Category: A new life in Christ

Where would you go?


There are many people in our world today who believe in a beautiful place called Heaven or Paradise, either name works for me. But if there is a Heaven then there is a hell too. Why do I bring this up right now? Because there are many people who think that hell is going to be a party. They think that they will see all of their friends there because they didn’t go to church and had nothing to do with Jesus in this life. Part of that is true. Heaven is the reward for those who have followed Jesus in this life and tried to tell others about Him until the day they were called home.

Hell was originally created as the punishment for the devil and his demons, fallen angels who had rebelled against God and were cast out even before God created the Earth and Adam and Eve. It was never intended for humanity but after the fall in the Garden, mankind became so bad that God had to choose one family to start over with and He destroyed the rest of the world. Satan has caused so much of humanity to worship other “gods” in order to hurt God and attempt to destroy His image in mankind.

Heaven is God’s home and the home of every redeemed person who has accepted Jesus as their Savior. There is no description of Heaven which will do justice to what is there. Some people have been given short glimpses of it during an incident of “life after death”, some have come back and tried to paint it or describe it but, like the prophets and the apostle John, there is no way to adequately describe the complete beauty and majesty of Heaven. The pure, golden streets and the sea of glass (if that’s what it is), everything there is similar to Earth but…more complete and more beautiful than anything you can see here.

I pray that anyone who reads this will seek Jesus as your Savior soon. Please, don’t get left behind when the church is taken up.

Are you listening to Him?


So many times in our lives we go to church, we sit through a sermon and then go home. What did we hear? Did you hear His voice or were you thinking about something at work or a problem at home? Many people, young and old, think about many different things while they are in church but God has brought you there to hear His Word preached. Not because your preacher is such a great orator but because there are lessons contained in every word found in God’s Word.

Now, I don’t mean that we have to pick apart the Bible word for word because much of the meaning in God’s Word is only found in the context of the words and paragraphs. When you choose one verse or even one or two words you are taking them out of context and they can be used in ways that can damage those around you. God loves each of us deeply, but He hates the sin that we live our lives in. Of course, if you are a Christian your sins are forgiven but that doesn’t give you or me a license to go back and keep sinning.

The only lasting treasure that we will have is those things that we have done for Jesus in this life. Anything else is just straw and wood which will be burned up by the testing in Heaven. Lasting changes in our lives are made when the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and changes us from the sinful creature that we were born as to a redeemed “new creation” who can rise to walk in our new life with Jesus Christ! It doesn’t matter if you have been going to church for your entire life and you were raised in a Christian home, if you have never asked Jesus to come into your heart and change your life then you are just a sinner who has been in church for a long time.

At some point during a sermon, your heart will feel God’s touch and you will know exactly how sinful you really are and you will want Him to come in and change you so you can be His disciple and follower from that point on. You may be twelve when this happens or you may be eighty-eight and if you’ve been in church for your whole life you will have a hard time understanding why you feel the need for Jesus. Rest in the knowledge that God’s call goes out to each of us at the appropriate time, never early and never late but always on time.

If you’ve been in church for a long time and you finally go down to ask Jesus into your heart, your decision will have a profound effect on those who have known you for years. Because you’ve been “doing church” and other people have thought for all those years that you were a Christian. It will have the effect that God wanted it to have and you may not have to witness to anyone about it. Those in the crowd will see your transformation. Don’t push God’s touch away, please seek Him out as soon as possible. Don’t wait because we don’t know how many days God has given us. We may have a couple of years left or less than a week, so make your time count for Jesus.

Are we in the last days?


With everything that is going on in the world and in America too, I would say yes we are. How close are we to that day when the church is taken to heaven? Only God knows that day and hour. If you have ever read the books of Daniel and Revelation then the news today sounds almost like it is following a script from a movie. Maybe not word for word but in those two books of the Bible, God lays out the order of things which are happening right now. He told this to Daniel when Israel was taken captive into Babylon over 2500 years ago. Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 24 about the way the world would be near the end of the age and John wrote down the book of the Revelation about 2000 years ago. Yet, if you read these passages and the chapters containing them, even with the images that many people have trouble with, you can see the pestilence and wars and economic hardships and weather patters going out of control in all sorts of places.

If you know Jesus as your Savior, the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to all of these so that you can discern what is happening around us and around the world. If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior then I suggest that you need to seek Him out as your Savior…soon! His appearance could come at any moment and if you are not taken up with the church then you will be living through the Tribulation spoken of in the prophecies that I mentioned earlier. Life on Earth is going to be much worse than it is now once the church is taken up. As Jesus told His disciples, “these are the beginnings of birth pains” right now, so you can imagine how bad it will get afterward.

I pray that all who read this post already know Jesus as your Savior but if you don’t, please don’t wait long. Seek Him while He can be found tonight in the Bible or at a Christian friend’s house. Please make sure that you are or soon will be His before the Trumpet sounds and millions of Christians leave this world for our eternal home. After the church is taken up, there will be an economic crash that will hit every nation on Earth so hard that no amount of printed money will be worth the paper it is printed on. The food shortages will hit soon after and there will be riots in the streets because of the lack of necessary things like water, electricity, and jobs too.

Don’t wait, look for Jesus as your Savior tonight. I pray that you accept Him as your Savior and I will see you in Heaven one day soon.

Do you believe?


God is our Creator. Is that something that is beyond your mind to believe? Are you too stubborn to believe it or do you think that you actually came from an ape? God made us in His image and He created the apes but He did NOT use an ape as the pattern for humanity. God created the entire universe from nothing. It did not spew out of a microscopic point of dense matter in the Big Bang, God spoke it into existence with His Word. Don’t even consider that your teachers know more than God because God gave them their intellect and their ability to learn what they teach children today.

In the public schools, teachers are supposed to follow a pattern of teaching. They call it a “lesson plan”, I call it indoctrination of our youth. Whatever you call it, since the Bible and the morals that it teaches has been out of the public school system for more than fifty years, our children have been taught what to say and what to believe by teachers. In college it gets worse because of the predominant theory of evolution of all species. Yes, I called it a theory because you can’t prove that one animal in the past evolved into another. Scientists will argue this point until they are blue in the face but the fact is that there are no fossils which show any transitional phase between one form and another.

Back to God now. He spoke everything into existence and it was good until mankind mucked it up and decided they wanted that one fruit that God had told them they could not and should not eat. Have you ever noticed a toddler do that? If you tell them that there is something that they can’t have because it is bad for them they will work hard to gain that one thing more than any other. It doesn’t matter what it is, if it is denied to them because you say so they will work ten times as hard to get it rather than be satisfied with what they already have.

Mankind has not changed one bit. If there is something that this group has that another group wants it may start a war. A theif will steal from your home something that he wants just simply because you have it and he doesn’t. Sometimes he will sell what he stole for the money but his satisfaction is that he took it from you because in his mind you didn’t deserve it anyway. God can see all of this going on in our world today and it breaks His heart but He has held off the end of the age until the time that He will send for His bride, the church. Why has He held off so long? So that every person will have the opportunity to claim salvation through Jesus Christ.

I pray that everyone who reads these posts will take a minute and seek God in prayer. He will answer your prayer for salvation and your eternity will be set in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Your name cannot be erased from that point on. Your life with Jesus is assured. Then you should begin to walk with Him each day. Reading the Bible, praying about what you read and praying for someone that you know whether they are sick or just need to know Jesus as their Savior. Be His voice and His feet from that point on because He gave His life to pay your penalty for the sins that you committed or will commit. Don’t turn away from His call in your life.

Be a laborer for the Lord


Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. Matthew 9:37‭-‬38 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/mat.9.37-38.KJV

Rise early…


Sometimes I think God has a goofy sense of humor. I was trying to get some rest but it seems that He wants me to write here…NOW! I know I’ll get some sleep, just not as much as I’d like.

I suppose I’m in good company because Jesus often got up before sunrise and prayed in a solitary place. God loves each of you who read this and all of those who just surf on by and don’t look at it at all. He sent His Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. Can you believe it? God loved us enough that He sent Jesus to Earth to live as a human under the Law and to bring the good news of God’s love to His people and yet they rejected His message and Him.

Of course, if they had not rejected Him the rest of the world wouldn’t know Him. So…that’s a plus. But, just thinking about the pain and anguish that Jesus endured on the cross and during the flogging with a whip with nine cords that had glass and metal stuck to it…I can’t understand a love so deep. The Creator, our Redeemer, the Angel of the Lord’s Army, the Counselor, the Living Word….all of these were and are names for Jesus the Christ and He went through more pain than any of us can imagine and He did it because He loved us? It brings tears to my eyes just thinking of His suffering.

I pray that those of you who read this will seek Him out as your Savior because the time is growing short. Please don’t turn away from His call on your life regardless of how young or old you may be.

The only way to heaven is by giving your life to Jesus and believing in Him for your salvation. There is no other name which can save you except by believing in Jesus Christ for your eternity with Him.

Pain and suffering


These two words are descriptions of the Christian life in some parts of the world today. Those of u.s blessed to live in America are experiencing some persecution but it is mild compared to those in Asia, Africa, China, and most nations whose state religion is Islam regardless of which “branch” it is.

It was the same with the early church during the first century only the persecution was much worse than it is today. Why am I bringing this up? Because, the time is coming, sooner than later, that the whole world will feel the wrath of God. Because of the anti-Christ and the influence that he will have on the world and because those in the world will be the ones who rejected God’s grace and the offer of salvation through belief in Jesus as their savior.

Jesus came here to bring the gift of salvation through believing in Him. Although many people in the world do not believe in Jesus or God for that matter, the Tribulation will be a very difficult time for everyone who is left behind after the church is taken from the Earth. Mainly because the Holy Spirit that has restrained the demonic activity on Earth for the past two thousand years will be gone. The devil and his cohorts will have free reign over the whole Earth and the people living here at that time.

Don’t wait, seek Jesus as your Savior today because there are no second chances after death. You have to make this decision in this life to have an eternity in Heaven with Him. If you don’t decide to give your heart to Jesus and ask for His forgiveness today, you may not get another chance. The pain and suffering of this life is nothing compared to an eternity separated from God in hell.

Affliction


 Lamentations 3:32–33:

Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men. (NIV)

I would like to welcome all of you to a world where all of us “little people” are trying to understand a Creator Who is infinite in His love and His grandeur. It is His world and you are His creation whether you choose to believe in Him for your salvation or not. The blessings that God gives to us every day in this life sometimes come with a problem or an affliction attached to them. But, God is allowing that because He wants to make you better than you were and to give you a witness to others so they will seek Him in their time of trouble.

 “God permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves.” — Joni

Life brings many opportunities for us in the church or for those outside the church. Sometimes those opportunities are good and some are not good at all, at least from our point of view. As Christians, we should try to look at the bigger picture that God sees but for our finite minds, it is hard to do that in every situation. In the past year, many millions of people have lost loved ones to this health crisis regardless of the name given to the disease or which variant it may be that is causing it.

My point is that God knows exactly where each of us is in our lives and what His purpose for us is as well. Some of us will be teachers, some of us will be caregivers and some of us will be friends to those in need of one. Jesus told His disciples that this time would come and that many people would fall away from their faith. Many are doing that because they are blaming God for this “pandemic” and while God did allow this to happen, I don’t believe that He created it. He is allowing it to happen so that people will turn to Him during this crisis. Some will turn to Him for comfort and I hope for their salvation too. 

What is my point in this post? It is that God is in control regardless of how you perceive Him from your perspective. If you think of Him as a tyrant that is trying to force you to believe in Jesus then you’ve got Him all wrong. God loves you and He is using this time in history to bring as many people to salvation as possible but salvation and love cannot be forced on anyone. God will use the death of a loved one to bring about His purposes. We can’t understand that in our finite minds but God can see how one person’s death in a family will affect the entire family and the community around them. It may not happen overnight but God’s purpose and His will for everyone in that community will be realized.

God gives joy to those who have lost loved ones because of the faith of the person who died. They may be gone from this life and we won’t see them again until we are in the next life but we will have an eternity to enjoy them and all of the good things that God has prepared for us as His adopted children through Jesus Christ.

Dead men walking…


I know that there are many people who like to watch “zombie” shows and movies. Why? Because it’s entertainment I suppose. The thing is…if you haven’t given your heart to Jesus and repented of your “normal” sinful life then you are walking around dead in your sins. We are dead toward God when we are still sinners and have not accepted Jesus as our Savior. So in reality we are dead men and women walking until the Holy Spirit revives our heart and brings us into a new Life in Christ!

You won’t accept Jesus as your Savior if the Holy Spirit doesn’t convict you of your NEED for salvation. We will continue to live as dead men without the conviction to make us see exactly what we are and Who we need in our hearts! Jesus loves you so much that He died on that cross two thousand years ago to pay the penalty for your sins. He didn’t have any sin of His own but He died for the whole world even though He knew that many of them would never accept His offer of Life through the grace of God because it is a gift from God to each of us. We cannot earn it nor can we pay for any part of our salvation. He paid it all!

Your soul is worth the life of the Son of God. Even if there had only been one person, such as the thief on the cross, that Jesus could die for and provide salvation for through His shed blood and resurrection, He would’ve done it anyway. That kind of love is hard for us to understand or comprehend. Our Creator loves each of you with that deep abiding love. I can’t explain it to you, I can’t even describe that love because as far as we are concerned that kind of love is impossible for us to know in our mortal life. The only time that we will know it and feel it truly is when we fall to our knees in front of the One Who died for us. Even then I don’t think we will understand it. It will be so overwhelming in its capacity that even in our glorified bodies we won’t be able to stand in the truth of it.

I pray that everyone who reads this blog might seek out God to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Don’t put it off because we are not guaranteed to even wake up in the morning.

Hope…


Jesus is the Hope of the world, at least for those of us who believe in Him. Belief in Him and depending on Him as your Savior is your salvation. Jesus is our Hope and our Salvation for eternity.

John 3:16-17: 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 

Truthfully, there is no greater sermon for salvation than the Hope that we have in Jesus and in what He did for all of us. God knew that we needed His Son to pay that price and He sent Him to do so in order for humanity and our Creator to regain the relationship that was there in the Garden…for eternity.

Make sure that you don’t refuse His call on your heart to give your life as a living sacrifice to Him and to be the person that He knows you are.