my King+++++Jesus is my King+++++

Blessings on you Today!
Ruth Marlene Friesen

P.S. Do you eat novels like chocolates? Here’s one with both weight and excellent flavour! For a satisfying treat, read Ruthe’s Secret Roses

Winter arrived Sunday night as rain and sleet turned quietly to snow. Monday morning when I went out for my early pre-breakfast walk I found the slushy wet snow as deep as my boots in some places! It has melted away some in the day-times over the last two days, and today the sun is out in full force, so I think we’ll lose most of it yet.

However, I can’t figure out those flocks of Canada Geese. For at least two to three weeks they have been doing flight practice over our town and countryside. Not just five or seven in a small V, but hundreds and maybe thousands of them in many Vs of various sides within a generally large V that overshadows Hague like a cloud. I thought at first it was one flock after another heading south, but in some of my walks out of town I’ve seen them congregating in enormous flocks in the harvested grain fields. I tell myself they are gleaning the dropped grain kernels like Ruth in the Bible, and fattening themselves up for their long flights to Texas or South America, or wherever they winter over.

I have tried taking some pictures but they don’t show up that well, and I forgot the digital camera the best morning when the sunrise was glinting like silver off their under bellies. With the coming of our first winter snow storm I thought these geese would be gone. They are suppose to know about these things.

Maybe they know we’re going to have a milder winter here, because this morning there were huge swarms of them in the sky. I don’t know if hunting season has opened yet, but today I heard gunshots over to the west of town. I’m guessing that someone is fed up with these Canada geese, or else has decided that since they obviously are not nearing extinction any more, it is safe to bring some down for supper.

One more thing I’ve observed this fall, is their mass honking. In the past I’ve heard the odd goose or three, so I recognized the sound whenever I heard it, but these days, with so many geese all honking encouragement to their fearless leaders, there is a strange undulating honk as hundreds and thousands of them overlap and are heard at the same time. I can tell from which direction a flock is coming overheard for several minutes before they come into sight…

This morning when those shots rang out, the honking sound crescendoed and flocks in every direction rose up from wherever they were and the sky filled with thousands of geese at once!

Shucks! And today I forgot the camera again!

I’m fighting SP A m in EARNEST now. Here’s a warning. If it doesn’t apply to you, would you please pass it on? Just copy and paste the marked paragraphs below into a new email composer window and send it out - individually please - to those who need to know.

wwwWarningwwwwWarningwwwwwWarningwwwwwWarningwww
WARNING! If someone from your IP address is sending me unsolicited ad-email or spaming my forms, you may find you can no longer visit my sites, as I am currently taking down “license plates” so to speak, and entering those IP addresses to be banned. I’m afraid this may block some innocent people, so I’m looking for another alternative, but I can no longer turn a blind eye and just hit delete. I’m checking out and trying various options to STOP SPAM.

I suspect some of the people doing this are simply following steps someone else has given them for advertising their site or products. They may not have clued in that they are spamming and there are folks calling curses down on them. I really wish I could warn those people - Do NOT use those mass “safe lists” or other mailing lists that you don’t know how they were compiled.

And if you - speaking to these spammers now - do this from your personal or family email, you are going to limit what sites they can see, or whom they can email in personal relationships, because many of us webmasters are now blocking your email, or any coming from your IP address. Your email software probably does not inform you that many of your mailouts are not reaching their destination any more.

What you may notice is that when you try to go to some site a friend recommends, you run into a “FORBIDDEN” or “BANNED” message. You can’t access that site no matter what you do. Or you might write an email to a relative or friend you haven’t been in touch with recently, and wonder why they never reply. Putting aside reasons like laziness, it may simply be that someone on their IP address has banned your IP address, and you just aren’t going to get there by email any more. You’ll need to revert back to the phone or snail mail.

Check out the ethics of your advertising methods. Make sure you are not using Spammer’s techniques and lists!
wwwWarningwwwwWarningwwwwwWarningwwwwwWarningwww

It occurred to me yesterday that I’ve been looking for all these practical ways to fight this garbage; what about spiritual warfare? So I’m considering that method too. Not sure yet how drastic that will be, but if God can make the earth quake, I’m sure He can halt some garbage emails too!

It is a series of numbers like this: 74.6.67.212. Every computer connected to the Internet has a unique identifier called an IP address. On many networks, the IP address of a computer is always the same. If you are on dial-up, your ISP provider, may assign a different IP address to you each time you log on.If you ever want to know what your IP address is, here are some links. When you go to them, they will tell you what your computer’s IP # is right now, this minute;
http://checkip.dyndns.org/
http://www.whatismyipaddress.com/
http://www.showipaddress.com/
http://www.myipaddress.com/show-my-ip-address/

Of course, if your computer has a firewall installed, or works through a network or proxy, this will not be your real IP address. Which can protect your computer from outside attacks, but may have drawbacks too.

(an excerpt from Chapter 7 of the novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses)

By Monday morning, on her private early dawn walk, Ruthe still considered backing off this new adventure trail, however, she knew with a growing insight, that she had to go check on that woman. At least once.

What if she has no home to go to? What if she was scared out of her wits? All morning, as she wrote her chemistry exam, these questions haunted her.

Lord, I’m scared of him too, but I have an advantage; I can pray and expect You to deliver me. That short young woman with the shiny black hair probably can’t. The reasonable, mature thing to do was to check out the aftermath of Saturday evening, perhaps even with the police. Ruthe winced, but she knew that sometimes doing right costs.

As soon as her exam was done, Ruthe could leave. She threw her resolve to remain anonymous away, and her tightly budgeted studying time too. She told her mother she had to drive into Saskatoon a couple of hours before her evening shift. She did not say why.

When she was thirteen, Ruthe had stumbled on a profound thought. If she hid from one crisis, there would be sure to be others to cow her into a corner. That was not how she meant to live her life. On that premise she had begged her dad not to pick up and move just because he felt the neighbours did not like him in Kleinstadt. He had never said she had changed his mind, but Ruthe was relieved when he dropped the idea. This connected in her mind. She was going to follow through on what she had started the previous Saturday.

The woman sitting on the hospital bed did not recognize her, so Ruthe made a self-conscious face and introduced herself as, “the person who brought you here on Saturday night.” She added offhandedly, “early evening, actually.”

That olive complexion looked paler against the blue pillow and sheets. Now that Ruthe looked closer, the woman seemed much younger. But the expression was hard and old.

“By the way, my name’s Ruthe. Yours?” she asked, shifting her weight back to her left foot uneasily.

“That’s the idea,” said the conscientious intern, swinging through the door on rubber soles. “Get her personal data and next of kin, will you? She’s refused to help us out. Not a word.”

Ruthe gave a startled look at the dimple man. She turned back to the woman.

“A-, I wasn’t sure- what happened. What did I do? Them #@$%& cops don’t need nothin’ on me!”

Ruthe turned to show Dr. Davie her own dimpled left cheek. “Would you excuse us a bit,” she asked softly, “while I censor the facts?”

He dimpled right back. “Sure, Angel o’ Mercy. I trust you. D’sooner d’better.” He left with a good-natured whistle.

Ruthe pulled up the cheap guest chair beside the bed. “Now, I’m just an ordinary, rather naive country girl, who cares about people.”

The patient turned to face her directly. “Yeah. Y’look like a softy. Y’don’t want to know the @#$ #$%& mess.”

[To read the rest of this excerpt go to Strangler’s Victim]

Does anyone ever call you meek? If they do, are you offended?

It depends on how we define it. Many think because it rhymes with weak, it means the same thing. Who wants to be seen as weak?

It really means the opposite of angry; controlling one’s temper, tamed. We know that a tamed horse can be beautiful and spirited and full of energy, but it is all at the command of the owner and trainer. That’s how I’ve come to understand the word meek.

I don’t lose my enthusiasm and liveliness and interest in many things when I bow to the Lord and say, “You shall be my Lord and Master. You get to say what I shall do and how.” It does mean that all that enthusiasm for life, and many interests will now be managed for maximum productivity and effectiveness. Now I’m ready to go places!

Choosing Christ Jesus to be the captain of my soul is safe. Guaranteed safe! Although many prefer to keep that role for themselves.

Do you know the Lord Jesus well enough to trust Him utterly and defer to Him?

Look at verse 5 again. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Does that look like we’ll be abused if we submit to the taming and training of the Lord? No way!

Truth is - we wouldn’t know what to do with such a great inheritance, if we didn’t get some training as heirs first, would we?

PRAYER: Lord, this new grasp of meekness appeals to me. I would like You to tame and train me. Instead of me stumbling about, overwhelmed and confused by the gifts and abilities You’ve given me, how about if You take charge and turn all that energy and talent into something powerful and effective - lovely to behold, and glorifying to Your name.

+++++Jesus is my King+++++Jesus is my King+++++

Blessings on you Today!
Ruth Marlene Friesen

P.S. You’ve heard of power naps at work, right? You rise refreshed, bright and alert. Take a break to refresh your spirit with a good inspirational story.

Jesus says those who mourn will be happy and blessed because they’ll be comforted. This is good news, but to what kind of mourners does it apply? Just anybody who is sad?

People mourn at the death or their loss of a loved one. We may not realize it, but we also mourn when our dreams don’t come true, or when someone fails to keep a promise.

What about the sorry-for-our-sins, the true repentance that comes upon us when we realize that we have fallen far short of God’s lovely and perfect standard of holiness; we deserve His wrath and punishment? I know from other passages that God does appreciate that kind of sadness or mourning. In fact He often calls for it.

It is when we are really ready to admit our guilt and shame that we are ready to accept (or reject) his offer of forgiveness and wholeness. When we do, the relief, the joy, and the comfort are tremendous blessings. God really does comfort us then!

By His Holy Spirit He comforts us too, if we are His adopted children, when we are bereaved or deeply hurt and disappointed.

Oddly enough, it is only after we have been comforted by God, that we can empathize with others’ pain, and offer them any measure of comfort. This way, God’s comfort is not just a pat on the head or a kiss to make it better, but a real blessed happiness that we can pass on to others as a valuable gift.

PRAYER: Thank You, Lord, that we may come cry on Your shoulder when we mourn our failures, disappointments, or the hurts and attacks of others. But a special big thank You for comforting us when we are ready to admit we have done wrong and have hurt You so very deeply.

Help us then to grasp Your loving salvation and gift of forgiveness, and to receive it wholeheartedly, so we may experience that blessed comfort You offer. Oh, hallelujah! What a Saviour! Help me to keep passing on Your comfort to others.

+++++Jesus is my King+++++Jesus is my King+++++

Blessings on you Today!
Ruth Marlene Friesen

P.S. You don’t really have time to read on the couch, but if you’re like me, you do read snatches on the run, and somehow make time to read a GOOD book completely.

So how can you be sure this Ruthe in the book is not some kook? Read the six sample chapters.

Jesus has just seen an opportunity to preach to this large crowd following Him, so He sat down on a mountainside, and, well… the Bible says He began to teach. Different style altogether, from His cousin John.

He starts out, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” Who is poor in spirit and how they can be blessed or glad and have the kingdom of Heaven?

When we say someone has spirit, we are thinking they are lively, enthusiastic, involved, and often self-confident. If one is poor in spirit, he’d be lacking in these traits, right? Shy, withdrawn, feeling like a nobody, the ones with nothing to contribute are the poor in spirit. But Jesus says they can be glad because they may have the kingdom of heaven.

There’s lots of times I’ve felt like a nobody, with nothing to contribute! How about you?

Voila! Jesus says we’re fit for the kingdom of heaven! We qualify. Think of what it takes to get in (from other passages); we must humbly repent of our sins, and trust only in the finished work of Christ on the cross - no one gets into heaven on their own merit.

So the ones with all the power and self-confidence aren’t going to stoop to enter the kingdom this way.

Can you tell now whether you can get into Heaven? If you do, and if you take that humble step of faith, receiving Christ’s sacrifice for your sins, then you are “Blessed” and can be exceedingly glad. I am already! Because Jesus counts us in!

PRAYER: Thank You, Jesus! The more I think about this first beatitude of Your sermon the happier I get. You do welcome sinners and those who feel like dirt, and if we’re willing to come on Your terms, we can get into Your glorious Home in Heaven. I’ve accepted Your gracious offer of salvation, and now I think of Heaven as my home too. I’m headed Home!

+++++Jesus is my King+++++Jesus is my King+++++

Blessings on you Today!
Ruth Marlene Friesen

P.S. Wish you could have a heart-to-heart talk with God?

Ruthe does. All the time, where ever she goes, she’s having a running conversation with the one she calls Lord, or my Best Friend. You’ve got to meet Ruthe! AND her Secret Roses.