Mike Tremblay's Weblog

MMB - 11/28/16  -- PEACE AND HOPE As I write this morning, the background music is playing very familiar Christmas celebration songs. My cup has been warmed up with some fresh brewed  coffee  and my Bible is opened to the familiar Jeremiah 29:11. "For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." While our family watched the final minutes of the New England Patriot's win over the NY Jets (sorry Jets fans!), we New Englander's transplanted to Florida, loved seeing the final knee taken by QB Tom Brady to seal the win. Then we were directed to the Raiders game and their tie with the Panthers in the final moments of that game. The final came by way of a Raider field goal and the score was 35-32. I commented on Raider's QB, Derek Carr's arm tattoos. His right arm had a religious symbol while his left arm had a Scripture reference. After a few pauses with the remote, we concluded the...

MONDAY MORNING BLOG - 11/21/2016 Many of my meditations lately have been in the Old Testament. I taught a group of teens at a Sunday gathering recently about the Challenges of Conflicts and talked about Judah's King Jehoshaphat's conflict with three nations preparing to attack, which if they did, the King would have experienced sure defeat. The account is detailed in 2 Chronicles 20. So how did this King deal with this challenge of conflict? The answer became the thrust of my message to those eager Jr High teens. I encouraged those bright young people of diversity and multiple backgrounds, to see the King's response to the news of an imminent and enormous attack ... an ensuing conflict, if you will. This conflict was dealt with head-on by the King and his followers - with PRAYER. Prayer? Oh yes! A National Prayer Meeting, led by none other than the King! King Jehoshaphat called his people to prayer and cried out to God Almighty boldly and loudly before the people of ...

MMB - 11/14/2016 SPECIAL EDITION -  Post Election Alert! We are nearly a week removed from the big election day last Tuesday. What have we learned? We have learned:   1. The Nation is Divided . Voter turnout was championed as higher than the past. But actual votes cast were much less than 2012 and 2008. The Electoral College and Popular Vote seemingly are opposite. Jubilation of victory is apparent but at the same time protests of that victory are erupting in major U.S. cities from coast to coast. Many who trusted the major network predictions and polls saw a completely different result, leaving both news media and pollsters to be questioned as to their accuracy and neutral party stance. Initial reaction by foreign stock markets to an apparent Trump victory plummeted stocks into deep negative territory, which affected even Wall St. which went down nearly 800 points in the futures market. Then when the dust settled, the Dow rebounded from that and has been on a hist...

Monday Morning Blog:  11-7-2016  SPECIAL REPORT So here we are ... less than 24 hours away from away from the election of the century here in the United States of America. Why the "election of the century"? This election has revealed the nation is absolutely divided not by party or candidate preference but by distinct values of who we are and have been as a nation.  The flaws of all candidates have been closely and loudly scrutinized and much of it based on character and/or standards. Sadly, much of what drives the nation's existence (financial ideals, national and foreign ideals, constitutional ideals, etc.) have been skimmed over because of personality popularity or flaws. How a candidate views or will move on issues are rarely mentioned in this election. Instead, the focus is on the candidate's popularity. In fact as I write this now, our President is on the news networks speaking for his party's candidate in Ann Arbor, Michigan and the captions do not ...

REJOICE? Philippians 4:4 says "rejoice in the Lord always...". REJOICING regardless. Those words from the Apostle Paul are striking. We rejoice when things are joy-worthy. But when rough and tough times come, we normally don't rejoice. We gripe, we complain, we stew, we simply refuse to rejoice. That's natural. But in the supernatural realm, we follow Paul's words to always, at every time, rejoice. Under the power of the Holy Spirit, we can and will rise above circumstances and express joy! Hey, I know it. There's not much to joy about these days. The weather, the election, the breakdown of expensive home appliances (that's actually happening in our home right now!). Sadly, our world is a nasty place. Our existence has negative life situations. How can we possibly REJOICE ALWAYS? When Peter saw Jesus walking on water during a storm, he asked the Lord to allow him to do the same and Christ invited him to come. Peter did ... he walked out to Jesus righ...

MMG 10/17/2016  COFFEE & THE WORD As I drink my 2nd cup of coffee, I have the open Bible next to me and I read this: "I cry out, 'My splendor is gone! Everything I had hoped for from the LORD is lost!'" Have you ever felt that way? I have. This Bible writer has feelings many of us do. Life deals bad things sometimes. Oh, by the way, the writer is Jeremiah the Prophet. And these words are from Lamentations 3:18 (NLT). I shared some of these words after our Worship Gathering at Creed (www.creedchurch.org) yesterday during AfterGlow. His next few words express similiar feelings until you get to v21 when he says, "Yet I still dare to hope ..." WOW! Can you see that? There Is Always HOPE! And that's what separates a 'Religion' from a 'Relationship' with Almighty God! God is the God of Hope! Jeremiah in his deep dispair had hope and said so. The whole of v21 says "Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this:" ==> Now...

As a Team Leader and Bible Teacher in a local Fellowship of Christ-Followers, I have never taken sides in a choosing a candidate or making my choice publicly known. Free speech says I can, but that same freedom also allows for my silence. A number of my Facebook friends are quite verbal with their choice and enjoy expressing their disdain for the other candidate. Simply, my take is that this highly important personal choice is for the secret ballot box where we stand alone in a curtain-closed cubicle. Further, expressing my favor for one candidate over another in an open forum or even small talk with friends may stir some to anger, wrath or worse. As a child of the King, I am called to be a person of peace. Now listen, there is one who is fully aware of to whom I am leaning and that's my best friend, my dear wife. Even with four weeks left to election day, incidents or issues could arise which may have an effect on which way I may lean. So you may have guessed my choice i...