Category: A new life in Christ

Confusion and anarchy


It seems that these two words define most of the “news” we hear or read about these days. Both of them cause the other so they just feed off of each other and no improvement is seen anywhere they happen to be. The Bible gives us a clear picture of what it will be like leading up to the time of the Tribulation and it is matching up pretty well. God’s Word doesn’t specifically name countries and people involved but reading Matthew 24 and Ezekiel 9 and the beginning chapters of Revelation they all read as if you are looking at today’s newspaper article (if anyone reads those anymore).

Jesus told His disciples that these things would happen, that it would be like the days of Noah before the end of the age. Persecution of the church is growing here as well as in other countries. Freedom of religion is being watered down so that it barely gives any freedom to the Christian church. Limits on what can be preached and where our religion is looked on as hate speech in some areas of the country. The country that we grew up in doesn’t resemble the America that you see on the news broadcasts. It has become much worse than I’d ever dreamed that it would and the reality is that it won’t get better regardless of the person in the White House.

We have to look up for our salvation and our Redeemer is drawing nearer every day.

God never says anywhere in the Bible that He hates the sinner. He only hates the sin that they live in. Those sins are given in God’s Word and I’m not going to list them here. Most people who are living in sin know which sins they are committing and they don’t have to be told. So why do so many in the world refuse to accept the mercy and grace that God offers through belief in Jesus Christ?

Partly because of pride in their own beliefs and traditions. Many refuse because of the requirements of their religious training as a child and because they will be disowned or beaten and sometimes killed for giving their heart and their life to Jesus Christ. Then there are some cults in the world that have changed the Bible into something that they can believe in but they have demoted Jesus to “a son” of God. Christians are taught that we should “turn the other cheek” but we should at least try to win our brother or sister or our best friend to Jesus Christ if they will listen. Telling family about Jesus is a very hard thing to do because most of the time the family has been to church together. You and your brother or sister may have been baptized in the church.

The problem is usually something that has been named “cultural Christianity”. Everyone that you know or grew up with has gone to or attended church. Everyone around you has heard the sermons and maybe even been baptized after a revival. The problem shows itself in their lives after being baptized. They live and work as if they’ve never heard about Jesus but they know about Him and God too. Usually they will even say, “The Big Guy and I have an arrangement”.

God doesn’t make “arrangements” with people and He isn’t the “Big Guy upstairs” either. God doesn’t like being represented by a carved image nor does He like being referred to by some made up name. He is God the Father, Elohim, or Yahweh but I wouldn’t give Him a name other than those found in the Bible. He is the Creator of all things and the Ancient of Days but no other name than these.

Living your life out of sync with the Bible and the way that is described in the New Testament after you have been baptized is incompatible with true repentant Christianity and it’s wrong. Why? Because if someone sees you living this way and you tell them that you are a Christian they will think that it is acceptable to go out and drink and do things that you wouldn’t want your Mom to see you doing. The reality is that God knows you and He can see every thought and every sin that you do, regardless of where you are or who you are with.

The Truth of Jesus’ ministry


There is so much evidence for Jesus and yet there are so many who refuse to believe in Him. There are thousands of historical documents which were written within a few years of His death and resurrection and still people refuse to believe what their heart tells them is true. Why is that? There are many reasons—pride, selfishness, ego, or just plain stubbornness.

Some of it is just plain stubborn pride. Pride in the works of others who didn’t want to believe the Truth. Pride in themselves because they were going to live their life the way they wanted to live it. The problem with that is this: they have no hope. Jesus gives us hope for the future and forgiveness for our sins. So what do you hope in? Who do you place your hope…your faith in? There is only One person that deserves your hope and your faith and that is Jesus Christ the Son of God!

The whole of creation shows us implicitly and without question Who we should believe in. So why do we try to place our hope in flawed human beings? Or in something that another person tells us is the “One”? All of these hopes that we make for ourselves…that we create for ourselves are just that…man-made and they do not have any power or purpose. The reason that we try to make or believe in something that is just another part of creation is because of Satan himself. He is trying to take as many people away from God as he can in the time that he has left and it isn’t much.

The reality of Jesus Christ is that He was with God at the beginning and He came to Earth to live with us and as a human being so He could truly identify with our pains and worries and our temptations. He is also coming back soon to take His bride, the Church, back to the place that He has prepared for her. The believers in the world are the Bride of Christ so you can believe or not, it is your choice. But the day that He calls the Church to His home is coming soon. Make sure that you are one of those who will be called home.

The prophetic blessing


Many churches today seem to be questioning God’s Word and its significance or even its truthfulness. Some are not preaching from the book of Revelation. They don’t preach about the end times or they don’t preach about what it means to be a Christian because they don’t want to offend anyone.

The blessing which God gave to Moses for Aaron to bless Israel with begins in the book of Numbers chapter 6: 22-26: …On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, 24 The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: 25 The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: 26 The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Why is Christianity offensive to some or possibly most people today? Because they don’t like a religion which tells them the Truth and gives them limits or rules to live their lives by. Are we supposed to water down God’s Word during these troubled times that we are living in? Absolutely not!! God’s Word doesn’t become washed out nor are we supposed to temper it with less force where it calls sin a sin so that people will know for sure those things which are pleasing to God and which are not.

The Bible is God’s Word and we are to teach all of it to our children and to those who will hear it. Today it seems that there are many who do not want to hear the Truth found in the Bible and that is sad. What surprises me is that some of the preachers and evangelists of the 20th century like Billy Graham and A. W. Tozer and others were seeing people turn away from sound teaching even sixty years or more in the past. The world around us has grown bitter toward the Truth found in the Bible today. Many churches and denominations have begun “watering down” their messages and that is not what we are supposed to do.

I am not ashamed of the gospel and I will not water it down or change its message to suit others feelings. A preacher should preach the whole Word of God without picking and choosing the parts that please men’s ears. Jesus didn’t back away from telling His critics what God’s Word says and we shouldn’t back away from the Truth found in it either. The whole Bible points us to Jesus Christ and He is our Savior and Redeemer and there is no other way to come to the throne of God except by belief in Jesus Christ as your Savior.

The blessing of God will not fall on someone who doesn’t believe His Word is true. Knowledge of God and His Scriptures is only knowledge and doesn’t save your soul. Believe in Jesus for your salvation and then turn away from your old lifestyle and live your life in service to Him.

God’s Word is True!


God’s Word was given to us for learning, correction, wisdom, and salvation because of Who it points us to. We are not supposed to change it or edit it in any way because God’s words and His wisdom is above every human perception. If any changes have been made in the translation of God’s Word it must still contain the same message and point to the same Savior, Jesus Christ. If there are any ambiguities or confusion causing language in the book you are using that is supposed to be God’s Word then you need a new Bible. God is Jehovah and He has many names which tell of His glory and His provision for mankind. Jesus Christ is the Son of God Who came to be the spotless Lamb of God to redeem mankind once and for all. The Holy Spirit is the Teacher and the Comforter and the third Person of the Trinity that is God. He is with you and everyone who calls on the name of Jesus Christ as their Savior. Seek Him for your salvation today because you may not have tomorrow to do it. He loves you and if you are convicted of your sins, don’t turn away from His touch.

Who is Jesus Christ?


This is a question which has been asked ever since His ministry began over two thousand years ago. How can I answer this question? According to God’s Word He is our Savior and the King of Kings. He is also the seed of the woman. He was the cloud by day and the pillar of flame by night to guide the Israelites in the wilderness. When they finally crossed over into the Promised land, Joshua met the Captain of the Lord’s Host with His sword drawn. That was the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ.

Our Lord can be our Savior if we invite Him into our hearts and believe that He is our Savior. So many times when the Israelites were going through the Promised land they turned away from God and went after the gods that those around them were worshiping even though these “gods” were not gods at all. They were a generation which had not seen the miracles of God which brought them out of bondage in Egypt. They may have heard about them from the priests or their grandparents but it is likely that they didn’t believe them.

Later, when Israel had been taken to Babylon, it was demanded that all of the people would worship the image of Nebuchadnezzar . When some would not, he had an oven made hotter than it had ever been. So hot that when he ordered the three to be thrown into the fire, the men who put them in were killed by the heat as they pushed Shadrach, Meeshach and Abednego into the furnace. Then the king looked into the fire and saw four men and one of them looked like “a Son of God”, and he called them out of the furnace. Their hair was not burnt, their clothes didn’t smell like smoke and they were not harmed because Jesus showed up in their fiery trial.

There are many other names and places where Jesus showed up in Scripture. Sometimes in a human form and sometimes He was there in the circumstances. Our Lord and Savior comes to us when that need is there. He is there during our hardest time and in our best day. If you believe in Him as your Savior then the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart and He will teach you about Jesus and be your strength when you don’t have any. He will be your friend when you can’t find any. He is our Provider and our Shelter. He is our Deliverer and our Protector. He is the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Great “I AM”. He is the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the Son of David and the Son of God. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the Commander of the Lord’s angels. He is Jesus Christ now at the right hand of God the Father.

Seek Him and you will find Him and He will fill that empty place in your heart and bring peace to your troubled soul.

God watches over the righteous


For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. 1 Peter 3:12 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/1pe.3.12.KJV

When you pray, God hears your prayers. If you are a sinner, the only prayer that He will hear is your prayer for forgiveness and repentance. After that, He will be near you every step of the way. God never turns away from a sinner if they are sincere about turning away from their sins. Only a prayer for forgiveness and repentance from a sinner will be answered instantly, if it is sincere. Just like trying to quit smoking or drinking will not work unless you truly mean it. God knows what is in your heart and He knows what you are thinking. It cannot be hidden from Him.

God does care about and He watches over all of us, sinner and saint alike, and His will for all will be accomplished because His will cannot be undone. The world around us thinks that they can change the future by their actions but the future is in God’s hands and it will happen the way that He says it will in His Word. Look to His Word for your peace and your salvation through Jesus Christ.

Another Saint goes home…


Life on Earth is getting harder to bear. More of my friends are going home to be with the Lord. Yes, we prayed for healing and God chose to heal by giving them their eternal body without disease or hunger or glasses. Life goes on here but I am truly looking forward to that day when the Trumpet of God is sounded and the Church, the Bride of Christ is called home. I don’t want to write much but I do ask for prayer for those who have lost loved ones to this COVID-19 thing! It is time for this to end.

We, and I mean all of us, are sometimes confused about God’s way of healing. Love works in ways which few of us can truly understand. Especially when it comes to God’s love which is deeper and more complete than any emotion that men or women can feel. Our emotions are not comparable to God’s. We ask Him for a healing, sometimes we plead for it for weeks or months, and we don’t see a healing happening…yet. But God has something planned. It may not be what you want or the way that you want it but God can see all of the options and His knowledge is boundless. He can see that one person’s death will bring about more than his or her life would’ve accomplished had they lived.

God is not being mean to the family because their faith will grow if they see that something greater is happening because of their witness in this life. Many may not have known about his ministry or influence. He or she may not have known that someone was changed or inspired in some way by their life or something that they said or did. God knows what it will accomplish and it is His will that it continue and it might not even begin had they lived.

God does things much different from the way that we think. Even the first miracle that Jesus did confused the people who had been serving the wine at the wedding in Cana. His mother called Him over and told Him that they were out of wine. He said, “What is that to me? My time has not come yet.” She still told the servants to “Do whatever He tells you to do”. He told them to fill six jars which held about sixty gallons each with water. When they had done so, He said to give a sample to the head waiter of the house. Then the man said that most people serve the best at the beginning of a celebration but you have kept the best until later.

Those who have been healed by taking them into eternity hopefully were followers of Jesus Christ. Some may not have believed in Him for their salvation but their death may still influence someone to change their life. God allowed His Son to pay the price for ALL OF OUR SINS so that we could have an eternity with Him. A strange way to save humanity when most of them don’t even believe in God or His Son. It is because of His great Love for us that He has for all of us. Did my friend believe in Jesus for his salvation? Yes! I envy him right now because of the wondrous sights he is seeing, especially because he is reunited with his Daddy and his grandparents. Yes, I envy him because I can’t see those wonderful sights until I am there and I’m looking forward to it.

Are you following Jesus?


When Jesus called His disciples, He asked them to follow Him and they did. Some of them learned a lot from following Him and listening to His teachings. One of them was dissatisfied with how things were going. He wanted a King for Israel and one who would defeat the Romans and push them out of Israel. But…that was not the reason for Jesus’ mission at the time.

So, are you following Jesus or are you hearing the preacher tell you about Him and then going your own way? Believe it or not, there are more people who are in church just listening than there are who are following Jesus every day and every step of the way. Some who read this will want to know how to follow Jesus every step of the way and here’s the answer: read the Bible each day, praying that He will speak to you about your day and your problems.

God will do that if you are serious about reading it and learning from it exactly Who He is and His love for you. Even if you only read a chapter each day it will focus your thoughts on Him and you will have those Scriptures to help you in your time of need. The thing is: when you read God’s Word, the Holy Spirit can and will speak to you through it. You will never read the same verse twice and get the same message. It will always be a different more useful message even if you’ve read it 100 times!

Walking with Jesus is the same today as it was when the disciples walked with Him. Get up from your bed and thank Him for giving you one more day to live and learn from Him. Go through your day thanking Him for even the little things which seem insignificant but they touch your life or your thoughts in some way. Thank Him for your food and your job and the ride home. Be in a worshipful mood of thankfulness all day because He has given you this day to learn from Him. Thank Him for your day before you go to bed and thank Him for a home to sleep comfortably in because there are so many who don’t have even that “luxury”.

Make this a daily habit and your life will be so much more complete and secure.

You have led captivity captive


Psalm 68:18 Thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.

What did the Psalmist and the Holy Spirit mean by this scripture? One of the interpretations is that the whole world was and is still captive to sin in this world today, but when Jesus Christ came He made it possible for us to be led from the captivity of sinful living and into the “captive” life of a follower and believer in Him. That is the one that I choose to believe today.

Today, there are many of us that are captive to many things in life. Our work, our family, our TV or the Internet, our children or grandchildren and sometimes we are captive to bills that need paying even into our retirement years. It seems that we never get away from something that keeps us as “slaves” to whatever it may be. Even when we give our lives and our heart to Jesus there are certain things which we refuse to give to Him because those are special to us and we want them just for us.

It is usually those special things which cause us to fail at being His servant or His voice in the world. Because of those things that we don’t want to give up or give to Him, we can’t or won’t completely give our life and our being over to Him. It doesn’t take much really. A small part of your life that is important to you, that you want to keep doing or working on yourself but you don’t want God to have it. Have you ever thought about the truth of this matter: you have things which belonged to God first and He gave them to you.

Think about it. Abraham had to face it and many others did as well. Moses followed God and obeyed Him so that the nation of Israel was born out of Egypt. Moses had to go through all sorts of trials and tribulations for forty years because of the Jews decision not to believe God. In order to be obedient to God we should give Him ALL of our being and our family and our possessions because they were His before they were ours.

God loves all of humanity. Regardless of your nationality or your skin color or your culture. He created this world so that we could have a place to live. He named all of the stars and placed them where they are so that we can look up at them and see His handiwork and believe in Him. Our real problem is that many people will worship the creation rather than the Creator. We walk proudly through our life and tell Jesus that we can guide our life just fine on our own. But when a true problem comes along that we cannot handle such as a deadly accident or a diagnosis of cancer or some other disease….that is usually when we run to the Savior and plead with Him to help you with it.

Won’t you decide to follow Him today and give your life to Jesus? If you have ever felt the touch of His Holy Spirit prompting you to come to know Him please don’t turn away from His call. Because not one of us knows when our last day of life will be and we need to have the assurance that our eternal destiny will be with Jesus Christ. Just the knowledge of that assurance will relieve many anxieties and fears for many of us. God doesn’t want you to spend eternity in hell away from His Presence so please make sure that your heart belongs to Him today. I will be praying for all who come to this blog because God has asked me to. Thank you for reading and if you know someone who might benefit from this site please direct them here.

The Word…


On the morning of Creation when God’s Spirit hovered over the waters and He decided that it was time to act, The Word of God said “Let there be Light!”. John begins his gospel of our Lord’s ministry with these words: 

The Beginning

(Genesis 1:1-2)

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made

Jesus was and is the Living Word of God. There is no debate on this and no discussion needs to be done. Those who believe in Jesus as God’s Son will believe it and those who reject Him will do that as well. So…which will you be? The person who wants to believe in Jesus but is afraid of what your friends may say? That person who knows that the Bible is true and that they need salvation but…not right now? Either one of these people might get away with NOT accepting Jesus as their Savior and Lord for a while but it could be bad for them in the long run. Following your friends or choosing to put it off for a while puts you in a very slippery situation.

You have no idea when you will die. It could happen in a car wreck tomorrow or you could get sick with this COVID-19 and be in the ICU for a while and then die…the outcome is the same. You are now standing before God as your Judge without Jesus as your Savior. Will your righteousness be enough to get you into heaven? Nope. There isn’t a single person on Earth who is righteous enough without Jesus to get into heaven. That one decision has caused your eternity to be very different than it could’ve been.

It’s something to think about. Especially in this time that we live in where people can get shot and killed in their car going down the street. Please seek out Jesus as your Savior before you stand before God without Him.