DEVOTION-October 2014

OCTOBER DEVOTION: Live and Not Die

By Charlotte Holt

I’ve come to brag on God! Since I’ve had Pneumonia the devil has been working me over, telling me I’m going to die, even though others have given me the Scripture that I’m going to live and not die. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. (Ezekiel 18:21 KJV) We have this assurance by what Jesus did for us on the Cross. I’ve also believed God for my healing and a miracle. I’ve resisted the devil and drawn nigh to God. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7 KJV) But I’ve often wondered what God had in store for me. So at times, I’ve battled double mindedness. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. . (James 4:8 KJV)
God hears our pleas even when we suffer from anxiety. I would ask Him to deliver me from the evil one, and I would put on the armor of God as we see in Ephesians 6. I thanked him for being my buckler and my rear guard. He loves us so much and is so awesome! He comforts our mind and brings us to His answer as He shows us His miraculous power.

My blood pressure skyrocketed at times, and the medicine I took had so many side effects. I quit several. I even made a big mistake and used some wrong. I know my doctor wanted to wring my neck and wash his hands of me. But being the fine Christian he is, he persevered and kept his patience with me.
I continued to pray and ask God for healing and assurance. Then I had Angina and ended in the hospital by ambulance. I wondered if this was it, but I placed my faith in God. I thought again about how either way would be okay, and remembered the Scripture and peace God had given me twenty-three years ago when the Angina ended in a triple-by-pass. I had peace in my heart as Paul did. Whether I lived or died it would be good. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. (2 Corinthians 5:8-9) However, I felt God wasn’t finished with me here on earth, but either way would be okay.
The hospital visit brought me to a heart catheterization. Apparently, God wanted me to know what He had already done. He wanted to show up and show out! The doctor’s talked of stent, but when they looked inside my heart, stent were not possible or necessary. Sure enough, the bypass done twenty-three years earlier was blocked at the top of my right ventricle. But God… He had made me His own by-pass. The left ventricle had compensated, grown new passage to the right and worked for both of them (as far as I understand it). The other bypass from my Mammary artery had also stayed intact and supplied blood to the heart. The doctor said, “If they hadn’t done that bypass and it stayed good, we would not be talking today. God also kept you alive with his own bypass design.”

Some new veins had grown and were blocked, and he felt they had caused the Angina. With the proper medication I would live and not die. Maybe it took all this to get to the place to find this medication, assure me of what God had done, and I would live and not die.

-Charlotte