Life is a gift!

Life is your gift from God so what will you do with yours? Would you seek to be a famous person or an athlete in a professional sport? There are times when we need to step back from the demands of the world around us and seek out God’s perspective of things. But…do we do it?

Many of us do think about it but then our everyday life gets in the way and our time with God gets placed on the back burner and it may be awhile before we think about Him again. That is not the type of relationship that God wants with us and it isn’t the kind of relationship that we were created for. God intended for us to have a daily relationship with Him. Not just a weekly or monthly meeting while we attend church, if we attend church services.

Unfortunately, there are many people today who do not identify themselves with any faith at all which is truly sad. Our Creator loves each of us and whenever we feel His call in our life we should respond to that call and give our heart to Him. In the world today though, there are many who hear Him but they aren’t interested in a relationship. They like their life and the way it is and many consider God or Jesus an obstacle in their way. They think that the rules of the Bible, God’s rules, don’t mean anything to them in the 21^st century. Those “old rules” are outdated and dusty and they don’t apply to our lives now.

God’s Word is fresh and relevant for today but only if you read it through the eyes of faith and with your heart turned toward God. If you read it as a book, without faith and without a relationship between you and Jesus then it doesn’t make sense and it is just a book of Jewish history and rules. I pray that anyone who is truly looking for a Savior will give Jesus a chance in their life and seek Him out by reading the Bible. Start in the New Testament with John and Luke, then move on through Acts and Romans. By the time you have read these books, God’s Spirit will have planted a seed in your heart and very likely has got your attention.

Don’t go through life without Jesus from this point on because when you do that life doesn’t have much meaning. From a Biblical point of view the news looks and sounds different because it is fulfilling the prophecy found in God’s Word every day. It may be only a small bit of fulfillment today or tomorrow but eventually the pieces will fall into place and when the church is taken from the Earth, the world will get much worse before it gets better because God’s judgment is coming. Make sure that you are part of those who are taken before that happens.

How many times is “prayer”in the Bible?

It depends upon your individual translation of God’s Word but it seems to be around 600 times, give or take a few. Prayer is your lifeline to God Himself. It is not a channel that you can tune into just because you want to complain or because you want something. It is used in that manner much more than it should be though. If you consider Who it is that you are speaking to about your problems and your good days and your bad days you might decide that you need to thank Him that you are able to live another day.

God loves His creation and all of us are unique parts of that creation. Each of us is unique and there is nobody else on Earth like you. Someone may look a little like you but nobody else has your personality and your knowledge! Have you ever considered that? Most people, in my opinion, never seem to realize that fact. It seems that more people today want to be like someone else rather than being themselves. Mostly, they just want the fame and fortune that the person has but they never think about all of the problems that it would bring into their lives.

Prayer gives you a direct line of communication to the Creator and the Savior of your soul. There is no need of a direct line of sight because He can see you and, if you are a Christian, He is with you even now. The Holy Spirit came to live in your heart the moment that you repented and gave your life to Him. He communicates your needs and your life to the Father in ways which we can only imagine, even when we can’t speak or even know what to say. Prayer is that lifeline that never breaks and it is always available to you regardless of the distance you think you have moved away from God, He never moved away from you.

Jesus came to us, to the Earth, so that salvation and forgiveness could be possible for each of us. God reached down to us so that we could reach up to Him in repentance and humility and give Him our heart and our life because He gave His life for us first. Prayer keeps that relationship alive, reading God’s Word enforces His teachings in our mind and in our heart so that we can walk with Him each day assured of our salvation and our place in His Kingdom.

In our world today, many people think that because they believe in God and they pray to Him about things in their life that they are saved and they will go to heaven. Satan believes in God, as well as all of the demons of hell, but he is still condemned because of his pride and arrogance. Being a Christian is more than belief, it is submission to God’s leadership and His way of life. We are to put down our “old ways” and walk into a new life, forgiven and free from the sins which kept us from being fully alive in Christ. Through faith and prayer and submission to Him, we can be saved. But, if you have never felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit to bring you to that point…prayer only works when you ask Him for Jesus in your life and ask for His forgiveness of your sins.

Did people sin in the Bible? Yes, David was called “a man after My heart” by God but he committed murder and adultery against one of his best warriors. The reason for David’s place in God’s sight was that he knew what he had done and he asked forgiveness for it, again and again. There are many more examples of people in the Bible being human but God used them in His grand design anyway. God doesn’t give approval to our sins just because we don’t think they are bad. If your lifestyle or the way you live is against any of God’s commandments and you continue to live that way, even when you say that you are saved, you are only deceiving yourself.

Pray and watch for His coming!

Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;
Colossians 4:2 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/col.4.2.KJV

Life…

Life is not fair.

Life sucks!

Life is hard and I can’t deal with it!

Have you ever heard some of these excuses? They are pretty common today but they weren’t always the “normal” sound of growing up. Why has this happened?

It happened when parents became “friends” with their children and stopped using discipline to raise them correctly. It happened when the educational system became so politically correct that the “education” that our children have been exposed to is warped and useless.

God had to deal with some complainers back when He freed them from slavery. They weren’t free for three days before they began complaining about the food and the water or lack of it. They wanted to go back to being slaves! It seems that today our country and much of the world is heading toward a socialist way of government but nobody remembers that most of the socialist governments have failed! We don’t teach that in school anymore. We only talk about how terrible people have been to “people of color”, regardless of their country of origin.

God loves all of us because He is our Creator! It doesn’t matter what the shade of your skin is, Jesus paid the price for your sins and mine. But if we can’t recognize Him as our Savior then we will be punished for that lack of humility and end up in hell! But there are “religions” which tell you that hell doesn’t exist and it isn’t eternal if it does. Really? That isn’t what my Bible says and that is God’s Word which is the absolute Truth! So, if you want to call Him a liar be my guest but I’m going to be on the right side of the throne when He speaks to you.

God is Pure and Holy and He can’t allow sinners into His Presence. So unless you are the second version of Jesus and perfectly holy, I suggest that you get your life under His control and ask Him to be your Savior today, before it is too late.

Look to Jesus for your Salvation!

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/heb.12.2.KJV