Anger or compassion

thereasonforourproblems We 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

eternity In 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!

RomanRoad2Salvation Those 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.

Can you be useful to God?

UsefulVessel There are questions about whether we can be used by God in this life, particularly when many of us are kinda broken in our lives. Some of us due to broken homes or broken marriages or families, then others are broken due to their jobs being stressful enough that they can’t leave the stress at work. Then there are some who experience trauma in the form of physical trauma from being in a war zone and sometimes the trauma is mental from many different sources.

So, in many ways, almost all of us are broken in one way or another. Some of us are more broken than others, but with God all things are possible. I mean, even a small piece of a crayon will still color a picture if you can hold onto it. God has a way of using your brokenness in ways that we can’t imagine and He can use it to His Glory! We may not think that we are useful, but I can guarantee you that God can use your gifts and your talent in ways that you haven’t thought of yet!

Each of us has many gifts and talents which God gave to us. Sometimes we don’t find out what those talents and gifts are until we are forced to by our circumstances. Occasionally, those circumstances take us to a point where we can only look up to God and ask Him to show us what we can do because we don’t feel like we can do anything. Then, there are those times which we have all had when we are down and depressed and feeling as if the whole world is crushing us and all we want to do is…let it.

Sometimes we are so broken in spirit and in our lives until we look for a way out, any way out and God is the only One who can actually help us become better, not only for us but for Him too. Can we be useful in God’s Kingdom even when we feel broken and useless? Yes, but it takes prayer and dedication to Jesus, as well as the study of God’s Word to bring you into a real working relationship with Him.

We are His Creation and He knows each of us far better than we know ourselves. He knows what we can do and the gifts which each of us has even if we haven’t found those gifts yet. So, don’t move away from God and service to Him and for Him. Seek Him out in your daily life with Him, learn from His Word, pray about your role in His Kingdom and then you can take your place in whatever He has laid out for you.

What is your focus?

What do you really want? Life and energy flows where you focus your attention in the world. God has given each of us enough energy and ability to accomplish everything that He has for us in this life. So what is your focus? Health and happy family life? Or has someone convinced you that you that your life can only go so far because God has limited us to be in this body.

God never said that. He created humanity to be an immortal being, but our ancestors listened to Satan and his lies and temptation and followed him. If they had only followed God, they and we would be in a far different world than we live in today. Although, God knew that they would be tempted and go along with Satan’s lie, so He made a plan, a way to cure the curse that our ancestors laid upon humanity.

The problems which we have today…the drugs, the guns, the wars, the cancers, etc. All of these are because we are still following demonic thoughts which we don’t realize are being put into our brains by demons! All of these “human problems” are there because of our minds listening to the wrong spiritual authority!

Even Christians think along the same lines because we think that we are thinking these thoughts on our own and most of the disease laden thoughts are placed in our minds by principalities under the direction of Satan. How can we get these kinds of thoughts out of our heads? By reading God’s Word every day throughout the year, every year! Keep God’s Word in your mind and think about it, meditate on it and then you will know when a thought creeps in which doesn’t line up with Scripture.

Make sure of your status as a Christian also. There are many people who claim to be Christians, even claim to believe in Jesus, but there are many churches that are closing their doors, why? Because many of those who claim Christian belief aren’t attending church. Belief in Jesus and thoughts of success and reward are not the same thing. Prosperity and fame are what the rest of the world looks at in their definition of real success.

Success in the eyes of God is believing in Jesus and following Him in this life, regardless of the problems or the blessings in our lives. We have a God who says:

          “My thoughts are not your thoughts,
               neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
          For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
               so are my ways higher than your ways
               and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8–9)

God doesn’t think like us, regardless of how much we try to make Him into a human being. He isn’t, He is our Creator and so much more! The “new age” Christianity says that we have the power to change our lives for the better just by thinking of what we want in this life. Really? I have been thinking about all the debt that I have had over the years and instead of bringing wealth into my life, I have more debt. How does that work? IF you want to believe this hocus-pocus type of “universal energy” is God, be my guest. But, don’t look in my direction after you die and say “He told me that this worked!”; because I did not.

God loves us and HE does want the best for us, but there isn’t a scripture anywhere in the Bible where God tells us or the Israelites to just sit down and think about what you want and it will be provided! If the universe granted wishes like that, there wouldn’t be any poverty or hunger in the world. God is Holy and righteous and there is no shadow of evil in His Person, but that does not mean that He won’t use evil in this world to accomplish His purposes. He used the Pharaoh in Egypt and Babylon and Assyrians as well to accomplish His purposes, so why not?

Sermon for today

1 John

Learning about the Son of God and Who He really is.

The apostle, John, wrote this book and the three which follow it. He did this to show to the churches Who Jesus was and is and to bear witness of Him. John saw while learning from Jesus, that satisfaction in life only came from Him. The Author of Life was the One which John was speaking and telling the churches in Asia about and he tells us today that Jesus is the Only pathway to eternal life.

The life and essence of Who God is was manifested in the person of His Son, Jesus the Christ. The only way for you and I to get to know God is through learning of and getting to know Jesus. God revealed Himself in Creation but most of us take that for granted as “nature” and nothing more. God also revealed Himself in the Bible, His Holy Word, but many people pay very little attention to that today as well. God’s final and most complete revelation of Himself was through the person of Jesus His Son.

This is why John refers to Him as the Word of Life. Why is this important? Because in the beginning, God brought much of creation into being just with His Word.

John even says it in his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” John 1:1

In the same way we can learn of God’s character and everything that we need to know about Him by learning about and reading the words of Jesus in the gospels. Your words reveal your character to those around you and in the same way, the Bible reveals God’s character and the Living Word, Jesus, reveals even more about God’s character. To know Jesus is to know God!

Have you come to know Jesus as your Savior? He came for that express purpose, to set those free who were captive to sin and their own lusts in this world.

The apostle John walked and lived with Jesus during His ministry before His crucifixion. He saw the miracles and heard what Jesus said and did on a daily basis, he knew Him. Jesus can be just as real today for you and me, if we will get to know Him through the Bible and the gospels. A sermon on Sunday morning is not enough to truly get to know Jesus, yet that is what many people base their salvation on. Why is it so important that we know that we are born into God’s family? Because if you are just playing church, then you are what Jesus called the Pharisees…a child of the devil! You are like a counterfeit dollar, a counterfeit Christian, one who acts “saved” but has not been born again.

Just as a counterfeit bill will be exposed when it is tested or when it arrives at the bank, a “Christian” who is not born again will be exposed when he or she stands before their final judgement. They may have done many good things in life and seemed to be a genuine Christian, but they will hear Jesus say “Away with you,I never knew you”. If you aren’t sure about your salvation, read 1 John 5:9-15 carefully. Seek Jesus through prayer because He will not turn you away.

John wrote many things in these letters and he wrote them to make sure that those who called themselves a Christian could be sure of their salvation. Not wondering if they were saved but knowing it absolutely! Are you in that position? Do you know without a doubt that you belong to Jesus and that HE knows you?

Yes, it is possible to know without a doubt that you know Him and that He knows you too. Belief in Him is the first step toward this and then walking with Him daily. Reading the Bible is required to get to know Him and the Father, yet most people in America don’t. They read devotional readings which have a verse or two, sometimes a chapter here or there, but it is reading God’s Word daily which brings your spirit and His into fellowship close enough that you can almost feel His hand on your shoulder.

God loves you and belief in Jesus and His atonement for your sins is the answer, the secret to life itself. Not the life which the world would pat you on the back for, but eternal life! The Life that we are promised in Him after this life is over. That is what we should be striving for more and more as we get older, but it is also what young people need as well. Why? Because if they aren’t learning about Jesus and hearing from or reading His Word, then they may never learn about Him until it is too late.

Disenchanted with religion

I got an email this morning with a link to an article which is disturbing, but very likely normal for the generation called millennials. After I read the article I noticed that the author had a point at the beginning of the article. Anyone, whether a teen or a young adult would question their faith in those instances. Many of us do, whether we are from the “baby boomer” generation or any of the later generations.

My point here is that when you find that your priest or your pastor or even your church doesn’t live up to the standards taught in the Bible, find another place to go. Read and study your Bible and do it at least once a year. I read through the Bible at least once every year and I find that when my reading plan is finished, I feel good about it but after a few days away from reading the Bible I feel empty.

I don’t feel better until I start reading it again, from the beginning all the way through. I used to wonder “how can someone do that?” After I read a book, unless it was a really good book, I usually don’t read it again, because it is like watching the same movie over and over. The Bible is totally different! It is alive through the Spirit of God and it reads you too. I usually find something new or get a better understanding of a scripture after I read it over again. I see or understand a part of it which I didn’t get before, that is why I read it through over and over again.

No, none of us are perfect but if we strive to live our life as a reflection of Jesus, then our life will be much better and it will be our witness for Him for everyone to see. One of the most disturbing problems in our country today is the low numbers of young people attending church services. It seems that by the time they reach puberty or maybe a little older, they decide that church is not for them.

Some parents are responsible for this as well because I see too many drive up to a church, drop their kids off or have their parents bring the grandkids to church and they don’t attend. Your children learn and do the things which they see you doing, so don’t blame them or the schools for their bad behavior when they get to college!

While it is true that many of our church leaders and celebrities and even our elected officials haven’t set a very good example for children to follow, it is their parents who are mostly responsible for how they turn out. If you read your Bible and pray and go to church then your children will pick up on it and usually they will follow your lead. Why am I bringing this up? Because if children don’t learn about God and Jesus and salvation at home, nobody else is going to teach them…especially the schools and colleges!

Don’t make God seem to be a punisher of your sins and don’t harp on how sleazy the TV shows are either. We are not holy even as Christians, we have been given the righteousness of Jesus through our faith in Him! God loves every person on Earth, but He doesn’t like their lifestyles sometimes or the “god” that some worship. The creation around us points toward God and His Son in all that is so perfectly set up and working in it. We are not an accident nor is the universe or our solar system, it was created for a purpose…God’s purpose, and we are too! week-of-creation