Month: August 2018

God thinks fondly of you!


Jeremiah 29: 10-13

10 For thus saith, the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 12 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. 13 And ye shall seek me, and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

God loves you deeply and He proved this when He sent His Son to die and rise again in order to pay for your sins and mine! Some people think that God chooses a certain number of people or just certain people to be Christians and some to be sent to hell. That is wrong! The Book of Life which our names are written in when we come to faith in Jesus is not already written!

God writes our names into it when we come to know Jesus as our Savior. John wrote this:  “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” John 3:17

Your story as a believer and your life in Jesus is NOT written in stone. You can come to know Him as your Savior and all you have to do is seek Him diligently and ask Him into your heart. God loves each of us, He just doesn’t love the sinful lives that we lead when we aren’t Christians and our heart is still a slave to sin! I pray that anyone and everyone who reads this will come to the knowledge of Jesus as their Savior and Lord.

Don’t put off the most important decision in your life! Our lives are extremely short compared to eternity. It’s like a drop of water in the Pacific ocean, your lifetime is the drop and eternity is the ocean. Make sure of your destination in eternity before your life ends because this is the rehearsal for that eternal home which is promised in God’s Word. So make sure of it before you get in your car or get on an airplane or walk down the street because you don’t know if you will arrive at your destination.

Bridge2Salvation

In Romans 1:16 Paul wrote this:  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”, and neither should anyone else who believes.

How much longer, Lord?


It has been nearly 2,000 years since the crucifixion of Jesus, yet God is still giving the world more time. Time to turn to Jesus and be saved, time to realize Who He was and Who He is and time for more to come to know Him as their Savior. When you look at all of the prophecies in the Bible you will notice that there are no more which are necessary to be fulfilled before the Trumpet calls those who have died in Christ and those who are living for Him now. We are living at the edge of history and its ending and yet more are still to come to know Him, so we wait for God’s timing.

the-great-tribulation-beginsWe don’t know what else needs doing nor do we know how many more haven’t been written down in the Book of Life but are destined to. But God knows who and when and it is very likely that it will be soon. We won’t know it until it happens and when that happens the rest of the world will know it too. For many, it will be too late, if they cared about it at all.  So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?

Why do I ask this question now? Because there are many on the Earth who are asking it as well. God is not short in His time and He knows when the Tribulation will take place. It is our job as Christians to live in obedience to His command and tell others about the gift that we have been given by grace through faith in Him. This cannot be worked for or bought and it cannot be bargained for because it is the gift of God to each of us who will accept it and believe.

Many wonder about this today if or when Jesus is coming back. You can be assured that He is because God doesn’t lie and it is told and foretold in the Bible that there will come a time of retribution and trials and that Jesus will come back to the Earth and reign for a thousand years from the throne of David. I pray that all who read this or who have heard a sermon about the return of Jesus the Christ will seek Him out and give your life and your heart to Him now before these things begin.

Some teachers are saying that the antichrist will come before we are taken up to be in Heaven. I don’t believe this. It seems that the book of Revelation is set up in order for us to discern His coming and the timing of His coming. The end of the age is near and we shouldn’t discount any prophecy in God’s Word. There is no exact date but with all of the upheaval going on in the world and all of the distress which is happening because of wars and drought and fires and natural disasters like hurricanes and volcanic eruptions…I don’t believe that the time is very far off at all.

Tell others about Jesus and His love for them. Seek Him out if you haven’t done so already because when the church leaves, the Holy Spirit will likely be gone from the Earth as well. Then the end will begin and that time is supposed to be so horrendous that all of life would end if this time is not cut short by the return of Jesus. Tell others and make sure that you are teaching from God’s Word during this time because that is the purpose of the church until God calls us home.

Be strong in your faith


There are so many things going on in our world today and every day. So much hatred and bitterness, some of it toward Christians and those who believe in Jesus even in America. In other countries, our faith is persecuted terribly in much worse ways than here. Life for Christians, even in the twenty-first century, is not easy because our faith and the One that we place our faith in is not very popular in the world today.

Many people cannot handle the Truth contained within our Scriptures or rather they don’t want to hear about its Truth, specifically because of its absoluteness. But…we must be strong in our faith and put your faith in Jesus. We cannot lose our faith, not now. Life is going to become harder and we cannot just give up. We must persevere and stay the course until our Savior comes.

God loves you and your life is in Him and in His Son, Jesus. Make sure your faith is in Jesus and is strong in Him. Follow Him, learn of Him, read His Word and pray for the strength to continue to follow Him until that day when the Trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ come out of their graves and head to the skies to meet Him!

Amen

What is your idea of God?


Is He a father figure who gently prods you in the right direction or does He resemble the Greek idea of Zeus with a lightning bolt about to zap you if you do wrong? Many people seem to think of Him as a grandfather figure who is just waiting to pour money and blessings into your hand whenever you ask for them. Some people even think of Him as some sort of “genie” who will answer when called but is indifferent to your life unless you ask Him to be in it?

GOD IS NONE OF THESE!

Yes, He is a Father to us all because He is the Creator of all, but HE is not like a human father. He, God the Father, is not Zeus or Odin. They are mythical beings, God wrote the Ten Commandments on stone for Moses. A mythical being cannot do that! God is not a grandfather but the Father and Creator of all!

According to the Bible, God’s Word, He knew each of us before He created this planet that we live on. In His mind and thoughts you and I were there, along with every other person who has ever lived. He thought of you! Later, when you were old enough to feel His Presence, God the Holy Spirit touched your spirit and let you know that you needed Him. Before we who are alive today were born, Jesus Who is God in the flesh of man, died on a cross, shed His blood for our sins and bought our souls with that blood. He paid the price for our transgressions so that we could cry, “Abba, Father” in His Presence.

We are all able to receive His forgiveness and His Love which knows no bounds, if we will accept Him as our Savior and Lord. It is our choice. Even though He has made this easy for even a child to understand, many don’t want to believe it. Why? Because they don’t want it to be that easy. They want to have a part in their salvation through works on this Earth. But, works done without Him and in your own power just count as paper and wood. It is those works done with Him as your Lord which are made of gold and silver and which will endure the fire of His gaze.

God has loved all of us since the beginning, before the world became our home, it is our responsibility to accept Him as our Savior and give our life and our work for Him into His hands. I pray that those who read this and who haven’t given their lives to Jesus will do so today because you don’t know that you will even make it home today. You may not be able to find a pastor or a church to talk to someone about your need for Him, but you can do so right now. Just talk to Him like you would to a friend or your Dad and ask Him to forgive you and to make you whole in Jesus’ powerful name. It doesn’t have to be a fancy prayer or one which you may have heard in church, just talk to Him about what you have done and ask forgiveness for it all.

He knows but He wants to hear it from you. God has never turned away from you even though the world may tell you that He has. God loves you with an awesome love that nobody else has for you but Him!

Why the decrease?


According to a poll done recently, of the nearly seventy percent of Christians who identify as Christians in the United States, only forty to fifty-nine percent of those attend church weekly. The article was on Faithwire so I am giving you the link to it if you want to read it. The United States came in as an outlier in the statistical realm because of our less involved Christians.

Why have participation and participants gone down in the past fifty years in America? I think it is because we have moved away from teaching our children about the moral absolutes found in the Bible. The schools are not allowed to teach it anymore, we don’t have a copy of the Ten Commandments in schools anymore for fear of offending someone. We have taken prayer, compulsory or voluntary, out of schools because of “political correctness” and trying not to offend people.

You know, Jesus offended His people while He was teaching and preaching! He would heal a person on the Sabbath or clear the porch of the Temple because of all the business transactions going on in a worship setting. He ate with sinners of all things! What a disgrace!

Really? Those who are sinners, which we all are by the way, need to hear the message of love and forgiveness more than the people who have been in the church for forty years. Many of those who have been in the church the longest are more like the Pharisees than the tax collector. They may not pray like he did, essentially telling God that He was lucky to have him as a teacher and that he wasn’t like these sinners or this tax collector, but they have ears which have grown calloused to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Many of them are spiritually deaf!

Then, when they go home their children and grandchildren don’t hear any more about Jesus and His teachings until next Sunday for about thirty minutes or so. If you aren’t teaching your children about Jesus during the week then they are listening to those at school about what exactly? Football, basketball, soccer, cheerleading, all of the religions of America which push Jesus into the locker room and shut the door.

Then during the fall there is hunting and more football and its an endless cycle every year. We are letting our children down into a well where Jesus is not and if they don’t find out about Him in time, they will drown in the world’s “religions” and may never darken the door of a church after they graduate. We have allowed this to happen to our children and to society in general. It isn’t some plot from some other religious group or some computer or console game! The blame for this lies directly in the laps of our families because we have failed in our duty to teach the next generation.

If we don’t turn this around and begin teaching our grandchildren and children now, in another generation there won’t be a church in America or the UK. Many are closing their doors each month as it is because no one attends and there is no money to keep the church open, let alone pay a pastor. We are living in the time just before the return of Jesus and the world is running away from belief in Him as fast as possible and it breaks my heart. I know it is breaking God’s heart too watching those that Jesus died for turn away and leave.

“Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Return to Me,” declares the LORD of hosts, “that I may return to you,” says the LORD of hosts. Zechariah 1:3

Distraction and misery


We all become distracted and frustrated which leads to a miserable feeling bringing us down to the point of depression. But…Paul wrote something which we should all take to heart and claim it as ours, especially in today’s world. Here is what the apostle Paul wrote: Philippians 4:13  (KJV)
13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

StayFocusedBy depending upon Jesus and His strength for us and for the problems which we face today or tomorrow, we can be victorious in overcoming them! We may not feel strong at the time, but if we focus on His provision of strength for us today and then again tomorrow, we will be the victor in all of our endeavors.

Remember, faith as small as a mustard seed can accomplish a lot through Jesus Christ and Jesus can accomplish a lot through us IF we will give our life, our body and our hands to Him to use today and tomorrow and the day after that, etc. It is a daily walk and a daily decision to give your day, and whatever comes in that day, to Him.

This is not a magic formula because Satan is going to try to trip you up and discourage you, daily, but if you can give your day to Jesus and keep that faith in Him during your day, then it will be a victorious day for you and for Jesus too!