Category: Abide in Him

What is in your heart


Is it fear or anger? Is it insecurity or selfishness? Could it be some emotional baggage that you have been given by your parents? For many who have lived through being children of divorced parents, all of these are true. We grow up with things inside us that we don’t understand or comprehend. Sometimes, this emotional baggage will cause a person to implode or explode depending upon the way they are raised and who is raising them.

Life is changed and altered by the things which we experience during our childhood. Good or bad, it sticks with you regardless of the outcome. Sometimes each of us can overcome it by our own perseverance, if we recognize it for what it is. Sometimes…it is the over-comer.

Feelings of helplessness and despair can cripple you while growing up, especially when you feel like you aren’t wanted or loved. Many of us have felt these feelings as we grow up, either due to a so-called friend’s remark or a family tragedy such as the death of a parent or a divorce (which amounts to the same thing). Many family members will tell you that you will get over it, in time, and that may be true but the scar is still there and sometimes it doesn’t heal completely.

The only cure for this condition, regardless of its cause, is to seek out Jesus and ask Him to come into your heart and your life so that He can heal the wound that is there. He is the only Physician Who can do this, there is no other! Drugs only make things worse, alcohol fits in the same bucket with drugs, all other “things” which people chase after are also temporary and really don’t help in the long run.

Jesus can heal those wounds and He will fill that empty space which is there. It doesn’t matter if that empty space was caused by drugs or a divorce or a death in the family, Jesus can heal all of those wounds. It may not be instantaneous but with time and prayer and reading God’s Word, the healing will begin and it will heal. One day as you are reading His Word, you will notice that the pain and emptiness are gone and in its place the Holy Spirit of God has placed peace and joy!

Joy that can’t be explained without faith in Him. Joy that makes no sense to someone who hasn’t asked Jesus to come in and heal their heart and the pain which has lived there for so long. God love can do amazing, glorious, miraculous things in your life and in mine. We can’t explain it to someone who doesn’t know Him, but they can see the difference in our lives and in our personality. Jesus came into the world to save it from itself, and when He does this to your life, others will notice.

Pain, suffering, and all of the ailments which go along with them may not completely go away, because Satan will bring them back to hurt you, to put a stone in your path or to trip you up in your walk with Jesus. Cling to Jesus and His Word because it is the only eternal Rock which will bind your wounds and be able to carry you when life gets rough.

What is in your heart? God knows and He will give you the strength and the ability to fill it with Himself and will begin your healing, if you will allow Him to.

Consider….


Faith, religions, Christianity, and church, to some people these are all lumped together in one big mess. We bring religiosity into the church and create some doctrine around a couple of verses then go around telling others that our way is the only one. How arrogant and stupid is that? Religion is what crucified Jesus. Self-righteousness is what makes people act the way they do toward other religions.

Consider this too..God loves each of us whether we know Him, believe in Him or worship Him. Your salvation and your eternity depend upon your belief not on your actions or anything that you do in this life. The work was already done by Jesus, you just need to realize that you need Him and come to Him in humility asking for His forgiveness. No amount of money or donations or building projects or evangelism for “your church” will get you any closer to Heaven, only your belief in and acceptance of Jesus as your Savior can do that.

Life is hard and depending upon where you live it can be brutally so. God loves you and cares for you regardless of your location or your circumstances. This is why He sent Jesus to pay the price for ALL of humanity’s sins, not just a few. Seek Him out in your life and in your situation, even if He doesn’t change your situation now, your eternity will be assured and you will spend it with God! Place your faith and your trust in Him and let those other “gods” go, since they can’t save you or help in your situation now.

God’s Promises


This is the day that the Lord has made for you and for me. What will you do with it? Do you wake up with an attitude of “Oh no, not another day!” or do you thank God for waking you up so you can have another day?

This is the life that we are given, daily, and we should be walking with Jesus but are you walking with Him or maybe someone else?

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
God promises many things in the Bible but most of us either don’t understand that we are entitled to those promises or we haven’t read the Bible enough to know what those promises are! God loves each and every person on the Earth, which is why He sent His Son, Jesus, to be the sacrifice which could pay the debt which everyone owes. Why didn’t I put that in past tense? Because we are all still committing sins regardless of our status as Christians or not, the only difference is that those who have given their heart to Jesus know they are forgiven.
They will be convicted of that sin, no matter what they do and they will ask forgiveness for it. Anyone who is not a Christian will not because until the Holy Spirit convicts you enough that you seek Him out, or you won’t do it at all. Truly, God does love you more deeply that you know or even realize but unless you have felt the touch of the Holy Spirit and become convicted of your sinful nature, you will not seek Him.
God intended for mankind to have an intimate relationship with Him and, before they ate from the forbidden tree, that is what He had. What happened? Adam and Eve did not obey God. It wasn’t the fruit or the tree that caused the sin of disobedience, it was the disobedience which caused the rift between man and God. The curse which was placed on mankind and all of creation was because of his disobedience and we still haven’t learned from it yet…because it is still going on!
People go against the rules, the Ten Commandments, all of the time. Murder, rape, stealing, incest, disregarding parents and grandparents, all of this and more happens every day. The only cure for our world’s problems is obeying God, the True God of the Bible! Not the one in the Quran or any other “book”, but the One Who created everything and everyone. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the One that we need to be listening to and following!
Seek Him out in His Word because His Spirit prompted and inspired the writers to write down His Words. The Bible is not made up by man because the prophecies that it contains would not have come true if that were so! The birth of Jesus was foretold down to Him being born of a virgin and in what town He would be born in. This was written at least six hundred years or more prior to His birth!
The same goes for the Psalm which David wrote almost one thousand years prior to His death by crucifixion. A type of punishment which wasn’t even being used at the time that David wrote Psalm 22, but it describes it perfectly even to the soldiers gambling for His garments. Give the Word of God a chance to change your life for the better and you will never be the same again!

Make a difference…


I watiamnotashamedched the movie “I am not ashamed” yesterday and it made me think of our impact on the world and the people around us. Rachel Joy Scott struggled with her new faith in Jesus in high school before the shooting that took her life. Most of us can relate, if we were a Christian in school, which I wasn’t. I knew about Jesus and the Bible because I had been on the drug plan for learning it. I was drug to church every time my Mom went, so I had heard all of the preaching and stuff. But, hearing and knowing about Jesus is not the same as having faith in Him, real honest faith.

I provided the link above just in case anyone wanted to know about the movie, I get nothing from your following or purchasing it. The point of this post is this: will you make a difference?

Her story and the fact that she didn’t back down in the face of losing her life, as many Christians over the centuries have done, has made a real impact on many people. At the end of the movie there was some statistics which said that her life had impacted over 20 million people since April 20, 1999. One life, just one-act of selfless faith and forgiveness can make a difference. It doesn’t take a Master’s degree or a PhD to tell people about Him and to show your faith by your life and your deeds to those around you.

God loves us even when we aren’t sure how we feel about Him. He loved each of us whether we even knew Him and before we were all born and He did so in a way that we can’t understand or comprehend! God is and should be your strength and your source of living water which never dries up and never gives up on you and your purpose in Him!

During high school, I was a very angry boy. I kept it bottled up most of the time, but I allowed it to hurt me by smoking and drinking to the point of being so drunk I barely remember the drive home, if I made it at all. At least one time, I had a wreck on the way home, although the only one that really sticks in my memory is the one where I totaled my mother’s car. I was angry at God and at my parents for getting divorced and I really didn’t care much about what happened to me. I could identify with Rachel in being a child of a broken home.

My point, as I said earlier, is that we can all make a difference in the world. Even if it is only in our immediate area. Heaven rejoices when one sinner comes to Jesus and if you or I have any part to play in that, then be grateful and willing to be useful in His Kingdom for that one person. Make sure that your life means something because we are not guaranteed tomorrow, so make today a day that God uses in your life and your witness  for His Glory!

What will you do?


In the world today, there are many who wonder about a savior. One who will save them from themselves or from an eternity of punishment. Even though there are many religions in our world and some of them claim to have a person capable of this feat, the only One Who is capable of it is Jesus the Christ!

Why do I bring this up in this way? Because there are many who don’t believe what the Bible says or believe in Jesus and His life, let alone His death and resurrection which gives us our hope of eternity in Heaven. Why do many people not believe in God or His Word? Mostly because of the work done in the world by Satan and his followers. I know, there are also many people who don’t believe that he exists either but since he tempted Jesus in the wilderness then he does exist.

He, Satan, attends church services more than most church members do, which is why we have so many churches which are split up and pulled apart due to disagreements. Getting back to my initial question, what will you do with the knowledge of Jesus and your need of being saved? Do you need Jesus in your life? If you feel that you can get to Heaven all by your own works, think again because it is not possible!

The Law of Moses which was given on Mt. Sinai, doesn’t save you. It only shows you that you can’t keep the law PERFECTLY. Humanity can’t keep the law without breaking at least one or more of the laws, we just are not capable of it! The only Person able to do so was Jesus! Even in His human body, He still had the nature of God which means that He could keep ALL of the laws without sin…without breaking even ONE! Why do I say this? Because, if He wasn’t perfect enough to do this, He couldn’t be the Son of God nor could He atone for all of our sins!

Even in the Law, the sacrifice was to be a lamb without blemish, spotless and without defect of any kind. Could you find such a person to fill that requirement today? Absolutely not! There is no perfect specimen, male or female, which has no defect and is spotless in every way without sin…this has only happened ONCE in all of history!

Even as a child, we lie to our parents even when we don’t know what a lie is! We steal pencils, erasers, notebooks, and any number of things in our lifetime. At some point in your life and mine, we have coveted something which someone else has. We all have lusted after a beautiful woman or a handsome man. Many of us may have even thought that we would like to see someone die, even if we didn’t act upon that thought. If you think about your life with an honest open mind, you know as well as I that each of us has done these things at some point.

Jesus came here in order to give His life for each of us. He gave up His power and place in Heaven to be clothed in flesh so that He could pay the price for all of our souls. But, while He was here teaching His gospel to those who would listen, He still had the power over demons, disease, death, and nature itself because He didn’t doubt that God would do for Him what was necessary to bring His disciples to true belief in Him, saving faith in the only begotten Son of God.

Please, seek Him out for the answer to your life’s problems and emptiness so that you can have His peace and assurance for eternity.

Dull and lifeless


I have often wondered if that is how much of the world sees people in the church or even the church itself? We as Christians claim that we have something that others may want, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. The problem arises when those who are outside the church look at our lives or even the church itself and see a very dull and lifeless (read boring) experience!

Why would they want that? Even though it is true that most people, when they come to a place in life that they can’t handle themselves, seek out a Higher Power. Sometimes this brings them to God and sometimes they will encounter Satan or one of his followers who are disguising themselves as angels. At this point in their life many just latch onto whichever one will help them at the time and right now! Which causes many to go down a road or path, which is takes them in the wrong direction. They may not find out about this until it is too late to turn back and therein lies the problem.

In many ways, people are fooled not because Satan is such a good liar but because the church and its representation of God and salvation doesn’t look much different or appealing. This is something which must change! Because we are supposed to be taking God’s message of salvation to the WHOLE world! If our message and the gospel of Jesus doesn’t seem to be appealing to others, we should seek out the answer to this question: “Why do people seem to be put off or turned away from the church and God?”

It is not an easy answer to find actually. Yet, according to the Bible which is the inspired Word of God, evil is vanquished in the end. Death, sin, evil, lawlessness and all of the negative emotions and behaviors in this world will all go away, in God’s time and at the end of this world. The problem today is this: Most or at least many people don’t believe it. The Bible is just an old book with no bearing on life today. It is out-dated and old, quaint would be a good term for it, but it has no meaning for us in the 21st century.

I have a different opinion about that. The differences between all people in this world stem from just a few things which get completely blown out of proportion. First is our notion of “race”, we are all part of the human race! The only differences are our skin tone and our cultures, whether in a city environment or taken as a nationwide culture, these are really the most troublesome parts of being human. Second is our choice of religion and that gets pretty weird when you look at all of the different religions in the world, even though there are three main religions, there are thousands of creeds, beliefs, doctrines etc.

These two differences along with the other smaller or larger (depending upon your viewpoint) pieces and parts which are scattered all over the world, are the very reasons for all of the wars and riots and shootings that occur on a regular basis, day in and day out. The only unifying force will be the coming of Jesus to set up His Kingdom on Earth and there will be many more deaths around the world before that day gets here.

Differences should be celebrated in our world, not part of the problem. Your skin may be more brown than mine and I embrace that because God made you different in that way. Your culture or rather, the ways that you learned from your parents and grandparents, while growing up are different, I accept that as well. It is not something which should be looked down on, nor is it something to place on a pedestal and tell others that yours is best! We are all human, regardless of skin color or our cultural beliefs in God or some other deity. These differences should be embraced in a collective way, not a national or cultural way.

God created us all to be different because we can have a different place and a different part in His Kingdom. You can accomplish things which I cannot and I may be able to do some things which you cannot. It is the same with each of our bodies, the kidneys work to cleanse the blood of sugar and salts, to make this simple. Your liver cleanses the blood of other impurities, but a body which has neither of these organs cannot survive. God is our Creator and must be worshiped as such. He is also our Redeemer, if we will accept Him into that role in our lives. All of the other “gods” or non-religions have no real power and cannot grant you one day or the hair on your head. Seek out God in His Word and you will find that He is all that is really necessary for your life.

Christ the Lord!


This was part of the message that was given to the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth and it is a great and wondrous thing to know! Why? Because, not only is He the Lord but He can be your Lord and Savior! Jesus loves you so much that He gave up His place in Heaven for a time in order to come to Earth and give His Life for you and me and every person living or who has ever lived!

He is our Creator and our Lord but He is also our Advocate with God in that He refutes Satan’s claim on your life or any of Satan’s accusations against you when you have given your heart to Him! You are never alone in anything that this world throws at you because of His love for you.

If you have never given your life to Him or asked Him into your heart, it is not a hard thing to ask. In fact it is as simple as, “Jesus, I can’t do this on my own anymore. Please come into my heart and fix what is broken and give me the strength to get through each day. Make me more like you, Jesus and in your name I ask for this. Amen.”

IF you mean every word in that prayer, then you are a child of God and you have Jesus in your heart and life from this point on. Now, you have to live it one day at a time, one step at a time. It is hard at times, but with His strength you can do it!

A little at time


This is exactly how I recommend for people to learn about and read God’s Word…a little at a time. Why? Because our Creator’s Word and His Wisdom is better suited to learning and understanding a little at a time. That being said, we should all try to read the entire Bible in a year’s time, but it only takes a chapter or two every day!

Like the old commercial said, “A little dab’ll do ya!”. I am showing my age. 🙂

In any way that you want to look at it, God’s Word is worth more than any education, any college course you could take today! It covers finance, life situations, business, religion and relationships so there is no need for any self-help course or book! God loves us and has loved each of us since before the world was formed, He doesn’t give you bad advice and He wouldn’t harm you in any way.

Satan, the serpent from the garden, God’s adversary and ours, will seek to destroy you and he will send all kinds of problems your way in order to steer you away from God and His blessings for your life! Make sure that you know which one is hurting you or trying to steer you in a direction which is counter to what you know God would do. If it isn’t good for you and it is causing problems in your life, then it is from Satan and his demons, so get rid of whatever it is and seek God’s strength and His provision to do so!

He never leaves our side, but He will only come to your aide if you ask Him to. God doesn’t jump into your life and take over, He is only waiting to make His blessings available to you when you ask Him to, although some of our blessings are given to us as life itself. Breathing, walking, talking, thinking, going about your everyday work and play, all of these are blessings which most of us take for granted. We don’t look at any of them as blessings, yet that is what they are.

God gives us those blessings a little at a time just as we should learn more about Him a little at a time. He is the Creator in the first part of Genesis, He is a friend in later chapters of it. As the Word evolves and we learn more about Him, His attributes become clearer and sharper to us, eventually making sense to a point. Why do I say it that way? Because, we will never understand God on this side of life and we may not fully understand Him even in eternity, although we will know Him better.

God loves you and me with a love which we can’t comprehend because there is no human analogue for it. We can’t know a love as deeply because He is God! So, we can’t truly understand His love for us in the light of His being our Creator! He knows us fully and knew us this way, even before our world was made or anything in our world was even formed. The atonement which was given to us through the sacrifice of Jesus is given to everyone, freely, all each of us needs to do is ask for His forgiveness (which we have already), because we can’t receive it unless we ask for it.

Please, seek out His Truth in the Bible. There is no other book on Earth which is like it because the words in it came from Spiritual inspiration by God!

Are you sure about that?


I think many people are asking this question or they are being asked by those who are going to give them something for Christmas. Have you thought about it yourself? There are so many “deals” out there today because it is Cyber Monday and of course last Friday was Black Friday! I try not to participate in either one if I can help it. Go one step farther than just a gift at Christmas and think about a gift that has been provided for us all…and it doesn’t cost us anything!

Jesus came down from Heaven to be born as the Christ-child in a human body and from the very beginning, before the Earth was formed, He was chosen to be slain on a cross to pay for our sins! Blood from animals paid the price before He came, yet they were an imperfect payment because their sacrifice had to be performed each year, every year. His sacrifice was perfect, since He did not have a sin nature and didn’t sin during His life, yet He gave His life to the Father’s will so that we can come to the Father through belief in Jesus the Christ!

As Hebrews 7:27 says:  27 Unlike the other high priests, He does not need to offer daily sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people; He sacrificed for sin once for all when He offered up Himself.

Jesus gave His life so that we might have eternal life with Him. It is a gift which cannot be bought by us, but it had a high price. The price of the Son of God and His life, death and resurrection to purchase our pardon if we will believe in Him. This is a story which has been told through thousands of sermons over the years since His ascension to be with God, a story which many have believed in and on for their salvation.

Today it seems that we have many who have been in the church all of their lives, hearing this message, sitting in the church week after week, who have not taken the steps to finalize being a Christian! Many believe wrongly that because they have been in the church and heard the message and read the Bible that they are saved. They may even be fine upstanding members of the church, volunteering for all kinds of selfless positions and committees in the church. But…are they saved? Are you saved?

Are you sure?

Why do I bring this up now? Because, you and I need to be absolutely sure of our salvation! Why? Because, there are no second chances! If you left the church one Sunday morning or evening and just before you get home, you had a terrible accident which took your life. How would you feel standing before God and seeing your life and your opportunities shown before you, yet you are not saved. You didn’t act when the Spirit moved you in the revival meeting or when you felt Him touch you during a service because you thought you were OK. What a terrifying feeling it will be to hear, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”

Your eternity lies before you, but it won’t be an eternity in Heaven. It will be one where you feel the burn of loss and the frustration and anger which can only be turned upon yourself because you thought that you already had something and you really didn’t. Nothing can change that now because your decision was made before your death.

Have you decided which direction that you want to go? Most everyone you ask on the street thinks that they have been a good person and they deserve to go to Heaven. How will you feel if your righteousness is not covered by the Blood of Jesus? Is your righteousness better than that of the Pharisees or about the same?

Think about it and consider doing something about it! If you felt the call of the Spirit and didn’t act, make sure that you do…soon!

Life is worth…Living!


I just finished reading one of the last entries on a blog which was written by an atheist. I didn’t know him personally, but then I read a post from a few days later which his wife wrote and he passed away four days after writing the post that I read. It was…a post which showed the thoughts of someone who was giving up on life. He was depressed and had seemingly decided that it was his time to go. I don’t know for sure if he killed himself, but he knows for sure, where his eternity is. He had asked me before to prove the existence of God and whether the Bible predicted WWII, I told him that I could not prove the existence of God and that the Bible did not predict WWII.

You cannot prove the existence of God because He is. It is a question of faith and if you don’t have faith or you don’t believe anything in the Bible, then there isn’t any proof which would prove that God exists. Even if He came to us today in human form like He did when Jesus walked with His disciples, nobody today would believe in Him except for those of us who already believe. The problem with this is, of course, that He said in the book of Revelation that He would come back as a King of Kings and with the armies of Heaven. Jesus would not come as He did 2,000 years ago.

God loves each of you, and if you can open your mind a little and read the Bible for the history and culture that is there then you will see Him. Although, reading it as a history book is good, that is not all that is in it. There are so many things which God can reveal to you if you will have faith and believe. The problem with this is that there are many people who only read it as a book which has history and poetry and lots of stories in it, reducing it to just words.

The problem with doing this is that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Inspired by His Spirit so that the history and the stories told in it would have a line which winds from the beginning of the Earth to its end. It doesn’t go into detail about every nation or every war which happens, but it does point to your Savior and the only way to salvation and eternal life! Give your heart to Jesus, the Spirit will touch you at some point in  reading His Word, then you have to listen and open your heart to Him.

That place where you have always felt…empty. That is where the Spirit is supposed to live in you! He is the only One Who fits in that space and once you realize this and ask Him into your life, then you will finally feel whole! No more time alone. No more feelings of incompleteness. Satan will come and try to steal your joy at finding this, finding Him, but if you lean on Jesus and seek His strength to get through it then you will!

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem and since life itself is temporary make sure that you ally yourself with the Creator and your Redeemer, Jesus the Christ!!