The baby in the manger…

The angels told of a child born in Bethlehem, the city of David, Who was the Savior of all the world. They even made sure that they told the shepherds about His birth first. So why don’t we follow Him and try our best to walk in the way that He did so many years ago? Why are there many in the world today who claim that He didn’t exist or that He wasn’t Who He said He was?

Those who claim that He wasn’t the Savior or the Messiah are the ones in our world today who want all kinds of social programs and an easy life. This is not the way which Jesus taught His disciples. He told them that the world would reject their teaching about Him and that they would have troubles and trials in the world. Particularly when they were doing what He had told them to do. Why does our walk with Him bring trouble into our lives? Because Satan doesn’t like it when we are doing God’s will and working for Him in this life.

God loves each of us and we can choose to follow Him and do His will or not but the end of the story is this: what did you do when you felt His touch in your life? Did you answer His touch and give up your old ways and follow Him and learn what His will is or did you tell Him to go to hell and leave you alone?

Unfortunately, many people do exactly what the second part of that question point out. The problem with that answer to God is that you may end up in the lake of fire with Satan…for eternity. No party, no 70 virgins, no having fun with the devil in hell because he doesn’t rule there, God is still in charge regardless.

Make sure of your destination after this life BEFORE this life is over because there are no second chances once you have taken your last breath here.

God’s Word is real in our time

What in the world do you mean by “God’s Word is real….”? According to the apostle John, Jesus was and is the embodiment of God’s Word. He was alive and He is alive today. But…do you believe that He is the Son of God? If you don’t then your faith is too weak or you don’t have any to begin with. God is the One Who gives us faith to believe in Jesus for our salvation. We don’t just decide to become Christians, He has to touch our heart and draw us to Himself. Some people think that they can help God save them but we can’t. Everything that is needed has been done through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, your Messiah if you will believe in Him when you feel His call in your Spirit.

Some people think that they don’t have a “spirit” but if you are alive and reading this you do! God placed His spirit inside you to remind you of Him and to lead you to Him one day when He touches your life and you realize that you truly do need Him as your Savior. Now some people get really good at ignoring that “small voice” which speaks to them in their time of temptation and need and that is not a good thing. Ignoring the Spirit of God is much worse than ignoring a teacher or your Mom or Dad. Why? Because His call on your life can mean the difference between a living eternity or one which is called “the second death” because you will be separated from God forever. He is the giver and sustainer of Life and when you are sent to Hell because you chose to refuse His call then that is where you will spend eternity.

You don’t get sent to Hell because of a sin that you committed although refusing to listen to God’s voice could be a sinful and disobedient act on your part. You are sent to hell because it was your decision to live your life the way that you wanted and not the way God had planned for you. That is what caused the Fall of man in the Garden and every other sinful act since then. The root of all of these sins is pride. Pride in what you think and how you feel and how you act. Pride has caused many kingdoms to fail and many people to fail until they realize where that “pride” will take them.

I’m not saying that pride is bad though. Being proud of an accomplishment or of your child’s accomplishment in school or work is a good thing as long as the pride doesn’t go too far. When pride is misplaced in a person or their accomplishment and it grows out of proportion to what they have done, it becomes the doorway to many sins. God’s Word says that “pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall“, so listen to His Wisdom and not your own. Remember, He formed you in the womb and He knows what you are capable of doing, even better than you do or even better than your parents.

How much more…

We are too comfortable in our plenty. When we wake up in the summer most of us have a cool house to live in. We go to jobs or other places where air conditioning keeps the temperature at a reasonable level regardless of the temp outside. The same goes for our winter homes. Most of us have heated, comfortable places where we can enjoy everyday life, even when we have to go to work. So…how much more should we expect from God?

In the news almost every day it seems that there are children and some adults who just won’t be satisfied with what they have. Every Presidential candidate that is running against our President wants to offer more free stuff to everyone. Free health care, free income whether you have a job or not, college education for free. That is not how a republic works! Who is going to pay for all of this “free” stuff? Someone has to.

Things like these and more stuff is not what we were put on this Earth to chase after. We are to be about the work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. That is what the empty place is in your life and what was in mine too, many years ago. Every person is born with an empty place inside but we aren’t born with the knowledge of what fits in it. So most of us seek all kinds of things which will make us feel complete and whole. But the only thing which goes into that place is not a thing at all, it is Jesus Christ.

It is our spirit seeking Him which makes us long for something until we find our Who that is. That is why we are always looking for a way to be fulfilled in our lives. We are living with an empty place that cannot be filled unless we ask Jesus to come into our hearts and fill us with His Spirit and He makes us whole and complete. God loves us and He know who is looking and seeking Him and who is not. Those who are will have a chance to be complete and full of His Spirit. Those who think they already have Him may be deceived into thinking that they “have an arrangement with God” just like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. Their “righteousness” was based on their own knowledge of God’s Word and His Law and they didn’t think they needed salvation or a Savior.

Unfortunately, there are many people today in that same place with respect to their salvation. Many of them don’t think they need Him…but they do. One day soon they will find out and on that day they will realize why they felt His call on their lives and regret their refusal of His Grace.

Do you know Jesus as your Savior?

God loves you so much that He sent Jesus as the perfect Lamb of God to take your sins and mine so that we can be reconciled to Him. We don’t have very long, because we aren’t given a certain number of years to live. I may die in a few minutes, you might die in a few minutes but you can become a child of God through confession and repentance and accepting Jesus as your Savior.

This is the only reason that I am writing here. I can’t make a trip around the world, but with God’s blessings and His Spirit working through these words, I can get His message out to the world. I pray that God will t touch your life and your heart and draw you into His family.

Thank you for reading and please tell someone else about my messages here. If they don’t know Jesus, maybe they will be drawn to Him when they visit.

God has known you much longer…

God knew us before the foundation of the world, our world. It was Jesus as the Son Who formed Adam from the dirt and clay mud in the Garden. Since God lives outside of our universe, He is outside of time as well. He sees the beginning and the end just as we can see the driveway at our homes from the beginning to the end.

God loves each of you far more deeply and with more intimacy than we can imagine. That is why it hurts Him when you reject His gift of eternity through Jesus the Christ. I pray that everyone who reads this will be touched enough to seek out their Savior in Jesus. God reaches out to those who are willing to hear Him and He knows who you are. If you feel His touch in your life, please don’t turn away from it.

God is not done yet

We are useful to God in many ways and our life is a work in progress. He can use our talent in many ways if we will follow his ways. But, you have to work with Him. Learn from Him and from His Word because if you don’t, you won’t know His voice or His wisdom.

Not one of us is born into our life on Earth or our spiritual life with Jesus knowing how everything works. We have to grow and learn as children and when we accept Him as our Savior we have to grow in His Wisdom and through the knowledge which is given to us through His Word. It is a process just like going through grammar school and high school and college. We are not born knowing how to add or subtract and we won’t know how to handle the hardships of life as a new Christian if we don’t read and study the Bible.

It takes commitment and determination to learn about the wisdom found in the Bible. Most people who call themselves Christians today only read it when they are at church. There are very few people who read it daily. Even if they do they aren’t reading it in a prayerful, answer-seeking way. Some are just reading it because they are trying to read through it in a year so it’s more akin to a college assignment than a religious commitment.

God uses many ways to bring us to the point where He needs us to be spiritually. Sometimes, He uses illness or a setback in our business or our finances. Sometimes it may be a death in the family which brings us to Him so that we will seek His answers to life’s questions. You need to realize this: He is never really finished with your learning. You will be learning and growing for many years into eternity. Just because we are given a renewed and glorified body and mind when we get to Heaven, doesn’t mean that He dumps all of the knowledge that you will ever need into your brain.

We are never “done” with learning or with life, if you are a child of God and have accepted Jesus as your Savior. God doesn’t have favorites but He does want a relationship with each one of us if we will follow Him.

God is present in your past and today!

Jesus sees us as clearly in our darkness as He does in our light. Our vision may be limited in times of darkness and fear, but His is not. God knows your hard times and your weakness in those time but He is present in them as well. He said that He would never forsake us and He never leaves your side, even if you don’t know Him as Savior yet.

In Genesis 22: 4-8, Abraham was doing what the Lord God had told him to do. He was taking his son, Isaac, to a mountain to worship God. But, God has also asked that he sacrifice his son on that mountain and he was obeying God. In verse 4-8 the Scripture says: “Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again unto you“. Right there is the faith of Abraham. Because God had told him to sacrifice Isaac on that mountain but with his faith he told those young men that they would come again unto them.

Abraham wasn’t senile, he knew what God had asked of him but he also knew that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead if He allowed him to kill his only son. He didn’t know about the ram that would be there…yet. When Isaac asked about the sacrifice, Abraham again showed his faith in God by saying “the Lord will provide Himself a lamb for the burnt offering”. God did exactly that.

In our lives today, whether you are a Christian believer or maybe you are curious about salvation, God can supply you with the faith to believe and be saved from your sinful life. He has already paid the price for your soul through Jesus’ death and resurrection and all you have to do to receive it is to believe in Jesus as your Savior. There is no amount of money that you have to give, there is no amount of work that you can perform which will help Him in any way to complete your salvation because it is already complete in Jesus. God allowed His Son, Jesus, to be sacrificed for our sins even though we didn’t deserve the tremendous grace that would require and we don’t deserve His grace and love even now, but He loves us anyway.

God has prepared so many good things for us through the riches of Jesus and His love for us and yet many people think that believing in Him is just too simple. They believe that they have to help God save their souls. God created this entire universe with all of the stars and galaxies and planets ALL BY HIMSELF, He doesn’t need our pitiful strength or our tiny amount of money for anything. He does ask for our obedience and for our belief in Jesus as our Savior. It doesn’t cost us anything but the realization that we can’t do it all by ourselves…we NEED Jesus Christ!

Giving your heart to Jesus because you know you need Him to save your soul from hell is the easiest and best decision that you could ever make. Sometimes it is the hardest decision too, but consider the consequences of your eternity if you don’t. All of us have an eternity after this life is done, but your location depends upon your decision now, today. Jesus said that there are two paths to eternity, one is broad and many people find it and one is narrow and few people find it. The broad road leads to hell and the second death, the narrow pathway leads to heaven and an eternity with Jesus. Which road will you take?

Only God can forgive

Luke 5: 17-24

Jesus Heals a Paralyzed Man

17 One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord’s healing power was strongly with Jesus.

18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus, 19 but they couldn’t reach him because of the crowd. So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.”

21 But the Pharisees and teachers of religious law said to themselves, “Who does he think he is? That’s blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!”

22 Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts? 23 Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’? 24 So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”

In this story, Jesus proved Who He was to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, but they didn’t want to believe. The fact that He knew what they were thinking should’ve given them a clue and the healing should’ve nailed it down too…but they were blind to Him and His fulfillment of their prophecies. So why wouldn’t they believe? It was likely that they were jealous and it became worse with His fame growing.

God sent His Son to His people so that they would believe and be saved from their sins. A few did believe but there were many who did not, even with the miracles that He performed. Even when He raised Lazarus from the dead after four days in the tomb, many who saw this miracle did believe but when the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees were told of it, all they thought about was that Lazarus would have to die too.

Why did the religious leaders refuse to recognize Jesus for Who He was? Even the name Nazarene had been prophesied years before He came, but they refused to see it or were blinded by their jealousy and by Satan too. God is still using dreams and other means to get to those He is drawing to Himself, even in lands where Islam is the dominant religion.

John 3:16 says: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life”. Seek Him out today! He is waiting for you to call on Him for your salvation, so answer His call on your life!

No one is worthless in God’s sight. You were worth God’s Son going to the cross so you could have eternal life!

Text messaging for God

I know, the name of this post sounds a bit funny or weird but in the age that we live in it is not really that far fetched. Jesus told His disciples to go out and take His message, the gospel, to every person beginning in Jerusalem and then to the ends of the Earth. In today’s tech-savvy society blogging and text-messaging for God works just as well and through Twitter can reach a very large audience in a very short time. No travel required.

I am not saying that we should look at our work for the Lord on this platform or any other Internet platform as a way to avoid going on mission trips, but it does reach out much farther than most of us can afford today. Jesus said to take His message out to the world, He didn’t tell anyone how to do it. This is one of the ways that gets the job done.

God loves all of humanity, but there are places where mission trips are not allowed and are not safe. They aren’t safe for the people you are trying to reach and they aren’t safe for you either. I know, we have God protection on us and your faith in Him will be tested if you depend upon that protection alone. But there are so many places in the world and there is very little time to get the gospel out there.

Jesus came to bring the news that belief in His sacrifice would bring salvation to many and it does. With our help, through the platforms available to us, we can get His message to many people and I pray that there are many who are giving their lives to Jesus through hearing of His message. I pray that many of you who read my blog are doing the same thing so that even more people will come to know Jesus as their savior.

Jesus came to bring salvation to everyone, and we should tell as many people about Him as possible.

The I-phone person

In this day and age that we live in everyone has a phone. A connection to the Internet and to anyone that they want to reach out and touch. This is a period in time that many of us thought would never really happen…but it did. I’m not speaking of people who use and own Apple products. I am talking of people who can’t be themselves without their phone!

You’ve seen them or heard them in stores or on the street, at the gym or even at a movie. They can’t seem to stop talking! Sometimes you will be going through the grocery store and you will hear bits of a conversation and if you happen to keep running into that same person you will hear it until you decide to move away from them. It seems that they can’t get away from talking into their ear-buds which are attached to their phone either by a wire or wireless.

Many times I have wondered how they can get any sleep? Or even if they sleep, do they talk in their sleep? Is their phone always as close by them at home the same way it is out in public?

How much would the world change if we used our Bible as much as we do our phones? If we lived our daily lives in contact with God in the same way as we seem to be with our phone and our friends, we could impact the world for His Kingdom and it would make the world a better place. In the beginning, God did have a close relationship with Adam and Eve. He walked with them and taught them things, even though it isn’t written down in the Bible. I mean, how else were they going to learn?

God has always wanted a close relationship with us and at times He has had that with some of His prophets and disciples. But He wants that relationship with us today and we push Him away because we don’t have time or today isn’t a good day or some other excuse that is meaningless in the grand scheme of life. If we read the Bible as religiously as we read posts on Facebook or check it for advice like we check our emails, our world would be radically changed from the impersonal world that we live in to a world where God has more influence over all of our affairs.

Think about that today before you pick up your phone and pick up God’s Word a few times at least. Read some passages in Proverbs or Psalms today before you head out to shop or go to work. Pray about what you have read and think about what He says in those passages that you read. Then ask Him to show you the reason for your life being a little off balance and ask Him how it can be fixed. He will tell you, if you will stop talking long enough to listen.