Between Five Days to Change Your World

Between

Five Days to Change Your World

Dead Sea Standing Stones

People have written slogans, political statements

And other messages on standing stones

The Children of Israel had the Jordan River between the years of slavery

And the wandering in the wilderness

When they crossed the Jordan, the leaders took stones

From the Jordan and put them on the bank

These stones were memory stones

They remembered the hardships where their world ruled them

But they also remembered God’s grace and faithfulness

The Promise Land would not come without hardships

But the difference after crossing is they would rule their world

As you remember the past year and its hardships

Remember 

 “All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord” 

“He has call us to His purpose”

God has called you to rule with Him and to rule your world

Don’t let your world rule you

Five Days to Change Your World

There are five days between Christmas and New Year’s.

These five days can change your world.

These days are a bridge from

your past to your future.

Like the Children of Israel, their

past was a life of slavery in Egypt

and 40 years in the wilderness.

Their past was hard.

In a church service of about 30 people,

 a question was asked…

Over the past year have you had hard times?

The majority 80% to 90% said, Yes.

A second question was asked…

Did you see God’s grace in your hardship?

The response was 100% YES!

In 2018, Sandy and I took our snowbird

flight to my brother and sister in law’s

just 45 minutes south of Tampa, Florida.

2018 had bigger plans than any

other year we had been there.

 Our excitement of spending time

together was at an all-time high.

We arrived February 4th and on

Valentine’s Day, February 14^th  my

sister in law had a kidney stone attack and

it was discovered she had Pancreatic Cancer.

She lived 7 more months

with hope and loss of hope.

In 2018, Sandy and I spent

more time in Florida the first

9 months than we did in Ohio.

The journey was hard and our

lives will be changed forever.

 Grace

The journey caused my sister in law,

brother their family and friends

and Sandy and I to seek God.

We all found Him.

 My sister in law, Judy, found a peace and a

joy that was not only incredible, but inspiring.

There was in our sorrow,

grace, which gave us strength.

The Children of Israel had a crossing.

Between the wilderness and the

Promise Land was the Jordan River.

Joshua had the leaders go back

to the river bed and pick a stone.

These stones were set up on the

edge of the river as memory stones.

Today the tradition of “Standing

Stones” is still carried out.

Along the Dead Sea are a number

of these Standing Stones.

On them people write messages.

The day they crossed the Jordan, the

Israelites had memories of hardship and hope.

The Promise Land was not yet theirs.

The journey from Christmas and New Year’s,

these five days are like the crossing of the Jordan.

We remember the past year with its hardships.

As you remember the past and its hardships,

how will you stack your memory stones?

Will it be a tomb stone of quitting the end.

Or, a memory stone of hope.

  

The journey from the Jordan was a hard journey.

Taking the land was not easy.

What was the difference?

God’s grace in the past.

Building for the future.

You have a future to build.

God has plans to give you a future and a hope.

Up to the time of crossing the Jordan

River, the world was changing them.

After the crossing, the Children of Israel

had hope to change their world.

Life will always be hard.

 The difference is…

 The world changing you or

are you changing your world?

  

 God had called you to

rule and reign with Him.

So as you take time to remember the

past and are reminded of the hardship…

Remember God’s people do

not let the hardships rule them.

They rule the hardships.

We will fly back to Florida in 2019

and we will see the memory stones

and will miss Judy…

But we will remember her fight of

faith and her new home in heaven.

We will stand with my brother

and the family in hope and build.

We will take the promises of God and we

will continue to rule our world with hope.

“All things work together for the

good of those who love the Lord”  

“He has call us to His purpose”

Romans 8:28

Scripture Reading

Joshua 4:4-9 NIV

4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."

8 So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the LORD had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down. 9 Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day.