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

What do you want from me, Jesus?


I feel that there are many who may have asked this question over the years and decades and even through the centuries. The answer surprises many people because they think that Jesus wants more than we can give. For many, their beliefs of what He wants causes them to back away from Him because they cannot imagine themselves giving Him anything, even when they know that He is the only One that can meet their needs.

How can we get around our own beliefs and cultural bias toward serving Jesus? What can we do that will make us be useful to Him? Is there anything that we can do that will answer these questions or even, can the answers be found? There is a simple, for many people too simple, answer to these questions and it is …. No!

Yes, we can get around the cultural bias, but the answer to the other questions referring to “what can we do” is nothing. We can do nothing on our own to help Jesus. We cannot assist Him in our redemption and salvation because only He could do what needed to be done and He has. His death on the cross that day in 33 AD, accomplished everything that was necessary for every person on earth to be able to come to know Him and to have access to God.

His sacrifice, His life that He lived in total obedience to His Father without sin, was what was required so that the gulf between us and God could be spanned by Him. So that we would have access to God the Father and forgiveness through Jesus as long as we believe in what He did on the cross and in Who He is.

Belief and acceptance as well as being able to follow in His steps to bring the message of the Gospel to others through our life and our witness. We don’t have to go on mission trips, you just have to represent Him through your life, your character by allowing Him to shine through your life into the lives of others, this is what Jesus wants from us. Obedience to the command that He gave to His disciples to take the gospel to everyone who will hear.

Obedience is our job in God’s kingdom. Faith and belief in Jesus and the work that He accomplished on the cross is our requirement, our part that we need to do because it is the only thing that we can do ourselves. He has already accomplished everything that was necessary for our salvation by His death, burial and resurrection because He was the only One that could do what needed to be done.

Mankind is not able to redeem himself in the eyes of a Holy and righteous God and Creator. We are His creation, the only ones who enjoy the ability to commune with God and have fellowship with Him. The angels worship Him but they don’t have the privileges which God gave to us and they long to know of it. No matter how many amino acids that are found in ice or how many theories that are put forth trying to explain our existence as some cosmic accident, there is no scientific proof of it at all. God is the only one who created this universe and each one of us!

We are the work of His hands and everything else was spoken into existence because He wanted it that way. The perfection and specific way that everything works and moves is by His design, not some accident. God loves you, each of you, and there is no denial of that if you are able to read this. Even our eyes are marvels to science because they can find no evolutionary trigger that would cause an animal to “evolve” cells which do what our eyes can do. God did it and that settles it!

Do you need God?


Every day that we live, people question whether or not they need God. In some way or another, whether it is by going to work at a job that we love or hate or in just the process of living through our lives, each one of us asks this question. Do I need God? Another question would be, “Does God need me?”.

The answer to both questions is “Yes!”. We need Him and He needs us. Truly, God doesn’t need us because we can do nothing in the grand scheme of things, or can we? I cannot create a star or a planet. I cannot create another human being from nothing. Yet, God needs us in a way that we don’t really understand but we can understand it up to a point. Does this make sense?

I know that I sound as if I am rambling and that does come with age but we need God because of His grace and mercy that is imparted to us because He loves us. He needs us for fellowship with Him. How can we understand this? Well, those of us who are friendly and have friends can understand how fellowship works. We like to be around our friends and to have fellowship with them.

God wants to enjoy this type of relationship with each of us as well. He is not a god who stands back from his creation and waits for us to really mess things up. He is also not one who does not care what we do or what happens to us. Jesus taught His disciples that “the Father notices when even a sparrow falls, how much more does He care for you. Aren’t you worth more than many sparrows?” (paraphrase of Matthew 10:29-31)

My point is this: God cares for each of us, not just for our fellowship but because we are His creation. We are made in the image and likeness of Him.

Do we need God? Absolutely we do! Many atheists and agnostics say that we don’t but they are trying to get away from the constraints that belief and faith in Him impose on us. They do not want to be responsible for their actions, especially to God! They want to claim that we are all animals and descended from animals and therefore we are not responsible for our actions. We only live by instinct and reason. If that is the way that we, as a species, are supposed to act then why do we care for others? Why do we care for our elders and those who are in need by being physically or mentally challenged? If we are only animals, living by instinct, then why not put them out of their misery and out of our way?

DNA-view-along-axis-courtesy-of-Dr.-R.-Langridge

The reason that we care is because God cares for us. It is in our makeup, our spirit and our DNA. God said in the Old Testament that “I will write my laws upon their hearts.” This was written after the flood, but it applies to all of mankind. We are caring and kind because we know right from wrong, not because we are taught to be that way.

I know that there are “bad people” in the world and I will likely hear from some who say that if we are so good on the inside why doesn’t it show in the world? Because of the many evil things that are happening all over the world and even in our communities, we need to show the love of God to all mankind through our actions and by letting people know that they are His creation. Evil is in the world because Satan is in the world. The apostle John and others like Paul, wrote that we struggle with the “spirit of Antichrist” and this is not a specific person but the spirit of rebellion against God. In the future when the “son of perdition” is revealed, then this spirit will reside in one man but until that time, Satan’s forces of evil are spreading this spirit in all of the places where men are committing acts which we consider evil.

Do we need God? Yes, now more than ever before! Does He need us? Yes, He desires our fellowship, our companionship, our worship because He is worthy of it. He is worthy because of the grace and compassion that He shows us each day. Read and study with prayers asking Him to give you the wisdom to know Him and His Son, Jesus. Without Him, we have no hope. With Him, we have everything!

Do you know much about Christianity?


As a religion it has taken a bad rap from the other religions and from many people all over the world. So, what do you know about the religion of Christianity? Those who claim to be Christians are supposed to be following Christ and in His footsteps be His reflection to the world at large. In essence, we are supposed to be “little Christ’s”, but are we?

How many really live up to that high standard of conduct? Can we do it with our own strength? No, we cannot do it with our own strength. Very few have done this in the past two thousand years, although there have been some. Many use their “take” on this religion in the pulpit or on television to make lots of money off of many people that they don’t know and in the process many have paid the price for their arrogance.

The church, with all of its denominations and divisions, has paid the price of false teachers and doctrines over the past two thousand years. Granted, there have not been many but over those years but the ones who existed in the dark ages did a lot of damage to the church. Many of those who have bee active in the past century have also done a good deal of harm to the church and the way that Christianity is perceived in the world today. Some of them may have believed that their interpretations and their teachings were correct, and yet they were found to be false later.

The church does have hypocrites in it, in the pews and in the pulpits, but by being Christians and leaning on the strength of Christ we can be the people, the church which Jesus always intended for us to be. In the time period that we are living, we should be doing more to tell people about Christ and about Jesus, one person yet two different people according to history. Christ is the Jewish Messiah and many are still waiting for Him to return. Jesus is the Christ that many have rejected and He is sitting at the right hand of God. This is the message that we are to be sharing with the world, even though many don’t want to receive it or even believe its truth.

Many people seem to reject that the Holy Scriptures are true, those which came to the Jewish people through Moses and the Prophets and the New Testament which came by Jesus’ disciples. Yet, all of the books of the Scriptures point in one direction, to one Person and to our salvation through belief in Jesus. All that we have to do is be obedient to them and the wisdom contained in them as well as to realize that we all need salvation through Jesus, because He is the only way, the only perfect sacrifice that was given in order for us to be saved and sanctified. We cannot do this on our own! There is no amount of “works” that a human being can do to be perfect in the light of God because we are not and cannot be holy without Jesus! Any teaching which says otherwise is lying and is false!

No one can be perfect and fulfill and obey every law perfectly, not missing even the smallest detail of the law regardless of Whose law it may be. Whether it is a man-made law or one that comes from God, we cannot claim to be able to perfectly conform to any law because in thought or deed we will break a part of the law and when we do, we have broken the law regardless of offense. Which is why Moses was given the law to begin with. It was for the purpose of showing that humanity cannot attain perfection in obedience to the law because we cannot be and are not perfect. The only One that was able to keep from sinning against the law was Jesus.

He is our example and our Messiah. He was the perfect Lamb of God and is our Savior, sent to redeem the entirety of humanity from eternity past up until He comes again. Give your life and your heart to Jesus and even though your troubles won’t vanish, the strength to make it through them will come from Him! Even though you have to decide each day to die to your own selfish ways and live for Jesus and allow Him to live and show through your life to others, it will get better and you will be stronger for it. Think about it.

The heat of the day and the battle!


We face dark times ahead, not only because of the situation the world is in right now but the day-to-day situations which we face in our personal, daily lives. Every soldier knows that the heat of battle is the most dangerous but also the times when it gets really quiet is one in which you especially have to be on your guard. It is the same in our lives, regardless of the life that you live, whether you are a follower of Christ or not and no matter what type of job that you may work at, there is an element of danger in every sphere and every vocation today.

Driving to work, you are only a few feet from the cars in front or behind you or if you are on a two-lane road the cars meeting you are only two feet from you when they pass you. Anything can happen in a moments notice or without a moments notice on the road, on the job or in your life. One job that I have been thinking about lately is one that I worked at for many years and that was as an emergency medical technician. I worked at this for about ten years first at an ambulance service and then on a rescue unit for a fire department.

These are jobs which are needed but as the news has shown lately, even when you are trying to help someone you can be hit by another vehicle and possibly lose your life too. At a fire department, you may be at a fire, trying to find someone trapped or trying to get into the building to put the fire out so you can see if there is someone in the house. Many things can go wrong while in these situations and it is only by the grace and mercy of God that many of us come out to “fight another day”.

Although, many of my comrades would tell you that they have it covered, no problem, the fact is that the roof can cave in or a gas line can blow or a piece of furniture may fall and trap you, and then if your buddy is not nearby and you are getting low on air, what can you do? My best advice in a situation like this is to never get far from your buddy, just like in scuba diving. You may need him and his strength, you may need his life-giving air until help arrives. There are many different situations and problems which can crop up in one call that you take, that may be the last one you see!

The times that we live in are fragile and the time that we have with our family and friends is fleeting. You will never have those times again, once today is gone, the opportunities and the words that needed to be said are gone and will never present themselves again. Soldiers know this, police know this, firefighters know this, but in our own bravado and our pride we ignore the signs. We all do this, no matter what vocation we may have.

Life is fleeting even if you think you will live to be one hundred, especially compared to eternity. So, what will your answer be when God asks you “What did you do with my Son?” He knows the answer before you do, so think about it now while you have the time to take some action to correct the prideful ways that you have held on to most of your lives.

Yesterday is gone and is in your past, tomorrow isn’t here yet and none of us are guaranteed to wake tomorrow, now, today is what we have, each of us, and if we don’t think about Jesus and our relationship to Him and with Him today, then when? Life gets in the way, situations and our jobs take up our time and our thoughts. Our family can demand much of our attention on a daily basis, but what will happen when your life is over? It can happen in an instant, so while you have today, right now, listen to the small voice in your heart and give Him the attention that He deserves so that He can give you the Life that you deserve. Think about it.

Stand tall and depend on Jesus


We need His power and strength in the time that our world is in today. We also need Him every day regardless of the circumstances or who we think that we are. How can we possibly think that we can get through our lives without leaning on and depending on Jesus? I know that we are supposed to be individuals and independent, but God made us to have fellowship with Him on a daily basis!

Pray-for-strength

He wants us to lean on Him, to depend on Him when the times in our lives get to be more stressful than we can manage. Instead of drugs or alcohol, we need to depend on God for our strength because He can give us what we need when we need it. Anything or anyone besides Him is just a cop out or counterfeit and we need the real God Who can perform miracles in our lives daily!

 

Have you asked Jesus into your life? Would you ask Him into your life so that your daily existence is more than just existence? Your life will have a meaning and a purpose because of the One who gives life to all who ask for it.

 

We face many troubling times ahead from the economy to stress at work and at home, with bills and expenses that we never thought we would have or would be so unmanageable. Many in the world today are dealing with personal issues which they never thought that they would have to handle before retirement. Now, some wonder is it possible to be able to enjoy life at all? Do we really have to work until we just work ourselves into our graves? Today it seems so.

Life may be easier in some ways than it was fifty or more years ago, with technology helping us do more in less time. The problem with having technology and all of the convenience that it brings with it is that we are never away from the connectedness of the world! We are always in touch with anyone, either by e-mail or instant messages or posts on Twitter or Facebook or any number of social networking sites out there.

The fact is that we need to be connected to the One who brought all of this about. We need that connection, daily with Jesus. His signals never fade and you are never out of range with Him. You can always get in touch with God and Jesus at any time and anywhere. Regardless of how far away you may think that you are, He is beside you. He is always waiting with open arms to take your burdens and problems and give you the comfort and the strength to make it through the day, every day.

Don’t turn away from Jesus, but turn to Him especially when things don’t seem to be going your way! Because He really is the One that loves you more than you even love yourself! He gave His life for you so that you could be forgiven and be with Him in Heaven instead of being in hell with Satan and his fallen angels.

Think about it and pray about it, ask Jesus into your life. He knows where you are no matter what or where you may be in your relationship to Him.

Our dear friends


Many times in our lives, we come to know some dear friends. Those that you can talk to without worry of being criticized regardless of the topic of conversation. The ones that you can call upon for anything or nothing just because you want or need to talk. Though dear friends like these are few in number usually, their value is far above any amount of money or anything that this world seems to deem worthy. Though some of these friends are humans and I do value them above many other humans, I am referring this time to our pets. Those pets that actually show emotion and feeling toward us not the ones who could care less whether you are there or not as long as they get fed.

Specifically I am talking about dogs (but cats are okay too). I have nothing against cats really, I just never have owned one which lived in the house. I live in a rural community so cats come and go as they please all the time. There is never a day when you don’t see one or two, but they really don’t belong to any one family. Whoever will feed them, they will hang with you for a while and come back to visit occasionally, but staying put in one spot doesn’t seem to be their forte’.

I have owned a few dogs in my life and they were all house dogs like chihuahuas or pekingese and right now I have a dachshund. All of these were wonderful companions and one still is and hopefully will be with our family for a few more years yet. God created dogs to be our companions and over the years, we have bred different breeds or characteristics into and out of them to create dogs which we enjoy having around.

House dogs or toy dogs as their group is known by kennel clubs, are a joy to have especially once they are house-broken. They greet you with enthusiasm in the morning and they wait for you patiently to return home, yet they greet you like a long lost friend when you arrive.

In my opinion, they are like little angels from God Himself because of the friendship that they offer and the comfort that they give as well. They don’t ask much of us except to love them and care for them, like we would a child in our home. The love that they give to us reflects the care and love that we give to them just as we are supposed to reflect the love of God which was given to each of us to the world around us.

God loves us and He loves His creation, which includes our pets. He cares for all of the creatures which He created which is shown in God’s Word. In Matthew Jesus tells His disciples this:

Matthew 10
29 …and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

God cares for all of creation. Us, the birds and animals that we are given charge of to care for, every living creature on this world God put here for a purpose. Each animal fulfills that purpose without question with the exception of man. The animals do it by instinct, we have a choice and many of us choose not to even get to know our Creator let alone learn what His will is for our lives.

It is usually our choices or our pride that drives us away from friends and from God too. It could also be our own problems and our selfishness which drives our friends away but your pet doesn’t care about that. They will stick by your side, just as God does, through the good and the bad so don’t give up on them or on Him. They are representatives of Him too and just as much a part of creation as we are.

Do you see a racial problem in our world today?


I had thought at one point that once we had an African – American President that Martin Luther King‘s dream would be realized. I am sorry to say that it has not happened. It actually seems to have become worse, from both sides. Blame is being thrown between people who don’t even know each other and yet it is always, or seems to be, the other guy’s fault.

Why are we so divided this way, by hate and anger over generations of abuse true enough but the understanding of the depth of hatred and bitterness escapes me. It is like the bitterness in the Middle East that has been going on for centuries, it is so deep until no amount of “peace negotiations” will ever work. It also seems that that is exactly what is happening in America.

We are allowing our racist pasts, on both sides, to cloud our judgment and our sense of morality. Where in the Scriptures does it say that we are to hate each other because of our skin color? It is not there, because I have read them many times and in no way or in any book from the Old Testament or the New is hatred for any reason encouraged!

We, as a nation not just certain groups of people, need to get back to God‘s Word and repent before things get completely out of control. Jesus is coming back and whether it is in ten years or in fifty it will happen. Yes, things are going to get worse economically before He returns but if we cling to Him and to following Him we will be the ones who triumph in the end.

God loves all of humanity, not just certain “races” of people. The Israelites were His chosen people, but with their rejection of Jesus they shunted their status aside. Not permanently, but God sent to us Gentiles the message and the blessings that they would’ve had in order to make them jealous enough to want Him back!

Jesus called the religious leaders in His day hypocrites because of their attitude toward the people that they were supposed to be leading. Hypocrisy is what we have shown to the world because we claim to be a Christian nation and yet we kill innocent children, unborn babies as a normal thing! Why is that happening? What purpose does killing an unborn child serve? We are going to be held accountable for this by God, so we should be considering this.

Many people in America as well as all over the world, don’t want to have much to do with Christians or church or God either. They want their own god, their own way of doing things, but He will hold you accountable, each of us! How can this be fixed in the religious climate that we live in today? Only by Christians doing what they are supposed to do by telling others about Christ and His love for them. Although, this will infuriate some people it will help in the end. Read God’s Word, pray about the problems at home and abroad, pray about your own problems since we all have them, God hears your prayers and will answer them in His own way and time.
The biggest problem that we have as people, not groups of people separated by race or ethnicity or culture, is that we expect everyone to think as we do. Regardless of where they grew up or how they were raised in their culture, people everywhere seem to expect others to know how they live, how their culture sees things or does things. Then we get offended when others don’t understand our unique position or our unique place in the world as a whole!

Why would or could you expect someone who has been living in Indonesia to understand the problems or the culture in Nigeria? Why would anyone expect an American, whose family has lived here for over two hundred years, to understand a Middle-Eastern culture, regardless of the religion involved? We cannot do it personally or individually or even as a country! Perception is the one part of life that everyone has, just as each of us has an opinion about everything, but our perception is clouded by our culture and the norms that we each grew up with.

It is the same with racial divides in our world today. Perception and our cultural norms that we each have, causes and compounds this divide and adds to our racial problems even further because we expect each other to understand how the other feels when it is impossible! If your skin is black or brown and you grew up in sub-Saharan Africa your perception of the world is going to be totally different from someone who looks like you but grew up in Chicago. Conversely, someone who is Caucasian and grew up in Atlanta won’t have anything much in common with a person who grew up in Russia other than their skin color.

The racial divide in our world is not getting any smaller, it is still there and in some places and people it is getting larger and deeper. The only way to come together as humanity and not as racial groups is to accept the One who can cross those divides and change our hearts so that we see each other as Christians and not as we do in our limited human ways. Give Jesus a chance to make a sweeping change in your life, to open your eyes to the humanity that is around you and not the racial differences and cultural differences. Because until we can, there will always be strife, anger, bitterness, hatred and loneliness in our world and Satan will make each of these worse.

He will use his ways and his powers to make all of these so bad that we would think of nothing more than killing each other just to feel better, or even killing ourselves so that the pain and loneliness would go away. The pain and loneliness that we feel are there because of him and because of the divides that we feel toward each other, and if he can make it worse he will. As long as he can use our emotions and our own racial or cultural divisions against us, he will. If it will keep us from giving our lives to Christ, even better.

The only “fix” for these problems is a relationship with Jesus which continues to grow until He comes back, because He will! We are not promised tomorrow, only today and while we have the day we need to be seeking Jesus and His Kingdom, because nothing else really matters because the “stuff” that you have here will not travel in either direction. It will be left or sold or destroyed in some way after your death, it is temporary, just like your life here. Life with Jesus is eternal, life in hell is eternal too but your “stuff” nor your position in life will not matter one bit in the life after this one. Think about it.

Do you serve or do you want to be served?


In the society that we live in, we expect to be served regardless of where we go. In the mall or a store, at a restaurant or a fast food place we all have a microwave mentality today which means that we expect everything to be given to us NOW!

It is something which has been brewing in our culture ever since the first fast food joint showed up, but I am not blaming it on them. It is just a fact that since food became easy and cheap to get, the ability to cook at home has been mostly lost. Look around in a supermarket today and you will see many boxes of quick meals which can be made in less than thirty minutes.

Of course, you could just buy a packaged dinner, zap it in the microwave oven and in less than ten minutes be eating a “meal”. Except that it has been so processed and packaged it very likely has little, if any, real nutritional value,  but it is quick and it tastes good.

We tend to go about our religious experience the same way. We want instant satisfaction from the preacher who can’t say anything bad so he won’t hurt our feelings to our religious experience with our Saviour. So, what can we do to change these things? Since it has been ingrained in our culture for so long, we may not be able to clear out the things which have been learned soon enough.

Some people may wonder what I mean by “soon enough”, well it means that we need to repent of our disregard for God and His laws. It also means that we need to sit down long enough to read some passages from the Scriptures and to pray over them so that He can show us what is meant by them. Don’t close your mind to the possibility that He exists, because if you are being closed to the option that He is real then you are missing the point.

What point is that? The very reason and purpose for life itself, to give glory to God for being here! I know that there are many people who don’t or won’t believe in Him, but think of it this way: what if you are wrong about His existence? What if there really is a place of punishment after you die?

Not believing in things during this life won’t cause them to not be there when you die and find out that there really is life after death. At which point it will be too late to change your mind, it will be what it is and you can only take what you have ordained for yourself.

Your life and mine are important to God or He wouldn’t have wasted nearly four thousand years trying to get people to listen. Since the time of Moses, there have been many prophets that were sent into the nation of Israel trying to bring them back to God. Many were killed, most were just ignored or stoned until they left but the point of this is that God is interested in us! He would not have done the things which He has done if He was not. He doesn’t sit up in Heaven waiting for things to get better, He knows the end from the beginning because of where He is and Who He is.

We are all privileged because, not only does He care for each person but He has cared from the beginning. It doesn’t matter if you are from Israel or Turkey or China, God knows you and He knows when you will accept Him as Savior or if you won’t. Like looking down on a parade from the top of a building, He can see your life and mine from the first breath that we take until the last. Whether we choose to allow Him into that life is our choice, no other religion or faith allows you this.

Many people are going to disagree with me on this, at least on principle, but the point is that we have a choice…life or death. Which will it be? Many people, and don’t comment saying how I know it is “many”, there are thousands or millions who don’t agree with anything a Christian says just because they are Christians!

Many don’t agree because they don’t want to be responsible for their lives. They don’t want to be held accountable for their actions and if you have children you have seen this from an early age. Even before you think that a child can lie, they will do it in order to get out of trouble or to stay out of trouble. It is ingrained in our DNA, we are sinners from birth. One lie is still a lie, even if the one who is lying is only two or three years old.

I began this with references to food because of the way that our culture has become so dependent on things like food being available as soon as possible. We have also transferred that dependence over to almost everything in our lives, from our jobs to our religion and everything in between. Instant gratification, instant answers like we get from the Internet, we want everything now and we are not content with waiting.

God has waited and is waiting for you to make your decision, either for Him or against Him so which will it be? If you are joining God’s family, then welcome home! If you have decided to wait, then I want to ask you a question: When are you going to die? It is a simple question but it is not one that we can answer. You may die tonight or tomorrow or this afternoon, I may not be alive tomorrow either so when will you make that decision? When you are standing in front of God and He shows you the things that you have done and said in your life, how many times have you heard the good news of Jesus and the facts of salvation and either ignored them or just blew it off? What will you tell Him? At this point, it will be too late. You have already made your choice.

The UN-pardonable sin is not some heinous crime, it is turning away from God’s gift of grace and not accepting it as it is. That is the only sin which will get you thrown into hell, the others which you have committed convict you of a life without Jesus. Think about it.

Beauty in Creation


Have you every noticed the sun rise? Many people don’t because they don’t wake up early enough. The problem with sleeping in is that you don’t get to see the most beautiful part of the day. Of course, there is always sunset, which depending on the weather can be just as beautiful but usually with different colors. The time in between those two, the sky is blue for the most part depending on the weather. Every time that we notice the sky, the colors and the things that we notice about it all have to do with the weather. If it is stormy in the morning or evening, then the sky is usually red and purple or a variation of those two colors. If it is about to snow or rain, then mostly what we see is the gray clouds and the haze which comes with them.

Creation is a word that is not very popular these days, mainly because it doesn’t take the “theory of evolution” into account. Why? Because it is only a theory, it can’t be proven any more thoroughly than creation can except we have God‘s Word on one and only a scientist’s theory for the other. Which one would you believe? I think that I would put more stock in what God says than what a scientist thinks, but that is just me.

We have many people in our world who can’t seem to get a handle on religion or which one they want to put their belief and their eternal destiny in. Religion is something which man created which is why there are so many different ones in the world. In the beginning, God did not create a religion. All that He wanted was mankind’s obedience and his love expressed through our thankful offerings of our first-fruits, whether it was a first lamb born or the fruit from our gardens. If it was the first crop from the vegetable garden, it was acceptable to God. Cain brought his offering in due time, his was not the first fruits which was the reason God did not accept his offering.

We have forgotten this in our culture, in this day and in this twenty-first century. We have such a instant gratification culture that no one thinks about God much anymore until they really, truly need Him! He is the Creator of all things and yet we teach our children that it was by accident that life came to this planet, through some chance encounter with a comet that had amino acids in its ice and that they congealed into proteins on their own. Nothing is created by chance or accident and this can be proven by simple experiments. Try throwing an egg, some salt, a little baking powder, some flour and some milk into a bowl and swish it around a bit then give it a little time and some heat in an oven. Will that be biscuits or bread or a cake? This accidental concoction may taste OK, but then again it may not be edible at all. Accidental creation just doesn’t work.

All of mankind is bound up in a drop of blood. All of us have red blood, whether our skin is white or black, brown or with a yellow tinge to it or some other color, darker or lighter. We are created in His image, God’s image and it doesn’t matter what color our skin is. The culture that we grow up into is the part of each of us that is hard to reconcile, not our races or at least that is what should be known. We have different views of our cultures, whether they are acceptable to each other. Racism has run rampant in our world, not just in America but in all of the world. The problem is that it is not race that is the problem, it is intolerance of the differences between cultures, between people who judge themselves better than others because of their skin color regardless of whether they are white or black or any other color.

God’s Creation is beautiful and the people that He placed in it are to, and it is time that we started acting  toward each other like He wants us to and following His rules and laws toward each other. We need to come to the realization that God created us to be stewards, to be tolerant of each other regardless of skin color or culture. We should celebrate the differences that we have while also celebrating our similarities.

What shall we do then?


Should we believe the testimony of man as many seem to do in the world today or should we cling to our salvation through Jesus?

There are many today that are leading people in the wrong direction, some of them supposedly doing this from their pulpit in the church. What will become of them and their followers? If they will pray and humble their hearts toward the God that is spoken of in the bible, then they can and will be saved from their transgressions. Yet, many people today place their faith in the messenger rather than the message. This was a fine thing to do when Jesus was the messenger before He ascended back into Heaven, but today the messengers are just as flawed and sinful and the one bringing the message (yes, I am including myself in this ).

We are all flawed, sinful human beings and none of us who stand on this earth are any better than anyone else, but there are some who think that they are and they are the ones who are leading others astray. They are subtle, like the one that they are serving and not the One that they think they are serving. Many deceivers are present in this world today, but they have learned well. The message that they bring is wrapped in words that are beguiling, some of them from centuries past, some of them from recent times but their meaning is that we can do it ourselves and we don’t need God’s help.

We cannot do it without Him! Can you command a storm or rain on parched ground? Can you tell the sun to come up an hour later today? We are the created and not the Creator, only He can do those things if it pleases Him to do so! It would bring glory to Him and would make us see that He is in control and not us, but there are many today who would scoff at signs like these.

Our God, the only God, is in control even when things seem to be going wrong. We only have to place our faith and our trust in Him because He will bring about good things from what we see as bad. Our times and our time-table don’t line up with His unless we are surrendered to Him and know Him by His Word. When we walk with Him daily, then our wants and our desires will be the same as His, although we will still be attacked by Satan and his demons in very subtle ways.

Some of those will be our own feelings like depression or feelings of not being in control, which we are not, or even emotions which overwhelm us to the point of hopelessness. All of these come from the one being who is trying to derail your faith and your belief in God and His Son. This has always been the goal ever since Eve decided to follow her own desires rather than listening to Adam and God.

Before anyone gets upset or thinks that I am blaming Eve for our problems, I want to make it clear that she had encountered a master of lies, Satan himself. Adam couldn’t have withstood him either and he didn’t so it wasn’t the woman’s fault! They both knew what God had commanded, yet they chose to follow their own desires. God knew that this was coming before they did so it wasn’t a surprise but it still hurt His feelings just the same.

If we really knew Him and the awesome power that is being held back because of His love for us and the grace that has been given to us through Jesus, we would be humbled beyond measure. Considering His power to create or destroy with a word, how could you tell Him that you don’t believe in Him? What pitiful arrogance we have to confront the Creator of everything and then tell Him that we don’t think that He is real so we won’t believe in Him!!

These words and deeds are being done all over the world today. In different ways and different words but the message toward God is the same. We should be on our knees begging Him to forgive us and to take us as His sons, pitiful though we are, and make us as His servants just so we can have a place at His table if nothing else!

The time is coming when mankind will bow to Him. When that time is, no one knows but it is coming and soon. The prophecies of His Word are clear enough for all to understand and we are in what is called the “birth pangs” prior to that time. We will know when that time has come, but for many it will be too late. Read God’s Word, study it carefully, pray over it so that you will understand what you read and then get your heart ready for Him, ask Him into your life because He is the only cure for what is ailing our world and each of our lives.