​Throughout scriptures we are given examples and descriptions of God's character. Lately, I've been contemplating his goodness toward man.

Consider this verse in James:
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Jas 1:17  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. 

When you think of good, and perfect, what comes to your mind.

Everything that is good, blesses, encourages, brings joy, life, health, pleasure, peace, growth and vitality. The word perfect brings with it the emphasis that with this goodness, there is no sorrow with it.
Pro 10:22  The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.

God's greatest, and best gifts have nothing to do with money. Good health, a sound mind, peace of mind. These are priceless, many who have gone through serious illness and regained their health knows the value of it, and now cherishes it. And watching those who are squandering theirs with drugs, alcohol, and other abuses saddens them; knowing what they will face some day.

God is faithful, He can be trusted, He doesn't lie.

Rom 3:4  God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

When Adam and Eve were created without sin, and walked in the garden God made for them, all that was there was for their pleasure. They were perfect, without sin, glorious in the majesty that God intended for them. There was not death, no decay, everything in the garden was intended to live forever. They wanted for nothing.

The only thing they were told not to do was eat the fruit from one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

This one act of disobedience in giving in to the temptation of the serpent, satan, represents the heart of every man and woman to this day.

It also represents all that the one act encompasses:
Lust
Disatisfaction with the gifts and provision of God
Unbelief in what God had spoken
Rebellion

No one knows how long Adam and Eve lived in the garden before this happened, how long they may have enjoyed the perfection they lived in. I wonder at times if idleness had a part to play in Eve's decision to give in to the serpents enticement. Whatever the circumstances, the cost has been a world of sorrow and death ever since.

Jumping ahead to the story Jesus told of the prodigal son in Luke ch. 15, we see a depiction of a father who had two sons. The father represents God. Here the two sons have a good life, safe in the father's care, security, complete provision, freedoms and privileges of their place as sons, they want for nothing.

But the younger son wants his freedom to do as he wishes. He demands his rights, and his inheritance. Lust for pleasures and riotous living burns in his heart, and he wants to be free from the constraints of his father's house. None of the joys, safety, beauty, good food, security, is enough for him. All he can think of is the pleasures he thinks will fulfill him that the world has to offer.

This is us, every one of us- "Don't tell me what to do".

This is where I differ from many bible teachers, I believe there is a place in God's plan for suffering, it's not always the devil that allows hardship. We are responsible for our own decisions, our own mistakes, and God uses everything in our lives to achieve one goal; getting us to turn back to Him. At times it is only hardship and suffering that will turn someone around, and get them headed back to God.

It was only when the son found himself in the pigpen, eating the husks given to the pigs that he came to himself, and realized what he had squandered, what he had lost.

When he came to himself, and turned back to his father, humbled, and admitting his errors; we find God not only waiting for his son, but running down the road to meet him and embracing him, full of love, forgiveness and joy. Then he gives him a party. Why wouldn't anyone want to love and serve a Father such as this?

When I contemplate these truths, and look around at those lost in the world today, my heart is heavy with sadness. I watch as people of every race and kindred follow the same path as Eve, and this younger son. I have no judgment, for the first 25 years of my life I was the same. I was just as blind, and lost. I was a prodigal coming back to the Lord, a day in March 1978, realizing I had come to the end of myself, and calling out to Jesus, to save me, and asking His forgiveness for the life I had squandered. When I did, He was there, ready, and waiting.

When we are weak, when we fall, when we fail, Jesus remains the same, he remains faithful. He is the God of all comfort, of all forgiveness, of all mercy. When we turn back, admit our wrongs, and go back to Him, he never refuses us, he never runs out of mercy. He remains the same, always.

Halloween is coming up soon. For those planning to celebrate it, my question is, why. Why do you choose to celebrate a holiday that represents everything that is dark, and evil. The Satanists throughout the world will celebrate this time by sacrificing people, including babies to honor their god Satan. This not just an innocent holiday to enjoy with parties and trick or treating with kids in the community.

Jesus describes the devil well:

Joh 10:10  The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 

Think of the responsibility of what you are teaching and influencing kids with. Think of Halloween, and then this verse:
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Eph 5:11  And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 
Lorna Couillard

This message is as relevant today (perhaps even more so, as it was the day Johnathan Edwards spoke it.
I offer this video freely under terms of Fair Use, according to the United States Fair Use Act of 1976, subsection 107, for educational purposes. My channel is not monetized and I make no money from this  video.

Some scriptures to ponder considering this message:
Pro 14:34  Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. 
Rom 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Debates around this question generally fall into two categories: physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. These terms are often used interchangeably; however, the distinctions are significant. The act of physician-assisted suicide involves a medical doctor who provides a patient the means to kill him or herself, usually by an overdose of prescription medication.

Euthanasia involves the intentional killing of a patient by the direct intervention of a physician or another party, ostensibly for the good of the patient or others. The most common form of euthanasia is lethal injection. Euthanasia can be voluntary (at the patient's request), non-voluntary (without the knowledge or consent of the patient) or involuntary (against his or her wishes).

A medical doctor swears an oath before beginning his practice called the Hippocratic Oath. There are two versions now, but the original one is what doctor's for thousands of years have sworn to. Let's take a look at it.

No matter how you study this, there is no place in it that remotely condones euthanasia. There is now a modern version of this oath, but if you look it up and read it you will find it full of alterations that do indeed leave loopholes for assisting death. I find it interesting that it also elevates the ego and standing of the doctor in greater measure than the people that will be in his care. The decline of a society tends to do this.
Let's now take a look at some historical facts about euthanasia.

This timeline goes to 2007-notice the steady decline of restrictions, boundaries and the steady increase in the practice of it in society. When moral values decline so does the value of human life.

There are some important reasons that euthanasia and assisted suicide should not be available within medical fields.

People living with terminal illness deserve more than the offer of a physician to facilitate their death. They merit true compassion. Accessing expert palliative (hospice) care and comfort care — treating the symptoms and making the patient as comfortable as possible during the natural dying process. Palliative (hospice) care differs from acute care in that it becomes appropriate when aggressive therapies are no longer beneficial to the patient and there is no longer an attempt to cure the disease.

Barriers need to be removed that prevent patients from receiving available treatments for pain and other symptoms — not alleviate the safeguards that protect patients from psychological or financial coercion to choose an untimely death. The goal should not be to legalize physician-assisted suicide but rather to adequately provide available means of care so that patients and their families do not feel the need to consider an early death.

Social acceptance of physician-assisted suicide sends the message that some lives, especially those of elderly, disabled and dependent citizens, have less value, and are not worth living.

The practice of physician-assisted suicide creates a duty to die. Death may become a reasonable substitute to treatment and care as medical costs continue to rise. The patient, and the family members may be encouraged to use this option and be pressed to do so, to alleviate this burden, on the hospital or nursing home, as much as on the one suffering.

Better medical alternatives exist to physician-assisted suicide.  However, they are not brought to the light as much as they should, family members need to be more engaged, and aggressive in becoming informed to the resources available. Today's pain management techniques can provide relief for up to 95 percent of patients, thus offering true death with dignity.

Physician-assisted suicide often ignores anxiety, depression, and family problems, which is a legitimate cry for help.

Physician-assisted suicide gives too much power to doctors, threatening patient autonomy by allowing physicians to decide whether a patient lives or dies. This is occurring now in  the Netherlands, Europe.

The practice of physician-assisted suicide threatens to destroy the delicate trust relationship between doctor and patient – a relationship based on the patient's belief that his or her physician will pursue the goal of protecting life.

Physician-assisted suicide opens the door to euthanasia. Then, when this boundary is overstepped, where is this going to lead? Where will this mindset go next? Who else will be termed “better off dead?”

"In a society as obsessed with the costs of health care and the principle of utility, the dangers of the slippery slope... are far from fantasy...

Assisted suicide is a half-way house, a stop on the way to other forms of direct euthanasia, for example, for incompetent patients by advance directive or suicide in the elderly. So, too, is voluntary euthanasia a half-way house to involuntary and non-voluntary euthanasia. If terminating life is a benefit, the reasoning goes, why should euthanasia be limited only to those who can give consent? Why need we ask for consent?" 

Now, let's take a look at the most important reason for not allowing this.

Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 

In the beginning, God made us in His image, in His likeness. We are made to bring honor, glory, and praise to Him in the time we are here on this earth. Despite the claim of atheists that we came from a primordial soup, and evolved into the human form we are now; God claims to be the mastermind of our creation. I find this much more regal, and honorable, and makes infinitely more sense than any atheists claims. It takes much more faith to believe their theories, and they have been proven in error in their facts so many times, that I'll stay with the bible.

When God created man and woman, he set guidelines for us to live by. They weren't difficult to understand.

The difficulty in obeying these simple laws is the sinful nature of man. In his rebellion he chooses to either obey, or disobey. Nothing has changed since the garden of Eden.

Down through the ages we continue to see the consequences of mans own rebellion, in sin, hatred, murder, and every kind of evil that can be perpetrated against each other.

And this is really the answer to the steady increase in assisted death, not only in the elderly, disabled, and terminally ill, but in populations of countries. Life and death has been taken out of the hands of God, into the hands of people, who do not always hold to the values of life being precious, and God given. Agenda's, and rationalization become the factor's that either work to keep you alive, or bring it to an end. But in the process it is carefully done within the parameters of the medical ethics of the profession, and country involved; in order to keep the veneer of social acceptance. That's why it's not called what it really is-murder.
​Lorna Couillard