So little time…

Do you recognize that life itself seems short? If you are past your teenage years, you probably see every year this way. Sometimes when we are young it seems that time just won’t go very fast at all. Particularly when you are in school and you would rather be fishing or playing outside or for today’s young folks, at home playing video games. Time seems to just fly by once you have finished school or have a child and from that point on it never slows down (except in line at Walmart).

Our lifespans seem long, especially when we are under twenty, but 70 years or even 80 is not very long at all. Living beyond that is by God’s grace alone and under His supervision as well. So, what do we do with this amount of time that we are given? What should we do with it? As some country and rock singers say, “Just LIVE it!”; but do we really know how to do this?

Most of us don’t figure out HOW to LIVE until a good portion of it is gone! When we are young, we are going to school and hanging out with friends. As we get to our “adult” years, we are so busy trying to pay bills and keep food on the table that we don’t even think about what “living” means! As our children get older and move on to college or their careers, usually we begin to see things from a slower pace…usually. Then, when retirement hits us in the face, we realize that we have let all of our flowers die and we didn’t even get to smell them.

Now, we are learning about parts of our body, which hurt now, that we never even noticed before. We want to get out and travel and see the world, but our money is spent on pain medication and doctor visits. Life is too short.

That is why we all should be planning for eternity. What is that? Well, it is the other side of Life which we don’t get to see until this body dies. If you are not a Christian, eternity may not mean much to you. Some see the word “afterlife” and think it is a bunch of hogwash, others see it as a party that never ends, and still others see it as a time of reincarnation to fix things which didn’t get done in this life on the first time around.

Jesus called it paradise and my idea of that is much better than starting over or continuing to have fun into eternity. Paradise can mean different things to different people. For some it may be seeing family members that have gone before us or even to be thankful to God for the grace and forgiveness which allows us to experience His true Kingdom.

road2eternity As human beings, we can’t imagine in our finite minds the wonders of a perfect and eternal place with God as the Ruler and King. Eternity itself is beyond our thinking because even millions of years is beyond us and one million years is just one tick on the clock of eternity. What will our eternity be like? Your eternity and mine may be two different experiences.

If you are a believer in Jesus, then at some point we may meet in eternity. If you don’t believe in God or Jesus and especially or particularly in anything contained in the Bible, then your eternity will be separate from God and all of His Kingdom. The image above shows an idea of eternity from our perspective on Earth, a road which goes into the horizon and we can’t see its end. That is actually a good way of looking at it.

We walk on it every day even though we don’t realize it. Every event in our life is a pause or a stop on this journey. The path is well-worn and wide if you don’t know Jesus as your Savior, but the path to His Paradise is a bit different. It is narrow but just as long, the big difference is that one leads to Heaven and the other leads to a place without God and a place of torment which was never meant for us.

God knows each soul in hell, but they are there by their own choosing. They are in that place because they chose to live their life without Jesus or belief in Him. It is not a place where God sends you because He hates you. God loves you and wants the best for you, but if you choose to follow your own path and your way of living instead of His, then that is where you will be. In your own version of punishment and misery, but not in Heaven.

Don’t waste the time you have to make that choice by being selfish and greedy for yourself. Pray about your salvation and what it could be and then seek Him out, and He will answer you.

God is always there

No matter your trouble, no matter the fear, no matter the “why?” of how you got here.

There is always God.

It doesn’t matter which way you turn or how far you run or even if you can’t go on,

There is always God.

Whenever you need Him or something that He has, but you are not sure about your place in His grace,

There is always God.

His love is there to comfort your cares, to be your strength when you have none. That is why—-He is the One!

You may not see His hand moving in your life, but it’s there. He is always near because He can’t be anywhere that you are not.

There is always God.

Give Him your self, your heart and your life, no matter your cost because in the end…..

There is always, God.

What did I not do?

Strange title, I know, but sometimes it seems to be a mantra in my life. I am not complaining about it, but many times it seems that I mention something that I want to do and then something else interrupts my thoughts or my accomplishment of that which I wanted to do. Some might call this old age, some might call it being lazy, I just think that I have too much on my mind at times and the stuff which isn’t important at the time gets shoved aside.

2014-07-16-procrastinator Whichever way you look at it, I could be accused of being a procrastinator and I suppose I should own it. Getting back to the point, what did I not do: I didn’t make some ham chowder. Why? I don’t know, I am not sure exactly what caused that bit to become shunted to the side in favor of something else. Some might also call this a form of adult ADD.

Whatever you want to call it, this little problem of mine doesn’t bother God in the least. He doesn’t have a problem with too much on His plate or on His mind. Thank goodness, because with all of those prayers being sent up to Him every hour or every minute of every day, humanly speaking there isn’t a person who could accomplish a fraction of what God does every second of every day that we don’t even know about! He is the Ultimate Multitasker of the Universe!

God knows which of us can handle multitasking and which of us can’t. Life is doing multiple tasks on a daily basis, just not necessarily on a deadline! Preferably, not a deadline which may get you fired from a job! The only real deadline that I am currently dealing with is the one which has to do with my sermon each Sunday. God usually gives me the words to speak or the topic to speak on, which for this year it has been mostly involving the book of Romans.

Paul was a very good evangelist and a multitasking individual because he was raised as a Pharisee. He knew the Law and the Prophets by memory and didn’t need to carry a scroll with him as we do our Bibles. My point in bringing up problems with our memory is that we can’t remember all of the things that we need to all of the time. Nor can we accomplish all of those tasks in a timely fashion daily, but God gives each of us the ability and the mind to accomplish our tasks which He gives to us at the right time.

As the Bible says, “you will be given the words to say at the proper time” and the Holy Spirit will give you those words which you need to speak. I rely on this every Sunday and for every writing which I post here. I am not eloquent enough to spout as much as I have over these last six years between Sunday and all of the little sermons that I put up here. God gives me the words, I just put them down. The grace of God and through His Love is the only reason that I have been able to do this.

God loves each of us in a unique fashion that only He knows. We will feel it when we get to Heaven, but until then we have to live with the grace and love brought to us through His Spirit. It isn’t a downgrade exactly, but our humanity prevents us from experiencing His Love in any profound ways in this body. Seek Him out in your life so He can prove that His love is more than you can bear. I have felt it and it is something that I can’t describe to anyone, you just have to experience it yourself.

How can I be saved?

faith It is a question which may be on quite a few people’s minds these days. Why? Because of the frequency of the indicators which point toward the end of the age. The more powerful storms, more frequent storms, the number of conflicts in the world, the hearts of many people growing cold toward their fellow-man and to religion in general. All of these were foretold many years ago by our Lord Jesus, yet few are taking notice of them happening today because our news media doesn’t take prophecy serious.

Everything is happening as it always has happened in the past and it won’t change. That is the way many are looking at almost everything around us except the temperature changes! They are taking a one or two degree rise in temperature as a portent for disaster, yet even the temperature is doing the same as it has always done. Our influence with carbon emissions and such has only impacted the climate for about one hundred and fifty years or so. Maybe a little longer if you consider coal-fired mills in the early 1800’s.

Still, the climate has fluctuated in temperature up and down for thousands of years without the help of mankind and it will continue to do so whether we stop using fossil fuels or not. I am not trying to get on a soap box about climate change, but I do want to talk about the end of the age and where you may spend eternity.

Have you asked Jesus into your heart? Are you sure about your salvation? Have you truly been walking with Him daily or did you just say a prayer once and get a warm fuzzy feeling inside and think that you were covered? The Holy Spirit isn’t a holy teddy bear! An emotional feeling of love and compassion doesn’t even come close to what you can have with Him, but feeling that way one time and then going on with your life, as if nothing really happened doesn’t cut it!

Yes, God loves you and He does call you to Himself…but if you don’t answer or if you answer in a way which limits Him in your life, then you may not know Him as well as you think and He may not really know you at all. Finding that out when you stand before Him is not the time to fix it, because at that point it can’t be fixed. If He doesn’t know you, no matter how much you have gone to church or read the Bible or prayed to Him for different reasons in your life, then you will be cast into outer darkness.

Is that the eternity that you want? If it is, be my guest. Jesus died and rose from the tomb in order to pay your debt and mine in full. Playing church and praying to god or your version of Him is not the way to be a Christian! Doing those things makes other people THINK you are a Christian, but if your life away from church or at home shows a different person than the one you would be if Jesus were with you then a change is still needed.

If your life would be no different with Him walking by your side, eating with you and being near you, then you do belong to Him and He is part of your everyday life. If He showed up at your house and you had to rush to clean up things or change something on the television, then you might want to reconsider whether you really belong to Him at all.

Seek Jesus in His Word, find out more about Him and determine to follow Him every day, then ask Him to come into your heart. That is one prayer from a sinner that God always hears when it is done with a repentant heart and a life that is intent on following Him.

What is Life?

madewholeinHeaven That question has been in my mind a lot lately. I know, it seems kinda dumb doesn’t it? What is Life? I am alive, you are alive so we are living in our version of Life, right?

Well…not exactly. The life of a Christian begins with your rebirth in Christ and your Life in Him is dependent upon you living that Life with Him on a daily basis. It is not a take it or leave it proposition. When you give your heart and life to Jesus, you are not supposed to pick and choose which parts of your life He is involved in. The problem with most of our churches is that many who claim to be His do just that!

How would your spouse or significant other feel if you did that in your relationship? It’s like saying, “We can sleep together and live together, but you can’t be around when my friends come over.” Yet, that is exactly how many people treat their relationship with their Savior! Like this: I will visit you on Sunday for worship services, and maybe on Wednesday night and holidays, but any other time is off-limits. That is MY time, MY life!

You don’t really live LIFE without Jesus, you just exist in this world until you find Him or He gets your attention. Existence is not what God created us for. Life with Him is what we were all created for, but God knows who will decide to come to Him and who will not. That doesn’t mean that He will reject you, but you can’t just choose to come to Jesus on, say May 15, 2020 because you feel it is a good day or time for you!

God calls to each of us individually. Some of us hear it and respond, some of us hear it and run away, some of us ignore it and there are a few that don’t hear Him at all. Which one are you?

LIFE is meant to be lived with and through His Spirit in you! But, it seems that many people want to make their own decisions and paths to where they want to go instead of letting Jesus be their Savior and their Guide. We, meaning humanity, have become so independent in our thinking until we rebel at any authority or power or religion which tries to get us to do otherwise.

The same type of thinking which caused God to send the Great Flood, is the kind of thinking that seems to rule the world today. Thankfully, we are under His grace at the moment, but with the number of prophecies coming true in the past fifty to seventy years, I believe that we are coming to the end of that grace period. Life is in Jesus and I pray that most, if not all, of my readers belong to Jesus. If not, please consider learning more about Him and the salvation that is offered through Him. Belief is all that is required, so please consider Him as your Savior because eternity is a long time for regret.

God does answer prayer!

Time and time again I have heard some people say that “God doesn’t care, He doesn’t answer prayers anymore!”, and with an angry tone they walk away and likely never come back to Bible study or church. Yes, He does answer prayer! He may not answer it the way you want Him to, but He does answer prayer. I have been praying for someone for the past hour or so to have a safe trip and they called and told me they are at their destination, so He does answer prayers!

I know some of you will say that my prayer didn’t count. They were being a good driver so they made it just fine. Maybe so, but I choose to believe that God and His angels had a hand or hands in the outcome of that trip!

Prayers are answered in all sorts of ways. Some are answered when there is a good outcome for a medical test or procedure. Some are answered when a cancer or other disease goes away or can’t be found later and the doctor can’t explain it. God answers your prayers for strength and hope in a time of sorrow and pain. Prayer is answered when a baby is born or when you find your keys that were lost.

God cares about the outcome of your life, every day and if you ask Him nots in your life to be a part of your day in a small way or a big one, He will be! Don’t discount His presence just because you can’t see Him or feel His touch, if you are a Christian or you are thinking about becoming a Christian, He is always nearby. You are never truly alone because HE is EVERYWHERE!

Give God a chance in your life. He can be strength for you, He can answer prayers in positive ways, He can be the friend who sticks closer than a brother, He is your Creator and Savior if you will let Him be.

Life…and death

In our world today, we see this played out all of the time. Life and death in the city streets of America and in areas in the Middle East where they are fighting each other because of ideology and religious differences. Why? It is hard to understand from an American perspective what causes such division and hatred.

I mean, churches split because someone doesn’t like the way the preacher is teaching but that is no reason to begin shooting at each other. Sometimes, churches split because of different opinions about the way the church is decorated, but these are petty, childish differences. Why would Christians get so upset and angry over petty things like this? In today’s culture it seems that everything gets on people’s nerves to the point that “we don’t feel safe” is a common theme in news stories today.

Seek your wisdom from the Word of God and trust in Him! He is the One that gives wisdom and strength, so pray about it and seek Him out. He will not leave you, especially if you are seeking Him. God loves us and if we can just get past our own problems and prejudices and hangups about the Bible and following Jesus, our world would be much a better place!

God has given to each of us a measure of wisdom. Some of us have to go through troubles and trials to gain this wisdom and some of us seem to have it available even in grade school. My point is this: God knows which of us will listen and which will not and we need to be attentive to His voice, small though it may be, to do His will for us daily.

I pray that all who read this will seek Him out in His Word and in prayer in order to get to know Him better. I have a son who is out on his first trip, alone in a car. I am asking all of you to be in prayer for his safety please. He is my only child. Thank you.

Games

Arcadegaves If you know a teenager or have one still hanging out at home, then you know about their fascination with games. Mostly electronic games like the ones played on portable devices, cell phones, game consoles, etc. If you can get one to try a game of Magic the Gathering cards and sit down and play it, then good for you as long as they have their own money to put into this.

I played video games back in the days of arcades, early ’80’s and late ’70’s. Yes, I am old. The thing is, I liked playing those old arcade games because they were challenging even then. You were trying to get as many points as possible in the time allotted for your quarter. Some of us were pretty good, some of us just lost money depending on when game we were playing. Some of the games I played at an arcade in the Metro-Center, I didn’t care how much money I played out…it was FUN!

Why bring up games on a site which normally has posts about Jesus and His love for us? Because, it doesn’t matter if you play games in the real world or if you are playing in a virtual world, He still loves you and He wants you to know about it. Games, for the most part, are not going to point you in the direction of Jesus or the Bible. They show you how to use fictional weapons in fantastic battles or something like that. But…consider the battles that are mentioned in the Bible.

Samson killed a lion with his bare hands and carried of the doors of a walled city on his shoulders. He even killed one thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass! Then there is David when he went to fight Goliath and he did it with five smooth stones from the river. He only needed one to kill Goliath, so I guess the other four would have been for his brothers. So, what is my point in bringing games into a Bible study website? My point is this: if you have to use a game to get someone interested in the Word of God, then do it!

God does have a sense of humor after all. Consider the look on the Philistine’s faces when Goliath fell and that Hebrew boy took his sword and removed his head from his body! Some preachers have said that the other four stones that David was carrying were for Goliath’s brothers…maybe but then again maybe not.

There are too many people in our country and our nation, not just in Mississippi, who don’t know Jesus. This is unacceptable! Why? Because it has been almost two thousand years since Jesus gave the order to go and tell all of creation about the gospel. What happened? It shouldn’t take two thousand years to tell the whole world about the Love of God and salvation through Jesus!!

Everyone should know about Him, but many don’t want to hear the story with their spiritual ears and take Him into their hearts. The Truth of God’s love is offensive to some people and its Truth is too because they can’t refute it and they can’t really ignore it. It is the offense which pushes some people away from the church.

Sometimes, it is because of our hypocrisy as sinners, even though we are forgiven by the blood of Jesus, that many will refuse to even come to church. Being judged by those outside the church is a very hard thing. Just as someone deciding that a game is “bad” or “good” is a judgement of one kind or another, we shouldn’t hold a grudge or some other judgement against a church because of one or two people in a church, but many do this at times.

God holds us as Christians responsible for the knowledge and the Light that we have been given by our study in His Word and in learning about Him. The more we have, the more we are responsible for. Knowing about Jesus and living your life the way He taught us to is how we are to live. If you are doing anything other than this after professing that you know Jesus and you have Him in your heart, then you may want to look in the Bible for proof that you are a Christian.

I pray that I am not standing near the throne of Grace one day and one of my friends or one of those that I preached to is standing there and Jesus says “Depart from Me, I never knew you!”.

What happened?

I often wonder this very thing some days. Recently and many years in the past, I have wondered exactly what happened. Sometimes it has something to do with daily life, sometimes I wonder this in the context of reading my Bible. Why did this happen this way or why would God do this or allow this to happen?

There are times when we get up and begin our day, wondering what happened. Some days it seems that this is an all too common theme of our lives. How can we get around it or keep these moments from becoming the norm rather than the exception? Well…that is where the answer gets a little more complicated. I don’t mean that you or I have to change our lives or our addresses to move beyond those moments of being “blindsided” by…well, life itself.

God does care about these areas of your life, whether you think He does or not. He cares about all of the tiny details of your life and mine, but many times that is where we fail to let Him in. Why do we sabotage that relationship? Because we don’t think that the Creator could possibly care about how our house looks or where the car keys happen to be hiding! But…He does care!

It is hard for us to imagine God caring about every detail in our lives, no matter how small or insignificant those details may be. But the truth is that He does care, about all of the details of our lives IF we will allow Him into those areas of our lives. Many people ask Jesus to be their Savior, but when they feel that He wants in on all of the areas of their lives they close the door on some part that they want to keep for themselves.

Those personal areas are not just yours, God gave you those hobbies and abilities and He likes to see you use them…for Him. For His purposes and His Kingdom come before anything else and those purposes, His purposes, don’t have to be things which we don’t like. God can use a fisherman or a tent-maker or a poet and a musician. He can use a shepherd boy or a young man with a coat of many colors to accomplish His purposes.

All of those people, including you and me, have been used by God to do wonderful things for His Kingdom. Some of us have been used in ways that we don’t even know about until much later and some of us may not find out about something which we said or did until we meet a person in Heaven and they tell us about it. Maybe even something which I write here will influence someone to make a change in their life toward God and His purposes.

Even playing pool or basketball or any number of other sports can lead to one of you opening up about your faith or lack of faith, which opens a door for telling them your story, your witness for Jesus. Riding a motorcycle or a horse can also bring Jesus into the conversation. A “what happened?” moment can come out of many things, but the answer to that is: Jesus.

In all things, big or small, Jesus, the Son of God, the Living Word has had an influence whether you realize it or not. Every little decision or discovery that has ever happened, especially if you happen to be a Christian, He has had a part in it. The discovery of the vaccine for small pox or the discovery of the polio vaccine may have been looked at as accidents or just something which just happened. But His Spirit was likely the One that pushed them in the right direction.

What happened in your world today? The same that happened in many other people’s world. You and I woke up, got out of bed and began the day. It may have been a totally different day for me than it was for you, but mostly everyone has a similar day in many respects. Some of us have more money, some of us have less. Some of us have enough food and water, some of us don’t. My point is this: as long as we are working for Jesus and His Kingdom, it doesn’t matter what we have or don’t have!

Why did you bring me back?

I have read some books from doctors about patients who have asked this question. Patients who had experienced death or as it is called in the media a near death experience. That is not exactly the right name for it, it is death but with a spiritual twist. If God had wanted that person dead then nothing that the doctors or anyone else did for them would matter. God allowed them to return because their story needed to be told, the feelings and experiences which they had in a few minutes or seconds needed to be told.

Many people experience peace and joy and a feeling that everything is fine. Some experience a horrifying and agony-filled few minutes which may change their beliefs after they return for their second chance. The point of this is that the veil which separates this life from the next is very thin spiritually speaking. We can’t see through it, although at times we feel things or see glimpses of someone or some place. We just brush it off as “it’s because I am tired” or “I didn’t really see that, did I?”.

Most of us forget those glimpses through the veil after a day or two, but for those who have crossed through the veil during a heart episode in the hospital or died on the operating room table and are brought back, the experience is too real to forget.

Is there life after death? YES! Jesus said so and He was and is alive now to prove it! He also told His disciples that He would return to take His church to be with Him. The veil which separates our earthly bodies from that eternity is thin and we are surrounded by spiritual beings all of the time. Do I have proof of this? No, I just have faith in God’s Word and it seems that the realm of the spirit was always there, even when Elisha was facing an army in the Old Testament. He asked God to show his disciple that they had more protection than the ones coming against him and he saw them!

The demons were and are everywhere in our world, yet thankfully we can’t see their form and their actions as we go about our daily lives. In Jesus’ day, a whole legion of them had taken over one man and when He told them to get out, they entered into a herd of pigs and the pigs drowned themselves in the lake.

My point is this: don’t discount the words of someone who has come near to death or has been brought back. They have seen something which few people see and live to tell of it. Does life continue after this shell of our bodies dies? Yes, it does. The enjoyment of life with Jesus is there but there is also a place without Him and it is a terrifying place without Jesus.

Our minds can barely imagine a few hundred years forward or back from our point of reference. One thousand years is a long time, but if you begin to think of one million or try to consider it then you can’t take it in. Any amount of time beyond one thousand is just a number to us, our minds can’t process it.

Why would someone who has been brought back to life be angry about having another chance at life? Because, for a believer the other side of the veil is so much more than we can comprehend now! Even a few seconds of life with Jesus away from the pain and mental anguish in this life would make you long to be with Him even more! But, when God sends a person back to this life, it is for a reason…His reason. Others need to know about the spiritual life that waits for them whether it is a life with Jesus or not!

john317 Please, read God’s Word prayerfully. Seek Him out and His Son’s Life which is in His Word. Ask Jesus to come into your life and open your eyes so that you can experience His Life for eternity. God doesn’t want you to go to a dark place where He is not, because it is your choice if you refuse to allow Him into your life.