God grants each of us a “measure of faith”. When we are called to become a child of God, adopted into His family, He gives us the faith to believe in His Son for our salvation. Without faith, we cannot believe! Even the smallest amount of faith will enable you to do more than you can without it.
Faith is something that Christians have that many people don’t understand. Some of us who have been Christians for a few years don’t understand it. We know we have it or we wouldn’t have given our hearts to Jesus. We know God gave it to us because without it you can’t please God or come to know Jesus as your Savior. The Bible says that “faith is the evidence of things hoped for and the certainty of things not seen“. With faith in God’s Word and in Jesus, we know that His Word is Truth and that no power on Earth can keep God’s promises from coming to pass.
Jesus is coming back. There will be a day of judgment on those who have rejected Him. There will be a 1,000-year reign of Jesus on Earth as our King! God always keeps His promises. It really doesn’t take faith to believe this, but it helps. We are near the end of the “Church age” and the very next event will be the “rapture” (taking away) of the Church, the Bride of Christ. When that happens, the whole world will know that God’s Word was telling the truth. At least, those who have ever been in church or heard a sermon about this will know. Everyone else will be blaming it on aliens or swamp gas or who knows what else.
I pray that everyone who reads this will be part of the Bride of Christ because the world is going to become more like hell on Earth after we are gone. Seek Him out and read the Bible. Learn about Him and ask Him to be your Savior. It won’t be impossible to become a Christian after the church is gone but it will be very dangerous to be one.
When I was a lot younger than I am now, listening to adults give me advice was the last thing on my list of to-dos. I imagine it was the same with most of you who read this blog. When you were a teenager adults didn’t know anything. As you get older you realize that they did know more than you did at the time but you didn’t want to listen to them or their advice.
Lots of times we are the same way in the church. When we are there we may hear what the sermon is about but we don’t listen to it very well. How do I know this? Because I did it myself. If you asked me on Monday what the sermon was about on Sunday morning, I couldn’t tell you. Actually, I could tell you this time. It was about the vision that Ezekiel had of the angels who marked those in the city who were concerned about the sins of Israel and those who were not. Those who were not even included some who served in the Temple and it was those who were killed.
God cares about everything that we do but He is very interested in the things that we care about that align with His. When you love those things and people that God loves and hate those things that He hates, then you are more like Jesus which is what God desires for us as His followers. Life is promised to those who follow Jesus’ ways and do the things that Jesus told His disciples to do.
When I see the news today and hear the things that are going on today, the only conclusion can be that we are living at the end of the last days. I pray that you will seek to know Jesus if you don’t know Him as your Savior yet.
We need to be ourselves because Jesus called us to be His. He chose you. Not someone that you will become with more education or study. Although the studying and the learning will come with following Him, He called you as you are to be…well, you. Each of us has a specific trait that He needs and that the body of Christ, the church, needs. There is something that you can do or say that nobody else can. You can reach someone with His message that the pastor can’t reach. You can tell the story of how Jesus has touched your life and that will make a difference to someone.
Christ touches our lives when we believe in Him for our salvation but He also lives through our lives to take His message to others. His Spirit lives in you if you have believed in Him for your salvation and it is this life that others will be able to see. Taking His message of love and forgiveness to the world doesn’t mean that you have to go overseas to be a missionary. You can take His message to your family or to those you work around or work with every day.
When I said that you don’t need to have degrees to prove that you are serving God that is what I meant. All of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen but they had been to school at their synagogue. They had learned and even memorized a good bit of the Old Testament by the time they were teenagers. The Bible is the best book to teach us about God and about life too. God’s wisdom is contained in His Word so the more you know about His Word, the better you know Him. That is why I read through the Bible at least once every year from Genesis to Revelation. Then…I go back to the beginning and start over.
I used to wonder why people would do that but I found out that God’s Word doesn’t really repeat itself. You do read the same words every time but the message that your heart and your Spirit get from it is different every time. God’s Word is what we should read to learn what His will is for your life but it also is alive and it reads your Spirit while you read it. So your Spirit will receive the wisdom from the same words that you need right now. Just because you have read Psalm 23 many times, the words and the wisdom change when God sees that you need a different message.
God gives us all of the wisdom that we can handle and it is contained in His Word. His love for us is beyond anything that we can imagine or conceive in this life. On the day when we stand before Him, we will know the depth of His love and feel it too. If you don’t know Him as your Savior yet, I suggest getting to know Him soon.
There are some hard times coming to our world and you had best be seeking the One Who can strengthen you to get through them. Why do people think that they are Christians and rarely darken the door of a church? Many would tell me that they can worship Him just as well on a deer stand or on the bank of a lake fishing. The problem with that
is that most of us don’t think of God when we are doing those things. We are thinking of something else entirely.
God loves each of us and has desired a personal relationship with us from before we were born. Jesus told His disciples to seek the Kingdom of God first and all of these things will be added unto you. What did He mean by that? Some people interpret that as meaning wealth and riches will come to you but that is not what He was speaking about. Jesus was telling His disciples that all of their needs would be met as long as they were putting God’s Kingdom first in their lives.
So how do we put God’s Kingdom first in our lives? First, you have to give your heart to Jesus and ask Him to come in and clean up your heart. Then read God’s Word so you will know His voice when He speaks to you. Also, by reading God’s Word, you will learn His will for your life. I had many people ask me about knowing God’s will while I was a preacher and that is the easiest way that I know how to find it. God reveals His will for our lives not specific to each of us but in reading and studying His Word, then praying about what you have read. Especially if you don’t understand what you are reading…and most of us don’t.
If you are saved and the Holy Spirit is living in your heart, He will guide you and pray with you for understanding. He is your teacher through God’s Word and will give you the knowledge that you seek when you ask for it and it is needed for your calling. You may be wondering, “What calling?”. When you are called to be saved, God always has a reason for it and that is your calling, although you may not find out the specifics until later. He will reveal them to you. Seek Him through prayer by reading His Word and by studying His Word because He will reveal the knowledge that you need.
Being a Christian is not an easy job but the reward is well worth the trials that you will face. Jesus said we would face trials but He has overcome the world and He will equip you to do so too.
