Are you following Jesus?

When Jesus called His disciples, He asked them to follow Him and they did. Some of them learned a lot from following Him and listening to His teachings. One of them was dissatisfied with how things were going. He wanted a King for Israel and one who would defeat the Romans and push them out of Israel. But…that was not the reason for Jesus’ mission at the time.

So, are you following Jesus or are you hearing the preacher tell you about Him and then going your own way? Believe it or not, there are more people who are in church just listening than there are who are following Jesus every day and every step of the way. Some who read this will want to know how to follow Jesus every step of the way and here’s the answer: read the Bible each day, praying that He will speak to you about your day and your problems.

God will do that if you are serious about reading it and learning from it exactly Who He is and His love for you. Even if you only read a chapter each day it will focus your thoughts on Him and you will have those Scriptures to help you in your time of need. The thing is: when you read God’s Word, the Holy Spirit can and will speak to you through it. You will never read the same verse twice and get the same message. It will always be a different more useful message even if you’ve read it 100 times!

Walking with Jesus is the same today as it was when the disciples walked with Him. Get up from your bed and thank Him for giving you one more day to live and learn from Him. Go through your day thanking Him for even the little things which seem insignificant but they touch your life or your thoughts in some way. Thank Him for your food and your job and the ride home. Be in a worshipful mood of thankfulness all day because He has given you this day to learn from Him. Thank Him for your day before you go to bed and thank Him for a home to sleep comfortably in because there are so many who don’t have even that “luxury”.

Make this a daily habit and your life will be so much more complete and secure.

Don’t worry…

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matthew 6:34 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/mat.6.34.KJV

Worry is practical atheism. You don’t think God is going to come through for your needs. There are many other ideas that we get in our minds which get in your way, keeping our minds all stirred up. Put your trust in Jesus, give Him your trouble and your problems and LEAVE THEM THERE!

Most of us pray about our needs and our trouble but we don’t thank Him for the life that He has given us. We may not even pray about our friends and family. We just ask God to take care of those on our prayer list. That’s not specific prayer, it’s just a general open prayer.

Make sure that you are praying specifically and purposefully for everyone on your list. The list may be long but God hears your prayers.

When trials come…

There is a reason that I put this in the title. Because all of us have trials. Some are good and some are not so good. Some of them sneak up on us and some we have been living with for a while.

What should you do when trials come? Pray. If you aren’t a believer you need to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior because that is the most important prayer that each of us needs to pray. Then pray for your country. If you live here in America, it needs prayer and I mean a LOT of prayer! If you live outside of America, you know what you need to pray for in your country. Because there are so many problems and trials it is hard to know exactly what to pray for or even how to pray for it. That is why you need to ask Jesus to be your Savior. When you do that, you will receive the Holy Spirit and even when you don’t know what to pray for or even how to pray, He can pray for you and let the Father know what is needed.

Trials will come, to Christians and non-believers as well. Just as it rains on the just and the unjust, trials come to all of us. Prayer is what is needed for all things. For your health, for your salvation, for your family and for your country’s leaders. God is interested in all of this and in each of us but many of us don’t believe that He cares about our lives. God has always cared about us and our world. Our problem is that we can’t or won’t believe in Him because many people in the world deny His existence. They don’t believe the Word and His book, the Bible or they pick and choose what they will believe and what they will not.

The problem with picking and choosing to believe parts of God’s Word or not is that you are calling God a liar. His Spirit inspired every word and promise in the Bible. There is no reason not to believe what He says and Who He is, unless you just don’t believe in God or Jesus Christ at all. When I think of someone who is in this state of mind, I truly feel pity for them. Because if you don’t change your mind and seek Him and ask forgiveness…you will have an eternity separated from Him to realize that you had the ability to be in His Presence with one decision.

Our trials in this life are small compared to much of the world around us. Truly, worrying about the injustices in this world is the least of our troubles. Your life and mine are only a puff of smoke compared to eternity. Make sure of your destination after this life because you will have a lot more time after death to either enjoy Life with Jesus or the feeling of death outside of His Presence in hell.

Peace in our daily lives

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Colossians 3:15 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/col.3.15.KJV

God’s love for us remains

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. Isaiah 54:10 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/isa.54.10.KJV

Choose this day whom you will serve…

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord , choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord . Joshua 24:15 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jos.24.15.KJV

You have led captivity captive

Psalm 68:18 Thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.

What did the Psalmist and the Holy Spirit mean by this scripture? One of the interpretations is that the whole world was and is still captive to sin in this world today, but when Jesus Christ came He made it possible for us to be led from the captivity of sinful living and into the “captive” life of a follower and believer in Him. That is the one that I choose to believe today.

Today, there are many of us that are captive to many things in life. Our work, our family, our TV or the Internet, our children or grandchildren and sometimes we are captive to bills that need paying even into our retirement years. It seems that we never get away from something that keeps us as “slaves” to whatever it may be. Even when we give our lives and our heart to Jesus there are certain things which we refuse to give to Him because those are special to us and we want them just for us.

It is usually those special things which cause us to fail at being His servant or His voice in the world. Because of those things that we don’t want to give up or give to Him, we can’t or won’t completely give our life and our being over to Him. It doesn’t take much really. A small part of your life that is important to you, that you want to keep doing or working on yourself but you don’t want God to have it. Have you ever thought about the truth of this matter: you have things which belonged to God first and He gave them to you.

Think about it. Abraham had to face it and many others did as well. Moses followed God and obeyed Him so that the nation of Israel was born out of Egypt. Moses had to go through all sorts of trials and tribulations for forty years because of the Jews decision not to believe God. In order to be obedient to God we should give Him ALL of our being and our family and our possessions because they were His before they were ours.

God loves all of humanity. Regardless of your nationality or your skin color or your culture. He created this world so that we could have a place to live. He named all of the stars and placed them where they are so that we can look up at them and see His handiwork and believe in Him. Our real problem is that many people will worship the creation rather than the Creator. We walk proudly through our life and tell Jesus that we can guide our life just fine on our own. But when a true problem comes along that we cannot handle such as a deadly accident or a diagnosis of cancer or some other disease….that is usually when we run to the Savior and plead with Him to help you with it.

Won’t you decide to follow Him today and give your life to Jesus? If you have ever felt the touch of His Holy Spirit prompting you to come to know Him please don’t turn away from His call. Because not one of us knows when our last day of life will be and we need to have the assurance that our eternal destiny will be with Jesus Christ. Just the knowledge of that assurance will relieve many anxieties and fears for many of us. God doesn’t want you to spend eternity in hell away from His Presence so please make sure that your heart belongs to Him today. I will be praying for all who come to this blog because God has asked me to. Thank you for reading and if you know someone who might benefit from this site please direct them here.

Our own desires can bring us down

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. James 1:14 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jas.1.14.KJV

If you don’t think it can happen to you, think about what is tempting you and where that idea came from. YOUR own thoughts and desires are amplified by Satan. That’s why we need to have more of God’s Word inside our minds than those tempting thoughts. Stay near God and He will be even closer to you.