Category: Abide in Him

Which way do I go?


It depends on who you follow in this life. If you are more interested in doing your own thing and just living for today, then your eternity may not matter much to you, at least right now.

If you have felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit at any time in your life and feel that you should give your heart to Jesus regardless of your personal preferences now, then eternity may have a real surprise for you.

Why have I done this post in this way? Because it truly is your decision in this life which determines your destination in eternity. Many people seem to think that when they die, they are buried and that is that. Some people think that they can influence their destination by their own actions in this life. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it is wrong.

According to God’s Word, our works and our influence have nothing to do with which eternal destination will be your home. The only determining factor is whether you have believed in Jesus and His atonement for your sins for your salvation. If that saving belief is not a part of your life at some point before you die, then you may not be in the worst part of hell but you won’t be in heaven.

All of us come to a crossroad at some point in our spiritual life on Earth. Both paths look similar when you are given the choice and at least one path may look easier to follow. The other may look a bit narrower and possibly require a bit more work to follow spiritually, but the choice is still there: which one do you choose? Can I choose one and then move to the other? Sometimes it works that way if you choose the easy path and then find that it is leading you to a place you really don’t want to go. If you aren’t truly sincere about your choice and you choose to follow Jesus on a trial basis then you can move over to the easy path later if you wish.

Why am I pointing out these different choices? Because everyone on Earth comes to this crossroad at some point and it really is your choice today which will determine your eternal home. Why is the narrow pathway harder and more difficult? Because you have to follow Jesus and that requires a commitment on your part. One which is deep and true, like a marriage. Because when you commit to following Jesus, there really shouldn’t be any second thoughts about your decision. You can feel it in your soul and you know that it is True.

“and to dust you shall return…”


God created Adam from clay, sculpted him and then gave him the Breath of Life, so why did he mess up so soon after? It wasn’t because of Eve, although many people do blame her. It was the tempting words of Satan and the seed of pride which was placed in his mind by Satan. Pride itself is the tap root of all sins, regardless of what sin it may be.

All of us are susceptible to the lure of pride and all of its children. No one is immune from sin’s touch or the consequences of it unless you belong to Jesus and you have His Spirit in your heart. I don’t mean that you will be able to live a sinless life because only He could do that. But you will have His strength to help you resist the sin which you are tempted with, if you will acknowledge Him as your Savior and lean on Him during those times when sin comes to pull you toward something that you know isn’t right.

Adam could’ve resisted but he didn’t and so could Eve, but she didn’t. It’s in our nature to be susceptible to sin but we don’t have to give in to it again and again. Living a successful Christian life is possible if we stay grounded and connected to Him daily! Not just once in a while or on Sundays, it has to be a lifestyle of living in the power of Jesus every day. When you get up, thank God for another day. As you go through your day, ask Him to strengthen you as you face your trials and temptations throughout the day. Then as your day comes to a close, thank Him for getting you through it and ask Him to strengthen you for tomorrow.

Do I do this every day? No, I’m not as faithful as I should be but I do thank Him for each victory during my day regardless of the nature of it. Some days I do better than others, some days I do forget to thank Him for the problems that come my way to test me. But, usually before the day is a total waste I do thank Him for His blessings on my family and for all of the good things which He has prepared for me, even if I didn’t see them today.

Unless we are called up to heaven before we die, all of us will return to dust but until that day comes I will praise the Lord and you should too.

Seek Jesus as your Savior while you can. Life on Earth is too short to lose eternity because you waited too long.

Life is a gift!


Life is your gift from God so what will you do with yours? Would you seek to be a famous person or an athlete in a professional sport? There are times when we need to step back from the demands of the world around us and seek out God’s perspective of things. But…do we do it?

Many of us do think about it but then our everyday life gets in the way and our time with God gets placed on the back burner and it may be awhile before we think about Him again. That is not the type of relationship that God wants with us and it isn’t the kind of relationship that we were created for. God intended for us to have a daily relationship with Him. Not just a weekly or monthly meeting while we attend church, if we attend church services.

Unfortunately, there are many people today who do not identify themselves with any faith at all which is truly sad. Our Creator loves each of us and whenever we feel His call in our life we should respond to that call and give our heart to Him. In the world today though, there are many who hear Him but they aren’t interested in a relationship. They like their life and the way it is and many consider God or Jesus an obstacle in their way. They think that the rules of the Bible, God’s rules, don’t mean anything to them in the 21st century. Those “old rules” are outdated and dusty and they don’t apply to our lives now.

God’s Word is fresh and relevant for today but only if you read it through the eyes of faith and with your heart turned toward God. If you read it as a book, without faith and without a relationship between you and Jesus then it doesn’t make sense and it is just a book of Jewish history and rules. I pray that anyone who is truly looking for a Savior will give Jesus a chance in their life and seek Him out by reading the Bible. Start in the New Testament with John and Luke, then move on through Acts and Romans. By the time you have read these books, God’s Spirit will have planted a seed in your heart and very likely has got your attention.

Don’t go through life without Jesus from this point on because when you do that life doesn’t have much meaning. From a Biblical point of view the news looks and sounds different because it is fulfilling the prophecy found in God’s Word every day. It may be only a small bit of fulfillment today or tomorrow but eventually the pieces will fall into place and when the church is taken from the Earth, the world will get much worse before it gets better because God’s judgment is coming. Make sure that you are part of those who are taken before that happens.

Life…


Life is not fair.

Life sucks!

Life is hard and I can’t deal with it!

Have you ever heard some of these excuses? They are pretty common today but they weren’t always the “normal” sound of growing up. Why has this happened?

It happened when parents became “friends” with their children and stopped using discipline to raise them correctly. It happened when the educational system became so politically correct that the “education” that our children have been exposed to is warped and useless.

God had to deal with some complainers back when He freed them from slavery. They weren’t free for three days before they began complaining about the food and the water or lack of it. They wanted to go back to being slaves! It seems that today our country and much of the world is heading toward a socialist way of government but nobody remembers that most of the socialist governments have failed! We don’t teach that in school anymore. We only talk about how terrible people have been to “people of color”, regardless of their country of origin.

God loves all of us because He is our Creator! It doesn’t matter what the shade of your skin is, Jesus paid the price for your sins and mine. But if we can’t recognize Him as our Savior then we will be punished for that lack of humility and end up in hell! But there are “religions” which tell you that hell doesn’t exist and it isn’t eternal if it does. Really? That isn’t what my Bible says and that is God’s Word which is the absolute Truth! So, if you want to call Him a liar be my guest but I’m going to be on the right side of the throne when He speaks to you.

God is Pure and Holy and He can’t allow sinners into His Presence. So unless you are the second version of Jesus and perfectly holy, I suggest that you get your life under His control and ask Him to be your Savior today, before it is too late.

After the rain…


When the sun shines after the rain…thank God. Even the frogs praise God after the rain.

When life goes on when you don’t feel that it should…praise God!

When tomorrow comes after you have lost someone you love…thank God

When you feel like you have lost your best friend…thank God. Why? Because if you are a Christian your best friend is God and you haven’t lost Him because He never leaves you.

Hope is never gone or absent from our lives regardless of how we feel or the circumstances because Hope lives because of Jesus Christ.

He is the Hope of Eternity and the Prince of Peace. He is your Savior and the One who died for your sins. Don’t despair because today feels dark and yesterday felt worse than today because Jesus is in control of all of it and He will strengthen you to bring you out of your dark place.

Your future…


Have you ever thought about your future? I mean in eternity, not next week or next month. We are not guaranteed tomorrow or next week or next month but eternity for your soul is guaranteed. In either hell or heaven with God. It doesn’t matter whether you believe that there is an eternity ahead of you or even whether you believe that God is our Creator…eternity is still in your future.

Our works or our belief of God’s Word, whether it is true or not, has no bearing upon your eternal home. Just as your belief in gravity has no effect on its effect on you, whether you believe in God or not does not erase His Presence in your life and in your eternal home. While it is true that you must believe in Jesus for your salvation and repent of your sins there is no way that your lack of belief will get rid of the punishment if you don’t believe in Him!

God loves His creation and we are all His creation but if you choose to do things your way and live the way that you think is right for you and you choose to walk on your own pathway…God will let you do that too. Why? Because it is your choice to believe and be saved through Jesus Christ! God will not force you and you do have that choice but what will your eternity be like if you do live apart from Him? You don’t have control over eternity. You can’t raise yourself up from the grave. You are not god.

Why did I add that last sentence? Because there are some who actually believe that they are or will be a god. The operative word in that is “a”, you will not be God. He doesn’t share His throne with anyone besides the Trinity of Himself, the Son and the Holy Spirit because when one of Them is on the throne ALL of them are there! God loves you and the Creation which He has given us and He will raise you up on the last day. If you are a Christian, you will be with Him forever in Heaven but if you never accepted Jesus as your Savior you will be shown all of the times when you had a chance to accept Him and you did not! Then you will be sent to hell.

Being saved is not a choice that you make it is a calling from God Himself. He touches your soul and convicts you of your sinful life and when you feel it and know it then you seek out the only One Who can save your soul and heal that wound. There are no amount of works or money which will bring you into heaven because without Jesus as your Savior, you will be going to Hell. There are no gray areas or holding cells for those who haven’t made up their minds yet. You either are saved or you are not.

Only Jesus can save you and He is God!

He is risen indeed!


The day after the Sabbath the women went to the tomb in order to anoint Jesus’ body with spices and oils to complete His burial ritual. But when they got there, the stone was rolled away from the tomb and the burial cloths were on the stone bier but His body was not.

He is risen indeed!


We owe our salvation to the work which Jesus did and our eternity is assured because of His resurrection. What more needs to be said except that you need Him as your Savior? God loves you and has provided a way for you to live in eternity with Him but only if you accept His offer through Jesus. Just like the thief on the cross, you have to believe in Who Jesus is and ask Him to come into your life. Repent of your old life and walk in the newness of a redeemed life through Jesus Christ.

Separate, but why?


Separate? Why?

There are two camps in the world today. One is on the side of religion and the other doesn’t believe in any intelligent design or god. Granted, there is a fairly large gray area between those two and that is where many people have their ideas about who God is or who He is not or even whether there is a God at all. The limit of this could be shown by two mountain ranges and a deep valley between them. Our Savior didn’t teach this separation of beliefs so why did it come about?

With time stretching out since the crucifixion of our Lord and His promise to return, mankind has gotten some pretty “out there” ideas about how to serve Him or not. So, in truth, it is our ideas and our desires which have caused all of the divisions between believers and non-believers. Then there are divisions even in churches and denominations also caused by us.

The message of salvation is still the same as it was, to begin with. Believe in Jesus, ask Him into your heart, repent of your “old way of doing things” and follow Him.

Truthfully, believing is the biggest part of accepting Jesus as your Savior. Just think about the day that Jesus was crucified. One of the thieves believed in Jesus as the Savior and asked if He would remember him when He came into His Kingdom. What did Jesus tell him? “Today, you will be with Me in Paradise”.

We are not meant to be separate from God or in our belief about Him and our salvation, so what happened? In the past two thousand years, it has been our ideas and our desires to do things our way instead of truly following Jesus. We have tended toward the belief that “we know better” in our religious practices. Really? How could you possibly know better or more than God our Creator? He placed all of the stars in their galaxies and in the orbits where they are. He formed each of us in our mother’s womb and He knows you better than you know yourself. All of the universal laws and constants were put in place by God so how can we think that we are smarter than He is?

While it is true that many other religions are in the world and have been for thousands of years, God is still in charge of everything. Like it or not, He is the Creator and it is to Him that you will give an account of your life and your decision about your salvation. If you accepted Jesus as your Savior during this life, then it will be to Him that you will account for what you did with your salvation. Did you tell anyone about your Savior and what He did for you? Did you live your life as He would have so that others might see Him through your life?

Many things that we should do in our lives and being a disciple of and an evangelist in some way during our life as followers of Jesus Christ is the least we can do. I pray that many of you who read this will give Jesus a chance to be your Savior.

The night before…


Regardless of which day you believe that Jesus was crucified, the night before was His worst. It started out good with the meal with His disciples but then as the hours passed, He knew the time was getting closer. The time in the Garden of Gethsemane stressed Jesus to the point of sweating blood while He was praying. I mean, come on, sweating blood! You know that had to be some serious stress!

No, I’m not being trite with this. Jesus’ human side was truly scared and wishing, even praying that He didn’t have to go through with this. But, He did and He did it for you and for me and everyone else in this world. Why? Because His sacrifice and death on the cross was necessary to pay for ALL of our sins. He was the only man who could do this. Not the Pope nor any other religious figure in the past could pay for our sins because none of them could live a sinless life.

The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That is Who Jesus was and who He still is. So why do people have so much angst over His name? Is it because He claimed and proved that He is the Son of God? Maybe. His suffering was prophesied many years before He was even born and yet the prophecies all were fulfilled in His Life and His death on the cross and by His resurrection after three days. Regardless of how you calculate His death and the feast which was taking place, He still fulfilled the prophecies about Himself. No mere man could do that!

Jesus, Yeshua, the Son of Man and the Son of God is the only man who could be the Savior of the world and the only begotten Son of God! If this bothers you enough that you never want to read this again…then don’t. Walk away from His Spirit which is touching your heart and letting you know that you need Him as your Savior. It will be the worst mistake of your life if you do. Why do I say that? Because you have no idea if you will ever have the chance to give your heart to Him and ask Him into your life. We are not given a guarantee of a certain number of years on this planet. You or I may die tonight before the sunrises tomorrow.

Don’t turn away from His call in your life because that is a call you don’t want to miss. It is like a call from a “lottery” about a number that could make you rich, it will likely come only once in a lifetime. Don’t pass it up. Giving your heart to Jesus is more valuable than any amount of money you could win because in eternity the money you have here is worthless. Please, don’t turn away from Jesus.

Jesus gave His Life so that you could have eternity.

No one is an accident…


We are not accidents

Psalm 139

1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, a God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them, my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

God doesn’t cause accidents in His creation and each of us is a person that He caused to come into being for a reason. He has a purpose for you and for me and for all of those on the Earth. What that purpose is only He knows. He has given each of us gifts and abilities to be able to glorify Him and to be useful to Him in His Kingdom. So we need to start acting like we have a place in His Kingdom. If you don’t want to have a place in His Kingdom, that is fine. He doesn’t force anyone to be a part of His design and His will for His creation. Our God and Savior is the only pathway to Heaven, there is no other. Seek Him while you can find Him because when the shout comes and the dead are raised incorruptible and the church rises to meet Him, the easy time of coming to Jesus will be over. The time of “Jacob’s trouble” will be upon the world and giving your heart to Jesus will carry a death sentence soon after. I pray that all of you will be counted among those who rise to meet Him in the air. Amen