Category: Abide in Him

Being a mouthpiece


Since I am a preacher, that is what I am seen as by most people…a mouthpiece for God’s Word. I read a few verses or maybe a chapter during the service on Sunday morning and then expound on what I have read and what the wisdom that God has given me tells me about this scripture. Moses was a mouthpiece and all of the prophets in the Bible were too. Jesus is a direct mouthpiece because He is the Living Word of God and His disciples were mouthpieces and teachers just as we are today.

Bridge2SalvationWhat is my point in this article today? Simply that God is awesome, Jesus is sitting at the right of His Father and the universe is under their control! Being the person who tells others about God and His Son, and thankfully I am not the only one doing this, is an awesome responsibility! But, I enjoy it!

God loves us and the story that is told in the Bible, from the beginning to the end, is the story of His love and compassion toward us all. While it is true that it starts out being a story about Creation and the Israelite nation, the wisdom contained within its pages is for all of us! Jesus came to tell that story more personally so that we could understand that God’s love doesn’t just mean something to one particular people, but it is expressed toward all of humanity through His death and resurrection!

God’s love and compassion for us are also expressed in His patience toward us because we are very stubborn in our sinful lives and we don’t want to follow His ways until we are ready. The problem with that is that we don’t have a clue about our the brevity of our lives! We are not guaranteed tomorrow or even tonight, so as the saying goes “today is the day of salvation”! Tomorrow isn’t here until it is and you may not have much time in the day or the week ahead to give your life to Jesus and repent of your sins.

None of us can know if we are going into the new year in a couple of weeks because it isn’t a certainty. A wreck or a heart attack or a stroke could take your life at any time between now and then and if you haven’t made the decision to follow Jesus and believe in His atonement for your sins, then you will cross from this life into judgment and hell.

God loves each of us and this is shown in His Word, so don’t wait until you find yourself in front of God and being judged for a life lived without Jesus or even believing in Him. Yes, each of us will be judged in one way or another. If you are a Christian and have Jesus as your Savior then you will be judged by what you did for God’s Kingdom.

If you are not a Christian, then every word and deed that you have ever done in your life will be brought before you to convict you of your sins and to prove that you deserve to be punished in hell. Not for the sins, but for refusing to give your heart to Jesus! That is the sin which condemns you to hell. Make sure of your salvation while you can in this life because when this one is over you can’t rewind and fix it.

Have you learned much this year?


Life is hard at times. Learning about your Creator and your faith is one of the most rewarding experiences that you can have. So, exactly how do you learn about Him? Well, that is a very good question and it is what this article is all about.

Truly, God loves each of us! Not just those who claim to be Christians but every person on the Earth! Of course, that doesn’t always translate into those persons giving Him their heart and their love in return. The main part of learning about God and Jesus and their love for you is inside of a book…the Bible! God inspired writers to write down His laws and His requirements for His people, the Jewish nation of Israel.

Some might argue that those laws and requirements don’t pertain to us today because they were written over two millennia ago, some as much as three millennia in the past. How could wisdom and laws from that far back in time and written to a different people have anything to do with today?

It is because God is our Creator and His wisdom is timeless as are His laws and precepts. Yes, they were written by people far away and years in the past but God lives outside of time and He gives wisdom and love to all who will come to Him and ask. God loves all of us, which is why Jesus came to live a life unblemished by sin and then be sacrificed as the Spotless Lamb of God for our sins!

We are His Creation and when the world was still unformed and not made yet, He knew that humanity would need a Savior. Jesus came to be that Savior for all of us if we will believe in Him and the atonement that He purchased with His blood and His death on the cross and then He vanquished over death when He came out of the tomb three days later.

job-type-of-ChristWhen we are tested and tried during our lives by illness or setbacks in a job or finances, it is to make us better and closer to God. Just as Job was tested hard when all of his children and his wealth was taken by the attacks of Satan. Then his health was taken away and he still didn’t lose his faith. He questioned God’s reasons for his losses but he never lost his faith in God’s mercy and greatness! When the testing was over, God blessed him with the gift of children and twice his wealth and he lived to a ripe old age.

Here is the account of God’s grace toward Job:

God Restores Job’s Fortunes

10 The LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the LORD increased all that Job had twofold. 11 Then all his brothers and all his sisters and all who had known him before came to him, and they ate bread with him in his house, and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversities that the LORD had brought on him. And each one gave him one piece of money, and each a ring of gold. 12 The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female donkeys. 13 He had seven sons and three daughters. 14 He named the first Jemimah, and the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. 15 In all the land no women were found so fair as Job’s daughters and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers. 16 After this, Job lived 140 years and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations. 17 And Job died, an old man and full of days.

Who do you say that I am?


WhoDoYouSayIamIt is a question which Jesus asked of His disciples and it is one which all of us need to answer in our own hearts as well. Have you considered what your answer would be? Is He your Savior or just a great prophet? Is He the Son of God or an imposter like so many of those who had the name Jesus (Joshua, Yeshua) at that time? Who is He in your heart and in your life? Do you even believe that He existed?

Many questions to answer but the real truth of it is that Jesus is the Son of God, foretold to come by being born of a virgin, of the lineage of David and He was born in Bethlehem. So much conflict and strife in a city in the country of Israel. Fighting between relatives, since all of those around Israel are also descendants of Abraham through Ishmael. Yet, all of this conflict was foretold in the Bible, not just in the book of Revelation but in other, much older prophetic books like Isaiah and Daniel.

So, who is Jesus to you? Is He your Savior and Messiah? He is to me because without His Spirit helping me with these words, I couldn’t come up with all of these writings!

God sent Jesus to Earth to redeem the whole human race from the sins of our mutual ancestor, Adam. I know, if you don’t believe the Creation story from the Bible then we are descended from apes through evolutionary means. But, hear me out in this wise: Adam disobeyed God in eating from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and we are partakers of that sin nature. We, meaning all of humanity, have always sought to be “like god” in some way!

We have searched for and are still searching for ways to extend our lives beyond our normal lifespan or to fix age-related diseases which our bodies have in one way or another as we get older. I contend with arthritis myself and would like nothing better than for a cure to be found, but that will likely be when I get my body in Heaven. We cannot be gods of any kind in these finite bodies of ours and God didn’t make us for that purpose.

We are His creation just as the animals and the angels and the planets and stars and galaxies are His creation. All of the universe which we can see and the parts which we can’t see are also His creation! God is ruler and sovereign over all and He doesn’t have to give us anything or even answer our prayers, but He does. His judgment is final and true and yet people want to question the Bible and its authenticity.

Jesus is the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity and He came to pay our price for our sins. God’s Word calls Him many names such as Wonderful Counselor, King of Kings and the Prince of Peace among many others like the Root of Jesse and the Son of David and the Righteous Branch. He is our Savior and Lord and the only way to be saved from our sins is our belief in Him and the atonement which He accomplished for all of us! Don’t deny Him as your Savior, accept Him and follow Him into eternity because following Satan into eternity is going to be eternal punishment.

Problematic faith


In our society today it seems that we have problems with faith. Occasionally it is the lack of faith but most often it is that people of faith seem to be the problem. It doesn’t matter how many florists or bakeries there are in a particular town or city, those who want to cause trouble usually find the one run by someone who is a Christian. As Jesus said, “The world hated Me so it will hate you“; it is the Truth which the world hates and since our Lord is the Truth and His Word is also, then it makes sense in a way.

Our faith in Jesus is not really in question but the absolute Truth of God’s Word is the part which the world and those who don’t want to believe in Him or live by it is the real problem. Can we do anything to fix this? No, not really. The only way that this could be better would be IF the world would convert to Christianity. We are trying to tell the world about Jesus and that He is the Messiah for all of humanity, but much of the world doesn’t want to hear it.

Thankfully, we don’t push our faith on people. We tell you about it, we will pray for you, I can tell you the pathway to salvation through belief in Jesus, but if you decide against it then that is your decision. God doesn’t push Himself nor belief in His Son on the world. He didn’t do it even before Jesus was born but He did try to get the Israelites to follow His commandments and be His representatives to the world, but they didn’t do that even then.

Being faithful in following God has always been a tricky proposition. There was always the temptation to worship the gods of those around them or if they married someone who worshipped an idol. We have the same problem today, except our “idols” are much different. We worship money or family or our jobs, even though we don’t bow down or pray to them. We just place more emphasis on those things in our life than we should.

Anytime that you place anything ahead of or in place of your faith and belief in God, you are creating an idol or a “god” which takes His place. This is a big problem in our world today. Because many people look at their jobs or their bank accounts as their “savior” in many things. That is why Jesus said that “it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven“.

Why is that true? Well, wealthy people don’t have to worry about bills or having enough money or food. Why would they need God? Granted, there are some who know where their wealth came from and they honor Him for it and with tithes which show that He is the source and not their business or their bank account. But…those are few. Give God the glory for your ability to get wealth and for your salvation through Jesus!

 

Anger or compassion


thereasonforourproblemsWe live every day with the consequences of one or the other, the outcome depends upon which one is more prevalent in our lives. Is it anger and our temper or do we live a life of service to others and showing compassion toward their problems? Do you worry more about your own problems and troubles? Most of us do exactly that. We worry about our lives and our finances and many other problems, most of which we can do nothing constructive about.

Life is given to each of us to bring glory to God, not to our own life or for our own selfish needs or wants. God gives us the necessary abilities to accomplish everything that He has intended for us to do. We should depend upon Him and His provisions for us, whether it is in the form of money or talent, to be able to accomplish the task He has given to us. Finding out that task is our job, to work toward being close enough to God so that we can discern His will for us.

How do we do this? By reading the Bible with an attitude of prayer and seeking His will for our life. Read a chapter then ask God to reveal His wisdom in what you just read. Ask Him to show you what His wisdom means in this chapter and how it applies to your life and ministry. It doesn’t matter which book you are reading or what chapter it may be. It could be in Genesis or Psalms or Matthew or even in Revelation.

The point is that whatever you read, ask God to show you what His wisdom is in the scripture. I have found that it doesn’t matter how many times you read a book or chapter in God’s Word, you will get a different meaning almost every time you read it. Why is that? Because God’s Word is a living document which reads you and your Spirit as you read it. Actually, it is God’s Spirit which inspired the Word of God in the Bible which is reading you and your soul.

I know that many will read this and call it crazy or something like that, but if you ask a preacher or an evangelist about what they get out of reading and studying the Bible, you will get many different answers. By that, I mean that each time you read the same passage, if you are reading it to learn from God’s wisdom, you will get a little different message than you did the last time. I have only read the Bible through about seven or eight times and each time I will get a slightly different message from the last time I read it.

God knows you so much better than you do and His Word speaks to those differences however slight they are or what those emotional or life experiences might be. His Word speaks in His voice to your soul, your spirit and it is that part of you which hears the different messages or teachings which come from the study of His Word.

….it’s too late for me.


These are the worst words that a pastor can hear when someone requests prayer for a family member but they end the request with this. It is never too late to come to believe in Jesus, even on your last day here you can decide to follow Him! There is no sin that He will turn away because His accomplishment on the cross and during His life took care of the punishment for all of us. If we will just accept Him and believe in Him we can be saved, even if it is with your last breath!

God provided the atonement through Jesus’ death on the cross for all of mankind, all that we have to do to receive it is to believe in it and ask Him to come into your life and save you from an eternity in hell. Mercy is provided for us through God’s love for us through Jesus our Savior. You can’t purchase it and you can’t add to it by doing more in this life through works of any kind. Grace is our unmerited favor and blessing through Jesus Christ, to which we cannot add anything to or be deserving of more than we are.

Our Savior, Jesus Christ, came for this purpose only…to atone for the sins of the world and all of humanity. It is a free gift and all we have to do is accept it and believe it, confessing our sins and we are each saved. It is just that simple! God knew before the world was created that mankind would go their way and not follow Him as He intended but He also had a plan in place to redeem us from our mistakes.

It is never too late to accept Jesus as your Savior, regardless of the sins that you have committed or how evil you may think of yourself. Those are lies from the Accuser and we don’t need to believe them! Choose to follow Jesus, read the Bible and believe in Him and God’s inerrant Word, then walk with Him on a daily basis toward eternity. Your life here is only a puff of smoke compared to eternal life with Jesus. So, walk in it like you have it already if you have truly given your life and heart to Him!

Why am I bringing up eternity and salvation in Jesus at a time when our world seems to be more wicked and lost? Because of those very things! Our world is that way because we have chosen to follow our own goals and our own paths instead of seeking out the One Who can save us! There is nothing which we can do that can add one second to our lives and nothing that we bring to the altar is truly acceptable to God except the blood of Jesus!

He was our Spotless Lamb and our Prince of Peace and He has paid the price for every sin, whether you think of them as big sins or small ones, they are all sins in the eyes of God! How can you be saved? Here are a few scriptures which will point you in that direction.

Bridge2Salvation

Life and the Author of it


Many times during our lives we see something which doesn’t quite add up or we experience something that seems to put a wet blanket on a holiday or a celebration. At times, it doesn’t have to be much in order to do this. It could be that your paycheck wasn’t quite what you hoped for or maybe the timing of a visit just didn’t click and the visit turned into hurt feelings. At times our relationships with family and friends can go sideways and then people will not speak to each other for a long time, maybe the rest of their lives.

Life turns out that way sometimes. When it does, we need to slow down and find a place to seek out the Author of Life, Jesus Christ. Why do I say this? Because He is the Savior of our world and He came for everyone in it who will believe in Him. Granted, there are many who refuse to do so, but God is still in control and His purposes will be accomplished in the end.

There are many in our world today who are against Christianity in general, which is sad. Sad because for most of the past 2,000 years, Christians have done more for people than any other religion. I don’t mean that the dark ages are even part of that because they are not. The Crusades were an abhorrent part of our past and although they were done under the direction of the Pope at the time, Christianity shouldn’t have had any part of them, but our religion has been damaged by this part of history.

Our real problem today is that our society has become so used to hearing lies until the real, honest Truth of Scripture bothers people. They don’t want to believe it and most don’t want to hear it either. Yet, they would rather listen to and believe something which a man wrote down a little over one century ago or even seventy years ago and base their spiritual lives on those writings. The wisdom of mankind, whether it was written in the seventh century AD or BC, is foolishness compared to the wisdom of God.

The Bible has never been disproven and it has been on the bestseller list for many, many years. All of the prophecies in the Bible have come true with the exception of the last book in it, the book of Revelation. There will be no denying it when they come true because the world will experience all of the plagues and the wars and pestilence which are foretold to come on this Earth.

What can we do about what is happening in our world today? Truthfully…not a lot. One person has had more influence on the world than any other in history and yet most of the world wants very little to do with Him. Jesus wasn’t a general of an army or a great world leader but His influence is still seen and is felt all over the world today! He died on a cross about 2000 years ago, but after three days He came out of that tomb and met with His disciples for about forty days before returning to Heaven at the right hand of God.

Many people today deny that He had any effect in the world and they don’t believe in Him or the Bible but one day soon that will change. When He comes back for the saved of the world who have put their trust in Him and those who believe in Him today, many people will wonder what happened. They will try to explain it away with all kinds of fantastic stories and theories but the truth is in the Bible.

1Thessalonians

 

The time we have


eternityIn every person’s life, no matter who you are, there is a certain amount of time. Only God knows our length of days in regards to our life, but when you and I wake up each day, each of us has 24 hours in that day, 1440 minutes or 86,400 seconds. We have an allotment of time given to each of us by our Creator, whether you believe in Him or not when we are born. How we use that time and whether we use it selfishly or for Him is our choice.

What have you done with your 1,440 minutes today? A number of those were spent sleeping since our account resets itself at midnight, so depending upon how late you sleep or how early you get up determines how many of those minutes you have to do something with. There have been songs written about time and how it slips away from us or how we should be cherishing our time with those we love. What about the time which we have to serve God?

After you have given your heart to Jesus, your time becomes more useful in God’s economy and for His Kingdom. How many minutes have you given Him today? Did you thank Him for waking you up this morning? Did you thank Him for your breakfast and your other meals today? What about the safe trips that you have made around town or on the highway, did you thank Him for watching over you at those times? God loves you and He does watch over us each and every day, but do you think about Him or thank Him for the good things which happen in that day?

That is the part of life which I think is the most useful because when you live every day in a thankful mood toward God, you notice things which you really are thankful for. Getting up in the morning, getting around the house, going to the supermarket or to Walmart, and doing all of this in safety without incident, those are accomplishments which deserve thanks to the One Who gave you the ability to do them!

We all have time and the same amount of it each and every day that we live. There is no day which is too short nor a night too long because no matter where you live or the time zone that you live in, the day is still the same. Savings time or standard time, the day is still 24 hours long regardless of your feeling that you need more time to finish a task or not.

Give God the glory and the praise for the time that you have with family and friends because each minute which goes by is gone for good. You can’t get it back and you can’t add to your day tomorrow to make up for any time which you feel was lost today. Consider this when you think about how fast time goes by and the family which you have is growing up and will soon be off to college or a career. It goes by so fast and you can’t rewind time.

Contentment


Are you content with your life? Sometimes I am but there are some months where the money and the bills don’t quite get together and I am sure that I am not the only one going through this! But, contentment with life or with your family and your Savior is another step in a totally different direction. Being content and happy with your family is an up and down ride. One day or maybe next week or an hour from now, it could all blow up in your face. That is what “walking with your family” means and just as Jesus spoke of walking with Him, your spiritual life can have ups and downs too.

There are times when you may have a day or two off from work and everything goes pretty well….then all hell breaks loose and things get sour quickly! A bill didn’t get paid on time or the dishes aren’t washed yet or someone woke up on a tack because of a dream or something. Yes, there are times where a pastor’s family life goes to hell too!

RomanRoad2SalvationThose are the days when I need a place to go to my office or even to the church and just pray and read the Bible with no phone calls or anything to interrupt the relative quiet. I say relative quiet because we have a couple of gravel pits close to us and there is always traffic going by, sometimes loudly.

Seeking God’s peace in spite of the sounds around you and the problems which will still be there is imperative for anyone, not just a pastor. You have to seek out the calming Presence in the midst of the storm because He is the only One Who can bring calm to it and give us the wisdom to get through it too. God loves each one of us, regardless of our religion or lack of faith and He loves us perfectly even when we haven’t made a decision to follow Him.

Some might wonder, “Why does God care about me?”. It is because He is our Creator, whether you believe it or not and He knows if or when you will seek Him out. He also knows the circumstances which will bring you closer to that point as well. Since God is omniscient then He also knows how to bring you into His Kingdom to do those things which He has planned for you to do.

Sometimes it takes many years to bring each of us to that point, then some of us hear His call when we decide to give our hearts to Jesus. Thankfully, God understands people being stubborn and hard-headed because He has had to deal with us from the beginning. I am not speaking about His people, the Israelites, but the entire human race. We have been rebelling against His ways for a long time and we are still doing it.

We don’t like some passages in the Bible or we don’t think we should be told what to do with our lives and we certainly don’t like His Truth to be absolute, even though it is. I pray that all of you who read this blog have given your heart to Jesus and are following Him in your life. If you are not or have not made that decision, then I suggest that you not wait too much longer. I don’t know when He will call the church home, but when that happens it will be much harder to make that decision from that point on.

Holidays hurt sometimes…


I have had loved ones in my family who passed away on different holidays in the past, one even passed from this life on my birthday 33 years ago. Today, there are many who suffer from feelings of loneliness and depression during the holidays, even when families are together. It is hard to understand how you can feel lonely with family around you, but you can.

Sometimes the world thinks that Christians aren’t supposed to get sick or feel lonely because they belong to God. But, in this life…right now, we are human and we get sick, we feel depression and loneliness and every other illness which is out there as well. The only time which we will be able to claim no sickness or bad feelings like depression will be when we are in Heaven or we have crossed over into eternity.

Could God give us this great show of His power today? Yes, He could if He wanted to but that isn’t part of His plan. Every person who is a Christian could live forever and never be sick if God planned it that way but He didn’t. It isn’t because He doesn’t love us because He does, but we aren’t given this privilege above others. Humanity is God’s image in this world because we are made in His image, but we don’t act like it very much.

As humans, we act as we were raised and sometimes we just haven’t been raised in a good environment. Some of us come from broken homes, some live in poverty and want in some of the worst areas of the world. Conditions which most of us in America can’t imagine. Even in America, there is hunger and homelessness and poverty and many people think that we should be sharing the wealth so that this doesn’t happen.

If we tried communism, who would decide how much is given to who? Because that is the system which tries to “spread the wealth around”. But in most communist countries, those in power get more than anyone else, so those in power tend to bring their friends and family into that group and they have more than everyone else.

The Pilgrims tried this when they started out in the first few years of their colony but it didn’t work out well. People were fighting over who got what and how much, and that is what would happen today if we tried it again.

Holidays do hurt because it shows just how materialistic we have become. Some get really nice toys and stuff and some don’t. So what determines the amount of spread when you decide how much and to whom? Communism is that way, but those who are corrupt in a Democratic Republic like ours will be just as corrupt, if not more, in a communistic society.

Yes, holidays cause hurt and pain and sometimes cause a lot of resentment among those who have a little more than the next person. Usually, this is due to credit and not real wealth which is another reason why our country is so divided.

Holidays cause division, sometimes more than we realize. It happens in families and in communities and in cities, so what should we do? Outlaw celebrations of significance such as Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years? What real good would that do? Not very much I would think. Taking holidays away won’t stop the division between people and it won’t take away the depression or other problems which we see. Just as gun control won’t get rid of crime or shootings, getting rid of religion and holidays will have no effect on our social divisions.

God loves us and He has given each of us gifts which allow us to serve Him in some ways but also to serve each other too. The only way to find your gift from Him is to ask Him to show it to you and the only way to do that is to know Him and be known by Him. Be as much like Jesus the Christ, our Savior and Messiah, as you can and if you haven’t asked Him into your life please do so soon. God’s timetable is running down and sometime soon, He will call the church home. Don’t be one of those still here afterward.