Category: Abide in Him

Choose Life…


Life as I choose to define it here is a life which is following the Author of Life which is Jesus the Christ. Many people write His name as if Christ is His last name, but it is a title meaning Savior or Messiah which is why I chose to write it this way here.

God loves you enough that He sent His Son to die for you on the cross, giving His life and His blood as the ransom in payment for all of the sins of the world. He didn’t die for just a few people, He died for all and His blood paid that price for you. All you have to do to inherit eternity is to believe that He did this for you and that you need Him, also realize that you are a sinner and that you should turn away from your sins whatever they might be.

I have heard people say that they won’t go to this church or that one because there are hypocrites in there and not real Christians. All churches have hypocrites in them because we all fail at some point either today or tomorrow or maybe last week and you saw it or heard it. Preachers do it too because the only person who was sinless was Jesus. Being a Christian doesn’t make you perfectly sinless, but your sins are forgiven by God’s grace through Jesus sacrifice!

He is the Creator and Author of Life itself because He was and is the Living Word of God and it was by His Word that all of creation came into being. It was because of His love for us that He couldn’t be the liberating and conquering King that the Jewish people wanted when He came the first time. When He comes again, He will be the King of Kings and He will conquer the world’s system and its leaders who have persecuted His people for so long.

Satan and all others will get their reward when their judgement is given and carried out.There will be no appeal and no bargaining. The same judgement will fall on you if you have chosen not to live a Christian life and ask Him into your heart. Even if you have been a faithful member of a church or maybe a deacon or pastor, but have not given your life and your heart to Jesus, then you will be judged as one who knew about Him but He didn’t know you.

Please, don’t make that mistake. Everything that is needed for you to be saved has been done, all you need to do is accept it and change your life to match His. Follow in His footsteps, learn from Him and soon His ways will become your ways.

Techno-stuff


We all live with and use these things all of the time. From smart phones to thermostats which know if you are at home or not, our lives seem to be flooded with technology in almost all areas of our life every day. What would happen to us if that technology suddenly stopped working?

For some people with pacemakers it would mean that they get to see God sooner than they expected. For others, for instance if you were a patient in a hospital, it might mean the same thing. Some people would notice that their car won’t crank or even run at all. Technology runs every part of our lives these days or at least a significant part of it, so what would we do if an EMP went off and wiped out all of the electric grids and anything which depended upon electricity or electronic circuits?

This is the scenario that is ahead if a militant state or group gets the ability to launch a nuclear EMP bomb into the high atmosphere. Within three days every grocery store would be cleaned out. There would be no alarm systems anywhere in America and no fire truck or police or ambulance would be able to respond to calls for help. Your car wouldn’t crank and your cell phone and computer won’t work again. The entire electric grid for America would be shut down because they are dependent upon computers and electricity. An EMP would send our country back as a society to the point of being where our great grandfathers were about 150 years ago!

It is a scary scenario to think about but if someone had this ability, and many do today, our world would be drastically changed. We would have to go back to either using horses or if you happen to have a classic car or truck, one which was made at least 37 years ago, then you may have transportation until the gas runs out.

Technology has spoiled us to the point of being dependent upon it for everything that we do. Our world, not just America, is dependent on it for business and banking and communication so without electricity to power our technology, our way of life will revert to being like it was almost two-hundred years ago. Also, we don’t know how long the effects of an electromagnetic pulse would last. It could be months or even years before we could get things back to the normal that we are accustomed to today.

Why am I bringing this up today? Mainly to get some of you thinking about getting prepared for an event like this should it happen in the near future.

God is coming back in the form of His Son, Jesus and He will put the world back together again the way that He meant for it to be. But, until that day comes we shouldn’t just sit around and wait for Him to fix everything! Prepare for the worst, hope for the best and tell others about Jesus! This is what the church is supposed to do until He comes again. We will see the world go through much trouble and hard times before He returns because the apostle Paul said that “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;” 2 Thessalonians 2:3

Be prepared, read and study the Bible, pray and fast to strengthen your faith in Him because these things were foretold through the Spirit of God to the writers of these letters. God’s Word is true and it does tell the end before it comes, these things will happen, when we don’t know. Be mindful and watch and pray that you will be counted among the faithful. Amen.

Dad…Father


Which are you?

So many seem to be willing to be fathers of children, but it seems that few today are interested in being Dads. You might think that they are the same, but they are not. Any man or boy who is past puberty can make a baby and become a father, but it takes a special person to be a Dad.

Dads care about their children and love them. They teach them what they can and they try to do what is best for them, while they can. A father or a “sperm donor” isn’t usually a real Dad at all. Some fathers are Dads, but not all Dads are the father of their children..at least not biologically. Many Dads love their children’s mother enough that they are willing to be a Dad to her children whether they are his biologically or not.

God is our Father in Heaven because He is the Creator of all and He loves us all equally. We should revere Him and listen to His Wisdom just as we do our Earthly fathers. Why? Because God is over us all and has the power to cut us off from His presence if we do not! Except, when God cuts us off from His presence it will be for eternity.

Seek Him out while there is yet time to do so. God loves all of us but He doesn’t like and cannot tolerate the sinful lives that some of us lead. The idol worship that many of us practice today is abhorrent to Him and the problem is that many of us don’t even realize that we have idols in our lives. We may not know it until we stand in front of Him at our judgement and then it will be too late.

We are blessed


lamb-of-god-passoverAlthough many don’t seem to notice it. Why? Because we have so much, we just don’t recognize our blessings. This may be why those in other countries have so much enmity for America. We don’t seem to acknowledge the fact that even the poorest of us, in terms of money, are truly blessed. Some beyond belief to those who are starving in other countries!

We are blessed because of where we live and because God has blessed this land due to our past relationship with the land of Israel. We do not have that same relationship with Israel today and I believe that we are going to suffer for it in the near future. God loves all of us, He just doesn’t approve of the lifestyles that many of us cling to today. Some of us live as if there is no end to our blessings and also like there is no tomorrow.

Then there are some who don’t believe that God exists at all and they live moral upstanding lives. Some, who claim to be Christians, live more like the rest of the world who do not believe in Jesus. They live lives of greed and consumption, taking as much as they can and not giving thanks for any of it. They may have “grown up” in the church and learned the ways to appear to be Christian, but inside they don’t have Jesus living in their hearts.

I am not saying this to be judgmental, but if you are truly a Christian with Jesus in your heart then you will live this out and it will be evident to all around you. The words that you speak, the actions that others see that you don’t think about, they will reflect Jesus and His message. There will be a visible difference between you and the world around you!

God gives us each day to show someone the character of Jesus in our life so that they will want Him too. It is not just another day to make money or to get ahead of your co-workers for the best position in a firm or wherever you work. None of the things that we have here on Earth will follow us into eternity except what we accomplished for God’s Kingdom. Your wealth, your position, your house or car, even your family won’t matter in eternity unless you have lived for Jesus in all of it!

We are finite beings and our accomplishments won’t mean a thing unless they were done for the Kingdom of God through Jesus’ saving power in our lives! Do you really want to try to attempt to gain entry into Heaven on your own merit? Are you so righteous that you think you can get in without Jesus in your heart, living by His strength every day? No person on Earth is that good!!

Moses, John the Baptist, Peter, James, or even Abraham could accomplish that feat without their faith in God and their belief in the Seed which came as Jesus our Savior! God had promised Him and they believed even without seeing Him. John the Baptist, Peter and James saw Him and walked with Him and even witnessed the miracles but without their faith in Him and their belief in Him and Who He was, they wouldn’t get into Heaven either!

Faith of a child


Children are special not only to their parents but to God as well. Why is that? Because their faith is unwavering and true and hasn’t been corrupted by adult ideas and teachings from school and living life itself. They look at life around them in absolutes, black and white, there is no gray area when a child sees the world! Children don’t bring their own baggage into their beliefs because they haven’t lived long enough to have “baggage”.

A child can be told that a prayer can heal someone of a sickness or disease and if they are young enough, they will pray with more faith than the most aged saint can muster.Why is that? Because they believe with their whole hearts and minds, and they don’t doubt the Word of God.

So, why do we doubt God’s Word? He cannot lie and His Word is True, so what’s the problem? Mostly it is our own individual ideas about Who He is and what He will or can do in our mind. We limit Him and put limits upon Him with our own ideas about Who He is.  In fact we are creating a “god” which fits our definition and we aren’t truly believing His Word about Himself!

Children don’t have that hangup until they are taught how to do it by us. Whether it is something they hear in school or Bible school or at home, we are the ones responsible for killing that young, powerful faith in their Creator.

I would love to tell you how to get that kind of faith back, but it is hard for me to dredge up the kind of faith that a child can have with no worries at all. Growing up and learning about the world and going through our “education system” seems to put a blanket over that faith which eventually smothers it or at least dims the light of it so that it is almost useless until we are tested and made to exercise it.

Seek Him out in His Word and ask Him to show you how to exercise your faith so that it can be stronger and useful to you and to Him. God loves us and all that we have to do is seek Him out and learn to love Him in return.

Whom do you believe?


Many religions in our world today purpose to worship men. Men who are dead and have turned to dust or dried up husks in the grave. Why would you worship these who are nothing more than portions of creation itself? Living and breathing in our world is a wonderful grace that God gives to us, hard though it may be at times. Dead men don’t give any such grace or knowledge to us while we live or dream, only God our Creator will do this. We will not see Him, but our spirits will recognize our Creator and God when we hear and feel His calling.

So, whom do you believe in and determine to follow? There are many so-called “prophets”, even to hundreds of years before Christ. Some were in Eastern nations such as India and China, some came a few hundred years after Christ in the Middle Eastern nations. The difference between them and our Lord Jesus is that they lie in graves or have turned to dust while Jesus stands at the right hand of God, alive and well.

Some portions of the Middle Eastern religion say that Jesus is a servant of Allah, which is not true. God the Creator is not Allah, He is God. It is easy to place a name upon One whom you have not seen and give Him a name which you want Him to have and yet is a name which is not His Name. God doesn’t share His glory with any other god because He is God and there is none other!

The Bible speaks of God in three persons. The Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God, the Angel of the Lord or the pre-incarnate Christ and Jesus and of course God the Father. The One that we, as Christians, worship is a Triune Godhead. Being God doesn’t diminish His Spirit nor does it take away from the Son, Jesus the Christ. Trying to make the Son of God into a servant of Allah is blasphemy and is completely wrong.

God sent His Son into the world in order to redeem the world and all of those in it from the consequences of their sins. The only requirement is that they each believe in Him and that He did this for them, repenting of your sins and my sins and following His example in our lives. Following Him every day so that others may see the joy and the example that He set for us to follow and to do. We are not to do it selfishly or in response to the dictates of man, but selflessly and by the order of Jesus. Be a reflection of Him in all that you do every day, in your words and deeds so that you will glorify Him until He comes to take us to our eternal Home.

There was a celebration today!


A friend of mine died this past Saturday and we celebrated his life today, February 22. He was a devoted Christian and went on mission trips to tell others about Jesus. He also was very opinionated and set in his ways, but we loved him. He was also selfless and would do anything for you if he could. The best part though was that he died exactly the way he wanted to, reading a book and then he went to sleep.

When he woke up, he was in the Presence of God with his family and friends who had gone before him.

Life has a way of throwing you a curve like that sometimes. My wife and I just went to see him in the hospital last week and he seemed to be doing really well, although I knew he was ready to be with Jesus.

I envy him in a way…because he doesn’t have to wear glasses anymore or take pills for his diabetes and for his arthritis. None of the health problems that he had here went with him. He has a new body and it is better in every way than the one he had here. God renews us when we die so that the body that we leave here and all of its problems and corruption stays here.

We don’t really understand death but it is part of life. Yes, doctors see death as a cessation of the body’s systems. Biologically, death fits that description of all body functions shutting down. The problem with our country and the world that we live in is that there are “cancers” growing in all areas of society which are targeting the Life giving Word and trying to silence it in one way or another.Many of these groups of “cells” are in an extreme minority of less than one percent of the population, though some may be as high as three percent.

But, the effect on society that they have is deadly to the well-being of the whole. Like a poison from a certain viper which can kill you with just a drop of its poison or just the touch of a poison-arrow frog’s skin. The point that I am trying to make is that, even in the time that Paul was going on his journeys telling people of the Christ’s saving grace, there were groups which opposed him in every town that he went to. The started riots and stirred up the people so that he was nearly killed more than once.

In our time, the news tells us of many threats to Christians from groups overseas, but there are threats here at home too. Legal threats coming in the form of laws to put buffers on what can be taught in our churches or to our children. The spirit of anti-christian groups and behavior is growing and it is gaining strength. We should be praying and seeking Jesus in church and in the Bible so that we can stand and give a testimony for the defense of our faith. The King is coming back and this time it will be as a judge and a Lion of Judah!

Racetrack living


There are days which seem to fly by as if we live on or in a car on a racetrack, yet we can’t seem to get past the observation that God sees your life and mine from the starting line to the finish line. We can’t see it because our life looks to us like the view from a car on a track. All that we can see is the view around us, memories behind us and a little of what lies ahead of us, and that last part is blurred to an extent.

Some people think or at least seem to, that God is just sitting up in Heaven looking down on His subjects like a King without a care about us or any part of our lives. Our experience of God is limited by what we find in the Bible and what we see and hear in our lives, which today is very limited by political correctness. Yes, God can see all of our lives from His vantage point but from His point of view He can also see the beginning of time. He can feel all of the betrayal and frustration and pain that you and I and every human has ever felt. He sits outside of time, but He is also part of our lives even if we haven’t asked Him to be. He is present in your past and in your future.

We do live like our lives are on a racetrack, but I am reminded of the race tracks that you get as a child. You are in the position of God because you can see the starting line but you can also see the curves and the straight ways. You can see any debris that is possibly there which will cause an accident. You can fix it by removing it or you can allow it to happen and then help with getting the car(life) back on track again. God is in control of all and since He is God, He can choose to get involved in your life and mine a little bit or He can use your life as an example to someone else.

God can see your life and the life of everyone at any point and He is there at any of those points in your life. It is your job to seek Him out and follow Him though. God has left us a Book which gives us some rules to live by and plenty of wisdom to go with it, but just as you had to do in school…you have to learn from it. Not memorize it so much as to get it into your being, into your heart so that you won’t have to remember it when needed. It will just be there, just as He is.

Yes, God does see the end from the beginning and everything in between but it is our choice to come to Him during our “race” of life for advice and counsel so that our life will be useful and an example to others. He is perfect and good, we are not, but He is able to give us the knowledge and ability in this life to be servants and leaders for His Kingdom and as we practice doing those things we will gain the ability to be more in His Kingdom to come.

We have to learn about the “drive” in life so we can complete the course and the only way to do that is to read God’s Book, learn from His wisdom and apply it to our lives every day. Little by little, we can get through the turmoil and hardships which come our way as we go through the trials and the traffic of life, but it is so much easier to do so with God as your driver and coach rather than leaving Him in the “pit crew” after services.

Worry, doubts and fears


It seems that every day people are bombarded with more things which cause fear and anxiety. We doubt ourselves at times, and we have fears which cause us to worry about things which we can’t control. What can we do about this? Can we do anything about this situation? It depends upon your situation and your faith.

Some people claim that they can handle their own lives and they don’t need to have “blind faith” in religion to help them get through life. The problem with this kind of attitude is that when push comes to shove and things get a bit out of hand, most will seek out a “higher power” for comfort and direction even if they claim that they don’t believe in a “higher power”. God is that One Who is higher than all, Jesus is the One Who can relate to our suffering and our pain and they can help in all of life’s situations no matter what!

With all of the news that is available to us on the Internet and television today, there is very little which goes on in the world that we can’t keep tabs on whether we truly want to or need to or not. All of this information can cause us to worry far more than is healthy, and the worst part is that we shouldn’t worry about it at all. God is in control of it all. He is watching and guiding your life and mine toward that day when He will call us home.

Yes, one day the whole world will see that we are important to our Creator. Important enough that He will be returning soon, much sooner than most think. Many people are going to be surprised and terrified when that day comes and the church, the believers who are waiting for His call, all disappear and are taken to Heaven. Then they will want to believe, but it will be harder to do so. Many explanations will be given which have nothing to do with God or the Bible’s prophecies but just as in the days of Noah, when the door to the ark was shut the only ones saved were the ones inside.

We don’t have “blind faith” in a God Who is not there. He is the Creator because there is no way that all of this universe could come into being as it is because of an accident. Our own solar system, out of all the ones that have been discovered, is the only one that is stable and with orbits for all of the planets that allow for life to flourish. All of the hundreds of solar systems that have been discovered are too close to their star or too far-flung to harbor life.

God loves all of us, no matter what your skin color is or your culture, but we refuse His provision and His grace when we try to take His place. When we think that we know better than He does how to fulfill our lives in this world, we are deluding ourselves. Seek God in the Bible or at a church which teaches from His Word. Pray that your life can have meaning in and through Him and seek His wisdom every day. This is the best way to relieve stress and worry because He is the One Who holds tomorrow in His hand. All that we have is today.

Live today for Jesus and then do it again tomorrow, then repeat until He comes again. That is the prescription which will conquer worry, doubt and fears far better than anything that a doctor can give you.

Life….


I have written a post with this name before, but not one that has the same message. “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:4,5

Jesus is our Life, our eternity and the Life that takes us into it, so why are we ignoring and ridiculing each other and the message that is in the Bible? Because many people just don’t want to hear the message and the hope that is contained in it and in the message which Jesus brought to us. We need it…all of us, but there are many who think that there are too many rules or they look at our religion as one that has caused oppression, slavery, murder, and many other abominations toward life.

Religion has caused many of these evils in the past, and regardless of the religion that was involved many of the evils committed were laid at the feet of Christianity. Christianity is a religion and many people do practice it under the guise of different denominations but being a Christian is a LIFESTYLE in which you live and walk with Jesus DAILY, not just on Sunday or Wednesday. There is a huge difference between religion and those who practice it in all of its forms and a true Christian.

Just as there is a difference between people who practice Islam and those who actually live by the good teachings of it and those Islamists who practice and live by a form that their Prophet would not recognize were he here.

God, not Allah, is the answer to the world’s problems today but many people don’t want to hear that because they believe that they have the answer and their’s is the only answer regardless of your beliefs! You can become radical about anything…money, power, religion, or any of a dozen other things but being radical about it doesn’t make it the Truth of God!

Why am I saying this today? Because the world is quickly moving in a direction which will lead many people toward a destination which is not the one that they are hoping for. Many religions in our world today take you down a path that is easy to walk and with many things promised to you, if you will just give your life to the teachings of the prophet or the leader or the doctrine being taught. If those doctrines and wisdom don’t come from God and His Word…RUN! Get away from that “church” or “temple” because they are teaching Satanic wisdom and doctrine, and you will pay eternally for it!

Life only comes through the Creator of Life, Jesus the Creator. He is called the Door, the Way and the Life in Scripture and it is through Him that we have access to eternity. Not with our own abilities or our accomplishments, even though we are given those and the ability to accomplish them by Him. You and I cannot work our way into Heaven. It is gained by faith and belief in Jesus. Belief in Jesus comes to each of us by our faith and faith comes from hearing the Word of God, whether you read it yourself or you attend a church which teaches from the Bible!

Life is not just an existence and it is not a drudgery and terrible way of living, regardless of where you live or the system of beliefs that you live by. Life is truly what comes to you from knowing Jesus and His Love in your life, daily! Seek Him out in your life so when this life comes to an end, your Life in Him will truly begin!