“I Raise My Hands”
Author of Devotion:
Pat Aman 3/6/2013

I listen to mostly gospel music. I do like beach music as well as 50’s, Even though I was born in 1953. I just like the oldies. I like the old time country music, but I rarely listen to it. I was scanning the radio channels and heard this song. I fell in love with it. I did not know who the artists were, or the name of the song. I went to Wally-World and asked someone in the music department, who sings a song about the raising hands, bowing head, and reading the words in red. A young man told me real fast that it was a oBrooks and Dunn song. I told him I had to have it. So I bought it and I have played it over and over. I do not know another song on the CD, but number 8, “Believe”.

You are probably asking why I am telling you this, right? Well have you noticed that a lot of the older country singers, and some of the new are doing gospel. I have a collection of gospel music being sung as a reunion for the older singers. On the tape, they talk about how in their older age, how much the Lord means to them. Some of them really have a testim

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ony to what God has done for them. They also talk about how they started singing in church as a child, but soon were singing in the secular world. They also talk about God and His Word meaning more to them now.

Well, when I heard this song, I thought the same way. I have always known the Word of God. I have always depended on the Word of God, but now I am getting a little older myself, I am learning to treasure it a little more each day. In the song, it is just an old man, telling a younger man to depend on God. What more needs to be said. Here are the word to the song. I hope you have heard it. It is a beautiful testimony. I almost cry every time I hear it, when it comes to the part, “I raise my hands, I bow my head, I am finding more and more truth in the Words written in red. They tell me that there’s more to life than just what I can see. Oh I believe.”

.Artist: Brooks & Dunn Song: Believe Lyrics: Old man Wrigley lived in that white house Down the street where I grew up Momma used to send me over with things We struck a friendship up I spent a few long summers out on his old porch swing Says he was in the war when in the navy Lost his wife, lost his baby Broke down and asked him one time How ya keep from going crazy He said I’ll see my wife and son in just a little while I asked him what he meant

He looked at me and smiled, said (Chorus) I raise my hands, bow my head I’m finding more and more truth in the words written in red. They tell me that there’s more to life than just what I can see. Oh I believe Few years later I was off at college talkin’ to mom on the phone one night Getting all caught up on the gossip. The ins and outs of the small town life.

She said oh by the way son, old man Wrigley’s died. Later on that night, I laid there thinkin’ back. Thought ’bout a couple long-lost summers I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. If there was ever anybody deserved a ticket to the other side It’d be that sweet old man who looked me in the eye, said (Chorus) I raise my hands, bow my head I’m finding more and more truth in the words written in red. They tell me that there’s more to life than just what I can see I can’t quote the book. The chapter or the verse. You can’t tell me it all ends In a slow ride in a hearse.

You know I’m more and more convinced. The longer that I live Yeah, this can’t be No, this can’t be No, this can’t be all there is. (Chorus) When I raise my hands, bow my head I’m finding more and more truth in the words written in red. They tell me that there’s more to life than just what I can see I believe Oh, I believe I believe I believe I believe I believe.

Blessings, Prayers and Love,
Pat Aman

Pastor Pat Aman/©1996/2015
CWPM1996/2015
Notes: The New King James Bible

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I was thinking today, about my quiet time with God. I know that I spend a lot of time in the Word. Hours upon hours, while doing the e-mail devotions.  When I do a devotion, it is just like a preacher getting ready to minister on Wednesday nights, or both services on Sunday.  I just have to do a sermon every day.  That is the reason sometimes, you may see that I send a devotion out after mid-night or ever later. I am seeking God and what He wants me to say. But I still need my quiet time with God.  A time to hear Him speak directly to me for my circumstances.  Now every e-mail I do, speaks to me, because I am listening to what God wants me to say in the devotions.  I will not do a devotion unless God gives me a word. Sometimes it is a personal thought, or maybe a direct note from the Bible.  But still it is what God wants me to say.  I still need my time to be intimate with God.  Being intimate with someone, is loving them with all your soul, heart and strength.  

Psalm 62: 5-7, “I wait quietly before God, for my hope is in Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.” Matthew 22: 37-39, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all you soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

If you were to ask me, “Do I love God more than my own family?  My answer would have to be, yes.”  When you love God that much, your love becomes more pure and strong and selfless.  A person’s love for other people has much greater depth and strength and purity when they know and love God.  If you would talk to my girls, Tara and Anna, they would tell you that when I talk to them on the phone, or see them in person, I am constantly telling them I love them.  I may talk to them on the phone just a minute or so, but I probably tell them 10 times during the conversation I love them. 

 I started thinking, how many times a day do I tell God I love Him?  Yes, I pray and read His word, but just how many times do I say,  “God, I love You.”  We need an intimate relationship with God.  We need to be on a one on one basis.  And yes, we need to tell Him we love Him every time we think of Him. We may be surprised just how many times a day God tell us, that 

He loves us, if we would just listen. Today, get to know God in an intimate way. Seek a true heart knowledge of Him and not just a head knowledge of Him. 

Blessings, Prayers and Love,

Pat Aman

Devotion Written By: Pastor Pat Aman Book © 1996/2015 “Coffee With Pat Daily Devotionals”

StuPastor Pat Aman/©1996/2015
CWPM1996/2015dy Notes: The New King James Bible

Fruit of the Vine

John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.

Jesus is the Vine, we are the branches. Did you realize that the Branches bear the fruit, not the vine? We are branches grafted to the vine; we have been attached to it. In order for a grafted branch to bear fruit it must be of the same basic nature as the vine. It must have the same texture and must be at nearly the same level of growth as the vine; if not then the branch will not receive the nourishment from the vine, and will wither and die.

The fruit Jesus wants is the fruit of Love. This is the nature of the vine, and it is to be our nature; we are to love one another AS Jesus loved us. We cannot manage this on our own, but, bless God, we aren’t on our own. The Word and Spirit of God are ours, the very Love of God is ours. That Love, born in God’s heart, is shed abroad in our own hearts by the Holy Spirit. It comes to us from the Vine, Messiah Jesus, the Head of the Body.

Romans 5:5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

We are to rest from our own Earthly labors and begin to go about the Business of our Head, the business of the Vine. We are to bear fruit for the Vine. We will bear fruit when we allow God’s Word and Spirit to conform us to the image of Jesus, for then we will be fully-grafted, and the Love of God will flow through us to bear the Fruit.

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And, as was said above:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”

Jesus was a branch, and the Father was the Vine. Remember that he said, I do nothing of myself, but that which the Father does, I do. Jesus bore fruit for the Father, and now we must bear fruit for Jesus. The process requires little of us; we must simply choose the Word, the Spirit, and the Love. The Vine produces the nourishment which keeps us healthy, and that same nourishment produces the fruit through us.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

There is no greater Joy than that of doing the work we were created for. We can only find complete fulfillment in doing the works of our Father. That is because it is innate to our very nature. We were created so as to only be truly complete In Him. Only when we are yielded to Him, and the Love of God is flowing through us producing fruit, can we be totally satisfied.

Devotion Written By: Pastor Pat Aman Book © 1996/2015 “Coffee With Pat Daily Devotionals”

StuPastor Pat Aman/©1996/2015
CWPM1996/2015dy Notes: The New King James Bible