Fixing things…

It begins in the church. The humbling for the world and the United States in particular begins in the church! We, as Christians, need to give up ourselves and seek God as our Lord…but we don’t know how. Even when we’ve been in the church all of our lives. So many of us spend every day looking for a path and we haven’t turned loose of ourselves yet!

We have to crucify ourselves daily like Jesus said, to realize our place in His calling to us. God’s call on our lives is more serious than most of us realize because of the “things” we need to give up. Our problem is those “things”, whatever they may be. To some people, those are big items and sometimes we have a hard time even considering giving up our personal “idols”.

Nowhere in Scripture is it referenced in a way for us to know the “how” of giving up ourselves and the parts of our lives that have become “idols”. That is the part that makes Christianity and being a Christian hard to understand and do. Truthfully, we don’t know how because no one else knows how to teach the “how”. Reading and studying God’s Word prayerfully and sincerely will teach us a little bit about the “how” but it’s not an easy lesson. We are not taught in our lives how to place our lives down as a sacrifice daily and follow Jesus in His teachings.

Sometimes we don’t find a way to do this until we are broken in our spirit by something happening in our lives. It could be a loss in your family or it could be God getting your attention by your own “demons” like alcoholism or drugs or something else that brings you to your knees. Until that happens most of us won’t surrender our lives to Him until we hit that wall and realize that we can’t do it on our own.

Leave the 99

Just as Jesus said this to His disciples, it is relevant to us today. If your child was lost in a store or a mall, it wouldn’t matter how long it took, you would drop what you were doing and look for that child until you found them! Most of us would discipline that child when we did find them but the point is we would search diligently until they were found.

That is what God does with us. When we are His and we have truly given our hearts to Him, when we go astray He will seek us to bring us back. The desire of your heart will be to get back to Him because we know Him and He knows us. If you only think you know Him, this won’t work. You can step away from Him and after a little while you won’t even feel the need to go back to Him because He wasn’t in your heart to begin with.

Unfortunately, there are many people today who fall into that last group. They might be a member of a church or they’ve been raised in church for most of their lives. They know scripture and have been in Sunday school many times. They have plenty of “head knowledge” of Jesus. They know about Him but they don’t know Him. This is where the revival in the church needs to begin today…in the church!

God loves you!

We have a Helper!

‭Romans‬ ‭8:26‬ ‭KJV‬ [26] Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. https://bible.com/bible/1/rom.8.26.KJV

It’s all He wants

Decisions

I’ve heard many preachers say that we have to decide to “trust in God’s ways and give our life to Him”. This is true, but the Holy Spirit must convict us of our need for God before we will make that decision. We can’t just go through life and one day decide on our own to ask Jesus to be our Savior and make it happen because on our own, without the Holy Spirit’s conviction, we won’t do that. Before I became convicted that I truly needed Jesus as my Savior I didn’t think I needed Him unless something was beyond my control. Even then, if I prayed to Him about it and it worked itself out like I thought it should I would sometimes say “Thank you”, and go on my way. I didn’t give much thought to the process or the One Who is really in charge until I became a Christian and began studying His Word.

Mankind, in his/her natural state, will not seek God’s help until their circumstances force them to. When you come to the end of your ability then you will seek the One with the ability to take care of the problem, whatever it may be. God loves us but He didn’t want people who would be like an automaton and not love Him too. He will allow us to mess up our lives, sometimes spectacularly, to the point that we realize we are at the end of ourselves, and His Voice, the Holy Spirit can get through all of our “chatter”. We hear Him and realize that we need Him more than anything else.

The reason for our need is not because we made the decision to follow Jesus on our own but because we realize through the prompting of the Holy Spirit that we can’t live our lives without Him. For some people this is when they will tell God that they can live without Him just fine…and they will. But they will be doing it on their strength and in their ways. God won’t be a real part of their life other than as a little voice that reminds them occasionally that He is still there…waiting for them. Sometimes they think that because they hear or feel this “small voice” they are His and are “all right with God”. Satan is the one telling them this. Remember, Satan convinced one-third of the angels to follow him in rebellion so he is very good at deception.

Many in the church believe his lies. Some of them are in the pulpit. The church has become weak in its faith because of the lies and doctrines that have been made up by twisting Scripture out of context. The church at Laodecia and the letter written to them is a prime example of the church today. The church today, regardless of its denomination, has become prideful and “self-sufficient” in its beliefs. I pray that anyone who reads this will ask God to show them where they are in their walk with Him.

Hope in Jesus

https://blogs.crossmap.com/stories/hope-beyond-sight-trusting-in-what-we-cannot-see-AmshfXjzMMHhddvaBdgLr?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Trusting+in+What+We+Cannot+See&utm_campaign=Crossmap+Daily+-+January+24%2C+2024

We need to ask!

Life…

Every day we live we are celebrating the life that God blesses us with. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s easy but we should celebrate each day. God loves us but there are some things in our lives that He doesn’t approve of. Some of them are things that we do and we don’t think about them. We think about things and do things that we take for granted.

Ask yourself this question: Would Jesus go with me here or approve of what I’m doing? I know that sounds like the WWJD bracelets that were popular for a while but if you are a Christian, that’s exactly how you should live your day to day life.

He said for us to take up our cross daily. That means we are supposed to nail our old way of life to the cross every day and follow Him. Think about it.

Do you know Him?

Believe it or not, He is coming back for the church and that includes everyone who believes in Him as their Savior. If you’ve only heard about Him or maybe you never gave your heart to Him, I’d suggest seeking Him as your Savior. Eternity is a very long time to be in hell, make sure that you’re not.