Author: Tracy Eldridge

This my witness for my Lord and Savior on the web. I pray that you find these posts useful in your search for Jesus. http://thelivingmessage.com

Today


Today

Today I woke without much pain.

Today, I thanked God for this blessing and for my friends and family.

Today, I will read God’s Word and learn from the Source of Truth.

Today, I feel His Presence all around me.

Today is the day that I will die to self and live for Him.

This is a poem, not designed to impress anyone or cause anyone to think about themselves. It is only for a daily walk with God. The words speak of a daily acknowledgement of God and His Presence in your life and mine. Some days, the first line may read like this: I woke up hurting all over, and I thanked God that I am alive to serve Him one more day.

Decide what your day will be like and how you will live it with Him and through Him, because you may only have today to do so.

Hello


Years ago, when I was much younger, I would “talk to the dark”. I may have been praying, I may have been voicing concerns which I had no idea how to handle at the time, mostly I did it because I didn’t have anyone else that I could talk to about everything or even nothing in particular. I grew up as an “only child”, that condition which psychiatrists say breeds monsters like pedophiles and axe murderers. Thankfully, I didn’t fall into those categories later on.

I would lie in my bed, talking, not really to myself but to someone or maybe it was Someone. It could’ve been the wrong “someone”, like Satan, but at the time I don’t remember feeling a terror about it…I wasn’t afraid of talking to them or Him. Of course, I didn’t tell anyone this because I didn’t want to be labeled as crazy or weird, that label came too easily anyway.

My parents had divorced when I was young, like five years old, so I didn’t know what a “normal” family life was like. By the time I could remember anything about my Mom and Dad, they weren’t together anymore. This condition seems to be the norm today, but at the time that it happened fifty years ago it wasn’t the norm at all. Growing up, I felt like an outsider, someone who didn’t belong anywhere and wasn’t accepted by anyone. That feeling of being outside never really went away, it just faded because I didn’t pay much attention to it as I got older.

Why am I writing this? I don’t know really. Maybe it is because I need to get it out of my head or maybe just writing it will somehow help me to feel like I am not “outside” anymore. I have tried to fit in, but that doesn’t seem to work very well. I even felt called to preach at a local church and I have been for over five years, but it seems that there are fewer people willing to hear or listen anymore. I feel more like the prophet Jeremiah who preached and told his people about the coming judgement on Israel for many years but they didn’t want to hear it.

I pray that someone may read this and look into God’s Word for their answers, like I should’ve done so many years ago. It has only been in the last twenty years or so that I have begun to learn from God’s Word about Him and who I am because of Him and His sacrifice. Thanks for reading and I hope that maybe this may help someone.

Truth in the Word


How much truth do you see in God’s Word? In the gospel? If it isn’t true and there is no Truth in it, then why believe?

The Trinity has existed as three in One…as God for a very long time, long before we or anything else in Creation existed. How can we so arrogantly believe that God sent His Son to die and then abandoned Him there? The Holy Spirit was there, God was there and Jesus was on the cross, so He wasn’t abandoned at the cross exactly…He just felt that He was. His humanity felt that way!

The same way that His human heart and His brain told Him to be afraid and anxious before the scourging and the crucifixion. It was His humanity which made Him feel alone, scared and helpless on the cross, but He wasn’t. Our truth is relative today because as psychologists put it, “your truth is not my truth”. This is a very clever lie from Satan. God loves each of us far more than we could ever know or comprehend, until we are in His Presence of course.

You have the freedom to believe in Him and His Word or not, because it is necessary. Love doesn’t come to anyone unless it is free to be given in return as well as received from the other person. Yes, we are free to refuse His love for us if we choose and to live our lives in complete self-righteousness, thinking that we are good enough without Jesus. That we deserve to be allowed into Heaven on our own merits.

The problem with that kind of thinking is that it is totally WRONG!! Until you give your heart to Jesus and allow Him to come in and fix the problems which you caused and to show you what real love actually is, you will always feel empty and without hope. This is what God wanted to save us from in the first place…ourselves. Because ever since the Fall, we have all been born with a seed of sin in our hearts. Toddlers will lie to you without even knowing what they are doing, so that proves that sin is there.

God loves us anyway!! He created all of us and He knows the desires and needs of our heart even when we weren’t born yet. From the moment you were conceived until your death, God knows what you will do, when you will do it and why. He doesn’t force the decisions on you, but He knows what those decisions are or will be, and until you give your life to Him, He will watch you and be with you regardless until you figure out that you really need Him.

Seek Him out before it gets too far or before your life gets out of control! He is there and always has been, so make sure that you know Him before your life is over and your chance to know Him as Savior is gone for good.

Three words in Scripture


There are three words which contrast the grace of God toward us and they are seen in all of the Old Testament and the third one is mostly in the New Testament. These three words are “but God” and “therefore”.

Have you ever wondered why there are statements like that? Mainly, both of those statements are to show us that God is not lacking in love toward us because when you see these words, He is about to change something or do something which will make a difference in many lives! When you see “therefore” in the New Testament, it means simply that whatever follows is done, period.

Why do I claim this for either of these statements or words? Because my claim is accurate and true. How can I say that since I am just a man and not God?

Here are a few proofs:

Genesis 8:1
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.

Genesis 31:42
If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night he rebuked you.

Genesis 50:20
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

1 Samuel 23:14
David stayed in the desert strongholds and in the hills of the Desert of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God did not give David into his hands.

All of these examples show that God cares for us, not just the Israelites but the whole of humanity! Why? Because, He wouldn’t have sent Jesus to die in our place, to suffer the scorn and the abandonment upon the cross if He did not love us!

Why do you think that Jesus said to His disciples, “Suffer the little children to come unto me”, because children don’t need a “why” or a reason to believe…they just do! This is the kind of faith that we seem to lose as adults. We get so caught up in life and in our living until we can’t or won’t believe unless we can touch it or feel it in our hands. This is why there will be so many “Christians” in hell one day! Many of them think that they know Jesus and that they believe in Him, when they really believe in the idea of Him and His love for them. The “idea” won’t save their souls!

We have to shed our veil, the curtain which we have been seeing Him through and look at Him as our Creator and our Savior and see Him as a real and living person, not as a “quaint idea” that is spoken of in the Bible and at church. Many times during my life when I thought that I was a “Christian”, I prayed and I read a few verses of scripture. But, I never did get into the Temple. I never crossed the threshold of the outer court, let alone come into the Holy Places where God is. God enjoyed a relationship with Adam and Eve for a while, yet we don’t know how long it was. They were immortal at that point, so it could’ve been a long time. This is the sort of relationship that He wants with His church, His people….today.

Do we come near to Him? Do we visit with Him every day or do we just visit for an hour or so on Sunday morning, then go home and don’t think about Him again until next week? How would you feel if that were your relationship with your spouse? Kinda cold isn’t it?

God loves you and me and everyone else on this world that He created for us, but we seem to forget that He is there. We don’t want to acknowledge Him unless we need Him for something, usually urgently…like RIGHT NOW!!

God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit don’t work like that! The Spirit comes to you when you become a Christian. He doesn’t come as a drip at a time, but as the whole package. Jesus saves you and you are to become more like Him as you mature in your walk, daily, as a Christian, studying the Word of God and learning from Him. God watches over you and me and everyone else and makes sure that all things work to our good and His glory IF we belong to Him.

The church needs to understand that since we are the “body of Christ” until His return, we need to mature into people who are as priests in His Kingdom. We shouldn’t be acting like little children who don’t know better or who don’t know how to act like Christians who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We act as if reading the Bible and singing a few songs on Sunday and maybe on Wednesday night and listening to a preacher or elder in the church expound on scripture is all that we need to do!

Are you kidding? Reading the Bible is great because you are learning more about God and His ways, but just reading a few verses once or twice a week is not enough! We need to read chapters and verses and books because we can’t understand His ways and His way of doing things until we get into the context of Scripture. The context can’t be discerned by a verse or two, it has to be pulled from a chapter and a book and the only One Who can do that is the Holy Spirit. He can help you to understand God’s Word and the context in which it was meant to be learned.

 

We have an image problem


The idea that we can be Christians, have Jesus in our life and yet not experience the REAL relationship that we desire is never taught in church. Is it possible that we can do all of the things, be a “pillar of the church” and not be fully and totally committed to our life in Christ?

Actually, it is totally possible and many Christians are doing exactly that without even knowing it.

We tend to trust God because the preacher said that we should and because it is in the Bible. But, is that enough? We also create God in our image and place our personality traits in the relationship and look at Him as if He is a reflection of us rather than the other way around!

We are supposed to be reflecting Him and His Son’s image to those who see us, not making God into an image of us. Then when something doesn’t go exactly according to the plan that we have in mind for our life, we blame Him when it is actually our “version” of Him that is the culprit and the REAL problem.

We actually have a problem with our image, not that the image of God isn’t perfect because the real image of God is actually us. The problem is that we, each one of us, tries to make God conform to our image of Him. We try to make Him look like and act like us.

God doesn’t work that way, but He will allow us to make a mess of things while we do this so that He can come in and show us exactly what He can do for us. The image that we have created of Him cannot heal us or bring us to a point of surrender with Him because our image of God is NOT God!

Can this “image” thing be fixed? Yes, but it usually gets fixed when we finally come to a point where we acknowledge that we can’t do it ourselves and things begin to fall apart around us. Then we get angry at the “god” who allowed this and hopefully we will come to the point that we see that we were the cause of our problem and also the cause of the answers not being delivered to us by God like we thought they should be. Why did all of our prayers and tithes and all of the service which we performed in His service not count for what we thought it should?

Because, we were doing all of those things for OUR version…OUR image of God, not the real God but a fake copy of Him which closely resembles us! Our idol, our image, our reflection of us into and onto God. We were trying to do pottery in reverse, and it doesn’t work that way!

Consider that we are like Adam was before God gave him the breath of Life. To a perfectly holy God and our Creator, we are like a clay man or woman. Dirty and not useful for much more than planting things in, but if we realize that God is nothing like us because He is our Creator then we can come into a real relationship with Him. We should get to know Him as a friend and our Teacher, because it is necessary that we learn from Him the way to truly live in Him and allow Him to live in us and through us every day.

Our image is nothing compared to His and we shouldn’t try to imagine Him in our image because we are bringing Him down to our level at that point, in truth we should be striving to be more like Him!

Remember the GOSPEL message:

For

God so loved the world, that He gave His

Only begotten

Son. That whosoever believes in Him will not

Perish, but will have

Everlasting

Life! John 3:16

So much anger


angerIn today’s world, on the news, in your home town even, it seems that there is a lot of anger. You see the effects of it every day on the news and in your neighborhood. You see it and hear it sometimes in your own home. But…everyone seems to brush it under the rug and ignore it until, one day something blows up. Frustration with our government or with your family builds and builds until one day it is in the news on television. A couple kills each other over supposed infidelity, whether true or not the end result is that two people are dead. Someone straps a bomb to themselves because they were taught to hate other people who worship differently and they go to a marketplace and blow themselves up and kill as many people, men, women and children, as they can. What did that accomplish?

It is hard to understand these things because we don’t know what happened to cause them. Sometimes, it is a senseless thing which is happening, at other times it seems that there is a reason for it. Outside the culture or the neighborhood or even the family, the reporters and the rest of the public just don’t understand what caused this? Why did it happen the way it did? Is anyone responsible?

We don’t understand the reason even if one is given via email or post on social media, so how can we help? Can we help? Is there anything that someone could do or say to help in these situations?

The truthful answer is: we don’t know. I can’t understand the mindset of a person or a group of people whose intent is to do these things. Is there a way to help?

The only answer that I can come up with, comes from God’s Word: Love your neighbor as yourself. So, why aren’t people being taught this instead of hate? Because the world and those in it don’t like to hear the truth from an indisputable source. The world and its religions, besides Christian religions, doesn’t want to hear this and they can’t come back with a saying or a truth from their religions which is better!

The advice and love and mercy which comes from God’s Word can be disbelieved and thrown in the trash but you can’t find better wisdom and knowledge because it came from Him. God is the ultimate Creator and King of all and His wisdom is beyond our understanding. His wisdom is above us as we are above an ant or a snail, yet each of those is wise in their own way. The ant does his gathering for when things are tough, the snail does what God designed him to do because he is a snail.

We are created in His image to be like Him and in order to be like Him we should learn about Him and walk with Him daily. Not weekly or once every month or just a couple of times in the year, but every day that you wake up thank Him for that day and be thankful for the opportunities that you may have during that day. Living daily with Him and through Him is not something which is easy, you have to purpose and decide to follow Him daily. Christians all over the world, those who are saved by their belief in Him Who saved them, neglect to do this even though they belong to Him. Why?

Because, after their salvation they feel that they have all that they need from God until something happens and then they call on Him to give them help and healing. It is something which you see in the Old Testament from one chapter to the next, following God while they are without enemies or without drought. Then, they forget the One Who saved them from their enemies or from a drought and go back to living as they wish to until some other calamity comes upon them.

I am not saying that living with God daily, reading His Word and praying to give Him praise for His grace and mercy will give you a life without problems, it will not! We are not perfect, we will all fail in our faith at some point, but God is gracious and will forgive us if we will confess it and turn back to Him again. Life, even the life of a Christian, is not easy but as a follower of Christ, Satan will attempt to cause you to fall in the sight of all so that your witness to them is taken away. Sometimes, your witness will be stained not by Satan but by your past. If you are called to be a minister in an area where people have known you for most of your life, like Jesus when He came to Nazareth, many won’t hear the Word of God that you preach but will be listening to you as you were when you were younger.

Do not fail to deliver the Word in your calling, regardless of their view of you or their opinion, because that is what God called you to do. If they accept it and repent then God brought it about, if not then they weren’t listening with their spiritual ears to begin with.

Is listening so hard?


Sometimes it seems that we just can’t listen to each other’s problems or to our preacher’s sermons. Listening to each other is the best way to get along with each other, yet there are so many problems between couples and countries all over the world. Most of those problems could be solved if we could put our pride and our attitudes on a shelf and sit down like adults and talk and listen to each other!

This would solve many if not most of the world’s problems, but it seems that when pride gets in the way and our attitudes become broiled in the juices of envy and hatred, then our ears and the ability to listen to each other becomes cut off or stopped up. Believe me, Satan has his hand and his followers all in the middle of these conflicts, whether it is between a man and woman trying to make their marriage work or between political parties in a country!

Our ears, spiritually and physically, become muddled to the point that we don’t hear what we should and we hear only part of what we shouldn’t. Which causes more misunderstandings and problems and it just gets worse from there, like a wet snowball rolling downhill. Pretty soon the problem or the snowball is so big that it can’t be fixed or stopped by just one person!

Jesus listened with His ears and with His heart and that is something which the church in general seems to have lost the ability to do, especially in the times that we live in today! The problem that we have is that we can’t understand the problem today because we aren’t really listening with our spiritual ears, our heart. We listen with our ears but we try to use psychobabble to “take care of the problem”, or make people feel good about themselves, or try to work around the issue.

In truth…all we are doing is putting a band-aid over a large cut or rather we are bandaging it but we aren’t helping in the healing of it. This kind of “help” is not helping at all, it only makes the problems worse! Like putting used tires on a car every six months, they wear out sooner and will still go flat easier than new ones, even if they are cheaper it is not helping.

Making people feel better about themselves is good, but spiritually it is suicide and murder. If you smooth over people’s sins and make them feel okay about them without telling them about salvation through Jesus, you are not a preacher…you are acting as a psychiatrist and that won’t do anyone good for eternity! PREACH FROM THE BIBLE! Tell the salvation and healing story of Jesus and His atonement for all of us from the gospels!

People need that today more than they know! John 3:16 is so powerful that it is a sermon in itself! Please, the Church needs to wake up and be the Body of Christ that this world needs NOW! This world will soon be in more of a situation than anyone alive has ever seen or experienced and the only rescue is through Jesus!

One day at a time


Our life is one day at a time, whether you are religious or not. It doesn’t matter whether you have faith in God or not, it goes by faster than most people realize. If you are a parent or a grandparent then you know how fast days and weeks and even years can rush by. Should we take note of everything that is going on around us? Absolutely! Not so much in a “nosy neighbor” way, but don’t shut yourself inside and not notice that life is going on around you either.

True Life is in Jesus and if you don’t know Him then you should get to know Him. Seek Him out because He will come to you if you are looking for Him. God loves each of us and really has a plan for us, whether you believe in Him or His plan or not. Some of us He has a plan which includes working for Him in His Kingdom, now or in the future. Some of us, may not fit into that right now but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have a role to play in some way.

Each of us is important or God wouldn’t have placed us here on Earth with our parents to grow up in the place where we grew up. He knows the intricate details of how you grew up, what influenced you and who influenced you. Those who had a positive impact on your future were likely sent into your life by Him. If there was a negative person in your life, then they may have been sent by Satan or one of his cronies, trying to derail you from serving God’s purpose.

The problem with that is: God’s purpose is never derailed, no matter how many negative influences get in the way. His plans always work out, the time-table may change a bit but in the end the result will be what God had intended in the beginning. Life, through Jesus, always works out for His purposes regardless of the intent of the enemy. All that we need to do is cooperate with Him in life and live it the very best we can through Him and with Him.

Seeking Him out on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, is something that many people seem unwilling to do. They are so focused on their lives and their problems until they are afraid of the BIG PICTURE. They don’t want to know but they can’t resist peeking around the corner. What is there? Is it treasure for me? Can I have it? This is like a child at Christmas peeping at the tree and wondering what is in those boxes and how many of them are mine?

God can see time and circumstances which have happened and which are going to happen to you and to everyone else on our planet. He lives outside of time and can view it all whenever He wants to, which is the reason when you ask for something that would not be  in your best interest He may keep it from you. Why? Because He can see the hurt and pain it will cause in your life if you had it. Sometimes, He will give you something which you are going after because you want it even when it will not be good for you, just so you can learn from the experience.

In that way, our legacy will be His legacy and His purpose and our treasure, our eternal reward will be in Heaven where moth and decay can’t destroy any of it! Amen!

What can we do?


There are many paths to enlightenment in the world today, philosophically speaking, therefore, which one is the correct path for all concerned? Few I’m afraid….actually there is only one.

Philosophy and enlightenment are pursuits which give us knowledge but that will not enable you to be a part of God’s Kingdom. Even knowledge of the Bible and all that it contains will not get you into Heaven without belief and faith in Jesus! Reading and studying the Bible until you know it by heart will do nothing for you spiritually unless the Holy Spirit opens your mind and heart so that you can see Who your Savior truly is and accept Him.

Knowledge and degrees and meditation are wonderful for their own purposes, but the experience of God is found through faith and belief in Jesus. If you don’t have that, then the Bible is just a book of historical figures and facts written by men. God did not give us His Word, the Bible, to be just a book. It is the revelation of Himself and His Son from beginning to end and it doesn’t matter if everyone doesn’t see it that way!

The Sun shines whether you have any faith or belief in it or not. Gravity still works whether you believe it exists or not. God and His promise through Jesus the Christ will accomplish everything written down by His apostles and prophets because He is God, whether you believe in Him and His Son or not.

Life, love, greed, hatred, envy and fear all exist as part of our emotional lives in one way or  another. We cannot change this because we can’t change the character of the entire world and every person in it. All of this boils down to one Truth and that is: Jesus came and died on a cross for your sins and your father’s sins and your friend’s sins. He paid the price for all of them, each and every person past, present and future. Whether we believe it or not doesn’t change the fact that it happened and it won’t change anything about the future which was foretold in the book of Revelation.

Seek Him by believing in Him. Read His Word and ask Him to show you the wisdom that you need to have so that your eyes will see Him as He is. The Savior that you need for healing, strength, and hope for eternity, because Jesus is the Savior that we all have been searching for.

False teachers


Jesus said that there would be false teachers that would come claiming to be Him, especially during this time that we live in. It is happening now. They aren’t getting much coverage yet, but they will. I caution you, beware of people, teachers who claim to be the incarnation of Christ or the “new” Christ. If you hear this from someone, especially someone who is acting as a teacher or preacher, RUN!

The angels told Jesus’ disciples that He will come back in the manner in which you have seen Him go. Jesus said that He would come back one day to set up His Kingdom on this Earth, and all will see Him and know that it is Him when it happens. There won’t be a question about it. Read God’s Word and learn from Him, not some person who wants to take your money and live like a “god” because you think that what he says is true.

False teachers are all over the world, not just in America, but it seems that more of them are coming out of the closet to be seen in the news and by people these days. The thing is, it is only going to get worse as the time draws nearer to the time of Tribulation spoken of in Revelation. More and more will show up, claiming all kinds of miracles and some may even perform some which will deceive many people! These are not the Christ, our Messiah, Jesus the Son of God!

His appearance will be seen by everyone without the aid of television or the Internet and it will be evident to all when He comes. Games and virtual reality will not show Him, but everyone will know that He has come! Some will cry because they weren’t ready for His return and some will be angry because of His return. Life will change everywhere in a moment, in the “twinkling of an eye” those who belong to Him will be taken up to be with Him, and those who have already died will be given their bodies as they are raised immortal!

This is not some fantasy, it is predicted by the Son of God and it will come to pass. If you don’t know Him, I suggest that you seek Him out and find out about Him and what it means to be a believer! When the Tribulation begins, it will be harder to become a Christian because of the persecution and because of the hatred toward Christians. Many planes and cars will crash on that day, so there will be many deaths on that day that are blamed on Christians and their God!

Don’t fall into that trap! Seek Him out while He can be found, today!