RAY LUTGE – ONE OF GOD’S MOST FERVENT FISHERMEN
Written in the fly leaf of my dad’s Bible:
“Sunday, August 19, 1951
Gave life completely and wholly to God holding nothing back. Offered myself to Him for missionary work”
“Come, follow Me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men”
(Matthew 4:19)
Ray Lutge
(23/8/1929 – 30/12/2015)
My husband came into our marriage with a silver tea pot.
I came into our marriage with a dog.
The dog’s name was Joshua and we learnt some invaluable lessons from him.
We learnt about loyalty and faithfulness, about unconditional love and joy.
He would listen for our voices and would be waiting at the door to greet us when we arrived home. We never once caught him off guard. He could hear the sound of the engine of my husband’s vehicle from five hundred meters away and would go to the front door and wait. Once Steve entered the house, Joshua never left his side. He would follow him to the supper table, to the bathroom, to the garden. Whenever Steve moved the dog moved with him. He was as docile as a lamb until he felt we were being threatened and then he would be on his guard, ready to attack.
He represented everything that we as Believers should be.
We should constantly be listening for our Master’s voice.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them…I give them life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. —John 10:27-28
We should be following where He leads at all times and remain faithful to Him.
You must follow the LORD your God and fear Him. You must keep His commands and listen to His voice; you must worship Him and remain faithful to Him. —Deuteronomy 13:4
We should always be alert to the dangers that threaten our marriages. Marriages today come under all kinds of attack, we need to guard our lives against being too busy, working too many long hours, being self-absorbed. We should be ready to go on the attack when sin enters our lives or danger threatens our marriage.
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. —1 Peter 5:8
One of the most important lessons we learnt from Joshua, however, was the damaging affect that quarreling has on those around us.
I am loath to confess this but I used to sulk. If Steve and I had a fight I would sulk. If it was a very serious fight I would sulk AND go and sleep in the spare room!
Joshua, who always slept in our room, would then spend his night walking between the two bedrooms. He would spend about ten minutes beside Steve and then walk to the spare room and spend about ten minutes with me and then repeat this action repeatedly. Usually, by about one a.m., I would not be able to take it any more—my heart would be aching for this dog. I would then leave the spare room and climb in beside Steve, making sure that I was as far away from him as possible, obviously! Joshua would then climb onto his blanket beside our bed, and immediately fall asleep. His little heart content once again that his owners were together.
Once I stopped sulking, we would reflect on the fact that if a dog could feel so troubled and unsettled by us quarreling, how much worse it must be for children when their parents fight and argue. How frightening to hear the voices of your parents raised in anger. We could only begin to imagine what a negative affect it must have on children when their parents fight.
In a three-year study of more than 300 families, researchers showed children films of adults arguing in different ways, and talked to children about their parents’ fights. The study finds that even though your argument may have nothing to do with the kids, if you fight the wrong way, it threatens their emotional stability.
There will be conflict in your marriage so it is vital that you and your spouse learn, very early on in the marriage, how to argue and resolve conflict in a calm and constructive manner.
A good verse to memorize from day one is Ephesians 4:26…
Don’t sin by letting anger control you. Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry.
My dad died at one p.m. yesterday afternoon, the 30th December 2015.
My sister and I were sitting on either side of his bed holding his hands as he took his last breath. It was incredibly peaceful.
At the end of July my dad flew from Cape Town to Durban to spend some time with my sister Mary Ann, her husband Stephen, and their family. In mid-September we received a phone call to say that my dad had collapsed and had been admitted into hospital for observation. We were advised to fly up to Durban to say goodbye to him.
They discovered that my dad’s heart was only functioning at 20%. Stephen and Mary Ann brought my dad home and Mary Ann took a leave of absence from her work in order to nurse my dad. He was semi bed-ridden and on oxygen permanently from then onwards.
God’s timing is impeccable – Stephen is a doctor and Mary Ann is a nursing sister – and he was brought home to be loved and cared for. Had he still been in Cape Town we would not have been able to nurse him and care for him as they did and he would have spent his remaining weeks in a sick bay.
We flew up to Durban and spent a wonderful long weekend with him.
We promised to go back and spend Christmas with them all and after we left he told his doctor that she had to keep him alive till after Christmas because he was going to spend it with his family!
We arrived in Durban on Christmas Eve. My dad had been totally bedridden for a few days prior to this but he recognized each one of us and greeted us by name. The majority of the time he slept but if he was awake his eyes would light up and he would smile whenever anyone came into his room.
HANDS OF LOVE
He was so thankful for everything and he radiated gentleness and peace. A few weeks before my sister had sent me the following sms:
“Dad is so stoical and gracious and I am learning so much from him about acceptance and letting go and being grateful and trusting God”.
That night we held a carol service in his room and the next morning we held our Christmas service and opened presents around his bed.
Two days before he died, as three of us were sitting around his bed, he opened his eyes and said
“It’s time to say goodbye now. I am going to be with the Lord . The Lord is waiting for me”.
We called everyone into his room and as each grandchild hugged him, he told them that he loved them and gave them a blessing. As my husband bent to hug him my dad thanked him for being such a good son-in-law to him.
SAYING GOODBYE
On the morning of his death he repeated a few times “I am going home” and then at one o’clock that afternoon he finally went home.
In memory of Edward Raymond Lutge
‘Ray’
23/08/1929 – 30/12/2015
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints’
Psalm 116:15
“For nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37)
Never give up…
Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have believed that my books would be on the same bookshelf in Exclusive Books as Stormie Omartian, Angus Buchanan, Gary Chapman and one shelf below Joel Osteen and Karen Kingsbury!!
“Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.” (Psalm 37:4,5)
Click on http://godspromise.co.za/books.html to buy the books
“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection” – Henri Nouwen
When will you start believing and acknowledging the fact that because of the Cross you have no right to ‘reject’ yourself? To constantly feel ashamed or embarrassed about something you have done? To be weighed down by guilt?
Jesus Christ took on that rejection, your shame and guilt when He allowed Himself to be crucified on the Cross. Stop demeaning what the Lord has done for you.
Many addictions in our lives are there because of self-rejection. If we loved ourselves as God has commanded us to love ourselves we would recognize the immense worth we have in His eyes and we would seek help for our addictions to alcohol, gambling, eating disorders, anger, guilt – the list is endless.
Guilt is one of the worst addictions we can have because it keeps us trapped on a treadmill doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
An addiction is the condition of being abnormally dependent on some habit and some synonyms for guilt are shame, regret, remorse, self-reproach, self-condemnation.
How will you ever grow into the person God created you to be if you are constantly being weighed down by addiction and guilt?
Jesus Christ died on the Cross to free us. In His resurrection He gave us the means to be freed from guilt and addictions. Some of the reasons that we remain trapped in our addictions and guilt are because we have stopped following the Lord (we only give Him lip-service, our hearts are no longer in it, we feel defeated), we don’t seek Him or inquire of Him anymore.
We are complacent and think “the Lord will do nothing, either good or bad”. God says that He will punish those who are complacent…who think “The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad”. (Zephaniah 1).
“Whenever we experience something difficult in our personal life, we are tempted to blame God. But we are the ones in the wrong, not God. Blaming God is evidence that we are refusing to let go of some disobedience somewhere in our lives. As long as we try to serve two masters, ourselves and God, there will be difficulties combined with doubt and confusion. Our attitude must be one of complete reliance on God” – Oswald Chambers
We are trapped in our addictions because of our shame and yet God says “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth…” (Isaiah 54:4)
Jesus took our shame, our humiliation, our embarrassment and “carried our sins in His body to the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. It is by His wounds that you have been healed”. (1 Peter 2:24)
Listen to these words:
“The Lord has taken away your punishment…The Lord your God is with you He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing…the sorrows…He will remove from you; they are a burden and a reproach to you” (Zephaniah 3:15-18)
Stop making excuses
Stop giving in to self-pity
Stop blaming your lousy childhood
Stop blaming your circumstances
AND
Start seeking God’s face in prayer and Bible reading
Start forgiving yourself as Christ has forgiven you
Start living in the fullness of God’s love
Start looking for professional help if necessary
Start fellow shipping with other Believers
AND
Start being kind to yourself, tender-hearted to yourself, forgiving one another (including yourself) as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)
God is so gracious. In Psalm 145 we are advised, “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them” (vv. 18–19).
In Corinthians 13, there is a beautiful passage that speaks about love. It describes that “love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (v. 4–5). The portion of the sentence that says love “keeps no record of wrongs” is something we should all imprint on our hearts.
God has said that once we have asked for forgiveness, that’s it. Our wrongs are erased from His mind. In fact, in Micah 7:19, God says He will “throw away all our sins into the deepest part of the sea”.
Extract from God’s Promise for Families
Pastor and author, John Ortberg, was very good friends with the philosopher Dallas Willard, and he recounts how he phoned him up once when he was in deep despair and said: “Hey Dallas. My heart is breaking. I cannot fix this. I don’t understand it. I am sadder than I’ve ever been”. He says there was a long pause. And then Dallas uttered a single sentence: “This will be a test of your joyful confidence in God”.
Dallas did not say “I am so sorry to hear that” or “I wish there was something I could do to help you” or even “I will pray for you”. No, he immediately brought it back to God and said “This will be a test of your joyful confidence in God”.
When we are going through trials and tribulations and unanswered prayers we need to remember those words. “this is a test to our joyful confidence in God”
Extract from a talk by Noelene Curry
Seldom does a fishing net’s rope break, but the net is always in need of careful maintenance.
“We must repair broken relationships by forgiving and loving one another. But the basis and foundation of that forgiveness is the blood of Jesus that avails for us. Just as we reckon our sins covered by the blood of Jesus, so we should see the failures of others as being under the blood of Jesus. Then when we forgive we can honestly also forget the incident.”
Extract from “A HAT, A HAIRPIN AND A HEART FOR GOD” by Faans Kloppe
MY DAD!
In Faans Klopper’s book ‘A HAT, A HAIRPIN AND A HEART FOR GOD’ there is a chapter on fishing nets.
It reminded me so much of my father. As far back as I can remember he has always made his own nets and has also always been “a fisher of men”
“Come, follow Me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19
Jesus is still calling each one of us today to be ‘fishers of men’.
Will you heed his call?
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UNDER A JUNIPER TREE 