A Prayer For A Wife

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Here is one of my true stories about my life that I wrote for Quara. 

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The week before I kneeled on a lime green chair, praying that God would send me a wife.

Fast forward a week. I was sleeping in bed when I was awakened by the sound of water dripping in my living room! I got up and saw a steady stream of water dripping in the middle of my living room!I got dressed, ran downstairs to the Ladies dress shop. The landlord owned the shop. She was older Belgian woman and couldn't speak English, so I motioned her to go upstairs with me.

We went upstairs and showed her the dripping water from the ceiling. The landlord ran downstairs to call a plumber (pre-cell phone era). I ran upstairs to find out what the tenant was doing above me. A young Belgian lady answered the door in a bathrobe, just a bathrobe!

She had basic English skills, but she said that she was taking a shower. I asked her to stop and motioned her downstairs. She put on some clothes and met me and my landlord downstairs in my apartment.

My landlord, and this young lady were speaking Dutch a mile a minute with me just standing there. Finally the young lady, named Marie-Josee, said the plumber was on the way to check out the pipes. The last person that rented the apartment upstairs was a friend of mine. We both were United States Airmen at the local airbase. He had paid to have the shower installed. So I knew that it was brand new and worked great.

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Later that afternoon, my landlord, her daughter, Marie-Josee, and the plumber met in my apartment. The daughter could speak excellent English. They were all speaking Dutch to each other.

That's when I had an out-of-body experience! My soul rose above my body and I was looking down. I was hovering near the ceiling. I had tunnel vision, looking down at myself praying on that chair the week before, praying for a wife!

After a few minutes my soul returned to my body. I was sweating profusely! Everyone around me was staring at me like I was a freak! Finally the landlord's daughter explained that the plumber pressure tested the pipes and found nothing wrong! This was impossible due to the amount of the water that leaked.

She said that if it leaked again to let her know. The plumber shrugged his shoulders, and they all walked out. Except for Marie-Josee, who stay behind. I know immediately in my spirit that God provided a miracle of a spiritual experience to tell me that she was the wife He sent in answer to my prayer!

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

University Vision

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

A UNIVERSITY VISION

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One night in 1952, Oral Roberts was driving around Tulsa, Oklahoma, and pulled his car up to a piece of property on the corner of 81st Street and South Lewis Avenue. Helping his children out of the car one at a time, Oral stood with them and Evelyn. In wonder, the children looked up at their father. What were they doing standing in front of this empty lot?

Oral said, “Children, we are going to pray. I believe someday the Lord wants a school on this property that will be dedicated to Him.”The family prayed and then drove away, leaving the outcome in the Lord’s hands. It wouldn’t be the last time that the Roberts family would lift this piece of property to the Lord in prayer.

It was the fall of 1961. For nine years, Oral and his family had prayed for the land on the corner of 81st Street and South Lewis Avenue. Oral believed in his spirit that it was the spot God had chosen for the university to stand. Five hundred dollars of seed money was all that Oral had at the time. Often, he would drive out and walk the land, praying in tongues and asking the Lord what to do and who to work with. He could picture tall, graceful buildings filled with students who wanted to bring honor to the Lord and spread His Word.

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However, when Oral’s lawyer, Saul Yager, approached the property owners, they insisted that it was not for sale. They were a rich, oil family who had owned the corner acreage for years, and they wanted to keep it in their holdings. The attempts to purchase the property dragged on for weeks.

Oral continued to pray and wait. One day, while in California, Oral sensed the Lord’s voice say, This is the day. He could see the land in Tulsa in his mind —the buildings that would soon make up the campus, the students eagerly searching for the Lord’s answers to their life quests, the young people sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He called Saul. “Go today and buy that land.” Impatiently, Saul insisted that Oral was wasting his time. But Oral replied, “I’m telling you, Saul, I know today is the day. Buy it today.”

 Saul got off the phone and called the owner’s attorney, who, like Saul, was of the Jewish faith. Saul explained Oral’s insistence that today the owner would want to sell the land.

The second attorney contacted the owner, and his response marveled them all. “I woke up this morning and decided that if Mr. Roberts’s lawyer approached me today, I would sell.” The attorneys were amazed at the way God had worked in the situation. Oral was thankful to the Lord, but not surprised by His unfailing faithfulness.

- God’s Generals ( The Healing Evangelists)

Roberts Liardon

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

What are ghosts?

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Have you ever wondered what a ghost is? Here is your answer!

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The Bible refers to the spirits of the dead.as "familiar spirits" - as in personal, or well acquainted. The Bible also warns us to have nothing to do with them! There is no such thing as a dead person's spirit walking the earth or returning to the place where they died. 

The Bible tells us in Job 7:9,  "As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, so he goes down to the grave and does not come up again. He shall never return to his house, nor his place see him anymore." This is showing us that that the dead cannot return to the houses they once lived in, while here on earth. Houses are never haunted by the deceased; but by demons. 

The Bible makes it clear there are spirit beings who can connect with our physical realm. These spirits are fallen angels that once served the God of the Bible, now they serve the god of this world, Satan. "And marvel not; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." , 2 Corinthians 11: 14. 

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These demons have the power to transform themselves into the deceased and by doing so, make us believe that it is alright to contact the dead and go against what God has said. This lie has drawn many people away from God and into the kingdom of darkness, albeit they are unaware of what is happening.

William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

Love, That's God

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

LOVE, THAT'S GOD

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Have you ever wondered what God is really like? The only perfect revelation God ever made of himself, he made in Jesus Christ, and if you will look at Him through Jesus Christ, you will know what kind of a God He is really like, for Jesus said: “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Did you hear Him speak to blind Bartimaeus, the beggar? The crowd took no notice whatsoever of the beggar in their midst, till he began to cry: “Jesus, Thou son of David, have mercy on me.” The disciples said: “Shut up, you beggar,” but Jesus said tenderly: “Bartimaeus, receive thy sight.” THAT’S GOD!

Did you see Him moved with compassion for the restless, hungry multitude who were like sheep without a shepherd? Jesus said, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now for three days, and have nothing to eat: I will not send them away

fasting, lest they faint on the way.” THAT’S GOD!

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Did you see Him weeping in pity over Jerusalem? You have had an idea that God is a vindictive God and that He delights in letting a man go to Hell: but you do not know God if you think that. See his great heart of mercy overflowing with tenderness and compassion as he cries: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wing, and ye would not.” THAT’S GOD!

Did you hear him speak to the poor woman with the scarlet stain of sin on her soul—the woman who was taken in the very act of adultery—the harlot being dragged into His presence by her accusers? The crowd wanted to stone her, but Jesus said: “Go in peace and sin no more.” THAT’S GOD!

If you want a single word to characterize the person of God, all you will have to do is to take four letters and write them over and over again from the beginning to the end— the word, LOVE—AND THAT’S GOD!

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God touched a precious young woman—her frail little body racked with pain from the pitiless disease of multiple sclerosis—a woman who had not been to church in years, who had never really served God a day of her life; so ignorant regarding spiritual things that when the power of God came upon her body, a sister-in-law, wanting to be helpful, lit a cigarette and put it in the suffering woman’s mouth, thinking it would stop the “shaking”? In tender mercy, and out of His great compassion, the Master touched that body and made it whole. My friend, THAT’S GOD!

A God who understands; a God who knows our every weakness, our every failure, our every shortcoming, our every sin—and yet He continues to love us and to pour his mercy upon us. He loves us, not because we are weak; not because of our failures; not because of our sins; but because we are His children. And He loves each one of us as though we were His only child.

~ I believe in Miracles || Kathryn Kuhlman

William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

Our Great Need

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Here is a small article about living in faith and in the Spirit.

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OUR GREAT NEED

I want to speak this afternoon of Pentecost and the fullness of the Spirit, and of what God is able to do with any man who is yielded to Him. We are here today for one purpose, and that is to kindle one another with a holier zeal than ever has possessed us before.

 I believe there is a greater need for us today in the world than ever. There is a more broken spirit abroad in our land than for a long time past, and no one can meet the need today but the man filled with God. God has promised to fill us. 

You may be filled with the mighty power of God, and yet in a way not realize it, and yet know that you are being used by a power apart from yourself, a power that keeps you from self-exhibition. Just as the sun by its mighty power brings certain resources to nature, so I believe the power of God in the human soul, the power filling it with Himself, is capable, by living faith, of bringing about what otherwise could never be accomplished. May God by His Spirit this afternoon prepare us for what He has to say. 

(Smith Wigglesworth,  London, May 28, 1917, Published in Confidence)

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

The Significance Of The Census

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Have you ever wondered why the importance of the census and the genealogies?

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The Significance of the Census

In Luke 2, Mary and Joseph travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem to enroll in the Roman census. It was 70 miles, but they likely went around Samaria, if so, it would have been more like 90 miles--four to seven days travel. It was a Roman decree that counted the population mainly for tax purposes. It was customary for the Jewish people to keep their ancestral files and to be registered in their city of their ancestors, which is why Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem--the city of their forefather, David.

Jewish/Christian scholar Alfred Edersheim said, in “the Jewish mode of registration, the people would have been enrolled according to tribes, families or clans, and the house of their fathers…to be registered in ‘his own city.’ In the case of Joseph and Mary, whose descent from David was not only known, but where, for the sake of the unborn Messiah, it was most important that this should be distinctly noted, it was natural that, in accordance with Jewish law, they should have gone to Bethlehem.”

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It was important for Jewish people to know their ancestry. Paul says in Romans 11:1 "For I am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” To the Jewish people, genealogies were important. “Among other things, the birthright, given to the firstborn son, involved a double inheritance, family leadership, vocational opportunities, and land ownership,” says Bible professor Dr. Robert Gromacki. “That is why genealogies were found throughout the Old Testament.”

The genealogies were kept as public record as first century Jewish historian Josephus wrote, “Thus have I set down the genealogy of my family as I have found in the public records.” Josephus says high priests could trace their lineage in the records from father to son for 2000 years. These records were destroyed during the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.

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Jews “have absolutely no record of their tribal ancestry today. None,” pastor John MacArthur says. “They can’t trace it at all. It is completely vanished. I mean, it has totally vanished. No Jew existent in the world today could ever prove himself to be a son of David. Now I want you to know something. If anybody comes along claiming to be the Messiah, he’ll never be able to prove it. And there are some Orthodox Jews who still believe the Messiah is going to come, but the problem is there will never be any lineal way to prove that….Jesus Christ is the last verifiable claimant to David’s throne. If he is not the Messiah, nobody else can ever lay believable claim to it.”

The census allowed the public to see the lineage of the Man who eventually claimed, ever so subtly, to be the King. For one generation after he died, all of those who saw Him teach and do miraculous signs, could look up His pedigree to see if He could have been the highly anticipated Messiah. After that generation, 40 years after Jesus, the books were closed.

“He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.” (Daniel 2:21).

William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

The Gateway

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

THE GATEWAY.

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In  Romans  12:1  Paul  brings  us  face-to-face  with  this gateway:  'Therefore,  I  urge  you,  brothers,  in  view  of  God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing 

to  God—which  is  your  spiritual  worship." 

In  the  preceding eleven  chapters  of  Romans,  Paul  has  expounded  on  the boundless mercy of God toward the human race and the full provision He has made for all men, Jew or Gentile, through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. Now he comes to the response  God requires from each of us. It is simple and  down-to-earth: Offer your body to God as a living sacrifice. It is a sacrifice that God requires of us for His plan to work. 

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But why does Paul emphasize that it is to be a living sacrifice? 

Because  he  is  contrasting  it  with  the sacrifices  of  the  Old Testament, which were first slain and then placed dead on the altar. In the New Testament God requires each believer to offer his or her body just as totally on His altar—but it is to be a living body, one that is active and dedicated in His service. There is no difference in the totality of the sacrifice. In the New Testament as in the Old, God requires complete, unreserved surrender.

To offer your body to God in this way means that you no longer claim ownership or control of it. You no longer decide where it is to go, what it is to eat or wear, or what kind of service it is to perform. All that is now decided by the One to whom you have  yielded  complete  and  final  control.  Since  He  is  your Creator, He knows better than you do what He can accomplish in and through that yielded body of yours.

The first result of this surrender is that it makes your body holy. In Matthew 23:19 Jesus reminds the Pharisees that it is the altar that sanctifies—or makes holy—the sacrifice placed on it, and not the other way around. This applies to your body when it is placed on God's altar. By this act it is sanctified, made holy, set apart to God.

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In Romans 12:2 Paul goes on to describe the second result of offering your body upon God's altar: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

In response to your surrender, God will do for you what you cannot achieve by any effort of your own will: He will renew your mind. He will change the way you think. This includes your goals, your values, your attitudes, and your priorities. All will be brought into line with those of God Himself.

This  inner  change  will  find  expression  in  your  outward behavior. You will no longer be "conformed," acting like the unregenerate  people  all  around  you.  Instead,  you  will  be 

"transformed," and  begin to demonstrate in your conduct the very nature and character of God.

Until you begin to experience this renewal of your mind, there are many wonderful things God has planned for you that you  cannot  discover.  In  Romans  8:7  Paul  calls  the  old, 

unrenewed mind "the carnal mind," which is "enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be"  (KJV).  

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God  will  not  reveal  His  secrets  or  open  up  His treasures to a mind at enmity with Him. But when your mind is renewed, you will begin to discover all that God has planned for your life.

This unfolding of God's plan to your renewed mind will be progressive. Paul uses three words for it: good, pleasing, perfect.

Your first discovery will be that God's plan for you is always good. God never plans anything bad or harmful for any of His children. In making this discovery,  you  will probably have to reject the devil's lies. He will be very insistent in suggesting that full surrender to God will cost you everything that is interesting and exciting in  life.  He will whisper negative insinuations  to your mind: "You'll have to give up everything you enjoy.... You'll be no better than a slave.... That kind of life leaves no room for fun.... You'll lose all your friends.... Your personality will never develop...." and so on.

In fact, the opposite is true. Not merely is God's plan good; it is also pleasing. Full surrender to God is the gateway into a life filled with challenges and pleasures that cannot be experienced in any other way. Over the years I have met many Christians who made this kind of surrender. I have never yet met one who regretted it. 

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I know other Christians, on the other hand, who were challenged to make this surrender and refused. Almost without exception, they ended up frustrated and unfulfilled. As you continue to progress in your discovery of God's plan, you will go beyond the good and the pleasing to the perfect. Fully  embraced,  God's  plan  is  perfect.  Complete.  There  are  no omissions. It covers every area of your life, meets every need,  satisfies every longing.

If marriage is part of God's plan for you, then you can trust  Him to work out every detail, both for you and for the mate He has destined for you. He will bring you together with a person  who  is  so  exactly  suited  to  you  that,  together,  you  may experience marriage as God originally designed it. This will be  on a level higher than the world has ever dreamed of.

Perhaps you have never made this kind of total surrender to God. You have never "offered your body to God as a living sacrifice." Perhaps you never knew God required this of you. But now  you  find  yourself  standing  before  this  gateway—the gateway of full surrender. You long to explore all that lies on the other side, yet you are afraid. Already you begin to hear in your mind the whispered insinuations of the devil.

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Let me say that I understand your feelings. More than forty years ago, I stood before the same gateway. I experienced the same inner tensions—the longing to explore all that lay on the other side; the fear of what it might cost me. My mind was flooded with questions:  What  will my friends say? And my family? What will happen to my university career? Finally I made the decision. I committed my whole life to God.

Never once since then have I regretted that decision or been tempted to revoke it. It opened the way into a fife that has proved richer, fuller, more exciting than I had ever dreamed possible. Included in it was a mate prepared by God in each of two  successive  marriages.  One  thing  I  can  say  with  full assurance: God's plan works!

I cannot force you through this gateway. Not even God can do that. But I can show you how to enter. All that is needed is a decision, followed by a simple prayer. If you are ready to make the decision, here is a prayer you may offer:

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Lord Jesus Christ, I thank You that on the cross You gave Yourself as a sacrifice for my sins, so that I might be forgiven and have eternal life. In my turn, I now give myself to You. I offer my body as a living sacrifice on Your altar. From now on, I belong wholly to You. Make me what You want me to be; lead me where You want me to go. Open up Your plan for my life.

Now seal your decision by thanking the Lord. Thank Him  that He has heard you and received you. Thank Him that your  whole life now belongs to Him. You are His responsibility. He 

will open up every door of His will for you. He will fulfill every plan and purpose He has for your life.

- Derek Prince (GOD IS A MATCHMAKER)

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible