Category: Encouragement

As many of you readers know, I have earlystage, asymptomatic but advanced prostate cancer. After treatment with Provenge, I was informed (perhaps divinely through a former colleague) of a National Cancer Institute (NCI) clinical trial currently recruiting patients like myself. The protocol involves treatment with the vaccine Prostvac and the antibody therapy, Opdivo. I had written about this in earlier posts. Since that time, Yervoy (ipilimumab) has been removed from the trial and most recently a large Phase 3 trial of Prostvac has been discontinued. Independently, I had been informed about the potential toxicity of Yervoy which reinforced my anticipation of the trial; but then the news of Prostvac’s lack of success seriously dampened my enthusiasm. It was just at that time when a devotional (August 13th) from Our Daily Bread Ministries placated my fears and inflated my faith that I was indeed pursuing the right track in my treatment.

The message was from an Old Testament prophet named Habakkuk who served as an inspiring example of  someone who argued with God yet came to the point of trusting Him regardless of the impending circumstances. Habakkuk states (Hab. 3:16-19), “I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones and my legs trembled.” However in contrast, “though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

What do we do when circumstances are beyond our control or when the outlook seems hopeless? The prophet Habakkuk’s situation was out of his control and the fear that he felt terrified him. The coming judgment could be catastrophic. Yet, in the midst of the impending chaos, Habakkuk made a choice to live by his faith and rejoice in God. He did not place his confidence and his faith in his circumstances, ability or resources but in the goodness and greatness of God. His trust in God compelled him to proclaim: “The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to treat on the heights.”

When we are faced with difficult or unknown circumstances, we too have only to place our faith and trust in God to be our strength. He is with us in everything we face.

Are you unsure of whether or not you have a personal relationship with God? See the following.

This blog is Part One. Part Two, entitled “Why Do I Write This Website?’ will be forthcoming.

I am sure most of you have heard about the Rev. Billy Graham. In 2018, his daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, also a noted speaker and teacher, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She writes about enduring surgery, “seven brutal chemotherapy infusions” as well as radiation. When asked what she thought God was teaching her through her ordeal, she wrote as follows in the June, 2019 Decision magazine. “Many people who are diagnosed with something like this wonder, ‘why did this happen to me? Why didn’t God protect me? Does He not love me? What did I do to deserve this?'” She states “this cancer is not any indication that I have been bad or that He doesn’t love me or that He hasn’t blessed me. It’s just my assignment. It’s what He’s given me so I can use it to glorify Him.”

In early 2004, my wife Marie and I attended a small, country church in Maryland. I had been raised to believe in the practice of prayer accompanied by anointing the sick with oil according to James 5:14-16. “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.” Anointing with oil had been a practice in every church I had ever attended. My pastor and the elders had planned to anoint me with oil and pray over me but we hadn’t scheduled a time to do this. I have first-hand knowledge of several individuals who have been healed from cancer as attested to by their physicians after being prayed for and anointed.

God often speaks to us when we least expect it. January 11th, 2004 was to be the 25th anniversary service of our church. In dressing for church that morning, my mood was anything but confident, trusting, worshipful or joyful. I was still asking God why He had allowed this cancer to recur after successful surgery in 1995. I was not in any celebratory mood at all and could have just as well stayed home that morning. But I was part of the music program and choir at church so I put on my best face and with a doubtful attitude, asked God to show me something, anything in answers to my questions. There was a guest speaker that morning whose sermon was about the characteristics of an ideal church. During the sermon, I sat in the choir loft and frankly, paid little attention. However, as the sermon progressed in one ear and out the other, the still small inner voice I know to be that of the Holy Spirit started to tell me to go forward and ask to be anointed with oil. An opposing inner voice urged me to postpone it until a more opportune time. The inner debate raged like a tennis match. Our service ended with a pastoral invitation for anyone who desired prayer to come forward to an altar. I decided it is now or never. At the invitation, I looked for two elders in the congregation and asked them to anoint me with oil and pray over me right there and now. Several other men joined them. I knelt at a simple altar railing and these men prayed for my healing while laying hands on my head and shoulders. I am not an emotional person and do not shed tears readily. But the feeling I experienced can only be described as being in a shower fully clothed. “Water” seemed to be pouring over me. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. I had never sensed the Holy Spirit in such an amazingly strong way. I heard the distinct command to “reach out and touch the hem of my (Jesus’) garment” reminiscent of the words a woman, plagued by years of suffering, had uttered upon seeing Jesus when she proclaimed “if I just touch His garments, I shall get well”, (Mark 5:28). I remember thinking that I cannot do this in reality since Jesus is not physically present but I reached out my hand anyway. Tears flowed from all of us men. I also heard the distinct words, “go and show yourself to the priests,” a term Jesus often cited after healing someone in the New Testament. But He is applying it to me to mean “go and show yourself to physicians especially where I had been treated”. I was confident that I had been touched in some way. As the service ended, I stood to my feet with a dazed look on my face. My wife Marie had been watching and could see something very unusual was taking place. In short, I had never in my 62 years experienced God’s (or Jesus’) presence through the Holy Spirit as I did that Sunday. Was I physically healed? No. What did this all mean? I had been given an assignment. I had many lessons to learn in the process and this was just the beginning. (For more information, see the My Story portion of this website, for the years 2004-5.)

This website is normally directed toward men with prostate and other medical issues. But I found this blog and the succeeding one to be very applicable to many other life’s problems.

Isaiah 41:10 cites one of the clearest and most powerful promises God makes to those who have put their trust in Him as His servants. God says “Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

When one of God’s people is seeking an anchor in turbulent times (e.g. medical issues), this is the right passage for the job. Here, Isaiah writes about the source of a Christian’s strength. In verse 10, the Lord promises strength, help and protection. Moreover, He gives two commands; “Do not fear” and “Do not anxiously look about you.”  Even as Christians, our enemy Satan as well as our own minds, can induce subtle and successful traps through the art of distraction. The evil one knows that fear can choke faith. In fact, fear and faith cannot occupy the same space simultaneously. He works hard through our mind to make unsettling circumstances a person’s sole focus. Once a believer’s attention is diverted from God, natural human tendencies take over. In the absence of prayer and worship, anxiety and doubt grow unobstructed.

Staying focused on the Lord can be hard. Our flesh prefers to seek security by thinking through all possible angles. Our tendency is to weigh what we think could happen against what “experts” say will happen, and then to evaluate possible ways of preventing our worst fears from coming true. Instead of becoming more confident, we begin to realize how powerless we are. Thankfully, we serve an almighty God who says, “Surely I will help you” (v.10). We can count on Him and agree with the Apostle Paul, “for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10.)

By focusing on our circumstances, we’re actually choosing to feel anxiety and doubt. But these emotions don’t belong in a believer’s daily life. Instead, let’s decide to trust in the promises God has given us. He’s filled His Word with scriptural anchors (see Scriptual Medicines) to keep His children steady in the faith. To be continued in Part Two, “How to Have Two-Fold Peace.”

(A portion of the above was adapted from the “In Touch” Devotional by Dr. Charles Stanley, May 29th, 2019.)

 

 

God’s promises e.g. Isaiah 41:10, apply to us who have a personal relationship with Him through faith in Jesus Christ. Within the Christian experience, there is a two-fold sense of peace. We are promised the peace of God when we commit our troubles and requests to Him, peace that will guard our heart and mind as we abide in Christ. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication (request), with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7).

But we can only experience the peace of God because we have peace with God. “Having been justified by faith” (declared  or made righteous in the sight of God,) “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1). Both types of peace are important, but there is an order: first, peace with God; then the peace of God. Both are gifts of God’s grace, worthy of praise and thanks to Him.

If you are seeking God’s peace in your life, make sure you have peace with God first. Both are ours through faith in Christ. When we lack the peace of God, we should turn to our peace with God.

The above was published May 29th, 2019 in the devotional “Turning Point” by Dr. David Jeremiah.

I have not made such a request before on this website, however a situation has arisen with a good friend. Jim (not his real name) is a 60 years old man with advanced prostate cancer. He has received a number of customary treatment options none of which have curtailed the cancer. He is currently seeking to enroll in a clinical trial of a treatment regimen described earlier on this website. Please pray that if this treatment could be of help to Jim, that he would be accepted into the trial. Please pray for wisdom for his excellent physicians, and that God would extend Jim’s life, provide good quality of life and that God would be glorified in Jim’s treatment and disease. Jim shares his Christian faith openly with other men. Pray also for his family and the support they provide so well.

I was raised by wonderful Christian parents who took me to church regularly. I learned about God, Jesus, and well-known Biblical characters such as Noah, Moses, David, Jonah etc. This served as a good moral foundation but at one point, I realized that I knew about God and Jesus intellectually but did not know Him personally. That all changed when I realized that no matter how much of a “nice person” I could be, my good actions would never be enough to match God’s standard of  perfect justice and holiness. It was then that I put my entire faith and trust in the fact that God’s Son, Jesus, had lived a perfect life and then given His life as a sufficient payment to God for all my sins and those of the entire world. At that point in time, I asked Jesus to come into my life, and thereby a personal relationship with God began. My life has never been the same since that day. As an “added bonus”, I was given the extraordinary gift of eternal life according to the famous verse John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son (Jesus), that whoever believes in Him, should not perish but have eternal life.”

As the years have passed, I have come to realize that when I yield various aspects of my life to the loving and perfect will of  a personal God and His glory, His best plans for me are a result though they might not always be the plans I had intended. For example, God has blessed my career, given me a wonderful wife, and even a fulfilling retirement. His presence has also been manifested in my health, even though I was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer in 1995  and now am classified as having advanced prostate cancer though asymptomatic. The major lesson I have learned is that if I yield control of any area of my life to a personal and loving Heavenly Father, His best outcomes in accordance to His will are a result. They may not always be what I would personally choose, and many times life can be difficult, but God’s overwhelming peace and direction transcends every situation. In the words of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah 29:11-12, “‘ For I know the plans that I have for you’, declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.”‘

As a cancer patient, areas of my life to which I must daily present and yield control to God are my body, my mind and my overall health. To do that, I have found it very useful to pray the words written by the apostle Paul in the Bible in Romans 12:1-2 and insert my own name in the appropriate text as follows. “I urge you therefore, ——– (insert ones name), by the mercies of God, that you (I) present your (my) body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is my reasonable service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your (my) mind, that you (I) may prove (demonstrate) what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” While this is not a guarantee of total earthly healing of my disease, who best to control my body than the One who created it in all its masterful complexity. While my cancer has not been healed, I can see God’s protective hand in my disease all these years through His power and often manifested by the excellent medical support which I have received. The ultimate healing will come when I will spend eternity in a new heaven and a new earth with a new body. Meanwhile, as Paul admonishes, I “press on.”

So if you have a personal relationship with God and are dealing with medical issues, I would sincerely suggest that you pray Romans 12:1-2 daily, yielding the direction and outcomes to the Lord. If you are not sure of your relationship with God, see the following link.

 

I recently received an e mail from the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) entitled Health, Hope and Inspiration. These periodic e mails contain 30 minute interviews with Rev. Percy McCray, spiritual coordinator for CTCA. The latest interview entitled “Can God Use Cancer?” grabbed my attention. Rev. McCray’s immediate answer to the question was a resounding “yes”. During the interview, he cited a resource from CTCA entitled Cancer Ministry Scriptures, a compilation of Biblical references focused on leadership and inspiration, comfort, hope, God’s compassion, healing and strength, peace, and encouragement. This resource is similar to the section of this Godandprostate website entitled “Spiritual Medicines” to which I refer often. I was inspired to compile the latter after being told first-hand of God’s healing of a woman I knew from a brain tumor. Her son had compiled a short list of scripture verses which his mother cited and prayed daily in addition to taking her prescribed medicines. Her healing was confirmed by her surgeon at Johns Hopkins in Maryland.

During the interview with Rev. McCray, he focused on Philippians 1:12 wherein the apostle Paul cites a list of negative circumstances such as imprisonments, beatings, shipwrecks etc. but which all eventually had positive outcomes, namely that God used these events to further the propagation of His divine plan.  Paul writes “now  I want you to know brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.” The things that happened to the apostle Paul and to ourselves can serve as a furtherance of God’s plan for us  both personally and impersonally to those with whom we come into contact. Thus, God can use a cancer diagnosis for positive results.  When one receives the initial diagnosis of cancer, there is often an emotional shock. But soon, we can realize that God did not give us the cancer but He has empowered us to accomplish something positive with this diagnosis. Cancer can open doors to share what God has done in our lives and the abundant life we have in Him through faith in Jesus. In John 10:10, Jesus proclaims  that He comes to give us an abundant life. But a translation of the word “abundant” means an ability to rise above our circumstances. Had we never received a cancer diagnosis, we may have never considered it a ministry. God can show us elements of ourselves or ministry to others thru cancer.  We are led to seriously consider the main bedrock purposes of our life. God can show us our strengths and especially our weaknesses thus enabling us to see that He Himself is the source of all our needs. We can see ourselves as little children who, when hurt, run to a loving parent for comfort. But now we see that God is that loving Father when we run to Him in faith and need. God’s promises in Scripture become alive as never before.

So what are the changes in my life and attitudes toward myself and others around me that have occurred as a result of a cancer diagnosis? Do we now focus more on actions that may have eternal results or consequences? These are questions we should prayerfully consider. For me personally, this website would never had been written had God cured me of prostate cancer during my initial surgery in 1995. But His care continues to permeate my life as it can any of us who have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ as described in the following link. In conclusion, may we be able to say with certainty that “we know that God causes all things to work together for good  to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28).

 

      

 

 

In Psalm 55:16-17, King David says “As for me, I shall call upon God, and the Lord will save me. Evening, morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur, and He will hear my voice.” God’s ears are open to our cries and His shoulders are wide enough to carry our burdens. He is sovereign over the universe, so He is certainly capable of working out our problems and meeting our needs. I recently read an exercise that helped make casting my cares on Him a practical act.

First, take a piece of paper and write down the things that cause your anxiety. For me, as a 77- year old prostate cancer patient, my first item was that my cancer continue to be controlled, and that I not die of this disease. Upon further thought, there were other items that were cheating me out of peace but I will focus on the cancer here.

Next, pray each issue into God’s care. For me, praying the words of Romans 12:1, and inserting my own name as follows, is a daily act. “I urge you therefore” ____(your name), “by the mercies of God, to present your (my) body, a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is my spiritual” (some versions say rational) “service of worship.”

Finally, as you pray, visualize placing the situation into God’s omnipotent hands. Imagine handing our bodies over to the Lord, while saying, “Father, I give you my disease or condition. You are more than sufficient to handle it, and I trust You to guide me.”

Some people may resist this suggestion because certain pseudo-spiritual movements have a method they call visualizing. But above, the term refers to the beautiful word pictures throughout the Bible, which God intended to help us understand our relationship to Him. This type of visualizing creates a mental snapshot of God doing just what He says He’ll do in  Psalm 55:22, “cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” He also says “do not be anxious for your life as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, nor for your body.” (Matthew 6:25).

When you have transferred all your worries to God’s hands, wad up the paper and then destroy it. In doing so, you symbolize the transaction that just took place. Your cares are no longer yours – every one of them belongs to the Lord. Then walk away in perfect peace.

If you are not sure whether you have such a personal relationship with God, see the following.

Much of the post above, was published in the January 5th, 2019 In Touch devotional, written by Dr. Charles Stanley.

Today was my PSA blood test, a ritual I must undergo every four months or so in order to check if the drug I am currently taking is still effective in controlling my cancer. I was always somewhat apprehensive when test day occurred even earlier in my 23-year history of prostate cancer. But now, as my therapeutic trail contains fewer options, this day takes on its own measure of stress. However, I received an unexpected message of assurance from Dr. David Jeremiah in his February 11th devotional message entitled “Stress and Thanks”. His message was based on three short Biblical verses in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 where it states “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks.”

“It’s not a law of physics, but it is a law of common sense: No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time. That makes perfect sense to us and we have no reason to try to prove that idea wrong. We move one thing if we want to set another thing in its place. Strangely, we are not as convinced of this law when it comes to spiritual things. For example, we are willing to worry about a problem and proclaim our faith in God at the same time. We don’t have a spiritual law that invalidates our effort, but our experience says it’s contradictory to worry and to praise God simultaneously. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, the apostle Paul says there are three things we can do simultaneously since they support one another—rejoice, pray, and give thanks. The prayerful practice of joy and thanksgiving leaves no room for stress or worry. At the first sign of stress, pray and give thanks to God for the joy that comes from trusting Him in all things. Not for all things, but in all things.”

So the next time I encounter a critical stage or testing, do I choose faith in a God and His promises (medicines), or will faith be supplanted with doubt? They cannot share the same space. As the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:12, “for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed.”

As always, if you are unsure of your own relationship with God, see the following link.

“If you want to feel small, just imagine moving at 34 thousand miles per hour for forty years and getting—astronomically speaking—nowhere. Late last year, the Voyager 2 space probe became the second craft to ever leave our solar system. Now 11 billion miles from earth, it is one of the farthest-flung man-made objects in existence. And it was launched in 1977.

Because there are different ways of defining the solar system, we should be precise. The American Geophysical Union in Washington reports that Voyager 2’s sensors recently detected a sudden dip in radiation and magnetism, which marks the boundary of what astronomers call the “heliosphere,” our sun’s protective bubble of particles and magnetism. In other words, the probe is now beyond our star’s most significant influences and is hurtling into interstellar space—literally “the space between the stars”—at 34 thousand miles per hour. Its departure from the heliosphere is big news because, unlike its twin, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 is still transmitting data back to us here on earth, providing “first-of-its-kind” observations of the nature of this unexplored space. Voyager 2 was originally designed to observe the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—a mission it completed back in 1989. But scientists now think the aging probe might hold together as late as 2027, depending on how long its plutonium fuel source provides power.

The accomplishment of both Voyager probes is unparalleled. Still, astronomically speaking, they’ve only just stepped outside our front door, and barely entered the larger stellar neighborhood. It will take Voyager 2 another 40 thousand years to approach the nearest star to our sun—which together occupy only a fraction of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way, in turn, is just one of at least 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe.” Makes one feel small doesn’t it.

“In the distant reaches of space, there are stars so much bigger than our sun they defy description. The longtime record-holder for largest known star is VY Canis Majoris, a red hypergiant over two thousand times the size of our sun. To give you an idea of the scale we’re talking about, if VY Canis Majoris replaced our sun, it would engulf most of the inner planets of the solar system, including Earth.

Voyager 2’s journey is a constant reminder to us of the enormity of the universe. I don’t know about you, but the distances and objects visible in the night sky make me dizzy; they confront me with the realization of how little I seem to matter by comparison… which is exactly the reaction God wanted us to have. Our own wonder ought to echo the Psalmist, who sung: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

God—the Creator of VY Canis Majoris—answered that question, but not ultimately in words. Instead, He came to dwell with His people, first through the Ark in the Tabernacle in the Old Testament, and ultimately in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, whose name means “Immanuel, God with us.” Though it boggles the mind, the maker of the Milky Way chose this little planet to reveal Himself most fully and personally. By doing this, He bridged a gulf that makes the space between our stars seem small—the separation between an infinitely holy God and sinners like us who are doomed to death.

Against this backdrop of our cosmic insignificance, we can better appreciate God’s love—which He demonstrated by ‘coming to our neighborhood.’ Thank God, since we can’t even build a probe able to leave our interstellar neighborhood.”

As stated above, this enormous Creator God can be known in an intimate personal way through Jesus Christ, appropriately named Immanuel, meaning God with us. He is interested in every aspect of our lives including our medical situations. To substantiate this, God gave us hundreds of specific promises in writing, His Word. For example, Deuteronomy 31:8 states “And the Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” For many others, see this website section entitled Scriptural Medicines. To enter into such a personal relationship with God, see the following.

The Voyager 2 essay was published online from “Breakpoint Daily from the Colson Center“, January 8th, 2019  to which I enthusiastically suggest a subscription.