When I was a lot younger than I am now, listening to adults give me advice was the last thing on my list of to-dos. I imagine it was the same with most of you who read this blog. When you were a teenager adults didn’t know anything. As you get older you realize that they did know more than you did at the time but you didn’t want to listen to them or their advice.
Lots of times we are the same way in the church. When we are there we may hear what the sermon is about but we don’t listen to it very well. How do I know this? Because I did it myself. If you asked me on Monday what the sermon was about on Sunday morning, I couldn’t tell you. Actually, I could tell you this time. It was about the vision that Ezekiel had of the angels who marked those in the city who were concerned about the sins of Israel and those who were not. Those who were not even included some who served in the Temple and it was those who were killed.
God cares about everything that we do but He is very interested in the things that we care about that align with His. When you love those things and people that God loves and hate those things that He hates, then you are more like Jesus which is what God desires for us as His followers. Life is promised to those who follow Jesus’ ways and do the things that Jesus told His disciples to do.
When I see the news today and hear the things that are going on today, the only conclusion can be that we are living at the end of the last days. I pray that you will seek to know Jesus if you don’t know Him as your Savior yet.
We need to be ourselves because Jesus called us to be His. He chose you. Not someone that you will become with more education or study. Although the studying and the learning will come with following Him, He called you as you are to be…well, you. Each of us has a specific trait that He needs and that the body of Christ, the church, needs. There is something that you can do or say that nobody else can. You can reach someone with His message that the pastor can’t reach. You can tell the story of how Jesus has touched your life and that will make a difference to someone.
Christ touches our lives when we believe in Him for our salvation but He also lives through our lives to take His message to others. His Spirit lives in you if you have believed in Him for your salvation and it is this life that others will be able to see. Taking His message of love and forgiveness to the world doesn’t mean that you have to go overseas to be a missionary. You can take His message to your family or to those you work around or work with every day.
When I said that you don’t need to have degrees to prove that you are serving God that is what I meant. All of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen but they had been to school at their synagogue. They had learned and even memorized a good bit of the Old Testament by the time they were teenagers. The Bible is the best book to teach us about God and about life too. God’s wisdom is contained in His Word so the more you know about His Word, the better you know Him. That is why I read through the Bible at least once every year from Genesis to Revelation. Then…I go back to the beginning and start over.
I used to wonder why people would do that but I found out that God’s Word doesn’t really repeat itself. You do read the same words every time but the message that your heart and your Spirit get from it is different every time. God’s Word is what we should read to learn what His will is for your life but it also is alive and it reads your Spirit while you read it. So your Spirit will receive the wisdom from the same words that you need right now. Just because you have read Psalm 23 many times, the words and the wisdom change when God sees that you need a different message.
God gives us all of the wisdom that we can handle and it is contained in His Word. His love for us is beyond anything that we can imagine or conceive in this life. On the day when we stand before Him, we will know the depth of His love and feel it too. If you don’t know Him as your Savior yet, I suggest getting to know Him soon.
There are some hard times coming to our world and you had best be seeking the One Who can strengthen you to get through them. Why do people think that they are Christians and rarely darken the door of a church? Many would tell me that they can worship Him just as well on a deer stand or on the bank of a lake fishing. The problem with that
is that most of us don’t think of God when we are doing those things. We are thinking of something else entirely.
God loves each of us and has desired a personal relationship with us from before we were born. Jesus told His disciples to seek the Kingdom of God first and all of these things will be added unto you. What did He mean by that? Some people interpret that as meaning wealth and riches will come to you but that is not what He was speaking about. Jesus was telling His disciples that all of their needs would be met as long as they were putting God’s Kingdom first in their lives.
So how do we put God’s Kingdom first in our lives? First, you have to give your heart to Jesus and ask Him to come in and clean up your heart. Then read God’s Word so you will know His voice when He speaks to you. Also, by reading God’s Word, you will learn His will for your life. I had many people ask me about knowing God’s will while I was a preacher and that is the easiest way that I know how to find it. God reveals His will for our lives not specific to each of us but in reading and studying His Word, then praying about what you have read. Especially if you don’t understand what you are reading…and most of us don’t.
If you are saved and the Holy Spirit is living in your heart, He will guide you and pray with you for understanding. He is your teacher through God’s Word and will give you the knowledge that you seek when you ask for it and it is needed for your calling. You may be wondering, “What calling?”. When you are called to be saved, God always has a reason for it and that is your calling, although you may not find out the specifics until later. He will reveal them to you. Seek Him through prayer by reading His Word and by studying His Word because He will reveal the knowledge that you need.
Being a Christian is not an easy job but the reward is well worth the trials that you will face. Jesus said we would face trials but He has overcome the world and He will equip you to do so too.
If you have never thought about that before now…it is the most amazing realization that you can have! The Creator of the universe loves you! Not just the human race but each one of you! Consider that for a moment.
God wanted to spend time with Adam and Eve in person in the Garden and He did for a while. The most amazing part of this story is that He is going to do it again! He has redeemed us through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, and the only part that we have to do to receive His grace and forgiveness is to accept Jesus as our Savior, believing that He did this for me and for you!
Isn’t that the most wonderful news that you could hear especially today with all of the doom and gloom in the media now? God loves you! He loves you whether you have accepted Jesus or not but He doesn’t care for the life that many of us lead every day. By giving your heart to Jesus and reading His Word and praying for strength to be His every day, you can be more like Him than you could possibly be on your own.
Living the life of a Christian is impossible without His strength and His Spirit inside you and you only get those when you come to Him in faith believing that He will do what He said He would do. By accepting Jesus as your Savior and confessing that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness, you can be adopted into God’s family. Give Him a chance to show you how much He loves you in this life so you can spend eternity with Him after this life is over.
I thought of you when I read this quote from “God is Like a Geyser: 30 Day Devotional For When You Are Waiting on God or Geysers” by Chris Stanley –
“For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense. – Romans 1:20 (Amp)”
Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/iDSO92h
I’m not sharing this to make money, because I don’t. I’m sharing it because we are without excuse when it comes to the evidence of God in His Creation.
The tree that was used to make the cross that Jesus was crucified on has nothing to do with your salvation. The image of the cross that so many of us wear today doesn’t do anything except remind us of the One Who died on the cross for our sins. Some people have many crosses in their homes but not one of them helps us to know Jesus as our Savior. Crosses only remind us of the death of Jesus the Christ Who took the world’s sins on Himself to pay the penalty for ALL of our sins so that we can come to Him and be saved from an eternity of destruction in hell. Your eternal body will not be destroyed in this but it will feel the pain and suffering for eternity because your body in eternity cannot die physically. But being in hell you are completely separated from God and His love for you.
The ground at the foot of the cross is level. No person will have any special treatment at the cross or at the judgement seat when each of us stands before Him. It will not matter how much fame or money you have or even how much you have done for the poor or for others who deserved your help. What will matter is that you have accepted Jesus as your Savior and that you have followed Him daily. Some of us have tried to do this in our own strength and failed miserably at it. I did. But, when God’s Spirit finally showed me what I could not do on my own, then I gave my heart to Jesus completely. It didn’t happen on that one day of my decision. I had to read and pray and learn to be His because our hearts are attracted to the world around us. We don’t want to belong to Jesus. We want to do what makes us feel good.
By surrendering to Jesus you can become more like Him. It doesn’t happen immediately but it will happen when your heart is truly broken and you know deep down that you are doomed to hell if you don’t surrender to Him. Nobody wants to spend eternity away from God in hell, but that is where you will go if you don’t turn to Him and ask Him to take you in as an adopted child of God. He doesn’t want you to spend even one minute in hell but if you decide not to follow Jesus or you put your decision off for a while and something happens to you before you can make that decision, then you have sealed your eternity in hell.
God’s love for us is deeper than we can imagine because He is our Creator. He knows you more intimately than you know yourself but He still gives you the free will to choose to follow Jesus or not. Why would God do that? Because love and sacrifice cannot be forced they must be given freely. Forced sacrifice is not sacrifice. Forced “love” is not love at all. That is why the one verse in God’s Word that illustrates it so well is this:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Don’t turn away from God’s call in your life and in your heart. When you feel it, act on it in faith and believe in the One Who saves completely.
The Living Message of Christ 