Category: Abide in Him

Coming or going?


Our church is having a homecoming service this weekend, today actually, and I was wondering this morning about whether we are coming or going? Are you going to church or coming home from church? Will you be coming to the homecoming or going to a home-going one day?

What do I mean by a home-going? I am speaking of one of two totally different events actually. Either you will die and awaken in Heaven or the Trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will rise and those of us who remain will be caught up in the air to meet Him! That is the home-going of which I speak. We are only visiting the Earth for a while and during the times in which we are living, we are very close to that day of which Paul speaks.

When our home-going takes place, the world will be changed dramatically. All of the Christians in the world will vanish, graves will open and the bodies of those who believed in Jesus prior to their deaths will rejoin their Spirits in the air to meet Jesus! The world will be perplexed and wondering what is going on. Many won’t understand,  but some will know because they have been to church many times, they may have gotten baptized at some point in their lives but they never gave Jesus another thought after that.

Those people who have been in church at some point in their lives will know what happened even if they were left behind. Life on Earth will get progressively worse because the Tribulation will begin soon after these things.

Why am I writing this on a day when we are having a homecoming? Because there are many people who don’t know Jesus even if they come to church, that’s why. God loves every person on the Earth, which is why He sent Jesus to pay for their sins, but He knows that all of them won’t give their lives to Jesus and ask forgiveness for their sins. I pray that most of you who read this will consider that God loves you and Jesus died for you, so please ask Him to forgive you and grant you salvation through Him.

IamtheWay

How much more?


How much more will we have to live through in this world? Wars, pestilence, murder, abortions, gangs, and violence of all kinds, perversion of all sorts on TV and on the Internet and it seems to be getting worse! When will the Lord put an end to all of this?

There is an answer to that question. When He returns to rule the Earth with a rod of iron, that is when all of this will end. Until that day comes, people will have to live with it or through it until He comes. His return will happen AFTER the seven years of the Tribulation which will bring hell to Earth and many millions will die during that time.

Not a very good future to look forward to is it?

heaven-or-hell-eternal-destinyIf you are a Christian in your heart and you are taken up when the dead in Christ rise prior to this time, then you don’t have anything to fear. If you are not a Christian or if you have been “playing” church and going through the motions but never gave your heart to Jesus then you will have to endure as far as you can through the Tribulation.

God provided a way to come to Him through Jesus and be accepted into Heaven but if you haven’t given your heart to Him and have just pretended to be a Christian or maybe you think you gave your heart to Him, yet you live just like everyone else then your future may be in jeopardy. This is a hard truth to hear, but it must be said because when the church, those believers who have truly been following Jesus, is taken up with the dead in Christ…life is going to be much harder on the world and living in the world will be more dangerous than it is now!

I am not writing this to say that those who are Christians are better than everyone else, but we are forgiven and made into a new creation by giving our hearts to Jesus. Playing church and acting like a Christian on Sundays because you’ve been a member of a church for many years doesn’t change anything. Unless you have truly been convicted by the Holy Spirit and have given your life to Jesus and changed your ways from what you did before knowing Him, then your life is still a part of this world.

VineandBranchesIf you are still a part of this world, then you are not destined for Heaven. Take the time to examine your life and your heart. Are you doing things which you would do if Jesus were with you? If He came to your home tonight, right now, would He find your lifestyle acceptable or would He need to tell you a parable to get your attention? How much of your life would Jesus approve of?

All of us, even preachers, have something in our life or in our home which would probably not meet with Jesus’ approval entirely because none of us are perfect in any way. We can’t keep the Ten Commandments without breaking at least one every day, therefore we have broken them all at some point. I pray that each of us will seek to walk with and follow Him until He comes to take us home. Amen

I will rejoice in the Lord


Habakkuk 3: 18-19: “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will be joyful in God my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.”

When you get a bad diagnosis at the doctor’s office, rejoice in the Lord. When your day doesn’t go very well for you at work…rejoice in the Lord. When you wake in the morning, rejoice in the Lord!

Why do we need to rejoice in the Lord during times of good and in times of bad things? Because we are to give thanks in everything and rejoice in the Lord Who is your Strength and your shield in times of distress and in good times as well. God is always near to His children and even to those who don’t believe in Him and His goodness. He will be there when you call because He is always near you regardless of your circumstances.

There are some friends of mine and some family members too who are going through treatments for cancer or joint problems or recovery from surgeries or from the loss of loved ones and yet God is present in all of their daily problems or in their rejoicing over a good outcome. He is near to all of us when things are good, even though we may not seek Him in those times. He is also near when things aren’t going so well and in those times we usually do seek His favor and His help.

Regardless of your idea about how you get salvation or even prove your salvation, God is near your heart and He loves you. Jesus died for you and paid that debt, all that each of us need to do is to turn to Him when we feel His touch in our hearts convicting us of our sinfulness. If you haven’t done so, please seek Him out while there is yet time in this life.

You don’t get a second chance after this life is over, regardless of what Satan may tell you, he is a liar and always has been. Jesus has never forsaken anyone but there are many who have turned away from Him because of something that they heard from someone else and they believed them rather than Jesus.

I pray that all who read this will seek Him out in your time of need or in your time of good fortune because it is God Who gives you the strength to live through both.

What is the Truth?


For many people in our world today it seems that the “truth” is relative to your situation, whatever that may be. Relative truth is a truth which changes with your area whether it is your business or your residence or the country where you live. But, why is the truth so flexible today? Is it because people don’t want it to be a certain truth? Or maybe it is because each person wants their truth to be one way and they don’t care what your truth is?

The truth of the matter is that Truth is from God and only if you believe in Him will you accept the Truth from His Word!

Our world today seems bent toward NOT accepting His Truth because it is an absolute and they don’t like the absolute part of it. God loved us enough to send Jesus to pay our sin debt in full so that we could learn about His Truth and His love for us through Him. Yet today, we don’t want to learn that Truth and we try as hard as we can to push it away from our schools and our homes.

Many people want to know why is there so much violence and hate in the world today and it is because we have pushed God and His Wisdom out of our education system and out of our homes as well. Many churches today even preach a more “acceptable” gospel, one which makes everyone feel good about themselves rather than preaching His love and His grace to all who will hear it.

Jesus didn’t pull his punches verbally when He spoke to the priests in the Temple and we shouldn’t water down His gospel when we preach it to those who are listening either. God loves you but He will not accept your sinful life into Heaven. Which is why Jesus and John the Baptist said that we should “repent of our sins and be baptized”. Baptism isn’t required to be saved, but it does symbolize the death of our old life buried with Jesus and resurrected to walk in a new Life with Him!

Your old life is what you were convicted of when the Holy Spirit touched your heart and let you know that you were sinful and you needed to be saved through the blood of Jesus. Place your old life, whatever it was, on the cross and leave it there to die. Then ask Jesus into your heart for your creation into a new Creature in Jesus! From that day on, walk with Him, read His Word and pray about what you read so your mind will be renewed along with your Spirit!

Jesus said “seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened” because no person is turned away if they are sincere in their search for salvation. God wants all to come to know Him, but there are few who will make that commitment to Him. Walking every day in the newness of Life which Jesus gives to us is not an easy walk or task. It takes discipline and commitment to walk as He did and learn from Him each day. Which is the reason that it is a pathway or a stairway to Heaven when following Jesus. The way that many people find is the one which they feel comfortable walking and it is not leading them to Heaven, even though Satan makes them think so.WhereAreYouGoing

What is freedom?


Freedom is the ability to enjoy certain liberties without being persecuted for enjoying them.

The dictionary meaning of freedom is this: the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. “We do have some freedom of choice”

  • the absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.

We enjoy freedom not only because of the sacrifice of our soldiers in times of war and peace, but because of our law enforcement officers and other emergency response personnel too.

We also enjoy an amount of freedom from the burden of sin in our lives when we have given our hearts and our lives to Jesus and repent of our old way of life. Being a Christian is not just saying some words and getting wet by being baptized, it is a lifestyle and a relationship with Him. When you have given your life to Him you can enjoy the freedom that comes with it knowing that you have walked away from your old life.

Our freedom in Christ also gives us the ability to do and say those things which need to be said and done in the presence of others who may not know Jesus. Turn away from the drinking and smoking and give thanks for your freedom today so that others may want what you have in this life and may move on to an excellent eternity in the next.Pray-for-strength

Who is God?


Well, that is an easy and a hard question to answer because God is God! He told Moses that He was I AM. So how do we make sense of that? In some ways, most of us try to put Him in a box or we try to see God as being like us or maybe like our father or grandfather. While picturing God and your father or grandfather is flattering to them, it puts limitations on God and it gives Him some very human characteristics which God does NOT have!

We think that God is mean or hateful or maybe He really does love us but He expects a lot from us which we think we can’t accomplish. God’s ways and thoughts are so much above ours until we are all like little children to Him. He is not a human being although Jesus did come to live as a human for a time, so God does know the limitations and our temptations through the life of Jesus.

God is our Creator, meaning that He created everything in the universe including you and me and anyone who will be born in the future or who was born in the past. God is everywhere because He exists beyond our dimension of time and space. He can be wherever He looks or thinks or even whenever He wants to be. God is indescribable because we have no point of reference to know His nature or His face except for the descriptions of Jesus in the gospels.

When Jesus walked the Earth, He was the embodiment of all of God’s nature in human form. So, as we read about the things which He did and said we can get a glimpse of God in the flesh of His Son. Reading the Bible is the only way to know the mind of God because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit so all of it has come from God’s wisdom and has been imparted to us through the writers who made sure to get the words right.

God is the only god in our universe yet many believe that there are others. These “others” are the demons and fallen angels who followed Satan in rebellion who have deceived mankind to make them believe that they are gods and are not. To know the mind of God and to know Him you must read and study His Word, the Bible. The letters and books which are within its pages are all that we need to know Him.

Seek Him out while you have time in your life to make sure of your eternity in His Presence because there is no second chance after your death.

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God’s Hand


God’s Hand has moved since the very beginning of His Word and recorded history. It was His hand which flung the stars into the heavens and it was His hands which placed the Moon and all of the planets in their orbits along with the Sun itself. It was by the hands of God that the first man was created and formed from the clay and dirt in Eden and by God’s breath, the man became a living soul. It was God’s hands which took a rib from Adam’s side to form a helper for him, perfectly suited for her task.

In the Word of God, His hands have moved nations and kings, people and circumstances, so that His will for our salvation and for the world’s salvation would come about the way that He knew that it should. Does He move in our lives today in small ways and in big ways to bring about that which He knows we should do for His glory and for our good?

I believe that He does exactly that! We may not perceive it before we feel the need to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, but many times each of us could’ve been killed and we weren’t. I believe that it was at those times when His hand or maybe an angel that He sent intervened in our circumstances and kept us on the path toward His usefulness for us.

God used the circumstances of Joseph to save the nation of Egypt and his family too which grew into the nation of Israel while in captivity. If all of the things which happened to Joseph had not happened the way they did, things would’ve been much different. But God orchestrated all of the things, good and bad as we read of them, in order to place him in the position of authority to save his family from starvation. God still does these…adjustments today in our lives each day. Whether we see them or not. A car veers off before we are in a wreck, or an old tire doesn’t blow out on us even when we are driving too fast. All of these “little miracles” which we don’t see or even know about are happening all around us. We may find out about them when we get to heaven.

Why do I write about this today? Because of all the small miracles which do happen and we don’t know about them, God is using them to bring His will to bear in our lives and in the world around us. Would we call them miracles if we knew about them? Probably not because many of them are just small adjustments in our commute to work or in how we swallow our food one night or some other things which, to us would be insignificant but they affect our lives in ways which we cannot know.

Yes, God’s hand is still moving in our universe today and in our immediate lives too. Not just in Christian lives but in every person’s life on Earth. Some are moved in a way which we might see one day as an act of evil and even though God didn’t cause the evil which they did, He allowed it to happen because something else good would come from it. There are many things in our daily lives which we see and don’t perceive as His hand in our lives and we might not recognize them as such but those small decisions which we think were ours, were actually God’s way of moving us in the direction that He wanted us to go.

I pray that your life will be full of some small decisions or adjustments in your routine of work and life so that God can and will use your life to bring others to a saving knowledge of Jesus.

Are you free?


This weekend in America, we are celebrating our Veterans and the sacrifices which all of them have given in the cause of freedom. From those in the Revolutionary War all the way to the war which is ongoing against terrorists today. Every man and woman who has served in a conflict of one type or another should be recognized for their service. The question remains, even today, are you free?

We believe that we are and have freedoms which few in our world have but do you truly enjoy your freedom from tyranny and persecution and the freedom from a possibility of war coming to your country? In my country, there are no guarantees anymore. Granted, war is not likely to break out any day but there are still criminals with guns, even in places where the laws are very tough on ownership of guns. Freedom today in America comes with a sense of anxiety sprinkled in because wherever you go someone may not like the car you drive or the clothes you wear and decide to shoot you just for fun.

No, freedom is not free. Our military men and women have paid the price for what we enjoy and Jesus paid the price for our freedom from the burden of sin as well. It was a high price to be paid because He paid for the sins of all, not just from the day of His crucifixion and resurrection. He paid for the sins of the entire world which came before His birth in Bethlehem as well as for all of the sins since then up until the end of the world!

God sent His Son to do this so that we could find freedom through Him. Not the freedom to sin and then be forgiven of it over and over, but when your heart is changed completely and you realize that you are a sinner in desperate need of His grace and mercy, this burden of sin is lifted and frees you to become the person that God intended for you to be from before the world was formed!

There are many who think that they are “saved” because they walked down the aisle at church one day and said a few words and then submitted to a baptism. But…performing a ritual of motions like those will NOT save your soul, only by believing in Jesus can you be saved! The belief which I am speaking of is the deep and heartfelt belief that He came to give His life for your soul. Not the feeling of “I need to get saved because my friends are doing it”. You are only following the crowd when you do this and it doesn’t really change anything.

When your heart is broken because of the sin that you have lived with for a very long time and you realize that God can’t let you into Heaven because of it, then and only then will you fall to your knees and know that you need Jesus in your life and your heart. If you don’t do this or if you think that you have some sort of arrangement with God about your soul, I can assure you that you will go to hell when your last breath is taken on this Earth.

Only the belief in your soul that you are a sinner, unclean and bared naked before God, will bring you to the point of giving your heart to Jesus! Only this action will save you and if you have not given your heart to Him fully and learn to walk with Him daily, then you will stand before God and before your “imagined” Savior and you will be judged as a sinner who remains unclean and is destined for eternity in hell.HELL-105818653518

The smoke of their torment rises for eternity. That is a long, long time to know that your eternity could’ve been so much different. Make the right choice before it is too late. Give your heart and your life to Jesus and ask Him to make you clean and whole in Him.

 

Grace from the Cross


Jesus paid for our sins when He died and rose again, so why do we decide not to believe in Him? Is it too easy or is it that we don’t want to know Him?

God loves each of us and yet there are so many in the world who deny His love and His mercy. They seem to think that they can make it to Heaven without Him. The Scripture tell us that Jesus is the way, the truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him.

May the Lord bless you and keep you in all of your ways. Amen.

Are you broken?


I have wondered about this many times in my life. I have even asked myself, “Just how broken am I?” The answer never really becomes clear most of the time and after a while, I forget I even asked the question. Brokenness is being spiritually cracked in ways that medical science can’t detect. It is not a state of being which many people will be able to see in you most of the time. Although, they will detect it if it gets really bad.

How can we, as Christians or even non-believers, fix our brokenness? Well…on our own we can’t. You may try different things like drugs of different kinds which will lead to being broken on a different level altogether. You could go to a psychologist or some other therapist to attempt to find the reason for it and possibly find a “cure”. But the problem lies with your soul and whether you are a believer or not you can feel and truly be broken.

Sometimes it happens when a loved one dies or a business deal goes sideways. Anytime something else is placed in a higher position in your life than God, a crack forms. The longer it stays there, it will keep growing and causing more cracks to form. Satan knows this and he will keep adding to the illusion that you are doing really well, keep up the good work. But, the problem is that you are doing his work for him. Unless you can discern where or why the crack in your life began, it may never be fixed or rather you may not want to get it fixed.

God can and will give you the ability to fix it but only by acknowledging that you need Him and His Son in the place of whatever you have above them now! This is not one of those times to go it alone because that is how you got here in the first place. We all think that we can handle our problems all by ourselves when the truth is that we can’t. Living your life as if you are in control of every part of it is foolish and until you realize that small bit of wisdom…you will keep on making little mistakes which will add to your broken state of being.

God can get you back on the right path in your life but only if you will allow Him to do so. He doesn’t push Himself into your life nor does He force any of His ways into your daily living. Love doesn’t force and cannot be forced on anyone, that is the message in the Bible and it is His message to all of mankind. God’s love is above all of our ideas of love and it cannot be undone once you realize you have it. It is your choice to follow His lead in your life, one step at a time and one day at a time.

Here are a few Bible verses which tell us how we should love each other and Him:

“Let all that you do be done in love.”  1 Corinthians 16:14

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other.  Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.  Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”  John 13:34-35

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love.  We love because He first loved us.”  1 John 4:18-19

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  1 Corinthians 13:13

“If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  John 14:15

“Above all, be loving. This ties everything together perfectly.”  Colossians 3:14

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.   Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  1 John 4:7-8

“Hate stirs up trouble, but love forgives all offenses.”  Proverbs 10:12