This information is urgent!

You NEED Jesus in your life and in your heart! This is the good news which we as believers are supposed to be taking with us and telling those who will listen. Jesus came to save the lost of the world and we, as His church, are supposed to be His feet and His voice in the world. So…why am I saying that this news, this information is urgent today? Because the time for the church age or the age of grace is coming to an end. I can’t tell you when but the time just feels, in my Spirit, short or shorter than it has been in the past.

What makes this urgent call for action among believers so urgent? Well, if you have heard a sermon on the book of Revelation or one concerning the rapture of the church then you know what is going to happen, it’s the “when” that nobody knows on Earth. God knows and some believers can sense an urgency for the salvation of those who are being called, but that doesn’t mean that we could give anyone a day or an hour!

It feels more like when you hear about a tornado warning on the radio or television, you know there is one somewhere close by but if it comes at night you can’t see it. All you can do is hope and pray that it doesn’t come your way. That sense of urgency is what I feel. I don’t know any timing and we aren’t supposed to know those details, but I pray that, if you are a believer in God and a follower of Jesus our Lord, you will tell as many people as you can about your salvation experience and what God has done for you! Even if you don’t preach in a church or on the sidewalk, your life is your witness and if people ask you about your grace or what allows you to live as you do…then tell them about Him!

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The divide between us…

In some ways, our country has progressed beyond the racism and bigotry of the late sixties but much of that old feeling and hatred which we should be working harder to get beyond just won’t go away. I don’t mean that we should forget our history because if you do that you will repeat the mistakes even worse. We also shouldn’t try to erase the good or the bad that was a part of our history because we are supposed to learn from BOTH!

Taking statues down, burning or hiding flags which were an ugly part of our history won’t change the history. Yes, some of you are offended at a Confederate battle flag. I am offended when I hear music so loud that it is about to rattle the screws loose on the car that it is being played in; I am offended by people walking around with the pants around their knees as some sort of statement against what exactly? But, I don’t want the Confederacy to be brought back. I don’t want the laws and stupidity which came out of our Civil War to be brought back.

People of all colors were created on this Earth by God. Our blood is red and it will give us life when we give it to others as long as its compatible. It doesn’t matter what color the skin was that the needle had to penetrate to get it!

There was a man who spoke eloquently about race and slavery and the evils of racism, from all colors of skin. His name was Frederick Douglass. We need to realize that our Creator did not make us be racists, he made each of us unique. He meant for each of us to be equal and known by Him in this life and into eternity. It is our purpose in this life to fulfill His purpose for us regardless of our vocation in life or where we live. Whether you are poor is the spirit or lacking in money, God made you with the ability as His representative in this life

Seek Him out before the time for grace is over and done with.

What is your blessing?

Is your life today a blessing to GodsBlessing you or a blessing to others? Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Do you want to know that you will live in eternity or do you believe that when you die, that’s it?

There are many religions and beliefs out in the world today which tell you that their path is the right way or that there are many paths which lead to paradise. They are all wrong!

The only way to be allowed into Heaven and into the presence of God is through the blood of Jesus Christ! There is no other name under Heaven which will give you access to your home in Heaven. So, what is your blessing? We are blessed because God has given each of us one more day to tell others about Jesus and the saving power of His name and the blood which was shed for each of us on the cross!

You can choose to believe in Him and ask Him to come into your heart and change you and forgive you of your sins. You will need His strength each day of your life after this decision in order to walk with Him daily because if you don’t depend upon His strength for your daily life then you won’t be able to keep going. That is what Jesus meant when He said to “take up your cross daily and follow Me”. It is not a physical cross but it is the fact that you need Him and His strength through reading the Bible and prayer for the ability to take each day just one step at a time, walking with Him.

God has always loved each of us but His love or His hate of people or their sins is much different from what we call love or hate. Even when God hates someone like He said about Esau, it is not a vengeful type of hate. It is actually a type of love which doesn’t agree with his choices in life. God’s hatred is similar to a parent telling a child that “I love you but I don’t like the choices you are making”. Granted, God’s emotions are not like ours, but that is the only example which I can give that will make sense to anyone who reads this.

Did God love Esau? Yes, He did but He didn’t like the choices which Esau was making in his life. And for many of us today, He isn’t very happy with some of our choices either. That does not mean that He doesn’t love us. It is the sinful lifestyles or sins which we are into which causes God to dislike us at times. Can we fix this? Yes, we can but not entirely on our own strength.

We need to seek out God and His strength through prayer and reading His Word which will give us the encouragement to get through tough days and decisions. It is a daily, sometimes hourly, struggle with our past “demons” of drugs or alcohol or sex or whatever it might be which we are trying to liberate ourselves from. Becoming a Christian, coming to Him with your heart broken by how much you truly need Him, is a daily process. It isn’t an instant fix, but a practice or a walk with Jesus one step at a time. Lean on His strength and on Him for your support because together you are much stronger than you are alone.

The Angels Rejoice!

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We do not become angels when we go to Heaven, but we are welcomed by them and rejoiced over when even one sinner accepts Jesus as their Lord and is saved.

Foolish

Today is two different days all rolled into one. Most importantly it’s the day that we, as Christmas, celebrate Easter as the day when Jesus rose from the tomb. To others it’s April Fool’s day. In any event, today is a special day. So, will you be celebrating Easter today with family worship or will you be sitting in at home?

I will be preaching about our Lord and Savior this morning, I pray that you will come to know Him as your Lord one day soon. God made a way for you to be saved from an eternity of punishment if you will just believe in Jesus for your salvation. There is no other way to be saved.

This pathway to salvation is very simple but many don’t come to know Him because it seems to be too simple. We want to make it harder so that we can contribute something to our salvation, but we can’t. Our efforts only get in the way and make it unprofitable to others who may think that they can work their way into heaven.

Truly life is busy and confusing at times, but we should try to be more like the apostles were. Taking the message wherever we go in life, that is our job. Telling others about our Savior is our vocation because Jesus gave His disciples a command and we are His disciples as well.

What is Easter about?

Easter is about salvation. The Bible teaches that “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Remember, usually more unbelievers attend church on Easter Sunday than any other day of the year. This may be the only opportunity to share with them the truth of salvation. Believing people need to hear the gospel as well as unbelieving people. Reminding ourselves of God’s glorious work in forgiving our sin and saving our souls ought to constantly challenge and change us to become more like Jesus.

Yes, there are times when we should understand and accept that the work which Jesus was sent to accomplish was finished on the cross and on the morning that Jesus came out of the tomb! It took both His death on the cross and His resurrection to complete the job that He was tasked with accomplishing and He did!

empty_tomb11 How do we honor His Work today? Some churches do have Passion plays and preach on the work that Jesus accomplished. Others have egg hunts and things for the kids and maybe a sermon about His resurrection, then everyone goes home and does the same thing except without the sermon. Why don’t we live our lives as if He was going to show up in a couple of hours?

God’s timing and His blessing for us does come through Jesus our Savior Who took the punishment for us and everything that went along with it, especially the part about God having to turn away from His Son. He had to because Jesus took ALL of the sins of the world on Himself! From the sins in the Garden all the way until the end of everything on Earth, Jesus took all of our sins, yours and mine and every person born until that day when God says, “Enough”.

When will that be? It’s on His time and nobody knows the day or the hour when the time will be up for the whole world. Is it coming? Yes, it is coming, if you don’t believe it or you don’t want to believe it that is fine but…what if the Bible and everything in it is really true! Christians know it to be the Word of God and if God says something or promises something then it will come to pass..in God’s time.

Have you given your heart to Jesus? I mean truly and completely, not just saying words and getting wet in a baptism. What do I mean by completely giving your life to Jesus? For one thing, it is living your daily life with Him by your side because if you have given your heart to Him, then He is there in the Holy Spirit which is in your heart. You can’t run away from Him so you might as well learn to learn from Him every day.

Reading the Word of God on a daily basis. As John wrote that Jesus is the Word of God made in the flesh of man.

We are also told to wash our minds in the River of Life and to eat the Bread of Life, both of which are found in our Bible because they are the Word of God! The only way to grow in your life as a Christian is to consume God’s Word just as we do when we eat our meals. This is the only way to wash away the old sinful person that was present in your body prior to your salvation and replace your old self with the one which, in time, will look more and more like Jesus!

Being part of the church or even a member of the church doesn’t bring salvation. Celebrating the communion and drinking the wine and eating the crackers doesn’t save you. Attending church religiously for fifty or more years and reading your Bible doesn’t save you. Only your belief in Jesus and your faith in Him will save you and once that happens, you will give up your old ways and repent of them. When you read the Word and pray about what you have read so that the Spirit can reveal God’s Wisdom to you, you will become a little more like Jesus every day. But…this is a process! This is not something that you just put on like a coat and walk away with.

As with most anything else, it requires practice and faithful reading of God’s Word with prayer. Believing everything that God says because He inspired the writers to write the words which we have as our Bible. Prayerfully seeking Him in every daily endeavor and trusting that He will be with you in all of it and He will carry you through every trouble and trial that Satan tries to throw at you. Because once you are a child of God and a believer, you have a target on your heart and the devil and his troops will try to trip you up and make things hard so that you give up your path toward Jesus. One step at a time, one verse at a time, one day at a time will lead you to Jesus and to eternity.

What happened on the Sabbath?

None of the gospels elaborate on this so, other than the Jewish people celebrating the Sabbath of Passover and recounting the ordeal that their forefathers went through to leave Egypt, I don’t think much happened on that day.

The Roman soldiers were likely doing their patrols and those guarding the tomb were very bored and probably hungry…but they could not leave their post. The only place that you can find what may have been happening is in works of fiction today, and some of those are pretty riveting.

Remember that there are some parts of Scripture which say that He descended into Hades where the boundary between Paradise (Abraham’s bosom) is located. The scripture reference is in Ephesians and it is debated whether the Lord did this or if this was just part of Paul’s imagination. Whichever it is, one day we will know the Truth.

Jesus was at work fulfilling the prophecies about Himself during the time that He had between burial and the day of his resurrection. So, should we speculate about Jesus going into Abraham’s bosom and leading those from the Old Testament up to Heaven? I am not a story-teller, at least not of the caliber that it would take to make a coherent dialog about Jesus and His trip to the world where Moses and Abraham were.

Is it necessary for this kind of story to be told? No, but it was an entertaining read.

If you decide to read the book which is linked in the previous sentence, it is very entertaining. Brian Godawa does a great job of imagining the realm where the demons live here on Earth and how they were so giddy with joy when Jesus was on the cross. But, when He showed up in Paradise and then left it to resume His life on Earth and in Heaven it let all of them know exactly Who they were dealing with and they were scared.

That is not the only book which he wrote and I have read them all. They give you an imaginative look at the Scripture and some of the possibilities which may have occurred that weren’t written down. If they had been, the Bible or at least the Old Testament would’ve been a LOT bigger. Why do I bring this up now? Because of this holiday which the Christian churches will celebrate tomorrow is not about bunnies and chocolate and eggs and presents. It is about the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus.

Everything that Jesus did during His ministry was done so that we could have eternal life, the abundant life which God had purposed for humanity in the beginning. Jesus came to “fix” what had been broken by the fall from grace which happened in the Garden so long ago. The fall did break the relationship between God and mankind but it didn’t shatter it completely. But, it also caused many other parts of our universe to be broken, not just in the cosmos but here on Earth as well. As the writer says, “creation groans for everything to be set right again” (my paraphrase), but the point is that not only did Adam’s disobedience have an effect on man’s relationship to God but it also affected everything around him.

God cursed the ground and the animals of the world and everything lost some of its glory from God. It was no longer good from that point on and it will be remade at a later date. God loves you and all of His Creation, so please make sure of which side you are on before your life is over. The life that we live here is the only chance we get to “get right with God”. Once you are standing in front of God, your life will be the witness against you.

Good Friday

Why do we call it “good”? When you see the movie or read the Bible, it doesn’t seem to be good at all. I suppose the reason is that Jesus was fulfilling the prophecy about His crucifixion, which paid for our sins. It just doesn’t sound right, though.

Bridge2Salvation I know, it had to happen because it was part of God’s plan all along. It just doesn’t seem right calling it “Good Friday”, except for the blessings that we all have been the recipients of through His mercy and grace because of the crucifixion and the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus the Christ! If you are wondering why I put His name that way it is because I have heard it spoken and written as if that were His family name. It’s not.

Khristos is the Greek word for “anointed” or Messiah, Christ is the Anglican version of it. All of the prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus (Yeshua) on the cross and by His resurrection, and there is nothing which we can add to it to make our salvation any better or more pleasing to God. So, why do people try to add works or anything else to their lives after their acceptance of Jesus as their Savior? We are not asked to do anything to earn our salvation. The only command which Jesus gave to His disciples was to go and tell every person about the salvation available to them. Tell the gospel, the good news which Jesus brought to us by His ministry and His death and resurrection!

Salvation is not earned by anyone or by any amount of witnessing or going on a mission trip to a place you’ve never been to before. It cannot be earned because it has already been paid for by Christ! Its price was paid by His blood and His death and resurrection on the first day of the week! Nothing that we have can add to it! Performing the ritual of the “Lord’s Supper” is nice but even today many people take part in it which are not saved through the blood of Jesus! That is forbidden in the Bible, but nobody seems to enforce it.

God knows your heart, the preacher does not, so if you do take part in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper and you aren’t saved by His blood and belief in Him then you will be required to account for this when standing before God. Why do I bring this up? Because there are so many people in America who claim to be Christians but their lives outside of the Sunday or Wednesday night service don’t reflect that there has been an actual change in their life!

We celebrate His resurrection this Sunday and it isn’t a joke because it happened. Just because it is falling on April 1st, which is Fools Day, doesn’t mean anything although some will try make it into something. Your eternal life is in the balance whether you believe in your heart and have confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior or if you haven’t actually given your heart to Him, just lip service. Why do I put it this way? Because there are far more people who claim to be Christians than there are in church on Sundays.

If all of the people who claim to be Christians were in church every Sunday, church construction would be a booming business…but it isn’t. There are at least a thousand churches closing their doors each month in America, and yet according to some polls taken our country is very much Christian. Some of those polls show at least seventy percent claim to be Christians. Look these statistics up, I feel confident that what I’ve heard on the news in the past few years will bear this up to scrutiny.

Claiming to know Jesus in this life is nice and cozy, but when you stand before Him at your judgment will He know you?

The storms of life

There are days that it seems are filled with anguish and pain and sometimes heartache too, but the storms in life are what Jesus helps us get through. Living in this world in its fallen state causes anxiety and fear yet, at times, wonder at the joys and the fate of those around us. Why do I mix this sentence like this? Because during your lifetime and mine, we do experience joy and sorrow, pain and fear and anxiety too. This is just part of our experience in this life and it won’t get any better until our King comes to rule this world.

Yes, storms cause a lot of damage at times. Tornado’s and hurricanes can devastate whole cities and the surrounding area for miles and they both cause a lot of property damage and loss of life too. Yet, storms should not be part of our daily existence. If you live with what could be described as a storm on a daily or weekly basis, if you are a Christian then you may be doing something RIGHT!

Why do I say this? Because those storms and the trouble which is part of your life could be caused by Satan and his spirits and demons. If you are doing something which is bringing glory to God and His Kingdom, then Satan could be bringing these “storms” into your life to buffet you and interfere with your faithful living! Don’t think that just because you are a Christian that Satan will leave you alone. Being a Christian who is trying to live their life according to the example set by Jesus puts a target on your back as surely as being a medic in the Army with a red cross on your arm made them targets of the enemy.

We live in a world where Satan has free reign for a little while longer and he knows that his time is growing shorter. Therefore, he is stepping up his temptations and his working in our minds and in the world by causing all sorts of evil to be done, some of which is in the news and some are not. As the scripture says, “Satan goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour“. So, we are to be sober-minded and steadfast in our living by the Word of God, picking up our burdens every day and seeking to accomplish the work that Jesus set before us.

Don’t be slack in doing the things which God sent His own Son to do because once we have asked Him to come into our hearts then His charge becomes ours as well. We are to go around doing as much as we can, just as He would if He were here in our shoes. That is why the church, the people who profess to know and be known by Him, is supposed to be His hands and His feet and to bring His message to all who will hear it.

God is bigger than all of the storms that this life can throw at us, whether it is from disease or an actual storm or a disability or whatever it may be. He is up to the task of giving you the victory in all things when we depend upon Him for our daily strength. Give Him the glory for your healing and for your blessings because all good things come from God.

God is good in all ways and always God is good! Amen!

Our God is…

OurGodisAble Our God is able to take care of any problem that you have in your life, all you have to do is seek Him out and let Him have your problem in prayer believing that He will take care of it! Amen