Category: A new life in Christ

What kind of light are we shining today?


Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Matthew 5:14 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/mat.5.14.KJV

Is your church teaching it’s members directly from the Word of God? If not then there’s something terribly wrong. Jesus Christ told the disciples to go and preach the Gospel, the Good News, to all who would hear. This was done in the early church before the crusades.

Ever since then, the “church” has been through many changes. Some were good but most were not. The original church tried to live peacefully with those who did not believe. Then, there was the Roman Catholic church that incorporated many pagan beliefs into it’s services to attract the pagans. Later, the church began to break up into denominations. After the Reformation happened, the church became…the best term for it would be fragmented.

Different teachings of doctrine and differing interpretations of the Bible’s message. The “big national churches” wanted to keep people from reading the Bible which was written in Latin and so the service was also done in Latin until Tyndale and a few others began to translate the Bible into English so that a common man could read it and come to Christ. So in many ways, the church has spread the message of Jesus Christ and it has also hurt the message as well.

We are supposed to study and learn from God’s Word so that we can take His message to the world around us. At work, at school, on the street, at a restaurant or anywhere else you come into contact with someone who is searching for the Truth of Jesus and His message of a loving God Who is willing to forgive you and save your soul from the punishment that we deserve for turning away from Him. Jesus came to bring that message to all who would listen and embrace the salvation that is offered by His sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection too.

That is our blessed hope. He said that He would come again and take us to His home in heaven and we are closer to that now than we have ever been. I pray that you will seek Him out as your Savior soon because we are not guaranteed tomorrow. God loves you and if you have felt Him touch your heart don’t turn Him away.

Let your actions show your love to others


My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/1jn.3.18.KJV

God will strengthen you


But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. 1 Peter 5:10 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/1pe.5.10.KJV

Seek Him…


And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jer.29.13.KJV

Do you believe in Jesus?


I know that some of you who read this will say “Yes, I believe in Him. What kind of question is that?” That isn’t the belief that I am speaking of. Satan knows Jesus and all of the demons in hell know Him in their minds. They know He exists and that He is real but that is where the difference between knowledge of Jesus and belief in Jesus for salvation branch off from each other. You see, Satan was an archangel at one time before the creation of mankind but he like to look at himself in the mirror too much. God had created him to be the cherub that led the worship of God in heaven. Yet he was proud and became arrogant and persuaded one third of the host of angels in heaven to follow him. He wanted to sit on the throne of God.

What a silly idea. A creation of God was going to war with God in order to supplant Him from the throne. God the Father Who stretched out the heavens and flung the stars into their places with His voice and His hands. God could’ve wiped his entire army away with one command but in His mercy He didn’t. God allowed Satan to live and be a stumbling block to the human race not because God is cruel but because He knew that there would be many nations and many people all over the world. He knew that all of us would need a Savior because He knew that we were going to sin against Him and His laws. God knows your thoughts and mine and He knows that on our own we cannot be perfectly sinless because it is not in our nature.

Jesus came to live in human form but He had the nature of God not man, so even though He was tempted (and He could’ve given in to those temptations) just as we are He did not sin because He knew what His mission was. He had to stay pure and sinless to be the sacrifice for ALL of mankind. That is why He was in a constant state of prayerful communication with His Father. We can do something similar but we can’t live sinless lives. Living in a state of prayerful communication is not as hard as it seems but it does take a lot of practice. I’ve been doing it for almost ten years but there are times when I slip or rather my nature slips in and I will think or say something (hopefully out of earshot) that could damage my witness.

Human nature aside, if you truly belong to Jesus and the Holy Spirit has come in and changed your heart then you can be His faithful witness everywhere you go. If you make a mistake or slip up in any way, ask His forgiveness and move on to a better place or into a place where you can be more effective. God wants us to be His witnesses in this world so that others will want to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I pray that all who read this will understand that I am not bragging because I do slip up more than I care to admit but our Father in Heaven loves me and He sees Jesus living in me and not the flawed human being that I am. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Ask for wisdom…


If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. James 1:5 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jas.1.5.KJV

Encourage one another


And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Hebrews 10:24‭-‬25 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/heb.10.24-25.KJV

Depend on God


God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalms 46:1 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.46.1.KJV

Too much…


America has had too much violence and hatred spread during this past year. It has stretched our ability to handle everything that has happened in this past year and some of us have snapped! COVID, politics, the election…the list could go on and on but there is one person who is actually in control of it all whether you believe in Him or not and that is God. He has always been the One Who placed kings and Presidents in their offices and He has been behind the scenes giving them a nudge here or a suggestion where it was needed. There is also another ruler who has done these things behind the scenes and that is Satan. He has been there to counteract anything that God has tried to get done since before the flood that Noah saved his family from.

All of the things that we have had to deal with in this past year were foretold by prophets and by Jesus Himself. Maybe not word for word prophecy but in Matthew 24 Jesus said that there would be those who called evil good and good evil. There would be rumors of wars and wars and all sorts of diseases (pestilence) and quakes and other things happening in various places. Our world, not just America, has been experiencing these things for years but they seem to be growing in number and intensity just like labor pains for a woman.

What does that mean exactly? Well, when the number of labor pains begins to increase and their intensity increases it usually is a sign that the baby will be born soon. In Jesus’ prophecy it simply means that the day of His return for His Bride, the church, is getting closer to fruition. When I wrote “the church” I am not speaking of a specific church, I am speaking as Jesus did in general terms. The church in this scenario is made up of those who are watching for His return and who believe in Him for their salvation. Satan and his demons believe in the existence of Jesus and God as well, but they determined not to serve them long, long ago.

That is one of the unique qualities that all of creation doesn’t have but the angels and humanity do…we can choose to serve God and Jesus Christ the Son of God or we can choose to follow some other “path”. The problem with choosing another path is that it doesn’t lead to an eternity with God in heaven. The only pathway which allows us to walk through the gates of Heaven is by following Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

We place too much faith in our politicians and our “heroes” in sports and the movies in our society today. We follow people on Facebook and Instagram that we idolize and we have no clue who they are or anything substantial about them. We like the clothes they wear or who they are married to or even the movies that they are in and yet the people that we idolize would not be able to truly live up to their “fans” expectation or ideal of them. Just as the “ideal” husband or wife doesn’t really exist, the people that we want to dress like or even be like…don’t exist either. An ideal is just an idea with an -l attached to it.

God know you intimately because He is the One that brought your parents together so that you would be the result of their union. He knit your DNA together so He knew your personality and your abilities even before you were born and it is because of this that we can fulfill our lives in so many more ways by accepting Jesus as our Savior and work for Him in this life and into eternity. Seek Him out because if you have ever felt a tug on your heart during a sermon, He is searching for you as well.

Imagine what it will be like…


When I was much younger I drew pictures of how cars would look like in the year 2020 and later. They would be more like what I saw in the cartoon, The Jetsons except without folding up into a briefcase. They wouldn’t run on gas or diesel and they would float above the ground (how I was thinking they would pull that off I have no idea). It was my imagination after all.

Believing in God and His home in Heaven is like that as well except we don’t have to imagine it, we can read some descriptions in the Bible. Even though the prophets couldn’t describe everything they saw because we don’t have words that describe that kind of beauty. Heaven is a place that we go to when our work here is done and God has made it so that everything that we need or will ever need is there. I can’t describe it because He hasn’t given me a vision of it nor has He described it in more detail since I began to read His Word every day for the past ten years or so. I’m hoping to go there one day soon.

It is written by Paul the Apostle: “What no eye has seen, and no ear has heard, and has not entered into heart of man, what God has prepared for those loving Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

Unless we are following Jesus and learning from His Word, we may never know the joy of being called “up yonder” one day soon. I pray that this year will see a true revival in America and around the world for those who are searching for a Savior that is Jesus Christ. Consider this and seek Him while you can because when the call comes if you are left here on Earth the world is going to become far worse than it is today.