Category: A new life in Christ

Why do we have such hate and cruelty?


I watched a movie today called “Schindler’s List” and it truly showed the cruelty and the horrors that a human being can inflict on another because of hatred or racism. Not because of their skin color but because of their nationality and their religious beliefs. It was not an easy movie to watch. My Savior is Jewish and was raised as a Jewish man until His people rejected Him as their Messiah and hung Him on a cross to get rid of Him.

God still loves us but our sinful ways He doesn’t excuse one bit. There are going to be many people during the Tribulation and at the Judgment seat who will believe that they were doing what they did for God. I believe that they will get much worse punishment than others, especially if they were trying to exterminate the Jewish people. Our sins aren’t the things which get us thrown into Hell. It is our rejection of the Savior and His grace toward us that will sentence us to hell. We may be punished for the sins which we have committed in this life regardless of their “size”, big lies or little lies, stealing a pen or a million dollars. Any sin which breaks any of the Ten Commandments will convict you because even one sin is still abhorrent to God.

Life is too short for us to be cruel to each other regardless of the reason. But humanity has been finding ways to do just that for thousands of years. It was their sinful and cruel ways which brought the flood on the world and caused God to regret that He had made mankind. That’s pretty bad when the Creator regrets His creation. It also seems that as the years have passed by that in the past century plus twenty years we have grown to be more cruel toward one another. Not on a daily basis for the most part but the news which most of us listen to describes very hate-filled attacks on people all over the world. When I said “on a daily basis” I meant in my country, America.

Even in our United States there are many people killing each other over disagreements which shouldn’t be deadly. Some are over a few dollars or even less. Sometimes it is because of alcohol or drugs but most of the violence seems to center around a woman or money in one way or another. Not all of the violence in America is from guns or the use of guns, although the media seems to make it look that way more often than not.

Why am I writing this at the end of September this year? Because after the Presidential election in a little more than a month, there will likely be many protests and riots and violence of all different kinds. If one candidate is elected instead of the other there will be riots in the streets. I ask this question now before we get to that point: WHY? What good will killing people and burning businesses and police cars accomplish? Will it change the outcome of the election? Not likely. Will it force the government to step in and control the population? Possibly. Is there a rational way to make your voice heard? Yes, vote for your candidate and if they don’t win, this is the last time our current President can run so the next election will possibly be the one for your party to win.

God is the One Who places those in power, whoever they may be and wherever they may be. They are in power for His purposes and they can and will bring about the changes that He wants to be in place. Whether you believe in God or not doesn’t matter because He is still in control whether you believe or not. I pray that our country will experience a revival which will bring more people into God’s Kingdom because it won’t be long before He comes back for His Bride. Once that happens, this world is going to be much more violent than anyone can imagine because His Spirit will be taken from the Earth. The anti-Christ will be in power and there will be hell on Earth. Make sure that you won’t be here to live or die during that time.

The wages of a sinful life


In Romans 6:23, Paul writes that “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”.

Why would God give us such a gift? It is worth more than we could ever begin to pay because there is no way that we can earn our way into heaven! But God sent Jesus Christ to Bethlehem as a human baby born to Mary the wife of Joseph. He came into the world as the son of David through His Earthly father and mother but He had the nature of God the Father. He came with no sin and He never faltered throughout His life. Just so He could go through the punishment of a criminal and be scourged and then hung up on a cross to die for humanity’s sins.

God the Father sent Jesus the Son to bear humanity’s shame and punishment, paying for our sins before most of us had even been born. I don’t know what the population of the world was at the time but He had looked down through history and He could see many people who needed salvation which could only come by His sacrifice. Clearly, God loved and still loves each of us far more completely and more deeply than we could ever imagine.

Your salvation and mine only comes by our belief in Jesus and our taking that belief into our hearts. Repenting of those sins which all of us have and seeking His Kingdom and His teachings so that we could be His until our death and then into eternity. It is our choice to do this but God already knows who will make that choice and who will not. God strung together your DNA in order to send you and many others like you and me into the world to be doctors or teachers or farmers or nurses but in doing so, He also knew which person would be a good fit for being a Christian. Your personality, your strength and your witness were all known before you were born. Just as God told Jeremiah, “….in the womb you were consecrated to Me”.

God loves each of us so much that He sent His own Son to die for our sins, paying the penalty for them and making atonement for us so that we could be allowed in His Presence one day. Isn’t that AWESOME! It is also humbling because the Creator of the universe cares about us on this little ball of dirt that He created for us. Life on this planet didn’t evolve from a single cell into multiple cells and then one day become all of life on this world! It was created in the mind of God and brought into existence by Him and for His pleasure. Why? I have no idea, but God does. Give Jesus your heart and make sure that it is done as soon as possible because not one of us knows how long we have to live and that decision has to be made while we live.

There are always two


It sounds like I’m channeling Master Yoda but what I am speaking or writing about is that there really are two, sometimes more but always 2. In our world the Lord shows us that in every situation there are 2 sides. Dark and light, good and bad, black and white, morning and evening. So how do we navigate in the gray areas that our culture insists on? God doesn’t show any gray areas. You are either in the light or the dark with no gray area in between.

How do we fix this? Truthfully, we can’t. It is a choice that we must make and it is an individual choice, not a collective one. Each of us must choose the side that we feel is the one that God is calling us to. I know that many people don’t believe in God as their Savior, but life requires a choice regardless of your beliefs. Because there is evil in our world and there is overwhelming love and goodness too. You see it and hear about it on the news or on your computer every day. Many people wonder why God allows the evil and the hatred that we see around us? That is where our choices come into the picture.

There are always two choices and just like the cartoon where the little demon was on one shoulder and the angel was on the other, those really are our choices every day. We can listen to one or the other and make a choice and it is that choice which determines how our day or our week turns out. When you look at the world with your spiritual eyes you can easily see that there aren’t any “gray areas” at all. You are either saved through faith in Jesus or you are not. You either believe in Him for your salvation or you just believe that He exists because it says so in the Bible which does not save your soul.

Our eternity stands or falls on one of two choices. Believe in Jesus for your salvation or choose not to believe in Him and go to hell. These choices have to be made in this life today! Why? Because we are not guaranteed a certain number of years before we die. I could die before I finish this or I could live another twenty years or so. With the pains that I have in my hands and my neck now I really don’t want to add another twenty years to it. My point is that we don’t know when our last day is, so choose which way you are going to go now…today.

Are you confessed or conceited?


There’s more hope for a confessed sinner than there is for a conceited believer. Whoa!

Why? Because of pride. Now, wait a minute. Why should I think about pride?

Pride is the root of every sin and every decision which causes us to try to be more than we can be. Pride causes us to try to do it ourselves and not seek God’s help until we really have to.

A confessed sinner has come to the point where he or she knows that they have sinned and they’re ready to ask for God’s forgiveness. A believer who is conceited has allowed his pride in his “salvation” or even in the fancy church that he belongs to, to cloud his view of his sins.

Why would a person who is saved be so prideful? It could be because they only think they are saved. Pride is the original root of all sins. That’s why Christians should endeavor to stay humble. Don’t ever think or believe that you are more important to God than anyone else! God loves each of us and He cares for each of us far more deeply than we can understand. We are not just “animals” that He placed here! God formed Adam with His hands and then blew the Breath of Life into him so he would become a man with a soul.

The truth found in God’s Word is the truth that our world, and everyone in it, needs to hear. Whether they will understand it and take it to heart enough to seek their Savior is another thought entirely. God knows who will and who won’t accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and one day soon He will send the angels to blow His Trumpet and call His Bride, the church, home. The bad thing about that day will be those who thought they were saved but weren’t. Especially if it happens on a morning that church services are going on.

Where are You, God?


Have you ever wondered this? I have. Many times in life I have asked this in anguish and anger because of something that has happened in my life. That was before I truly gave my life and my heart to Jesus. I was blaming Him and angry with Him before I knew Him. He is not the cause of our problems but He is the Solver of those problems…every problem. He has never left His creation alone. God didn’t make the universe and then run away to the farthest corner and go to sleep.

God does not sleep or slumber. He knows what is going on in the universe and in your mind right now. That is why the Holy Spirit inhabits each Christian’s heart. So that He can teach you what you need to know and what you don’t know. God is present in your heart in the Person of the Holy Spirit and He will hear every word of prayer and He will know your needs even before you say anything!

There are times when He does put us through trials to shape us and teach us to be better than we would be if He did not. Why? Because sometimes it takes a trial for us to really learn what He is trying to teach us. There are also trials which will make us more like Jesus when we rely on Him to get through them. The early church had to go through many hard trials but it grew even more through them.

God loves each of us with a love that we cannot understand. He has loved each of us even before He said, “Let there be Light!”. How can He do that? Because He exists outside of our time and space. He can see our lives from beginning to end and for Him time doesn’t mean anything. He can still look at the Garden of Eden. He can see Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac. He can also see our time today and the events which will happen during the Tribulation which is foretold in the book of Revelation.

Please seek Him as your Savior because eternity is a very long, long time to regret a decision from this life that could’ve changed your eternal destination. Think about it.

God is always near and He will never leave you…ever!

What is salvation?


Well…it depends upon what a person is being saved from? Salvation can be many things to many people. You can be saved from physical death by a seat belt in a car or an air bag or both. You could be saved from a life of being filthy rich by your circumstances or by God’s grace, whichever you prefer. Salvation, for a Christian, is being saved from the punishment of hell that we deserve but by God’s grace our faith in Jesus atones for all of our sins and allows us to come before Him with no blemish of sin on our person. You could receive salvation from drowning by someone throwing a lifeline with a float attached to it.

So you see, salvation can come to each of us in different forms and at different times but the one that most of us are seeking is our salvation from the punishment that we deserve for our sins. God is our Creator and our Savior which is why He came to live as a human for about thirty three years. He came so that He would know the temptations that we experience not to judge us for those but to call us into a life with Him. Sometimes the call that we hear from Him comes when we are young and sometimes we don’t hear it until we are a bit older.

There is one illustration that I would like to give here which points out the reality that our Savior gives to us and to no others in Creation.

“The life of Christianity consists of possessive pronouns” says Martin Luther. It is one thing to say, “Christ is a Saviour”; it is quite another thing to say, “He is my Saviour and my Lord.” The devil can say the first; the true Christian alone can say the second. Resource, July/August, 1990.

To claim our salvation we must come to a realization that we need Jesus in our heart to save us. God does that when His Spirit reaches down and touches your heart, breaks it and re-molds it into a heart that is ready for His gift. Sometimes this is painful but sometimes it is something that we have sought for a long time and in that instance it feels so good to get the burden of years of carrying the guilt and the shame with us all of the time.

Only a Christian can say “Christ is my Savior and my Lord”. If you can’t confidently say that is feel in your heart that it is true then you may want to seek the Lord for confirmation of your salvation. Do you believe it or are you just saying words? God came down as a helpless baby to live as we live so that He could identify with every emotion and temptation that we have. He saw and healed many diseases while He was teaching His disciples about the Kingdom of God and that He has healing for every disease if we will believe in Him for our healing.

Some people only say the words. Some people read the Bible but they don’t believe a word of it. Its just a book of stories and the history of the Jewish people. It is so old that it doesn’t apply to us today.

All of the statements in the short paragraph above are false with parts of truth in them as well. “Now, hold on preacher! The Bible is the Word of God, it can’t be a lie!” The Bible is the history of the Jewish people but some people read it like a book. Some just think it is too old to apply to us now, and there are many people who truly don’t believe a word in it came from God.

Why is that important? Because, God inspired the prophets and kings to write the words which make up the Torah, which is our Old Testament. The apostles wrote their accounts of Jesus’ ministry and Paul wrote most of the prison epistles from a Roman prison but even they were under the influence of the Holy Spirit. If the Word, the Bible, is inspired by God and His Spirit, then it is true and there is no other way to interpret it.

Finally, salvation comes to us by faith in the Holy Spirit which convicts us of our need of salvation. Then He points us in the direction of Jesus Christ Who is our Savior and Lord to believe in Him for our salvation to become real and genuine. After that we should read God’s Word to know what we should do with all of this joy and grace that we’ve been given!

Remember…


Today is a day that America can’t forget. Some people do seem to forget about what happened on that morning 19 years ago but when they are reminded…it all comes rolling back into your memory like the clouds of dust and paper and concrete that filled the streets of New York. Many people died that morning. Most of them were at work or going to work. Some were on the planes which were hi-jacked to be used as bombs. No, we can’t forget that day and the horror of it and the fear of what is coming next.

Just like the attack on Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning in 1941, those who lived through it could never forget where they were. But the difference between the two attacks, separated by sixty years, is a very dark one. The one which happened at Pearl Harbor was done by a government and its soldiers and pilots. The attack which happened in New York was done by religious fanatics. They didn’t belong to one single government or country. They were united by an ideology of hatred. That is why the war on terror has been going on for so long. There is no specific place or people to look for or to blame other than their religion and the ideology which is taught by it.

I don’t blame the religion of Islam for this because just as they have told us for years, most of them are peaceful. But also God doesn’t want blame to be placed on this religion or that religion. God does love everyone in the world but He doesn’t love the sinful ways that many of them live in day in and day out. God provides a way for you to find peace and joy in life if you will repent from what you have been doing or worshiping and seek your salvation in Jesus Christ. Believe in Him like the thief on the cross, believe in Jesus like a little child because your salvation and your eternity depends on it.

Whether you believe in Jesus or God or not right at this time doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we are not guaranteed tomorrow so the time to seek your salvation in Jesus is now! Today is the day for your salvation. Read the book of Romans and 1 Corinthians because Paul told every person that he met that your salvation and your eternity depend on Who you place your faith and your belief in and that Person should be Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Who do you think you are?


Many people think far more highly of themselves than they should. Some don’t consider the gifts that they have been given in this life and some are too prideful to even answer the question. As if answering it is demeaning.

Life in all of its wondrous glory and in such bounty on the Earth. From the smallest plankton in the ocean to the Blue whale and all of the land animals and birds and fish that God created with the Word from His mouth. Our scientists still haven’t found all of them yet. There are still some in deep caverns in the Earth or under the sea that mankind has never seen nor have they been cataloged. Many of them would begin a new branch on the “tree of Life” because they don’t fit any other life-form definition.

People tend to look at themselves as they are described by their job. A plumber or a doctor or a lawyer. God doesn’t see us as a vocation, defined by our job or vocation. He sees our heart, our soul and knows what we are able to do on our own. He also knows what our potential is as well. God created and wove our DNA together in the womb so He knows our abilities and our limitations as a human being. But, if you will indulge me for a moment, what about that point when we become more than what we were born with? “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Our hearts are different spiritually and our soul is brighter when God looks at us. When heaven sees us after we have accepted Jesus as our Savior we look a lot like Jesus. A little rough around the edges maybe and still a bit of dirt here and there but with time and prayer and washing in God’s Word, we will begin to look far more like Him than we did at first. The thing is that we don’t see ourselves as being clean, forgiven, set apart from the world, adopted into God’s family because we can still see our faults and our flaws.

Occasionally we will feel different. We may even have a dream that we are standing in God’s Presence but we will be on our face because we don’t feel that we are worthy of being there. At least, that’s how I feel when I come before Him with a prayer or a request. But, God doesn’t see your imperfections or your flaws. He sees your soul and your heart as being a part of Him and His Son. Yes there are a few things which need to be polished and buffed a bit, but after salvation your outward man is only an Earthly cover over the New Creation which came to life when the Holy Spirit came to dwell within you.

Once you have given your heart to Him and asked Him to come into your heart, you are a new Creation. Neither man nor angel but also not God. You are an adopted Son born because your Spirit changed you so that you have become His. Live as your destiny in Christ allows you to. Not serving your old master in sin but living every day as a Son of God!

Liars, killers, and adulterers too


Every person that God used in the Old and the New Testament were flawed people just as we are. They weren’t perfect. Moses killed and Egyptian before going into the desert to get away from being put to death for his crime. David, who was described by God as “a man after my own heart“, lied to one of his best friends after having an adulterous affair with his wife and then had him placed at the front where he would be killed in the fighting. Yet, David wrote many of the Psalms that we use today to carry us through tough times that we are having today.

Not one person on the Earth is perfect. All of us have done things which would keep us from God’s Presence but through the blood of Jesus and His atonement for our sins we are made clean. If we just believe like the thief did on the cross that Jesus is our Savior then we will be saved from an eternity of punishment away from the presence of God. Your life here may be or has been in the past one of the most unworthy of sinners, just as Saul said he was, but Jesus came to him on the road to Damascus and blinded him with His Presence. Then he sought the Lord until one of the Christians in Damascus came and prayed for him to have his sight restored and it was.

Jesus is the only One born of a woman Who had the Spirit of God as His guide for His whole life. He is the only One Who could’ve stoned the woman caught in adultery but He didn’t condemn her. He just told her to go and sin no more. Jesus knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep that promise completely, but what He told her to do was to repent of her adultery and never do that again. Be the wife and mother that she should be (this last is just my interpretation of His Words). God keeps up with even the sparrows and He knows when one of them falls from the branch dead. If He cares about them, doesn’t it make sense that He would care for us even more?

God has never said that He doesn’t care about us, even if we aren’t Jewish. The reason that Jesus came to give His life for our forgiveness was because of His Love for us. We are His creation and just as we love our children, God (Jesus) loves each of us. God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are all God and they make up the Godhead. It is through their work, their influence in our universe and their power which keeps the stars and planets in their places. Nothing in our world is unnoticed because they see it all from their view outside of our time. They can see when you were born, what you did when you were twelve and what you will do tomorrow.

Don’t think or consider that because you have hidden some of your sins, if any of them, from God. He knows what you think, what you are doing, what you are thinking about doing and what you will do. God is so far above our ideas until that is the reason that people who were granted a glimpse into heaven as a prophet or as someone who had a “after death experience” and returned to tell about it, yet they can barely describe what they saw. The colors were so much more brilliant and more than we see here, more vibrant, more green or blue than what is in our world. That is why the view of Heaven or the Jerusalem when comes down from Heaven is so descriptive of clear gold streets, huge pearls for the gates and a foundation which looks like its made of every precious jewel imaginable.

The mind of God is above ours and everything works exactly the way He wants it to work, good, bad or otherwise. Nothing escapes His notice and nothing happens without His knowledge of it. I pray that those of you who read this will read God’s Word and give your life to Jesus because whether you are ready or not, He is coming back for the church, His Bride.

Anger, hatred and violence


What we see on the news today did not begin with injustice on the streets, at least not the injustice that they are claiming started it. It began much earlier than just a month or two ago. Socialist ideas and ideals have been infecting our society for nearly sixty years and maybe more. The downfall of our society began, in my opinion, when the slave trade was in full swing over 200 years ago. Enslaving people to work for others who think themselves above “menial labor” is and always will be wrong!

While it is true that some of those who held slaves were African-American free men, it still doesn’t make the practice any less barbaric. Should anger over this injustice and the injustices of today make people angry? Yes, but burning cars and looting stores and tearing down monuments which were erected to honor those who fought against slavery does nothing to stem the violence and continued hatred and bitterness! Kinda like a wound that you keep pulling the scab from, it takes a lot longer to heal unless that is what you want to happen.

When prayer and the reading of God’s Word was taken out of public schools in ’63 and ’64 our country began a radical change. I’m sure that the Civil Rights movement would’ve come and made its mark with or without that omission but the riots and the activism which flared up in the latter years of the 1960’s might not have been as violent as they were if students were still learning from God’s Word. So many of the problems that we faced all through the decade of the ’70’s might’ve been avoided if the education system had stayed true to their roots and kept God’s Word as an elective at least.

Why do I pin the problems of the latter half of the 20th Century on this one decision? Go back and look at the SAT and ACT scores prior to banning the Word of God. Check the statistics of teenage pregnancy before and after the removal of God’s Word and prayer from schools. The entrance scores started to go down on the standard tests and the number of teen pregnancies began to go upward from the point where God’s Word was removed from education. You can find articles which verify this online.

God’s Word and the wisdom that it contains has always been a part of education, at least until the theory of evolution came around and educators began questioning its validity. So, why am I bringing this up in this post? Because most of the educators who are in our colleges and universities now are the same ones who were protesting back in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s. Refusing to allow people to learn from both sides is wrong but that is what most educator’s and the system that they work in are doing.

God loves us. Regardless of how you may feel toward religion or God or even Jesus Christ, you are loved by the Creator of the universe. That is why we should’ve kept His word, the Bible, in schools and in our education system. Not because we are trying to indoctrinate anyone but because of the wisdom contained within its pages. Giving your heart to Jesus and becoming a Christian is a personal choice and when you feel the Holy Spirit prompting you to accept Him as your Savior…don’t turn away from the opportunity. Because it may never come again. We are not given or promised the next hour of our lives let alone tomorrow or next week. When the invitation touches your heart I urge you to accept it.