Psalm 31: 14-16 says: “But, I trusted in the thee, O Lord, I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; save me for thy mercies’ sake”.
Why should you trust in the Lord? Because being a truly changed Christian requires it. Trust is also another word for faith or “having faith in”. God is our Creator and our Redeemer and the faith that we should have in Him for our salvation is necessary for that salvation to be real. If it is not there, then your salvation may not be real either. Going a bit further, trusting in Him is the only way to know God and His Son as your Savior.
So, why do people in our world today seem to believe in things that have no eternal meaning? It seems that people will believe in many things today that have no basis in fact at all and cannot be proven scientifically but they will argue with you feverishly over their “beliefs” even when they cannot prove any of them. Jesus came to the Earth to bear the sins of the world and to pay the penalty for all of humanity. Whether you believe in Him or not or even if you have accepted Him as your Savior or rejected His offer, He still came and paid the price for your soul. That is how much God values your soul.
Even if only one other person accepts Jesus as their Savior, God knows who you are and He values you enough to pay your way into heaven by believing in Jesus for your salvation. When you feel broken and hurt and depressed, God is there waiting for you to turn to Him. He can heal your heart and the problems that are weighing on your life. He can give your life a meaning that it has never had before, regardless of your background or any of your sins in your life…He loves you!
When you are younger, growing up is not easy. Oh, we enjoy recess period at school and we enjoy our summer breaks but there are many things that we don’t enjoy. Homework, tests, pop-tests, falling and skinning your knees…all of these things are hard and hurtful at times but they help us to learn. So…are you grown up? Some of us are and some of us are keeping back some part of our life to keep from being grown up into maturity.
Have you given your life to Jesus and asked Him to come into your heart to be your Savior? Have you surrendered your life to Him fully? A fully surrendered life is given as a definite, deliberate, voluntary transfer of undivided possession, control, and use of your entire being to the Lord Jesus Christ to whom we rightfully belong. He paid for your salvation and mine through His death, burial, and resurrection and since He is our Creator, He is entitled to our whole being. But, we must voluntarily give it to Him.
This is something that we have a very hard time doing. We are individuals and we enjoy being free to do as we please. But when you give your life and your heart to Jesus, you have to give Him the whole of yourself, not just a part of you. This is what I’m talking about when I mentioned being “grown-up”. Maturing as a Christian is not an easy task because we want to have control over many parts of our lives. We need to seek His counsel in every part of our lives not just our spiritual lives. He wants to be involved in all areas of your life. Why? Because He loves us!
The problem comes because we live our lives daily for many years without thinking about Jesus. We go to grammar school and sometimes junior high without considering Him or even His ways. Sometimes we may even live through college and into our “adult” life without Him fully in our life. I don’t understand how people can live like this but it seems that many do. Living a life that is surrendered to Jesus is a conscious, deliberate decision and it is one that we must do every day. It isn’t easy but it can be done with the help of the Holy Spirit. Doing this or trying to do this on your own will not work.
The little planet that God created for us to live on is the focus of His attention in the universe. Why? Because the people that He chose to bring the Messiah into the world through are here. God created the universe and our little planet too. He created the stars and galaxies and all of the life that is on our little planet and He did it to make life interesting. When sin was brought into our world it corrupted all of creation, not just mankind. That is why there are so many problems and things that are not right in the world. One day in the future, the corruption that sin caused will be taken away. What a wonderful day that will be.
Seek Jesus and learn to be His disciple every day. Grow up in your faith and in your walk with Him so you can be more useful to Him and His Kingdom. It will take time but it will be worth it.
God grants each of us a “measure of faith”. When we are called to become a child of God, adopted into His family, He gives us the faith to believe in His Son for our salvation. Without faith, we cannot believe! Even the smallest amount of faith will enable you to do more than you can without it.
Faith is something that Christians have that many people don’t understand. Some of us who have been Christians for a few years don’t understand it. We know we have it or we wouldn’t have given our hearts to Jesus. We know God gave it to us because without it you can’t please God or come to know Jesus as your Savior. The Bible says that “faith is the evidence of things hoped for and the certainty of things not seen“. With faith in God’s Word and in Jesus, we know that His Word is Truth and that no power on Earth can keep God’s promises from coming to pass.
Jesus is coming back. There will be a day of judgment on those who have rejected Him. There will be a 1,000-year reign of Jesus on Earth as our King! God always keeps His promises. It really doesn’t take faith to believe this, but it helps. We are near the end of the “Church age” and the very next event will be the “rapture” (taking away) of the Church, the Bride of Christ. When that happens, the whole world will know that God’s Word was telling the truth. At least, those who have ever been in church or heard a sermon about this will know. Everyone else will be blaming it on aliens or swamp gas or who knows what else.
I pray that everyone who reads this will be part of the Bride of Christ because the world is going to become more like hell on Earth after we are gone. Seek Him out and read the Bible. Learn about Him and ask Him to be your Savior. It won’t be impossible to become a Christian after the church is gone but it will be very dangerous to be one.
When I was a lot younger than I am now, listening to adults give me advice was the last thing on my list of to-dos. I imagine it was the same with most of you who read this blog. When you were a teenager adults didn’t know anything. As you get older you realize that they did know more than you did at the time but you didn’t want to listen to them or their advice.
Lots of times we are the same way in the church. When we are there we may hear what the sermon is about but we don’t listen to it very well. How do I know this? Because I did it myself. If you asked me on Monday what the sermon was about on Sunday morning, I couldn’t tell you. Actually, I could tell you this time. It was about the vision that Ezekiel had of the angels who marked those in the city who were concerned about the sins of Israel and those who were not. Those who were not even included some who served in the Temple and it was those who were killed.
God cares about everything that we do but He is very interested in the things that we care about that align with His. When you love those things and people that God loves and hate those things that He hates, then you are more like Jesus which is what God desires for us as His followers. Life is promised to those who follow Jesus’ ways and do the things that Jesus told His disciples to do.
When I see the news today and hear the things that are going on today, the only conclusion can be that we are living at the end of the last days. I pray that you will seek to know Jesus if you don’t know Him as your Savior yet.
The Living Message of Christ 