Pastor Claude Thomas Information Blog

Author: Pastor Claude Thomas

Does following Jesus mean you live a trouble-free life? We’d like to believe that difficulties, disappointments, and distresses are not part of the Christian experience. And because that desire is so strong, we may want to believe a man-made theology that says, “Trust Jesus and all troubles will vanish and smooth sailing will be ahead.” That is in stark contrast to the Bible and reality. Devoted followers of Jesus have known storms from the beginning of the Christian faith.

Early in Christian art, the ship became a symbol of the Christian community…body of believers… the church. No doubt the symbol was taken because ships experience storms on the seas… and Believers experience storms on the seas of life. And it certainly reflects an incident recorded in the Bible. “And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling.”(Mark 4:37). The storm was a great and powerful.
Storms strike our lives. Relationships are tossed about and verge on breaking. Illnesses suddenly appear on the scene. Death unexpectedly comes knocking. Financial reversals visit. We all experience storms in life. And when they do, we want to be certain Jesus is in the “boat of our lives!”

Author: Pastor Claude Thomas

On a recent visit to the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, I was introduced to two young men whose lives had been changed. Feed The Children, Inc. partners with schools in the slums of Nairobi to provide food to feed the children. The headmasters of the schools lead the schools and see to it the feeding program is in place. But they do so much more.

One headmaster I met literally served as counselor and evangelist to the community of the school. As I talked with her, she told of her love for Jesus and how He had so impacted her life that she loved others… even the most unlikely and unlovely.

A group of “thugs” were terrorizing their community. People were afraid because the “young thugs” would rob, beat, and rape people. The headmaster said the Second Great Commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39) gripped her heart and she felt she must counsel the leaders of the “bad guys.”

Approaching the “bad guys” wasn’t a small task but the headmaster did it and counseled them that what they were doing was going to lead them to death! Through deeds of compassion and love, the leaders of the “bad guys” gave attention to the words of the headmaster. And when I met them, Ken and Ken, told me how Jesus had changed their lives when He saved them. They trusted Him as their Lord and Savior and now they were telling others how He could change them too!

I rejoice Jesus changes people! He changed Ken and Ken. He changed me. He can change you too if you will be allow Him to do it!

Author: Pastor Claude Thomas

Promises are powerful. When we are sick and our physician tells us the treatment we are experiencing will help us recover our health, we are encouraged. And when we are in the straights of life, we can look to God for a promise from Him. But the question is: How do we get a promise from Him in tough times? Let me make a few suggestions.
Search the Scriptures… you can find direction from God there!

On one occasion when I visiting with my mother she reminded me of a time when she was able to get hold of a promise from God. My dad returned from WWII with dreams and challenges in life. He was a pilot who wanted to experience a lot in life. He was a gregarious, good man…but he wasn’t giving his best to the Lord. So, my mom became greatly burdened for him.

She told how she faithfully prayed that her young and loving husband would recommit his life to the Lord. One day she prayed as she did house cleaning. In her time of prayer God challenged her with verse of Scripture and a promise. It was a difficult moment because to believe the Scripture and accept the promise called for great faith. By faith she took hold of the challenge and the promise. And she held on to it until she saw God fulfill His promise to her from His Word. My dad did return to walking with the Lord and in greater measure than ever. He never retreated in his personal walk with the Lord!
My mom received a biblical promise from the Lord and held on to it!
Ask God to give you a promise from Scripture!
Pray fervently… your earnest prayers are heard by God!
In his book Legacy of Sovereign Joy, John Piper writes of Augustine’s mother:
At the age of 16 in the year 371, Augustine sailed away from his mother. He left her alone to her tears and her prayers.
How were these prayers answered? Not the way Monica [Augustine’s mother] hoped at the time. Only later could she see that praying is the deepest path to joy.

Augustine himself wrote, “And what did she beg of you, my God, with all those tears, if not that you would prevent me from sailing? But you did not do as she asked you. Instead, in the depth of your wisdom, you granted the wish that was closest to her heart.
“For she saw that you had granted her far more than she used to ask in her tearful prayers. You converted me to yourself, so that I no longer placed any hope in this world, but stood firmly upon the rule of faith. And you turned her sadness into rejoicing, into joy far fuller than her dearest wish, far sweeter and more chaste than any she had hoped to find.” 1
When in trials, trust God and talk to Him about the problem!
Listen with an open ear… God does speak to us!
Wait on the Lord… His timing is always perfect!
God gives us promises in the tough times of life. And we can trust Him!

Author: Pastor Claude Thomas

Does following Jesus mean you live a trouble-free life? We’d like to believe that difficulties, disappointments, and distresses are not part of the Christian experience. And because that desire is so strong, we may want to believe a man-made theology that says, “Trust Jesus and all troubles will vanish and smooth sailing will be ahead.” That is in stark contrast to the Bible and reality. Devoted followers of Jesus have known storms from the beginning of the Christian faith.

Early in Christian art, the ship became a symbol of the Christian community…body of believers… the church. No doubt the symbol was taken because ships experience storms on the seas… and Believers experience storms on the seas of life. And it certainly reflects an incident recorded in the Bible. “And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling.”(Mark 4:37).
The storm was a great and powerful.

Storms strike our lives. Relationships are tossed about and verge on breaking. Illnesses suddenly appear on the scene. Death unexpectedly comes knocking. Financial reversals visit. We all experience storms in life.

And when they do, we want to be certain Jesus is in the “boat of our lives!”

Author: Pastor Claude Thomas

Pearl Bailey, the famed singer, said, “What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.”

It is true. I once read that the Classified section of a newspaper placed an ad that read:
“I will listen to you talk for thirty minutes without comment for $5.”

An amazing thing happened. The person who placed the ad received ten to twenty calls a day. They were so lonely they wanted someone to just listen. (Laurie, Life Questions, p.19).

People truly want someone to care for them. Why is that? Well, here are some reasons as stated by some people we may recognize.
Billy Graham said, “Love is to the heart what summer is to the farmer’s year. It brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul.”

Zig Ziglar said, “Love is the highest, purest, most precious of all spiritual things. It will draw out from men their magnificent potential.”
Thomas a’ Kempis, “Whoever loves much, does much.”
Hannah Moore, “Love never reasons but profusely gives…”

Lydia Marie Child, “The cure for all ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and the crimes of humanity all lie in one word love. It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life.” (All quotes from Speaker’s Sourcebook II)

Ever wonder if anyone cares about you? Remember this “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16).

Author: Pastor Claude Thomas

Have you ever heard someone say, “I made a mistake, so sue me!”? I like another turn to the whole thing. It goes like this, “I made a mistake, so forgive me.”

Too many people are carrying a load of guilt and want to get rid of it. The problem is we don’t know how. So, what do we do? We try home remedies.

The blame game, “it wasn’t my fault.” We’ve all tried that one and found it unsuccessful.

The denial game, “it really wasn’t that bad.” If not why do we feel so badly about it?
The burial game, “forget about it.” We try to bury it in the backyard of our sub consciences only to find that it grows through the grass to remind us of our sin.

All of us know the sting of guilt! It climbs like scorpions in our minds and stings our consciences. What are we to do? Is there real relief from the guilt?

The good news is “yes!” Jesus said, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” Today, if you are tired of the load of guilt, turn to Jesus.

Author: Pastor Claude Thomas

“There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them.” Clare Boothe Luce

That certainly characterized a boy I recently read about. He had lost hope. The school system in a large city had a program to help children keep up with their school assignments during stays in the city’s hospitals. One day a teacher who was assigned to the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child.

She took the child’s name and room number and talked briefly with the child’s regular class teacher. “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now,” the regular teacher said, “and I’d be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn’t fall too far behind.” The hospital program teacher went to see the boy that afternoon. No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain. Upset at the sight of the boy, she stammered as she told him, “I’ve been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs.” When she left she felt she hadn’t accomplished much.

But the next day, a nurse asked her, “What did you do to that boy?” The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize. “No, no,” said the nurse. “You don’t know what I mean. We’ve been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back, responding to treatment. It’s as though he’s decided to live.”

Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher arrived. Everything changed when he came to a simple realization. He expressed it this way: “They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?” (Bits and Pieces, July 1991)

He had regained his hope for a future because someone was investing in his life.
God is investing in our futures. The Bible says, “There is hope for your future.” (Jeremiah 31:17). Why? The Lord says, “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Next time we feel hopeless, find hope in the Lord!

Author: Pastor Claude Thomas

“For every complex problem there is a simple solution–and it is always wrong.” H.L. Mencken

Never have we had so much information and still millions of people are seeking answers to the basic questions of life. Questions like, “Why Am I Here?” or “How do I find meaning in life?” or “Where do I go from here?” or “How can I deal with the anxiety I am experiencing?” Someone has called these “Life Questions” because they are the things that really give life significance.

Are there answers to these basic questions? If there are, where do we find them. We can find the answers in the Bible. Listen to what the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, 2 Tim 3:15 “and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

Three things about the Bible and the answers to life’s basic questions:
First, believe the Bible has answers that are reliable. “Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them.” Whatever it says, then believe it.

Second, study the Bible consistently and diligently. “One Bible in the hand is worth two on the shelf.” Study the Bible.

Third, apply the truths of the Bible personally and daily. A man once said he had gone through the Bible several times without receiving any inspiration. Gipsy Smith, and evangelist from the 20th century, replied to the man, “Let it go through you once, then you will tell a different story!”

Learn the Bible and you will discover answers to life’s questions that you can live!

Posted by: Pastor Claude Thomas

We are racing forward in the new millennium with more technological advances than any time in our history. We have more to entertain us than any generation in history. We can experience more of the universe than any other generation.

But with all this at our fingertips, are we any more satisfied with who we are and why we exist? We can gather information about all kinds of things from all over the world. We can learn the weather and the world condition in a matter of minutes. All we have to do is get on the Internet. The answers are in cyberspace.

But what about a more fundamental question like, “Why am I here?” Where do we go to find the answer to that one?

An anthropologist at a major university said, “We’ve stripped away what our ancestors saw as essential—the importance of religion and family. People feel they want something they’ve lost, and they don’t remember what it is they’ve lost. But it has lost a gaping hole.” (Charles Nuckolls, anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia as quoted in Laurie’s Life Questions, p.59).

That gaping hole is the loss of “why we are here.” What is the answer? Why are we here?
The answer? We were created with a specific purpose—to know God. Paul was a man with a purpose in life. He said, “…one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward…” (Philippians 3:10). What was it that consumed Paul’s life? He said it like this, “that I may know Him…intimately and progressively all the days of my life.” (3:16).

Here is our purpose: to know God and enjoy Him forever through faith in His Son Jesus.

Author: Jeanette Pollock

As people, we all fear abandonment. We look upon the abandonment of a child with a very deep sense of sadness.

We realize that no child should be left to grow alone. We see the infancy of a child as a crucial stage to his/her development as a human being.

Child adoption is sometimes seen as a solution to the ever-increasing number of abandoned children every year.

Child adoption bridges the gap between children who have no parents and adults who have no children.

Child adoption attempts to create a balance to at least regain some stability between parents and children.

First of all, who can adopt?

Child adoption laws vary from place to place. Thus, the characteristics of potential parents also vary. Generally, couples 30-50 years old are acceptable as potential parents.

However, some child adoption agencies consider different types of people as long as they have shown themselves capable of rearing a child.

Whether you are heterosexual, homosexual, married, single, divorced or separated, there are a number of child adoption options available for you.

Even if you wish to adopt a child from another country, a number of child adoption services are there to help you face the complications that may come.

How do you adopt?

Well, you will need to enlist the services of a child adoption attorney. He/she can guide you through the different aspects of the law regarding child adoption.

With the help of a child adoption attorney, you may be able to reach the right people and make the right moves towards child adoption.

Government child adoption services can also offer you the chance of having a child of your own. Different child adoption services can help you speed-up the process of child adoption.

You will have to face a waiting period in order for the agency to prepare for your adoption. As with everything else in the world, child adoption takes time.

Of course there is also the paperwork. In order to properly follow the course of legal child adoption, you will have to fill out a huge amount of paperwork. A child adoption attorney can help you handle the documentation.

Of course, we are talking about the welfare of the child here, and not just the want of the parents.

In child adoption, you need to prove yourself as a capable parent. This is done through a series of “home studies” wherein you are observed whether you can provide a good home for child adoption.

These “home studies” are often done through a series of interviews and observations to give the child adoption service an idea of what you would be like as a parent.

These home studies are also for your benefit, as they will give you more in-depth look at the requirements for child adoption.

Usually, child adoption services prefer potential parents who have completed studies about family-building and child-rearing. The main objective of these child adoption agencies is to care for the parentless child. They need to see that the child can be fully taken-cared of and, with your care, can grow up in the right way.

Although there are no people who hold the absolute truth as to the right ways to raise a child, there are still some norms that people tend to look upon before approving child adoption.