Ralph Howe Ministries

If we are going to be able to live courageous lives as believers in these chaotic days, we will need to be calm in our hearts, compassionate towards others, constructive in our relationships, challenged to grow, and connected to the church. We were created by God to live in community, not in isolation.

Same old story: Mom had two sons who were driving her crazy. She had read all the parenting books. She had tried every disciplinary strategy imaginable. Her kids weren’t children; they were uncontrollable force of nature. One day she was bemoaning the situation in an over-the-fence conversation with a neighbour. Her friend said, I took my son to the pastor, and he hasn’t given me a problem since. It didn’t should like much reason to get her hopes up, but Mom had tried every...Continue reading

A fascinating story In 1909, young Leonora Wood volunteered to go to the Appalachian Mountains to teach in a one-room mission school. There, in the impoverished town of Del Rio, Tennessee, she became something of a living legend thanks to her deep faith in the power of prayer. Leonora knew how to turn dreams into prayer and prayer into dreams, and she believed we must step toward our goals in God’s presence through prayer. Raymond Thomas was a foster teen who often stopped a...t Leonora’s cabin in his knee-high clodhoppers to talk with her as she sat on the front porch shelling peas or darning socks. Raymond’s seemingly impossible dream was to go to college. But how can I manage it? I’ve no money saved. Nor any prospects, he said. Raymond, Leonora replied, whatever you need, God has the supply ready for you, provided you’re ready to receive it The money will be there for any dream that’s right for you, every dream for which you’re ready to work. Raymond asked Leonora to offer a dreaming prayer for him, and her prayer went like this: Father, You’ve given Raymond a fine mind. We believe You want that mind to be developed, that You want Raymond’s potential to be used to help You lift and lighten some portion of Your world. Since all the wealth in the world is Yours, please help Raymond find everything he needs for an education. But she wasn’t done. And, Father, we also believe you have even bigger plans for Raymond. Plant in his mind and heart the vivid pictures, the specific dreams that reflect Your plans for him after college. And oh, give him joy in dreaming great joy. Raymond Thomas did make it through college in four years, working twelve jobs to support himself and graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude. He also served in World War II and later settled in Vienna, where he earned a PhD in Physics. He went on to visit sixty countries, master multiple languages, and network with some of the most important people in Europe through his job with the US Atomic Energy Commission. Year’s later, Leonora’s daughter, Catherine Marshall, wrote Raymond that she was coming to Europe. When Catherine arrived in Rome, she found officials ready to show her sacred sites few tourists can access. In Florence, she was taken to the top of the dome of the Duomo. In Venice, a gondola awaited her. Catherine realized her childhood friend was known across Europe. When they finally met in Vienna, Raymond told her, The fact that I could sit on your front steps and with no money at all dream of going to college and achieve it, proved something to me. Very simply, what your mother said was true any right dream can be realized And prayer helps you know if it is right and gives you the power to stay with it. What are you dreams? Have you saturated them in prayer? Are you willing to give yourself to these dreams and work to achieve them? Then, God will step in, guide, direct, and provide.

Blogs for February 1st to 5th, 2021 Monday the 1st - What Is Your Dream? Tuesday the 2nd - A Display of Raw Power Wednesday the 3rd - Knowing and Experiencing God’s Love... Thursday the 4th - Thirty Verses That Changed My Life Friday the 5th - Risk-Taker These blogs can be found at www.ralphhoweministries.com You may also sign up and have them automatically delivered to your inbox each week day.

Chill out... If you have been watching the news recently you have to realize that there is turmoil in almost every nation. Between local warlords causing havoc to country fighting country there is a serious lack of calm in the world and in the hearts of people. If it is not wars and rumours of wars as the Lord warned us would come it is the total upheaval of what we considered normal every day life caused by a worldwide pandemic. Calm seems in short supply. In fact, they no...w advertise an app for your smart phone that will help you to find calm and even fall asleep. But here is what I want you to know: as we await the Lord’s return, the atmospherics of your heart should be calm. The Bible says we have a God who calms the storm and a Saviour who rebukes the wind and the waves so they are calm (Psalm 107:29; Luke 8:24). The writer of Psalm 131 said, Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul. Proverbs 17:27 tells us that a person of understanding has a calm spirit; and in Isaiah 7:4 (NIV), the Lord tells us, Be careful, be calm, and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart. Calm is an interesting word that is known more for what it is not: agitation, fear, or turbulence. But calm does require some kind of storm or we would never notice it. The weather world gave us the word in the first place. It means wind that is moving one mile per hour or less. The Beaufort scale has Calm at one end and Hurricane at the other extreme opposites. Take a moment and evaluate your own life. As you attempt to move through these chaotic and sometimes stressful days, where would the Beaufort scale register the winds of your soul?

Jesus set forth a standard to His disciples in the Upper Room, only hours before He was arrested. A standard by which we , as believers, are to live. A standard by which non-believers will be able to tell if we are Christ followers. By this all will know that you are My disciples., if you have love for one another (John 13:35). There is a basic standard for love, as John describes it: If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not lo...ve his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother (1 John 4:20-21). Paul took this up another notch when He wrote: may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all (1 Thessalonians 3;12 ESV). That pretty much covers everyone you can think of, doesn’t it? An e-mail circulated some time back, telling the story of one of those angry drivers who was tailgating everyone, sitting on his horn, honking when people stopped for a yellow light, and so on. Then, in his rearview morrow, he saw the blue, revolving light. Soon the police officer was asking the man to exit the car with his hands up. He took the driver to the station and had him searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. Finally the staffers came for him, brought him back to the booking desk, and returned his personal effects. The arresting officer was very apologetic. I made a mistake, he explained. I was behind you in traffic while you were blowing your horn, making hand gestures, and cursing at the guy in front of you. When I saw the What Would Jesus Do? Bumper sticker and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, I assumed you had stolen the car. People are watching, and they watch more closely when they know that we are people of faith. They have the right to expect our walk to reasonably match our talk. And, it has been said that we are the only Bible some people will ever study. So, let’s be careful out there believers.

This past weekend’s teaching Sometimes I Am Not Patient is posted and can be found at: https://rhm.podbean.com/e/somethimes-i-am-not-patient/ We will be posting each week’s teaching on weekends. The full written text copy can be found at ralphhoweministries.com and is downloadable. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

The weekend of November 28th and 29th, 2020 Ralph will be continuing his series of teachings called Sometimes This time he will be sharing on Sometimes I Lack Integrity as he shares from Scriptures and his personal experiences about this sadly lacking virtue in the world and the Church today. He writes Isn’t it tragic that we live in a world where people are more shocked by a display of integrity than a lack of it? More and more often, people seem surprised when someone... does the right thing instead of when someone fails the morality test. This inversion is a sad indictment of how corrupt and self-absorbed our culture has become. Our ethics are determined by what we want and when we want it. It is all about us. Integrity is living what you believe. It is walking on the outside what you believe on the inside. As Tony Dungy so brilliantly stated, Integrity doesn’t come in degrees: low, medium, or high. You either have integrity or you don’t. Integrity is living with all aspects of your life lining up into one whole. This coming weekend you will find this teaching posted in text form at www.ralphhoweministries.com and the audio version at www.podbean.com Coming soon to You Tube as a video presentation.

Blogs being posted for November 23 to 27th, 2020 Monday the 23rd - Doing the Things Jesus Did Tuesday the 24th - The Book of Acts Today Wednesday the 25th - God Moving In Our Lives... Thursday the 26th - Following the Spirit’s Leading Friday the 27th - The Lesson From a Group of Monkeys You can find these blogs at ralphhoweministries.com where you can also sign up to have them automatically delivered every weekday to your email inbox.

This weekend (November 21-22, 2020) Ralph will be sharing on Sometimes I Am Not Patient! Saint Augustine said, Patience is the companion of wisdom. And yet, we often are impatient and so move forward too quickly with often disastrous results. One of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) is patience. So, God apparently thought that we would need some help in this department and thus gifted us with this important human characteristic. And yet, we often act impulsively... and in an unwise manner. We live in a world of instant gratification and so patience is a rare commodity in people’s lives today. The concept of ‘delayed gratification’ has basically been lost. And along with it the character trait called patience. Patience is a life skill needed in today’s fast moving society where the spirit of entitlement rules supreme. So, we will be looking at a number of Bible stories that reveal the value and nature of true patience and its importance in all aspects of the life of a believer. This week: Sometimes I Am Not Patient!

Blogs being posted the week of November 16th to 20th, 2020 Monday - November 16th - The Strategy Of Satan - Part One Tuesday - November 17th - The Strategy Of Satan - Part Two Wednesday - November 18th - The Great Commission... Thursday - November 19th - A Warning To The Church - Part One Friday - November 20th - A Warning To The Church - Part Two You can find these blogs at www.ralphhoweministries.com You can also sign up to receive blogs each weekday in your inbox.

Blogs being posted the week of November 8th, 2020 Monday, November 9th - The Anatomy of a Great Relationship - Part Two Tuesday, November 10th - The Anatomy of a Great Relationship - Part Three Wednesday, November 11th - A Different Kind of Remembrance... Thursday, November 12th - The Insanity of Christ’s Teachings Friday, November 13th - Asking Yourself The Hard Questions These blogs are posted daily Monday to Friday and can be found through our web site at www.ralphhoweministries.com You may also sign up to have them automatically delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday.