Your life in Christ

We need to be ourselves because Jesus called us to be His. He chose you. Not someone that you will become with more education or study. Although the studying and the learning will come with following Him, He called you as you are to be…well, you. Each of us has a specific trait that He needs and that the body of Christ, the church, needs. There is something that you can do or say that nobody else can. You can reach someone with His message that the pastor can’t reach. You can tell the story of how Jesus has touched your life and that will make a difference to someone.

Christ touches our lives when we believe in Him for our salvation but He also lives through our lives to take His message to others. His Spirit lives in you if you have believed in Him for your salvation and it is this life that others will be able to see. Taking His message of love and forgiveness to the world doesn’t mean that you have to go overseas to be a missionary. You can take His message to your family or to those you work around or work with every day.

When I said that you don’t need to have degrees to prove that you are serving God that is what I meant. All of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen but they had been to school at their synagogue. They had learned and even memorized a good bit of the Old Testament by the time they were teenagers. The Bible is the best book to teach us about God and about life too. God’s wisdom is contained in His Word so the more you know about His Word, the better you know Him. That is why I read through the Bible at least once every year from Genesis to Revelation. Then…I go back to the beginning and start over.

I used to wonder why people would do that but I found out that God’s Word doesn’t really repeat itself. You do read the same words every time but the message that your heart and your Spirit get from it is different every time. God’s Word is what we should read to learn what His will is for your life but it also is alive and it reads your Spirit while you read it. So your Spirit will receive the wisdom from the same words that you need right now. Just because you have read Psalm 23 many times, the words and the wisdom change when God sees that you need a different message.

God gives us all of the wisdom that we can handle and it is contained in His Word. His love for us is beyond anything that we can imagine or conceive in this life. On the day when we stand before Him, we will know the depth of His love and feel it too. If you don’t know Him as your Savior yet, I suggest getting to know Him soon.

Be glad to worship Him!

Do not return evil for evil

God will be with you!

God loves you!

If you have never thought about that before now…it is the most amazing realization that you can have! The Creator of the universe loves you! Not just the human race but each one of you! Consider that for a moment.

God wanted to spend time with Adam and Eve in person in the Garden and He did for a while. The most amazing part of this story is that He is going to do it again! He has redeemed us through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, and the only part that we have to do to receive His grace and forgiveness is to accept Jesus as our Savior, believing that He did this for me and for you!

Isn’t that the most wonderful news that you could hear especially today with all of the doom and gloom in the media now? God loves you! He loves you whether you have accepted Jesus or not but He doesn’t care for the life that many of us lead every day. By giving your heart to Jesus and reading His Word and praying for strength to be His every day, you can be more like Him than you could possibly be on your own.

Living the life of a Christian is impossible without His strength and His Spirit inside you and you only get those when you come to Him in faith believing that He will do what He said He would do. By accepting Jesus as your Savior and confessing that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness, you can be adopted into God’s family. Give Him a chance to show you how much He loves you in this life so you can spend eternity with Him after this life is over.

Praying, you are talking to the Creator

Without excuse

I thought of you when I read this quote from “God is Like a Geyser: 30 Day Devotional For When You Are Waiting on God or Geysers” by Chris Stanley –

“For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense. – Romans 1:20 (Amp)”

Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/iDSO92h

I’m not sharing this to make money, because I don’t. I’m sharing it because we are without excuse when it comes to the evidence of God in His Creation.

What did the cross do?

The tree that was used to make the cross that Jesus was crucified on has nothing to do with your salvation. The image of the cross that so many of us wear today doesn’t do anything except remind us of the One Who died on the cross for our sins. Some people have many crosses in their homes but not one of them helps us to know Jesus as our Savior. Crosses only remind us of the death of Jesus the Christ Who took the world’s sins on Himself to pay the penalty for ALL of our sins so that we can come to Him and be saved from an eternity of destruction in hell. Your eternal body will not be destroyed in this but it will feel the pain and suffering for eternity because your body in eternity cannot die physically. But being in hell you are completely separated from God and His love for you.

The ground at the foot of the cross is level. No person will have any special treatment at the cross or at the judgement seat when each of us stands before Him. It will not matter how much fame or money you have or even how much you have done for the poor or for others who deserved your help. What will matter is that you have accepted Jesus as your Savior and that you have followed Him daily. Some of us have tried to do this in our own strength and failed miserably at it. I did. But, when God’s Spirit finally showed me what I could not do on my own, then I gave my heart to Jesus completely. It didn’t happen on that one day of my decision. I had to read and pray and learn to be His because our hearts are attracted to the world around us. We don’t want to belong to Jesus. We want to do what makes us feel good.

By surrendering to Jesus you can become more like Him. It doesn’t happen immediately but it will happen when your heart is truly broken and you know deep down that you are doomed to hell if you don’t surrender to Him. Nobody wants to spend eternity away from God in hell, but that is where you will go if you don’t turn to Him and ask Him to take you in as an adopted child of God. He doesn’t want you to spend even one minute in hell but if you decide not to follow Jesus or you put your decision off for a while and something happens to you before you can make that decision, then you have sealed your eternity in hell.

God’s love for us is deeper than we can imagine because He is our Creator. He knows you more intimately than you know yourself but He still gives you the free will to choose to follow Jesus or not. Why would God do that? Because love and sacrifice cannot be forced they must be given freely. Forced sacrifice is not sacrifice. Forced “love” is not love at all. That is why the one verse in God’s Word that illustrates it so well is this:

John 3:16-17

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Don’t turn away from God’s call in your life and in your heart. When you feel it, act on it in faith and believe in the One Who saves completely.

He is still on His throne!

Where can I find the Truth?

You can’t find it in the disciplines of man or in any religion. The Truth is only found in God’s Word. God’s Word is the Truth and the Truth is found in Jesus Christ. He is the Truth, the Life, and the Way to get to Heaven. Without Him, you can’t get in the gate. Many people in the world today do not want to hear this truth and we don’t want to live by the Truth of Jesus Christ. If you are doing this don’t expect to be taken up when the trumpet sounds one day.

Seeking the Truth in God’s Word and living by that Truth every day, not just on the days that you worship. Every day! Thank Him for waking you up today. Ask Him to help you to walk in His ways today. Pray to Him for His blessing on your food and for your work. Seek Him during the day and on the way home from work. Being curious about Jesus and salvation does nothing to save your soul. But asking Jesus to come into your life and your heart will bring you into eternity with Him.

God knows your heart and your life. He knows exactly what you have done and when you did it. You cannot hide your sins from Him. If God has a plan for your life as a servant of His you will come to know Jesus soon. Don’t turn away from the call on your life when you feel it because you don’t know how much longer you will have to make this decision. I pray that you will soon make this choice.